By: Evan J. Thomas
Good afternoon Lajon, This is Side Stage Magazine and I am Evan J. Thomas, and I have a variety of questions for you today. You ready?
Side Stage Magazine- How does it feel to be Grammy nominated & what was your reaction when you were told?
LAJON -After all these years of being a band, I am still beside myself and my reaction was that I couldn’t believe it. My wife started crying, I got a little teary eyed because for me some people are like “oh man, whatever”. But for me, being an artist and growing up and the house that I grew up in, the Grammy’s was like, you were glued to the television each year. Those were the people who you listened to on the radio and that you inspired to be like. I think its one of the coolest things ever to finally be among your peers at that level. I think its cool and I can understand where other people can say “whatever, whatever” but that is their opinion and I take it with pride and I have no problems having a Grammy nomination and at the end of the day if we don’t win the Grammy the nomination is something that they could never take away from us. I feel very blessed man and I am as excited. The whole time up to it, not even knowing if we are going to win it or not its still been exciting. The excitement from other people, I walked past the swimming pool the other day at my gym, when I go to the sauna you have to walk through the pool and every morning there’s a class of about sixty people in this Olympic pool and they are all kinda older people, women and men. Every once in a while a couple of them will hit the sauna after the class and one lady always wants to talk about whats going on with the band, she is a very interesting lady and I haven’t talked to her in two months and as I was leaving the sauna and I walked past to get to the mens locker room and I heard her say “Lajon” so I turned around and said “yes, ma’am”? And I see like sixty heads bopping up and down in the pool and they were going about their exercises and she yells “congratulations”, I thought she was talking about the baby so I was like “thank you” then she said “on the Grammy, on the Grammy” and she turned around and looked at everyone in the pool and said “he’s been nominated, and the band has been nominated for a Grammy”. That whole pool of old people started screaming, and man, it was the coolest thing. I wouldn’t have believed it if it hadn’t happened to me. That was really cool to see the respect, and half those people probably would have never said hello to me and not even know what I have done unless they heard “Grammy”. What a great and cool thing to have happen to you and things like that have been kinda happening ever since. I think its something for everyone that has been nominated to be very proud of and not to take lightly. I say it’s not the end all be all but hey, guess what? I think at the end of the day if its something you are not proud of, then I feel like if you kinda dog it, then you know really deep in your heart you know that you don’t deserve it.
Do you think the Grammy’s are in tune with the Hard Rock Genre as a whole?
I don’t know about that but I can say this, thanks to them inviting SEVENDUST I feel a little bit better about it now then I had before. I’ve been one of those guys that was like “that’s weird”, and guess what, I guess life is weird and anything you get involved with is weird, but with them giving us a Grammy nomination it definitely opens the door and gives us an avenue to bring the other bands like us down it, that we never thought would have had this opportunity or position to be in so lets ride with it, you know, lets ride with it.
Your new album “Kill The Flaw” has done great since its release in October, any thoughts on how this album is different from the previous albums?
We kinda just went in, we were just able to take off and be family and get to our families and be hugged by our wives. We did an acoustic album so when we went back in for “Kill The Flaw” we were ready to be SEVENDUST the band that we are. We didn’t go in with any written music, we kinda just set up and jammed and that’s what came out, man, and that’s the live version of the way we get down. I just think the angst and the energy that is caught in the album after not being plugged in for so long was causing this. I don’t think we did anything different other than we were really rested and we took a break. What helps is that we have grown and we’ve matured and not only as a band but as writers and musicians and I think it kinda goes into this album and for us also to not be afraid to do the music that we want and not have some douche bag policing on what we sound like, so that is where we are at.
Do you think its hard to evolve as a group that has been in the metal scene for so long?
I feel like if you can’t come to the plate with stuff it’s going to be hard for you, if you are just true to yourself, if you have conviction then the music is going to come. And if you do have conviction, and when I say that I mean feeling and people get that, people want to gravitate to stuff they think is real and we don’t write anything that is not happening to us, that is happening to everybody in this United States or this world. I just think that we keep it real man, and we kept it real. I’ve never went down the road of “I’m a rock star”, because if I feel like if you have to call yourself that, than you aren’t because everyone should know that at the end of the day that you are.
Are you then a humble man when it comes to your notoriety?
I’ve learned and I think its something I stand by. I’ve said the same people you see going up are the same people you see coming back down so I don’t want to burn any bridges. I don’t have time to be angry and hate. It takes more time to hate and it drains you more and if I want to bitch about something I find myself being drained so I try not to even though I do. (Laughs) So, I try to find the good in things, man. Being alive in this crazy world right now man, just being safe, I have more to worry about than little small crazy things like I’m going to be mad about being nominated for a Grammy like some people. It’s so crazy to me, why are you getting mad about it for.
Does Commercial success matter to you?
If you are saying like do I want to be on the radio and that is commercial then yes, it does make a difference because who wants to put an album out and then it not have a radio single on it where people can hear it. Now, if you have a loyal amount of people who buy the album because they love the band and the fact that you are not on radio but I would lie to say that no way, maybe when I was younger, like 19 years old and I was like “yeah, you know what, fuck the man and the machine” and all that stuff back then. But guess what, put every one of my songs on the radio, let me do a Pepsi commercial, I’ll do a Nattie Light commercial and drink the beer and sing a damn SEVENDUST song.
I’m asking this because Metallica and Pantera now have songs for car commercials?
It is so funny because you know all those heavy metal fans that don’t think you should go out of the world of metal but guess what, they are laughing all the way to the bank in their big mansions and their fancy cars. (Laughs) But for me, it’s not about the money thing I just like the fact that my music is not being pigeon-holed, it’s around the world, that’s whats good you know. It’s like, hey, put it on the radio ‘cuz that dude that would never have listened to SEVENDUST is now going to hear it and he is going to give it to his other friends. Think about the Apple Watch, not trying to get to far away from story but for instance the young lady that had the big Apple Watch and we had to sign a disclosure because we didn’t know what was going on but we know SEVENDUST had a part and all of a sudden what had happened was my wife started filming from our computer from the phone because its not on regular TV and she said, “I don’t know but this girl is like she is something cool” and she walks up in her leather jacket. She is launching the Apple Watch and the girl says “you guys may not know but I’m a closet metal head and one of my favorite metal bands is SEVENDUST” and the song “Thank You” and our CD case comes up for the Apple Watch with thousands of thousands of people in this arena and it opens the door to people who would normally never even admit that they like metal. That was something that was so cool that day my Twitter and all my accounts, people started following me and business dudes around the world said thanks to her I can stand up, like wait a minute, this beautiful young lady let all you guys out of the closet about liking metal. (laughing). It doesn’t mean that you sell out, its selling good. (laughs) Yeah, I want to sell out, I definitely want to sell out this arena so come on down.
What is it like to be asked to play the Loudest Month Festivals?
Man, its great for us and the way I look at it I love it because you think about a lot of those festivals you don’t get to play every year and I understand that because you have so many bands out there and you are not going to have the same things for your festival so its great for us because we haven’t played Rocklahoma in a few years, Rockfest which is here in Kansas where I live. I mean, all these things and the day festivals are incredible and its going to be really cool for us to be on this headlining tour with Trivium and Like A Storm. Thirteen headlining shows and then the rest of our shows are all these festivals so man, that’s a good run to do I guess theaters for four nights and then guess what, Saturday you have to play in front of 30,000 and It’s exciting, I like it.
What are your thoughts on how large the festivals are getting?
I think its good, it goes to show that this music that people try to sweep under the carpet a lot of times ain’t going nowhere. When in Kansas City you have the biggest, largest amount of people in the United States show up for RockFest, a one day festival. There are things that you can not hide, hopefully there will be some type of reality show that shows what we do and how we get down. You know what, make one of us rockers a Kardashian as far as that goes. At least give somebody the clout that is out there doing something from the ground up, lets follow those guys man. I know a lot of people like watching disasters, now think about it, on a bus with a band you are going to find some disaster episodes.
What are some of the bands you are looking forward to seeing this year during the Loudest Month?
Oh man, Saint Asonia because those guys are brothers and we love them. There are just so many, you think about all these bands and so for me to get out there on these shows I’m looking forward to jamming with everybody because a lot of times you don’t get to play with these bands because you are on different tours so when you get to cross paths like this and jam for 30 to 45 minutes or whatever your time slot might be and be able to see the bands that you normally wouldn’t be able to see because you guys are working, it’s a good time man. Its kinda like a summer camp thing almost you know, it’s a good backstage vibe and half the time I’m not backstage I’m out in the crowd and I hang out and meet people because if I wasn’t in the band I would still want to be out with these beautiful people who are here to support music because that is what I am all about, supporting the music.
What band was one of your favorites to tour with?
I ain’t going to lie to you man, there was nothing like touring with Ozzy Osbourne. I mean, it may be because its Ozzy. Staind back in the day was an incredible band to tour with, Creed back in the day was great, I’m going back man to when we started but up until that, Tool was on Ozzfest that I loved to tour with. Nothing More, that band we had out for a little while, love that band as far as new bands that are coming out. There are so many man, but like I said, I am a supporter of music and I love it all.
How has life changed with the arrival of your third child and does it make it harder to leave home for the tour?
It doesn’t make it hard for me because for the first time in our life we have the right organization behind us that I feel like not only do they care about each member of the band as human beings but they care about the mothers, the kids, the fish at the house, you know what I mean? You gotta have someone who cares about everything and I think that’s what happened because before, we would tour and tour and we would go home without anything but a damn t-shirt and a chico stick from the band that opened up for us and wonder where all this money would go to. Then you get smart and if there is any advice I could give to people out there is to be a business man or business woman in the music business but be true to your art. It took us a long time because once you get the record deal you think you made it, but oh my god if we only knew that even before the beginning with all those dinners and they were wining and dining and we will take you to dinner and at the end of the day we found out we were paying for it and then thought I should have ordered some more. But until we took our destiny in our own hands and started Sevenbrothers record label and partnered up with someone we were able to see exactly what’s happening to us in the industry and given our new management with George, Kevin and Mel on our team and everyone that is behind us, we have an organization where we can see the right way to tour and the right way to balance our lives and to make everyone happy and that is what we are trying to do at the end of the day. I mean 20 years of being a band is a hard task to do even when you have all these sheer obstacles that have been put in front of our way not only to understand but thank the lord for us to be able to climb around them or over the top of them, some damn way we were able to do it and I think the song “Thank You” and this Grammy nomination and the testimony to the hard work that we’ve done and we never given up at all.
Outside of music, what other things are you passionate about?
My family, my “Mantiquing” (laughs). I’m a mantiquer, man, like right now I’m at my wife’s grandparents house and any time that I come here its like being at “American Pickers”. She is 93 years old and still cooler than anybody that I know man. That type of energy from people who were here before any of this other crazy stuff that we have and if they did well and they did good then I look at things like “we really don’t need that” and I look at things that they have and they don’t need it but they are just fine, you know what I mean, 93 years old, kicking it, doing well. (laughs)
What was the scariest moment you ever experienced on stage and how did you react to it?
I’ll tell you a scary moment, imagine being on Download over seas in Europe and never playing in front of, I don’t know, they say 100,000 or how many people, but being on stage and finally finishing and it being a little nervous and then the band The Prodigy came on stage and I was on the side of the stage and they were from over there and I saw 100,000 people and I was looking at the poor security and said “what are they even there for” because if anyone wants to come up here they are going to. Sometimes that gets crazy, not scared but I might be nervous for what could happen if everyone wanted to get up there. They might stop a hundred of them but they are not going to stop the rest of them.
Do you think Keith Richards will live another 5 years?
(laughing) How old is Keith Richards now? I think he will definitely live another five years. I look at him like he’s a pickled person and I think at a certain point in time you get to a certain level and you are able to sustain for a long time, so I think that is where he is at. He is still rocking harder than anybody else and you know what, I would hate to say anything different to his face because I am sure he would throw a shot of whiskey on you or first he would finish smoking a cigarette ’till its last drag and then he’d put it out on ya. (Laughing)
Thank you so much for your time Lajon! Can’t wait to see you guys this May in Chicago. This is Side Stage Magazine and I am Evan J. Thomas signing out.
