Side Stage Magazine got a chance to talk with John Connolly in an in-depth interview that focuses on side project, Projected, the band’s latest album, Ignite My Insanity, the recording and writing process, fan perks for preordering the album, longevity in the business, Sevendust and so much more. This is an interview worth reading to get the entire scoop on what’s happening in the world of Projected.
Side Stage Magazine: You just got off the mini run of the Sevendust shows for the 20 year anniversary of the first album, so congratulations by the way on that, that’s awesome! I love that album, it’s my favorite.
John Connolly: Thank you
How does this experience differ from other shows you have played over your career. What did these shows bring out of you and how did you feel?
It’s a trip and its nostalgic because like we literally have not played these songs for 17 or 18 years maybe. So going back and relearning parts of everything; it’s a blast it kinda takes you back. It’s really cool when you’re in the creative process like we are now working on a new record. You got to step back and look at where you started. What was version one. It kinda gives you a little bit of perspective. There was so much love for that record. We didn’t know what we were doing and this is before anyone in the business had tried to produce us or tried to get us to craft the songwriting process so it’s kinda cool to go back. What was it about the first record and arrangement of the songs and all that you know and what was so special about it and first go back and revisit it and see the look on people’s faces when we play songs like “Wired” it’s insane and stuff like, ya know a lot of people have never heard the songs. A lot of people who came out to the show they got introduced to Sevendust a little later even if they listened to the first record. There’s a lot of people who didn’t get introduced to the band until 10 years after the fact so for them they kinda took a step back and saw what it was like when we first started. It’s a lot of fun, it’s cool to go out there and go “wow” ya know, come hang out later. It was kinda crazy.
What would you say the reason you have the staying power in the industry where so many bands come and go? What advice would you give artists or bands coming up today?
Just do it for the right reasons. I think our staying power probably has a lot to do with being stubborn (laughs) and not really making music for a specific reason. We were never one of these bands, even when we were trying to “quote un-quote” sell out to kinda meet in the middle ya know, your label says maybe you should work with this songwriter, maybe you should listen to these kind of bands, stuff like that. We did try a couple of times to do that, it never really played out, ya know. We always ended up making the record we wanted to make. I mean Seasons is probably the closest we’ve come to going full-blown, ok let’s get a songwriting producer but you have to understand even when we did Seasons we did it with Butch Walker. Butch Walker was the guy who did the demo, that got us the record deal in the first place so we weren’t really even doing anything other than what was normal, ya know. I think we cooled the jets with the label because they were super excited about the whole suggestion. We wanted to work with Ben Grosse on Seasons and they didn’t want us to work with him again. They wanted us to work with someone who was more a songwriting, kinda producer and we went back and forth with that. We told our management well let’s go work with Butch Walker again and it worked, ya know but that’s probably the closest we ever actually came to letting the Six kinda not really dictate but have a say in the matter.
Yeah but I think if you’re a new band do it for the right reasons. Don’t do it because you think you’re going to get rich or get a big house or a new car or whatever. Do it because you love doing it and I think it’s probably the reason the five of us… it’s one thing to have a career for 20 years and it’s another to have the same five guys doing it 20 years later. I think that part of it’s stubbornness and the other just making music you really want to make everything else kinda falls into place.
I agree with you doing it for the right reasons is totally correct.
Don’t treat it as something that you’re trying to sell, I mean everyone’s trying to sell and even a band like Took is trying to sell. I mean it may take them 8 years to make a record, 10 years to make a record whatever but at the end of the day it’s still a product they have to sell. So you expect that and you go okay make music that makes you happy if you sell some that’s great and if you don’t it makes it where you can’t ever point the finger at anyone for doing it for the wrong reasons.
And we still enjoy playing those songs 20 years after the fact we still get up on stage and do the whole first record and we walk off stage and shake our heads and go “wow” if you told us 20 years ago we’d be doing this today no one would believe you.
The release of the album is July 21, Ignite My Insanity, so what can the fans expect from the new music and how does it differ from your first album, Human?
Well, it’s a lot bigger (laughs)
Yeah, I know you have 21 tracks on this one (laughs)
There’s ten more songs on it. I think after the 11 ones from the first record, we realized we could expand as much as we want to. I mean in the world of Sevendust we can do a bunch of things. We can do an “Angel Son”. We can do a “Strong Arm Broken” or a “Splinter, a “Rumblefish. We can do super; super heavy stuff and we can do melodic stuff. I think Projected is just a natural, ya know something we do instinctively. We don’t sit down and go “Hey the record has too many heavy songs or we need a ballad”. We never really speak like that. We kinda make the music and once those songs were finished we looked at all the songs and just had to figure out the sequence. We pushed the envelope a lot too. I did really enjoy doing the heavier stuff. I think when we first started Projected the idea was to not be as heavy or not to be as light as Sevendust but like I said it’s hard to do that because Sevendust has so many gears so it’s like let’s just do what comes natural and we just expanded on the first record a lot more.
We pushed ourselves vocally.
One conscious thing I did was we wanted the delivery of the songs a little more concise and easier to digest. There’s been a lot of talk about Tool. I’ve been reading about them a lot lately. We didn’t want to go so far down that road. We didn’t want a song that had nineteen different parts, be 20 minutes long or any of that good stuff. We wanted it to be easier for the folks to digest and the cross-section of the fans between Sevendust, Alter Bridge, Tremonti, Creed and even getting into the Slash realm they are used to songs being in that organized fashion so that was one thing that we definitely did. Something 5 minutes long is something definitely we could do.
When did you find time to record the album and what was the process with writing and recording?
The recording process was a little tough with all of our schedules moving around. Scott (Phillips of Alter Bridge) was the easiest because he was off. Tremonti was in Tremonti mode. Alter Bridge had a good 13 months where they weren’t doing much of anything. My working was based when I had a hole in the Sevendust schedule. We’d look around and be like how are we going to do this, when are we going to do this and who are we going to do it with. We decided to do it with Mike Ferretti because he had already worked on a couple of projects. He did the Walking With Giants stuff. I’ve done 3 records with him so I didn’t have to get to know him. We could just get in and get to work. We know what our workload was going to be like. It was all part of the efficiency of doing that, ya know because not having 8 to 9 months in an opening where you could sit down and map it out and have a plan to stay some time we realized that whatever we were going to do recording wise we needed to get in and get out. We had to really be efficient with it. We did the same thing we did on the first record with it.
We did drums and most of the rhythm guitars; we did that in the studio. We mixed and mastered everything else at home. All guitar solos, vocals, EROCK (Eric Friedman of Tremonti) did his harmonies; most of his harmonies I think were done at his house. A booth set up in a closet just like I have set up at the home office. I put up a curtain in the closet, stuck a microphone in there for sound, a music stand with a laptop on it for lyrics and that’s really it. No pressure, like the studio. I don’t have to worry about money or about paying my mortgage, whether I’m working on the house or not working on the house. You could be creative, there were days when you weren’t creative and needed to step away and take a break and go to Disney or catch a movie or hang out with friends or whatever. So it’s a cool way for me to work. Um, because we’ve done the fancy studio stuff like that throughout the career of Sevendust, ya know. We recorded up in Sayerville and we went to Electric Blade for a mix and there’s a bunch of cool places that we’ve been but there’s something to be said about making music at the house. Being able to kinda un-plug, go hang with the dogs or go crash on your couch.
If you’re not particularly motivated one day you don’t have to do anything about it and worry about it. That’s usually not what happens with me. When I’m in a project I kinda get a little crazy and I want to get it done. With 21 songs, I kept looking at the board like “wow, wow” it looked like a great idea until you have to start singing them and ya know you get super enthusiastic, “I’m feeling good”. You sing a song and you’re feeling great, the next day you go in and sing a song and a half and by the third day you sing two songs cause you’re feeling good but the next day you can’t talk at all and you have to take 2-3 days off. Gotta hit the reset button but that’s kinda how it was.
We tracked the Vinne tracks when we were on a Sevendust tour in Canada and we’d had a lot of days off and I remember we had a reinvention coming down here setting up a home office and track like we did on the first album but, we figured we had all this down time why not just bring in the inbox and hard drive down out there and see what we could get while we were on the road so that’s what we did. And then once we had everything together we brought back the mixes and made some process of it with something this big. It didn’t take long once we kinda got the sound and vibe and sound and sound. It took a little while to figure out exactly how we wanted the presentation to be. We played around with a couple different mix ideas. Once we were moving we were moving. Our playing and streaming was basically the same way we did on the first Projected record. You know the guys have faith in me and kinda let me take the ball and run with it so to speak. I write the house they finish the house. I kinda get the basic gist of the song. One thing we did do differently on this record then the first, I think when Scott was tracking drums on the first record I put vocals on the lyrics to make it even more of a song. This time all the songs were demoed out. We put a plug-in all the holes. There were a few things that changed. There’s an edge. Something’s were moved around. But 90-95 percent of the record was pretty much at least pointed in the right direction and we knew what was happening.
If you ask what’s going on here we could look at the demo and be like a vocal thing is going here so maybe I’ll do a different kind of drum thing, ya know. But that’s pretty much how we did it. Super organically like we did the first record. You know I’m not big on going back and redoing things. I’m not the type of guy who’s going to sit there, I think there were 2 re-writes on the entire body of work this time around. It was just 2 chorus parts, they weren’t strong enough.
You know for me it’s just EROCK was like “You don’t tell me no that much, Could you point me in a direction?” I was like “It sounds great, I can’t” I want you to react. This is music that basically if you hear something and you have a knee jerk reaction 99.9 percent of the time then it’s probably the correct answer. I don’t want the over thought; I don’t want to beat it to death. We’ve already deconstructed so many perfectly good songs in the history of Sevendust. This is a totally different process.
I was going to say when you were talking, but you brought it up it sounded like a super organic process.
Very much so! It was super conscious that way. Even when we were tracking drums, ya know Scott would be like do you think this is too busy and I was like, ya know you’re the one that has to play it (laughs). You’re the drummer I don’t want to have to tell you how to do the song part. It’s not to say that I don’t let him collaborate when it comes to physical construction of the songs or lyrics or stuff like that. I lean on those guys a lot to kinda keep me in the lane in terms of guitars, “Is this too heavy or is this doable, am I losing my mind here by over thinking stuff?” They usually kinda take stuff off the ledge. With 21 songs you kinda get in like song 16, 17, 18 and that’s usually the point where you go and say “all this sucks, delete the whole drive, it’s terrible, let’s start over.” But they are like what’s wrong with it. You’ve been staring at it too long, walk away for a couple of minutes it’s great. Perspective you’ve always gotta get when you’re trying to work organically. No programming, just a little bite of programming but it’s just an easy drum and literally a little bit of keyboards and that’s when I used the mouse and the actual piano on the screen. I just wanted it to be rock. No extra bells and whistles. We do so much of that with Sevendust. It’s a big part of our sound now. I think it was just a conscious thing where I said alright what’s going to differentiate Sevendust from Projected. Number one Lajon, I can never in a billion years sing like Lajon does. He’s an amazing singer.
You have an amazing voice too. It’s just different ya know what I mean?
Well, Thank you I appreciate that, but when I look between Sevendust and Alter Bridge I sit there and go there are 2 of the best front men in the history of the music business. But the inspiration is huge because I look at those guys and go alright I know I don’t have the range of Myles Kennedy (vocals/guitar for Alter Bridge) and I also know I don’t have the instinctive, ya know that thing LJ has that everybody and their brother tries to put their finger on and tries and to figure out what it is. It’s kinda cool when you kinda go into that process. I use those guys as kinda like what sets the bar and if I can get halfway to the bar, I feel like I’m having a good day because those guys are just tremendous singers and tremendous songwriters.
I understand. I know what you’re saying. It’s hard to look at both of them. They are amazing.
I sit there with Flip (Scott Phillips) and I’m going, you gotta be laughing a little because your singer is a tremendous guitar player, on top of it he’s an amazing singer,on top of that he’s an amazing songwriter and he’s just a sweet human being too. I’m like there’s something going on with that dude. He’s so nice and talented at the same time. There’s gotta be something going on there, but every now and then I look at Flip and am like why are you doing this? You could be doing a million other things with your singer and your main band. But it gets truly humbling that people really actually like what comes out of my mouth. It took 20 years for me to get up the nerve to figure out I can do this. I’m like what am I doing here, what have I gotten myself into, where’s Lajon?
I’ve been watching the Sevendust boards and Facebook pages and people are so excited. They are so stoked which says a lot about your talent.
I appreciate that. Even when we were doing EPK, Sebastian was like there are a lot of things the videographers didn’t realize. They didn’t realize we did most of the record at home that we weren’t in a real studio. They didn’t realize I played a lot of the guitar solos. They didn’t realize I was writing the songs. And when Bach was kinda unloading this stuff I got to the point where I literally said I’m a pretty insecure individual. He just looked at me and said, wait a minute, we just shot 2 videos and the guy in the videos who’s playing in them is not an insecure individual.
You’d be surprised. There’s a lot of self-doubt when you’re going through the process. You get super excited about it and then you live with it for a while and then you’re like alright I probably live with this stuff longer than anyone so I’m the one who wants this stuff more than anyone on earth because I’m tired of keeping my secret.
I think the album is going to be a great thing for you.
I hope so, this is funny because a lot of people still confuse me with Clint because Clint always had a voice in Sevendust. It goes back to the first record. Even with a song like “Speak”, where they do the Morgan, Clint, Lajon kinda rotation in the verses. So they are kinda used to the other guy in the band being the singer. They are not used to me being another voice in the band. There like, wait a minute Vinnie, he’s got like one of the best voices in the band. I almost feel like we’re the heavy metal Eagles or something like that. Everyone along the way has developed their own little thing. Even with the Projected stuff Vinnie didn’t sing on the record. He’s got a range. He can do the ERock and Myles Kennedy thing easily. He sings like a bird. If we do take this out he’s going to be singing a lot on stage.
It’s funny trying to get him in the vocal booth he’s like, I don’t know. I’m like you’re just like me. You just kinda gotta go in there and do it. I think that was the biggest difference probably from the first record to the second record for me personally. The first album, I’m super proud of but I don’t feel like I sounded as confident with my voice as I do now. I think there was a little bit of doubt, once you’re doing it for the first time and you’re not hiding behind Lajon Witherspoon. It’s always was like I feel exposed and it’s like if I were to get up on stage without a guitar. Like Myles (Kennedy) is a natural with a guitar and he’s not very natural without it because he’s always had one. For me I think that’s the biggest step when I listen to the performance I’m more convincing a little bit then I did on the first go around for sure.
I don’t know but I heard the album got released today on iTunes through social media, is that true?
The “Ignite” video got released today. They were actually going to do it tomorrow and it kinda surprised me but they released it a day early. But yeah, we shot those videos together; “Reload” and “Ignite” are kinda part one and part two which is kinda by design.
I did watch “Ignite” today and I liked it.
If you look at the end of “Reload” its the beginning of “Ignite”. So further down the rabbit hole, same theme. It was a lot of fun doing that and it actually went out today. So I’m psyched the videos out.
I thought this was super cool and wanted to ask you. For the fans who preordered the album they have the chance to open the CD and be a lucky winner of some killer items if they find a Projected ticket stub? Can you tell us about it? I’m hoping to win the guitar.
There’s a lot of cool stuff, that was one of the things we were talking with Rat Pack (Records), we did our research. We didn’t know much about it. But as I was looking at the roster I was like, wait a minute all the Kings X guys are on here, Stillwell and Corabi. I know a lot of people on this label and the one thing we kept hearing over and over was just how great their attention to detail was on the pre-order and how they roll out and take care of fans and getting extra stuff.
That was the thing that kind of sold us. It was something we could have fun with. We started talking about the golden ticket. I’m holding one right now. If you preorder the CD and have one ticket it goes into the grab bag, the grab bag has everything from a skateboard, there is a select head with album work on it, a custom guitar, signed CD’s, lyric sheet, drum sticks, I mean there’s all kinds of stuff. I think the guitar is one of the cooler items.
What can we expect from Projected this year? I know a lot of fans want to know if you’re going to tour this album.
We are going to do our best. Everyone’s got a full schedule. Alter Bridge has a few scheduled things they’re doing like, Royal Rocking Hall, this whole thing with a symphony. I think they are shooting a DVD and CD and all that good stuff. At the end of September, early October Sevendust is going to be starting pre-production in the studio with Elvis Baskette. It’s going to be fun for me because he’s literally 5 minutes down the road so I’ll be able to do the record and come home and sleep in my own bed.
We are going to do everything that we can. We are going to try for sure. 2018 is shaping up where it’s going to be busy in the world of Sevendust. Alter Bridge will be off which frees up Scott. Now Tremonti will be on, but Mark (Tremonti-singer/guitar player) has been pretty adamant about getting a Tremonti/Projected tour together. So next year will probably be a busy year for me, going back and forth between gears. We are realistic. We know we aren’t going to do 8 months of touring. If we can tour a few weeks here and there it’ll be a lot of fun. And we had such fun making the music that we want to take it out on a few dates and have some fun with it.
