Interview with Jim Sheppard and Warrel Dane of Nevermore at the release party for their latest album "Dreaming Neon Black"
 

You have a new album out, Dreaming Neon Black. How do you feel it turned out?

JS  Excellent. It's the best recording I've ever been involved with. It was a lot of stress at first and then a lot of gratitude. We're really happy with the way it turned out in the end. It was a lot of work but it was worth it.
 

Where do you get ideas for songs?

JS  That's a good question. Lyrically Warrel got his ideas for the concept of this album from a real life experience that he went through recently with a good friend that he was pretty close to and she entered a cult and ended up missing.
 

(Warrel walks in)

Where do you get ideas for lyrics?

WD  From romance novels - anything with Fabio on the cover (laughter).

JS  He's in one of those moods.
 

Okay then, who are your influences?

WD  Fabio, Fabian uhm Buddy Hackett and...
 

Musically?

WD  and Ozzy Osbourne (laughter).
 

Are any of them, especially the first two, going to make it onto the cover album you're supposed to be doing, Beyond the Black?

WD  (laughing) Fabio and Fabian.
 

They'd look great on the cover!

WD  What's that Fabian song (sings) "she's a little runaway". I don't know. No.

JS  Ozzy!

WD  Ozzy, well yeah.

JS  Of course.

WD  We're going to do Diary of a Madman on that.
 

Why a cover album?

WD  We figured all these bands do cover albums that are hideous so we might as well prove that somebody can do a cover album that's good (laughs).
 

What happened to the live EP?

WD  That was a record company fabrication. There never was going to be one.

JS  Never will be.

WD  They talked about it - we didn't.

JS  Live albums are cheesy. They're just crappy recordings of the good...

WD  Shut up! When we do a live album somebody's going to say "But wait, you said live albums are cheesy."

JS  We will never do one 'cause I won't be involved (laughing).
 

Are radio and video airplay important anymore now that people can hear you over the Internet?

WD  No.

JS  No. Never was important to Nevermore anyway (laughter).

WD  We're not exactly radio friendly or video friendly. MTV wouldn't show our videos but who do they show nowadays - no one. MuchMusic wouldn't show our video, even on Loud.
 

They refused your video?

WD  They just never showed it. They took it (laughs) but they never showed it. They have it but they wouldn't play it. I don't think video is important for metal bands anymore. For real metal bands.

JS  Headbanger's Ball didn't really do much for metal bands.

WD  Well it did a hell of a lot more than anything else did.

JS  Where are the metal bands today then?
 

Do you have a tour starting soon?

JS  On Feb 25 in Europe, yes. When we get back we're going to try to put together a US tour, North American tour, excuse me.

WD  We'll be playing Toronto and Quebec and Montreal and uh Vancouver, I don't know (laughs).

JS  It's just so far out of the way (laughter).

WD  I mean it's not like it's close to where we live or anything.
 

What can people expect when they see you play live?

WD  Hair

JS  (sings) "Hair and music, yeah, yeah, yeah".

WD  A whirling windmill of furiosity of the follicle.

JS  Big dumb bass player, club footed drummer, stupid guitar players and a hairy singer (laughter).

WD  They can expect a loud show.
 

Interesting or embarrassing road stories?

WD  Oh please.

JS  Be nice. There's a good one where you got run over by the trailer.

WD  Oh yeah.

JS  It's funny now, it wasn't funny then.

WD  I got thrown in jail in Chicago for kicking a door at the Vic Theatre when we played with Machine Head. For kicking a fucking door.

JS  We had an old lady in Florida, in a motel, called the FBI because we checked into our motel under our management's business name, Strike Force Management, and she was watching America's Most Wanted and there were inmates from Washington State in the local prison. We got into the motel and started calling Seattle, calling home, and she put two and two together that we were from Washington and that we were the Strike Force and that we were here to break the prisoners out of prison, and the FBI or the sheriffs or whoever they were came at 4am. They shook us down, they checked us out (laughs).

WD  So we got our rooms free and they fired the old lady who called the cops.
 

Gee, and people think nothing happens when you're on tour.

WD  No, a lot of fucked up shit happens, especially if you're a long hair driving through the mid west.

JS  "Y'all big time wrestlers." We get that sometimes.
 

What is your opinion of the state of metal now?

JS  It's just been watered and it's growing afresh.

WD  It's getting a lot better.

JS  Yeah, I think it's growing.

WD  It is growing again. We're on that vibe we had in the late '80s. Ten years later it's kind of the same trip happening again.

JS  And they say metal died.

WD  There's a bunch of new good bands coming out. You know metal was driven back underground where it belongs in the first place and it forced bands to just sit in their basements and write really fucking great music.

JS  When the industry declared metal dead a bunch of dead leaves fell off the tree and now there's new buds sprouting and it's pretty good.

WD  (laughs) That is really stupid.

JS  (laughs) Thank you.
 

So you know I'll have to print it.

WD  Oh thank you.
 

Well you didn't say it.

JS  (laughing) A bunch of dead leaves fell off the tree. I like that. I'm sorry.
 

Anything else you'd like to say?

WD  Start your own religion. The ones we have aren't working.

JS  What he said.
 

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