Into The Light
An Interview with Lajon of Sevendust
by Bret Lueder
Heavy metal, as it was originally called, has it’s beginnings rooted in darkness. From Black Sabbath to Slayer, from The Misfits to Marilyn Manson, as heavy metal has grown into it’s many forms, it has for the most part fed off of and festered around human grief, doom and gloom. Sure, there are the so-called Christian rock bands that aren’t focused in the dark, but are these two ends of the metal spectrum all that metal music has to offer us listeners? Can’t we listeners just rock out in a positive way without falling into the trappings of gloom or being beaten over the head with someone else’s religious views? The answer is, yes we can, and Sevendust is the band.
"Vinny (Hornsby) our bass player came up with the name Sevendust and a lot of people compare it to sevendust (the deadly poison, pronounced see` ven dust)," described Lajon, lead singer of Atlanta rockers Sevendust. "I like Sevendust because I feel that seven is a heavenly, good number and we’re all made from dust. It’s a meaning that my Mom came up with. She has a real religious background and it’s just very deep to me."
The band used to be called Crawlspace and actually had a song ("My Ruin") on the Mortal Kombat movie soundtrack under that same band name. That is, until they got the phone call.
"We were gonna be Crawlspace, that was the name," dispatched Lajon with a sheepish grin, "…until this cat called up from California and said, ‘Maaaan, that’s the name of my band. I’m an acoustic guitar player and I have 14 albums’ or something… ‘and you couldn’t buy the name off of me! No way in Hell!’ So we were like, ‘O.K., muthafucker, we don’t have any money anyway.’"
That kind of laid back, go-with-the-flow attitude was evident throughout my conversation with Lajon, which is something that he and the band try to keep when they're out on the road.
"It’s the Southern Fried Chicken Flight Tour [Sevendust is on the road with Clutch, Stuck Mojo and Ultraspank from Oct. 3 to Dec. 12]," exclaimed Lajon. "We decided to take a little of that Southern hospitality thing on the road to the West Side [of the country] because, really, this tour is like a family thing with the guys from Stuck Mojo. Cory Lowery, their bass player, is brothers with Clint [Lowery], our lead guitar player. We all grew up and hung out in Atlanta together, so this is pretty cool. Clutch are some good friends of ours and we’ve played with Ultraspank before, so those guys are cool too. It’s more of a laid-back-bunch-of-friends hanging-out kind of tour and we’re just having a good time around the country."
In addition to the bands on the current tour, the list of bands that Sevendust has played with is astounding. They recently completed a stint on the Ozzfest, sharing stages with Ozzy Osbourne and Tool, opened for Megadeth on the Cryptic Writings tour, played with Creed and The Nixons and filled a slot on the eclectic line up of the more-recent-than-not Roar tour featuring Iggy Pop, The Reverend Horton Heat, Tonic and Sponge.
These guys have been around, and not only did Lajon get to have dinner with Ozzy, his wife/manager Sharon and their two kids while on the Ozzfest tour, and hang with Iggy while on the Roar tour, but Lajon has also become friends with Lemmy, the legendary singer/bassist of one of England’s seminal heavy metal bands, Motorhead.
"We were playing in London at The Bar Fly," said Lajon. "Someone came up to me and said, ‘Y’know who’s over at the bar that came to see you? It’s Lemmy!’ So I said, ‘Shit!’ and went over and had a drink with him. He watched the show and came into our dressing room right after and said, ‘Y’know, I’m personally telling you this: If you guys piss this away, I’m personally going to kick your ass!’ He’s been cool ever since. He even wrote a song for us; I can’t remember what it is called, but it was nice. I remember my buddy Das and I were sitting down on the hotel grounds burning a fatty and we looked down the hall and Lemmy sticks his head out of the dressing room and says, ‘Yo! C’mere! C’mere mate!’ So I go in his room and looked at him and he was all G’d up with black pants, buttoned-up shirt and white boots. I said, ‘Damn Man! Where are you going?’ He was getting ready to go to the clubs and he wanted me to hear a song that he wrote for the band and to read some of his new material. And man [he shakes his head in disbelief], just to be in the room with Lemmy. So I’m looking around the room, at his old clothes and leather jackets, and as I was sitting on the bed I noticed this Nazi symbol on the cover of a book in his brief case. So I said, ‘Hey, what’s this book all about?’ Y’know, I was really interested and here was this big ol’ book and he was half way through it. Lemmy said, ‘Ah, don’t think anything about that mate. I just collect old, rare things like books and guns, things that you can’t get anymore. I’m into all kinds of stuff.’ So we just sat and talked about all the stuff he has been in to. It was really interesting."
Lajon has a knack for telling a good story, it’s part of his Southern charm. And like a good storyteller, Lajon brilliantly capped the Lemmy in London story with a rare tidbit of historical rock-n-roll trivia.
"I couldn’t believe it when [Lemmy] told me that he used to be Jimmy Hendrix’s guitar tech," said Lajon. "Here I was, sitting in his room with him sitting across from me, telling me this and asking me what I think of his stuff. Just to even be there was incredible. I mean, he was Jimmy Hendrix’s guitar tech! I was sitting with a legend."
Lajon has been blessed with some great experiences and not only does his positive and humble attitude attract many people, but a live Sevendust show emits a positive and powerful energy attracting old and new school metal enthusiasts alike.
"We’re all about the live show," admitted Lajon as he smiled with confidence. "The energy levels are up there. We’ll give you a good show tonight."
Lajon wasn’t lying either. Sevendust delivered a walloping set as the energy levels were off the scale. You have to experience a live show to even hope to comprehend their provocative mix of positivity and down and dirty, grinding rhythms.
Lajon and Sevendust’s positivity is embodied in a quote that adorns their debut, self-titled CD sleeve. The quote is from You Send Me: The Life Of Sam Cooke by Daniel Wolf and is as follows: "I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality."
"Man, nobody has ever said anything about that quote before," assured Lajon. "That Daniel Wolf quote, to me, represents both a negative and a positive side because he said that he refused to view, or accept that the views of mankind would be changed because there are still so many people that are still so fucking backwooded and won’t change. So I think it’s got a little heaviness and beauty—a beautiful mixture of those two things. He’s saying that he wishes it could change, but he knows that it’s probably not possible. That’s funny because nobody ever says anything about that quote. It’s just something that meant a lot to me when I was in the studio and was reading that Sam Cooke book."
The duality of the quote is a metaphor for the duality of the Sevendust’s sound, which is aggressive as hell, but in a positive, spiritual way. It also reflects the duality of Lajon himself: during our conversation on Sevendust’s tour bus (his on-the-road-home), Lajon was a polite, generous host who gave me deep, sincere responses to my questions, yet when he gets on stage, his persona takes on a ferocious, almost savage character that evokes the power of the music. And for as seemingly darkly aggressive as Sevendust is, the positivity is anchored by the lyrics and the melody.
"We’re all about the melody," quips Lajon. "I love soul music too. I love anything with conviction. On the bus, we’ll listen to Brian McKnight, then put on some Pantera; as long as it has conviction."
I’ll bet Brian McKnight and Pantera will be listening to Sevendust soon, if not already, considering the diverse following that the band has already garnered.
And in case you missed them on the Ozzfest or the Southern Fried Chicken Flight tour, all you curious metal buffs can catch them on the tube in November. That’s right, a 30-minute taped-live show of five songs will be broadcast on Fox, the WB and UPN in 33 television markets nationwide beginning on November 13. Television usually doesn’t do a band’s sound or vibe justice, but I’m guessing that Sevendust’s sound and emotion are so intense that it will still shine through, further leading metal and it’s dark past, into the light.
