Recently Jordan sat down with Lajon Witherspoon of Sevendust to discuss their return to Australia, their newest release, Kill The Flaw, and their approach to music.

SEVENDUST’s triumphant return to Australia marks the first shows on Aussie soil in six years and Atlanta’s brutal hard rock kings are back as heavy as ever.

 “They blew the audience away! …after about three minutes of their first song, the band managed to rock so damn hard that they shut everything down. It was awesome.” blogcritics.org

 SEVENDUST kicked off their illustrious career with an untouchable string of three gold albums, beginning with their self-titled 1997 debut and continuing with Home in 1999 and Animosity in 2001. Along the way, they’ve sold out shows everywhere and given unforgettable performances at the likes of Rock On The Range, Woodstock and OZZfest.

 However, the new chapter starts now. The blistering new album “Kill The Flaw” has received some of the best reviews of the band’s careers, displaying a re-invigouration of creativity and signaling a rejuvenated take-no-prisoners stance akin to that initial 3 album burst of mayhem.

Here is Jordan’s chat with Lajon.

MI: Firstly, you guys are coming to Australia soon, in March I believe! Are you excited? Have you had some good experiences here before?

LJ: Yes. I can tell you this, I’ve been excited for it since the day we packed up and left six years ago, and I hate that things out of our control made us not able to come back. Of course, why would we to want to be in the most beautiful place in the world? I can’t wait to be in Australia.

MI: That’s great! Were you able to elaborate on some of the things stopping you from coming back?

LJ: Well, you know, management and… One time we were meant to come back and do the Soundwave thing and we got bashed by the guy who runs that which completely was something that the band as five guys who play music from the USA, when you have to go through the management and the people that handle all the stuff when we’re in the studio writing an album, kind of gets out of our control. But now, we have the organisation that we need on our side, which is great, and we’ll be there! And we plan on this being the start of a beautiful relationship that we can build with you guys.

MI: You’ve played to massive crowds such as Woodstock in “99 before, do you prefer that to smaller venues like 170 Russel in Melbourne that you’ll be visiting soon?

LJ: I’ll tell you what, to me man, of course I love playing the big festivals but I also love playing the intimate shows too. To me, music is my serenity and I feel like wherever you go to play it, if they’re going to enjoy it, they’re going to come. No matter if it’s big or small, as long as you are touching the people, I’m into it. If it’s three people, and those three people are having a good time, then I’m having a good time. At festivals, you can play to fifty thousand, but only five of those could be having fun! So no matter where you go you want to be able to move them, and I think for us we’ve been blessed, we’re able to go out and get everyone into it. But I tell you what, I like it all, you could put me in the back of a McDonald’s parking lot and I’m gonna bring it. I’m gonna bring it whether we’re there in the parking lot or in a sold out stadium.

MI: Do you enjoy the touring and travelling aspect of being in a band, and how has time and family affected this?

LJ: You know what man? Absolutely. Now, as we’ve gotten older, I mean I’m forty-three and the youngest in the band, you do have lives and families and kids so it’s not the same as when we started out and we’d go out on tour and stay gone for a year, and we didn’t care because we were young men. But definitely now there’s a lot more going on and it’s great to be able to tour like we do then take time off like we are now for the first time! If we were still with that same organisation, I would never in a million years been able to deliver my son. I had a baby boy on the seventeenth, and he’s three weeks old today, and guess who’s laying here with him! He’s hanging out with his daddy listening to me talk so an awesome gentleman in Australia. (Lajon is too kind!!) So I definitely enjoy the touring and then getting back to family. It’s about moderation, and the way to do it, we’ve definitely figured out.

MI: Congratulations on the baby boy! Have you got him started on any records and music yet?

LJ: Oh man, he’s already ready!! Right beside him right now, there’s a little seahorse and it’s playing some music and he’s looking at it like its crazy! I think he enjoys it. My seven year old daughter, she’s the youngest pianist at Smith’s Academy right now, and I’m very proud of her. Y’know, we try to keep them around the music, and whatever they tend to like we’ll listen to and try to get it into them for themselves.

MI: Have you been happy with the fans’ and media’s reaction to Kill the Flaw so far?

LJ: It’s been great actually. When you say reaction, we went out with the band Godsmack and did several dates in the States and in Canada, and the reaction to that was great for [Kill The Flaw] having just been released. Then, right after that we took a small week break or so and went out with Breaking Benjamin who are good friends of the band and also Shinedown, and did an arena tour. I’ll tell you what, it was a blessing to see the reaction to the two new songs we put into the set, which were Thank You, which was the new single, and Not Today which was also off the new album, and the response was great. It was wonderful to get out and play electric again, because we took off for a year with the last album we had which was an acoustic album and toured that acoustically, so it was great to rock out again. And, we can’t wait to get out to Australia and bring it down!

Check out ‘Not Today’ (Official Lyric Video)

MI: Are you happy with how it turned out or are there any small regrets?

LJ: No, I’m happy, there are no regrets at all. Actually, one regret I do have is I wish we could have recorded the album in a warmer place! But as far as the way we went into this, we went in with a fresh head and no new music written for it at all, we went into it as the band that we are and sat down and looked at each other, and jammed every day together and came up with songs. We were in the studio every day from twelve noon until twelve midnight Monday through Friday, we took off Saturday but then we were back at it starting all over again Sunday, so we did a lot of work. For me, we’re like a musical hive in Sevendust, and I think that’s when we do our best work when we are confined in what we love to do. We had two studios we were able to record live in, so anywhere that we sat down with the instruments, something was able to be recorded, and that’s a good way to capture things. Myself, Clint and John were able to rent a house, and be the guys that go back at night and write together, which was also really exciting and it made for a good album, so we have no regrets, except for maybe being somewhere a bit warmer!

MI: Do you find yourself with any music or lyrics left over when you’ve finished with an album that got cut along the way?

LJ: Always at the end of a cycle, we look at each other and there’s maybe four or five songs that we can’t decide about, should this one stay or go? And sometimes with the lyrics or melodies we’ll keep them and have them in the back catalogue and come back to them, and go “hm, this is cheesy” or we’ll use it. Normally we don’t use it though, and we’ve been together so long that we know if we like something. If you come in and you think it’s cool, then you know it’s not cool. (we laugh) If you get that question asked, and you think it’s that cool, then automatically it mustn’t be that cool! But we don’t normally have that problem, and that’s been something great about this band, that music is all around, and if there’s something we’re not feeling we can put it back or re-work it until we can make it fit the way we want it.

MI: Are there any particular tracks in your discography you look back on with pride or get really excited to play live?

LJ: Just recently, we’ve gone really deep in the old catalogue and we brought out old tracks like “Bitch” and “Disease” that are really great live songs, and great songs period. As well, one song that we put in the catalog is “Shine”, a song that means a lot to me that I wrote for my little brother who passed away years ago, and just songs like that man, that sometimes make you think about things that could’ve been bad but that are also uplifting and just keeps those memories going on. Songs like that always tend to make me excited about playing. As well as that, stuff we haven’t played in a while, and the new stuff! As we’ve gotten older it’s harder to figure out what songs we want to play because there’s so many, and that’s exciting to me too that we’ve been in the band so long that it’s like “man, we have an issue! We’ve gotta figure out what songs to play!”

MI: Sounds like a good problem to have!

LJ: It’s a blessing. My family and I went to one of those restaurants in St. Louis where they have a jukebox and my daughter runs up and finds Sevendust in it, and she showed me, there were 120 songs in it! I just thought “what in the world?! Wow!”

MI: Sevendust always seem to be very multi-dimensional in that some tracks have both aggressive and angry vibes with undertones of positivity, is this intentional? Is this balance something you choose to strive for in your own life?

LJ: I think it’s the stuff! We don’t write about anything that isn’t involved in our lives, and you have your ups and your downs. This is what I like to say, I’m a forty-three year old man but I’m the youngest in the band but as I’ve gotten older I’ve realised that life puts obscure obstacles in our way, and with some type of way we work out how to get around them or climb across them and I feel like that’s what we’ve done in this band. When I say obscure obstacles, I mean like not being able to come back to Australia in six years. That was a freaking big obstacle in our way! And for how ever many blessings we prayed, we got the right people on our side and again, we were able to go around it, climb over it, swim it but guess what, we’re coming back!! And that’s what I mean, at the end of the day, we never give up man, and that’s something I believe in with Sevendust.

Sevendust’s tour of Australia and New Zealand kicks off on the 11^th of March in Auckland and rounds off on the 18^th of March in Melbourne.

Interview by Jordan Sibberas.

It’s been a long wait but Australian fans finally get the opportunity to participate in the bedlam this summer when SEVENDUST hit our shores, starting out in Perth and Adelaide, and culminating in what are sure to be full-on contenders for gigs of the year in Melbourne and Sydney. Limited numbers of VIP tickets will be available, affording the unique opportunity to meet the band and be photographed with them, so be quick and get your tickets now before they are gone!

 “The vibe, the energy, the songs, the whole package… Sevendust is the real deal and never disappoints.” Maximum Ink

                                    Sevendust Australian & NZ tour Dates

 Fri March 11th – The Studio (Auckland)
Sun March 13th – Capitol (Perth)
Mon March 14th – The Gov (Adelaide)
Wed March 16th – Coolangatta Hotel (Gold Coast)
Thur March 17th – Eatons Hill (Brisbane)
Fri March 18th – 170 Russell (Melbourne)
Sat March 19th – Metro (Sydney)

Get your tickets now from:

http://www.metropolistouring.com/tour.php?tour=2016-sevendust