For the past two years, the road has been home to US rockers Hinder. With a multi-platinum selling album under their belts in the form of Extreme Behavior and hits singles in Better Than Me, Lips Of An Angel and Get Stoned, Hinder are now bona fide rock stars.
Hated by the critics (who really don鈥檛 get it) and loved by their fans and the music loving masses, Hinder are nothing but your perfect good time, rock and roll band. And the guys are also the coolest and nicest guys you could hope to find in this tough, ego stroking music business. It is a rare thing to find rock stars without egos.
The group is on their final legs of their current two year world trek and one which will soon rap up in the United States. On the band鈥檚 recent stop over in Australia, Joe Matera met up with two of the group鈥檚 members; Mark King (guitar) and Mike Rodden (bass) a day before their show in Melbourne. Read on as the boys open up about their wild times on the road, their success and their plans for the follow-up to Extreme Behavior.
Ultimate-Guitar: It has been estimated that the band has performed over 700 shows since September 2005. Would you say that is a fair estimate?
Mike: Yeah probably, it does sound right.
That is a lot of shows and a lot of time spent on the road in the two year span, how have you managed to keep your sanity intact?
Mike: We drink a lot.
I鈥檝e heard you also seem to get up to a lot of pranks out on the road like there was an incident recently involving 鈥渘ut sacks鈥?and staples?
Mike: Yeah we were out on tour with Nickelback for awhile and Chad Kroeger who likes to throw money around, suggested we staple Blower鈥檚 nut sack to my butt! And we did. But in retrospect it probably wasn鈥檛 the best idea as it was pretty gross.
How much did Chad pay you to do that?
Mike: $160
So Chad loves doing this sort of thing?
Mike: Yeah, we even lit Blower on fire a few times for Chad too. He really enjoyed that. We really hurt Blower a lot you know.
I know that for a fact as the last time I caught up with him, he showed me all the scars of your handiwork.
Mike: He鈥檚 probably got more now! (laughs)
What about the pranks you have pulled on other bands that you鈥檝e toured with?
Mike: Well actually it had to do with Blower again. On the Staind tour that we were on, Blower pulled out his nuts onstage. And we hosed them down with hair spray and then lit them on fire during the segment where Aaron was playing an acoustic thing. And we went out and did that in front of him. But hey, we gave Aaron some pyro effects for his set! (laughs) We are always doing stupid **** like that.
You鈥檙e finally nearing the end of this very long tour?
Mark: After we get back from Australia we will have a short run in the United States and then we will begin writing album number two.
Mike: We go into the studio come January, 2008.
"Our guitar sound was pretty weak when we first started so I'm glad we actually tweaked it when we did."
How is the next album coming along, is there a lot of pressure on you in the wake of the success of Extreme Behavior?
Mark: I wouldn鈥檛 say pressure as I鈥檓 really excited about it personally. I think we鈥檝e got a really good start for it and some really good songs written so far. We have got about six or seven songs written. I think this second album is more like鈥here the first album is Hinder getting over all the girls and stuff, the second album will be the girls getting over Hinder.
Mike: We鈥檙e going to go with 15 songs and then pick 11 or 12 for the album.
Are any of them being currently being performed live?
Mark: Yeah we do one acoustic number called Thing For You and one titled Haven鈥檛 Lost You with the full band.
Austin [Winkler, vocals] and Cody [Hanson, drums] usually are the backbone of the songwriting process, how does the process evolve once they bring the songs to the rest of the band?
Mike: When we鈥檙e out on the road we have an extra dressing room where we set up a PA and we will go in there and they will kind of show us acoustically what they kind of have so far. Then we will sit down and just kind of start jamming it all out. And it progressively gets better and better as it develops and the song goes to where we like it to go.
Mark, do you share some of the leads with Joe?
Mark: He does most of them. I鈥檓 just happy to play rhythm and power chords.
What is your live set-up like?
Mark: The rig I have is a Mesa Boogie Stiletto and I have three guitars with me; a Gibson les Paul GT, which is beautiful and is my main baby. I actually used that guitar on the Lips Of An Angel and Better Than Me videos. And I鈥檝e got a Sparkle Burst Gretsch and I have a Gibson Silver Burst which basically is, instead of being a Sunburst, it has this silver color that goes to a black and it looks really cool. So those are my three main guitars that I have out on the road with me. I don鈥檛 use any effect pedals.
Mike: I play through Mesas also as far as amps and cabs go. For basses, I have a bunch of them but when on the road I mainly use Spector basses and usually a five-string. They [Spector] treat me right and they give me a lot of cool ****. They actually just gave me a custom one that they had specially made. It is silver and it has our logo angled down on the bottom.
How do you think your guitar sound has evolved since the first record and now that you been on the road non-stop?
Mark: Our guitar sound was pretty weak when we first started so I鈥檓 glad we actually tweaked it when we did. I think we鈥檝e really got it set a year ago when we were on the Nickelback run. We just sat there in a room and just tweaked it and I would tape a white strip on the knobs and I would slowly tweak it from there. I probably annoyed the hell out of all the other bands because I was playing big open chords all day long, but we just nailed it finally there and then. We had to just sit there and do it though.
So what do you consider the highlights of the whole tour so far?
Mike: Picking on that guy right there! (looks to Joe Blower as he walks into the room) It is fun. Actually he just got 鈥渉eartbeat鈥?tattooed on his nut sack about a month ago while we were on the Papa Roach and Buckcherry tour. The Papa Roach guys had a tattooist artist out with them and so we came up with the bright idea. And he [Blower] was sober when he did it which was really weird.
Mark: Another highlight is that we got to play with Aerosmith last December. It was awesome. The first CD I ever bought was Aerosmith鈥檚 Big Ones and to get to share the stage with them was a dream come true.
Mike: Also to be able to play shows every day and the fact that we鈥檙e playing for 15,000 to 18,000 people sometimes is amazing. And the way the shows have progressed and not only with the crowd size which is a big part of it, but also their reaction to our progression as a live band. We鈥檙e getting better and better and better at what we do and it is cool because you can see the progression. And that is a highlight for me.
"We go into the studio come January, 2008."
In what ways do you think success changed you?
Mark: I think I just have more money now. I don鈥檛 think as people we have changed at all. We are still the same boys from Oklahoma.
Mike: We haven鈥檛 changed a damn thing. It is more in the way people perceive us and act around us now that has changed. Like when I go home I catch **** from all my friends, like I鈥檒l go out and they鈥檒l go 鈥渙h a rock star鈥濃€ou know they鈥檙e just giving me **** for no reason. So it is the people around us that have changed.
The last time I spoke to Blower, he told me that if Hinder could back in time to 1987, they could out do Motley Crue in the sex, drugs and drink department?
Mike: We鈥檇 definitely give them a run for their money. But I would say they鈥檝e got us on the drugs and **** but I think we could drink them under the table. We would give it a damn good shot that is for sure.
Mark: That is a bold statement we鈥檙e making.
Mike: Yeah.
Do you think that Hinder were born in the wrong generation then?
Mike: It is probably better that we are of this generation because if we were hanging out back then funny enough, I鈥檇 be a junkie.
Why are there so different versions of Extreme Behavior?
Mark: We just do different promotional things like we do stuff with Walmart and Best Buy back home. Actually a re-release is coming out this week here in Australia of our album and it has a DVD with it called You Can't Make This **** Up. The DVD is awesome because it captures all the **** backstage, all the girls and everything. And it has got extra bonus songs on it and a full live show all on DVD.
Finally can you share with us one unknown fact about yourself that may surprise your fans?
Mark: That my dad is a preacher. I don鈥檛 think a lot of people know that.
Since he鈥檚 a preacher, how does he cope with you being on the road and with all the tales of debauchery?
Mark: He is one of the biggest Hinder supporters around. Ever. Like if we go out, I鈥檓 like 鈥淒ad don鈥檛 tell any one what I do鈥?and he鈥檚 like, 鈥渉e鈥檚 my son and he鈥檚 in Hinder鈥? I鈥檓 like, 鈥淥h my God鈥?
Mike: I don鈥檛 want to put too much out on the table but I piss my bunk a lot. I guess when I鈥檓 hammered I鈥檒l wake up in a wet bunk every once in a while.
Mark: It only has happened about four times in the last month.
Mike: Yeah it鈥檚 been pretty heavy lately. (laughs)
2007 漏 Joe Matera well, i didn't read the whole thing, but it looks like somethign i've read before and if it is, then yes it's all true. the guys are nuts, espically mike and blower, and they were on the road for a very very long time Dude....2 words.
HINDER SUCKS.
Lips of an Angelwas one of the most annoying F*n songs I ever had to hear played on the radio.
I'd rather soak my nads in lye than listen to them. This is an instance where the critics, apparantly, were right.
And no...I didn't bother to read the rest of you bloody doctoral thesis on the greatness of Hinder. My ears are all the evidence I need to know they suck.
Thanks though, really, I mean it. I didn't read the question. So I will give a generic answer.
Slayer
Metallica(Pre-BlacK album)
The Dead Kennedys
and
Only once, but I was real drunk..... I second that WTF
It must be lies how could Hinder be loved by "The music loving masses"
I love music but I loathe hinder! Hinder equals another crappy band. Yes. Its ALL TRUE!!
jk i have no idea. |
