Extended Play

Q: Are you looking forward to headlining your own tour?

A: Very much. We just got off the road with the Goo Goo Dolls, doing three months of summer sheds. I don’t know if that bill could’ve been any better. It was a really mellow tour. The fans were great and it was full houses every night. We’re stoked to get out and play a good hour and a half set (now). Should be fun.

Q: The last time I caught you play live was with Dashboard Confessional at UCR in
Jan. '06.

A: I remember that show; it was really cool.

Q: You guys pulled out an Elvis Costello cover or two.

A: We all love Elvis Costello and his band; they’re amazing. At that time, we definitely needed a couple more up tempo tunes for the set. Since the new record’s out, we do have up tempo [ones]. That was one thing, if anything, we strived for on this record, was to make a couple more up tempo songs to make the live show more eventful.

Q: Turning to the new album “Who We Are” - you didn’t do demos before you went into record. How did that affect the overall process?

A: We’d been on the road for two years, pretty much solid together as a unit. We knew we wanted to go straight from the road and keep the vibe. We had the camaraderie going on and wanted to take that straight into the studio without any preconceived ideas. That’s what we did. We went in and literally wrote the music with the “record” light on.

Q: Other than the Ironworks studio connection, how did Rocco DeLuca end up guesting on the CD?

A: Rocco is a good friend of ours and has been since he made his first record. We definitely wanted to have him come in. He’s super artistic and can ‘take it out,’ which means doing something out of the box and creating a different mood. The main plan was to bring him in and let him throw down whatever. That’s pretty much what happened. He played the B3 on “Storm” in one pass.

Q: And The Section Quartet added some elegance.

A: I love having live strings on anything. You can be in your bedroom and fire up a little fake MIDI string pad, but it isn’t the same. It’s like the difference between an oil painting and a Photoshop painting – one’s got a little more blood going on.

Q: What has bassist Bryce, who made his debut on a Lifehouse CD this time around, added to the overall sound?

A: We lucked out with that one. A buddy of mine knew we were looking for a bass player and sent me an image of Bryce with this old vintage Rickenbacker. I was like, ‘we have to get this guy in the room to try out.’ He came down; we jammed for five minutes on two songs. It kicked (butt). We left there, had some margaritas and he was in the band.

Q: Jason seems to have elevated his game, lyric-wise. Do you agree?

A: Jason is a full-on athlete. He’s not the type of musician who’s going to go in and do the exact same thing as before, which I have a lot of respect for…“The Joke” was based on a kid from the U.K. who was being bullied in high school and thought of committing suicide by hanging himself with his favorite team’s jersey. That’s where that song came out. Jason’s tackling a lot of things…He likes to watch and write from other people’s perspectives and on this record he definitely kicked it up notch.

Q: You personally thanked Michelle Branch in the liner notes. Has she been a Lifehouse supporter since the early days?

A: She’s one of my best friends. I’m actually her baby’s godfather. We came out (with first albums) at the same time. We took her out on the road with us in 2002 when “Hanging by a Moment” was popping.

Q: The video to “The First Time” is awesome with the whole bleeding red thing. How was the shoot?

A: The director is into pushing the limits. Normally, we shoot videos in bigger places. We showed up to this little high tech studio and we’re like, ‘what is this?’ We had three solid neon green outfits, shoes, everything. We did that with a green screen effect. They went back in and did the whole color change. That was planned from the get-go. It’s one of things where, ‘we might as well trust him.’ We’re standing there like Kermit the Frog playing it. He did a great job.

* * *
Is anyone going to the Pomona show? What do you think of the new CD? Think it stands up to "Lifehouse?"