Band comprised of Sevendust guitarist John Connolly and bassist Vinnie Hornsby, Alter Bridge/Creed drummer Scott Phillips and Tremonti guitarist Eric “E-Rock” Friedman return with their sophomore double album Ignite My Insanity. After five years Projected are back with 21 new tracks. Fans of the member’s original projects will appreciate the musical direction of Projected and is sure to pick up some new fans along the way. RockRevolt’s Brett Tully had the opportunity to speak with John Connolly about making the choice to make a double album, touring plans for Projected and feuds that exist in Rock today.
You released your two-disc sophomore record Ignite My Insanity on July 21st. Why did you choose to release it as a two-disc set rather than do something along the lines of what Tremonti did when he went in to record Cauterize and Dust at the same time, yet staggered their releases?
I’ve got to be honest with you he’s a dear friend of mine (Mark Tremonti), we are very close. Obviously we share a guitar player in Eric Friedman. So we had a lot of discussion about it. When he went in to do Cauterize and Dust he was sort of toying around with the idea of recording 21 songs and obviously there was discussion on whether it was going to be a double record or not. His situation is a little bit different, he’s got a decent map laid out where he can take it out on the road and he can tour it. There was a lot of discussion and argument on whether we could separate the windows. In the Sevendust world it’s a little bit different only because we tend to stay a little bit busier. I also have to be conscience of the fact that I’ve got an Alter Bridge member and a Tremonti member. Alter Bridge and Tremonti is kind of a push/pull. It’s kind of tricky for me only in the fact that as soon as I’ve got Scott (Phillips) then I will lose E-Rock (Eric Friedman). It’s one or the other. Originally when we started working on the record we thought alright when you go in the studio you’re going to do somewhere around 16 songs then you’re going to cut a few, you always want some
extras for B-sides or what not. That was the idea, we got to sixteen. As soon as we got to that nice comfortable number we said alright let’s start trimming the herd here. Let’s start figuring out what the record’s really going to be. Every time I’d pull a song someone would start freaking out. It went round and round for a couple of weeks then I realize no matter what I do, unless I get rid of my personal favorites, which I never got that far down the road. Every time I tried to cut something someone was having an issue with it. So, I said you know what might be easier is to push the other direction and see what would happen if we hypothetically got two records worth of material. That was the idea going in. It was all written together. The artist part of me was always like I’d love to release a double album, it would be great. Especially with a side project. Think outside the box, something completely different. That’s kind of what we did. Pushed up we ended up with 21 tracks. The businessman in me was saying let’s do the same thing as Mark did, let’s split them up. Record one will be Ignite and record two My Insanity. Low and behold the label thought it would be a better move to release a double record. I was thinking this is typically an argument you would think would happen in the other direction. You would figure the label would be looking at the business side of it. People want music in smaller doses, they don’t want double CD’s, they don’t want a lot of music at once. One or two songs at a time, maybe an EP. I figured the argument would be coming from them to split it up into two records. They were pretty adamant, they said this was all written together in one session. It’s a side project, no super huge expectation. Why not do something different. Fans have been waiting for five years. It took about fifteen seconds to convince me to go back to the double record way. The artist part of me is always wanting to do something a little bit different. Something not so normal, not so predictable. We said OK. And at the price point too, it’s going to sit between $15 and $16 retail, more bang for the fan. Two CD’s worth of material cheaper than if they were to buy each at say $10. It was a win/win all the way around so I said alright let’s do it. As soon as Rat Pak (Records) was 100% into it than it was futile to push the two-different record thing. It just made sense. Let’s do the no so typical business thing.
At one point, you mentioned that there are four strong personalities in this band. How does that effect the writing process? You mentioned it a little bit with everyone sticking to their guns wanting their songs on the record. At the end of the day is it a 25% each collaboration or does someone have final say? And if you could briefly tell us about the writing process with this record.
Well going back to the whole point that this is a side project and everyone else has got other full-time gigs scheduling is always tough. For something like this it’s always difficult. Like I said the Alter Bridge/Tremonti thing, a push and a pull. As soon as I get one I lose the other. We had every intention of getting together in a rehearsing room and hashing stuff out with a few weeks here and a few weeks there. We could never find the time to do it. Every time I’d get together with Scott we’d be hanging out he’d be like when are we going to get together and do another Projected record. I was trying to figure out when we can all find the time to get together and do it. I didn’t want to do the whole I would write most of the material and have the rest of the guys finish it on this go around. But that’s kind of where we ended up again. Schedules were all over the map and the guys were chomping at the bit ready to go. They have a lot of faith in me to take the ball and run with it to a certain point. I guess that’s what we did this time again. We just started working on stuff. I bounced some demos off of them. Anytime I’d work on something I’d throw it out to the guys to get some feedback and keep me in the lane. Make sure I’m not drifting too away from what Projected is. Once we got to that 75-80%, that’s when I would bring in the other guys. We’d go and track the drums, this time Scott was actually tracking drums to finished songs. He had most of the vocals, lyrics, melodies and all that stuff were in the hole. There was no guess work as to what fill was going to step on what or what should I do here. E-Rock came in next and he worked on most all his guitar stuff with me. At least the bulk of the front-end of it. Like I said we had to thread the needles and I had to head back out on tour and he stayed here at the house and kept working on guitars. Then he relocated to his house and started working on backup vocals. Kind of the same way I do here. We just set up in the home office and do them at our leisure. Then we got Vinnie when we were out on tour. We were out on a tour of Canada with Sevendust and we looked at the schedule and saw we had a couple days off. I said you’re more than welcome to come down here but if you want to knock this stuff out on the road with all this extra time off. We said alright and we grabbed an mbox, a couple hard drives, a laptop and a couple pairs of headphones and that’s how he tracked his bass. It was completely unorthodox, nothing about it was normal like the band gets together and goes in the studio for six weeks, comes out and a record is done. The physical tracking took the better part of eight or nine months. In two different countries and three different states (laughing).
Multiple quote unquote studios.
Yeah Vinnie sitting in a hotel in Chicago tracking, in the Canadian Rockies tracking in some dressing room. The guys would walk in the dressing room like oh wait a minute your recording Projected.
Technology sometimes is a great thing.
That’s the way I look at it. You know a lot of people complain, you know Gene Simmons said rock is dead. No one is buying music anymore. We could spend an hour going down that road. The way I look at it is it’s kind of a double-edged sword. Yeah sure people aren’t buying music like they used to, but they are listening to it. They are still going to stream it, they’re going to listen to it online, go to YouTube to watch videos and discover new bands that way. For me it’s like for every dollar I don’t get from revenue like that I can save two or three bucks by not having to go into some crazy studio in L.A. for eight months to make a record. It’s amazing what you can pull off on a very modest home studio. I think that’s kind of what Projected has proved. We put these kinds of records out but we don’t spend a ton of money. I always bookend the record with studio on the front and the back. We are always going to mix in a real studio, we are always going to track drums and live guitars in a real studio. To me it’s just a little bit easier and more efficient that way. But everything in the middle, all the vocals, guitar overdubs, a lot of the editing and programming, all that stuff, that was done at home. There’s nothing better than making music at home. Being able to unplug with your family. Going back and forth to school activities, all that stuff. You can kind of unplug from it. There is something cool about going to the studio. For instances when Sevendust made the Home record we said we want to get away. We want to go out in the middle of nowhere. We went to Longview Farms and we unplugged and isolated ourselves and that was great. But as I get older I realize I don’t need the isolation, I need what’s normal, I need my family. I need my dogs, my wife, my child. There is something to be said about the mindset you get in when you’re at home making music. It’s hard to put a price on that. Rock might be dead but we can make some pretty good music at home these days.
From the new record if you had to suggest to someone, who is a new listener of Projected, a particular song that you think would hook them into the band what would it be?
Oh man that’s a tough one. It really does change so much; my personal favorites have changed. I think if you wanted to give someone a snapshot of the whole record, it’s kind of tough because there are some softer songs and there’s obviously a few heavier songs on there. But I think a song like “Ignite” is probably like one of those focal points and like the peak of the record. It’s heavy, it’s super melodic, it’s in and out, it’s chaos. I think it kind of encompasses most of what we have going on with the record. Obviously like I said there are people who like the lighter side of things. Some of the Creed fans might be more into a song like “Faith” or “Ten Years Gone” or something like that. But I think all and all the true Sevendust/Alter Bridge crowd if they heard “Ignite” they would be like OK this is a good snapshot of what we’ve got going on here.
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Any tour plans? And would it ever make sense to tour with one of your primary bands like Sevendust or Alter Bridge?
I would love to be able to give it a shot one of these days. We kind of joke around about it. We know for sure at some point we want to do a Tremonti/Projected tour. Because we are such good friends with those guys and we share a guitar player in E-Rock. Obviously, we’d have to divide up some vocal duties and stuff like that. I would love to be able to get out on tour with those guys. Just from a friend and family point of view. The other thing is that Tremonti and Sevendust are on the same schedule so we might have to do a Sevendust/Tremonti/Projected tour (laughing). For me it would be an awesome thing to try. I’m not delusional in thinking Projected can go out there, I’ve had people hit me up and say hey man I need you guys to come out and headline a festival. I’m like no, hold on a second we’ve only played like four or five songs live ever so let’s take baby steps into this. I think it’s one of those things where if we get creative and kind of think a little outside the box, I think we could pull off something. Even if it doesn’t happen on a Sevendust tour per say, I do think there will be some opportunities next year with Tremonti. We’re going to be touring next year pretty heavy with Sevendust. There’s always breaks and time-off so I think I’ll be able to juggle it.
With the current environment of music, specifically rock, is it almost necessary to have a side project for financial reasons? Or is it because of the flexibility of making music today that allows artist to do it much easier?
Maybe. The one thing with Projected we never sat down and said OK we found a way we could make a bunch of money so we’re going to cash in. We do this more for fun. We make sure that we can do it and not spend the kind of money that we will lose money. But as far as making money, I guess I could see in certain situations, a good example would be with Alter Bridge/Creed/Slash. When the Alter Bridge guys had the opportunity to do the Creed reunion a few years ago, Myles had the opportunity to go and sing with Slash. Scott always jokes about it in our world there are side projects everywhere. You never know what you’re going to get. You’ve got Myles Kennedy doing a solo record. You’ve got Slash, you’ve got Alter Bridge, you’ve got Tremonti, you’ve got Creed every once in a while, then you’ve got Projected on the radar. I know for me personally Sevendust is a super busy and super active band. I’ve got use to the work ethic and the time Sevendust is used to putting in. Whether it be in the studio or on tour. So, when we have off time I kind of get freaked out as I’m a bit of a workaholic. I tend to stockpile a bunch of music. Stuff starts to kind of pile up, I love to write. I love to go in and play guitar but songwriting is probably one of my favorite things. It seems like the older I get the more into it I get. So, for me I always have an enormous amount of stuff that I kind of need to find a home for. For Projected this is the perfect spot to put my stuff. The guys are into it and they’ll tell me if they’re not. It’s crazy without Sevendust, Alter Bridge or Creed none of these other things could have happened. But because those bands existed and were as successful as they are it gives us the opportunity to be able to do these things. I’ve never had one without the other. With Projected it’s something we do with no pressure. It’s not like the record label is giving us some huge advance. If we don’t chart here or don’t do this it’s going to be devastating. None of that happens with Projected so for me it’s kind of cool that the Creed/Sevendust/Alter Bridge things have giving us the ability to kind of take a step out and breath. I think the fans appreciate it because they’ll take whatever music they can get. Back in 2012 when Sevendust decided we were going to take a year off they got more music that year than any other year. They just got it labeled as Call Me No One, Tremonti and Projected and then another Sevendust record at the end of the year. It was an off year but it was a super busy year and super productive year for all of us. I think anytime you do anything that’s not your normal gig, I think once you get back into your normal gig you’ve sharpened your skill set a little bit. You’ve learned more when you are in the studio, you learn more about what you can pull off. And how far you can push the envelope whether it’s vocally, songwriting or guitar. I would think that anything outside is going to make your day job even that much cooler.
One thing I wanted to touch upon quick, in the current state of rock does it make sense for band members to air out dirty laundry against each other. For example, in the case of Chad Kroeger (Nickelback) and Corey Taylor (Stone Sour) getting into it in the media. Wouldn’t it make more sense for the rock community to support each other rather than try to make headlines in Blabbermouth?
Well I mean, look I love both those guys. I’ve got to be honest with you Nickelback was one of the first bands that, they came to the states and we took them on a short run playing clubs. Then we saw them again, we were playing with Creed and they’ve always been super supportive of us. As big as they got they never forget who the bands were that kind of helped them out. And Corey has always been a sweetheart. We’ve toured with him and Stone Sour in Australia. And we’ve done tons of shows with Slipknot, we’ve known those guys for years. Part of it I kind of look at and go you both have new records coming out. And you know the old saying good press or bad press. You know so I’m sitting there thinking to myself man this a win/win for everyone. There may be some bad blood between them but I’m telling you what they are probably both going to benefit from it because it’s keeping them in the press. You know that whole week that it was happening that’s all that I saw. My Facebook feed was just blowing up with it. These guys are laughing all the way to the bank.
I’ve got to be honest with you John I look at a situation like that and it makes it so I try to get into controversy a bit as it gets the headlines. Yet I do not want to offend the artist I’m interviewing. There’s a fine line there.
No doubt. I remember watching an interview and thinking oh man here we go (laughing). But hey that’s all you heard about for the next ten days to two weeks. More power to them.
Wrapping things up one last thing, when your off tour what are you doing? Any other hobbies? What else are you into when you’re not deep into music?
I’m usually writing (laughing). I’m still neck deep into music. I breed fish, I breed South American Cichlids. We’ve got 20/22 fish tanks in the garage and house. It’s a big project, something I’ve been doing a majority of my life. Recently I’ve just got into the South American Cichlids within the last ten years. But I’ve been a fish keeper since I was about eight years old. It’s definitely a passion and a hobby of mine. It’s cool to be able to unplug, sit there and you’re dealing with business, attorneys and ex-managers and all that good stuff. You can go out there and kind of zone out with the fish. Then you have to do a fair amount of refereeing because they are aggressive fish. Other than that, I’m a workaholic. I’m constantly working on music. Even now we just released Projected. We’ll start recording with Sevendust in November, actually we’ll start pre-production in October and we’ll start tracking at the end of that month. November will be the heavy tracking month. Then mixing in December. Now we’ve got the game face back on. We’re working on demos and hammer as many ideas as possible and loading up Dropbox with everything we can think of. That’s what I love to do. Sometimes I have to hit the pause button and get away from it because you can do it too much. For me I think I’m a lifer, writing songs and making music is just something I love to do.
Well I know the fans appreciate it. As I do. And I look forward to seeing Projected and Sevendust on the road. Any final words for the fans?
Thank you guys so much for sticking it out over the past five years. Really hope you enjoy the record, it’s been a long time coming. We are finally here and you’ll finally get a chance to hear what we’ve been doing.
Good luck with everything John and thank you for your time.
Absolutely.
