Voices Of eXtreme (V.O.X.) tempts the casual music fan with a taste of something for everyone and once they’ve got you caught in their grasp it’s impossible to leave. You’re addicted. You’re hooked. V.O.X. rocks! With a New York swag and a seasoned team of experienced musicians forging a path with the assist of SmashMouth Records and their new release, Break the Silence on October 29th, V.O.X will find a spot in just about everyone’s rotation. It’s the kind of rock and roll that’s dynamic and distinctive and metal and melodic. The fellas will hit the road for their first official national tour in support of Break the Silence. The Manifest Destiny Tour will continue the already forward momentum of a group that’s individually paid its dues to the rock Gods and collectively has come out of the gate strong and prepared for world domination. Founding member and singer Don Chaffin called RockRevolt Magazine to talk about the new album release, the first official tour, THE PREMIERE OF THEIR LYRIC VIDEO FOR “NUMB”, and why V.O.X rocks!
Don ChaffinDON: Hey, this is Don from Voices of eXtreme (V.O.X.)
STINA (RR): Hey Don, how are you doing?
DON: I’m good Christina. How are you today?
STINA (RR): I’m good, thanks! Thanks for calling. I’m from Rock Revolt Magazine calling you from the Jersey Shore. I’m very familiar with the New York City scene and very familiar with Voices Of eXtreme so I’m super stoked to get the chance to talk with you for a bit and promote all the great stuff that’s going on for V.O.X.
DON: I appreciate that! I thought I could tell that you’re from Jersey. Now, do I call you Christina or Tina?
STINA (RR): You can call me Stina. When people use my formal name Christina I feel like I’m in trouble!
DON: Gotcha! Alright, Stina. There it is.
STINA (RR): Tell me about Voices of eXtreme in three really killer badass words.
DON: VOX. Rocks. Hard.
STINA (RR): Awesome! Now tell me about your band in as many words as you’d like. How did the band start?
Bobby on Bass!DON: The band started back in 2004 with my childhood friend Bobby Brennan who is the bass player for V.O.X. He was living in Boca Raton, Fla. And had moved from New York but I was still up here in NY. He went down there and made some friends, primarily my guitar player Nick Gertsson and also friends by the name of Nicko McBrain from Iron Maiden and Danny Spitz from Anthrax and long story short he told me on the phone, “Hey I got these guys involved and they want to do something’ and before I knew it he was here and so were all of them!
STINA (RR): Do you think musicians kind of find one another? It seems like no matter where you go musicians always seem to be drawn to one another and get themselves involved in some kind of project.
DON: Yes. Absolutely. Bottom line is Bobby and I grew up together, although we never played together in a band. It took us to be 1,500 miles apart to decide to join a band together.
STINA (RR): Would you say it’s an eclectic group of influentials? Meaning, do you guys all listen to the same kind of music? Even though you grew up together were you influenced by the same type of music and did you join the music force because of the same groups? Or, is it sort of across the board and that’s what helps to bring the sound that is Voices Of eXtreme?
Nick Gersson – guitarDON: You just nailed it on the second part. Basically, the members of V.O.X. we all have very different tastes or influences, heavy influences. I mean, we all like the same basic kind of stuff but the bottom line is our main influences are pretty different and that helps in the song writing process; certainly in the production of the music whether it’s in the studio or live. You get all those elements combined and then as a cohesive unit we put everything together as the bands style.
STINA (RR): And it probably helps maybe reach a broader range of music fan because people are pulling and drawing from different types and styles. You cross contaminate the music scene a little bit.
DON: Absolutely correct. All of us as musicians and song writers have all heard these cords and melodies an styles somewhere and the bottom line is what you do as an artist is you try to draw on all those and put together something that’s a style of your own. So, I mean we’re all doing the same kind of thing which is kind of neat because no two people are the same in this world so, even though you and I might listen to the same exact band and have the same influences, we’re going to have different interpretations when it comes to our own style.
STINA (RR): Love that. Danny Spitz, you mentioned him before, worked on V.O.X.s debut album Hypocrite. I’m wondering if that’s the involvement that got you involved in Red Lamb? Can you talk a little bit about that supergroup and what it was like to surrounded by such talent?
DON: Yes. Danny came in during the very onset of V.O.X. and he produced five or six songs which would later go on the album Hyprocrite. So that’s when him and I met and we hit it off when we were doing the V.O.X. record. About three years ago, V.O.X. was on a little break-well not so much a break but just a little slow-and Danny started a band called Red Lamb and before you know it, he asked me to be the lead vocalist on it and before you know it he had me on an airplane with him and we’re heading out to Dave Mustaines house to hang out and sleep at Daves house and do some tracks at the studio.
STINA (RR): Killer! Let me just pick that name off the ground that you just dropped. Do you have any cool road stories from when you did gig out with them? Any memorable shows?
DON: Dave was in the studio end of things so we were primarily in the studio with him. The stories alone, I mean, to be around someone who’s that artistic and, he’s just a legend regarding the metal world. It was just intense! There were so many things to learn and he was so gracious on all of that. And then Danny and I came back and about a year and a half later we ended up finally going on the road and we had a great time! We did, I think 21 shows in 31 days, or something of that nature. So, we had a blast!
STINA (RR): Let’s get back to V.O.X. Speaking of the road, you’ve just announced the Manifest Destiny Tour. How excited are you guys to get out on tour and try out some of the new material and maybe reach a larger audience?
DON: We’re very excited! Because truthfully since 2004, we formed this band in 2004, and we’ve done some big shows but primarily they’ve been one-offs or two shows in a row. Not part of a big tour. Although they were big shows, we weren’t part of a big tour. We’ve played with Godsmack and have shared the same stage with Alice in Chains and Disturbed, but the bottom line is we’ve never been on a tour so to speak. So, we are certainly looking forward to October 29th the album comes out and the tour starts.
STINA (RR): What’s a Voices Of eXtreme show like.
DON: It’s a hard rock band. It doesn’t deviate from straight right down the center in regard to a very heavy sound but a melodic sound in the same respect. No pyrotechnics but just a good rock band.
STINA (RR): If you’ve got a good band, you don’t even need the pyro!
DON: I don’t know. They don’t hurt KISS and I love KISS!
STINA (RR): They are the Golden Rule.
STINA (RR): That’s a pretty powerful name, Voices Of eXtreme. What’s the Cliffnotes version of how you came up with the name?
DON: Name of the band was Vox at the beginning. I had been in the studio and it’s short for vocals on the mixing board. When you used to write on the mixing board, you would basically just write vox and I’ve always liked that and I thought that was pretty powerful. And to stop us from getting sued, no I’m just kidding (laughs), everything’s called ‘vox’ so we figured we’d make them three letters that stand for something. So we came up with Voices Of eXtreme. We have a lot to say about a lot of things, so there you.
STINA (RR): Let’s talk about Break the Silence and its release on SmashMouth Records. That’s a pretty huge opportunity for you guys and I’m wondering if the magnitude of the official release and the tour really has sunk in yet? What are your expectations for what I’m going to call world domination?
DON: (laughs) The bottom line is that expectations are high and we’re excited. We’ve been together for nine years so it’s not like we’re newbies at this thing at all. It’s just that it took a while to get this thing and the professional end of it ironed out; like you said with SmashMouth and being distributed by Sony. So we’re just extremely excited. We’re in rehearsals right now. We have a brand new drummer named Frank Gilchriest who comes to us from Riot. We’re just excited to get out there and share the music with everyone because everyone really digs the music so we’re excited to share it with them.
STINA (RR): There’s something to be said about getting in front of that momentum when you have it and it really seems like you guys 
have it. And like you said, you guys aren’t newbies and you’ve got a lot of experience kind of pulsating out of this band and I think that maybe helps set the true expectations and you’re able to not get overly psyched or underly psyched. So, there’s got to be a fair balance. I’m also wondering if there’s any one song that really describes the sound of V.O.X. If someone hasn’t heard you before, what’s the ‘go to’ song?
DON: You know, that is interesting because on the album there are twelve songs and no two songs are the same. There are songs that are heavy metal right down the center that could be on a metal show right now and then there are songs that could be on Z100 (NY hits radio station) that are like Chris Daughtry or Bon Jovi. The bottom line is I can’t say what one song would sum it up but I would give you two songs which to me sum up the album and its diversity and they are two of my favorites. They’d be “Apocalyse” and “More Than Anything” because you’re going from heavy into a ballad and it shows everything that’s the whole gamut of V.O.X. And they’re the first two songs on the record so I guess subconsciously we kind of had that in mind!
STINA (RR): You’re absolutely right! I was curious to see how you were going to answer that question because you do have such a far reaching range. When I pass your music onto someone, it depends who I’m talking to which song I recommend they check out. You can sort of pull them in with one song and if It’s done right, they’ll end up digging all the songs.
DON: Exactly! So if we scare them away with the heavy metal we bring them back with the ballad. And vice versa! If we scare them away with the ballad we bring them back with the heavy metal! I know the radio promotion company was also very enticed with the situation and had recommended to us that instead of picking a single so to speak, and ram that down the radios throat and the listeners throat, they had chosen on this particular record to use the whole record and give it to the radio stations that way. So if there was a radio station in the mid-west that was into heavy metal or if there’s a station in the northeast that was into the ballad kind of thing we weren’t closing the doors on anybody and it’s really gone over well. The response has been very very great in regard to the radios response.
STINA (RR): You’ve been around and involved in a lot of really great projects and I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of changes in the music industry. Again, being from Jersey I’m very familiar with the New York City scene and I’m wondering if you think the concept of albums is sort of going by the waistside? Do you think a whole album can still hold the attention span of a listener or are singles kind of important to have. I think it’s cool you said they passed on the whole album because it sounds like it’s packed with singles. I’d like nothing more than for someone to come out with ‘A Dark Side of the Moon’ album but do you think people can handle something like that?
John Macaluso – drumsDON: That’s a very good analysis. Listen, I think more of that syndrome, that single I’m only interested in one song at a time thing, probably applies mainly towards pop music because those cats are in there and you’re hearing that same song nonstop on the radio twenty times and when people are done with that song, they want the next song with someone who is going to sound different and find the next trend. But when you come to rock and metal, I say metal even though we’re not a real metal-metal band, but the bottom line is if you like the sound of a band, you know I love Alice in Chains and I put on an AIC record and yes there are the hit songs but I’m going to listen to the whole album because I love the sound of the band. So with rock music, if you love the sound of the band, because rock bands you know they’re coming to town and they’re going to play a rock concert and you’re going to be spending the evening with that sound. So we get a little benefit as far as people having a little bit of a larger attention span.
STINA (RR): I think the East Coast, and I might be partial, but I feel like we’re holding onto that Rock and Roll culture. Like you said, a rock band comes through and it’s a whole big experience. There’s nothing more exciting than going to a rock show. A lot of the great venues in the city have sort of gone the other way, but it still gets you very excited! This kind of brings me into my next question; you guys have done a couple music videos for Break the Silence and I’m wondering if you think the visual vehicle is still really important in music especially now in such a technological age?
Rob Katrikh – guitarDON: Well, being a video director I’d absolutely have to say yes (laughs) and then being an artist I’d have to say yes again. Yes. Yes. Yes, Because truthfully as far as an artist to hear a creation, a piece of art that you’ve created, a piece of music, to now not only have an audio attraction to people but also a visual attraction to people and then there’s another story to be told. And sometimes you’ve got to be careful that the visual does add up to the audio but the bottom line is as far as that artistic creative freedom-it’s overwhelmingly phenomenal! And then on the video director side, with any band, sometimes I get some young bands in here and they want to do some videos and I just can’t encourage them enough because truthfully you could sit here in the middle of New York or New Jersey and do a video, and then have that video on youtube tomorrow and people in Russia could be watching it. I mean that kind of exposure and accessibility is just outstanding! I guess everyone is just trying to figure out how to handle it because there’s such a saturation there.
Watch the Premiere of Voices of Extreme’s Official Lyric Video for “Numb”
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STINA (RR): And I think people just like to see what you look like! Is there one song that you remember growing up that you kind of blasted in your car and turned up really really loud whenever it came on?
DON: I used to love to crank up Ted Nugent. Gonzo and all that. There’d be some cursing on the narrative in between the songs so that probably didn’t go over too well. But anything that rocked and he surely did and does still I’m sure. That one quickly came to mind.
STINA (RR): Anything else you’d like our readers to know about Voices of eXtreme, the tour, or the album Break the Silence?
DON: We’re very excited to get this thing rolling. We are looking forward to meeting fans that may have never noticed us before and maybe found us on youtube. We are truly looking forward to drawing on that personal experience and getting a chance to perform in front of them.
STINA (RR): I gotta tell you I really am so excited to see all the good that you guys have coming. I think you’ve paid your dues and you’ve got a sound that envelopes others and it’s going to bring people out and they are going to be fans of V.O.X. if they weren’t before. From a Jersey Girl to a New York boy thanks for talking to Rock Revolt!
DON: Stina, thank you so much! I hope you come out and we get a chance to meet each other! Thank you, you have a great night!
By: Stina Marie Harris, Senior Journalist
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