J.LOREN: Hi Tina?

TINA PEEK: Hey J., can you hear me?

JL: Yes I can, I'm in Nebraska right now and there's a very good likelihood that you're going to lose me. It might be a little trying, but we'll see.

TP: Okay, no problem. Hurt’s latest release, VOLUME II, is a follow-up from your debut album, VOLUME I and initially you were hoping to release the collection of songs from both albums as a double CD set. Looking back now, are you happy you released them separately?

JL: You know, I am. It gave us a chance to go back into the studio and re-record tracks on them, and I think it made a better album for it.

TP: Do you have a favourite song to play live, and if so, which one and why?

JL: I do not have a favourite song to play live at all. The other guys probably do, but I'm really kind of all about the song anyway, so...I really like all the songs just about as much.

TP: Can you write anywhere, or do need to separate yourself from everything and go somewhere quiet to write?

JL: I have to have somewhere quiet to write, because it's just impossible for me to get anything really beautiful done in the company of other people, I kinda can't go to that place, you know?

TP: Do you usually write while you’re off tour, or can you still write while on tour, as long as it's somewhere quiet?

JL: I still write while I'm on tour, but I don't get to develop the ideas to the fullest extent. By writing so dramatically, I used to write one or two songs a day, whether or not I kept them depended on how good the song was, but now, I probably write one or two songs a week, if that.

TP: Have you done any writing for the third album yet?

JL: We have a large catalogue of songs in the bag anyway, so it's not like it's crunch-time. I really only write for my own personal satisfaction. But that being said, we've probably written probably about 14 or 15 album-worthy songs.

TP: A lot of these songs that you have in the bag, were they written years ago as with some of the songs for VOLUME I and II were?

JL: There's a difference between the ones I'd written years ago with VOLUME I and II. Then there were exceptions, like "Aftermath" and "Ten Ton Brick", which were literally just finished and done the first time.

TP: The lyrics from the first two albums were written mainly by you. On the third album, will the band be more involved in the writing process, or will you still be doing most of the writing?

JL: Well, I focus on writing my own lyrics. I write my own lyrics, but the other guys write the song with me, you know what I mean? But, I have to write my own lyrics.

TP: I heard a rumour that Hurt might be releasing a DVD at some point. Is there any truth to that?

JL: There hasn't been any real truth to that, but we have assembled a large collection of video files.

TP: You weren't allowed to listen to rock 'n' roll at home while growing up, because your parents wouldn't allow it. Do you remember the first rock song you heard and what you felt at the time?

JL: Yes, it was Pearl Jam's "Jeremy", I was at a friend’s house and it was on the TV. I remember it kind of gripped me in a certain way, and it was very passionate and it made the hair on my arms stand up and I thought, "Wow, I didn't know that existed!" Because my impression of rock was just crap that I heard in department stores and whatever.

TP: So what was the first album you ever bought?

JL: That was on accident. I bought a CD player off the hands of somebody and it had a Suzy Bogguss CD in it.

TP: Really? [laughs]

JL: Yeah, and I hated the CD. It was a cover of "Fly Right". I don't know if you recall that old country song?

TP: Yes, actually I do.

JL: Well she did a re-do of it. That was her big thing.

TP: And you hated it?

JL: Yeah I hated it.

TP: First concert you ever saw?

JL: That was Jimmy's Chicken Shack and Earth To Andy.

TP: What are your feelings on the current music scene?

JL: It's still essentially tougher than it was.

TP: You think so?

JL: I dunno my feelings, things are going well for us, and I'm thankful for that. But as far as the rest of the scene goes, I don't know, it's really tough on bands as it is.

TP: Because it's so saturated?

JL: It's saturated, but you know what? I think the best of the best will come through because of it.

TP: They always do.

JL: They always do. It just makes people stronger.

TP: You've been doing some headlining shows and I wondered how much longer you anticipate being on tour?

JL: Well we're going to have to take a three week break. We have some pressing business we have to deal with and then after that, we'll be back on the road again. I think we've only got three shows left on the headlining tour. To say that we've been doing some headlining tours is quite the understatement. [laughs] We've been going pretty much since January. This is our first day off in eight days and before that, there was one day off in eight days.

TP: It's not really a day off either, because you're travelling.

JL: Correct.

TP: So you haven't had many breaks then since the album was released?

JL: Yeah, we've only taken a couple of days off this year.

TP: Has there been any talk about more Canadian dates or perhaps even any European dates yet?

JL: There's absolutely been a lot of talk, but there isn't enough funding yet. So we're going to see what we can do, we're still working on that.

TP: I'm up in Canada and would sure love to catch your show up here. I've heard some amazing things about your live shows.

JL: Oh, I would definitely love to get back to Canada. I love Canada a lot. We've played in Toronto three times, once with Alice In Chains, I think we might have done one on our own, and I don't recall, but I think there was a third one.

TP: If you could play with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?

JL: Hmm...I think it would be Johnny Cash. I just like him.

TP: Interesting choice. In your opinion, what's more difficult, writing the song, or finding the right sound to go with the song?

JL: Oh it's definitely finding the sound. Writing the song is easy.

TP: Do you find writing does come easy for you?

JL: Well the thing is, I enjoy writing the song. It's still a challenge. It's not like it's easy, because if it was perfectly easy I wouldn't like it. I enjoy the challenge of it. But finding the sound is not a pleasurable experience for me, because you just sit there with your equipment for a while.

TP: Once the song is finished, once you've finished writing it, do you already have an idea of the kind of sound you want to go with the song, or does that just happen when you guys all sit and jam together? How does that work for you?

JL: Usually I have a very specific idea of what the sound of the song is supposed to be. Unfortunately, most of the time I don't always get what I want out of the sound, so sometimes it's just what it is.

TP: In one word, describe each of your band mates, starting with Evan...

JL: Sweet.

TP: Josh.

JL: Crazy. [laughs]

TP: And Paul?

JL: Succinct.

TP: What's the one thing you couldn't live without while out on the road?

JL: One thing I couldn't live without while out on the road? Food!

TP: Okay, besides the obvious answer of food, is there anything else?

JL: I don't have anything besides clothing.

TP: You could live without your cell phone? You could live without your guitar?

JL: Yeah. I could live out in the woods for an indefinite amount of time, so yeah.

TP: Is there an album that was magical for you, one that influenced the way you looked at music or one that changed your life?

JL: I think everything that I hear influences me a little bit. I can't say that I every really listen to some of these albums and say, "Wow, that's what I wanna do. I wanna make something that sounds like that." So I don't have one that stands out. Of course, I've heard a lot of albums through the years that have affected me in some way.

TP: Anyone that was your favourite, that stood out from the rest?

JL: [A lot of humming--he's thinking about this and I start to laugh] Hmmm, I'm trying here.

TP: I know, it's a tough question, because there's a lot of great music out there and then there's a lot of shit.

JL: Yeah, there is a lot of shit.

*At this point, we lost our phone connection once again and it was decided we would continue the interview the following day*

JL: Let's hope we have a less frustrating time today!

TP: Yeah, you sounded a bit stressed out yesterday.

JL: I was a little stressed out, we were just finishing an eight day stint and we hadn't had a day off in forever and I was back in a van with a bunch of guys.

TP: I can understand that J. You're tired and travelling and someone's bugging you for an interview on your day off. Having friends in the industry, I'm totally down with that. Are you still in Nebraska?

JL: Yup I am. Had a night off in Lincoln and just had a pint and a burger, and I'm in good shape now!

TP: Okay, let's try and pick up where we left off yesterday, so I'll just get right at it and ask you, what were you like as a child? That's a good question to start with...

JL: I was an outdoorsman, and I was very, very quiet and had basically no friends.

TP: Why was that?

JL: It was just circumstance. I didn't know what it was like to be anybody else so that's just the way I was.

TP: So you were a shy child?

JL: I wasn't shy at all, I was just quiet and yeah, I barely talked.

TP: Really. Is that one of the reasons why you're such a great lyricist, do you think?

JL: I really have no idea, but thank you for the compliment! I do write things a lot better than I speak them.

TP: I've listened to your CD over and over again, and I really love your lyrics. They're great lyrics.

JL: Well thank you very much. I have a little bit of a problem conveying things to people, because I sort of use a different vocabulary from people and they thought that I was, oh, condescending.

TP: How so?

JL: Just that I use a different dialect than most people and wouldn't use words from A-Z, things that would make them feel comfortable, so I just didn't talk alot.

TP: When you say you used a different vocabulary, explain that to me. I'm not following that totally.

JL: Well since I didn't have a lot of personal interaction, I didn't know the slang for a lot of things. You know, it's something you learn. So I just had a difficult time talking to people without them thinking I was a total weirdo.

TP: What's your greatest fear?

JL: My greatest fear would be...falling upward.

TP: Falling upward? Okay, what does that mean?

JL: That's just probably one of the only things I'm afraid of, that and being mauled by a large cat.

TP: But the chances of that happening are pretty slim, I would think, right?

JL: Well there are mountain lions where I used to live, and that was a very real problem.

TP: They were a problem?

JL: [laughs] Yeah, that was a very real threat, really.

TP: How so? Tell me about that!

JL: Yeah. [laughs] Seriously. When you stay out in the woods, you can hear bobcats crying in the nighttime, and there had been three mountain lions that had been slaughtered in the region where I lived. So I was constantly worried about them, because sometimes they are known to chase you down and take care of you.

TP: Do you live near the woods now? Do you have a place out in the country?

JL: I don't have a place period. I live on a tour bus usually, and now that I've left the tour bus, I'm on the east coast and I'm in a van and in hotel rooms in cities. I'm still not quite fully adapted to city life. I still really miss the countryside, because I think America is a beautiful place.

TP: It certainly is. So you were raised in a country, rural type area?

JL: Yeah. There was this show called The Wild World of Ward Burton and this guy bought up all the property around where I used to live and it's a wildlife preserve because no one really lives there. The nearest neighbour was about 50 miles away.

TP: So not only were you a quiet child, but you were probably a bit more disassociated from say, other children who live in more populated areas and that might have had something to do with you not having a lot of friends.

JL: I would say that that's a fair conclusion.

TP: What's in your player right now, what are you listening to?

JL: I don't have a player of any kind. I've received three iPods as gifts from different festivals and things, and I've given them to people who really want to use them. I don't really do a lot of sitting and listening to other people’s music. I've got enough to deal with on my own that I really need to work on, and it's not like there's nothing good out there or anything like that, but I just don't spend a lot of time listening to other people’s music.

TP: Do you think it would influence you too much?

JL: No, it's just generally, why nit-pick somebody else’s work, when I've got so many things that I need to work on of my own. I tend to be a little over-analytical, so every time I'm listening to a CD I find that I'm rarely satisfied with it. I hear the mistakes that somebody else made and I feel like they played a little bit and it just reminds me of the things I need to work on and so I think, "Why am I listening to this, when I've got to get back to work?"

TP: Do you find that you're hard on yourself, maybe overtly so?

JL: I think there's no other way to be.

TP: Really. You don't ever give yourself some slack and say to yourself, "I did the best and that's good enough?"

JL: It doesn't really work. [laughs] I just can't sit and bide my time and wait to do a better job next time.

TP: So you're very critical of yourself and of your work. Do you ever listen to your music and think "I should have done this, or not have done that?"

JL: I find my own music almost un-listenable to me, not because I think it's bad, I think that the music is very, very good, the idea is very good, but the handiwork that I put in, I hear every mistake and every flaw and every argument that we had while we were recording it. And then, every time I hear something where I wish I wouldn't have let it go or I would have just pushed the issue a little more--but you can't fight every battle all the time. I know this and I hear these things.

TP: You have to pick your battles. It gets to the point where you have to choose the ones that are worth fighting for, over those that aren't.

JL: Yeah it does, and you can't take ten years to make an album. But I would. [laughs] And I'm getting much more expedient at getting my use of other people, so it's starting to work a little better. I'm getting a lot of help from my band; they're amazing musicians and once they got used to working with me, they're starting to do things a lot faster. They always had the ability to, but I just don't express myself very well to them.

TP: Who were your musical influences growing up?

JL: There was a lot classical people. I was a big fan of Vivaldi, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Puccini, Ravel, a really long list actually. Pretty much all the popular guys, save for a couple of them, I wasn't really a big Mozart fan. There's a couple of obscure ones.

TP: Interesting. Okay, finish this sentence, "If I wasn't in a rock band, I would...."

JL: [pauses] ...be trying to be in a band. Be trying to compose, be trying to be in the music business, industry, whatever, fill in the blank however you could say that.

TP: Did you always know that you wanted to do this, to be in a band, to sing, to write lyrics?

JL: I did not want to sing and I did not want to be in a band. I did want to write music all of my life and I wanted it to be heard. It could be country music, it could be folk, basically anything but crappy, sheer pop. And not all pop is bad. Anything but something like that and I would be satisfied as long as I got to write down things and really, just dwell on the emotional lifting that it can do.

TP: Do you find that your lyrics come from a deeper, emotional side of you? Where are you writing from?

JL: Well I do write about a very large amount of topics. I have songs ranging from the memento of a music box and what that meant to some people in their stages of their lifetime, to a work painting of Hitler. So you never know what I'm writing about, but I tend to write more conceptually, than I do write literally. Whereas, I have say one song, it's just a narrative line and it's about, I guess by definition, and that's a very rare case, and that's called "The Old Mission". But, typically I see a situation and how it repeats over and over in my life and sometimes in somebody else’s life, and I see the same circumstance just posed in a different way. So, typically I'll write about that and I'll cross-reference these things and use the chorus to combine them. It's basically just drawing your own conclusion by a set of circumstances put together, and I think the conclusion is pretty much inevitable every time, and it's slightly educational when, even to me, when I put it down, I think, "Why is this on my mind? Why does this come to mind?" And then I put those things together and it's like, "Oh, it keeps repeating and this is what happens to people". Because everyone's about the same, like it or not, the millionaire is just the same as the pauper.

TP: That's very true J. You have a song called "Talking To God", which I really like and isn't actually about talking to God at all, but rather, about a relationship with someone. What were you thinking when you wrote that song?

JL: That wasn't a song style that I described to you previously, that was just a very direct generalization of what happened and you know, I think the second verse is a reflection upon my feelings of the issue and then the question again. I think a lot of people like that, because it doesn't take an enormous amount of test of faith to understand what that song is about.

TP: Eric Greedy produced both albums for Hurt. What made you decide to bring him back for VOLUME II and are you thinking of bringing him back for a third time, for the next album?

JL: Well I'm not going to say until I get to the third album what's going to happen, because you know, God forbid something should happen to Mr. Greedy, I'm not going to say that it's going to happen. But as far as VOLUME I, he worked his butt off on VOLUME I and then VOLUME II came around and he did the same thing there. In fact, I'm so glad that I went back with him because we had gotten this mixer, but I'm not going to say who the mixer was, I mean he was a very notable person that we paid a large sum of money to, and he destroyed the record. It sounded so horrible, I actually had a nervous breakdown when I heard the record, and they threw me in a van before the cops came. So, I thought that my life was over, I just literally could not handle the devastation of it. Eric took the album, locked himself in a room for about fourteen days and mixed it non-stop, and we handed it in at the last hour of the deadline date, so there's no question of Eric Greedy's dedication to the music that he's working on and the hours that he's worked. He saved my life.

TP: And this happened with VOLUME II?

JL: Yeah, VOLUME II.

TP: You were pretty upset...

JL: ...yes, wouldn't you be upset if ten years of your life were botched?

TP: Yeah, I'd have to say, I'd be a little pissed off.

JL: Yeah, I was...pissed off is not the word.

TP: I'm trying to be polite because you don't know me, but I would definitely use some other words to describe how I'd feel...

JL: [laughs] Aww c'mon I'm in a rock band, you can use whatever words you want!

TP: Okay, I'd be fucked right off if you wanna know the truth! [we both laugh] I don't know if locking me in a van would've been enough [laughter] How's that? [J laughs] I know you're busy, so I won't keep you much longer, but I wondered if there was anything you'd like to say or any word you'd like to get out there or anything you'd like to see happen?

JL: Well one major thing I would love to see happen, is, I'm so tired of people calling us some form of a metal band. We are just about as far as you can get from a metal band. I wish that would just change quickly, before people say, "Well I thought this was a metal band?" Because I do want to continue making albums, and we make albums as we see fit, and it might have a variety of styles on it. There are a lot of folksy elements, there's a lot of the 1930's Benny Goodman element in our music and that would kind of piss off an ardent rock fan, and I'm a little worried about that. So I don't want to be pigeonholed into anything, I just want to be creating music.

TP: I've listened to your CD and I wouldn't consider you metal. Personally, I think there are too many labels put on rock anyway. There's hard rock, metal rock, punk rock, folk rock--why we have to put so many labels within the rock genre is beyond me. To me, rock is rock for the most part and there will always be elements and variations on that theme, but as long as the music is good, that's all that matters, but I would not call your band metal at all.

JL: No, you know what I mean? And I think it's a terrible label for us. I think it would be fair to say it would be some kind of rock, because I guess you could consider it a relativity soft rock. It's just more of a folk kind of sound, you could still call it a soft rock sound, but then you've got "Ten Ton Brick" which is a very hard rock song, but it's not metal.

TP: I wouldn't put you in that category. I would just simply say you were a rock band, period. There are a lot of great bands and there are people that are always trying to put labels on them, while to me, they're just great bands, they're great rock bands. And all great rock bands have elements within their songs, be they ballads, or a folksy sound or a southern rock sound and most of these bands include a variety of genre's within their music. You've proved that on your album with "Ten Ton Brick", which is one of the heavier songs and yet, one of my personal favourites is "Summers Lost", which is at the other end of the spectrum, but a beautiful song. To me, that's what great bands do, they include a variety of sounds on their records and in their performances. So who's calling you Metal, who keeps putting that label on you?

JL: It was perpetuated by some reporter who put this out in the first place as a description on our first album VOLUME I and it just kept on perpetuating since then, so if you could get that changed for me somehow, if you could try and change it, I'd be a very grateful man for that. You know, my grandmother, my sweet little Italian grandmother, told me in her quiet voice, she said, "Don't raise your voice if you want to be heard. If you yell, people just won't listen." So, it's really stuck with me. You just can't scream at them the entire freakin' time. I mean, when a quiet person raises their voice, you damn well listen.

TP: That's very true, because they rarely say much, so that when they do, you really listen! So is there anything you'd like to say to your fans, or anything else you'd like to add that I haven't asked you? Besides the fact that you're not a metal band, which I will be sure to include in this article!

JL: Thank you for that. I would actually like to note the tremendous amount of support we've had from the fans and I know everybody says that, but they've been bringing us care packages, cold and flu remedies and things like this, and we have been broke as hell and just trying to make ends meet. And literally, the fans put us up on their shoulders and made it possible, so it's just been amazing and we couldn't have done this year without them! We're growing as far as that ability goes, but this has come at a great personal expense, because we haven't had label funding for tour support or anything like that. For instance, our friends Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace and Seether, they asked us to come on a tour, which they had already sold out, just out of the goodness of their hearts, because they're great guys, they love us and they respect our music. But, you don't make a lot of money as the fourth band on a bill, on a sold out tour, that they didn't need you on. So this comes out of pocket, out of the band. We're broke. We have to do headlining shows in-between. We're rushed. We have this unrelenting touring schedule and you can hear the sound of my voice right now. [J's voice has sounded a bit raspy and tired during the interview]

TP: You're with a label now, so what do you see changing, what are your hopes for this?

JL: You know, it's a little by the seat of the pants, I hate to admit. Because my hopes and aspirations unfortunately have to change, they have to be reasonable sometimes. I'm such a zealot when it comes to the music, but everything else has to take a back seat sometimes for the business, and sometimes I don't do the things that are best for the band, but best for the music and best for the fans. For instance, I've had a lot of opportunities, especially when I was a young man, I was approached by somebody at Warner Brothers who said, "You're a very good looking guy.", which I was when I was a young man, I'm not anymore.

TP: Aw c'mon, you're a cutie, don't say that!

JL: [laughs] Well, I was a very attractive young man, and I was told that I would be signing on the dotted line to sing other people's songs and basically, just be a poster boy. And I didn't think that that was something for me. Perhaps these are not the best things to further ones career, but at least I do what I know and are right for my heart, and I can sleep at night that way sometimes. We're with Capitol [Records], but all the major labels are pretty much going under because people aren't buying CDs, and I do understand their plight, because their whole business is driven around people purchasing a disk and that's just not happening anymore. And I understand that once people have caught onto a song, that bands don't make any money off the CD. I know this is true. Bands don't make any money off their CDs, but the record label does, and I hope that the record label will make more money to help with tour support, so you can get out there and push that album. And this is something that 14 year-old kids don't understand. When they take the CD and they burn it off the Internet, they're really robbing the future of the artist and they're also robbing the people that work very hard on the CD, ie the Eric Greedy's of this world. Eric Greedy has four kids, he's barely making ends meet. He's running around now with his personal rig, probably in some random person's house, and this is a professional studio master. So this is what the music industry has come to.

TP: This was one of the questions I had hoped you would elaborate on the other day when I asked you what you thought of the music scene, and I was hoping you'd voice your opinion on just those things you've mentioned: illegal downloading and how it effects you as a band, as an artist and as you just mentioned, even the people that you hire, the producers and mixers, they get ripped too.

JL: Personally, this is not a problem for me, this is a problem for all the people that work for me and it's a problem for all the people that work with me. So I can't stress enough that this is important, and maybe I do understand that you shouldn't have to pay $14.00 for a CD that costs twelve cents to make. I understand this totally. But, that being said, there still should be some method of payment for these guys that work these long hours and they're professionals at their job. I cannot make an album sound as good as Eric Greedy can, although I can record quite well. The guy deserves to get paid.

TP: Fans forget about all the people it takes to record an album. You're just one piece of the puzzle, a big one, but there are lots of other pieces that go into the making of an album and the sound they're looking for, be it the production end, or the mixers, and they're never considered or thought of in all of this, because it's not just about writing great music, it takes a lot of people to put all the pieces of the puzzle together and make it what we hear and I think some people forget that.

JL: This is completely true. You know, I was reflecting on a question you asked me about influential music and while I was shaving, it actually came to me. I remember hearing a Bare Naked Ladies song, and it was "The Old Apartment" and then I heard them go into that little low-fi place, where it was like [at this point J starts singing the verse to me over the phone] and like I said before, I'm a big Benny Goodman fan, a big fan of big bands and all the wonderful jazz music and big band music of that day, and I heard that, in a sort of soft rock format and that effected me, and I think that gave me a lot of the "what to do", a lot of the low-fi things that we do. So that had an effect on me, that was an influence, and I just wanted to share that because I really don't think that there are that many influences that were, you know, relevant. I heard the soundscape in the context of a rock song and I knew that I could do the same thing. I'm not really a Bare Naked Ladies fan, but I just thought that that was a really cool sounding thing. I will stand by my original conclusion that everything you hear effects you in some way, so it's very difficult out of this giant pool of music you've heard in your life to say, "Yes, this effected me". But I never took an artist and idolized him and said, "I want to sound like this". But, this has some cross-reference to the accidental sound that a lot of the Benny Goodman recordings had. He wasn't going for low-fi, he just was. [laughs]

TP: I would never insinuate that you would want to sound like someone else, but I think for a lot of people, there was an album, or a song, or an artist that made a difference, an impact, changed their life in some way, had some kind of influence. For me it was Led Zeppelin. I remember being a very young girl and I was at a friends house and someone put on an album and as soon as I heard "Black Dog" my ears perked up, because I'd never heard them before and I was like, "Who is this?" And everyone there turned to look at me like I had a square peg in the middle of my forehead, they were like, "You don't know who Zeppelin is? You've never heard of them?!"

JL: [laughs] I get that all the time. Three years ago was the first time that I'd heard Pink Floyd, period. My manager was shopping me to the labels and he'd come back and say, "They keep saying that you sound like Pink Floyd." And I was like, "Well, I don't know what Pink Floyd sounds like." And I put it on and I kinda liked it. [laughs] I'm tellin' ya', I just don't listen to music. It doesn't help me do what I need to do. I know what I need to write and I know what I need to get done.

TP: That's incredible that you'd never heard them before!

JL: [laughs] Yeah, I'm serious!

TP: Well, as I said, for me it was Led Zeppelin. Hearing them changed the way I looked at music, being so young and never having been exposed to rock music before, so I would say that they definitely had an impact on me and they will always hold a special place in my heart. John Bonham died before I could ever see them in concert, because I wasn't old enough, but hearing them just opened up so many doors for me musically and exposed me to all kinds of amazing music, so I'm grateful for that and of course, I'm nowhere near as talented as you are, where I can write music or...

JL: ...don't ever say that...

TP: Well I don't sing, or play an instrument, so I don't have the God-given talents that you were given, J.

JL: You know, I played violin and that's all I wanted to do. I wanted to be eclectically, the best violinist who has ever lived, and I played and I played, twelve hours a day, every day and I found that it didn't give me the satisfaction that I had hoped, because the closer I came to get something called "perfect", the farther away from the intention of the song I got. I was kind of chasing my own tail a little bit. So then I said, "You know, there are all these things that I want to write", but I just wasn't sure about them, and I was becoming so consumed by the music, I thought, "Maybe I'll just play, maybe I'll just play." So I tried playing classical for a while and I dabbled in country music, I lived in the country, so people would invite me out as a very young child to this place they called The Stews, because of the area I was in and they would get together and make this Brunswick Stew of all the things that the community had. And there was a lot of drinking and then people would play music until the wee hours of the morning every night. So I started playing country and it was at one of those events, it was one of those Nashville string musicians, I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, but they're pretty much an elitist union that appears on every single country song. So the banjo player that night, he told me, he said, "Boy, it is ridiculous how well you play. How old are you?" And I said "Eleven" and he said, "I have no idea how you did this. So what do you want to be?" And I said, "Well I would be fine being a fiddler for country, I want to be an expressive musician." And he said, "I implore you, don't go into this world. You'll never get in and it has nothing to do with how good you are." And he began to explain the concept of nepotism to me. So then I was greatly disheartened, because I realized, here are my two choices currently, I can play music that people wrote 400 years ago and they're dead now and I can't ever be certain that I'm playing it correctly, although I'm trying my hardest just to play it perfectly. Or, I can try my hardest to beat my head against the wall, to get into a union of dead-hearted employees, that just simply have to do it, because they don't want someone else to take their job. And then I discovered rock later on and I said, "That's it, I can write these songs and I've got a chance of getting them out there, I've got a chance of people caring and liking them." And so I was utterly consumed by it, it took up my life. I just dropped everything that I did and I made the consummation.

TP: Wow. Were your parents supportive of that change? Because I remember yesterday we were talking about how rock wasn't allowed to be heard in your home while growing up, so I wondered if your parents were supportive of your decision to move in another direction?

JL: My father has never been very involved in my music life. He was a helicopter mechanic in the war, so he's gotten quite, well, let's just say he's gotten quite deaf. He never really cared for music and he didn't much care what I did towards music. In fact, this enabled me to switch to rock music and started playing with a full drum set and I could be next to his bedroom and he'd sleep right through it. [we both laugh] So he was always supportive of what I'm doing, he told me a long time ago, something that I should've listened a little more closely to, he said, "I don't care what you do with your life, as long as you're happy. Just don't waste time, just be happy." So I went down this road of making a whole lot of money. I was thinking that maybe I could be very successful and that that would give me the happiness that every person quests for. And I found out that I was so entirely miserable when I was working these 90 hour weeks and I would just come home at night and I'd work around the clock and record at night-time and I was like, "Why am I even wasting my time doing anything else? I know that it's an impossible business to get into, but at least I've got this world of rock, where there's a chance." And I was looking at it and one out of a hundred bands even get to this place and I was taking statistics classes at the time, and I charted it up and realized that this is actually feasible, because one out of a thousand gets to this point, but the odds of becoming, pretty much where we are today, were roughly one in eight hundred thousand, or one in a million at the time and I thought, "This is kind of daunting, but I don't mind doing it." So I came to my conclusion then.

TP: Thank God you did.

JL: I'm very happy with my choice.

TP: So what's next for Hurt, what are some of the bands hopes, dreams and aspirations for the rest of 2008 and beyond?

JL: A little more of the same I think. I hope to keep the band growing a little bit bigger, I want to make the band a little more widespread. But first, I'd like to see the entire United States, to know and accept Hurt, kind of the way the middle of the United States has and I would like to spread to Canada and I would like to spread to Europe and other parts of the world as well. And hopefully get to make some more great music, and I want people to be prepared for a little bit of a difference in the style, because I'm not going to make another album that sounds like it should be VOLUME III, and I'm not going to make a VOLUME III. I'm going to make a cohesive album, sort of like the reference to "Consumation". That album belonged together, everything kind of flowed and made it's own story together and it intertwined and I'm probably going to do that again.

TP: As I said before, I think you're a great lyricist and I'm very much looking forward to seeing your live show one of these days. I'm hoping you make it back up this way again.

JL: I will do my damnedest! Let's hope the luck holds out, because I have written some very, very beautiful songs and I'd love the world to hear them. It's really quite something and I'm excited about them and I just want to be able to stay around and have the success that I've had continue, so that people get to hear them in the future. If there's nothing else I could get, then I'd be very happy to show people. It's not a pride thing, it's just something within me and I just want to share it so badly.

TP: Well J, I can't thank you enough for taking all this time with me, you're a great guy and I hope that I get the chance to meet you one of these days too!

JL: Well it was wonderful to talk to you Tina. Look me up when I get out your way!