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BRYAN COX: What’s happening man?

RYAN OGLE: Not much bro, how are you doing?

BC: I’m good, I’m good. Same old shit you know.

RO: The new album kicks ass man! How would you compare it to what you’ve done in the past?

BC: Well you know man, I was really proud of the last record and there were things on the last record where I felt we were headed in the right direction, musically. But I think we kind of learned from some of our mistakes on that one; we learned what we’re good at doing, what we’re not good at doing. I think we refined what we do a little bit more this time. In addition to that, the obvious thing would be the inclusion of Kyle (Thomas, ex-Exhorder, ex-Trouble, Pitts vs. Preps) on vocals has made a world of difference. I’m with you man. I think the new one smokes everything we’ve done, personally. That’s how I feel about it.

RO: I don’t want to spend too much time on this, as I’m sure you’re probably sick of talking about it. We’re you surprised when Johnny (Weils, ex-vocalist) up and walked away from the band?

BC: Was I surprised? No, I wasn’t surprised. To be honest with you we were getting ready to ask him to leave anyway. He was extremely non-productive during that time period. I’m not pointing fingers or blaming anybody, but he just wasn’t into being in the band and it was pretty obvious. We were starting to make some considerable headway writing the new record and he wasn’t contributing anything. If we had wanted to stay on the schedule that we had anticipated keeping, he was behind. We were kind of frustrated. We didn’t want him to leave; we just wanted him to get to work. We gave him several opportunities. I don’t hold any resentment against the dude, but he wasn’t feeling it and he wasn’t into what we were doing and he just kind of fucked off, basically. He quit in an e-mail and left town before any of us had a chance to talk to him.

RO: I guess it worked out for the better since you hooked up with Kyle in the end. How did he come to join the band?

BC: Through a friend of a friend. A good friend of his from New Orleans, which is where he’s from, lives up here in Richmond, VA now. When she found out we were looking for a vocalist, she said we should hook up with Kyle. Of course, we were familiar with him from Exhorder and the other stuff he’s done and knew that he had a killer voice. It was a no-brainer. We just had to work out the logistics and figure out how we were going to make it work. Fortunately, he was willing to do it and everything worked out great. Thanks God Johnny Weils left the band. He was good aT doing what he did, but it’s not everyday that you come across someone who can sing like Kyle can. I’m stoked.

RO: So he was your first and only choice.

BC: Yeah, realistically. We talked to several different people over the course of the few months that we were looking around, but as soon as we checked Kyle out we said “It would be killer if this dude could do it.” We knew he would be able to what we wanted; it was just a matter of things working out to where he could be here.

RO: Like you said, he was the obvious choice for the music. Outside of that, what does he bring to the table, personality-wise?

BC: He’s a genuine, genuine, genuine dude. He’s a nice dude, [he’s] easy to get along with, he likes the same shit we do. He’s very easy to get along with. We’ve done an ample amount of shows on the road with him and they all went really well. It’s working out really well.

RO: You’ve stated before that Alabama Thunderpussy is stronger and more cohesive than ever. Was Kyle the catalyst for this or is a combination of things?

BC: When you’ve got everybody in the band into what you’re doing and everyone feels strongly that the music that you’ve written and recorded can be successful and you feel confident in the product that you’ve created, that’s a really good feeling. Kyle is definitely a big part of that. Having someone like that on your team is a something else; it’s a big boost to the confidence level of everybody. Without putting too much of the focus on him, we all really worked our asses off, before he even came into the band, to make sure all of these songs we were writing were the best they could be. We all really took stock in what we do and, like I said, really focused on what it was we could do best and capitalized on it this time around. We also tried to improve in what we do and hone in our craft a little bit more and become a better band. That was all previous to him coming aboard.

RO: Do you think that writing a lot of the music without a vocalist in the room with you to help guide the songs made Alabama Thunderpussy tighter as musicians?

BC: It couldn’t hurt anything you know. The thing is we really tried this time around to envision a vocalist and what they would bring when we were writing the songs. We’re going to be a vocally driven rock band, that’s what we do. This time around, we really wanted to work on arrangements that would work for vocals. Assuming that we were going to find a suitable vocalist, we wanted someone to be able to come in and do something cool, based on how we wrote the song. We did have vocals in mind when we were writing this shit, but yeah, being able to focus exclusively on the music and just sit down and drill certainly helped us.

RO: Were there a lot of expectations going into this album, based on the success of your last one?

BC: We always try to top ourselves and I think the only preconceived notion we had on this record was for all the songs to kick ass. We didn’t want to go into some of the more fruity, experimental stuff, which I’m glad we did, but I think some of that stuff on the last record; there are moments when it’s cool, but that’s not necessarily what we’re best at. I think we just wanted to make sure, this time around, that everything had the foot-up-the-ass a little bit more. As far as commercial success, you can never predict when something cool like that is going to happen to you. We work hard to try to get into places and squeeze our band into cool spots, but it’s more of a "be in the right place at the right time" situation that has more to do with that than anything. There were no real expectations that we had; we just wanted to make sure we put our best into everything. I’m really proud of the results myself.

RO: Tell me about the recording process itself. Did you return to the same place where you recorded Fulton Hill?

BC: No, Fulton Hill was actually recorded in a house. This time we actually did go into a little studio here in town. It’s really not much more impressive than were we went last time; there’s a big room that’s been sound-proofed, an iso-booth and a control room. It wasn’t really anything too fancy. The ace that we had in the hole this was working with Ian Whalen who is a fucking badass engineer with a great set of ears. He’s kind of a novice actually, but he’s got this innate sensibility of what sounds good and knows how to make the shit sound nice. We didn’t use a lot of trickery honestly. It’s all about getting good tones and good mic placement and making sure everything sounds good naturally.

RO: The album sounds as if it was recorded during a live jam session.

BC: Yeah, we pretty much did do everything live. The drums were all tracked live and then everyone went back in and redid what they needed to redo to make sure everything was nice and tight. We wanted it to have a live feel and more so than playing live, there is no multi-tracking. It was basically one guitar track per guitar player. That’s more of an honest interpretation of who we are as a band. We multi-tracked everything on our other albums, but we did a little research and did a little thinking and decided that it would be a more powerful album if we found really strong guitar tones and really dialed in on the playing and made everything tight. That’s what we did.

RO: That’s really refreshing to hear too; when you think about how many bands these days play through computers and use Pro-tools for everything.

BC: Yeah, totally man.

RO: When you see these bands live, they don’t sound anything like they do on the album.

BC: Exactly man, that’s the whole thing right there. We are, to a certain degree, a live band. I think that’s one of our strong suits. We definitely can get up onstage and deliver the goods. We were actually going to attempt to just track the whole thing live, but I think we owe it to ourselves and the songs to make sure they were a bit more meticulously performed. So the guitarists went back in and played their parts over, but it’s just them playing their guitars. There’s no hocus-pocus at all. It’s all straight-forward performance that you’ve got there, son.

RO: Before you went in and recorded Open Fire you did “God Song” for the Eyehategod Tribute.

BC: Yes we did. Initially, we chose that one, well first of all because it’s a bad ass song. I love that song; it’s my favorite on that record. We were actually going to get this dude here in town, Skillet, to do vocals on it. We picked it because it’s instrumental and has those Charles Manson samples over it. Whenever they would play that song here in Richmond, Skillet, who’s a local lunatic/punk rock singer, would get up there and do some freeform vocals over the top of it. We originally, since we didn’t have a vocalist, wanted to bring him and have him do his thing on it. But, he went chicken-shit and wouldn’t perform unless he was wasted, and we had like a day to do the recording, so we said fuck it. We thought it was a good enough tune as it was so we just did it instrumental. We added some extra guitar solos at the end and did it our own way. I love that song man, it’s a killer tune.

RO: [Prior to the release of the album] you guys posted some of the new material online. What was the initial reaction?

BC: I haven’t heard any negative reaction. Everyone I’ve talked to has been really positive about it. I don’t think anybody is going to waste their time posting something like, “These songs suck!” At least not on a band’s myspace page; nobody is going to go through the trouble of getting added as a friend just so they can bash the tunes and get deleted.

RO: Tell me about the video shoot for “Words Of A Dying Man.” I heard that things got pretty crazy.

BC: We had this big house party with a sort of loose storyline going through the thing involving some friends of ours and some events that happened over the course of the party. Some mild acting, you might say. Some random, chaotic scenarios that we got friends of ours to act out. It was a staged house party, so we got a keg of beer to get everyone kind of lubed-up, but it honestly turned into more of a party than we anticipated. We ended up going out for a second keg during our lunch break and that fucker was floating in two hours. People were drinking out of sauce pans or whatever they could get their hands on to fill with booze. We shot it in this house where Erik (Larson, guitar) practices with theother band he plays in, a crust-metal band. It’s your classic punk rock house, you know what I mean? All of those kids were over there too for the shoot. It was a bunch of hell-raisers for sure, but it was fun as shit. We’re going to premier it on the internet. I’m not sure when it’ll be on MTV. You send something to them and they have to run it through the gauntlet and even if they approve it you have to wait in line before it gets played. You’ll be able to see on the internet for sure though.

RO: What’s life on the road like for Alabama Thunderpussy?

BC: Well, we sleep in Motel 6 more than we used to. We still prefer to stay with people any night we can and just rough it on someone’s floor or couch because it’s cheaper. Generally, we wake up whenever we need to, which is usually way too early, head to the next town, load in and grab a bite to eat. Then we get to sit through three or four really shitty bands and sometimes one or two good ones, if you’re lucky. But most of them are pretty crappy. [laughs] I shouldn’t talk shit, but you do play with some doo-doo bands when you do your own thing. There was this band, on the last tour, that we played with in New Jersey called Glacier. They were really good. That’s still one of the highlights of being on tour for me; to find a great band that you don’t know much about that totally rocks your world. So yeah, we play the show, get loaded, go to wherever we’re crashing and get up to do it all over again. I love it.

RO: Over the years, as the band progresses, is it easier for you to balance out the family life and the job with the music and touring and everything else that comes along with it?

BC: Not really. It’s always a strain. If we were making more money at doing the band, yeah it would be easier. We’re still in the trenches as they say. It hasn’t gotten any easier, but we’re used to it by this point and time. We all know what to expect and can better prepare for it, we’re ready to deal with it. As you get more involved with it and get to where you’re putting more on the line; it adds to the pressure and the stress of it all. Don’t get me wrong dude, I love what I’m doing and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. The last 10 or 11 years have been some of the best in my life. I am absolutely happy being in Alabama Thunderpussy.