This is the second interview I've done with Steve Beckett from MXG! Since you have to be registered at the site to read it I decided to post the entire thing here again. All four of us did an interview for Vernois News last week that we'll hopefully be able to put up here too when it's published. Here's the one I did with Steve:


Steve: I'm here again with Michael Hicks of the Illinois progressive rock band Defused to talk about, amongst other things, the bands next CD, merchandise and Mike's personal favorite ice-cream flavor. SO over to you Mikey, how’s it going? Are you well?

Michael: Hey Steve! I'm doing well, how about you? I'm already looking forward to the ice cream discussion.

Steve: But of course, but of course! I am doing alright thank you, it’s nice to speak to you properly again after such a long time. It's always a pleasure to interview you. Anyway, to get to the point, I hear rumors (even if they are from you) that there is a new CD coming out?! Spread the goss will ya?

Michael: Yeah it has been a while hasn't it? We have been working on a new CD called "An End to Corruption" and we just today announced that it will be released on January 5th of next year! We've been working on this CD a whole lot so it feels weird to say it's finally completed. We started writing as soon as we finished the last CD, and we recorded for about 7 months straight.

Steve: And it's going to be in the fans’ hands in just under 2 months! Are they getting excited? And if not should they be?

Michael: A lot of people have really been amped up about this CD. Which is a great feeling, I think people that have seen us live are a little more excited than others. Just for the fact that when we recorded the last CD we had never played out live. Now that we've done some live shows we have a lot better idea of what the recordings need to sound and feel like.

Steve: That's cool, but do you sometimes worry you'll conform to what people want to hear, rather than project who you are? How many live shows have you done by the way? And is it a completely different buzz from being in a studio/busting some jams in the front room?

Michael: I worry about that a lot. I think there are some people who are expecting us to play heavier songs all the time. All of this was going through my mind when we started recording the new CD. There was no pressure when we recorded the last CD, but there was a little bit this time, I felt like people had some expectations for us, and I wanted to make sure that we could please our listeners, but at the same time be entirely true to ourselves. We defiantly pulled that off I think. We have done around 10 shows, we don't play out as much as most bands, but I felt like each show we have done has been full of energy and emotion, I think we grow a bit each time we play a show. But that's just me, maybe the other guys feel differently about it. And playing live is a lot different than being in a studio, when there are a bunch of people watching you that changes up everything completely. Both playing live and recording have totally different vibes.

Steve: Ten times isn't that few for a band who have only relatively recently started creating a stir! It's not like you're quite ready to go on tour yet is it?!

Michael: Yeah that's true. We are actually planning a tour for next summer, it's not entirely official but we're hoping to hit up some towns where the support on the web has been the greatest. The weird thing about us is that the vast majority of our fan base isn't from our hometown. We just recently started to get known in our own hometown. That's the effects of the internet I suppose!

Steve: Most definitely! Though I guess a UK tour is a bit out of the question at the moment! But yes that should be rather exciting! I wish you well with its preparations!

Steve: As Defused is getting so big now, is there any way I can slyly hint to my friends/family/workmates/random strangers in the street how much I love Defused? When people watch me sip my morning coffee will they be able to discover I drink from a Defused mug? When I'm at a baseball game (which I won’t be) will people see I support Team Defused? When I'm dressing in the morning will I see that I'm putting on a Defused T-shirt? When I write you a letter is there the possibility of me writing to a Defused member, with a Defused pen?

Steve: Do YOU Merch?

Michael: YES!! The shirt part is 100% possible with our new T-shirts! We just had a bunch of Defused shirts made and we are now selling them at our shows. There are three different designs; all three designed by my cousin Rob Connaway. He's had some of his artwork in the local museum, so I figured he was a great choice. Actually, we’re almost sold out of all of our shirts, which is amazing! We're going to have to roll out some more from the looks of it.

Steve: Wowzas! Have you ever been walking down the street, past some people and glanced at them and seen them wearing one of your shirts? Regardless of whether you know I’m talking about Defused shirts, or your own personal shirts I can imagine it being pretttyy freeakky...

Michael: Haha actually yeah that has happened a couple of times already! It's the greatest feeling in the world to walk down the street and see some person wearing your band's shirt! It's freaky but really cool at the same time!

Steve: You should place trackers on them see how far they travel!

Michael: That's defiantly an option for future merch.

Steve: You need to get a competition or something on the go to see who can a Defused shirt the furthest and get picture evidence! Might even make it to the North Pole!

Michael: That'd be a pretty interesting contest; I wouldn't be sure what to offer the winner though, maybe a free copy of the new CD. But that's a lot of gas money for just one CD!

Steve: Yeah you'd have to do better than that…. a big hug with Mikey? I think we'll leave that there!! On the subject of coldness however, what is the best kind of ice cream?

Michael: I'm not so sure that'd motivate them either! I'm still going to have to go with cookies and cream, or strawberry. Either one is pretty splendid as you British people say.

Steve: Simply spiffing old chap! Fancy some croons with your marmalarrrde scooonnes?

Michael: Haha. Yeah we don't do all of that fancy stuff over here in America, we're a pretty boring society.

Steve: I wouldn’t say that at all! America's pretty vibrant as far as I'm concerned.

Steve: Anyhow, back to the point, where was I? And where will Defused be in a year’s time?

Michael: Hmmm.... I'm hoping that in a year’s time a lot more people will know about us. The new CD is pretty massive, and we're all hoping that we can go far with it. We can only try our best and see what happens.

Steve: Indeed. And another question springs to mind that I should have asked long ago, how does the new CD compare to the first? More of the same, or have you fiddled with the musical equations?

Michael: The CD is a lot different compared to the last CD. For starters we had some really odd ways of recording last time. Some of the drum parts on the last CD were being triggered by Brock playing on a keyboard! We like experimenting with different stuff, but this time we recorded the album with an actual drum set and did everything the proper way. Musically we took some different approaches as well, I felt like we needed to change things up. So we took a couple of the things that we felt really worked well on the last CD and added in some new formulas, there are a lot of electronics on this CD. I feel like the CD has been influenced a lot by electronica music, so that has really changed things up.

Steve: And any ideas how the future Defused sound will be? Or does it depend on how the fans take what you are to give them?

Michael: I feel like our music is affected by stuff that happens to us in our lives, so whatever happens to us in the upcoming months will affect our sound directly I believe.

Steve: Cool, and to wrap the whole thing in Clingfilm.... when do I get my copy?

Michael: Maybe it can be a Christmas present haha, I'll have to send you a shirt to wear too, for tea time with your mates! That'd be good promotion right?

Steve: Hahaha good times.

Steve: Well everyone that was Michael Hicks of Defused, hope you enjoyed that, but I’m afraid this has to be cut now as I need my beauty sleep and it’s long into the morning hours!

This Friday we are going to be chatting live with Distortion Radio at 8:00 PM Central/9:00 Eastern. Stop by as Brock and me talk about the new CD, future plans and a lot more.

More info here:

http://www.distortionradio.com/2009/08/25/chat-announcement-defused

The summer is pretty much wrapping up here in the next few days for us and we just want to thank everyone one more time for comming out to our shows or being involved in them in any way. We are going to be taking a break from playing shows for a while to finish up the CD which, like I said in the last blog, is super close to being completed.

The first single from our new CD, Cheating Sin, is going to be released to radio stations and put online in September!! When the time comes closer we'll have more details on that. We played it live at the last couple of shows and it's personally one of my favorite songs we've done so far, hopefully you guys will dig it too.

Until then, enjoy the last bits of summer!