00:00well people say that you sing well miles oh wow well that's so yeah that was something my mom maybe
00:05said we were sitting around the table at the studio and the question came up what do you guys
00:16think we should name the record and the self-title thing was presented and nobody blinked and said
00:22you know this is actually the perfect time to do it because it's been eight records now
00:27we haven't done it previously and it's a good representation of the last um 20 years of the
00:33sound of this band it's all kind of captured on this album and with that we did the very streamlined
00:39straightforward artwork on the cover just to kind of say listen this is this is about the music it's
00:45not we're not a band that really focuses on our image too much as you can tell you know but
00:50uh
00:51oh come on mark it's just a minute we're incredibly lazy and just self-title is just like it took
00:58a
00:58minute to let's just call it altar bridge no it's it's it's true it kind of captured the essence
01:03you know this this record really kind of leans into the thing that we do more than taking any
01:09right turns left turns that we've done along the way just to a degree i mean we we always kind
01:13of
01:14keep it you know we keep certain hallmarks intact but uh definitely chose not to throw too many
01:22curveballs to the fans not too many like there's no keyboard solos or we're not bringing any jazz
01:28saxophone solos uh it's definitely you know what this is what we do and uh so we figured it was
01:34appropriate just called altar bridge you know we him we will talk generally at the beginning we'll
01:47get on the horn and hey so this is going what are you thinking he might be really excited about
01:51something he heard or a new approach or i might be but it's funny nine times out of ten we
01:57you start
01:58the process and the universe kind of dictates you know where you're going it's a snapshot of where you
02:03are creatively and you just go with the flow and you're informed by everything you know that uh
02:09that uh you know living brings into the fold and and you and you roll with it so you never
02:15you can
02:15you can go into it and say hey let's do this but then life happens and life influences you in
02:20real
02:20time and you just listen only once i think um when i was talking miles about doing maybe an acoustic
02:27album or something it's when he had just put out his first solo record and he's like you know
02:32we're kind of doing the americana singer-songwriter-y thing and that kind of muddies the or blurs the
02:38lines in between the project
02:46now you know that miles has put out his newest record which is more definitely straight ahead
02:51like a harder rock record um now it's back in the cards we can do acoustic he did one time
02:57mark
02:58called up and he's like man i gotta i gotta tell you i've been listening to a lot of uh
03:03accordion
03:04music and i think plugging an accordion into an amplifier with some distortion would be awesome and i
03:10just said no absolutely not no i'm joking i did say on this record i uh i was like you
03:17know what let's
03:18let's not um be predictable let's not do any kind of ballad whatsoever let's just make it an aggressive
03:25straight ahead of aggressive rock record it could be atmospheric it can have moody songs but nothing
03:29like uplifting ballady kind of stuff and um we almost got there we're at the finish line and then
03:36there was a demo that miles had that uh that was great so we're like all right well there there's
03:42certain our fans like it certainly isn't an uplifting ballad i mean it's a pretty you know the
03:47the content of the ballad is pretty i don't say dark but it's it's not a uh you know
03:55it's not something i would consider feel to feel good about i mean i mean when i say i'm talking
03:59about more like a ballad how you expect a ball to be you can play soft songs that are creepy
04:05and eerie
04:05and progressive not that kind of thing but um but more of your typical more straight ahead ball that you're
04:12that you'd hear us do and it made itself on the record but i'm glad i think it's we like
04:18dynamics
04:20but uh and then we had this idea once we're like it'd be good to do a record of um
04:25of songs that are
04:26all like the blackbird type songs all telling these long stories bands like opeth do it so well
04:33but like you said you can you can pre-plan all you want but then a song comes out you're
04:38like well this
04:38four minute song would suck as 10 minutes long so let's just keep it the way it is you know
04:43as far
04:43as the right playing the radio game we did we we did on the first record you could say there
04:48were
04:48some like singly sounding songs on there so i think that what we you know it's interesting it was before
05:00we had our sound though it was before we found our sound i think we kind of decided after that
05:05like
05:06let's approach this more instead of trying to create blockbusters let's take an actor like in
05:11the if you're in the film industry you got you've got the artists and the people who make the
05:15blockbusters and they follow that formula then you have those in more like indie films and we want
05:19to make these kind of you know artsy films not that we're full on artsy i mean that's not what
05:25we're doing but we definitely lean a little bit away from kind of what is mainstream in that sense
05:31and just kind of do what we want to do and we're we're an anr person's nightmare because we're not
05:38going to abide we don't play that game but i remember we were really kind of sealing the deal
05:42was on for the during the fortress era our fourth record and uh they were trying to figure out what
05:47to
05:48follow up our first single with and they want there was a song that was short enough to where radio
05:53might play it and we were like you know what we want to present no we want to do cry
05:57of achilles
05:57which is like a i don't know five or six minute song yeah like it's classical right intro exactly
06:03and you can just see our manager it's just time just pulling his hair just going oh gosh you guys
06:07you're always worst enemy put out whatever your best song is if it's 20 minutes long or not you know
06:12i hate the radio game having having to conform to radio you know radio is great it's a great way
06:24to
06:24present you know to present music to people but not at the at the cost of having to rewrite your
06:30song for radio or specifically try to rate a radio song it's uh liberating to have altar bridge where
06:36we don't have to follow any rules or or have a and r people telling us how to write our
06:40albums or
06:42managers or anybody that would dare to come in you know me and miles have had very long careers i
06:47don't
06:47think that anybody would come in and say hey why don't you try this it's like dude i've been trying
06:51this for
06:52the last 30 years now it's fascinating that we've managed to make it work because they are kind of
06:59you know it's definitely different sides of the fence um but somehow it i guess just this strange
07:07rock and roll stew that we've managed to uh you know find the right ingredients we put i think we
07:15pull
07:15the right ingredients from each of those genres and sub-genres and have found that when you put them
07:22together it it works um but it was certainly some there was some trial and error in the beginning and
07:28and as in trying to create anything that has somewhat of a where you're trying to define yourself
07:33you know and not just simply create something that has already been done and just follow that to the t
07:39to
07:39you know that exact blueprint you art is you you're taking elements from everything nobody there's no
07:46such thing as somebody who's created something out of thin air you are pulling something from somewhere
07:51but it's a matter of what you know how much do you extract from each thing and uh how do
07:57you utilize
07:58that uh to where it's going to it's all going to come together and work and somehow you know we've
08:05gotten
08:05lucky you know i think a lot of it has you know when you when you play these songs live
08:10they're
08:10a lot of fun you know when it's heavy and aggressive and um sometimes when you write the
08:16the sappy ballad it's not so much fun to play live so what are you saying you sing that song
08:21with sappy
08:23you know what i'm saying if it's if it's heavy and aggressive it's great to play live crowds react to
08:28it very well we get put in situations and this is probably a big one we don't think about a
08:33lot
08:33we get into put a lot of situations where we'll be at a festival going on after sepultura or you
08:39know those situate where you're playing back to back with slayer you got to have these you know it
08:44rubs off on you you know you see how it works for these bands you see sepultura just crushing crowds
08:50it's like i want to i want to have that response so you not that you're specifically writing for
08:54anything but but what you want personally but i love that kind of music and if i could somehow
09:00adapt what slayer and sepultured and what these bands that i grew up listening to are doing
09:04have it somehow seep in all to bridge i'm all about it i think we've been doing it for so
09:08long
09:08at this point we kind of once it's turned in and you throw it out there you know you're just
09:12like
09:13well you know you don't care i don't know if you don't care but i think we've learned to to
09:17let it
09:17let the chips fall as they may and try not to be too attached to you know there's everyone's going
09:22to
09:22have their opinions on things and that's great that's this is art and people you don't want to express how
09:28they feel about something but for us you know we feel like i think we can agree on this that
09:34that
09:34we did the best we could and and we were able to take a snapshot of where we were and
09:38and do it in
09:39a in a as honest of a way as possible
09:50like your mom saying if you tried your hardest miles then you succeeded yes yeah so that's all
09:55that's all you can do at the end of the day i think you do more than i do i
09:59i haven't in well
10:00over a decade i don't pay i can't i just i feel like because even if it's good it's not
10:07necessarily
10:08great for the creative process because then i feel like i'm trying to live up to a certain
10:14expectation or i feel like it's actually nudging me one way or the other i think if i continue to
10:19live in the state of complete oblivion where i don't know what anybody thinks i just do what i'm
10:26what i what i do i just it's it's very untainted you know and if it's enough and if you
10:32read something
10:33that's negative then that can have an adverse effect as well you on the other hand have much
10:36i think a different philosophy you tend to you know at least dip your toes in once in a while
10:41well people say that you sing well miles oh wow well that's so yeah that was something my mom maybe
10:46said or do they say you play guitar well well i've i've gotten more like miles over over the years
10:52it's
10:53just um you you could read 10 great things and you read the one lukewarm one and it just pisses
10:59you off
10:59it's like how dare you i put everything i have into this and that's that's you know we put everything
11:03we have in this is very personal to us so somebody who's just like oh let me give it a
11:07listen you know
11:08this you know that will make you you know angry with with people so
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