June 15th, 2009 
James Shotwell First and foremost, we at UTG would like to introduce you to The Word Alive, these young rockers have been making a name for themselves for a short while, but thanks to a deal with Fearless Records, you’re going to be seeing a lot more of them soon. Note: We did not, nor in future interviews will we discuss the band’s past with Craig Mabbit. Sorry if that’s what you wanted, but that’s old news and this band has too much going for it to bring up the past.
UTG: Hello guys, so I was told that the first thing I needed to ask you was to tell me the story about the deer.
TWA: Dusty slaughtered that deer. [Dusty: the antlers are on my mantle.] We tried to get him to keep the foot as well, but it smelled so bad. We thought maybe we could keep it in the van like a lucky rabbit’s foot, but it smelled way too bad for that..So, it got pitched.
UTG: Haha, well, wow, that’s quite the way to introduce yourselves to our readers, but I think it’ll make this instantly memorable.
TWA: Oh yea, that’s a story that will be around forever. It did a lot of damage and sucked, but now we have a story to tell.
UTG: Since this [The New Nu Metal Tour] is your first national tour, it’s your chance to finally showcase yourselves to the country. Many would say that the bar for this genre [scenecore, brocore, metal] is set quite high because of the flood of acts in it right now. So tell me, why should our readers pay attention to yet another act in this scene, especially such a young one?
TWA: Honestly, I think our writing style is more dynamic. We try to add elements of everything into our music. We as a band have a variety of influences including everything from rock to hip hop and we try to use it all to create something unique. Also, Dusty is the best keyboarder alive. We just try to take everything we love and make it one thing.
UTG: Now, you guys have an EP coming out quite soon on Fearless, what can you tell us about it?
TWA: It’s called Empire. It has six songs on it, five brand new tracks and one that’s been around a bit longer. Actually, one of the songs is the same musically, but is lyrically and melodically different. It’s full of music we love and can’t wait to play live. It was produced by Andrew Wade in Florida [band begins to shout praises of Wade]. We think we might try to go back to him later for our full length.
UTG: Wow, jumping right to thinking about the full length, good move, keep the future in mind. How long do you have for this EP cycle before you can get in to create a full record?
TWA: Tentatively, what we are hoping for is to get an early Summer 2010 release for a full length and then do Warped tour. That’s what we’d like right now, but obviously it’s based on how well this EP does and that’s kind of up to all of you [the readers]. We want to have this be a strong EP for us and be able to support it for ten months and then move on and start recording.
UTG: Are you a band that continuously writes and works on material, even when on the road?
TWA: Yea, I mean, these days you kind of have to multitask like that. We are always messing around with our guitars and stuff anyways, might as well be productive while doing it.
UTG: That you do, especially with a release due out soon. Getting back to touring though, this is your first big run of shows, so what do you have next tour wise?
TWA: We have a few different runs actually. We do 9 days with Evergreen Terrace. Then we have a headlining run with We Came As Romans and Bella Epique that runs July 21-August 16 or so. Then we’ll probably be somewhere playing shows of some scale [laughs].
UTG: Wow, a headlining run already? That sounds a little scary, especially considering that your record isn’t even out yet.
TWA: Yea, we’re a bit on the fence about it. It’s going to be our only headlining run for about a minute or two. We’re going to just go though and work on tightening our live show. We’re good as a band, like as bandmates and being on the road and working together, but this will be a great chance to fine tune things before we go on a larger scale support tour. No band wants to headline just now, but we want to do this for a living and we’re going to do it. We got lucky because we know Sky Eats Airplane and they were kind enough to take us out, but outside of that we’re a new act with no cd sales or anything to attract bands to us for tours, so we have to make things happens on our own for a bit. This is our proving ground and we’re doing our best.
UTG: Well guys, I just got word that you have to go on soon, so I’ll let you go, but thanks for chatting with us…well, me and we’ll be in touch closer to the EP release.
TWA: Thank you so much, see you soon.
This is the bulk of our interview with The Word Alive. A full audio stream will be posted in the future.
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