I was into punk rock back when I was in high school. I used to go around to dive venues and take photographs. But now it's been just much more about the country stuff and soulful folk.
The Pandoras began as a '60s punk group. Then they went pop, then metal. When they went metal, I quit because I hate heavy metal music and I wanted to write my own songs.
Oh, I think country has changed tremendously. I think country has totally changed. Country music when I was a kid was Hank Williams. If you put Hank and Elvis together, there wasn't that musical difference. But as the Beatles showed up and the English invasion, I think country music got pretty far away from rock n' roll.
I had gone full-on folkie; I'd had it with bands.
Lana Del Rey seems to be bothering everybody because she allegedly 'remade' herself from a folk singing, girl-next-door type into an electro-urban kitty cat on the prowl (of course I like her), and they feel she is inauthentic.
Country sure has changed in the last 10 years. It was one thing, then it was another. Country has slowly marched toward a rock beat and rock preservation. Country artists of today. Man! That's how I used to sound in the '80s.
The music that I've had out so far was obviously very pop, but when I signed with Hollywood Records, I was like, 'I know that's the music you're familiar with, but that's not what I want to sing. I want to do country.' They were on board with it!
My church people supported me when I made my transition from gospel to bounce and that made it a lot easier.
I had the idea to spend the year off in 2008 and start writing a rock album. I wanted to do something else other than melodic metal after more than ten years of After Forever. I thought it would be nice to sidestep into rock.
Radio used to be dominated by Tom Petty and artists like that. If Tom Petty came out today, he'd be played on country radio - all that stuff would. I think the genre has opened itself up to more styles of country, and I think that's a good thing.
