Walking Godhead’s ‘Shadow Line’

	Jason Miller of Godhead

September 24, 2006

Three years after their last album, Evolver, Godhead—vocalist/guitarist Jason Miller, lead guitarist Mike Miller, programmer/bassist Ullrich “Method” Hepperlin and new drummer Glendon Crain—is back with The Shadow Line, a new album on a new record label. A few days before the kickoff of the “Congress of Corruption Tour,” also featuring Ill Niño, Ra and The Dreaming, Greg Maki of Live-Metal.net caught up with Jason Miller to discuss the new album, the tour and the possibility of spontaneous human combustion behind the drums.

Live-Metal: I know Godhead came out of Washington, D.C., and you’re based in Los Angeles now. Where are you from originally?

Jason Miller: I pretty much grew up in Fairfax, Va. And our guitar player, Mike, grew up in Towson .

I was just curious because I’m in Maryland, over on the Eastern Shore. Did you ever get over here when you lived out this way?

Yeah, sure. Ocean City .

Growing up around here, did you go to a lot of shows in the area?

Oh yeah. I used to go to Hammerjacks all the time. That’s always where the best shows would be. Or the old 930 Club. Those are the places I would go, as well as the Capital Centre, as it was called, the Baltimore Arena, places like that.

Did you get to play any of these places with Godhead?

Yeah. The coolest place was—I went to George Mason University [in Fairfax, Va.] and I used to work at the Patriot Center while I went to school there, putting down chairs, for instance, to make extra money as a college student. And then when we opened for Marilyn Manson six years ago, we got to go back and play.

I was at that show.

That was really cool because that was like coming full circle, going from working there to actually being a performer there.

When and where was the first-ever show for Godhead?

Well, it’s kind of hard to say because before it was called Godhead, the band was called Blind. We sort of transitioned into being called Godhead at a certain point because we got this deal with this European label, but there was already another band in Europe called Blind or something, so we had to change our name. But I would say the first incarnation of the band, our first show was at the Rathskeller at George Mason University. We actually had two shows the first day. We played the Rathskeller at George Mason in the afternoon and then at night we played at this club that was, like, a Chinese restaurant on one side and a rock n’ roll club on the other.

Are you looking forward to starting the next tour close to home in Towson?

Yeah. That’s gonna be really cool. It’s a cool place to start off because I know the crowd’s going to be real receptive. It’s going to be a really good first night.

Will there be a lot of friends and family there?

A lot of friends and family. My mom lives in Florida now, but my dad still lives in Alexandria [ Va. ], so he’s coming up to the show with my stepmom. There’s gonna tons of friends. It’s gonna be cool.

Is your approach to a show any different when you have that type of audience?

Well, it’s weird. The only time my approach to a show changes—and it’s only mental, it’s nothing that I do differently on stage—is when my mom’s there. For some reason, it makes me extra nervous. But I think it’ll be fine. It won’t really be any different.

What should fans expect from the “Congress of Corruption Tour”?

It’s gonna be a really cool collection of all these great bands. We’re all kind of different. We all fit in the same genre, but I think you’re not getting any carbon copy bands on this tour at all. I think it’s gonna be something for all different rock fans to enjoy. Also, we’re bringing out a lot of production. We’re bringing out a lot of lights. We’re bringing our own PA. Because we’re all on the same label, it’s a little easier to do that. We’re trying to give people a little bit more than just bands playing in a club or bands playing in a theater. We’re really trying to step it up.

Speaking of the label, Godhead was the first band signed to Cement Shoes Records. How did that come about?

I’ve known [Cement Shoes Records President] Dan Catullo for a year or so now. He’s been friends with my manager. He’s somebody that I really believe in because I’ve seen the kind of success he’s had. I mean, you don’t need to believe in somebody when you look at their track record. And he’s already been in the music business, just on the DVD side. He’s had something like 20 number ones or something, from Dave Matthews Band to Godsmack to Duran Duran to Destiny’s Child. This guy really has done quite a lot in the music DVD world. Another really good aspect to the label is that it’s part of Universal, which is definitely one of the big ones and has proven that it can be successful, as well. It seemed like a great place for us to go and so far they’ve done everything that they said they were gonna do and more. So it’s a great situation for us.

Was the three-year gap between albums by choice or was that part of changing labels?

No, that wasn’t by choice at all. That was definitely just part of the sign of the times right now with the music business and how long it takes to just get everything settled. Every year there’s less labels and every year it gets harder and harder for people to find success in the music business—the CD business. The music business is alive and well. The CD business is kind of suffering. Unfortunately, you kind of need all pistons firing to have a career as an artist. You need some help. You need a label to help you to a certain extent. You need touring, everything. You need it all to come together at the same time.

After the last album, when 311 released an album called Evolver a week later, were you checking new release lists to make sure no one else took The Shadow Line?

[laughter]

I was pretty sure that no one would have that. I’ve since become friends with P-Nut who’s in 311. We announced the name of our album and then, like, two weeks later they announced their’s. It was kind of like, “Oh, OK. Well, I guess our genres are kind of far apart.” I don’t know. It kind of felt like maybe they weren’t really paying attention to us or something, like what we’re doing doesn’t really matter or something. But that wasn’t really the case. But yeah, to make a long story short, I didn’t think anyone would have The Shadow Line. [laughs]

What exactly is the shadow line? What’s the meaning behind the title?

I read this book by Joseph Conrad called The Shadow Line a few years ago and I always thought that that was a great name for an album. Basically, it represents the line between adolescence and maturity. It’s sort of the coming of age, the coming into your own kind of thing. The book is about a captain at sea that goes through all these hardships and then makes it out alive. I thought that was a good analogy for what this band has gone through, but that we still have stayed together as a unit and now have come out to live another day.

Musically, it seems to keep going in kind of the same line of Evolver with a more stripped-down, live feel to it. Was that a conscious decision that the band made at some point?

Yeah, because that’s really more of what we’re all about. At a certain point, when people always come up and tell you that your live show is better than your record, you gotta think about that for a while and be like, “How can we make our records sound as good as our live shows?” That necessarily wasn’t the thought going into it. These songs are just songs that we wrote. It wasn’t a conscious decision that we need to match our live show with our record or something like that. It’s more of like, “Let’s make the best record that we can make.” There’s definitely a lot of electronics in there, but I think we’ve sort of changed our philosophy on how we write and we’ve evolved further and become closer as writers, like Uli and I, with each other and how we write together. So that’s just kind of how it evolved.

Also, I’ve noticed the image of the band is kind of toned down, less makeup and Method using his real name. Did that follow naturally with the evolution of the sound?

Yeah. I’m still all about the visual. We still are definitely wearing makeup. We’re not trying to step away from what we were before. Godhead is what it is. But I think we might have looked a little too over the top, looking back at it. It’s maybe a more mature us, but it’s still us. The thing that I don’t like is when bands that wear a lot of makeup or something like that, they just go up with jeans and T-shirts and just don’t care. That’s not what we’re doing at all. We still have a very streamlined show and presentation of ourselves. It’s just that we wanted to look a little bit more how we feel now, but you’re never gonna get jeans and T-shirts from us.

There is a new drummer in the band. What was the reason for the change?

Well, we’re gonna sound like Spinal Tap or something.

Yeah, I was going to ask you if you’re worried about spontaneous combustion at this point.

That probably will be the next thing that happens. [laughs] I hope it doesn’t to Glen because we really like him a lot. But yeah. What can I say? After Evolver, after we recorded Evolver, Tom Z kind of had a life-changing epiphany or something and decided he didn’t want to tour. Then we got Ken Jay, who had just recently left Static-X. He was in the band for a while and I guess we were kind of like the rebound girlfriend for him, because at a certain point, he had an epiphany and decided he didn’t want to even really be in the music business anymore. So then it made sense for us to invite [original drummer] James [O’Connor] back into the band.

It went great for two years and James actually is the drummer on this record. He actually played on the record. And then four days before we were going to shoot our video, I get this text message saying that he’s quitting. I wasn’t completely surprised, because I could just tell that he was unhappy. I think he was one person that wanted our image toned down even more. I think he wanted us to go kind of a commercial route and I don’t think we really saw eye to eye on the direction, on what the plans were. Unfortunately, having a lot of downtime made us—we had to pursue different things. I opened my own recording studio and I do a lot of acting. He started being—I’ll throw it all out on the line—he became a mortgage broker and started making more money at that than he would at music. And he got married, et cetera. I respect that. When I go on tour, I know I’m going to make less money at first, but I believe in the band. This is my career. We’ve started this thing. I intend to live it out. I think this is the best shot that we’ve ever had. We’re on a great label. We have a larger marketing budget than we did when we were on Manson’s label. When you look at the numbers as far as the chances that we’re going to have, everything looks really, really good. I’m certainly not gonna stop, Uli’s not gonna stop and Mike’s not gonna stop. So that’s where we’re at with that. Unfortunately, James didn’t really see eye to eye, and I think after he saw the video and saw all the promotion and saw all the album ads on TV and stuff like that, I think maybe he regrets his decision a little bit. You can’t just sit around and wait for something to be handed to you. You’ve gotta get out there and work at it. And I guess maybe he just didn’t want to work at it anymore.

So how did you find Glen?

Glen has been around town in L.A. He played for John 5’s band, Loser, which was on Island and then they got dropped right before their record came out. He’s a great drummer. He used to be in a band called The Feds on Capitol Records, as well. One of those guys who can play anything. You show him a song twice and he’s got it. And that’s cool ’cause I’ve worked with musicians like that, but I’ve never had one in my own band. There’s guys like that, like there’s this guy Michael “Fish” Herring that I’ve worked with before. He’s a guitar player. He’s played for, like, Christina Aguilera and Anastacia. He’s one of those where, like, you’ve gotta put a sheet a music in front of him and he’s gotta know it the first time. And Glen’s a drummer like that and that’s just awesome to have somebody that good in your band. He’s actually made us tighter and better as a band, and it’s gonna make the live show even better.

Earlier, you mentioned the acting and voiceover stuff you’ve been doing. How did you get into that?

I acted when I was a kid and then when we moved out to Hollywood , I was like, “Well, if we have downtime, then I might as well do this.” It’s fun and I guess it beats being a mortgage broker, right? So I started taking some classes and then the first guy that gave me my first voiceover job is a Godhead fan. He helped me and I started getting more work and started doing stuff for Nickelodeon. It’s been a blast and I’ll continue to do it when I have the time, but Godhead is really my number one absolute priority.

Between Godhead, your own studio and the acting, do you have any free time?

Yeah, sometimes. [laughs] I just spent three days of teachings with the Dalai Lama. He was here in L.A. and so I was going to classes for that. I was able to move my schedule around. Now this Buddhist monk from Tibet is actually spending the night at my house tonight. He’s a friend that I made. The Dalai Lama went to New York today, but my friend isn’t going to New York until tomorrow, so I told him he could stay at my place. He’s actually checking his email right now.

[laughter]

I think that’s about all the questions I have for you right now. Is there anything you’d like to add?

I want to thank everybody for sticking with us as long as they have and let them know that we’re back and we’re gonna tour relentlessly even after this big tour. We’ll be back again and we plan on touring for the rest of this year and probably half-way through next year, too.