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Friday, 16 December 2005 04:39

What’s your take on the Internet controversy?

They can suck my dick.

 

“Persistent” is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “existing for a long or longer than usual time or continuously retained beyond the usual period”; it was also defined as “continuing without change in function or structure.”

When bassist Jeremy Marshall described Cold as “persistent,” it baffled me. Now I realize what he meant. In an era when many bands come and go, and in between maybe get their one hit or 15 minutes of fame, it is hard, especially in rock music, to become a mainstay among music fans. Though Cold is just starting to break into the mainstream, they have had a strong devoted fan base for years. From their self-titled debut in 1998 to the most recently released Year of the Spider, the group continues to grow and make strong albums with meaning; at the same time, they continue to gain fans and popularity. With songs such as “Stupid Girl,” “Suffocate,” “Don’t Belong,” and two masterfully written and touching songs, “Wasted Years” and “Cure My Tragedy,” Cold has created one of the best rock albums of the year. If that does not define “persistent,” I don’t know what does.

Playback St. Louis caught up with Cold bassist Jeremy Marshall just before the group’s August 23 performance at the Pageant. Here is what he had to say.

What are some of the band’s musical influences?

Everybody in the band has their own influences; it’s a wide range, anywhere from ShyDay, Kiss, Black Sabbath to AC/DC, and just all kinds of bands.

How did the band get its name?

We used to be called Grundig and we had to change the name because there is a company called Grundig, so we started throwing names out and came up with a whole list of names; “Cold” was in the list of names. Wes Borland, from Limp Bizkit, wrote a list of names that he thought we should maybe name the band, and he also wrote down “Cold”; the producer we were using at the time, Ross Robinson, thought it was a good idea, and ever since then it just stuck. We’ve started building on the name now and it is what it is today.

What’s the best/worst part of touring?

The best part is the hour you’re on stage every night, the adrenaline rush you get from it and the feeling that you’re doing it for what you love.

The worst part is crowding onto a bus with a bunch of stinky dudes, not having any personal space and having to share a shower and all that crap, the actual living part of it.


How has the band changed since the debut self-titled album to the current album, Year of the Spider?

All of us as people have grown. We have learned this industry and our songwriting ability has grown and progressed, and it shows from the first record to now. You can hear the advancement from the self-titled CD to 13 Ways to Bleed on Stage, and then from 13 Ways to Year of the Spider, you can definitely hear a huge advancement in the songwriting quality and the production quality. If you don’t ____ to yourself on each record, then there’s no reason to make another one.

What would you be doing if you weren’t in the band?

If the band had never gotten signed, I would probably be an electrician, because that is what I was before. If I weren’t in the band anymore, I would probably go into producing or engineering. I would stay in the industry, but I would want to be in the production side of it instead of the performing side of it.

Does the band have any plans in the future to sign other bands like Limp Bizkit and Staind have done?

At this point, we’re just on the edge of breaking out to be big enough to start a label like that, but the industry right now is kind of in a slump because of this Internet downloading and everything. And everybody is losing money and it’s not a real smart idea to create your own label right now, until they figure out what is going to happen with all this Internet downloading stuff. So, at this point, we’re just trying to keep our heads above water and push our album and then, once we finally gain some status, then we will consider getting some other bands started.

What’s your take on the Internet controversy?

They can suck my dick.

So you’re against downloading?

I hate it.

What do you think fans get out of the band’s music?

I’ve had a lot of fans come up and tell me that our music helps them through hard times. It’s like a therapy device; they use it when they need to feel better, or when they’re down they listen to it to feel up. It does the same thing for us as band members; that’s the reason we write these songs. If we don’t, we’ll just go crazy and explode, because all this stuff is pinned up inside us, and I think the fans can identify with that. They pull the same thing out of it that we do. It’s like therapy.


If you could think of one word to describe the band, what would it be?

Persistent.

Do you have a favorite song to perform live?

It changes all the time, but some of the songs I like to play live we don’t play live. So I would say, in the set that we are doing right now, it is “Suffocate,” because it is the new single and people are responding well to it and you can see them singing along. It’s a fresh song and that always inspires you when you’re playing it live.

What do you think the future holds for Cold?

Hopefully, we just keep releasing singles off this record, grow, and push this record to platinum status. Depending on how many singles are out, go in and make another record or keep pushing this one, it depends on how the momentum is. But right now, the momentum is very strong with this record, so it’s a long time before we will consider writing another one.