Sevendust

On Saturday, March 14, Sevendust silently rolled into town with the Limp Bizkit Ladies Nite in Cambodia Tour. Out at Saltair, it stayed nice and quiet until about 7:20 PM when Sevendust hit the stage.

Lajon, the lead singer, stepped up to the mic and in two words shattered the silence as he screamed, “Salt Lake!” Then, this thunderous mayhem erupted, the crowd surged forward and came alive and Salt Lake felt like it was violently jerked out of a deep sleep. You could feel the heart rate of Saltair increase and the pulse quicken as Sevendust exploded. MTV was there to capture Sevendust and Salt Lake City in action. SLUG was there to witness the carnage of it all. Sevendust is made up of five talented guys from Atlanta, Georgia. They are Morgan Rose on drums, Vince Hornsby on bass, Clint Lowery on guitar and vocals, John Connolly on guitar and vocals and, once again, Lajon on lead vocals. At this point and time Sevendust hasn’t seen friends, family, dogs, cats, goldfish or home for about one year. They’ve been working and touring hard in support of their debut, self-titled CD on TVT. Speaking of TVT, this interview went down without any glitches and all the people involved treated SLUG like we were one of the major’s in the big league. Kudos to Carlene and Michelle at TVT and Tim Saunders, the Sevendust road manager. These people went above and beyond the call of duty and made us feel very comfortable. Not to mention, the band is cool as hell and great to hang out with. It’s interviews like this that restore my faith in humankind, rock and roll and all that is good with the world today. So a big thank you to all! Enough of the sugar, baby — let’s roll with it.

SLUG: How do you like playing Salt Lake?

Lajon: We love it. Salt Lake is really good to us.

SLUG: Is this the longest you’ve been on the road for?

Lajon: Oh yea!

SLUG: How do you like it, or dislike it? Is it kind of weird being away from home for so long traveling?

Lajon: Well, you think about any time you leave your house for a weekend and when you go back, it feels as if things are out of order. Then you think about leaving your home for a year, it’s just compounded. The downfall is being away from your family, but on the other hand we are doing the thing that we always dreamed about doing, and that is being in a band and touring. In a lot of ways, being on the road is fun and at this point we are used to it.

SLUG: What’s come up after this tour?

Lajon: We go home for 2 weeks, then we hit the road again. At that point we toured with Coal Chamber and Megadeath. After that we do the Ozz Fest. We’ve got the main stage at the Ozz Fest.

SLUG: Oh good man, that will be great!

Lajon: Yeah, we’re going to kick some ass this year.

SLUG: Yea, definitely. What’s your background? I know that you haven’t always been involved in hardcore.

Lajon: No, actually I was in an R&B funk, soul band, I guess it’s what you could call it. We did rock and roll. I grew up singing gospel and R&B. When Sevendust got together we wanted to do something heavy. It sounded good, and it was still our original sound. We didn’t expect to get a record deal out of it, we just liked each other and we wanted to jam. We were at the wrong place at the right time and got signed.

SLUG: That’s half the battle, just getting along. Bands spend so much time together it’s like these guys become your family. But a lot of bands can’t hack it, because they fight so much then they end up breaking up.

Lajon: I hate these guys, man. (at this point, Lajon is laughing while he makes a wide sweeping motion with his arm towards the rest of the band.) No, really we get along. We can’t take this time or experience for granted, man. We’ve been wanting to do this for so long, it would be disrespectful to each of us if we did just take it for granted, and fight and argue. The Limp Bizkit Ladies Nite in Cambodia has been a really cool tour. Every night, every show we play, the first few hundred women get into the show for free, so you can’t complain about that. It’s been really cool.

SLUG: So do you miss the R&B funk stuff? Do you enjoy what you are doing?

Lajon: I still sing R&B. We listen to everything from Sarah McLachlan to Seal. So the music is there. This outlet, thank the Lord, allows me to be able to tour the world. We get to tour with Ozzy Osborne, what the hell is that all about? For me it’s just incredible, man. For everybody, it’s incredible.

SLUG: Who were some of your influences growing up?

Lajon: Stevie Wonder, my dad.

SLUG: Your dad is a musician? He plays?

Lajon: He sings. Everyone from Black Sabbath to country music man, I hung out with John Michael Montgomery one night. 

SLUG: (Me totally puzzled and dumbfounded) Did you really?

Lajon: Yea! I feel that with music as long as you have conviction, you mean it, and you are sincere you can get what you’re trying to get across. So that’s all I’m about, is being real and doing my music. It’s what I love to do. That’s what we all love to do.

SLUG: Tell me about your personal lyrics. Personal, non-personal, fictional?

Lajon: Everything dealing with shit that’s going on in my life, that we can all relate to. Except for the song “Face.” Other than that song, we just sing about things that we know about. We’re good guys from Georgia that’ve got this chance to do what we love to do. Like the song “Prayer,” I write about my little brother, growing up, and praying. “Bitch” is about an old room mate of mine. She was a total bitch, she got a song written about her… now they play it on the radio! I went home a few months ago and she was saying, “I can’t believe Lajon wrote a song about me and they play it on the radio.” I was like, “And you know what? They sing it all over the country! I took your bad vibe and turned it into something good! You hate me now, but I love you.”

SLUG: I think the two songs that stand out for me are “Terminator” and “My Ruin.”

Lajon: Really, woah. Those are good songs, I like those songs too. “My Ruin” was on the Mortal Kombat soundtrack. We hardly ever do that song live. On this tour, we only have 30 minute sets, so we just get in there and hammer it out. We pound out the heavy stuff, and the kids are ready to have a good time and mosh it up and shit. We’ll do “Terminator” tonight.

SLUG: Tell me about the quote inside your CD cover.

Lajon: Wow, no one has ever asked me about that, man. It’s from a book about the Sam Cooke story written by Daniel Wolff. I’ve always liked that quote because of the way things are in the world. I feel like we get by and things change drastically, but if you read that quote, it’s so true. Some things never change. Some people try to throw up a wall, or whatever and try to ignore it. But, it’s still true, people with small minds… You know what I’m trying to say, you read the quote. No one ever asked me about that quote, that’s really cool. No one has ever said anything about that.

SLUG: Really? Well, I think that it’s a great quote.

Lajon: Oh, it’s a beautiful quote. It’s so true and it’s really cool that you said something about it. I really wish people would get more out of it, and try to understand it.

Just in case you don’t know and you are wondering what we are talking about, on the inside sleep of the CD jacket, in big letters it says:

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”

—Daniel Wolff

Sevendust can totally kick it live and keep your attention. They already have a strong following. The constant, non-stop touring has made them stronger, tighter and more confident. Most bands are worn down and broken by the road, but then again most bands are weak. Sevendust doesn’t play or act like an opening band. They will kick your ass, regardless of the time slot or where they are on the bill for that night. And the best part is, they will do it with a smile on their face. They are having a great time.

Sevendust will be back in town with the Ozz Festival. Watch for them, and don’t miss them this time around.

—Royce

Read more from the archives:
Stabbing Westward
The Afghan Whigs

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