SEVENDUST TALKS ABOUT THE NOT-SO-GLAMOROUS LIFE

Sevendust is releasing their album Alpha supported with a full slate of tour dates, but they’ll pace themselves on the road.

Sevendust is set to release alpha on their own 7Bros label and the Warner Imprint label Asylum. The label name is appropriate considering Sevendust was seeking asylum from major labels and deals gone wrong.

Usually labels get a large cut of the record deal and artists make money by touring, but for Sevendust thanks to associates they thought were working for them they hit the road harder than they ever imagined.

[Morgan] “The thing that was destroying us so much was the amount of touring we were doing and it was the thing that was keeping us alive.” [Lajon] “It was a catch 22.” [Morgan] “When we were out on the second and third records people were like, ‘You just came here, you know? You’re coming here again?’ The first record is understandable. You go in and you play New York, there’s a hundred people there. You play there again there’s two hundred and fifty, again there’s five hundred, again there’s a thousand, again there’s fifteen hundred, again there’s twp thousand and on, and on, and on. We played New York thirteen times on the first record, and it went from playing in front of a hundred to headlining, I think, Roseland or whatever and doing a sold out show so it was cool to watch it built like that. Unfortunately we couldn’t to that every record. We had already gotten all those people there, so unless we were going to go to Madison Squar

The band talked about the choice between bankruptcy, and feeding their family by touring.

“If you hit more than two times, you’re just burning it out and we were hitting them four or five times and it was getting to where people weren’t coming as much because they were like, ‘We just dropped thirty dollars to see you last month.’ But our people were telling us, ‘You got no money.’ We were like we want to do another record, and they were like, ‘You’ve got no money, and all the money that you are getting, we’re taking so you need to make some money.’ We were like, ‘I’ve got to make my mortgage, better go out on the road.’ So we were going out on the road to pay bills. People thought we were going out there because we were having the time of our lives, which, we were. [Lajon] “They were making our rock-and-roll dream come true.” [Morgan] “We did have an accountant that said to us one time, ‘We’re here to make your rock and roll dreams come trueI should have punched him right in the mouth.”

Sevendust will do an extensive tour, but this time they have control of their own destiny. With and independent spirit, major label distribution, and a disruptive member out of the group, the band feels they’re getting back to the basics of what made them one of the top live bands.