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Live Nonpoint pics
(Summer 2004) by George Dionne
For the last three years or so Nonpoint have been busy bringing their own
brand of hard rock to the live stage. Day in and day out they’ve been
on tour supporting one album or another. They love nothing better than bringing
up the crowd energy in a live environment. Over the last year Nonpoint took
a break from the road. They were dealing with management and label problems
at MCA/Geffen Records following the release of their second album Development.
As things we’re looking bleak, there was a light at the end of the
tunnel. Nonpoint were scooped up by Lava Records and hit the studio to work
on their strongest album yet, Recoil (read
CD review). I caught up with
vocalist
Elias
Soriano while he was out on the road (where else?).
RIL: Is there significance behind the title of your new CD Recoil?
ES: Yeah. We worked on this record for a little over a year. I think we
really tried to get back to our roots and breakdown every mood and lyric
with this album. We just wanted to create what we love to do on stage, and
that's just rocking the crowd and making the kids jump around. Recoil is
getting back to that first position. You know, snapping back. That's what
we wanted to do this time.
RIL: Nonpoint always seems to be on tour, where did you find time to write
the album?
ES: We actually took almost a year off from touring. Like you said, we had
been touring non-stop. When we sat down to write the third record it was
that stage between Geffen [Records] and Lava [Records]. We decided to go
home, sit down and give Lava a great record. We did about three or four months
of writing on the road as we usually do, then we came home with five or six
songs and banged out the rest of the record over the next nine months.
RIL: Is this a group writing process?
ES: Yeah. It starts with one of, then the rest of us pull our weight. The
goal is for all of us to put our creative ideas into it.
RIL: The first single off of Recoil is "Truth"; can you
tell me a little bit about it?
ES: It was about that in-between stage between labels. Trying to find out
what was going on. You know, digging a little bit deeper than the pacified
answers they we're giving, our management and the whole thing. With the election
year coming up the song just happens to take a political twist. We sat down
and re-thought the song, and tried to make it as home hitting as possible.
It was the first song we wrote for the record.
RIL: You have song on the new CD that's sung entirely in Spanish
entitled "Rabia".
What does that mean translated?
ES: Translated in slang terms it means rabid, like our rabid fans. The song
is about that same kind of victim feel, where you're being confronted and
even though you didn't expect it, you're emotions just take over. And sometimes
rage takes over.
RIL: Was there a reason you chose to sing it all in Spanish?
ES: The drum beat was written first and it had that Latin feel to it. We
missed writing a Spanish song on the second record so much that as soon as
the song started coming together, our drummer said we should do it all in
Spanish. The rest of us agreed. I sat down with Rob and he wrote the majority
of the lyrics. I arranged it and changed words here and there. It was definitely
a task for us.
RIL: You do a cover of Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" on
the new CD, is there a reason you chose this particular song?
ES: Yeah, that song in its original form is very dark. It really stood out
back in the pop era when everything was synthesizers and what not. We wanted
something form that era that fit us more. We grew up in the South Florida
area, so Miami Vice was huge back then. A few years ago our drum tech Scotty
said that we should cover that song. We thought about it for a bit and when
it came to writing this album we decided to add a cover. This was the first
one we tried. We thought it came out stellar and still kept that dark, Nonpoint
feeling to it. It would have been stupid for us to do another Sabbath cover,
or a Beatles cover that everyone else does. We wanted to go out side the
box and do something different.
RIL: You mentioned that you grew up in South Florida, how are your families
holding up after the three major hurricanes that recently went through?
ES: My parent's house was built in 1950, so it's doing just fine. When you
live down in South Florida, and I think I've been hear for 28 years now,
the weather is sub-tropical. It's gonna get rainy, there's gonna be lightening,
and there's gonna be a ton of wind. If you live down hear you know that when
it rains, it's like the heavens just opened up for about twenty minutes,
then the sun comes out. We're kind of used to the rain down here. For the
outside it can look really bad, especially with all the damage. These last
couple of storms weren't as damaging as [hurricane] Andrew was. There was
just a lot of flooding, a lot of rain, and a lot of mobile homes getting
destroyed. That's what happens when you live in a lunch box.
RIL: Of all the tours that you've been associated with, which one was your
favorite?
ES: I really loved the Sevendust tour, because those guys are just so stellar
to tour with. Ozzfest was great. Any of the summer festivals, like Locobazooka
was really cool. You're playing in front of the masses and you're getting
the job done. It's great to be in a band and it's great to tour, but if you're
not playing in front of anybody, then it's not going to last very long. I
like the big tours in front of a lot of people.
RIL: Are there any tours that you wish you didn't go out on?
ES: The Sprite Liquid Mix Tour was kind of funny, just because it was the
first year it was together. It was such a wide demographic of things. I think
they had the right idea; it's the same people that does the Warped Tour and
Locobazooka I think. We were glad to be a part of it, and I think with a
little more promotion of all of the [concert] stages [at the event], the
tour will become a success.
RIL: What's next for Nonpoint?
ES: We're going out to do a few radio shows with Skindred, somewhere between
ten and twenty. Then we go out with Saliva.
RIL: Did you get to hang out with Saliva Locobazooka?
ES: Very briefly. I hung out with there drummer and said hi to Josie briefly.
They we the headliners and we were on just before them, so we kind of talked
to each other in passing. In the twenty minutes I hung out with the drummer,
he said that we should really get on their tour. The next day I called my
managers and a few days we were on the tour. It's cool. Those guys appreciate
us and our fans, so we're really excited to go out with them.
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ELIAS SORIANO
