Live Interview with J. Loren and Paul Spatola from the band Hurt conducted by Miranda Wilson (Aka Sidine). I would personally like to take this opportunity to thank the guys of Hurt for sitting down with me and taking the time to answer a few questions, it was truly a pleasure to speak with

Miranda: How did you come together as a band?

J. Loren: Well in it's current lineup that was years and years of work, and unfortunate times of leaving and getting a new person. Paul is the longest standing member besides me and that has been several years, and that is just how it came to be. We just continue when other people leave.

Miranda: How did you come up with the band name Hurt?

J. Loren: That was very simple it had to be called Hurt that was what I wanted it to be so that's what it was.

Miranda: How would you describe your music to someone that is unfamiliar with it?

J. Loren: It's really difficult to define music by talking about it, I would say a fair assessment we would be a mix of classical with folk elements with primarily a rock sound to it. J.Loren

Miranda: gives it a little edge to it.

J. Loren: And my pristine vocals from all the great care I take.

Miranda: Yeah I noticed several times when I've seen you play, You have this one vein in your head that pops out, and your face gets red.

J. Loren: Well at least you know I'm not lip syncing.

Miranda: Yeah we know your putting some effort into it.

Paul: He's just holding his breath.

J. Loren: Yeah that's all I do, I have a constipation problem. It's a JOKE, I'm just kidding

Miranda: Whatever helps you get through the night.

Miranda: So you recently released an album, "Good bye to the Machine", the album art it reminds me of the old Willy Wonka movie.

J. Loren: I haven't heard that yet, I haven't heard that at all.

Miranda: it's like one of those old factory from the old industrial days.

Miranda: Has the album provided you with a healthy (full) touring schedule for 2009? J

. Loren: Yes, at this moment, we haven't released the dates yet but we are doing a co-headliner with the Sick Puppies. We are very very excited about that, I think that um I am gonna enjoy the adversity, I'm gonna try to get a friendly competition going and we know all of them and they are great people. Normally we would say guys but in this case it's not all guys. So I think it's gonna be fun we are going to try to one up each other every night, and they put on a hell of a live show, and according the popular consensus so do we. I just want the fans to have a killer show.

Paul: I'm looking forward to it a lot.

Miranda: come to Nashville and bring you fiddle.

J. Loren: been to Nashville and brought my fiddle.

Miranda: I know I have been to that show.

Miranda: Can you give me an idea of your writing process for an album.

J. Loren: we actually change up as much as we possibly can, sometimes we will start with a riff Paul has, sometimes it's a bass riff, sometimes we start with a thought, sometimes we start with an idea of how you want the song to go. For instance, one was like we need a Romanian miner song, and Rick wrote a Romanian Miner song with Paul, gave it to me and I put it in my queue, I was working on songs simultaneously. It is a bogus process but I am a proficient lyricist on there with obliviously proficient writers this last album was a fantastic effort because we wrote it in one month, and recorded it in one month. It was just a fun time and we write in all different ways to try to challenge ourselves and keep it fresh. I could probably crank out tunes everyday doing a comfortable process, but I don't ever want it to become comfortable. When writing music becomes easy for you that's when in my opinion you need to step it up. So we try to do that and we try to grow, what more could you ask for but to grow. You do forget some things along the way, but in the mean time, I've learned some things.

Miranda: What made you go with additional download content if you purchased the album online?

Paul: Because of the way we recorded it we did an analog thing, and we kinda mixed down for vinyl, if you bought the CD, it was suppose to be released on vinyl, but it hasn't come out yet. So basically people that bought the CD would hear what it sounded like on vinyl if they downloaded the content, that way it was actually mastered down to vinyl. It was just an alternate way of listening to the record.

J. Loren: and also we had bonus content that only got nixed from the record because of length considerations, and for instance the B Side that everyone is hearing "For Another Time", everybody thinks is just a fantastic song why isn't this on the album. It just was the best choice to pull from the album.

Miranda: What is your take on illegally download of music?

J. Loren: I think that it's putting a lot of people out of jobs, I do understand it because people have been fed shit for so long. They are slightly entitled to perusing albums and I can totally understand that. But at the end of the day it cheapens the experience for people. I mean I hear back burned CD's of my music and the quality is just heinous. I hate that we went to great length to make it sound in a particular way and that completely slaughters it. So this was the first time I spoke up about illegally downloading things. If you're going to download the music my first goal is to have you to listen to the music I don't give a shit if whether or not I make money off it, but when I hear a bad portrayal or a shitty copy of the music. Let me make this a visual thought let's say you have the Mona Lisa, go to a museum see that painting, and then look at a 150 dpi version of that and you will see a huge quality difference, I hope if you're not blind. Same thing happens with music so, no were not really being picky if you back to back you can see where we are coming from and I just want people to hear what we did. We worked really hard.

Paul: yeah we take a long time, and it's a lengthy process to get to that, maybe it's because back in the day when the price of CD's was so high and a record company was like "we have this CD" and the rest of the album was filled with crap, and people paid 20 bucks for that CD.

J. Loren: but at the same time our peers and ourselves are starving and that's really the truth. I'm lucky that people are passionate about our music. A lot of bands aren't passionate about their music, and people go and download it anyway, and never go to a show. But to some degree we're okay. But, the whole music industry is going to shut down. I am happy that some of the labels will shut down. Maybe some of the bad brokerage of the art will be stopped. But I'm not happy that the production of albums is going to decrease because the professionals. Let's just say you father is a carpenter, if people don't buy houses your dad is out of a job. Okay I don't wanna spend that kind of time and that kind of effort because it would take us 10 years to make a record because we would have to do everything ourselves. So we have professionals come in and do it and they do what they do best and we do what we do best and it shortens the process. Hopefully this is understandable, those gentlemen deserve to be paid for their work. God knows we haven't receive any substantial money throughout the years. I'm in debt, Paul's in debt and it's just the way it is, and we're fine with that. So it's not a money grab, it's we're trying to get the best art possible out there, and anything that diminishes from that quality is the enemy. I just respectfully ask people that if they are going to illegally download something get the best quality possible, and I don't think that isn't a reasonable request from the artist.

Miranda: It's not a bad request from the artist I totally understand. CD's aren't as expensive as they used to be. The packaging alone is worth it because they put so much more into the art, Which is what I love about a new CD, is to be able to read who the band has thanked for the support they have received over the years.

J. Loren: well if people don't buy CD's then the artwork won't be there and the sound quality won't be there.

Miranda: Who came up with the album's art for "Goodbye to the Machine"?

J. Loren: Shawn O'Dell at Third World Productions

Miranda: what do you get the most out this job that you don't get out of a normal 9 to 5 job?

J. Loren: I'm gonna go with Tom Sawyer and say gratifaction.

Paul: yeah it's what I've always wanted to do, ever since could remember. I've always wanted to play and go out and do tours. So it's a lot different than having a 9 to 5, you don't get to go home at the end of the night to a family. But if you really love what you do it makes it all worth it. I can see how like some people it can be discouraging, if you not 100% into it, and I can see how some bands just fade away forever because it's a lot harder then it seems. On the outside people are like awe you play in a rock band it's like great.

J. Loren: it's you seen us play for half an hour today, but we've been working all day to set up.

Paul: Yeah it's like all day running back and forth, and I'm not complaining about it because I love doing it, and that's what we're doing. But it's not as easy as many people think it is you know.

Miranda: yeah, I've seen a bands behind the scene videos and they mentioned how they take all this time to put the show together for 30 minutes of heaven is what they called being on stage. And that is the time you have to express yourself, and then you get the feedback from the crowd and that feeds you even more and then your 30 minutes is up.

J. Loren: to me the long lasting, and it's not even a thrill, it's kind of this thing that drives it home that what you're doing is right. For instance, I am not going to say I don't get discouraged I have been doing this more many years and obviously I still continue no matter what you have to be a very hardheaded person to continue. I mean we've gone through so many hardships it's not even funny, but when some tells me especially in a sober frame of mind that something that you did saved their life and their crying it means the world to me, that really sticks with you. And if it doesn't then you don't have a heart.

J. Loren: we work insanely hard on the things that we are doing we go back through it, fine tooth comb it, and try to get everything we can possibly get. Even on this album we had a month, and we put in every moment we could until we ran out of money to the last second. That is what we did every album, and that's what I want to continue to do. The moment we start to skate and say, eh that's good enough, I don't want that, I never want that.

Miranda: Who influenced you to play music?

J. Loren: I think everything that I see all around me. It's mainly not music that influences me, anything that moves me in a certain manner personally is a influence and unfortunately a lot of music that I hear today doesn't influence me anyway.

Paul: Well musically my family was always really into music, so growing up I was like I started playing piano when I was 5, and listening to the Beatles and later on Van Halen and Led Zeppelin. So musically all that stuff is what got me started playing music, but still I hear stuff today that I hear for the first time that makes and impression on me, and I subconsciously put that a way in my head and when I go to write something and it could be something I don't even realize it ya know. It's not like "I gotta write something like this" or "Like this was great I'm gonna copy them" or anything like that. It's just something that sticks with me and it ends up coming out subconsciously.

Miranda: Do you have any messages for you fans?

J. Loren: Yeah, Thank you!

Paul: Yeah, the fans are what keeps us going, ya know if they didn't come to the shows, and buy the shirts and CDs or know the words to the songs we would be broke.

J. Loren: I know it sounds like a cliche we are broke. So it's just really the emotional value.

Miranda: It's nice to hear the musicians say "Thank You", it's nice to hear that being the first words that come out of their mouths, because they are grateful for the fans.

J. Loren: It's okay they will get sorted out. You get what you put in, we put in a lot, and we get the same thing in return. We get a lot of emotional value back, and when I recently lost that link for a moment coming out of the studio, I think it was then I learned that it was a crutch I was leaning on, and that it was the validation that what we were doing was right and if I didn't see that or hear it was hard to look at myself again. I know what I'm like and I'm not a good guy, but with the relationship we have with our fans I am a whole person in some way and I'm not that bad of a guy.

Miranda: One final thing, the song Wars you had mentioned on stage and I had read somewhere that the meaning of the song was misconstrued?

J. Loren: Right

Paul: Well that's the thing with any kind of song it's always if it's not a really specific thing people tend to interpret it in different ways, and that is find. But if they are interpret in ways you didn't intend it to then you have to be like "No don't get the wrong idea."

J. Loren: This the only time where I've literally said, I didn't say this is what you need think about the song, but this is very important to me because I personally put in many many hours of my life. Because I used to work for a defense contracting companies I've made weapons that destroy on a massive scale, and that song was based on personal experience. I think that anybody can identify on that particular issue that wars suck, it's true. Most of the famous anti-war quotes are written by Generals, and obviously they put in a lot of work to make their war work. It's my firm belief that Generals save lives in the end and I also never want people who are passionately doing even more then I do putting their lives on the line, thinking that some snide rock star back home is talking shit about them. It couldn't be farther from the truth I worked very very hard 90 hour work weeks to make weapons so that our soldiers didn't get killed and I cannot stand for somebody to say that I'm talking shit about our soldiers. Wars Suck and that's all there is to it.