So, near-decapitation aside, how did the Warped Tour compare to the Victory Records tour that you headlined with Skarhead, Blood For Blood et al?
Obviously we played smaller places, but it was still really cool. Skarhead are a bunch of really cool guys, and Blood for Blood were as well. It was a lot of fun.

Exactly; same here. Have you toured with any of your metal influences, such as Entombed or Sepultura? If so, how were you recieved by their audiences?
We did tour with Entombed, and they were really cool, really nice guys. We just got off of a tour with Mötörhead, and they're a bunch of cool guys. We're also looking forward to touring with Soulfly.

Any act that you haven't yet toured with that you would like to, hardcore or otherwise?
Oh, man, there are like, billons of them. Slayer, which could happen, Sabbath, which probably won't happen; there are literally billions. What we'd really like is to organize a big summer metal/hardcore-fest, because you just don't see those anymore. Back in the day, I remember where you could see a shitload of cool bands in one day at a summer festival like Monsters of Rock.

Yeah, I remember going to see the Clash of the Titans tour with Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, and Alice in Chains back in high school.
Hell, yeah. Stuff like that is few and far between nowadays.

I know that you say that the evil inside us all is a heavy influence in your music. Do you see that as a pretty deep well to draw from, or do you think that over time your music may become, for lack of a better word, less "dark"?
Nah, 'cause we get our frustrations out through playing our music, and people always get frustrated. I know that when I get up there and play I give it all -- I've got to release all of that pent-up energy.

Even though there's a lot of rage and dark undercurrents on Satisfaction, the vibe I get from listening to it is positive and inspirational. Is that the kind of reaction that you're used to seeing, and moreover, is that the reaction that you're looking for?
That's great that you get that out of it; it's good to hear. You really shouldn't walk away from it wanting to kill yourself. All that really matters is that you're into the music, though.

It's been said that hardcore bands have a "built in audience" -- like any band that calls itself hardcore will automatically have a legion of devout worshippers, because they're ready to accept anything as long as it's called hardcore. How do you feel about that?
In a way it's cool, because there are always going to be kids at the shows there supporting new bands, and in that sense it'll never die. I don't think that the "built in audience" is a bad thing, necessarily.

What impact do you think Hatebreed has had on hardcore? It's odd that whenever I am trying to describe a hardcore band to someone these days, if they're decent, your name always comes up.
That's really cool that you say that. We just want to broaden the horizons of the fans and we don't want to segregate. We invite everyone from every genre to come to our shows and enjoy our music. We're in it for the music and we really enjoy playing it and enjoy people getting into it, no matter who they are.

Yeah, I noticed that last year, when I went to two diametrically-opposed shows -- I think that it was the Deftones and then Dinosaur Jr, about a week later -- and at both shows I saw a lot of people with Hatebreed shirts on.
And that's cool, because a lot of the kids that are into Dinosaur Jr, and indie-rock like that, they would never hear of us normally. We want everyone to hear our stuff.

Definitely a good attitude. If you guys had to recommend a few choice bands to someone as sort of a "hardcore primer," who would they be?
Oh, man...Cro Mags, Judge, Another Victim, Buried Alive, and then there's stuff that I'm not sure everyone would like but I'm into, like Supertouch and Candiria. Again, there are so many that it would take days to name them all.

As a bassist, who are your influences?
Entombed, Obituary, Carcass, Cro Mags, Slayer, old metal, crossover hardcore, just completely heavy shit.

Out of fellow guitarist curiosity, what do you tune down to?
C.

So you play and write everything in C?
Yeah, we're too lazy to screw with any other tunings. It's hard enough to get stuff written in C. [laughs]

So what do you think about the future of hardcore? Do you ever see it becoming co-opted like punk was in the early '90s?
It could be; you never know what's going to happen. I just care about playing and being able to play, so if that happens, so be it.

Do you get any sort of radio support?
Yeah, we get some. A few college stations; KROC up in New York has played us on some late-night show. We also got to play live in Chicago, because that's where Victory is located, and we get played on 93X in Wisconsin.