I recently had the chance to speak with founding member and vocalist Rob Kersey for comedy metal band, Psychostick. We talked about the 15th anniversary of the band, their indiegogo campaign and more. You can check it out after the jump.
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Q – You’re currently around two weeks into the “Evil Dumb” tour with Wolfborne, how’s it been treating you so far?
Rob – So far it’s been pretty nice, a lot of good turnouts. A lot of people are liking it, a lot of people coming out. Yeah, it’s just been a solid tour. Wolfborne’s been really good.
Q – You released “IV: Revenge Of The Vengeance” around nine months ago now. You initially set up an indiegogo to help raise the funds to create a personal studio to record the album. You surpassed your goal by nearly $8,000, were any of you expecting that sort of reaction for it?
Rob – Overwhelming joy that we have the fan base that would actually have faith in what we do, enough to wear they would throw their hard earned money at us, It’s been such a journey. There is one perk we haven’t quite fulfilled yet, being the music video guest list appearance. We just haven’t found the right role for this person yet, but I think w’ll be doing that in one of the next couple ones or so. He’s been really patient, so. But yeah, the whole thing has been overwhelmingly awesome. Whenever you have a goal, and you surpass it, it’s just amazing.
Q – You guys had a ton of cool perks on there. One thing I’ve noticed with a lot of bands that have an indiegogo, is that they hardly put any effort into making the perks. You guys went above and beyond with it, was it something you purposefully wanted to do with it?
Rob – We had a lot of meetings and a lot of talks about those perks, because the thing about perks is that is has to be a win-win. They have to get what they want and you get what you need. So when you design the perks with that in mind, it opens up a lot of doors.
Q – As said before, “IV: Revenge Of The Vengeance” has been out for around 9 months now. How has the overall reception for it been, that you’ve seen so far?
Rob – I think it’s probably been the most well received album we’ve put out to date. “We Couldn’t Think Of A Title” is the best seller, but that’s just cause it’s been out since like 2006. But the general response has been, on average, a lot more positive. Since we had the studio, we were able to take our time we needed to just do what we wanted. That really shines when we put out anything. If we have the flexibility, it’ll show. When you go into a studio you have a certain amount of hours, it’s like we only have today to finish the thing. Under that kind of pressure, we just don’t work very well in.
Q – It’s the band’s first time making consecutive albums with the same lineup, how does it feel for you to finally have a solid 4 guys in the band?
Rob – It’s a lot of weight off of the shoulders of the collective band. There’s always turmoil of some kind internally, the stuff you never hear about that everybody wants to hear about, Which we don’t share cause it’s whatever, it’s not their business. But it’s nice to know everybody’s head is in the same cloud or whatever, we all want the same thing. We go about it differently sometimes and bump heads like anybody else does, but we’re all very reasonable people, we’re all focused and logical so that we can figure things out. Problem solved. I mean we’ll have a moment where (laughs), I’ll disagree with somebody, and we’ll yell and scream or whatever, but then we calm down and figure it out. But every band does that, it’s like a marriage almost.
Q – What’s the best concert you’ve ever attended that you didn’t play?
Rob – Damn, I haven’t been to an actual concert just to go in a long time. The best ever was probably way before we ever got started. I think it was my second concert, it was Sevendust, Machine Head and Pantera. This was from when I was right out of high school. It was when I was just starting to get into the heavier side of music. Cause for me it was always into the mid to late 90’s stuff, Bush, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots and such. And one day I was just thinking, “Who’s this Pantera band?”, and then everything changed for me.
Q – You guys will be playing at Dirt Fest this weekend, opening up for Down, Fear Factory etc. You guys seem to be the usual suspects there at this point…?
Rob – Yeah, they have us back every year. I guess they’re not sick of us yet (laughs). We’re playing a great slot on the main stage, I’m not sure if Down are playing the same day as we are, I think so… which is crazy to me. Members of Crowbar and Pantera in that band, those are two bands I was just so into, and still am. I could end up standing there, look to my right and there’s Phil and think..”Ok There’s Phil, don’t shit your pants.”…..”Ok, yeah, just shit my pants. I better go change.”. Getting to be in this world and meet those kinds of people, I never thought it would’ve happened.
Q – Whose been the biggest musical influence that you’ve been able to meet so far?
Rob – I would definitely say Lajon from Sevendust. Super cool guy, and he knew about our band when we first met him in 06/07′
, and he was just like, “Beer! I like that song!” and all that stuff. He was just super nice. We almost went out with him a couple times, but the politics didn’t work out. It is what it is, but we bump into him every now and then. He always looks at me like “I know you….”, he’s just really good about that, and I’m really bad about that.
Q – It’s been 15 years since you started up Psychostick in 2000 (previously known as Asinine). Has that ever crossed your mind, and if so does it feel weird to think it’s been that long?
Rob – It does a little. It’s like when you hit the decade, and then the 15 year mark, you’re just like “Huh…?”, cause it just happens so fast. Especially when you’re touring, the time just slips away from you. It’s hard to describe it to anyone who hasn’t done it, you know. If you ask any band that’s been touring for years, they’ll tell you it’s like life in fast forward. One you’re in a groove, it’s just like city city city, show show show, it just starts to blend together, and you’ll think o yourself like, “Did i just tour…?” (laughs). And now boom, 15 years goes by. We’ve been touring for almost 10, we’d been touring constantly, but we dialed it back a little just cause some of us want to actually have lives. But we still tour fairly regularly.
Q – In your 15 years, what has been your personal biggest accomplishment with the band so far, and what do you hope to achieve over the next 15 years?
Rob – I think our biggest accomplishment is being able too…and this is going to sound boring….is we are getting to the point where we can establish a very strong online presence, to where we don’t have to solely rely on just touring to survive. We’re getting to the point now where we can put out a video and a shirt, that we can make a bunch of sales so we can continue to do that. And since we’re a comedy band, there’s tons of room for flexibility. It’s not “I guess I’ll write another song about how depressed i am.”, we don’t have to do that. We can just be like, “I want to write a song about my shoelaces.”, or something, and we just go from there. Or we just covered this Invader Zim thing on the album, “The Doom Song”, and we also did ‘Reading Rainbow’. We did a couple others, but we put them out there and people love it cause it’s so weird hearing it in the rock/metal world. I feel like we’re the only ones who can get away with that, and still be in a touring band. There are some who will do it for fun, they’ll get their guitar and play to a drum track, and it’s great. But we have that flexibility to where we can do just about anything. We might think, “Let’s do the Power Rangers theme.” for fun, though.
Q – That makes me think, have you ever heard of the band Powerglove?
Rob – We actually took them out on their first tour. Yeah, we’re good buddies with those guys. Josh talked to Nick fairly recently, Nick’s their bassist, and they are working on some new stuff. But beyond that I don’t know what their plans are.
Q – Once this tour is finished with, what’s coming up next for Psychostick?
Rob – After this tour we’re going to the UK for the first time in our career, for about 11 days, with 9 shows. We’re doing that with Dog Fashion Disco, and then we come back to the US and do a tour here with Dog Fashion Disco. After that we have a lot more crazy content and song writing things that we’re doing, there’s just always stuff coming. But we have a new one coming out in the next week or two, so keep a look out.
Q – Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, any parting words?
Rob – Absolutely. We are all over the place online, we’re a bunch of dorks and we like to hang out on Facebook, Youtube, and anything else like that. Go to Google and misspell out band name, it’ll fix it for you. Come to our website, hop on our show alerts, basically we tell you when we’re coming near you to play a show. That’s pretty much how it works, Like us, tweet us, follow us, we have nothing but stupid things we want to share with you.
TNF – There’s always plenty of room for that.
Rob – (laughs) Always room.
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