From day one Norma Jean quickly became one of the largest metal bands in the south and that fact has carried over to current date for the band. What kind of effect does that have on the band when writing a new album? 

I would be lying if I said we didn’t think about our fans when we write, but that doesn’t effect what we do musically. We try to progress as a band but of course we want to maintain some sort of integrity… which means, we aren’t going to do anything ultra tasteless or ridiculous.
 
Speaking of new albums I hear you just recorded one, The Anti Mother. Any word as to when that’s supposed to hit stores? 

That comes out soon… August 5^th 2008. 8.5.08
 
Who produced and mixed the album? 

The record was produced by Ross Robinson (At the Drive In, Glassjaw, Slipknot, The Cure, etc) - it was mixed by him and our engineer Ryan Boesch

Is there anything significant about the album title or is it just a name? 

The Anti Mother is a character that we created. It’s a sub-personality of ourselves. I think we all have qualities about us that we use to “mother” ourselves, things we use to protect ourselves, etc. I also think we all have qualities that we use to destroy ourselves. These are Anti mother qualities, and somehow we desire both. This is a theme that pops up through out the record.
 
Do you have some form of routine or process for when you start to write an album? 

Not really. Especially with this record, we got into our rehearsal space and just started screwing around. This record came really natural. It was like we were sick and musical vomit came out. What was the question again?

Warped Tour is hardly your first festival style tour, what are the pros and cons of doing such large festival style tours? 

I love festival tours. Tons of bands, tons of fans. We have a lot of downtime and we never know what time we are going to play, as it changes daily. It’s hot and dirty but I’m kind of into that. It’s like a mobile summer camp for bands.

List off some of your most needed possessions while on tour? 

Clothes, sandwich meat, lots of socks (file under clothing), water, my boots, my phone, fans of Norma Jean to listen to us and yell out words to songs and toy dinosaurs and baseball to entertain the rest of the members and our crew and some more stuff that I leave to the reader to guess. Also, I like presents.
 
What are your plans for after the Warped Tour? 

We have the Revelation Generation Festival in Frenchtown, PA and then we will do a headlining tour in the fall starting Oct 3^rd.
 

As a band where do you see yourself in five years? 

I think we’ll still be doing this. We change so much every record that it keeps us interested in what is going to happen but I feel like we have reached every goal we’ve ever wanted since we were kids wanting to be musicians… so everything else is icing on the cake. Cake tastes good too by the way.

If you could give any one piece of advice to your fans what would it be? 

Don’t ever buy a mini van, listen to Norma Jean forever.
 
12 Anything you wish to say to your fans right now? 

Buy our new record and don’t download it for free. It’s killing us and other bands. I don’t care what anyone thinks about this. It sucks and we hate it. Support us and other bands by buying our records and coming to shows. We will always make sure that it’s a fun time. Also… we love you!!
 
13 Any last thoughts, anything you want to say to your fans? 

Uhhhh. See answer #12