BRAND NEW SIN - Sin City Syracuse Or Bust! Page 2
by Martin Popoff

Do you think there were some ulterior motives with Sony - what were they up to with all that?

"Dude, I don't know man. We talk about it a lot, because it was such a big part of our lives. And even to this day, we're still reflecting on it. Like, what the f**k just happened here? It's like any relationship - when it's done, you kind of look back. Number one, it was either they really did love Brand New Sin for what Brand New Sin was, but they thought that maybe they could take Brand New Sin in a direction where they could make a lot of money. I mean, their big deal with us was that they wanted us to crossover. They wanted a Top 40 version of Brand New Sin, and that wasn't going to happen. They put that idea in our head. 'Hey, you know, we know that Nickelback sucks, but they write good songs.' They would put that in our ear. Or number two, we actually came up with the idea that this label was buying a bunch of bands, and what did they have to lose by us submitting demos and demos and demos? Or at the end of that, they knew that, 'Hey, they're still a marketable band, they have a shitload of great demos. We should sell them. Yeah, we're not going to make a lot of money off them, but we'll make something.' Because, you know, they made a little bit of money off of us by selling us to Century Media. So maybe they just held onto us, to see if they could get something that they wanted, and if they couldn't, sell us off. And looking at it from their point of view, what did they have to lose by doing that? They didn't give a shit about us and our situation."

Three of these demos - damn good songs with full friggin' production - can be heard on the Black And Blue EP, which of course highlights the ferocious and catchy and almost Pantera-impassioned lead single off of Recipe For Disaster.

And back to our opener, Joe elucidates a bit on the Brand New Sin sound, which, besides the above attempted amalgam, is defiantly alone and proud in the metal world, a happenstance that raised many headbanging eyebrows all the way back to the band's self-titled debut from '02.

BRAND NEW SIN - Sin City Syracuse Or Bust! Page 3