By Martin Popoff
Going back to the title of the next album, why did you go with The Glorious Burden?
"It actually can have a lot of different meanings. One of the pieces of music I'm working on is going to be about a kid that sells his soul to become a rock star. And it's either going to be an epic or trilogy or a two-part thing; I don't know yet. It's in the baby process right now; I'm working it out. It's going to be called 'The Tale Of The Sale', the overview of the thing and then if it's going to be a trilogy, it's going to be three individual song titles or if it's an epic, that's going to be the title. It's going to be a thing that is basically saying, 'Be careful what you wish for.' And that's one of the tie-ins with The Glorious Burden. There's also the idea that any time you are in a leadership position, it's a burden. Whether it's an individual, or if your country is the leader of the world, no matter how you look at it, it's a burden. It's got its glory and it's got its good things, but it can be very heavy and very hard and you can be pretty unappreciated sometimes. And it just seems that with everything that's going on in the world right now, that that title works. And like I say, you can apply it to different scenarios. There are going to be a couple songs on the album that will be very patriotic. Because like with 'Ghost Of Freedom', that was based on the Patriot movie more than anything else. We did dedicate it to the vets and stuff and our family members that fought in all the wars and that kind of thing, but basically it was about The Patriot. Some of these things are going to be more direct. Like one of my best friends is a Navy Seal and he lost his leg in Operation Anaconda. And he was over there, f**kin' protecting us, and try to bring him down, and now he's paid a major price for that. And that's something I've always appreciated. And it's unfortunate that in the states, it takes a tragedy to bring people together, and it's also unfortunate that people's memories are very short."
