Audiovent
Michelle LaRose talks with Jason Boyd and Ben Einziger for Metal Masters
Photographs by Michelle LaRose

You're rocking out on Metal Masters. This is Michelle. We have Atlantic recording artist Audiovent with us. We have Ben and we have Jason.

MM: How are you guys doing? How is the tour going for you so far?

Ben: It's splendid!

MM: You guys are touring with Saliva now. When did you hook up with Saliva? How long have you been touring with them?

Jason: Actually we dubbed them Saleeva. I'm just joking actually. We've been touring with them for the past two or three weeks now. Two weeks, something like that. It's been fun.

MM: Your new album is Dirty Sexy Knights In Paris. That's pretty interesting. How did you come up with the title for that album?

Ben: We were basically out of our minds in my room. Our drummer just said those words and we thought that it was just such a funny and catchy phrase that we decided to call our record after it.

MM: You have the hit single The Energy from the album. That seems to be doing pretty well. I hear that The Energy came from a heartbreak of yours, that you had wrote this on the verge of a break-up?

Jason: Yeah. I was having a break-up with a girlfriend at the time. It was my realization that I needed to stand on my own two feet and not be dependent on any one person but myself.

MM: So that's basically what the song is about. The energy you get from yourself.

Jason: Yep. The energy I get from myself and the fact that everyone goes through this. We're all the same in that sense.

MM: You're relatively new to the national scene but you guys have been around for a while. You have been a band together collectively for about ten years. You met in high school. Can you tell us about that? How you formed the band.

Ben: We met in Junior High School. My stepbrother, Paul and Jason had started playing music together. Just started jamming out together and shortly after, I joined. Our drummer Jamin came in. We met right when we started high school. So yeah, it's been a little bit over ten years now.

MM: It shows that you guys have been together for a while because you gel so nicely together. Also, you have ties with Incubus. You brother's in Incubus?

Jason: Right

MM: And your brother's in Incubus.

Ben: We bow tie with them. You know, there's like bow ties and other kind of ties. Have you ever seen the movie School Ties?

MM: No.

Ben: Oh.

[Michelle laughing]

MM: I thought it was more of a family ties thing.

Jason: That would be with Alex P. Keaton. [Singing Family Ties theme song]

MM: You are musical, your brothers are musical, were your parents musical?

Ben: My Mom's a music instructor. She used to teach in college. Jason's Mom has a beautiful voice as well. We were very much influenced by them with their musical knowledge. Our drummer's Dad played with a lot of great bands in the 80's.

MM: We're getting ready to go into the first video The Energy which is a very neat video. You've got some clips of the band playing out in the sand dunes. So here we go with The Energy here on Metal Masters.

[The Energy video plays]

This is Michelle on Metal Masters we're back with Atlantic recording artist Audiovent with Jason and Ben.

MM: I heard that the band actually went to therapy together for solving communication problems. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how it went?

Jason: We were just having some problems at the time. Rather than let them grow into bigger problems that would eventually become huge problems down the line, we decided to take care of them. We learned how to talk to each other as friends, as brothers really. Drawing love here.

MM: I think that's smart advice for any relationship especially when you're so close like this.

Jason: Totally.

MM: You guys just got back from Europe? Where did you go in Europe?

Ben: That is a good distance though, by the way, right here. I like that. [Commenting on microphone distance] We went to the U.K., we went to Germany, we went to Wales and France. That's where we went. It was a lot of fun. Down there we actually hooked up with this band called The Lost Prophets and played some shows with them and they're really cool guys. We had a lot of fun. The crowds in Europe are just crazy. Crazy. It's awesome.

MM: So it sounds like you were received well over there.

Ben: I'd like to think so.

MM: How does playing live over there differ from playing live over here? Is there a difference?

Ben: It just depends on where you're at I suppose. It's similar but in some places they don't speak the same language as you do and yet they still sing the words. It's intriguing.

MM: Music's the universal language.

Jason: Oh yes it is.

MM: Your music is on the Madden 2003 video game. Tell us a little bit about that.

Jason: Our song The Energy is actually on that. It's cool. We have the game. There's a bunch of songs on there but eventually our song comes on. It's just very cool you get tackled or something and all of a sudden The Energy comes up.

MM: You guys are riding the wave of the future on that one. We're going to do another video, Looking Down. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Jason: The video was fun to make. We made it with Glen Bennett. We rented out this theater in downtown L.A. Yeah, just made it real trippy. It was fun, it was cool.

MM: The video kind of reminds me of The Doors with that psychedelic '60's feeling.

Jason: That's kind of what it is.

MM: And there you go! We're going to be looking at Looking Down with Audiovent here on Metal Masters.

AudioventMusic.com

MetalMasters.net