OF MICE & MEN Drummer Loves It When People Say His Band Is Not 'Heavy'

On September 15, the members of OF MICE & MEN took part in an interview with Roxy Myzal of HardDrive Radio. You can now watch the chat below (courtesy of the HardDrive Radio Facebook page). A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On being accused by some fans of not being “heavy” anymore:

Valentino Arteaga (drums): “I love when people say that we’re not heavy; I think it’s hilarious. I mean, it’s for sure not worrying. It’s kind of a thing where… People are gonna… Like, what’s the scale? How are you judging that? Is it from our first two records? Because we’ve already made those records; those songs are there, and we’ve got it all there. And I guess, for us, we would worry that we weren’t challenging ourselves musically by making the same music over and over and over again. And our job as musicians and as human beings is to grow and to learn from what we do. And if we’re not working with a producer who’s pushing us, or if we’re not pushing ourselves, or each one of us pushing each other to do something great and to go out of our comfort zone. We did that a lot on this record, and I think I would be worried if we didn’t. ‘Cause then we would be doing a disservice to ourselves, to our fans and just to music in general, I guess.”

On the song “Game Of War” from the latest OF MICE & MEN album “Cold World” being inspired by the San Bernardino terror attack in December 2015:

Aaron Pauley (bass): “That was so close. A lot of what you hear or you see [in the news] is stuff going on in the Middle East or stuff going on in Europe. For us, to have something like that happen in our backyard was kind of alarming. I just remember I had terrible trouble sleeping that week, and I woke up at, like, three in the morning with the song in my head. And I just kind of sat at my little computer where I demo stuff and just got it all out. And I remember that when I was done with it, I had saved it, and I just felt better and I went back to sleep. And then I showed these guys… I don’t think it was ever even really written specifically to be an OF MICE & MEN song, but the guys were hugely supportive in hearing it.

“We talk about this record, making it more organic. One of the big things that I think was a game changer for us is how much time we spent talking. We’d get to the studio and we would spend hours every day jamming, but we would spend just as long talking to each other — about how we’re feeling, about things that are going on in the world — just to have a dialog and to be able to talk to your best friends, your family about how things are going.

“When I showed them the song and it was finished, they asked, they were, like, ‘Can we put this on the record?’ And I was, like, ‘I would love to,’ because I think it kind of fit in perfectly with this record in that this record was hugely therapeutic for us to make.”

On the song “Real” from “Cold World”:

Aaron Pauley: “The song started off as a demo that I’d made one morning; I just had a melody in my head — it started with a little keyboard line. Lyrically, when we started kind of developing it, Austin [Carlile, vocals] and I, we were talking about just interpersonal relationships and how sometimes certain people try to overtake you — they try to change who you are and they try to imprint themselves on you, and how, depending on the type of person you are, you’re more susceptible to that, or not. And we wanted to kind of make an anthem, if you will, about not letting people do that, about reminding yourself of the things that you like, the things that make you real. So when it came time… We did a music video for it, and when it came time, we were, like, ‘Well, let’s ask our fans.’ So through our fan-club web site, we had just tons of fans submit little posters that they made of what makes them real. And I think it’s really easy in 2016 to feel lost, because you’re just being pulled in so many different directions, and you have a real life and then an Internet life and you have all this stuff you have to balance that it’s all too easy to forget the things that make you, you. And so this song is kind of a… As much as it was for our fans to be kind of an anthem, it was a reminder to us to not let people do that, especially as a band — that we follow our hearts and we follow our minds. And as long as we remind ourselves of who we are, then we’re not gonna lose sight of what’s really important.”

“Cold World” was released on September 9 via Rise Records.