Exploding into the music scene in 1997 with their first self titled album, Sevendust is back again with their fifth studio album "Next," [Released on October 11, 2005 on Winedark Records.] With new guitarist Sonny Mayo on board, they’re hyped about touring with Mudvayne during the Masters Of Horror tour and can’t wait to begin writing another album.

“We had a rough time there at the end with our past guitar player. He was preoccupied with doing other things and it just wasn’t working out. So, we ended up getting [Sonny Mayo] who we’ve known for a decade almost. There were no tryouts or practice. We started writing lyrics the day he flew in and it was just a seamless transition,” drummer Morgan Rose said.

Sevendust

The past few years have been anything but bliss for Sevendust. After parting ways with label TVT and having guitarist Clint Lowery leave to join Dark New Day, the future of this Atlanta based hard rock band looked rather desolate.

Instead of surrendering to the difficulties that smothered them, Lajon Witherspoon (vocals), John Connolly (guitar), Morgan Rose (drums, vocals), Vince Hornsby (bass), and Sonny Mayo (guitar) grabbed onto the opportunity to switch labels and become more independent.

“There was a short period of time where I thought we regressed a little bit. We had to do things that people were forcing us to do. I think we lost a little bit of integrity and we had to swallow our pride on more than one occasion. But now we’ve gotten back to our roots a little bit and we’re able to use all the things we’ve learned over the past eight years. I can see us being able to really move forward now and do things our way, which seemed to work really well on the first two records,” Rose said. “It’s not an arrogant thing at all to say we know what sounds good. It’s our band. Most of these guys [from the label] don’t even know how to play a musical instrument. We had people from the label telling us what sounds good, when I could grab five people out of the crowd and they could do a better job than most of the people we were dealing with.”

Along with parting ways with TVT and inheriting a new guitarist, Sevendust has had to overcome drug addictions along the way.

“One of the hardest things for us that we had to overcome was at least being able to be recreational drug users instead of doing all the drugs. That was kind of an issue for a while,” Rose said. “I’ve gotten nothing but shitty advice, but Dave Mustaine probably gave me some of the best advice. He said, ‘I’ve been through this and I know you’re not going to listen to me, but you’ve got to slow down on what you’re doing. It will tear you up and you’ll lose what you have.’ There were just a lot of drugs and a lot of alcohol involved.”

Along with cleaning up the drug habits, Sevendust needed to focus on getting out of the mess they were in. Finally, TVT made some mistakes which enabled Sevendust to break free.

“Trying to get away from the people that were controlling us was another obstacle. That was tough for us to overcome. We wanted to get out of there after our second record. It took us three more records before they made a mistake and we were able to slip through the cracks,” Rose said.

After breaking free of the hold that TVT had on Sevendust, they signed to WineDark Records. Their appropriately titled new record "Next," acts as a bridge from their last album and what will arise in the future.

“Our stuff is so wide ranged. I was brought up on Led Zeppelin and David Bowie. Lajon was brought up on Sam Cooke. So, we have a lot of different influences. I think that the biggest influences we’ve ever had were probably Pantera and Fishbone,” Rose said.

It was those influences that gave Sevendust the determination to become who they are today.

“I remember we played this place called Charley Magruders in Atlanta. It was a little bar that cover bands would play at and we were regulars there. We had just gotten together that week and we had only been practicing for a few days. We knew one of the bands that were on stage. The hype around town was that we had this band we were putting together. So, they let us play there. We got on stage and we just had these two songs we had written. One of them was called ‘Crazy.’ We finished the two songs but the people wanted us to play some more. We told them we only had the two songs that we just played but they wanted us to play them again. It was funny but made us feel really good,” Rose said.

Along with drugs, label troubles, and line up changes that most bands go through, illegal downloading is also a predicament for many bands and the music industry.

Rose said, “I understand when people get mad about [illegal downloading]. Look at Lars, [Metallic drummer Lars Ulrich] who has five billion dollar paintings and stuff. He doesn’t really have to worry about anything. Then you’ve got people like us who are still paying mortgages and having to make sure everything is going to work out for their kids when this is all over with. You would think downloading is no big deal because your music is getting out there and that’s true. But the trickle down effect of the downloading is out of control. I don’t get paid off records anyway so I could give a fuck less if somebody is doing it to get the music. I love the fact that they even want the music. Unfortunately, the trickle down effect is that we don’t get the music scan and when you don’t get the scan, radio stations don’t think you’re selling enough records. I don’t think I’ve made one dollar for an album we’ve sold. But the trickle down effect just messes everything up,” Rose said.

Now that they’ve freed themselves of TVT, drugs, and the negativity that surrounded them, Sevendust is prepared and excited to start creating another album from scratch with Mayo.

“Before we got signed nobody liked this kind of music. Hard rock isn’t the fore-front anymore. We would send demos out to people and they would tell us that it wasn’t in style. But we’ve survived through it by building a loyal family of people that come and see us,” Rose said.

Sevendust is:
Lajon Witherspoon - Vocals
John Connolly - Guitar
Morgan Rose - Drums
Sonny Mayo - Guitar
Vinnie Hornsby - Bass

Sevendust is from Atlanta, Ga and tour nationally on a regular basis. For more band info log onto Sevendust.info or log onto the Sevendust page at myspace.com.

Feature by Shannon Swanson © 2005 - Florida Entertainment Scene - All Rights Reserved.