The band Scottie Henry and Chris Day (guitars), Cory Brandan (vocals), Daniel Davison (drums), and Jake Schultz (bass) spent the first part of the year out of sight, hard at work on the band's newest Solid State effort, Redeemer. Once the album went wide, the world heard a different Norma Jean than on O God The Aftermath. The energy and explosiveness were still there, but so was more melody, better songcraft, and an overall desire to grow.
On the heels of surprising everyone with such a diverse release, Norma Jean built their live name on two very important tours. The first was the annual OzzFest traveling festival, on which Norma Jean held their own alongside everyone from Full Blown Chaos to Atreyu to even Black Label Society. After that, Norma Jean took some other bands Fear Before The March Of Flames, Between The Buried And Me, and Misery Signals, among others to support them on the Radio Rebellion tour.
After an impressive year, we caught up with Norma Jean vocalist Cory Brendan to reflect on the year that was and what's to come for the band in 2007.
Michael Melchor: In 2006, you had the new record, Redeemer, come out and do pretty well. You had the spot on OzzFest that I got to see you do some damage with, then there was the Radio Rebellion headlining spot. It's been a hell of a year for you guys, hasn't it?
Cory Brendan: Yeah, it has. We've been really busy; we only did those 2 tours this year, but it's still been one of the busiest years for us in a long time. Definitely been amazing.
MM: Going back to Redeemer, it sounds like a lot of progression made from O God The Aftermath. Granted, any band's goal should be to move forward on each album and with this one you definitely did by leaps and bounds.
CB: Yeah, it's a completely different record. We wanted to grow and not repeat ourselves.
MM: That's how to do it, really. What was the writing and recording process like for this one?
CB: It was almost spontaneous, really, especially compared to the last one. O God The Aftermath was very thought-out and planned, whereas we took a more natural and off-the-cuff to Redeemer.
MM: So was a lot of it written on the road [in 2005], or did you come to the studio with a few ideas and hammer the rest of it out there?
CB: Well, the way we write...we all kind of write on our own whenever we want or feel the need to; whether we're on the road or at home, we're all writing when we want to. When it's time to make a record, we rent out a spot and show each other our ideas and spend a couple months working them out until it's all done.
MM: On Redeemer, you also worked with Ross Robinson, who's been behind the boards with everybody from Slipknot to The Cure. How was that work experience? Was there any intimidation or anything going into that with him?
CB: We're all really big fans of Ross's work and were excited about working with him, but we didn't know what to expect going into the studio with him. We hung out several times and got to know him before we worked together, though. Once we got into the studio for pre-production and all that, we were already pretty comfortable with him.
MM: Very nice. There's a lot of energy on the album, as well as the last one. I've seen that live as well. Is that energy something you strive for, or is it something you feel you have to do?
CB: That energy is really important to us. That's more important than the record being sonically powerful, which is completely opposite of most of the bands in our genre. I think if the energy can come through, then the rest follows suit. We always record live we do overdubs and things like that afterward but we always want to make sure that comes through because that energy is the source of Norma Jean.
MM: I have to say that's one of the reasons I've become a Norma Jean fan. A lot of bands try to put that out there, but it seems almost forced or a conscious effort; with you and the rest of the guys, it feels like it comes naturally.
CB: Awesome; that's good to hear. Thank you.
MM: So you're at home on break now. Where to from there?
CB: Yeah,. We're at home for the rest of December and a little bit of January, then we'll be over in Europe and the UK and France for a bit starting mid-January. After that. We're still planning what we're going to do.
MM: Anything you can reveal at the moment?
CB: Kinda, but we're still working on it. [Laughs] We want to do a few tours this year and over the summer. We want to do a couple shorter runs with different bands to kind of mix things up a bit. A lot of tours seem to feature a set amount of bands for eight weeks long. It's almost standard. We want to do something different, like three weeks with one set package and then another short tour with completely different bands. We want to do as many dates as possible.
