TS - Tell me how Hed (pe) started.

M.C.U.D. - I was living my life doing the 9 to 5 thing. I really wasn’t trying to get a record deal, I just figured "I can’t come home every day and watch sitcoms all night. I need to have a little ‘extra-curricular.’" That’s where the whole band thing started. So, music was just what I did at the end of my day. Then, all of a sudden, we started selling out clubs. Dudes from New York wanted to sign us. You may have heard we’re not real happy with our label. See it’s like this; now that we’re signed, hindsight is 20/20. We wish we had waited. At the time it seemed like manna from heaven, but it’s " all good," it will all work itself out. You know, after you leave your job and music becomes your way to try to make a living, then you start to change the way you think. Then you’re like "hey, I wanna make money at this!" Where before it was strictly a punk rock thing – "f**k the world, play what you want, f**k the music business"- that’s how we were. We went through the whole process of recording our first album with a punk rock attitude. For me I was like "I’m not gonna sing, I’m not even gonna try, I don’t want anything that can even get on the radio." Now it’s very different.

TS – Now you’re recording the new album?

M.C.U.D. - Now we’re toying with the mainstream. We want to sell albums. We want to have a way to support ourselves. Oops, reality’s set in. We still got our punk rock roots, but we gotta play this game right now so we can pay some bills.

TS - Is your music a lot different in this album from the last?

M.C.U.D. - Yes, I will say that part of it is just due to personal growth. Its years later and we’re all into different things now. When the first album was out we were into a Dr. Dre/Black Flag/NIN thing. Now we’re into the dirty south thing, like a Hotboys, or a Master P. thing still combined with our NIN and Black Flag sensibilities. That’s where we’re at now. Plus typically back then I was a "tweaker", and I would just tweak on every subject. Right now this album is a personal album, it’s like therapy. Each song is very personal. The last record was an essay album, where I would do essays on different topics. This one is more personal, I talk about my life and myself.

TS - I noticed a big difference in your performance at "Ozzfest" from your performance at the Whisky, and the style of the new songs. They did seem to be more personal. What influenced this change?

M.C.U.D. - It was less of a conscious decision, it was more just the way it had to be! At the time of the first album, I had to say things that I could grab the mike and have some convention over. At that time I had to hold that convention, I had to be a witness for them. Right now it’s time to be a witness for myself. Whenever I’m writing a song I have to know that when I get on stage and do it live, that I can portray it as real as possible. Now I am exposing myself to people. In the performance it’s all so close to my heart, ‘cause God, I’m just opening my soul.

TS – Are you worried about the effect these changes might have on your fans?

I’m not worried, but I’m curious. I expect to sell a million albums, but a tenth of those are to hard-core (Hed) fans. A hundred thousand people already got my back! I want those people to understand, I’m not abandoning my history of attacking topics. This is our second album - there will be a third and a fourth. On the second album I’d like to give people a chance to maybe get to know me, not just how I feel about things, but actually get to know me.

TS - When do you expect the new album to be released?

M.C.U.D. - Realistically late May. We won’t even be done with the recording until the middle of March.

TS - You’re playing a gig at a club in Fullerton this week. Will that be your last gig until after you are done recording the new album?

M.C.U.D. - We’re doing this show to try out some of out new sh*t on our people. They’ve been really good about listening to the new sh*t. Sometimes you think people just want to hear your old stuff, but man, when we’ve played people are all excited saying "Man, your new sh*t, it’s all that, it’s all good." I’m excited!

TS - I guess the best way to get to my next question is just to come right out and ask. Some of your lyrics seem a bit misogynistic. Would you mind explaining some of your views on women and what influences some of these songs?

M.C.U.D. – I’m so glad you’re asking me! I’ve been getting some press about that from some of the female journalists. I don’t know what that’s about. I don’t really know because journalism is all about exploitation of the negative. I wonder if they say to themselves, "wow, he seems like he’s a male chauvinist," and they just grab onto that and run with it. It’s not like that. Anybody who’s been in a relationship can come from either side and say "men are assholes" or "women are bitches." We can all agree that some men are nice and some women are angels. Everything has two sides to its story. I’m no young kid, I’m a man and I’ve dealt with women for a long time. I see common denominators of human behavior. You know the way people act in relationships. People are liars - women are liars and so are men. I’m just speaking truthfully from how I’ve been dealt with. I hope I don’t upset women, but I’m sure that if women can just replace the pronouns with the masculine instead of the feminine, it’s all happened to them, too.

TS – We’ve all been there, we’ve all been messed over at one time or another.

M.C.U.D. – Exactly! As far as my out look on romance, it’s like "if you’re really happy, be prepared to be really sad. If you’re really feeling good with a partner, be prepared to be really lonely someday." That’s my philosophy, if you really feel love, strong love be ready to feel some strong hate. That’s my whole concept of human relations. I put it out in my music, most of it is the negative part. Because of our music and the punk-rock vibration of our music, it does not want me to stand up there and talk about all goodness. I’m supposed to get up there and talk about some bullsh*t! It wouldn’t even go with the music if I were to get up there and talk about love and roses - "life is so beautiful" (said in a very sarcastic tone). "No!" It’s the vibration, it’s punk rock! Rappers talk about the ghetto, and killing. Since that’s not part of my reality, I need to transfer that into whatever is my reality.

TS – So, what is your reality ?

M.C.U.D. – More of a white boy-suburban-punk rock-sex-drugs-alcohol thing. Obviously I am not worrying about my next meal. I’m not worrying about gangs. It’s a little bit of pressure on me because I listen strictly to gangster rap and gangster hip-hop, but I know when it’s time for me to get on the mike I’m not gonna rap like that. I have such a love for hip-hop, it doesn’t mean that I can’t rap just because I’m not a gangster.

TS - What are you personal musical influences?

M.C.U.D. – Personally I am consumed with gangster rap! Completely! I’m into the Hot Boys, which is Juvenile, E.G., and Little Wayne - "the Cash Money Millionaires." Right now they’ve got all my love and all my attention. Those are my favorite n*gger’s, I can’t get enough of them.

Back when we did out first album, it was a Snoop Dog thing, the "Dog Pound" Years. Later, it’s all about the dirty south. I like the Hot Boys. I like the Goodie Mob, Master P, and DMX. Some of that New York sh*t killing me, you know the "Roughriders" stuff. Anybody who knows me knows I don’t listen to hard-core music on my off time.

Except I have a handful of bands that I like; System of a Down, Slipknot, Korn, Black Sabbath, Marilyn Manson, Led Zeppelin, and Rage Against the Machine. Those are the hard-core bands that I listen to. I’m in the studio listening to punk all day, so when I’m away from it I just need to chill. Hard-core music hits me right to the core of my emotions, I can’t just sit there and listen to it. It gives me anxiety. You put on System of a Down or Rage and it’s gonna make me want to break something, it’s gonna make me react. Most of the time I have to put on some hip-hop, so I can just chill and be a normal person.

TS - What are your plans after you are done recording the album?

M.C.U.D. – Road work, we’re road dogs! Right after the album’s done, we’ll get on our tour bus and we’ll leave forever. We love the road! We practically sold a hundred thousand albums, one by one, from the road. With our whole record deal and how they really didn’t distribute us right, we literally sold our albums one-by-one. Selling them from here to Japan just by playing live for two years. We’re prepared to do that again.

The road experience, we love it. It’s a way of life. You have to embrace it or it will freak you out. Our drummer, he has a baby, and we all have to pull up our roots and leave. When we left three years ago, I had a girlfriend, but that didn’t last. I had to leave everything behind because we were gone for so long. I’m not saying that it can never work out, that you can’t go on the road and keep what you have with someone at home, but in that instance it wasn’t really like that. It was kind of a painful thing for me to leave people I saw every single day, and then not see them for months. Maybe anybody would trip out on that, I’m kind of sensitive so it really did freak me out. My whole life has changed since I signed a record deal and left on tour. I’m not the same person I was before.

TS – What’s the one message you’d like to send out to our readers about (Hed)pe?

M.C.U.D. – (Hed)pe is made up of people how have a strong commitment to punk rock and hip-hop. There’s a lot of stuff out there right now that has metal-rap sensibilities. We are a genuine art form that needs to be recognized by all of the people who are buying the stuff that is out there right now. We are the more dense properties of that. That’s what I want people to know. If they like some of that sh*t that they’re hearing out there, but they want to go a little deeper, then that’s where we come from. We’re hard-core. When the new album comes out is will be obvious. When we get in the studio we may toy with the mainstream, but no matter what, we’re still punk rock.