INTERVIEW WITH COLD FRONTMAN SCOOTER WARD

This interview with COLD frontman Scooter Ward was rescheduled three times, and we're glad that we finally got a chance to pin the guy down for a few minutes. Well, Rob from Paragon Music Magazine did the actual interview with the questions I tossed over. After losing guitarist Terry Balsamo to EVANESCENCE, and jumping ship from Geffen, it was once rumored that we might not hear from Cold ever again. Well, the band has just released 'A Different Kind of Pain', and is out on the road promoting it. What Scooter says about touring and the money a band makes might just shock you. This is how it all went down...

Paragon Rob: Okay, I have some pretty serious questions, and some goofy ones for you.

Scooter Ward: Pretty serious questions, man? I’d rather not go back to the dark place, you know? My whole life was like that, so for this record, we changed our attitudes and our vibe, so we really don’t like to talk about really serious stuff, because it’s just too much.

Steve C: You guys just played Boise, Idaho. We're all a bunch of New Jersey degenerates who have never been to Idaho, so tell us, what's the greatest thing about Boise (sure, you can say “potatoes,” but we're looking for something slightly less obvious).

Scooter Ward: We don’t get to play or anything. All we do is go up in the bus and get on stage, so I really don’t know anything about Idaho. Potatoes, I guess, that’s about it.

Steve C: With the release of A Different Kind of Pain, you guys are now on a new label, and have a slightly different lineup than you did with 13 Ways To Bleed Onstage. How are your priorities different in 2005 than they were in 2000?

Scooter Ward: I think we’re more focused and I just think we’ve learned lessons through our career, and what to do and what not to do, like an alcohol and drug addiction that I had for a long time, and I’m sober now, everybody’s positive. We know what we have to do and how to deliver songs now when we get up on stage. It has changed drastically. Our live show is 200 times better than it ever was, and every night kids are just freaking out so it’s really cool, it’s a good feeling.

Steve C: In your opinion, what's a better way to spend 100 Grand: shooting a video that MIGHT get some airtime on a video channel or getting a slot on Ozzfest for a summer to play out in front of thousands of kids?

Scooter Ward: Definitely playing shows. Videos, nowadays, are just so up in the air. You never know if they’re gonna catch onto it, or what’s going to happen with it. “Happens All the Time,” I don’t even think I’ve seen that video. So it’s like a crapshoot, it’s gambling. We’re not really down with that anymore.

Steve C: The new record is more mellow than your past efforts, and the Cold online biography chronicles some of the pain the band members were going through. Was there ever a point at which you said, "Damn, this record is getting a little too gloomy for its own good,” or was this more of a catharsis for you guys?

Scooter Ward: It definitely just changed our lives. It was a really dark place, everything going on with us, personally, was horrible. So one morning, me and Sam [McCandless, Drums] woke up and decided, let’s not only write the record, but let’s write a record that’s gonna change our lives and help us, and by the end of this record, everything’s gonna be better. And it was. It was weird, the way it was working. We felt weird; we felt there were angels and stuff around us while we were writing. And we wrote the rest of the record in my sister’s bedroom, and she was diagnosed with cancer 5 years ago and she had 2 months left to live, and I bought my parents’ house and we made her room a studio, and it just gave us a vibe, and it was the easiest record to write. But at the same time, it just helped, and every day we felt better and better about ourselves and what was going on.

Steve C: How many songs did you guys write before you narrowed it down to the eleven tracks on the new disc?

Scooter Ward: 13. We used to always write 13 songs, and whatever happens, happens.



COLD lineup in 2005 (photo credit: Amy V. Cooper / Lava Records 2005).

Steve C: Hypothetical Situation: [Limp Bizkit frontman] Fred Durst approaches you guys and says, "Guys, I know how we're going to generate a lot of press for your new record. We're going to leak a homemade sex tape of one of you guys to the tabloids, and when it hits the press, you guys get all pissed off and act all surprised. We'll make millions!" What do you say?

Scooter Ward: No, definitely not. I mean, we have families and stuff, and I could never do that. I have two little girls, so if a sex tape ever came out, I would just be screwed.

Paragon Rob: Most people aren’t up for that either.

Scooter Ward: Yeah, I can believe that.

Steve C: Of all the parts of the world you have toured, which city in which country has the most amazing food?

Scooter Ward: Florida. I think Florida has the best barbeque and all that stuff. We tried it everywhere. Barbeque’s a big thing for us down South. We traveled around Texas and Nashville and everywhere else, trying to get the same kind of vibe, but it’s just the way the sauce is down there, it’s something else.

Steve C: OK, now which food in which city sends you sprinting to the bathroom, holding onto both cheeks for dear life?

Scooter Ward: El Paso. I wouldn’t know, but my band mates – we played there yesterday – and they’re having a hard time with it. ::laughs:: (Ha! Someone's got the shits...and you're not supposed to go poo on the tour bus, either - SC)

Steve C: What is the biggest misconception about the music business today…or what's left of it, that is?

Scooter Ward: That every musician is rich if they’re on TV. People think everybody’s got a good life, that everything’s okay and nothing can happen. That’s totally not the case here. We don’t really make money. We’re out touring right now; I’m not making a dollar off of the tour, I’m just coming out here because I like playing music for people. (Every single time I get a response like this, I'm SO glad I opted not to keep playing in a band full-time - SC)

Steve C: Traveling in close quarters with other men makes you intimately more aware of one another's bodily functions than you'd like. If we took a poll, which member of Cold would win the 'most awful gas' award (meaning which member of the band could knock a buzzard off a shitwagon with his farts)?

Scooter Ward: Actually, none of the guys in our band. Maybe our crew guys, they’re pretty rough. But I don’t really know. We kind of keep to ourselves, separate a little bit, because it’s a bus, and we kind of do our own thing.

Steve C: "Tell Me Why" was written for a fan with an alcoholic mother, and who was being abused at home, who had contacted you. How often do fans try to reach out to you like that, either to ask for help, or just to communicate their pain?

Scooter Ward: Every day. It’s like online emails from ColdOnline.com pretty much every day. It becomes a lot, I do try to help them and talk to them about their problems, but at the same time, I’ve become that, and I’m involved in it so much that it’s a lot of pain to take on one person. And every day, hearing these horror stories, it gets a little too much, and sometimes I have to step back and decide not to go on there, try to breathe for a minute. But I understand with the job I have, and the lyrics I write, it does help people, so I have a responsibility to affect people’s lives.

Steve C: Your past two records went gold on Geffen. Is that not enough for a label to give a shit about you? How many records would you guys have had to sell for them to really back another release?

Scooter Ward: Oh no, they were happy. We were going to make another record with them, but the way they put out 13 Year of the Spider, they didn’t put out the singles that we liked, they didn’t put out “Wasted Years” and stuff like that, so I called the president one morning in December, and just asked to be let go. I go, “I don’t think that you guys are on the same page as us, and it’s not happening and I’m not feeling you anymore, if you’re gonna put a song out like “Stupid Girl,” which doesn’t represent Cold, and that we didn’t really write, then you don’t get it.” So I go, “I don’t wanna deal with you guys anymore, so would you please let us go?” And they let us go, which was amazing, because we’re like 4 million dollars in debt, from our records and videos and everything, so for them to let us go clean was amazing, and I was impressed it happened.

Paragon Rob: Really? They had no problem with it?

Scooter Ward: No, they did. But I told them I wouldn’t write another song for them, so there’s really nothing they can do.

Steve C: Hypothetical situation 2: Let's say you're walking down the street in your neighborhood, about to get yourself a slice or even a sandwich, and some excited teenager wearing a pair of those new Nike Pigeon sneakers runs up to you and says, "Dude! I just downloaded A Different Kind of Pain! You guys rule!" How are you going to react to this kid, who judging from his footwear, can obviously afford to buy your CD, which hasn't even been released yet?

Scooter Ward: That happened to me the other night, actually. Not a kid, but a grown man, pulling up in a Lexus. He was like, “Yeah, I started downloading you guys like 3 years ago, love you, you’re like my favorite band!” So I told him and his wife a little piece of my mind. It’s just not cool. I mean, if you love the record, and you download it, that’s cool, and I understand that people do it all the time, but I spent a year and a half of my life boxed up in a room trying to make this record. I have two little girls to take care of. You should at least give me the respect to buy the record for $10.

Paragon Rob: Yeah, there are too many people that do that out there.

Scooter Ward: Yeah, it’s crazy. People that have money and they still do it, because it’s accessible, and it’s easy to do, they don’t have to worry about going to the store. I’ve never done that. If I do download, I respect other artists, so I’ll still buy their stuff if I like it.

Paragon Rob: From my personal standpoint, I’m surprised that people that download everything, either are stupid enough, or gutsy enough, to go up to someone like you and openly admit they just ripped you off.

Scooter Ward: Yeah, when he did that, his wife’s eyes rolled like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe you just said that to him!”

Paragon Rob: It’s like a compliment and a smack in the face at the same time.

Scooter Ward: Yeah, exactly. Stupidity, I would say. Normally, when people tell me that, they seem like the big jock guys, you know what I mean? I don’t think these guys even have a clue as to what the hell is going on.

Steve C: If I were to rummage through the porn collection on the Cold tour bus, what titles, or what types of videos, would I find?

Scooter Ward: We get the Playboy channel, so that’s all. We get it on satellite. I don’t think we have any DVDs at all, because we do have kids on the bus all the time, coming to hang out, our families and stuff like that.

Steve C: Describe, if you would be so kind, the perfect sandwich.

Scooter Ward: Barbeque pork sandwiches are awesome. I like Rubens too. I think that’s probably the most ate sandwich on our bus. Everywhere we go, we’re always like, “They got Rubens? Oh God, get six!” (Oh man... I just had me a Ruben the other day. Sooo tasty... *drool*- SC)

Paragon Rob: Do you prefer pulled pork, or brisket?

Scooter Ward: Pulled pork, definitely.

Paragon Rob: Just wanted to know if you have any plugs or anything you’d like to say to our readers?

Scooter Ward: If you haven’t heard Cold and you have some problems in your life, sometimes our music helps people, and it’s possible it could you too.

Some great answers from an awfully nice fella... Much thanks to Rob from Paragon Music Magazine for taking the time to conduct this interview, because I never have F-ing time to do phoners.

Check out Scooter Ward on the new COLD release, A Different Kind of Pain, which is out now.

And of course, check out the official COLD website: ColdOnline.com