John Connolly Interview: An In Depth Conversation with Sevendust’s Badass Six Stringer

By: Angela Villand

The soaring and steady relevance of straight-up hard rock and heavy metal isn’t going anywhere. As a matter of fact, ask any hard rock or metal fan and you’ll get an earful about its longevity and importance. Music is universal, that’s a fact; take every genre out of the equation, dissecting them all one by one and you may find a bit of relentless “loyalty” in hard rock fanship – and the heavier the music, the better.

Leave it to five humble guys from the South to make a difference. Sevendust, known by friends and fans as a bunch of down-to-earth, great guys that have a damn good time performing and writing music, don’t seem to be aging like I thought they would. One CD after another, tour after tour – Oh sure, Morgan’s bitching about his back killing him and holy crap, he has every right to. But the music has evolved in a fashion that is the same, yet better. Every CD keeps that signature Sevendust sound that we know and freaking love, and if you have their discography, you know precisely what I’m talking about.

The boys in this band have always known they’re blessed, just ask them; they’ll tell anyone that Sevendust fans are not fans, they’re family. Those of us that have watched them “mature” musically over the years are excited that the world is catching on, so to speak. Those of you that discovered Sevendust in the past several years have most likely found yourself welcomed, with open arms, a hell yeah and raised horns by the rest of us! If I had a nickel for every time a Sevendust fan said that the band is “underestimated” or “underappreciated,” I would be a rich woman.

Ask any person that has more than one Sevendust CD and has seen them live and they will tell you they are sick and tired of watching the boys open for bands that should instead be opening up for them on stage. You might think this gets to the band too, but they’re so stinkin’ humble and gracious, it doesn’t happen. I think the best way to describe where they are and where they’ve been for some time now is “a very hard act to follow.” Ever hear that phrase before? Exactly!

John Connolly, one of the two Sevendust guitarists, spent some time answering more questions than I think I have ever asked in an interview and shared quite a bit of himself in the process. He was a long-time friend and fan of Dimebag Darrell (Pantera, Damage Plan). He looked up to him with both ears wide open, he thought he was crazy, yet admired the hell out of him in every way. Here, John speaks openly about Dime, shares some of his most humorous and favorite memories of the times they spent together. He also talks about the “old school” Sevendust “shit they pulled,” (trampolines on stage), shares some gear insight, and talks about how he and the music he makes has changed and evolved through over a decade of jammin’ with his band mates.

With Cold Day Memory well past the one year anniversary of its release, you might think it’s time for them to pack up and head home, head back to the studio.

No sir and no ma’am. That’s not how they do things, nor have they ever. They’re on the road now, still (in Europe, actually, at this moment). Oh yeah they take breaks, head home for a bit here and there, but then they hit the road again and keep on playing for the fans – For you.

******

Dean Guitars and Other Gear

Angela Villand: You’ve been playing Dean Guitars for as long as I can remember. I’ve also seen you with Gibson Explorers and your Epiphone guitars. Is it your personal decision to stick with Deans on stage or a professional one?

John Connolly: I have a deal with Dean but it’s not a complete 100% exclusive deal. I mean, they’re not asking me to play nothing but Deans. But they keep sending me good guitars, so I just choose to not play anything else when I’m out on the road. They’re solid, reliable, they sound great, and I have no reason to bring any of my “prized possessions” out on the road.

I’ve only got a few guitars that are really dear to me. But honestly these sound just as good, so why run the risk of losing something that’s super sentimental, although I do have a couple of Deans that I’m sentimental about too. It’s just a core relationship that we’ve got going.

Angela Villand: Last year you had an opportunity to work closely with Dean Guitars and develop something special; a Custom Z body guitar with your favorite frets.

John Connolly: I think they did the informal introduction at NAMM in January. I was supposed to be there for it, but we did the Music as a Weapon tour. We actually took different elements from a bunch of different guitars and we came up with what was gonna end up being my signature Z. It’s basically a Z Body, but it has a long scale neck on it (25-1/2″ scale). I didn’t realize how much of a big deal it was for me until I actually threw it on there as an experiment and tried it. It’s just a little bit longer. It has a fender scale.

There aren’t too many Explorers out there that have that Fender-Scale neck. Usually, most of them are Gibson scale necks, so it’s kinda “one of those things,” the sacrifice of the fretboard. Gibson’s cool for certain things, but I always feel like I’m bunched up on there, and I don’t have super-big fingers or anything. I’ve always liked a little bit more space on the neck.

Putting that Fender-scale neck on a Gibson-style body was kind of a first. I think Dave Mustaine had done one with a 25-1/2″ scale also, but I believe he’s calling his a V. It’s kinda like the Z, but it’s a lot sharper, looks more like a weapon. Mine’s basically just a traditional shape, rounded out with all the coils and the edges.

Angela Villand: Do you use a compressor for channels or effects (i.e. sustain)? Do you still use the Saffron Squeeze (compressor)? When is that handy?

John Connolly: Oh yeah, the Saffron Squeeze is good; I throw it on at the end of the show. I’ll pop it on because I’ll hold the note forever. There are just certain times where certain channels need a little bit of help. If we’re playing in a really humid club, sometimes it’s good to just throw it on and leave it on. It doesn’t really give you gain, but it gives you “more.” It’s kinda hard to explain.

You can physically hear it if you turn the dial up at a certain spot on the pedal itself, once you turn the drive up a little bit. It’s an audible difference for sure, but we’ve got it set to where you really can’t tell when it’s on or when it’s off, other than when you’re getting those long, sustaining notes. That pedal is probably gonna stay on my board forever, that’s for sure.

Angela Villand: I’ve seen you use a wireless rig on stage, but I’ve seen you go back to cables at a show on the same tour? Do you have a preference?

John Connolly: [Laughing] It’s funny you should ask that. We bought a very expensive wireless unit from a manufacturer that I won’t name because we’re trying to actually work it out. We spent a lot of money on a system and put it in the rig, and it seemed to work for a certain amount of time. Then out of the blue one day, all the sudden I started getting some horrific noise out of the rig. We had just recently switched over to EVH amps, and a couple of the guys in the crew were trying to figure it out, trying to help, basically throwing stuff out there.

Everyone starts pointing the finger at the amps, like “It’s probably those amps; they’re super High Gain amps!” I’m saying “It’s not that, it’s something different.” It’s a noise. I understand the difference between a lot of gain noise and getting stuff that’s not supposed to be there in the first place. So we did the test: throw the wireless in there, play; then grab a cable, play. All the noise was gone and the rig sounded 10 times better. [Laughing] So we’re having issues with our wireless at the moment.

Technically, I’m supposed to be wireless and I’ve been wireless for years. But the one we just spent a whole bunch of money on has just decided it doesn’t want to cooperate with my rig for some reason or another. I’ve been on a cable for about three months and I’ve got to be honest with you, it’s never sounded better.

I never realized how good a cable sounds until I spent a lot of time on one. I mean I did the whole Music as a Weapon tour on a cable and it kind of sucks you know, because it’s just long enough to get to the other side (over at the other mic position), but that’s about it. A couple of times I unplugged myself on the run with a big 25-foot cable dragging around behind me. [Laughing] It’s kind of one of those weird questions because it pertains to what we’re dealing with right now. At the moment I’m on a cable and I’m not wireless at all.

******

Brad Kochmit Filling in for Clint Lowery

Angela Villand: On the Music as a Weapon tour in early 2011, you had a guest guitarist filling in for around ten shows, Brad Kochmit (Eye Empire, formerly of Switched). Your fellow guitarist, Clint Lowery, took off for quality time at home with his wife for their son’s birth and asked Brad to help out. What was that like to have Brad on board with Sevendust for those ten shows? How did it feel playing in front of thousands of your fans with Brad on stage beside you?

John Connolly: It was really, really cool. He’s such a good dude, and he’s a great player and a super huge fan of the band. We didn’t realize how big a fan he really was. We’ve known Brad for years, ever since he was in Switched, when we toured with them. It was cool. It was different.

It was definitely noticeably different in a lot of ways, and also it was exciting because it was like …you get someone that gets their first crack at it, their first shot. So you’re kind of watching it with that in mind. You’re thinkin’, “Alright, this is the first time that they’ve ever jammed with the band, and they’re doing it in front of about 12,000 people so what’s this like?” [Laughs]

It was cool. It was definitely fuel for a lot of the shows, just to watch Brad’s excitement with it. It was awesome. Clint had a healthy baby boy and he was able to take those first couple of weeks off, ‘cause you never know with a baby. I mean, thank God I was home, ‘cause Jordan was an hour and a half on off on off for about three or four months, cause she didn’t sleep more than two or three hours. So it was something that was important for Clint to do, and it was important for us to do the tour at the same time.

It kind of sucked because originally we were going to have the time off and it would have been a no-brainer. When we got the offer to do the tour, we said “This is too cool a tour to not do.” It was trippy going out there, because Clint played the first show and then Brad played the next ten. Then Clint came back. It was definitely a lot of fun, Brad slammed it, and he did a great job. He was hard on himself for missing stuff, but we said “Oh, you only had to learn a Sevendust show!” [Laughing]

******

Talking Dimebag Darrell

Angela Villand: Let’s talk about Dimebag Darrell (Pantera). It’s pretty clear to anyone who knows you, knows that Dime’s influence on you is solid. Not to mention the impact your friendship with him has had on both your life and your musicianship. It’s unmistakable, undeniable.

John Connolly: Without him, I don’t know what I would sound like. For me, it all started with Metallica and James Hetfield, but I was more of a drummer during that stretch. I really hadn’t focused on the guitar part of it, even though James is, by far one of the baddest rhythm players on the planet. Pantera was the band that just hit me in the side of the face and I went “What…the…fuck…was…that!?” I’d never heard anything like it.

People talk about like when Nirvana came along and reinvented music. Well, Metallica invented the style and Pantera came along and gave it some “swagger.” It was different. It was the same, but a totally different approach with everything that he did. He claimed he hit bad notes all the time but you’d never know it because of a lot of the rules that he’d go by, like “If you fuck up once, fuck up four times in a row so that everyone thinks that you meant to do it.” I’d say “Alright cool, so when I hit that bad note, I’m supposed to remember the bad note?” And he’d say “Yeah just keep murdering the bad note.” [Laughs]

I never saw the guy stagger. I never saw him drop the note. I never saw him look out of his element or uncomfortable. It never looked like he really had to concentrate on anything that he was doing. Even though; he’d actually sometimes have to get the guitar up on his knee or he’d have to lean down on the wedge or and kind of kneel into the wedge to get to some of the positions he was getting to. It was effortless for him.

It was something that was so natural. He had such a precise thing about it. I mean, for all those guys that played so fast, he seemed to have that top gear and it was just some of the best stuff that I’ve heard. He had such a blues mentality but he was a shredder. He took a lot of his stuff from Eddie Van Halen, and I do too. I get a lot more of my Eddie through Dime than I realize.

Angela Villand: Have you or the band thought about writing a tribute to Dimebag?

John Connolly: The funny thing is that “Hero” was that song. It was on the record right after that happened. We called it “Hero.” It wasn’t specifically about Dimebag. It was more of a working title, because when we did the music that’s what inspired us. As far as a lyrical thing, I’m sure at some point and time it’ll come to that. I guess part of us is still in that denial factor that we really don’t ever want to let it go in the first place. It’s been years. It’s been a long time since it happened. I don’t know. When a guy that big goes like that…[Pauses]….

Randy Rhoads died in an airplane with somebody who was probably doing something stupid. Dime was just jamming up there on stage, throwing down, which ironically was probably the way he would’ve wanted to go. The last thing he remembered was a ripping solo from the first song of the show, so he definitely went out the right way.

Angela Villand: Dimebag story time!

John Connolly: I think I’ve got more than my share. [Laughs] There are so many good stories. Probably the most memorable was the time he had me both throwing up and pissing at the bar in the Ice Palace in the Amphitheater in Dallas. That was pretty cool. [Laughs] Me and Dave Williams from Drowning Pool had been drinking all day. We finally hooked up with him at the bar and it was on. Let’s just say …we don’t remember much. Dave woke up in a pile of puke in the front grass. He was in the yard! He never made it in the house. It was one of those nights.

Probably the coolest though, for us as a band, and for me personally, was actually getting to jam “Walk” with jim in Dallas. That was probably the coolest. I’ve got a couple of pictures from that show in my home studio. Some fans had taken pics of that out at the show. They came down to the bus and gave me the pictures and I’ve got ‘em up on the wall at the house. It’s cool, them and me and everyone up there jamming. That was probably one of the coolest times hanging with Dime.

They had this band that they were kind of “backing” called Gasoline. They did, I guess, four or five Texas dates with us, and Pantera was off (the road) ‘cause they were off forever before they got the Damage Plan thing going. They’d just hop on the bus and ride around and follow the tour for three or four days and we’d ended in Dallas. The whole time we were talking…and we were doing “Walk” every night up on stage and Dime said “I gotta get up there and do it with ya’ll!”

But he wanted to do it right, you know, on one of his guitars; that made sense to him, so he could actually do the solo and do everything. So we said “Alright, we’ll do it in Dallas.” So Dime and Rex came up there, Vinnie (Paul) was back there on the drums. It was cool, just getting to hang with those guys and actually getting to jam one of our favorite songs from them.

Angela Villand: It sounds as though being able to jam with Dime was one of the biggest highlights of your personal music career.

John Connolly: Oh yeah, without a question and without a doubt! Woodstock, hanging out at the clubhouse with Dime; I mean, nothin’ but jamming, but …jamming was something special.

Probably the other most memorable thing was, it was his birthday right after Dave Williams had passed. We were in Dallas for Dave’s funeral and Dime’s birthday party was at (his brother) Vinnie’s the next day. Vinnie said “You guys gotta stay.” So we changed our tickets over, stayed a few extra days, got to watch him and hang out with him at his birthday party. It was cool because they had a ZZ Top cover band called Tres Hombres set up literally in Vinnie Paul’s living room.

After about four or five songs of them jammin’, Dime went over there and grabbed the guitar and didn’t put the guitar down for about three hours. We just get kept feedin’ him shots. Getting to watch him play ZZ Top for about three hours was just…mind-blowing. He knows ZZ Top as well as Billy Gibbons does, I promise you.

Angela Villand: Did the ZZ Top trademark signature “jam dance” in synchronicity come out?

John Connolly: Oh he had the moves down, trust me! He had the whole thing, it was the show. [Laughing] We all just stood around and watched him. At first we were thinking “Oh he’s got someone to jam at his party…he doesn’t need to get up there and jam.” Then later, we said, “It’s just a matter of time before he gets up there and grabs that guitar,” and sure enough about two songs after we were discussing it, he was up there jammin’. We kept feeding shots to him and it just kept getting better and better and better, it was awesome.

******

Practicing and Technique

Angela Villand: For the younger guitar players out here, particularly for the ones that may think (very early-on) they’re “where they want to be with their technique” and perhaps believe they don’t need to practice so much anymore, etc. Let’s talk about practicing. How important to you is daily practice, and what part does that play in mastering and sharpening your skills?

John Connolly: The practicing part is simple. The more times you do something, the better you’re gonna get at it, whether you like it or not. I mean, you may not even be trying to “master a skill.” It just happens. Everybody’s got their own particular way they do it and the more you do it, the more proficient you become at it. You’re brain just kind of “takes over.” It’s the same thing with practicing. It does seem repetitive, and it does seem like certain things you do just “suck to do,” but the point is to get them “programmed in” to where you’re doing ‘em without thinking.

You spend six months learning a riff, mastering this really, really tough riff, and the idea is that once you’ve got it, you just don’t think about it, you just do it. So, doing sixteen individual little movements with the lick, or the solo, or whatever it happens to be, you’re doing it all as one continuous thing. It’s hard to get that mindset when you’re starting from the basic first building block of something; and sometimes it seems like it’s redundant.

But you do something enough, and after a certain amount of time, (all the sudden) it just becomes reflex. It’s just something you’re doing really without thinking. That’s where the best music really comes from, is the people that can do the things, do the technical stuff, without it sounding like they’re thinking about the technical stuff.

I’m still kind of stuck in that gray area in the middle. I still, sometimes, go back and listen and say “It sounds like I’m thinking, it doesn’t sound like I’m playin’.” You know, I’m hittin’ all the right notes and they’re all technically in the right space but there’s just, there’s something different about it. That’s the hardest thing, I think, for any musician to achieve, that total relaxed state when you’re playin’, doin’ it without sounding like your head’s in the way. The only way you can get there is through practice, it takes hours and hours of repetition on certain things. If you want something to get stuck in there, just practice it.

You don’t have to practice it for fifty hours a week but you could do five to ten minutes a day on something really simple that you’re just not really that proficient at. If you spend that five or ten minutes a day, after about a year, I promise you won’t even be thinking about that thing. You’ll just do it, and you’ll go “Wow, I didn’t think about any of the individual steps. I just did that” (whatever it happens to be.) It’s something that’s important. It can get in the way for young guitar players.

I’m kind of fortunate that when Sevendust first got together I was a drummer, so I was basically “Mr. barred-chord bangin’ around the neck” just getting by. Thank god for bands like Nirvana, and Soundgarden, etc., because Grunge was kinda kickin’ at that point, so solos were kind of looked down on. So we didn’t have too many guitar solos and it was alright because I was like “Cool, I can’t have to worry about that for a minute.”

But it was interesting, because all you really focused on was (well besides cool riffs and stuff like that) was the song. It wasn’t like you were sittin’ there and you were killing yourself for a week trying to come up with the perfect guitar solo for somethin’. You were actually workin’ on music, real songs and stuff like that. I think that’s the most important thing. I mean, practicing is great, but practice actually writing a song.

Let’s be real; the Beatles wrote amazing songs and there’s not a shredder in the band. Shredding is cool. It’s something cool to do but it’s not a replacement for the fact that there needs to be some…if you’re gonna focus on songwriting then you should be good at it, or you should always achieve to kinda be better at it. I guess the guitar playing kind of gets in the way of that, if that makes any sense. Sometimes the last thing you need to be doing when you’re writing a song is playing the guitar. You need to be one finger…up and down the neck…findin’ the notes…and there’s your base melody and then you build off that.

There are some people that say “You know it sounds like there are these two or three songs on the Sevendust records that have another version of that kind of song and it just gets better and better.” And I say “Thank you! Cool, ‘cause that’s what we’re trying to do!” [Laughs] Everyone wants to make a better version of what they are, what their essence is. I would be bummed if I bought a new Pantera record back in the day and it didn’t sound like Pantera.

Of course I wanted it to sound like Pantera. I wanted it to sound like new, cool Pantera, stuff I hadn’t heard before. I didn’t want them to sound like Testament. I didn’t want them to sound like Slayer. I wanted them to sound like Pantera. We’ve got practice in getting that songwriting under our belt. I think the guitar playing is super important too, but at the end of the day, the song is what it is.

The guitar solo is a very small portion of something that really has a much greater weight to it. I think young guitar players can kinda get stuck in that mentality of “Oh I gotta play faster than anybody.” If that’s what you want to do and that’s your goal, then that’s great. But it’s very tough to make a living. You have to be the best at what you do if you’re gonna be one of those kinds of guys. You have to pick up the guitar and write songs. Either way it takes practice. You can’t just pick it up and do it. Iif you’re gonna do that, it’s not the easy way out.

And it’s not as easy as just saying “Ok well don’t play 64th note quintuplet solo pieces, just work on these three chords.” Sometimes those three chords are much harder to work on than all that super-fast, haulin’-ass stuff. Musicianship and practicing go hand in hand. I think the more you do it, the better you get at stuff. It just becomes a part of you. When I’m working on something that I’ve never tried before, or something that I’m really not particularly good at, or things that I’m about 35 to 40% of the way there.

I’ve got the main gist of it. Like on Monday I can do it great, on Tuesday I just fall all over it and I just look at myself and I go “Why?” [Laughs] You gotta keep trudging through. There are good days and bad days. But there are things that kind of keep it “fresh,” and I think that they all apply to everything else that you do. A learned technique on guitar is just time spent holding an instrument and you being more comfortable with it.

Guitar players are lucky because I think they season with age. The older they get the better they get. It usually doesn’t work the other way around. A couple of those shredder guys might not be able to haul as much ass when they’re 70. Unless it’s a guy like Les Paul; he was rippin’ from A to Z, and he was doin’ it all on a clean channel.

Angela Villand: Sevendust doesn’t sound like anything else, and the way you play your guitar is very unique. It’s at the chore of what the Sevendust sound is and always will be. You don’t follow the same “rules” as other musicians either.

John Connolly: First of all, we’re tuned down to drop-tuning, which means all bets are off on the bottom string. Second of all, we’re tuned down to B, so if someone says play a D chord, I know where the D chord is if you want that note. It’s not gonna look like a D (when you see me play it) because that’s not where the “shape” is (on the scale). I kind of live in a different place on the guitar.

I work more in patterns and rough shapes. I know a major scale and I probably know a minor scale. Other than that, I’m a little lost. I gotta hunt and peck some things. I guess that’s the difference. I come from a drummer’s point of view and that part of the music. It’s not that I don’t want to learn it, but it’s just been something that I kind of get the grasp of it. I don’t want to know too many of the rules. I’ve always been like that, even back when I was in college. Rules in music suck. Some of the coolest things that I think don’t make any sense.

If I find something that sounds cool, sometimes I play something and it’s not even in the same key as the rest of the song but it sounds killer. I don’t like getting hemmed in by the rules, because if I don’t know that they don’t “make sense” and they sound good, then I’m gonna use it. [Laughing] I don’t want to know all of the boundaries and what I’m not supposed to do.

******

Australian and Family Values Tour

Angela Villand: Australia earlier this year, how was that?

John Connolly: It was awesome. We’d been over there a couple of times before and it’s great. Doing it on a festival like this was just cool. You couldn’t get any more bang for your buck. You’re playing in front of so many people, there are so many bands on the bill and everyone’s traveling together. Australian festivals, they just get it. They just understand how to do it better.

Angela Villand: The fans in Australia love the hell out of you guys. I’m glad to hear you had a good experience there, especially with the festival being managed well.

John Connolly: They’ve got the organizational part of it down, lots more organized! To be able to get people in and out…you’ve got to understand, there are 30 bands on the bill and they’ve all got to get on airplanes and they all have to get to the next city…and so does the gear…so…how you gonna do that? [Laughing] These cities are about 1200 to 1400 miles away, they’re not close.

It’s more “together.” There are fewer questions. It’s done better, caterings better, set ups are usually better. And they’re never the same because you show up in a different city and they have a different stage for you to go into. It was so cool to watch them do that and show up every day and be on the same time, same stage, every day with killer crowds. It was a great experience for us. I definitely want to get back (to Australia) for sure.

Angela Villand: Over recent years, you’ve gained a huge following of new fans, and it occurs to me that some of them have never heard of some of the shit you guys used to pull. Some of them don’t know anything about your onstage stunts back on the Family Values tour in the early years or afterwards. And then some of the people that discovered Sevendust back in the late ‘90’s are still asking about them….those damned trampolines.

John Connolly: Fortunately that was right before those compact digital cameras so there’s not much video footage either. If you go and try to YouTube it, there’s just not a ton of it out there. It was cool. It was crazy, and we were like “Yeah, let’s go get some trampolines.” We were drunk, and we were stupid.

Angela Villand: From the pit, it looks like you hiked a jog-tramp from a soccer-mom, but were they serious stunt trampolines?

John Connolly: That’s what everyone assumed, that they were like those little “jog tramps” but this was different, these were circus (Stunt) style. They were about three feet by three feet. The landing pad in the middle was only about a foot wide, the springs were about 18 to 20,” wide so when you hit that thing, it wasn’t like when you’re bouncing on a little jog tramp, it wasn’t like that at all.

The first time I hit it I was 8 feet up in the air and almost landed on my face. It really freaked me out because you can get serious air on those things. I don’t remember where we got those. But if you looked at those things you’d be like “Holy shit! You’ve got to aim!” You don’t just jump up there, because if you missed, your foot goes straight through the springs (and that definitely happened a more than a few times).

Angela Villand: Were the “stage tramps” (wow, great name) something that you “practiced?” If anyone saw it live (way back then) or seen the videos, it looked incredibly dangerous and it just happened so fast.

John Connolly: We all used them a little differently, and the thing that sucked was that we didn’t get to do rehearsals. We showed up at the Pepsi center at the Family Values tour that day (the only show we played on that tour because Filter had to go make a video) and we said “Fuck it, let’s do this!” We almost killed ourselves in front of 15,000 people. [Laughing]

So the “rehearsal” was the Family Values show that we played. We’re still tryin’ to figure out how to use those things and we haven’t done them in probably eight years. It seemed like a good idea at the time and then we had to buy some gear and we were like “alright, maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.” [Laughing]

******

Epic Touring Schedule

Angela Villand: Sevendust is known for their unrepentant and often a relentless grip on touring that doubles that of most bands. You went on a 22-month tour stretch for one of your albums and it continues to this day. How has your performance changed over the years with the arrival of new and advanced technology? How have things evolved for you over time with how you psyche yourself up, and how you feel before and after performing?

John Connolly: Sure, with more confidence the better you get as a player, the more you do something (like I said earlier, with practice). I may not think about it when I go out on a tour, but once I’ve played “Splinter” 150 times. It’s better than it was before I played it 150 times, I can tell you that for sure. [Laughing] So “Black,” songs like that off the first records, they’re definitely practiced. They’re on autopilot. We’ve played them so many times that we could do them in our sleep.

I know (for me, personally), I’m a lot more relaxed going out on stage because of how much we simplified things, as far as technology. I mean, technology has come a really long way as far as a lot of things, and it seems like I did the exact opposite. I just started throwing shit out of my rig. Slowly but surely I got it down to where it was the most basic set-up ever.

Literally, it was guitar, head, cabinet, with three or four effects and that’s it. Those effects we have in a little racket there. I have a controller so I can stomp on each one. I can turn them on and off at will and I’m even on a cable. So basically, I’m as close to what we actually do in the studio (because I use the same head and the same cabinet in the studio) and that’s kind of cool.

When you go for a studio sound and you actually get acclimated to an amp and take it out on the road, you’re literally “doing it.” We did the whole Music as a Weapon Tour with a half-stack, literally. One cabinet, one head (as opposed to their usual 2/2), that was it, that’s all we needed. Put a microphone on it, throw it through the P.A., shit sounds good! Don’t lose sleep over plugging in nine different things to try to get “a sound.”

I’ve definitely stripped down a lot. I mean, I do still have things in my rack like the wireless that irritate the shit out of me, but it’s just simplified and getting’ back to the basics. I found an amp that I really, really love to play and found a guitar that makes me want to play the amp. It’s the new EVH, the new 5153’s. I’ve been using them for about two records and it only made sense to take them on the road and use them live.

Angela Villand: Did you throw your audio switcher out of the rig? (GCX)

John Connolly: I’ve got the GCX, I’m not gonna say I’m not sold on it, because I am. I know it does work. But anytime that we have “noise” issues, I would look at it and think Hrmmm. [Laughing] I mean there are a lot of cables comin’ in and outta that thing! It definitely simplifies things, though, because if I don’t want any of those effects on, all those buttons are off, there’s no red lights, there’s nothing in the chain. It’s the shortest distance from point A to point B. It’s a very complicated way of eliminating a very real problem most guitar players have. I’m pretty much sold on it.

******

Tattoos

Angela Villand: We’re gonna switch off the tunes now and talk about tattoos. What’s the most important piece of work you have, that you’re sentimental about? When was your last tat and when was the last time you had some work done and what was it?

John Connolly: Last time I got one…shit, I really haven’t gotten one. [Laughing] The last time I got “worked” was about a year or a year and a half ago. We’ve been working on a sleeve, so that time he went from the wrist all the way to the shoulder blade. We’re just packing in color, doing a lot of detail and stuff like that. It’s been an ongoing process with this arm for at least ten years. I’m ready to get finished. I’m probably about five to ten hours from being done.

Probably the most sentimental is the one on my neck, my daughter’s birth date and some Angel heart wings. I got that one when we were on the A & E show Inked. I think I just want to finish everything I’ve got going right now before I worry about other things. I want to do a rib cage eventually and I want to do an arm pit eventually, but they’re not make or break, do or die things. I kind of go in and out of modes.

Now I’m just in the mode of “let’s finish this” and unfortunately I get to see him once a year at best so I’ve slowed down on how much work I’m getting. My goal was just to get the arms wrapped up get everything I’d started wrapped up and I don’t really have anything left that hasn’t at least been addressed or isn’t pretty much close to being done. I figure one or two more sittings with Stomp and I’ll be finished and then I’ll have kept my deal with myself, which was “I’m not gonna get any new tattoos till I get all the old one’s done.” [Laughing] I was sick and tired of walkin’ around with half-ass work and sayin’ “Oh yeah, well I’m gonna get that finished.” [Goofy voice]

Fortunately, it’s painfully slow, and it’s hard. I’ll hear the needle and I’m thinking “Oh it’d be so easy to just go in there and do it.” But I’ve got other stuff I’m focused on right now and tattoos are kind of on the back burner. I know once I get the itch again. It’s gonna be horrific. I’ll probably do a whole leg or something. [Laughing]

Angela Villand: What is it like for you to see that people have “Sevendust” or “7D” tattoos whether they’re inspired by your album art, song titles or lyrics? Does it freak you out?

John Connolly: If they look really shitty… [Laughing] No, I mean – it’s cool, even the shitty ones. At the end of the day, if they spent the money and took the time to go and sit there and go through the pain of having it put on, it means a lot, it really does. We’ve seen a lot, we’ve seen many of the Alpha (CD) covers, a lot of the Next “7D” tats.

This buddy of ours (Tyler DeVaney) actually got the “Cold Day Memory” heart. He basically just took the Sevendust logo off of that (art) and had that put literally on his chest. This thing must have taken probably 15, maybe 18 hours to do, it’s not small. It looks amazing, and the work is something that’s just…out of this world.

It’s really cool when we see people that got inspired by the band or by the artwork, something like that. There’s not a town we go to where there’s not someone with the band name on them. I don’t think anybody in the band has a “band name” (tattoo) yet but we see a lot of Sevendust tattoos and it really is amazing.

******

About the Author

Penning the description “unapologetic music enthusiast,” Angela (or “Ang”) has spent most of her adult life involved in the music scene in one fashion or another. It all started with shooting bands as a teen with a borrowed SLR Canon, sneaking backstage (dressed as the pizza delivery chic) in order to photograph a band & tell them how much their music meant to her. Not afraid to ask, not taking no for an answer, politely building a network of contacts and having fun; she only shot the bands she enjoyed, which kept things fun and exciting, never boring. In 2000, with a resume of live concert photographs & networking contacts in tow, she embarked on her own live photography business.

In 2004, after a whirlwind of summer festivals, indoor/outdoor concerts & music conventions, she laid the photog business down and chose another path. She began working with Madison Wisconsin’s Maximum Ink Music Magazine, the Midwest’s largest print magazine after a frustrating 1.5 yrs in graphic design classes. What started out as a hobby (scanning photos, helping occasionally with the calendar, etc,) became full time copy and layout editing. Eventually, she began writing cd/dvd/book reviews and that graduated to interviews with singers, songwriters, drummers, guitarists, bassists, and more. Using the network she’d created and maintained over the years as a photographer, Ang began scheduling interviews with some of the artists she’d photographed and branched off from that point to a full time job.

Her cover stories such as Alter Bridge, Zakk Wylde, and Travis Meeks of the Days of the New can be seen both in print and online.
She’s spent more time in the past years interviewing artists that are both unsigned and not in the mainstream. With her website, Hard-Rock-Reviews.com, she has created a platform where, on a weekly basis, she can tout the talents of unsigned, un-sponsored artists from all over the U.S.A. On occasion, you can find her also speaking with tour managers, booking agents, guitar and drum techs, producers, distributors and more “behind the curtain” staff & putting these interviews on her website. Dissecting the “big picture,” she maintains that interviewing more than JUST the front-man & sometimes interviewing more than one member of a band gives the fans of the entire band a real feel for how the music machine works.

In addition to supporting and promoting these artists, she’s interviewed Elias Soriano and Robb Rivera (Nonpoint), John Conolly, Morgan Rose & Clint Lowery (Sevendust), Brad Kochmit (Switched, Eye Empire), Otep Shamaya (Otep), Jesse Leach (Killswitch Engage, Times of Grace), Brian Marshall (Creed, Alter Bridge), Corey Lowery (Stuck Mojo, Dark New Day, Eye Empire), Brandon Sammons (Chasing Avalanche), Will Hunt (Black Label Society, Evanescence, Dark New Day, Eye Empire), DJ Ashba (Guns N Roses, Sixx A.M.), Mike Froedge (doubleDrive, Speed X, Black Label Society), and many more.

Whether it’s behind the camera, the pen or the laptop, Angela’s main enjoyment is the music itself. While she enjoys many genres of music, her heart belongs to heavy metal, hard rock, and progressive metal. She is currently crossing names off her “interview bucket list” every 6 months like clockwork “just because it’s so much fun.”

“When I die, bury me deep
Put 2 speakers ‘tween my feet
Put my headphones on my head
Rock n Roll me when I’m dead”

www.MaximumInk.com
www.Hard-Rock-Reviews.com