Jeff James Interview: Egypt Central’s White Rabbit

By: Brady Lavin

After almost four years of biding their time, Memphis, Tennessee natives Egypt Central are finally back with their hard-hitting follow-up to their self-titled 2008 debut. White Rabbit, which features heavy guitars, jagged rhythms and catchy melodies, was produced by Skidd Mills (12 Stones, Saving Abel) and will be released on May 31st.

The first single and title track from the album, “White Rabbit,” uses an Alice in Wonderland metaphor to deal with personal struggles of the band, and it has hit No. 25 on the Billboard Active Rock chart. Frontman Jeff James recently took a few minutes out of his busy touring schedule to sit down with Guitar International and have a quick chat about the new record.

Egypt Central

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Brady Lavin: How is it to play your new material to fans who are hearing it for the first time?

Jeff James: Oh, it’s absolutely amazing, I love it. It’s been about four years in the making, so it’s awesome for us and the fans both.

Brady: What do you guys do to break the monotony of touring?

Jeff James: We try to stay busy every day. We’re all pretty much into working out, so we brought some weights out on the road with us and all that good stuff. You know, we’ll lift, we’ll go run. We play frisbee, football and all that fun stuff.

Brady: Many bands have had what is known as the “sophomore slump,” with a less-than-quality second album. How important was it for you to avoid that?

Jeff James: Extremely important. We’ve been writing these songs for about three or four years. That gave us a lot of time to sit and live with them, so that helped a lot.

Brady: Your drummer has said, “Our secret weapon is our live show.” How did you go about capturing your live energy on a record?

Jeff James: Well, it was something we definitely kept in mind the whole time we were writing. We wanted the aggressiveness to be there, and the vocal melodies and all of that stuff that we try to portray live. I would just have to say keeping it in mind the whole time that we were writing and recording is how we did it.

Brady: How do you guys write music, is it as a group or individually?

Jeff James: I would say it’s a good mix of both. You know, I can sit here and write a song and then show it the rest of the guys and we can attack it that way. Or sometimes you sit in a room and all four jam together and come up with it that way.

Brady: What was it like working with Skidd Mills, who has worked with such big names as Saving Abel and 12 Stones?

Jeff James: It was a pleasure for me. I definitely went in and learned a whole lot from him. Great guy, he was awesome to work with.

Brady: Some of the songs on White Rabbit have pretty heavy subject matter, it seems. Could you shed some light on what inspired the lyrics?

Jeff James: Absolutely! Life, life, I would say. It’s literally everything that we have either been through ourselves or someone that is directly involved with us has been through. We just try to remain very honest about everything that we write. Honesty.