When you first listen to a band like Neurosonic, your immediate reaction is to try to sing along, as if you’ve been listening to them forever. Their sound is a bit nostalgic for fans like myself, who came of age around the tail end of hair bands up through the industrial music revolution. Maybe that’s why Puddle of Mudd fans didn’t seem too bothered by the fact that a band like Neurosonic was opening recently at the Charlotte, NC stop of the tour.  With a little something for everyone, these guys still manage to bring some originality to the table. 

Vocalist Jason Darr jumped in the car with us to answer a few questions about comparisons, his native Canada, and his recent life altering experience…

S!: I hear a lot of Nine Inch Nails influence in your music.  How do you feel you’ve changed or modernized that sound?

JD: I haven’t.  I don’t claim to take any responsibility for originality or doing something that other people haven’t done.  All I ever set out to do was make an album of songs that I really wanted to listen to; songs that I really wanted to play.  As it came together, so many people have come up to me and said “wow, you guys are so fresh and it’s so different, and so original!”  And it honestly wasn’t intended to be different…quite the contrary.  We were trying to get on the radio like everybody else and have a career in music, so it’s very nice to accidentally stumble upon something of our own.

S!: I definitely think it’s different…the vocal is definitely different!

JD: I know, I sing like a girl! [Laughs]

S!: No you don’t!  It’s just a harder edged vocal, maybe?

JD: Yeah, my manager, who is a very big figure in my life and also a very talented musician and songwriter, he has persuaded me to “sing at the end of my range”. Every performance should be right on the edge, because if it’s not, then you’re not delivering. So as a result, the more I sing, the higher my range gets.  Practice makes perfect, and…here you go!

S!: What are some of the other comparisons that you get?

JD: We always have people say The Beatles meets NIN, or the latest one we got was System of a Down meets My Chemical Romance, which I thought was really cool!

S!: YES yes!  That’s IT!

JD: [Laughs] Yeah, which is interesting, right? 

S!: I think I just had a revelation…

JD: Yeah!  It was a total revelation! For us!  It was like “oh! What a cool comparison!” Because I really love both of those bands, so to have some of that stuff shining through is good.

S!: What are some comparisons you’ve gotten that you weren’t so happy about?

JD: Ummm…people say we look like AFI.  Which, hey, good for AFI for having a distinct look and all that, it’s just that we don’t consider ourselves an emo band, even though we kinda look like one. So…bottom line is that we just like gettin’ pretty! [Laughs]

S!: Nothing wrong with that!

JD: Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful!

S!: I think you guys kinda look like Aiden.

JD: See now that’s an insult!  I’m just kidding, just teasing [Laughs] The only thing I’ve actually seen by them or heard by them is the one song where he’s got that really pink lipstick.  Other than that, I’ve never really heard them or know anything about them…so I’m only teasing.

S!: Your label, Bodog, seems to have their hand in a lot of different industries right now.  How has your experience been with their music label? 

JD: Absolutely amazing.  It’s basically run with an indie mentality, which is great, because everybody busts their balls, but you have a really large budget.  So you put those two things together and it spells good times! I was signed to Sony BMG before, and even though they’ve got the money, they don’t want to spend it on you.  They want to spend it on Canadian Idol or American Idol or whoever it is that’s selling records.  They don’t want to take a chance on anything new.  So to have somebody really get behind us from the ground up at the developmental stage has been really really amazing.  You won’t hear anybody wave the Bodog flag higher than me!

S!: Awesome!  Are you happy with Drama Queen’s performance so far?  How do chart positions and critics’ reviews play into your perception of it’s success?

JD: Reviews mean nothing to me.  The fact is that I would rather get a one out of five than a three out of five. I’d rather someone hate it than just be ok with it.  Luckily for us, we get fives or ones, we don’t get too many threes.  As far as record sales, we all want more record sales. More record sales mean more success, more of a living.  It means you get to do it longer with better people around you and more opportunities.  Ultimately, we want to play music for the rest of our lives.  We don’t want to go back to doing whatever it is that we have to do to survive. 

S!: You guys are out of Canada. Do you feel there are any differences between fans in either country?

JD: Huge! Huge difference!  Not so much with the fans, but mostly with the industry.  The American industry, as competitive as it is, is pretty much the American way: the best will rise to the top, and one way or another, people are going to discover you and you’re going to get your shot.  In Canada, it’s a lot more scenester. It’s a lot more about how your scarf looks and shit like that.  So we focus on our American audiences because the market is more feasible for us. It costs so much money to tour these days, we could tour across Canada and play for a country that has twenty five million, or tour across the same amount of kilometers or miles and play for two hundred and fifty million.  So the math is favorable for the United States as far as the music business is concerned.

S!: Yeah, so many people just think that Canada and the US would be the same…

JD: I have to say, we’ve toured both on this run…started in San Francisco, we went all the way up to Grand Prairie, Alberta, back down to Fargo, back up to Toronto.  By the time we got to Toronto, we were getting to be pretty good friends with the Puddle of Mudd guys, and it was really embarrassing to be Canadian after the Toronto show.  The Toronto audience and just the whole Toronto experience was such a drag. I think we went to Johnson City (New York) after that or something, and the place was off the hook! The fans were crazy, everybody shows up early to see the bands, everybody buys a piece of merchandise, you know, it’s a rock show!  People come, they want to have their asses kicked.  You go to Toronto, everybody’s got their arms folded and it’s like “impress me”. Impress you?  How about I pull down my pants? [Laughs]

S!: You guys played the Family Values Tour last year.  Who were you most excited to be on the bill with?

JD: Well, we grew listening to Korn…but just to be a part of it was amazing. Evanescence was a punch in the dark.  I had no idea they were going to be that good live, they were amazing.  Hell Yeah was good, Flyleaf was really good. It was outstanding to be on a bill like that!

S!: You witnessed a shooting earlier this year.  There’s a blog on your Bodog site about it where you claim that it reminded you of how precious life is. Has that experience changed the way you live your life or look at your career?

JD: Not my career, because I’ve always been 100% .  This is my life, I’m responsible for it, I don’t want to wake up one day and wish I had done something different or feel like I wasted something.  I want to know that I gave it my best shot.  The only thing it made me realize was that no matter who you are, where you are, your time could be anytime.  So…be happy! I want to be a happier person.

• Official Site: http://music.bodoglife.net/neurosonic/
• MySpace URL: http://www.myspace.com/neurosonic