Megan: Is there a projected release for the new album?
Todd: It’s still kind of up in the air…
Jeff: That is a good question. (The album will be released on February 4, 2003.)
Megan: (laughing)…Caedmon’s Time.
Jeff: No, this is Essential Records Time.
Todd: Yeah, Essential had a lot to say about this. We wanted it to come out in the fall and we wanted it to be out for awhile before we toured. The label would like for it to come out in the fall, also, because it’s better to put out an album in the fall than in the spring, as far as marketability, sales, and all that. For some reason.
Jeff: I’m trying to talk Cliff into putting it out in the Spring.
Todd: And the problem is, we want to release “We Delight†to radio in the fall, and so we don’t want to release a song and put out a new album at the same time.
Jeff: The singles for this record have done a lot better than we thought they would.
Todd: Yeah, we didn’t expect the singles to do so well.
Jeff: Radio has played “Who You Are†longer than we thought they would, they played “Before There Was Time†longer.
Todd: So the dilemma is, and it’s an open-ended debate of whether to ride an album as long as you can, or go ahead and put another album out. There’s arguments on either side.
Jeff: What camp are you in? (to Todd) Are you in the fall camp or the spring camp?
Todd: I don’t know…
Jeff: I’m definitely in the spring camp.
Todd: I’m in the spring camp. The only reason I don’t like the spring camp is that I don’t want it to push our touring back.
Jeff: I don’t think it will.
Todd: But I like having the album out for a period before we tour. But that period before we tour between the album…
Jeff: See, this is a good point.
Todd: …is going to be shorter if we put it in the spring.
Jeff: See, but that makes sense anyway, because then we could do a small fall tour, a small spring tour, and then another big fall tour.
Todd: Right.
Nicole: Is that when your next big tour would be, or do you know yet?
Todd: The next one would be a year from now. Spring. We’re going to do about 15 or 20 shows in the fall, and then the album will come out probably the beginning of the year, and then the big tour.
Jeff: And the shows we do this fall will be around kind of the worship thing. A little bit what we’re doing tonight. Like, we haven’t gone to the west coast at all for this record. Well, we did like two shows.
Nicole: You were in California earlier.
Todd: Yeah, we did the last show of that tour in California. At Azusa.
Bryan: Tentative names you’ve been kicking around for the record?
Todd: Not yet. Not even thought about that yet. (The record is titled “Back Home”)
Jeff: It’s funny, our album names… we spend all this time on lyrics and the album names just sort of…fall out of the sky.
Todd: Here’s a good trivia question. Who came up with the name for “Long Line of Leavers�
Jeff: That is a good trivia question. And, who came up with the name for “In The Company of Angels�
Megan: Kemper would be “ITCOAâ€.
Jeff: See, she knows that one.
Megan: “LLOL†I’ll take a stab and say Monroe Jones.
Jeff: Nope.
Todd: How about Christie Bragg.
Megan: Really?
Jeff: Aww man, why’d you tell them?? (mocking Todd) “Let me give you a good trivia question…and here’s the answer!”
(everyone laughing)
Todd: That would be a good trivia question for them to put on the site!
Megan: So, we’ll tell you a little bit. The next thing we’re putting up on the site are going to be little features on each of you guys individually.
Jeff: That’s scary.
Megan: We’re going to have pictures, but also the reason we’re asking all that fun stuff is so that people can kind of get to know you guys each individually.
Todd: Ok!
Megan: We’re going to do a weekly feature, and it will be one of you each week. So if they click in, they’ll see it.
(laughing)
Bryan: We get about 200 hits a day on the site, so it’s pretty amazing. (We’re getting about double that nowadays.)
Todd: Wow. You know, it’s funny, I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I’ve gone to the guild site, or even to our homepage.
Jeff: You should go more, they’re pretty interesting. Like the Guild message board, when I first joined the band, I went out there a lot. It was pretty interesting. I don’t go out there as much anymore. I actually can’t even get into our Guild Site anymore. (laughing)
Todd: Everytime I want to get on, I have to ask Christie how to get on. Like, she has to give me a password.
Jeff: Yeah, but you’re dumb.
Todd: What?? I’m not dumb!
(everyone laughing)
Megan: You guys can come to our forum, ‘cause you don’t need a password.
Jeff: See? There ya go. You can post as, like, monkeyboy.
Megan: You could. (laughing) Well, thank you guys for your time. We really appreciate it.
Jeff: Sure.
Todd: No problem.