[caedmonscall.net]

Wondering what’s in store for Caedmon’s this fall? Curious about what the band thought of their Spring Tour? Already anticipating what Caedmon’s is planning for their next studio recording? As always, we’re here to quench your thirst for knowledge. We sent a staff member to spend 5 Minutes with Cliff and get answers to all your questions a couple weeks ago and we’re happy to offer you their conversation in two formats: you can listen to the convo and read the transcript at the same time.

For those of you still keeping up with what Derek Webb is doing, you might be interested in an article that Derek wrote for www.christianmusicplanet.com.

There’s a couple of good online reads for fans of Derek Webb that we wanted to make note of. Grassroots Music’s Kierstin Berry conducted a great interview with Derek that you can read on their site. Also, Russ Breimeier of christianitytoday.com wrote an extremely positive review of She Must and Shall Go Free that you should read.

If you missed our chat with Derek Webb last night, check out the full transcript. Thanks again to Derek for taking the time to answer questions from his fans. And if you missed our chat on Tuesday night with Caedmon’s Call, that transcript is still available for your reading enjoyment.

We’d like to thank the band and everyone who took part in the chat last night, hopefully you enjoyed it as much as we did. If you missed out on the sweet action, we’ve made a transcript of it available to you. Remember, tonight we are chatting with Derek Webb; same IRC channel, same time. If you had problems getting into the chat last night, try to work out your problems before we start the chat tonight at 9pm EST. Directions to the chat and help installing mIRC can be found on the Rumor Forum.

This is a last mintue announcement, because it’s something we set up at the last minute. This Tuesday, March 4th, we will be hosting a chat with Cliff Young and Josh Moore of Caedmon’s Call. The chat will be held around 9pm EST and will last for about an hour. (Don’t forget–we’ll be chatting with Derek Webb the following day).

We’re happy to announce that on Wednesday, March 5th, we will be hosting a chat here at caedmonscall.net with Derek Webb. The chat will last about an hour and will start at 9pm EST. If you will not be able to make the chat, you can submit a question ahead of time to us via email. We will be posting a transcript here on the site in the days following the chat.

For those of you who frequent our Rumor Forum, you might be interested in some thoughts that Cliff Young wanted to share regarding our discussions relating to the changes the band has been going through and the new tour.

Also, those of you who have wanted to purchase something from our merchandise stores but have procrastinated up until now, you’re in luck. From now until the end of February, all purchases $40 or above will be eligible for a $5 discount. Just enter the coupon code “PREZDAY” at checkout to take advantage of the offer. And remember, every purchase helps us keep this site running.

On May 5th, 2002, the three staff members of [caedmonscall.net] (Bryan, Megan, and Nicole) traveled to Dallas, TX (along with soon to be staff member Mark) to see Caedmon’s Call perform live at SMU. A few hours before the show we were fortunate enough to sit down with Caedmon’s Call drummer Todd Bragg and bassist Jeff Miller for what would be our first official interview with the band. The 45 minutes that followed were filled with candid opinions, rambling exchanges, and random observations that had us laughing for most of the encounter. We hope you enjoy reading the transcription of this interview as much as we enjoyed conducting it. And thanks again to Todd and Jeff for giving us their time.

Megan: So how’s the tour going?

Jeff: (in a mock british accent) It’s not really a tour.

Todd: Yeah we’re kinda doing a weekend warrior sort of thing. It’s been good. I guess this is the last of them. (turns to Jeff) Is this the last of them?

bryan, todd, megan, jeff, and nicole Jeff: This is the last show dog.

Todd: Until June.

Jeff: Woohoo. Well, we have crap in the, I mean, stuff in the summer.

Bryan: Festivals?

Todd: Yeah, we’ve got a couple little festival things. I think end of June is the first one.

Jeff: But this will probably be it for a while.

Megan: So are you going to be spending the time in between this show and your summer festival concerts working on the new album?

Todd: In fact we start tomorrow on the new album.

Megan: Really?

Jeff: Well I don’t. I have to go back home and go to work.

Todd: We’re loading all the gear in and all the drums and getting the drums down tomorrow and then Tuesday (May 7th) I think we start.

Megan: So what’s it going to be like?

Jeff: It’s gonna be cool.

Todd: It’s gonna be a conglomeration of everything we’ve done in the past. From worship to old…ya know, “My Calm Your Storm” vibe kinda stuff to some new stuff that I think will kinda give you a hint of the direction that we’re going in musically.

Jeff: It’s gonna be interesting. We have like 4,000 songs to choose from, I mean we have a lot of songs.

Todd: We do have a lot of songs to choose from, and a lot of them are mostly done.

Jeff: Well lyrically, there’s two songs that there’s NO lyrics for.

Todd: Yeah, there’s a couple songs that we have to write lyrics for. We have the whole song but the lyrics that we have we don’t like so we’re gonna rewrite them. The cool part about it is that we’re all working from the very get-go on all the songs.

Megan: So are you kind of writing collectively on this album?

Todd: Yeah, it’s the first time that we’ve done that.

Megan: So it’s not going to be an “Aaron and Derek” songwriting record?

Todd: Not at all. Derek’s got one, maybe two songs.

Jeff: Well Derek only has one, but Derek and Sandra together have submitted a whole bunch.

Todd: Right. Sandra has about 3 or 4 or 5. I don’t know if there all going on the album. I know 3 of Sandra’s are.

Jeff: Aaron Tate submitted 6 or 7. Aaron Senseman is submitting like 2 or 3. Josh has got like 3 or 4.

Todd: Randall Goodgame’s got a couple. They’re not all gonna go on the album obviously, but we got a good palette of songs to pick and choose from.

Megan: So how do you go about deciding which songs?

Todd: Well the neat thing about the studio, and with our experience, we’ve kinda gone from both sides of the spectrum. We’ve gone at it where we’re like “ok we’re gonna rehearse the songs and pick em apart so every little nuance of the song we’ll know so when we go to the studio it’s just a matter of getting a good take at it.”

Bryan: That was 40 Acres?

Todd: Yeah, 40 Acres was that way. That was the most extreme of the albums.

Jeff: Then the next album (Long Line of Leavers) was like the total opposite.

Todd: Yeah it was like, we went in at that day we didn’t know what we were gonna do. We just went in and kinda went with an idea and we had the songs, but as far as how we were going to play them…

Jeff: We had never played them together before, we had never rehearsed them.

Todd: And so, there’s good and bad to both of them, both sides. And then this last album (In the Company of Angels) kind of gave us the confidence to produce this new one on our own, because of the last album we did. And for some reason, with this band, we’re all so scattered and it’s hard to get us all to focus on the same thing for any amount of time. And with the worship album, we were able to do it, even though people were in and out of town and it was kinda crazy but it came out and there’s an energy there, there’s a personality to the album that we really haven’t had since “My Calm”. And we did “My Calm” the same way. It was that scattered, late-night, whatever…

Jeff: And this one will probably be between the two. Because we’re gonna try and track as much as we can live, just everybody playing. So it’s probably gonna be in between the two schools of thought.

Todd: But I like that because we’ll go in there and the songs that we don’t have complete, it forces you to be creative. And I think that can be good or bad, but hopefully it will be good.

Jeff: It could be dangerous. It’s like having seven producers in a room saying “No do this, No do this. This sounds good. No that sounds like turd.”

-everyone laughing-