Diary of a Mad-Band:
The Urizen Interview

1) Tell us a little bit about the band - your members, where you are from, and how ya got started.
There are a lot of us…The last thing we wanna do is bore everyone right from the first question.  But, what the hell.  There are two Nicks, two Brothers Severson, two Brothers Plank, one hot drummer Jenna, and two sax players, Jeff and Mike.  We’re all from Sun Prairie, which is the promiscuous younger sister of Madison, WI.  We’ve been trying to work the rock star angle since high school, for about four years now.  Holy shit that’s a long time.

2) How many shows do you guys place a month - are they all in town/how far do you travel?
We like play as often as possible while still passing most of our classes.  That’s usually a couple weekends a month during the school year, and probably 15 or so shows a summer.  Maybe.  I might be lying.  We have played in pretty much every city that doesn’t suck between Minneapolis and Milwaukee, and several that do in fact suck.  But we love it.

3) Does everyone in the band help write the song lyrics?
Typically, we stand in a circle and go around and around with each person writing a word.  We find that its about 1/9th of the workload that way.

4) Who would you say your major influences are/who do your fans think you sound like?
We dig loooots of bands.  We’ve been accused of blatantly ripping off the following ones: Reel Big Fish, Streetlight Manifesto, Catch 22, RX Bandits, Suburban Legends, Sonic Karma, Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and your mom.

5) How did you guys ever end up w/ as many band members as you did?
Evidently we became a running joke at our school as we continued to accrue more and more horn players.  Whatever, we could beat the shit out of any lame three-person punk band that wants a piece of the Urizen.  (Please do not take offense if you are a lame three-person punk band, especially if you are like a badass British-style punk, because they just seem to be ten times more hardcore than American punks.)

6) What is your favorite place to play a show at?
I’m not gonna lie and say that size doesn’t matter.  It is an absolute pleasure to play at a place with a respectable PA and a mixer with an obscene amount of inputs.  We like playing at the Annex and Luther’s Blues in Madison, and had an incredible time when we played at The Whole at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.  Also, we'd play at the Rave in Milwaukee every night if they would have us.  That being said, we’ve also had some of our best shows in basements and places that gave us two microphones, so who knows.

7) Fill us in on some new bands that we should check out that we might not have heard of yet.
-Hired Geeks - If you haven’t heard of them yet, you should have. T hey’re from Kenosha and blow us away every time we play with them.
-Fang Shooey - This is a ska/reggae band from Florida that really impressed us at a show in Madison this spring.
-Catch of the Day - They’re good.  They’re from Wisconsin.  Hot.
-Ludo - Chicks dig this band.

8) I heart Britney Spears...does the band or anyone in it have any guilty music pleasures? :-)
I suppose it’s not a guilty pleasure if you wholeheartedly embrace it, but several members of Urizen have a morbidly obsessive appreciation for hair metal.  For Christ’s sake, just look at our guitar player Nate.  If Mick Mars and CC Deville had gotten together in 1983 in a coke-fueled night of freaky intimacy, Nate would still be more 80’s Metal than their son.

9) What else is on tap for Urizen for the rest of 2004?
You know, ever since Creed broke up, the music industry has been in dire need of some fresh new rock.  Face it Tremonti, Altar Bridge just isn’t cutting it.  We plan on recording a few more songs in a desperate attempt to save America from a horrific post-Stapp apocalypse.  XROXX will surely be the first place to hear these new tunes, unless you, you know, come watch us play them in concert.

10) What else should we know about you guys?
We have a website.  It’s www.urizenband.com.  It makes us feel important.  Also, we want to play in your town, so contact us and let us sleep in your homes and cook us food and we’ll play for you.  That’s all we ask.  Food and shelter.  It would also be cool if you had an open minded, morally questionable sister (or mother) who desperately wants an inside look of the mysterious world of rock and roll.

To check out more on Urizen, visit their website, http://www.urizenband.com !!!

Scott Hanson
scott.hanson@XROXX.com