From the swamps of Louisiana, a metal force by the name of Soilent Green has risen with one sinister intent branded upon it's collective mind - bring the metal to the masses. After numerous setbacks, including two near fatal van accidents in the early part of the decade, Soilent Green are in full form and ready to hit the road again, supporting their newest album, "Confrontation".

Brian: I listen to a lot of Delta Blues and a lot of old jazz stuff, like Thelonious Monk and Coltrane, and I try to incorporate it into our music as much as possible, you know. We all come from different musical backgrounds, so we all like to put our own thing into it. Tommy's a lot more into the straight metal thing.

Tommy: A lot of old classic rock and shit.

Brian: I listen to a lot of older blues, jazz and R&B, like the Mo Town stuff.

Tommy: …old Indian music.

Ben: Actually, I've never heard any comparisons (to Mastodon) before you just said that.

Brian: We've been compared to a lot of other bands. It doesn't really bother me, but it's unfortunate that a lot of the bands that are around and try to create a certain style of music don't usually get the recognition they deserve, not saying that we're really one of them, but it's just a shame that that happens. Hopefully, you think of it that these bands are using you as an influence, if they are, maybe they'll acknowledge that, hopefully. And you'll take it as a compliment, really, 'cause at least you know you're doing something half decent that somebody else is saying, "I kind of dig it".

Scott: You've got Mastodon, Shadows Fall, Lamb of God all these bands that are coming up and signing to major labels.

Brian: That opened up for us at one point, too.

Scott: And bands like Slipknot that are getting out there and busting through a commercial barrier are actually helping the music and all the bands.

Brian: We've also been the victims of a lot of bad, bad Karma or something. We had a few accidents and had a few problems here and there, that's kind of held us back.

Brian: It sucked! Fuck! (laughter) I mean, the first one, I destroyed my whole shoulder and Ben's whole lower body was crushed, so it's tough. That would kill a lot of bands, especially with the first accident, we flipped four times in the snow, man. That's some rough stuff to go through no matter who you are, you know. And it was tough to get back in the van, but what else would I be doing really? I love playing music, it's the only way to do it. That obviously made us take a step back, when all that stuff happened, we had to step out of the limelight. So a lot of the bands around that time were doing their thing and they were able to do that solid touring and support their record while we had to sit back and sit in the shadows and watch it all happen. A video market ended up coming up around that time with Uranium and Headbanger's Ball and all that, which was not up before all those accidents, so there's all these different veins that came out, so we're obviously a victim of bad circumstance. Unfortunately, that's the way things are, but hopefully now trying to repair that, being back out now, hopefully we'll find the ladder so to say.

Brian: Like Kreator.

Brian: Yeah. It's a shame now, because it's not about what you do, it's about how many records you sell at that time and what the buzz is at the time. The promoters just build the package on that, they don't really show a lot of the bands the respect they deserve; it's all about the numbers for that year. That's the business, I guess, that's what it's turning into, so you just have to roll with the punches.

Ben: We usually come back to venues that we played before when they were called something else before and then they changed it.

Ben: This venue has changed a lot of times; I remember S.O.D. playing the big room downstairs on tour, then we came here and played the upstairs room with Isis and when we were pulling up today, I was like "this is the same place we played with Isis when we played upstairs".

Brian: That's what we hear. (laughter)

Ben: It's a shame that the room kind of shrunk half the size and the stage ended up being a little corner with a PA. But I don't mind playing small shows, 'cause those are fun; people are in your face, your fuckin' getting into it and you're having fun, but it's obviously nice to have a little air conditioning, a little drink to go down the old gullet when you're thirsty and shit like that, but you can't complain, it was a fun show. (laughter)

Brian: Yeah, it's the marketing department at our record label. I mean, I'm not going to lie, it was a complete honor when it happened, but it is kind of old news and it happened a long time ago. It's kind of dwelling in the past and I really don't care to do that much, but like I said, it's the marketing department at our label. Since it's kind of a monumental thing that happed, they figure it will sell records, get people interested and create a buzz.

Brian: Fuckin' A, I would! (laughter) I mean, if you say the movie, it's a whole big, crazy thing, you'd pretty much have to. I've eaten many things in my life…

Ben: Might as well try that too, right?

Brian: I've sure eaten a lot worse.

Ben: I've you've eaten sushi, might as well try that too.

Brian: But now that you all know what it is…

Brian: Awesome.

Ben: Great, he's fuckin' incredible, man. He bent to our sound, he made the record for us, basically and wanted to do a Soilent Green record. We had all these people barking in our ears saying "death metal this, death metal that, he's got this real polished sound, you're going to come out sounding real triggery, click click click" and basically this real Hate Eternal/Morbid Angel sounding kind of mix. But he assured us it wasn't going to be like that. He was the type of person who called us and called us and called us and was really into doing the record and we knew he would go that extra mile, so we gave him a chance and he was just fucking incredible, man. I could not be happier.

Brian: He called us every day or every other day. We actually did a run and we stopped in the studio to talk to him and check everything out and after that he just called and called; "just give me the chance, let me show you". And like Ben said, we had a lot of people going "oh, it's death metal, he's all about death metal". But he has two separate entities; he's got when he used to play with Morbid Angel and now Hate Eternal and then he's got his engineering thing. He wants to expand.

Scott: As far as his sound, he is what he is.

Brian: Yeah. He's actually shown between doing the Soilent record, the Into The Moat record and the Premonitions of War record, he's shown he can do different possibilities within extreme music and not just be this death metal stereotype.

Ben: It's all being talked about right now, it's not necessarily fully set. They're talking about Nile, Hypocrisy, Soilent Green, Raging Speedhorn and like two other bands, supposed to be some six band bill, "Art of Noise 3" tour or something. So that's up in the air right now.

Brian: If it happens, I'm stoked. Any bigger tour that we can jump on and try to grab crowds, that's what we need to do right now.

Ben: We're doing this tour right now because we want to push the new record, but really need to get on a tour with like say, Killswitch Engage or Slipknot or something on that level so they can bring an audience in that we can turn into our own. Not necessarily the whole audience, though that would be nice, but more people would open things up, make things expand.

Brian: That's where we were at before all the accidents happened, we were touring with GWAR, we toured with Morbid Angel and Deicide. Those tours work really well with us, hopefully we usually get main support, so we get a really good slot and they're just comfortable tours; everything's taken care of, they're at nice venues and stuff like that. That's the way to sell records right now, is to get on those kind of tours. The big festivals, there's so many big packages that it's tough to get noticed if you're doing small little shows like this.

Ben: Especially right now where you've got Ozzfest, Sounds of the Underground, Gigantour, Van's Warped Tour. All these kids are spending their money on all that, so a lot of this tour gets hurt slightly because of situations like that. I mean those tours are hurting eachother because there's just too much, too much in the States.

Brian: There's only so much metal money to go around. (laughter)

Ben: There's only so much cash.

Brian: Steal it from your parents. (laughter)

Brian: No problem, man.