Todd: I’m sure it will. You hit on something that I was going to drive home. There is something special about you and Exies and The Machine Shop. What is it about that place specifically that made you even resonate with the emotion of, “That’s my home away from home?”

Scott: I think the things that make you feel comfortable start with people. Kevin was open to us, not that he should have judgment of us in any way. He’s just an all-around good guy. Minty is a good guy too. We just seem to be able to hit it off with them, which, when you have that open heart, anything I think is possible. And the fact that it was not too daunting of a place. It’s not too big. It’s a Goldilocks situation, that place, because it’s just right and it is a good size for people, for attendance. It has an amazing stage. It has volume, which is amazing for a rock show. You don’t want to blow everybody’s head off, but it has to rock, and that place rocks. If we played a show there where the attendance wasn’t great, the next time we came back, nobody held that over our heads. Then we’d play a show where we might sell it out and, of course, that was remembered. I think it’s just that easiness. Everybody there is on point, and it’s professional and it’s clean, and they have a built-in crowd. Here’s the thing, we were the first band to take a picture in the hallway. We were the ones to suggest the pictures in the hallway. I know Kevin announced that last year. I saw a post. We were the first band to do that. I feel like that’s such an honor to somebody. We just came up with that out of thin air. “Why don’t we go do it in the hallway back here?” But I can’t even remember why. We needed a promo shot and Minty wanted to take it, so we suggested there. The rest is history for so many bands. The funny thing about it is, when I look at the pictures, because I see us in the books, we don’t look like the typical band that plays at The Machine Shop. We don’t really fit completely into the niche box. We don’t have long beards, we don’t wear a spiked helmet, or some kind of chainsaw like Jesse or something. We don’t have a gimmick. I love that guys do that. I think it’s awesome. Would Slipknot be Slipknot without their gimmicks? And they’re freaking rad. It’s an unlikely pairing. That just goes to show you that sometimes weird experiments work. I don’t know how else to say it other than it started with them and the shows were always good. It just seemed like a refreshing little oasis for us in the middle of touring hell sometimes, because he treated us good. He fed us good. It was all about that. That’s a testament to whatever his MO is and how he wanted to run this club after all these years. It started with him, and every band I’ve ever worked with has played there, and everybody speaks highly of this place.

Todd: Like you said, you don’t fit that normal niche of what rolls through there, but in the same breath, you exactly fit in that keyhole, which is what makes it work.

Scott: It works. It’s wild. I don’t even know what to say about it. Chad (Nicefield) from Wilson and I talk about it a lot, because he and I work together all the time now. I look at them in the hallway and I’m like, “You guys look like a Machine Shop band.” We both have the same kind of fond memories.

Todd: Well, you’re bringing the show to the Machine Shop on November 9th. You’ve been able to kick the wheels a little bit with the Viper Room show. What’s your wish for this new material and how it blends with the old stuff? Are you looking for it to show growth or are you looking for it to just show that you’ve always had this… you’ve always been here, and you’re back?

Scott: Well, you always dream big when you’re creating, at least for me. When I’m writing in the room and you hear this chorus come back at you or this guitar riff or this drum beat, or whatever it might be, you can’t help but, at least I can’t help but put it in a live setting and, “Wow, this will be so sick when people hear this. And they’ll be able to move like this. And they’ll put their hands up on this lyric. And we’ll just have this connection and it’ll be…” That’s the same for me as it is when I’m working with any of the bands that I’ve worked with over the years. I always put that live element in there. After not doing music for so long, my expectation is that it feels like a continuation. Look, everything competes that’s released at any time. When I write for Chris Daughtry, and I’m producing his record right now, and I just finished Dorothy’s record and her new song, Mud, I took some chances on that record with her. And she and I talked about it, and she was open to it. And this album is killer. It’s so good. It’s got a little bit more of a newer flavor to it. Whereas I’m just trying to stay on the Exies’ path. I’m trying to stay with what made it work, what made it feel authentic, what makes my voice feel authentic, versus trying to do trap beats and things like that. I don’t think that that really works for my band. My hope is that people that liked us before will like this. If it gets some love and it gets out there… It’s on the radio. It’s in the early days, at the beginning. Who knows how high it will go up the chart. I have no expectations, I don’t know. We are getting some love from stations around the country. It’s a little surreal. I would love for it to kick off so that there would be a need enough for us to actually do a tour that mattered, just to go to the cities like Flint and go to Houston and go to Charlotte, North Carolina and go to Upstate New York and go to the places in Pittsburgh where we did well and have a good one last kind of thing, if it is truly the last. You never know. Something kicks off, you could do a reunion run every year, I suppose, if you wanted to. I know that we’re all having a blast doing it, and there aren’t really any expectations other than we just want to play and have a kick-ass time and just make people feel the nostalgia or, as I say now, the new nostalgia and see how far this freaking thing takes us, because it’s going to be up to the fans and it’s also going to take money to make things move. It just does in this world. It takes some investment to drive things. We can’t tour without a certain amount of a guarantee so that we can get to the place and play it, because we’re not on a bus and, really, we’re not fully supporting a record here. We’re just at the beginning, so we’re at baby steps and we’re just trying to figure it all out. That’s the truth. We’re just trying to figure it out. And this is the second show.

Todd: Looking back over your career, what’s the one piece of advice you wish someone would’ve given you starting out, knowing what you know now?

Scott: I think that it’s just maybe that you’re going to hear “No” a lot, and you’re going to have to get used to the word no, and you’re going to have to get thick skin and treat it like a rubber bullet, because if you listen to what everybody says, you’ll never get anywhere. I don’t think that when I first started writing for myself or for whatever, the amount of no’s that I would hear, and I would have those moments where I just thought, well, that’s it. Every record label in Los Angeles saw us and passed on us, so how can I be doing music for a career if I can’t get a record deal? And knowing that only a couple of weeks later, we would play the Viper Room again and a guy would offer us an indie deal, which is the thing that changed my life. I think getting used to no, and then somebody just saying it’s a long game and you got to have patience, and you got to be resilient. I learned that along the way. I think had I known a little bit earlier, I might’ve made some decisions a little bit differently on single choices and to be stronger in the face of adversity when I had a set single and somebody from the label, might be the head of the label, came in and goes, “Nope, it’s not the single. It’s this single.” For me, to be able to fight back, because them choosing that single caused the end of that record cycle because it didn’t work. I think fighting for what I believed in and trusted in my gut was the advice that I really needed early on. But anything else, I don’t think I would change anything. For what it’s worth, that song’s all about that. And it’s not everything. It comes out how we want it to. But sometimes what happens is what you need for life experience. And when I look back on it, I know that at any given moment when I felt present, and I felt happy that I just did it the best that I could do it in that time. There was lots of down times as well, just like it is for any of us. You only see yourself in hindsight. It’s hard to see yourself as you’re living it and doing it. All that I’ve learned, this EP right now, I did it for all the right reasons, and that is that I did it independently and I did it with my heart. I didn’t let my head get in the way too much. I picked the songs that I wanted to come out, and I just followed what felt true. I think that I’ve ended up on my feet. No matter how far these songs go or how big they get or anything like that, it’s irrelevant because how all that happens to me isn’t up to me. I can only control what I’m doing, and I focus on the what and how. It’s not up to me. I feel like I did it right on this, and I’m proud of it, and it feels like an extension of what we had already done. That’s it. There’s the document of 2020 to 2022, late 2022, and 2023. That’s it. How does it hit you when you hear it?

Todd: I love the old stuff. I love the new stuff. It’s as if, other than some musical growth in your writing, but sonically, it’s the next step. It’s no different than the old stuff. Like you said, you can’t go throw it in a trap beat or a bunch of layered vocals or anything that isn’t you guys because it would wash away. For you to look back and remember where you started, what you loved in the beginning, and to be able to pick that back up and put your own stamp on it 100% with your own voice and, like you said, with Chris and Freddy, speaks volumes to how comfortable you are in your own musical skin.

Scott: Yeah, I think it’s funny that you say that. Wow, the world is just a trip because Freddy, when we finished the Viper Room show, he looked at me when the curtain closed and he put his hand on my shoulder and he goes, “That was awesome, man. Welcome back. And how cool…” He goes, “And you never sounded better.” And he goes, “And you never spoke to the crowd better than you did tonight in all the years we were a band.” And he said, “I think you’re finally comfortable in your skin.” Exactly what you just said. And I said, “Geez, I don’t ever look at it like that, but I suppose, as time goes on, we are who we are, man. You are who you are, and so am I, and so is Kevin, and so is Minty, and so is my wife.” And we figure out who we are as we go. I think The Exies in the beginning, we were in fight mode the whole time trying to prove ourselves, trying to get over that hill. We’d get close, and then it wouldn’t quite happen. And “Ugly” was a trajectory. I remember them saying, “It’s going to go number one,” and it hit number four, and that was as far as it was going to go. And I’ll take it all day long because a number four song, that was fine with me. And 40 million streams later, I’m okay with it. It’s fine. What’s different now is time. Time has changed everything for this band, and that is what I hope gets to flourish a little bit more. Somehow the miracles of the universe, whatever it is, that we figure out to get a shot, to just go out and be ourselves. And if there is some kind of positive redemption in that, some kind of life-fulfilling achievement, like, “Hell yeah, we had a slight comeback,” or “We did this,” or it wasn’t a full-on comeback, or whatever it was, how amazing would that be? Because it would also let others know that it’s just never too late to dream. When you think it’s over, it isn’t. We’ve already won by playing our first show, and it was a killer. We could stop right now and it’s already a win, but I think we’re all… It took one week, Todd, from the show when it ended for my bass player to email everybody. He says, “Well, I didn’t realize how I’ve missed playing with you guys and how I’ve missed playing those songs.” He was the one. He’s in Everclear and he’s got a full-time gig and they’re playing all the time, and the fact that Freddy was the first one to say that that was huge because he realized, “This is my band.” Because it’s his band with me. He and I started it. To want to play another show again, it’s a real gift.

Todd: Well, you guys are the only two constants from start to finish, so that makes sense.

Scott: Dennis killed it, but he practices drums. You wouldn’t believe it. He’s got this kit set up in his garage. When I went over to his new house a few years back, I think, well, maybe 2019 before COVID, he has a drum set in his garage set up, and it’s on a little stage, he’s got lights, and he has a fog machine. I was like, “What? Who’s going to rock and roll fantasy camp every weekend? You are at your own house.” Who sets up fog machines? It’s freaking great. It really touched my heart because I will never forget it. I’m telling you about it five years later. And I’m like, “That’s cool.” Because even though he works a corporate job and he’s still in music, he still loved his drums, and he still loves to play. And he crushed it at the show. He was great. He is just a freaking beast. He’s not so fancy. He’s not doing all that stuff, he’s like Phil Rudd from ACDC. He’s just there. Sometimes you need a drummer that’s just there.

Todd: Absolutely. Somebody’s got to anchor the boat.

Scott: He does, man. He is the anchor. And Freddy is solid as hell. And Chris is the punk rock wild guitar player, and I’m just the rhythm singer.

Todd: Listen, man, before I cut you loose, I just want to know, thinking back on all the songs you’ve written… hit, not a hit, released, not released, just sitting in the back of your mind somewhere, we all have that one thing we want remembered about us. If you could pick a song title or a song lyric that you wanted as your epitaph, what would it be?

Scott: Well, that’s a tough one, man. I think I would have to give it up to my Shinedown song that I came in with, which was, “How Did You Love?” And I felt like when I came up with that concept, and I told Brent about it, I said… I got the idea from watching a documentary about Hitler. There was Hitler with his arm stretched out, and he had a sea of people pledging him. Nietzsche would say, “He’s had greatness.” I don’t know if I would say he’s great, but greatness, let’s just use that as these people that become these monumental figures throughout history. Here’s this one man who thinks he has the whole world, but he really has nothing. Ind in the end, it’s going to be how did he love himself and how did he treat others? Did people love him back? I think him putting a bullet in his own head proves my point, is that he was empty. I think that that lyric, I think that’s it. I think in the end, all the things that we create, did we love ourselves, did we give love, and did we receive it? Because there isn’t anything else at the end. Everything else comes out of our relationships and how we feel towards one another and how we feel about ourselves. I’m the one that brought it in. He and I finished it together. I knew he was the right voice for it. It was a number one song. They still play it to this day, so it will stand the test of time. That is the lyric right there. It’s funny because I’ll never forget the day that I was at my piano, like I said when we started this interview, and I was saying, “How do you love?” I was playing it on the piano, and my wife came out of the bathroom from upstairs and she goes, “What is that?” And I said, “I don’t know. I’m working on it right now.” And I said, “I got that idea from watching that thing, that documentary that we watched a couple of days ago.” I realized as I was talking to her, I was like, oh, it’s got to be past tense. It’s got to be, “How did you?” That’s the way to say it, even though it’s not the easiest way to sing it. “How do you love,” sings better. How did you love? How do you love? See, “How do you,” flows better. But it doesn’t work as good. Brent and I, I talked to him about that, and I just said, “Look, it’s going to take this extra beat when you’re singing it.” But he has a very enunciating, powerful voice, so he was able to grab that and make it work. And once I heard him sing it, I was like, “That’s it. That’s going to work.” So it was a special song right from its beginning, earliest beginnings. Sometimes that’s what happens with all the things I’ve been a part of. The biggest ones are the ones that just had this little extra shine to them. I don’t know how or why, but they just do. I’m grateful that I got to produce it. I’m grateful I got to produce the whole band in a studio on that song. I’d never done a project that big at that time. I was like, man, they put me in a hot seat. But it came out great.

Todd: As always, you rose to the occasion.

Scott: Thank you, bro.

Todd: It looks like I will miss the Machine Shop show on November 9 due to a business trip, I wish you well, safe travels, and hopefully that just kicks everything in the ass, and we get a full proper tour out of this.

Scott: I sure hope so, Todd. Thank you so much.

THE EXIES LINKS:

FACEBOOK

X – TWITTER

INSTAGRAM