PVA: Cool, but what do you think about the reaction to the cover so far?
Tedd: If people can't see the innocence in the images, they are most definitely without ruth.
PVA: Ok...and so who's Ruth, anyway?
Tedd: YOU are Ruth! I am Ruth! Everybody's got SOME Ruth in them! (yowls loudly).
PVA: I understand that Without Ruth is a rock opera? That's like a musical, right?
Tedd: Well, it's all the songs from what may be a full on "rock-operetta." So the CD, it's like, all songs about Love and God and Sex and/or Lunacy and Insanity, like what goes on in the show. It's an alien boy gets girl love story really about a young couple's struggle to be in a relationship despite the influential onslaught of a dysfunctional society--which means heavy losses in the innocence department. The Alien's girl turns against him and he slowly goes insane due to the increasing weight of the world, leaves her and it gets messy for a while. But it's cool, 'cause like in the end, he wakes up to all kinds of simple truth...
PVA: Wow, sounds interesting...but it sounds like you're tentative about what's going on with it. So the CD release is just the songs minus the story. That's a gip! So, is it happening? And is Without Ruth a personal story or a social commentary? Is it political?
Tedd: Dude, you know what? Everything is political! Anything a musician does is political...but yeah, four songs have been submitted to an ASCAP/Disney Musical Theatre Workshop. And i'd like to see it done really well. I got some excellent experience in London one summer working at a theatre as an usher under my friend's number--like their social security or some bullshit--and i saw some cool effects for live production that i have yet to see duplicated. It's rad! And our bass player Karl has some incredible experience in optics stuff, fiber and lasers and stuff, and hey, we live here at the damn theatre! So yeah, i'd like to see something happen with it.
PVA: Right on, sounds pretty cool, good luck with it...Alright...Well, Tedd, so what are your goals as a musician right now?
Tedd: Right, and this is why we do interviews like this. To get at what it is EXACTLY that drives freaks to become freakier--I don't know, I think it's all the same twisted little map in my mind. But, OK....(pause) Tell you what. Don't you think that if even half of everyone who has ever listened to all the musicians who have said in so many words to "give peace a chance" or that "all you need is love" that we'd have it? I mean, haven't we known for some time now that to kill people is bad shit for everyone involved, like since Moses? It's just that we're all so fucking 100% IM-perfect trying to be 100% perfect. Shit like that is what bugs me about the U.S.--we have inborn expectations being learned and cultured that are flat out fuckin' stupid and immature ways of thinking, like we're all spoiled little rich kids...my goal is to go into a WalMart or Target and marvel at all the things i don't need...and then think about how many people have died getting it to the shelf...and how so many won't because it's there...shit like that...i want to understand this shit...
PVA: Dude, that sounds like something that's bugging you, like just right now. But what do you want out of music? Peace and understanding, less killing, and a better educational system? I mean, excuse me for saying it, but it just sounds martyristic...let me rephrase the question: What is it that drives you to accomplish for yourself in or with music? And barring any save the world complex you may have...
Tedd: Wow, man, you don't pull any punches do you? No, I know what you mean...i guess when you asked me that I was giving you a real reason why I play music, and why I am willingly in one of the toughest industries there are out there. I seriously want to know why the human race has built so MUCH--based off misunderstandings of BASIC creative principles, why we have created so MUCH--NEED in everyone's lives that we have begun to threaten ourselves... Songs and popular culture have often served as a way of becoming aware of these things in a very meaningful and dramatic way. (long pause) So the "art," so to speak, is one way of addressing these issues. But I think I know what you want here. And I'm gonna give it to you: I want to finance--with my music career and theMatter--some experiments that can give me some clues towards some theoretical work in physics that I'm doing. And to do that, this band and the POD\NINE Label first needs to achieve some relative success, which for me, is like earning the luxury of time to further achieve. I love creating anything really. And the label is an earnest project. I can see what to do with it and where to go. After we get THERE, we'll see what's NEXT...
to be continued...
theMatter's Bassist? ?
theMatter's Guitarist Todd Everett
theMatter's Drummer ?