By Therese McKeon

Shoutweb: You worked with Matt Hyde?

Jamey: Yeah, he was great. He's an awesome guy. It was fate that we were going to work with him. I talked to him on the phone and we went back and forth with all these different ideas. We went in and it finally just clicked. I had to get into the studio and we just did it. Pre-production was insane. We were similar in a lot of ways. He let us do pretty much do whatever we wanted to do. We made it the sonically devastating record and that's all we wanted. He re-arranged one or two songs and on 3 or 4 songs the vocal phrasing and that's about it. All the other stuff was all written and arranged and everything by us so it wasn't a real major label producer-artist relationship. The hooks were there. The lyrics were there. Everything was there and that's why Universal wanted to get behind the band because they see the ground swell of how people can relate to this. They want to sell records. That's they're job.

Shoutweb: That's why it's called the music *business*.

Jamey: Exactly. The president of Universal has people higher than him that he reports to and he has a quota to meet, you know?

Shoutweb: How many tracks are on it?

Jamey: Sixteen tracks. It's fifteen songs and an outro.

Shoutweb: This is what Shoutweb fans are rabid about.

Jamey: We recorded two from "Under The Knife" (ed. EP released by Victory Records on March 28, 2000) of which one is going on the record. The song "Smash Your Enemies" is going to make the album. The song "Under The Knife" isn't going on the album. We're going to save it for a b-side or maybe a limited 7-inch or something cool.

Shoutweb: Do you have the track listing set already?

Jamey: Yeah, we don't have the sequencing but we do have the track listing. We've changed it a couple of times.

Shoutweb: Can you give me the track listing then?

Jamey: No, I can't off the top of my head.

Shoutweb: Okay, how about "Unloved"?

Jamey: Yup. That's on there.

Shoutweb: "I Will Be Heard"?

Jamey: Yup.

Shoutweb: That's on the sampler, right? You're doing a two-track sampler with "Proven" and "I Will Be Heard".

Jamey: Yup.

Shoutweb: "Remain Nameless"?

Jamey: Yup.

Shoutweb: "Unbreakable"?

Jamey: Yeah, that's called "Judgment Strikes" now because "Unbreakable" is the name of a film but that song was written before there was ever a Bruce Willis movie with that name.

Shoutweb: "Final Prayer" has Kerry King on it.

Jamey: Yeah, he's on it. It's sick.

Shoutweb: Tell me about that. There's a guitar solo and vocals? Jamey: Yeah. It's sick. I got chills and thought I was going to cry! (laughter) Shoutweb: How did that come about? Jamey: We were on Tattoo The Earth and I think we had all been drinking a lot and there was a guitar on the bus. I just cornered him and told him, "You got to do it." Because Hyde did their last record and our managers know each other, they hooked it up. I don't think Kerry actually remembers agreeing to do it but... They were with us on the tour. They're fans. They've worn our shirts and supported us for a long time. They've always propped us out in interviews and stuff. So we saw them again and had a copy of the song on us when they came through Hartford and he was like, "Great, let's do it." It didn't work out because of the bus situation so he did it in L.A. with the producer, Matt Hyde. They had it overnighted to me as soon as he was done. There were three different mixes of it. It was just awesome. Kids are going to be psyched when they hear it.

Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed on the side stage of Tattoo The Earth 2000 (Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ on July 20, 2000). Copyright (c) Therese McKeon/Shoutweb.com

Shoutweb: Are there any other guest appearances on the record?

Jamey: You know, there was going to be but just because of time and by the time we were ready to roll with this thing and they gave us our time schedule, we had to cancel the Slayer tour in order to get the record out and done. That's why we cancelled the tour, so we wouldn't have the thing out in May. We could have it out in March and it was even supposed to be out at the end of February but between getting the artwork done and everything else, it got pushed to March. It's actually going to be sent away in the next couple of days.