{"id":1665,"date":"2011-07-15T15:23:48","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T22:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/?p=1665"},"modified":"2014-08-01T23:12:42","modified_gmt":"2014-08-02T06:12:42","slug":"straight-line-stitch-interview-mayhem-festival-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/?p=1665","title":{"rendered":"Straight Line Stitch Interview & Mayhem Festival Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Straight Line Stitch is pure metal with a strong sound behind lead vocalist Alexis Brown. They have released seven studio offerings with the most recent The Fight For Our Lives<\/em> released earlier this year. The album soared up charts reaching the top 5 in Billboard\u2019s Heatseeker chart and the top 40 of the Independent Albums chart.
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\nAmy spoke with Alexis to preview the Mayhem Festival that will be coming to Cincinnati on Wednesday July 20, 2011. In the interview, the two discuss the difficulties and uniqueness of being a girl in metal and tour pranks that have come along the way.
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\nAmy: Tell me about the album The Fight for Our Lives<\/em>. Tell me what it\u2019s about and how it came to be.
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\nAlexis: When we wrote our first album, we had so many people telling us what to do and how to do it. We had just gotten signed. It was like when you have a baby, you have to teach a baby how to walk pretty much. That\u2019s what that first album was. When we started writing The Fight For Our Lives<\/em>, we decided to cut the industry strings and make this more so our record. It\u2019s a statement album. Right now, especially with everything the way it is with\u00a0the economy you pretty much have to fight for everything. We decided that we were going to cut an album that was about the everyday struggles that people go through. We wanted to inspire people to fight, not to lay down and take whatever the world is throwing at us right now. It\u2019s a statement album.
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\nAmy: Do you guys write the music and the songs?
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\nAlexis: Yeah. We wrote the music and the songs. We did the pre-production ourselves as well.
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\nAmy: What\u2019s your process to go about\u00a0the writing with the band? Do you sit together? Do you sit separately and write?
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\nAlexis: When we\u2019re on the road, we\u2019ll write from our laptops because on tour you don\u2019t have a lot of room. So the guys will write some rifts on guitars and record them and when we get home we just threw out everything that we had on the table, rifts and things that I had written, and we just started piecing things together that way. We usually write separately and come back to the band rehearsal spot and put everything together.
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\nAmy: So you guys are coming out on Mayhem this summer. What are you most looking forward to being out on the road with the tour?
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\nAlexis: I\u2019m most looking forward to meeting the new fans, meeting new people, the experience. I\u2019m really, really stoked about meeting new people and seeing where this is going to take us.
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\nAmy: I\u2019ve talked to a couple girl lead singers in heavy metal bands and I always find it interesting because it\u2019s not the norm. How did this come about for you personally?
\n 
\nAlexis: I have been singing all my life. I always wanted to be a singer since I was a kid. I knew I was going to be. I didn\u2019t exactly picture myself doing metal. When I was younger, I was in an R & B girl group. I thought I was going to sing R & B. It was my brother who introduced me to hard rock like Pantera, Korn, and Ozzy. I fell in love with the genre and realized this is what I wanted to do.
\n 
\nAmy: So when you were growing up, who were your musical influences?
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\nAlexis: My musical influences were groups like Fleetwood Mac. Stevie Nicks is my ultimate favorite singer. I love a lot of soul. I love Tina Marie and Brandy Crawford as well. As far as bands and stuff I\u2019m in love with Glassjaw and 36 Crazyfists. Korn was definitely a big inspiration to me when they came out. They were a band that blew out the doors with that type of music. I realized that I wanted to do that. I wanted to do something different.
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\nAmy: How did you get hooked up with these guys? Most of them are from Knoxville right? So how did you guys meet up and get together?
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\nAlexis: No. It\u2019s a long story. We\u2019ve had sort of a revolving door with members.
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\nAmy: I saw that and that was another question that I had. How much disruption has that caused with having so many changes in the band lineup?
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\nAlexis: You have to find the right people. The band has been a band since \u201999. I joined in 2003. And now we hail from all over the place. Our drummer is from the Dominican Republic but resides in Chicago. My other guitar player, Chris Norris lives in Florida the bass player Jason lives in Atlanta. We live all over the place. I had a band out of Clarksville, TN called FSN and we played some shows with Straight Line Stitch and we just became friends. When my band started falling apart and they needed a singer, they asked me to try out.
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\nAmy: You have been with them for several years. I have talked to Lzzy Hale and the lead singer of In This Moment and I always ask the girls what the craziest part of being on the road in the van or in the bus with the guys?
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\nAlexis: How do I handle it? I handle it pretty well. We respect each other\u2019s space and we respect each other as people. We all get along. I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s all perfect all the time but we\u2019re friends so it\u2019s not bad at all.
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\nAmy: Tell me a little bit about one of the biggest changes to your life. Basically, in 2008 you had the first record come out with the label. What\u2019s the biggest life change for you since then?
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\nAlexis: I think the tours. The tours have gotten way better. When we put out the first album, we were fighting to get on tours because nobody had really heard of us. We\u2019re going out by ourselves and pretty much grinding it out. We put this latest album out and just with the work that we had done out on the road, it is starting to gradually pick up speed. We can tell by the tours that we have been offered that it\u2019s definitely been a big change for us.
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\nAmy: What\u2019s the hardest part for you being out on the road all the time? I looked at your tour schedule and it\u2019s pretty brutal.
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\nAlexis: The hardest part, I think it is for everybody, is being away from family. Missing things like birthdays, even deaths in the family. It\u2019s hard. You miss a lot of stuff being out on the road. That\u2019s the hardest. Being away from loved ones.
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\nAmy: I was listening to the music this week. You have pretty massive vocals in most of these heavy metal songs. How do you take care of your voice?
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\nAlexis: I really don\u2019t. I try not to yell. When I get mad, I try not to bust the fuse. I don\u2019t do anything special. I don\u2019t drink tea. I don\u2019t do anything that I\u2019m supposed to do, let\u2019s put it that way. But the only time my voice gives me trouble is when I\u2019m sick. When I\u2019m sick it\u2019s over. But I think what keeps my voice in order so much to is that we play shows a lot and it builds up my vocals.
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\nAmy: So you guys are going to be on tour this summer with Megadeth and Godsmack and all these amazing bands. Is there anybody that you are most looking forward to seeing or being around and trying to see?
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\nAlexis: Oh sure. I\u2019m definitely looking forward to seeing Machine Head and In Flames. I\u2019m really anxious to check out all the bands. I really am. I want to see how people do what they do and see how they have gotten to where they are. I think it\u2019s going to be really exciting. I\u2019m looking forward to catching all the bands. But I\u2019m excited about seeing Machine Head, In Flames, Perished and Kingdom of Sorrow.
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\nAmy: You guys are on it for the whole tour right?
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\nAlexis: Yes
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\nAmy: So tell me what your craziest tour story to date is.
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\nAlexis: Well when we did our first big tour with DevilDriver, we had to cancel a show because I was sick. I couldn\u2019t even talk. I slept that whole day and the next day we were able to make the show. It was in Kentucky and we met up with them in Kentucky. Our tour manager at the time told them that she\u2019s sick and not going to be able to make the show. So we get to the show, the next show, the day after, and we pull up and DevilDriver\u2019s manager, Eddie at the time comes out and says, \u201cWhat the fuck are you guys doing here? What are you doing here?\u201d We were just like, \u201cWe\u2019re here to play. We\u2019re here to play the show.\u201d And he was like, \u201cNo. You guys are off the tour. You guys missed the show. Everybody else played on the stage. You guys are gone.\u201d It\u2019s our first big tour and we just got kicked off the DevilDriver tour. So I\u2019m in tears, I\u2019m balling. I\u2019m flipping out. Low and behold, the whole band is out. You see the tour bus and everybody\u2019s RV and I\u2019m in tears. Eddie is like, \u201cWhy are you guys not gone yet. Get out.\u201d We are like, \u201cOk. We are going.\u201d And he was like, \u201cWhat day is it? What day is it?\u201d And we were like, \u201cWe don\u2019t know what day it is. We are trying to leave.\u201d And he was like, \u201cWhat day is it?\u201d And our guitar player said, \u201cHoly shit, it\u2019s April Fools Day.\u201d They totally got us. All of a sudden everybody runs off the bus and he\u2019s like \u2018Don\u2019t cry\u201d and he\u2019s offering me tea. It was so crazy because it was so real. They were, \u201cAww, we\u2019re sorry but we had to do it to you.\u201d It was awful but that is one of our best tour stories ever.
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\nAmy: I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll have some much crazier ones than that after the end of your summer.
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\nAlexis: I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll have some good ones. I\u2019m trying to prepare myself.
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\nPhoto Provided by the Band.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Straight Line Stitch is pure metal with a strong sound behind lead vocalist Alexis Brown. They have released seven studio offerings with the most recent The Fight For Our Lives released earlier this year. The album soared up charts reaching the top 5 in Billboard\u2019s Heatseeker chart and the top 40 of the Independent Albums […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[906,910],"tags":[911,1620,1796,912],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1665"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1666,"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665\/revisions\/1666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}