NOISE

Your new album just debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. Did you envision this mainstream success when you launched your "side project" seven years ago?

The first week I put out my first record, I sold exactly two records, so clearly not. Maybe other bands dream of superstardom, but I thought of it in terms of just being in a band people like. We were No. 2 last time, also, but it was a much smaller number of sales, and it was a different era. There was all this anticipation about how we were coming out from the underground, and I didn't feel that this time. Last time it was so evident it was our hard-core, die-hard fans that were like, "We're gonna get this kid on the damn charts," and this time I was blindsided. I hadn't prepared myself for this at all, so it means way more to me this time.

Do the intensely personal lyrics in your songs lead your fans to assume they know a lot about you as a person?

I've given a lot of thought to that, because I do it myself with bands I like. I don't know [The Cure's] Robert Smith, but I feel like I know him. It's a weird thing because they don't know me but they do know me. They know one part of who I am, very, very well, but that's not what makes a man. No one's that unilateral. But I think it serves me well. Because they feel like they already know me they don't interrogate me about the things that I cherish—my family life, my private life, my relationship with my friends. They know me so well, they want to talk about them for a minute, not me. It's funny, you think you're gonna die by that sword and it's somehow freed me.

Your audience is famous for singing along at shows, which encourage you, but you must also have fans who would prefer to hear more of you and less of their neighbors.

Of course I know how that feels, and I'll go so far as to do obscure songs so less people will sing along, so that [those fans] get that feeling of seeing the band perform and not the audience. But I would never discourage or rail against people singing along. It's very much our audience's thing. Other bands get it, for sure, but I've never seen it like the way our fans do it. I don't know where it comes from, I don't know why us, but I would never, ever stop it. It's just glorious. So if you want to hear me, listen through the crowd or buy a record.

The term "emo" seems to bother most musicians tagged with it, but you've been under that umbrella longer than most. Are you comfortable being called emo?

It doesn't come with a great weight of meaning and it seems to encapsulate all these bands that don't have a lot in common, so I think it becomes really easy to be derisive of the term. You don't want to be written off as a band that doesn't have a mark to make on its own. That wasn't the case when we were first coming up and people were tagging us with this. It was yet to be derided, but it never felt appropriate for me, because I knew what that genre was. It did have a very specific sound, about five or 10 years before I came on the scene when there were bands like Sunny Day Real Estate doing something blazingly original. So in an effort to not be insulting to these bands that I loved, I didn't rail against [the term]. But I've never understood what it meant. Is it because we write emotional lyrics? Because you name a guy or a girl that writes songs who isn't emotional, and I bet you haven't heard that song because it never made it to your record player.

1. ".357—Break it on Down" (Bigger and Deffer, 1987)

A young James Todd Smith at his brashest and boldest.

2. "I'm Bad" (Bigger and Deffer, 1987) One of hip-hop's best lines: "Forget Oreos, eat Cool J cookies."

3. "To da Break of Dawn" (Mama Said Knock You Out, 1990)

Lets loose on Kool Moe Dee, MC Hammer and Ice T in his most potent battle rap.

4. "Hey Lover" (Mr. Smith, 1995)

Nails the rapper/R&B music genre with this Boys II Men collabo.

5. "I Shot Ya" (Mr. Smith, 1995)

Accompanied by Keith Murray, Mobb Deep's Prodigy, Fat Joe and Foxy Brown, Uncle L proves adept at hard-core posse cuts.

Hate me if you want, but I'm not ashamed to say that I prefer Sammy Hagar. As a solo artist, a Van Halen front man, a singer and a purveyor of goofily named tequila products, Hagar is superior. Yet David Lee Roth is idealized by nostalgia-obsessed Van Halen fans, of which he himself is one. Sure, VH recorded some classic albums and brilliant songs with Roth. But his obsession with novelty covers dragged down albums like Diver Down, and his solo career is a joke. Fired from his disastrous radio show, Roth has been reduced to plugging a VH reunion that exists only in his mind.

Cute is What We Aim For


The Same Old Blood Rush With a New Touch (2.5 stars)

Well, they hit what they aim for. Snotty vocals and smartass lyrics abound on this twee emo album, which is sometimes entertaining but just a little too smarmy for its own good.

AS FAST AS


OPEN LETTER TO THE DAMNED (2.5 stars)

Portland's former Rocktopus sounds as MOR as its wimpy new name at points along this latest power-pop tour. At others, Weezer-y could-be hit "Special" and the occasional ear-catching lyric ("I stuck a magnet in your eye / Now you f--k like Laura Dern") make you wonder why As Fast As wastes so much time revving its engine.