Nonpoint will explode on the stage at the 9:30 club Tuesday night as part of a high-octane metal package being billed as "More Balls, More Volume, More Strength," also featuring headliners Hell Yeah, and special guests Machine Head and Bury Your Dead. I had the chance to talk to Nonpoint's lead singer, Elias Soriano about touring, band survivalism and video games, among other things.
How is the Hell Yeah/Machine Head tour going so far?
We are currently in Allentown, Pa. The tour is really, really good. These guys are a bunch of old friends of ours, so the tour has a real family atmosphere to it. We've been out for a little over a week now, and it's still kind of new but it's great.
You guys just put out a new record, "Vengeance," in November. This is your fifth album. With the current climate of hard rock music, considering sales aren’t great and bands are breaking up or constantly replacing members, are you surprised the band has survived this long with all four original members?
I mean, a little but I hope that we have a little bit of faith and belief in our music, which is the common goal. You know, we are in it until the end and we don’t feel like the end is near. We keep releasing records and each one continues to get a positive response. We keep touring on our records and we are thankful that we keep going. I credit that to the common goal.
Surviving as a band that plays at clubs, does a lot of opening slots, how have you guys managed to make that work?
You have to be smart with your dollars. If you are in it ( a band) to make money you are in the wrong business. All of us are struggling musicians just like the next person. We are smart with our dollars so that this is what we do for a living. We don’t have mansions. But none of us have had jobs for coming up on 10 years. Finances are the biggest pressure on a band. The music part is relatively easy, but business makes or breaks a band. It's all about management watching the dollars and not spending too much.
About Vengeance. Was there anything about the process of making the album that was different from the other 4?
This time everybody wrote for each other a little more, but the process remains the same. Someone comes in with something and everyone builds on it. Then, there is a general consensus about the idea. If it's stupid or something, we toss it and laugh at it later. We have our music writing process, and every once in a while we try something new. I think we all were way more open minded this time around.
A lot of bands say they like to write on the road, some others say they like to hole up in a room and jam out. It sounds like it all happens kind of randomly for you guys.
It's exactly what you can imagine. We try it all. We've had people come in with whole songs and said "Great, I love it all. Let's do it," lyrics and everything. But you never know. When you leave your mind open to anything it just happens.
"Vengence" sounds like such an angry title and there are a lot of angry sounding songs on the record. Is that something that was planned?
(laughs) We just thought it was a cool name. We wanted something that would represent the music. Just like usual, we had the name of the record before the title track was written. We had a song that we wrote that we thought was really cool so we were like, all right let's call that song "Vengeance."
Any particular tracks from the record that you like to perform lately?
"Witness." It has a good swing to it, and the kids love it. (laughs) They really, what do they say now? They "go off" to that one. (laughs)
Do you find it’s hard to fit your band on tours? It seems to me that sometimes you are too hard for some tours and too melodic for others. Does it ever feel that way when you are out there for a while on a tour and the headliners fans just don’t get you guys?
There are talks about us going out with Iron Maiden. I'm really not sure how they would go. Normally we go over pretty well, even at the harder shows. We don’t shy away from those shows, you know, we can throw down with the best. We pride ourselves on the live shows and response. Even if someone is really cheesy or over the top, there is no denying a good show and that's what we do. On this tour, we got some "deer in the headlights" looks. We haven’t had a night were people destry each other yet, but we are seeing a lot of new faces in markets that we don’t hit that Hellyeah does, so we are very lucky for that.
Is it hard to pick a set list, since you now have 5 albums?
Not really. We like to play the heavier stuff because we like to have fun too. It gives us the opportunity to throw the uniform on. We have it in the music we have two dozen ridiculously heavy songs that we can play and we have 30 minutes, so we can only pick 5 or so.
We wanna pick newer stuff, because obviously that is what we are selling. Other than that, we just try to get in as many fan favorites as possible.
What are you listening to?
The new Kanye West album is pretty great.
Since you spend a half-hour playing music each night, what do you do the other 23 and a half?
Smoke weed and play video games. I had to break out the old school xbox this time because my 360 got the red ring of death. Plus we have a lot of movies. I just got "Superbad." We are big movie fans, and if you don't keep yourself occupied you can go nuts out here.
Are you at the point where touring is more of a normal life for you?
Yeah, I’m comfortable with it now. It sucks being away from my house but it really doesn't bother me anymore. For the first couple weeks it takes time to resetttle, and then you are home and then you go out again. It’s part of the gig. Some people think they can’t be away, and find out they can’t or some people think they can and then can't. I'm not the kind of person to pigeon hole myself and hope something is going to happen. You know, if it does or it doesn't, I saw what 99.9 percent of the country never saw before instead of having a kid instead or having a 401k.
I just go with it and you take the good out of the experience.
What's next for Nonpoint?
We'll be touring through the rest of the year, for sure. Nothing is really set up, so I don't really like to talk about things that aren't confirmed, but we will possibly being going to Europe.

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Tickets are still available for Hellyeah, Machine Head, Nonpoint and Bury Your Dead. You can purchase them by going to http://www.tickets.com/ Visit http://www.930.com/ for more information.