Sevendust’s Morgan Rose Discusses New Band Call Me No One

Sevendust members Morgan Rose and Clint Lowery have branched out with a new band Call Me No One, and recently released the outfit’s debut album, ‘Last Parade,’ featuring the first single ‘Biggest Fan.’

Call Me No One are getting ready to tour with Nonpoint and Eye Empire. We recently had a chance to talk to drummer Morgan Rose, and he dished all about the struggles that went into ‘Last Parade,’ Call Me No One’s upcoming trek and more.

What does the title ‘Last Parade’ mean to you?

Oh gosh, I mean it’s kind of strange — the name of the band and the title of the record kind of go hand in hand. The name of the band being more or less our take on the anti-rock star and the fact that we’ve been around for a while and been able to see so many people abuse the game and pretty much disrespect the reason why they’re here and not paying attention to the fact that they’re lucky to be here so that was where that started from. It was kind of my take that ‘Last Parade’ was more or less – this is their last shot and that you can’t take this for granted because it can be snatched from you so quick.

How did you come up with the name of the band?

Actually, we had three songs written for this record before we went in to track it and one of the demos working title for it was ‘Call Me Danger’ or ‘Call It Danger’ or somethin’ like that and I started saying that’s a good name for a band and we just kind of started fumbling around that. It didn’t take us long to figure out the name, it was just one day we’re sittin’ there and we said it, can’t remember if it was me or [Clint] but we started saying ‘Call Me No One’ and I love that. Then it became without telling the other one “What’s your take on it, what do you think of it when I say that?” and that’s when we both landed on the same thing. It’s almost like that name tag “Hello My Name Is.”

The artwork on the album is simple but I think it’s really cool, can you talk about that a little bit?

Well ‘Last Parade’ obviously and the balloon ties it all together. It’s a really dark feel, the record is pretty dark, me and Clint unfortunately that’s kind of the vibe that we like to write in that major over minor, dark, slit your wrists kind of music – that’s just kind of what we’re into. We’re into that melancholy note choice and melodies, so the vibe of the record was to keep it dark and being the ‘Last Parade’ – actually his cousin was the one that came up with most of the art for the record. We didn’t have the time to really all that we wanted to do.

I mean there were some ideas that we were coming up with that were really cool that I really wish we could’ve done like the back of the album has me and Clint sittin’ on a park bench – originally that was supposed to be us sitting on a deserted highway in the distance, we had all these little dark images we were going to play with. Then it just became like – This is gonna get so complicated, the whole idea of keeping it simple is gonna be gone so we just buried it and went with the simple idea.

The intro and ‘The World Is Dead’ provide a really strong to start out the album; ‘Hillbilly’ is also really great; what are some of your favorite tracks?

That’s one of my favorites; ‘Last Parade,’ the song, is probably my absolute favorite — ironically those are actually the last two songs we wrote for the record. It’s crazy now that I think about it they were the last two that we wrote ‘cause I think that the pressure was really up at that point. One of the songs, I think ‘The World Is Dead,’ I told Clint I didn’t want to record that song – there were no vocals to it but it was just a song musically and I didn’t like the drum beat.

I didn’t really like the song at all and he basically went in while I was doing something else and restored that song completely and got rid of some of the stuff that was on it and simplified the chorus and when I came back in I was like “Geez this is a good song out of nowhere.” He went back that night and he wrote a really simple chorus which is rare for us, we usually like to get really complicated and it was one of the first and only times I remember us actually repeating the chorus over and over. He basically made that song happen.

If you could have another side project with another musician who would it be?

I guess it would probably be Trent Reznor. I think that he’s probably pretty similar to Clint in the fact that there’s a strange spot in our brain and I’d be really interested to see how that fits with Trent. I know he’s a pretty damaged individual and those are always fun people to write with. I like the fact that he’s extremely unsafe.

Clint recently released a statement about ‘Last Parade’ where he says “I believe the real work began after the actual record was recorded. The business end of music sucks the joy out of it sometimes. It becomes very cold and heartless after the recording process.” Do you feel the same way? How was it after the whole recording process of this album?

Oh it was brutal. I mean there’s always this hangover you have after you finish a record and I call is the “post record depression.” We worked so hard that when it was finally over with it was like we got home and all of a sudden it was “What am I supposed to do now?” I’ve been creating and we had no time. We were trying to write nine songs from scratch in every format whether it would be the music into the lyrics into the melodies and track the whole thing in three weeks. It was insane that we were able to do it. So that Wall Street type of mentality of just running all over and finish songs and that the integrity of this record was in act was incredibly rewarding yet at times it was a little bit stressful.

Then you finish that and you realize that really you did everything that you could to do the best that you could and you’re happy with what you came up with and you go home and you’re like, “I have nothing to do today” so there’s a letdown that comes from that. I’ve had it with a lot of records I’ve been involved with but this one in particular was tough ‘cause it was really close to me and Clint. We lived that record real hard so I missed him when it was over with like ,“Man my brother is gone and I don’t have anything to do today.” And then all of a sudden it turns to the business side of it and when that starts it’s like, “Oh man this is really brutal,” and then it gets into what song are you gonna pick for a single.

It’s a whole different ball game with two guys running the show as opposed to five guys, everything was different, we’re so used to the regime that is Sevendust and now to go about handling business and doing things and all of a sudden we had a manager change, a booking agent change, this whole thing as far as we got two bands – to make sure we don’t step on anybody’s toes. It was a whole bunch of stuff goin’ on – just trying to get into the studio was so stressful for us to get to the point where we could actually do a record that we forgot we actually had write. [Laughs]

The business of planning a tour isn’t much easier, but can you tell us about Call Me No One’s tour plans for 2012?

Oh we’re goin’. We’re already booked and everything, we’re going out with Nonpoint and Eye Empire. It’s like that was a whole other deal, Sevendust is kind of a machine that makes very good money and has no issues – you just throw the name out there and they’ll book a tour and we’ve got everything handled. With this it was like okay, no promoter in this economy is gonna throw us a bunch of money and say “C’mon out and let me gamble.”

I wouldn’t say we’re spoiled by any means but we’re a little too old to be stickin’ our ass in a van right now, we’re not looking for condo bunks and three different drivers, we’re like “Okay realistically we got to be able to pull this thing off.” I don’t need to be in any kind of luxury, I’ll sleep wherever – we need to be able to get through this and get through it safely. We had to find the right tour financially that would work, had to figure out how long we really wanted to do it.

We’re going to be doing two weeks of Sevendust shows at the beginning of July and then we’re gonna go straight from that into Call Me No One for two and a half to three weeks with Nonpoint at the end of July and August. Then Sevendust will be back in the studio in September to do the next record and then when that’s in the can we’ll really start focusing on Call Me No One for the rest of the year.

That’s great to hear, as long as they don’t cram you guys in a Mini Cooper or a buggie.

[Laughs] Yeah, I got pissed. I was so mad because it was like people just kept sayin’ “No, no you can’t do it like this, no this isn’t gonna work.” I was like “Listen man, here’s the deal I don’t care what it takes we’re definitely going on the road. We’ll go in a damn wheelbarrow if we have to. We’re going so all this “No” crap isn’t gonna work. Make it happen find a way to get us out there ‘cause we’re definitely goin’.” Then it all started to happen.

With touring coming up with Call Me No One and Sevendust, what is one thing you must bring on tour with you. No electronics.

It can’t be electronic, oh man, God that’s a good one ‘cause everything revolves around phone, iPad. I would have to say – God that’s good question when you take electronics out of the mix. I don’t know I guess nicotine [Laughs] without a doubt if I didn’t have that, even for a few hours I would have a meltdown and just go psycho. I need help for sure, I need to do something about figuring out how to not to have anymore nicotine in my system.

Everyone has their vice.

The only vice Clint Lowery has is diet coke, it’s the craziest thing in the world. The dude has no vices at all, zero except for diet coke and it’s so bad like he can easily drink 40 diet cokes in one day. That’s the thing I was like, “Damn Clint doesn’t have any vices man, but then it’s like oh yeah, Diet Coke.”