Matt: We started the band in '97 with a different lineup. I started rehearsing and Micah and Worm rehearsed next door to me fresh out of high school and I signed them up in '97. In '98 we found Ricky at another rehearsal space. He's played with The Nixons.

Ricky: I used to be that guy right there (points at a photo of The Nixons) but they left my ears out of it. Oh shit.

Matt: Ricky was at a rehearsal space and he was walking through so I handed him a disc. He checked it out and he called me about a day later.

Ricky: I joined anyway.

Matt: And he joined anyway. It was all pretty much through rehearsals. Actually we played a few shows with Rick before.

Why did you lose your original people?

Matt: They weren't very good. I saw talent elsewhere.

At the rehearsal studios.

Matt: Ouch. It's just differences in where we were going and what we wanted to do.

How would you guys describe your music?

Matt: Good. Just melodic rock on the heavier side.

I saw something that mentioned that you guys got dropped from your label last year. What caused that to happen?

Matt: Musical tastes. They wanted us to be like Creed and Seether and everyone else on their roster but we were going elsewhere.

Well, that's silly because you already have a Creed and a Seether so why would you want to sound like them?

Matt: There you go.

Ricky: To help us get on the radio.

Micah: There's nothing wrong with that. We're pursuing that too.

The only problem with getting on the radio and sounding like somebody else is that people will sit there and say you sound like somebody else.

Matt: Or they don't even know. They just forget about it. There are so many Lit's and so many Blink 182's. It's already there and it's already done. Let's move on and try something else.

Absolutely. Tell me a little bit about We're Not Robots.

Matt: We spent close to eight or nine months writing it. We did a lot of pre-production. More than we normally do. Instead of going in and recording a full 10 songs and every guy having to go in and do their guitar parts or their drum parts, we did the 10 songs all the way through. We decided to split it up and just take our time on each one. We mixed and mastered it as we went along instead of doing it as a full project. This is the first time we actually wrote a full album all together all in one sitting. The last record was more of a scrapbook of what Edgewater had done throughout the years. There's a little piece of our first self titled independent release on there. It was more of a scrapbook whereas this is more one direction.

What three songs on the new release do you feel best describes Edgewater right now?

Matt: "Rock Is Dead", I would say "Digging For Sounds". Anybody else?

Jeremy: "Get It Right." Track one, track four, and track 10.

And why do you feel those songs best describe the band?

Matt: It describes where we're at right now. I think a band grows and goes through stages and I think those particular songs are where we're at and what we're trying to accomplish.

I read the Dallas Observer and I noticed that they have music critics in there who are pretty down on the whole local scene here. How do you guys feel about that?

Matt: They've always been down on the local scene. It doesn't really affect me at all.

Jeremy: I've always noticed not just with us but other bands too that reach a certain level of success locally, a lot of those writers are always rooting for the underdog type. Anytime a band starts to do well, their reviews get worse and worse. It almost seems like there's a correlation there. I've seen it with quite a few bands over the years. They got to a point in Dallas where they were doing well and they just got bashed on more and more.

Matt: I think Dallas is going through a tough time too with Deep Ellum and all clubs barely making their rent and everything else. It's a whole new world out here. It's not what it used to be, that's for sure.

Ricky: It's also important to note that it's the Dallas Observer, not the Dallas scene. That magazine just has a few assholes who write for them. That's their opinion.

Matt: They all hang out together at the Doublewide or where ever. They dog this club all the time. There's no reason for it. It's their opinion.

Ricky: I think people miss that. They feel like that's a Dallas magazine and that's how Dallas feels. That's how Zac Crain and Robert Wilonsky feel.

Jeremy: And Sam Malkovich.

I was asking about that particular magazine because I noticed that they always totally rip all the local bands. It's great to be for the underdog but when the underdog stops being the underdog, you should be there for that as well.

Ricky: They've had their pet bands for years.

Matt: And their pet bands are still playing their parties.

Jeremy: Exactly. Some of those bands are good.

Ricky: They're all drinking buddies. It's like "hey, you're in a band. I'll write a great article about you."

Matt: It's six of them and that's it. It's sad that they don't stand behind their own because there are a lot of magazines out there that when we're traveling we pick up. When we're in Denver we pick up their magazine and they're constantly in support of the whole music scene. They're trying to always build it where for some reason the Dallas Observer wants to tear everybody down. It's a sad situation.

Ricky: It seems like in a situation like that being that is a Dallas newspaper, we're all Dallas bands. Either you don't review the band or give a good review. It's one of those things where no one is getting anything out of the fact that they're bashing on us. Who gains by this? Just don't write about us at all. Write about a band you dig and then everybody wins.

Jeremy: That and if it was truthful but it's more like trying to bash people instead.

Ricky: The microphone isn't even plugged in. Anyway that's about them. We get to talk about them.

I wanted to ask about that because that was something I was talking to the Deaf Pedestrian guys about. I thought it was a shame when Trees closed down. I still can't get over that. It was such a cool club.

Matt: It was. A lot of history there.

What kind of touring are you guys planning on doing?

Matt: We're just now starting to put together a national tour. We're going to start off here in Texas in August and do Texas and surrounding states and then start pushing out to the outer limits and just continue touring through the end of the year and then pick up after Christmas and go back out again. We were out in 2003 and 2004 and a little bit of 2005 touring the South Of Sideways CD with the likes of Three Days Grace and Seether. A bunch of great bands. We hope to get back out there and do the same thing on this record.

You guys were talking about how you basically spent eight months working on this record. Do you think putting that much time into it made it better than your previous release?

Matt: It was less stressful for me anyway. I don't know about for everybody else. There wasn't this huge time situation that we had to worry about, how much money was being spent, or what our deadline was. We didn't really have a deadline so it was just getting it done the way we wanted to get it done. A lot less stressful.

Ricky: It gave the songs a chance to grow too. Doing in them in small batches, we spent a lot more time with the individual songs. We redid the whole process instead of saying all the drums are done so now the guitars have to be exactly what the guitars were for the whole record. Whereas doing it in segments gave us a lot of room.

I notice that when people do albums they always start with the drums and then they do this and then they do this. Next thing you know they're totally sick of their record that they don't want to listen to it anymore. Is this a record that you can actually sit at home and listen to?

Matt: Oh, yeah. I listen to it quite often. We're very proud of it.

Any other thoughts or comments?