Jacknife started in 1999 and they were actually a band before I joined. I joined in 2001. Basically, we're out of Greenville, a small East Texas city. We just started writing different kinds of music. Whenever I got in the band, we went for a different kind of sound and we just started playing more older type stuff. Just music that nobody was really doing because everything was all nu-metal like rap metal and stuff back when we started. We threw in some leads and going back to our roots. We started getting a little bit of attention. Like I said, I've been with them since 2001 and we've been playing heavily since then just trying to make a name for ourselves. We've just been doing things on our own up until Paul got fixed up with his new label.

You guys are here in Dallas now.

Yeah, this is where we're from.

You formed in Greenville and moved to Dallas?

Yeah, some of the members lived out there. The founding members actually lived out there and everybody just ended up moving out this way.

You've been playing in the Dallas music scene for a while. How difficult was it to get gigs? People have been complaining that our local music scene was one way or the other way.

Yeah, it kind of is. Everybody's got to do the same thing. You have to have something to show the clubs. Like some kind of a disc or some kind of a demo you just give to the clubs to listen to. That way they know what kind of music they're letting into their clubs. It goes like this in any kind of business. They have people who they favor and in this case bands. Sometimes it was hard for us to get shows. We always had to play during the week and it was harder for us to get a weekend gig. The good gigs because on the weekend everybody is out. We just kept going out and promoting ourselves. Kept showing our faces around Dallas so that way people would remember us and hopefully keep us in mind whenever a good show came through town or anything like that.

You're fixing to hit the road with Losa. When is that tour starting and what areas of the country are you covering?

I think it's going to be an East coast tour. I'm not sure. I haven't had time to check out the routing on it but yeah, that's starts September 16 and we'll be on it until October 5. Somewhere around that time we're going to drop off and we're going to go on hopefully some more stuff. We're just waiting on confirmation on stuff for another tour afterwards. Hopefully we're just going to be staying on the road and staying pretty busy.

On the 3rd of September, is that a CD release thing or just a regular show you're doing?

Nah, that's our album release party. Our album from Zero Sum Recordings will be out in stores for everybody to buy on September 13 but we're having an early release party tomorrow actually. That's the 3rd and that's just for all the people around here and at home so they can get the album a couple of weeks early before everyone else just to show our appreciation and give our home crowd the better deal out of everything.

Your new album is called Moment Of Reckoning. Tell us a little bit about it.

The last EP we had, some of those songs on this album plus six more. We started recording in January of 2005 and it was produced by D. Braxton Henry. He's a local producer and he's been around for years. We all know him. He's been in the scene and he's always into really heavy music. He was in a few bands. He's actually out on Ozzfest right now with A Dozen Furies doing their sound for them. He's just a close friend of ours. I've known him for years and whenever we decided to do our EPs, we went to him. Like I said, we did that in January. The songs on there that mostly stand out to me, my favorites, I like the real heavier, faster ones like the opening one "Surrender Never", "End Of Man", "A Glimpse Of Hell", "Deception". Stuff like that. Those are the heavier, faster ones. One of the ones that sticks out the most to me is, I think it's number six, "Tears Fall Endless", because it's different than anything else on there. It's not so aggressive. It's just very metal, very guitared up, I'd say kind of pretty because it's just not like anything else on the album. It's just real harmonied up. There are a lot of good guitar licks in there.

If someone who isn't familiar with your band would pick up that CD, what three songs on there do you think would really describe your band?

That would probably be best described by the samplers we have out right now with three songs that do that. It has "End Of Man", "Glimpse Of Hell", and "Tears Fall Endless" just because it gives everything. You've got just a straight forward, fast, hard, heavy one. Then you've got another one that's just like our signature. It's driving. It's got harmonies, it's got a chant. Vocally and stuff. "Tears Fall Endless" is on there just because it shows our musical creativity. Those three right there.

I liked how each song was so different from the next. I like that mixing up of stuff. You guys were the first ones to sign on Zero Sum Recordings.

Yeah, we were. Actually Paul approached me last year around July. He called me and said he was going to plan on starting up a record label and he wanted us to be a part of it as being the first one to sign actually. We were like yeah, because we had actually asked him before about managing us like, I think the year before and it didn't work out. Then the following year he heard our latest EP "Today We Fight" and he liked it enough to where he wanted us to be the first band signed on it.

That's a cool deal. Is that working out real well for you guys so far?

Yeah, it's working out real well. We've got our album coming out in stores in a couple of weeks and we've already been on a couple of tours and we're just getting ready for our first CD release party tomorrow. We've got promotions on. We've been in a few magazines. We've done a lot of interviews and stuff like that so it's all working out.

That's one thing you have to do. Promote, promote, promote. Some labels either don't spend enough money doing that or they don't have enough money to do that so it's always great to get a hold of someone who can handle that for you.

Yeah, definitely.

Outside of the Losa tour, do you have anything else coming up?

We're just waiting right now for our booking agent to get back from Mississippi. We plan on doing a whole lot of touring so that we can keep our name out there. Keep our faces fresh to the public. We're going back through town every month or so just trying to keep our faces fresh.

You have to keep yourself in the public eye. Any other thoughts or comments?