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Placid

Pokracki: The first album that we did really was a good collaboration between me and Jeff, who did a lot of the programming for the band at the time, but as time went on with us separating when we released the first 'official' album, which was ZeroZero2, we were actually not really working with each other. That's an album that I'm not sure how it would've been, but we did it anyway. Going into One Step from Rehab, it was a lot of fun to make, because I did it on my own this time. I had Cameron help me where he did drums, and we had friends who came in from other bands to do guitar parts here and there, but it was a really different way of attacking the music than the last one.

So One Step from Rehab was mostly done by you, which is interesting, because that leads into the question of the numerous lineup changes Placid has undergone over the years.

Pokracki: It sounds like a fucking soap opera, doesn't it? With the new album, it was mostly just me and Cameron, and half the time I was shit-faced drunk writing the whole album. It's really weird to even have this album, and I'm really excited about it, but it really is mentally a whole new band, because we went from five people to three to two to five or whatever. The funny thing about this band is that it's always been a gang of friends. The first group of five people was me and Cameron, my brother, and Jeff, a friend who was still a professional acquaintance because I knew him from high school and we both did music, but we still were friends. And then we had George and Geoff, who were friends through Jeff. It really was a family. But I think as we grew together, every family has their fights, and you know how girls always cause problems for a band. [Laughs.]

It would get into the whole dominance issue, and I've always been really easygoing, but it would cause problems for everybody, because I'd get frustrated with someone or vice versa. I think it was because of us all being so young that it just kind of blew up, so that's kind of why that dismembered the way it did. Everybody's still cool with each other, but it seemed like its time was over. Cameron and I have been doing music since I was 15 and he was 10; we've always played music, so to keep going with the band made sense. Just because we're not going to work with these guys anymore doesn't mean that we have to stop what we like. It was a blast, and we met a lot of cool people. We got to meet Skold before he went to join Manson. The time with Jackie and Zac was really weird, because they're very cool people and they're good at what they do, but we weren't really hanging out as friends. I thought, 'Well, fuck this shit! If this is what music's about, I'm not doing it.' So I was drunk again, and I ran into Matt because I live in Southern California, and he was with his girlfriend at the time. I showed him my stuff and said, 'Hey man, I've got a band. Do you want to check it out?' And he said, 'Hey, I play guitar.' I'm like, 'Hey, cool, because I don't have anyone in my band except my brother.' So he shows up one day to our practice and it's like, there's our lineup. I think the band just needed to regroup before we figured out what it was that we wanted to do and what we liked.

You mentioned meeting Skold before he joined Marilyn Manson, which would be during the MDFMK days. What was it like to meet Skold?

Pokracki: That was really fucking bitchin'! We ended up meeting him and just started talking to him, and that's actually what really helped us learn how to record, because Skold actually took the time to explain to us some of the processes and actually tell us that our music sucked when we first had our little demos. He said the songwriting was cool, but our recording sounded like shit, and I didn't take it as an offense. I took what he said and worked with it, and that brought us in the right direction.

One thing I've always noticed in Placid's music is a heavy influence from Skold.

Pokracki: That's an interesting and funny thing, because I've always been into '80s rock, and with my parents I've grown up with music. It's weird, because when I heard Skold's stuff, I thought, 'Wow, here's a guy who has similar ideas to what I listen to,' and I really like his music. There are similarities, and anybody who says that they're 100 percent original is completely full of shit, because you build off of what you learn. The music I really listen to is nothing like what I do, and that's the hardest thing for people to understand. I put my music out to the public, and that's the one thing I love about music; I love for people to hear it. I really take it as a compliment each day that I get told by someone on MySpace that they like my music, or if I find my music on their Web sites. But I like a lot of different stuff. I'm not really into rap, but I'll listen to techno rap like BT. I like Vast, and not the heavy stuff, but more of his soft stuff. I'll listen to pop music, and I like to sit down and study what the new musicians are making for these pop singers, and when I make my music, it comes out all heavy. And I don't listen to metal that much, so Matt's teaching me about metal, and I was all about grunge, too. My dad's always been into old-school metal, so it's not like I've had a lack of that in my life. The sad part is all the guys we listen to now that say they're original, you can play that stuff for the bands back in the day, and they'll say that the guys nowadays aren't original. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Given that it's been some years between the two albums, how would you say your influences have changed, and how is that reflected on the new album? Or to put it in another way, how is Placid starting to develop its own sound separate from its influences?

Pokracki: That's the hardest part, I think, because what people tell me that they hear and what I hear is different. It's hard to explain to people, because when you listen to something so much, you either like it a lot or you hate it a lot. To say that I'm coming into my own is really weird, because I just do the music that I like. The crazy part about the new album is that everything on it is experimental. I'd never really recorded on my own; that was my first actual recording where I did everything myself. It was the first real programming I did on my own. Even doing the artwork, I did everything myself. I had help from George, but everything's been a learning experience, so I don't think I'm looking in aspects of me trying to find my own self anymore, like I have to please everybody. I'm not trying to appease everyone anymore. I just do what I enjoy, and if I have my own sound, then I have my own sound. If I get told that I sound like somebody else, then OK. For instance, I love piano, and there's a bit of piano on this album, but if I use a lot of piano then people are going to tell me that I sound like Nine Inch Nails. So I tried to stay away from piano, but I've also been trying to bring it in a little more, and I don't want to sound like Evanescence, because I'm not that great a singer.

Instead of asking if you prefer digital or analog equipment, what kind of new tools have you started using that helped the development of One Step from Rehab? Or more importantly, what do you look for in a new piece of gear?

Pokracki: Oh god, I went through so much shit and have wasted so much money, and when you read the stuff about digital versus analog, it's like asking if god is real or not to people. It's like you've started a holy war, and people think Iraq is bad, you know? Nowadays, I think for the most part if you give me a decent hard drive and a decent computer and give me my Logic Audio, then most of the time I can do what I need to do with that. I try to stress to a lot of people not to go and blow their money on a lot of synthesizers, because I think they're bloated and overrated. Technology itself is so cheap compared to what it used to be, and living in America or any country of any means that has money, then you're very lucky whatever you get your hands on. I think in a lot of ways, ZeroZero3 wasn't for me to try to find new gear to use, because like I told you, half the time I was drunk. All of that stuff was software synths, but the drums I have to admit we did beef everything up, and I had to go out on a limb on that one; thank god for credit cards. I went out and bought the Roland V-drum sets, and they're OK. It's cool, because I was able to record Cameron, and he gets that natural drummer sound. That was one piece of external gear that we used, but everything was basically done on a laptop with an external hard drive and all soft-synths. For my guitar, I used that Amplitube for guitar port, and I have a Line6 port for recording because it just fucking sounds good. Gear-wise, that's basically what I used for the whole thing. I jumped between stuff, and I tried to use ProTools, and I swore to myself that I would learn to use ProTools like all the professionals do, but after I tried to learn how to use it, I thought, 'Fuck everybody, I'm tired of this.' I learned how to use Logic enough that I'm just going to stick with it. If anyone out there has Logic 5.5 with the feature on how to bounce the track with rendering, I could freaking use that!

The Placid Web site used to be more extensive. What's the story on the band's Web site development?

Pokracki: A lot of that comes from George, and even the font that we're using is influenced from his choices. I think he really did help to define the look of Placid in my mind, and Jeff too. They're very good, and when it comes to the Web site, I fail in that aspect because I don't know how to do that stuff myself. I had the Fireworks book to learn how to use Flash, and I felt that instead of taking another year and doing everything myself, I'll just ask for help. But that's why I would like to get signed: so I can hire the guys who'll put together a Web site for us.

Are there any labels that have showed interest in Placid, or any labels that you would be interested in?

Pokracki: To be honest, I wish we were more persistent in that regard, but we haven't pursued any labels mainly because they haven't pursued us at this point. If they're not going to do anything, we're not going to do anything. I would like to check into what options are out there, because I don't like the idea of a 9-to-5. It would be nice to get a label if we could come to an agreement where I could work on music all the time, which I think would be the best, because there are limitations, but you can do whatever you want and what you like.

On the subject of the live show, since Placid hasn't played live in some time, are there any plans to play live again?

Pokracki: I think everyone's really going to be surprised when they get a glimpse of the band now. You can imagine how out of shape I was when I did the album; when you're pounding out two bottles of liquor a night, you really kill yourself. With me focusing on my health and getting myself back into shape, and the album is out and the band going on now, I think people when they see us live are going to say, 'Holy shit!' It's a lot stronger band again, because we mentally took the time off and came back like when we first attacked music. It's only three people, but it's very effective. This band feels very confident again, because now we're friends again, and we basically just get that shit-faced kind of mind, and we go out there and play. We've been practicing and practicing and practicing, and we've grown closer as a band, because we learned how to write with each other and learned how to communicate. That's an interesting thing, because if you listen to the radio, your ideas are going to come from that, but if you're playing with other people, that's where those ideas are going to come from, and then people think it sounds more original, so I think that's really where a band comes into its own.

So what's next for Placid?

Pokracki: That's going to be the fun part. That's what I'm excited about. When Matt first came to our practice, we didn't know what the fuck we were doing anymore because it was just Cameron and me. Matt comes in with this Yamaha guitar; it's not the best looking guitar, but he says, 'I can fucking play it.' And he had a small amp, and it was all he had, but when we were playing, it felt right. He and Cameron get along really well, so when it comes to the future of Placid, it's going to be fucking sick! The new stuff we're cranking out is just us experimenting, because as much as I want to jump out, I'm listening to what these guys are doing and letting them do their thing. It makes ZeroZero3 sound old in my eyes, and that's hard to say, because it's always new to someone else. But when people hear our new stuff, they're going to say, 'What happened? This is fucking sick!'