DOPE Frontman Talks 'No Regrets'

Greg Maki of Live-Metal.net recently conducted an interview with DOPE vocalist Edsel Dope. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Live-Metal.net. For someone who hasn't had a chance to hear it [DOPE's new album, "No Regrets", scheduled for release March 10] yet, how do you think this album compares to the previous albums? What sets it apart?"

Edsel Dope: I personally thought that our previous album, "American Apathy", was a great, sort of re-introduction and redefinition of what DOPE does best. We've gone a lot of different places in the previous four records to this one. We've done everything from making heavy, hard rock songs to metal songs to even acoustic songs, and I think that through the course of doing that we really sort of found what we think DOPE does best and what we do best as DOPE on "American Apathy", and I think that this record was taking everything we learned on that record, applying it to this one and then trying to focus more on the band sounding and performing more intelligently. The band, we still have our silly swagger and our playfulness and our campiness that make DOPE a fun sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll band, but I think this time we were very intent on making sure that there's a lot of guitar candy and a lot of — you know, if you're a kid that plays guitar and you're going to learn this DOPE record, it's not easy. There's a lot of fun shit, a lot of technical guitar work and great riffing, guitar solos and lots of really tough drum patterns. That was part of the goal, just to smarten the band up.

Live-Metal.net: Yeah, the guitars — the leads and the solos — really jumped out at me. I was really impressed. You mentioned Zakk Wylde. How did you hook up with him and get him to play on the album?

Edsel Dope: Zakk has been kind of popping up through our lives the last several years. It seems like we roll out to California and play a show and the show is over and you come out of the back lounge of the bus and there's Zakk sitting in the front lounge, drinking and partying with your band, and you're going, "Are you fucking kidding me? Is that really Zakk Wylde on our bus?" He just kind of took to our band. I think maybe it's that we are sort of an old-school-mentality, sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll band and he digs that about us. But that's where it started, just meeting Zakk on the road and hanging out with him and him being just a really, really nice dude. We were given the opportunity to play some shows with BLS about a year and a half ago, and those went great. We really bonded with Zakk. While we were making the record, I reached out through our people and wanted to know if he would be interested in contributing, and he was all about it. And I knew this was the song. I knew this was the song that I wanted to work with him on. I had the hook, I had the idea for what I wanted it to be and he was able to really easily help us take it over the top.

Live-Metal.net: So are you looking forward to heading out on the first-ever Black Label Bash?

Edsel Dope: Yeah, man, I'm looking forward to getting everything done here and heading out on the road where I can be more at peace. Yeah, I'm tremendously excited about these shows. The guys in SEVENDUST are our old bros. We toured with them a bunch back in the day and they're one of my favorite live bands to watch. So it's gonna be terrific, man. I'm gonna play every night, clean up, come out and watch SEVENDUST, get my drunk on and by the time my drunk is kicking, then the guitar god himself is gonna come out and rock the house every night. Sounds pretty fuckin' good to me.

Read the entire interview at Live-Metal.net.