SECOND COMING
October 1998
The Album Network
By Gregory Sorrels

Second Coming...for most people those two words coupled together usually conjure up vivid images. Of course, there's the images of the apocalyptical end of the world (among other things), but when you sit down and really listen to Second Coming's major-label debut it begins to become apparent that the music presented is certainly about the return of something big, perhaps even rock music as we know it. Utilizing electronic elements along with straight-to-the-point rock sensibilities, Second Coming have created a huge sound complete with giant guitar riffs, an impenetrable rhythm section, vocals of eminent quality and stellar songwriting. These things combined with their incredible live shows simply spell success.

With the band's first single, "Soft," firmly entrenched at Rock and Active Rock Radio, I thought it was time to get an inside look at what could very well be rock's next big thing. I hooked up with Yanni (aka Johnny) Bacolas, Travis Bracht, Dudley Taft and James Bergstrom recently via conference call in the midst of their tour with Candlebox to get the entire story on the band, the album and what it takes to really make these guys laugh.

Q: It seems like in the last few months things have been happening pretty fast for you guys. You were signed in May, the first single, "Soft," has been speeding up the charts very quickly, you've already toured with Monster Magnet and now you're out with Candlebox. It must be very exciting.

A: TRAVIS "Killer, man. It's a dream."

A: DUDLEY "Yeah, we're excited. We're just getting warmed up here. We are paying our dues."

Q: What's been the most eye-opening experience thus far about how the whole process works in the music industry?

A: JAMES "I would say it's great to see the huge machine work. You know, when we go out to play a venue and we hear from people, 'Yeah, I received this cassette sampler at the Tool show,' in some little city; it's amazing to see the big monster moving as the result of all the people at Capitol's hard work."

A: DUDLEY "I'd say it makes you realize just how difficult it must be to get radio stations to play the singles. There's so much that goes into convincing the radio staff to actually give us a chance, you know? I mean, these radio guys must get like, I don't know how many CDs a week. It's amazing that we can cut through all that and get some good radio play."

Q: The first single, "Soft," incorporates a lot of electronic elements, with heavy riffs and other more textured guitar work. Who's idea was it originally to start experimenting with electronic elements and samples, and where do you guys see taking the electronic part of your music in the future?

A: TRAVIS "I'd have to say that electronic element has always been there. The electronic element is there for texture, for taste and flavor. It's kind of like something to fill in some holes with, as far as segues into the next song."

A: YANNI "Ornamenting."

A: TRAVIS "Yeah, or like a keyboard, a soft keyboard element or something like that. It's always good to have that there. We don't have enough electronic stuff in our music to actually need a fifth member, you know, a keyboard member. So it's nice to have the DAT there--that just kind of flavors it up for us. But we're more of a meat-and-bones band than electronic."

A: JAMES "It's probably more prevalent in the drumming end of it, as far as break beats and how I play to it and that kind of thing; spicing up drum sounds."

A: DUDLEY "I've been writing songs for almost 19 years, and when you just write them for guitar, bass and drums it gets a little boring after a while. So it was fun. For instance, I wrote the riff in 'Electric Head' on keyboard, which is not the normal way of doing things, and 'Soft' came out of this drum loop that we had. It was interesting to play to that instead of just sitting there with an acoustic in your bedroom; not that tha t's a bad thing, but it was good for variety's sake to have some other elements to be playing off of when coming up with riffs and stuff.

"You know, you can have the electronic stuff going on all day long, and you may even have a hit on the radio or whatever, but the electronic stuff's not gonna write a good song for you. I think our songs are good songs--you can take the electronics out and I think they still stand on their own. It's like condiments. You can get a piece of bread and put some relish and mustard on it, but it's gonna suck if you don't have a piece of beef in there."

A: JAMES "As far as the future goes, I don't think this band will limit ourselves as far as what technology we pull from or whether we choose to write just a straight-ahead rock song or dabble in some industrial electronic music or whatever. I don't know what the future will bring, but I know we won't limit what we do."

A: TRAVIS "It just has to do with what we're gonna be digging at that time."

Q: So how does the songwriting process work for you guys?

A: TRAVIS "Usually it's Dudley who comes up with music and he passes the tape to me. I listen to it 1,000 times, until I start to feel what kind of mood that this song always puts me in when I'm listening to it. So then I write accordingly, to the mood that I'm in."

A: DUDLEY "Which I think is great. I've worked with people that have some lyrics, and, 'Oh, here's the song,' and you slap it together. That always sounds weird, you know?"

Q: Travis, you write most of the lyrics--is most of what you're talking about autobiographical?

A: TRAVIS "Yeah, on this album, but I don't plan on sticking to that. I don't believe in sticking to any kind of pattern of writing. I definitely got any angst that I had left out of my system, being in foster homes and all that crap. Everything that I've ever wanted to do is totally completed musically on this album, as far as at this time in my life. I'm never gonna stick to a pattern; I'll write about anything, though. It's just as you grow older and the more stuff that you go through, the more stuff you're gonna write about. But I don't ever plan on just writing albums and albums of whining and shit about my childhood or whatnot. That is definitely not my goal. So any whining I ever had to do I probably got out on this album."

Q: Let's talk about "Travisty" for a second while we're there. It's spelled with your name in it and I've heard it's basically about your life.

A: TRAVIS "Yeah, that's like my theme song. That's the anthem of my life, right there. It's what I've wanted for so long, is to write a song that means a shitload to me, and this is my baby. It's the first song I've ever written completely and it took me six months to write it because I was so critical about what I wanted to say in it. I wanted it to be perfect. I didn't want any filler sentences in there, or any of that shit. I was really hard on myself on that tune but it paid off, definitely."

Q: You mention "the war" in both "Travisty" and "The War"; what exactly are you talking about there?

A: TRAVIS "That right there pretty much answers why I wrote 'The War,' because everybody was always asking what I was talking about with that phrase, 'the war.' Everybody has imagery words, or I imagine everybody does, words where you compare something to something else, and I compared being in a foster home to being in a war, because you're always fighting for your shit, you're always fighting other kids to keep them from stealing your shit. Everything that you took with you from home was like everything in the world to you, that was your last bit of home you had. I had a pillow and some other personal effects, and it all got stolen throughout my whole moving from foster home to foster home to foster home. And eventually all my stuff was gone, so it was like a war, you know? 'Cause you'd be put in with older kids who kicked the shit out of you every day, man. So that experience, to me, I call 'the war.' A lot of people were asking about that so I wrote a song about it, 'The War.'"

Q: In "The War" it's an interesting turn the lyrics take, from the negative statement of "unlucky am I" to the positive of "how lucky am I." What brought about the big change in the attitude that happens in the middle of that tune?

A: TRAVIS "I don't know exactly, maybe it's just the fact that I got older and started pulling myself out of the shit, you know? I did all the drugs and I went through that bullshit thing pretty early, and I guess just did so much that it didn't do anything for me anymore. So I started getting clean and I met the love of my life and I'm gonna have a baby, and I'm in the best band in the world. That right there alone is enough of a reason for me to straighten up, which is why I straightened up, to tell you the truth. We're signed, so how lucky am I, man? I'm not unlucky anymore. I got a Harley Davidson, a truck and I'm stylin'. What more could you want? So how lucky am I? Every time I say that line on stage, I always wave my hand over the band. Every time I've ever sang that line, I just look back at the band and go 'how lucky am I.'"

Q: With "The Song," it's been a while since I've heard a big, epic rock song with strings and everything. Did you guys originally intend for it to end up being so big and epic, or did it just naturally evolve into that?

A: TRAVIS "We've always had it envisioned to be huge. We envisioned it to be a 'Stairway To Heaven'-type song."

A: DUDLEY "The chord progression on it, the guitar part itself is actually pretty simple, but it sort of evoked some big majestic thing in my mind. It just seemed like the logical thing to do. It was great, 'cause when the lyrics were put down on that it followed right along, and it's the synergistic combination of those elements that makes that song great. You could easily have ruined that song with lame lyrics."

A: TRAVIS "That song's probably a perfect example of how I felt when I heard the majestic strings and big punching sounds and crescendos. It made me feel like I was in another time, in another time frame, a Renaissance time frame. It was so orchestral, it just put me in this kind of Amadeus mode."

A: JAMES "I'm glad that we went out and used real violins and cellos instead of using the sample sounds."

Q: You guys actually hired members of the Seattle Philharmonic, right?

A: TRAVIS "Yeah man, they're awesome. We're just watching them with our mouths wide open."

A: JAMES "When we recorded, the majority of our album we had done before we were signed, and at the time we were kind of like, 'Well, shoot, this is gonna cost us this much money; can we do it or should we use sampled strings?' But we went for it; I was really proud of the fact that we did and real happy with the outcome of the performances and the song."

Q: You mentioned your Harley earlier, Travis; did Harley Davidson inspire you at all when you wrote the lyrics on "Unknown Rider?"

A: TRAVIS "No, it was more like old school '60s, kind of early Hell's Angels rowdies. That's what inspired me. I got this poster of Peter Fonda on his bike from that movie Some Wild Angels, where he's the president of the Hell's Angels chapter in Oakland. I was all stoned and I'm looking at that poster one night, and he's just sitting there with a cigarette, and it was like he came out of the poster and relinquished all duties of being the unknown rider to me, so I got a panhead, I'm taking over. I'm taking over the mystique of the unknown rider."

Q: Tell me about your beard, Dudley.

A: DUDLEY "What?!" (laughter)

A: JAMES "Tell him about the cantaloupe, dude."

A: DUDLEY "Very funny."

Q: Tell us about your beard, Dudley.

A: DUDLEY "What's to tell about my beard?"

Q: How long did it take to grow your beard?

A: DUDLEY "I don't know; I've had it seven-and-a-half years. I don't know."

A: YANNI "You should see him after he eats bean dip."

A: TRAVIS "You guys, we're breaking a major media rule. Get off Dudley's beard."

A: DUDLEY "Look man, it's just some hair on my chin, okay? Get over it."

Q: What is Yanni's fascination with goats? (laughter)

A: TRAVIS "I raise them, he takes them home." (laughter)

A: YANNI "How do you know I'm fascinated by goats?"

A: JAMES "Weren't you trying to sell him one?"

A: YANNI "Yeah."

Q: How many drum heads does James break in a night?

A: JAMES "None."

A: TRAVIS "He breaks more goddamn lumber, though."

A: JAMES "Cymbals actually, man."

A: TRAVIS "You're always beaning me in the back of my head with your sticks that you're trying to throw to all the girls in the front row. He broke a stick, girl caught it in the front, I see it going flying by, then her friends are like, 'We want one!' And this was right in the middle of the song and I'm kind of checking them out. So here comes another stick, and the girls catch it and they're like, 'Yeah!' And then, like 13 girls are going, 'We want one!' And so all of a sudden I feel this boom on the back of my head and he missed them, he hit me instead. He's jeopardizing the quality of our music to make sure that every 12-year-old out there has a drumstick with James Bergstrom on it." (laughter)

A: JAMES "I'm just out to please the fans."

A: TRAVIS "Then he wonders why he's out of sticks."

A: DUDLEY "That's true, but you don't see many drummers that get a crowd going like James does back there."

A: YANNI "It's his faces." (laughter)

A: DUDLEY "Yeah, he's making faces and he's crazy. You know, he's like Animal from 'The Muppets' back there."

A: JAMES "I just play as hard as I can and have a fun time doing it."

Q: Alright Travis, who are the Iron Lords?

A: TRAVIS "The Iron Lords...The Iron Lords brotherhood, Seattle chapter. That's all I can give you. It's a motorcycle club dedicated to safe riding and public drunkeness." (laughs)

Q: You guys are incredible pranksters. What's the best one you guys have pulled on each other or someone else?

A: TRAVIS "I think the turkey sandwich is a good one."

A: YANNI "What did you guys do to my turkey sandwich?" (laughter)

A: TRAVIS "When Dudley put the turkey sandwich in your bass amp."

A: YANNI "No, we won't even go there. That was not a funny one."

A: JAMES "I've been super glued to my drum seat. That was years ago, but it was a good prank."

A: TRAVIS "We also put butter on your drum sticks."

A: JAMES "Yep, and paint balls on my bass drum beaters and in-between my highhat. They had it lined with the LD to have lights off right before I went on, so boom, hit the first note, explosion everywhere, red paint." (laughter)

A: YANNI "They used to tape toilet paper on my ass when I'd go on stage. Assholes." (laughter)

A: JAMES "Like a three-foot strand of it, dude. He'd go out in the middle, jump out and do a bass solo and we'd have the spotlight on him."

A: YANNI "Very funny, James. Here's a funny one. When we were meeting with all the different record labels before we got signed, we would set it up so that we'd say a joke and all the guys in the band would laugh this stupid laugh. We'd meet these label guys and Travis would say, 'So, let's go get some dinner,' and we'd all like [stupid laugh]."

A: TRAVIS "They're like, 'What the hell?'"

Q: Is there anything else you guys want to touch on here?

A: DUDLEY "It's great to be at the point we are right now, because we worked really hard to get signed. We had ourselves organized as a corporation and a lot of effort went into the progress of the band by Johnny and James, while Travis and I were doing other things to keep the band moving forward."

A: YANNI "It's like one guy's a heart, one guy's a lung, one guy's an arm; everyone has their own purpose in the band and that's what's really made us be successful. It's a lot of teamwork that goes on in this band."