MTV: How does it feel to have your debut record out?

Stacy Jones: We've been working on this thing so long, this sort of buildup for this record coming out, it's almost like it's not real.

MTV: What makes your album different from what's already out there?

Jones: I think we're a little more melodic than anybody else out right now, but not as angry ... but we don't rap, at least not yet. Brian's going to start rapping on the next album. [Laughs] That's actually true. [RealAudio]

MTV: You recorded the album with Bob Rock (Metallica, Veruca Salt) ...

Jones: Bob is a great dude, and he was really good about sort of being hands-on but letting us sort of f--- things up.

Jamie Arentzen: Really pushing us to bring the best out of what we do, which was really cool.

Jones: And he's got a bitchin' pool.

Arentzen: Yeah, great pool, great view, and it was one of the reasons it's so huge-sounding. There was never enough stuff on there. [He'd say] "OK, let's double that, let's put more, more, more," and it was totally cool ...

Jones: We knew that we wanted to work with Bob before we even had songs. He's rad.

MTV: You guys went to his place in Maui, right? Wasn't it difficult to concentrate in that atmosphere?

Arentzen: We were there a couple of months before we started the record. Stacy was recording drums for [ex-Veruca Salt singer] Nina Gordon's record, so we had the whole band out there rehearsing. We had gotten two months of Maui out of our system when it was time to record, so it wasn't like we were dying to golf and surf every day anymore but ...

Jones: We still did.

MTV: But the band formed in a much harsher climate, didn't it?

Jones: Actually, the band was kinda born on the ski lift in Killington, [Vermont]. I always forget about that. The three of us were snowboarding once, and I don't know what inspired me to decide that we should be in a band but ...

Brian Nolan: I think we just realized that we couldn't be in a band because we were both drummers.

Jones: Right. We thought about having two drummers in the band, and then that just seemed kinda stupid. I went out and bought a guitar chord book out on the road, and I just sat in the back of the bus on the Veruca Salt tour learning chords and screwing around. I used to play guitar — I had the two-finger guitar method. You know, I could play like two strings at a time.

Arentzen: Then he learned how to go to drop D so he only had to use one finger. And he said, "This is so much easier."

Jones: Now I can use three fingers, actually. So we just started getting drunk and rockin' out, and next thing you know we're making a record.

MTV: How was the transition from being behind the kit to being a frontman?

Jones: It was warm and fuzzy.