source: http://www.rocknrollradio.it

ELENA: Hi Eric!

ERIC: Hello!

ELENA: How does it feel to be back in Italy?

ERIC: It’s fucking great actually! The crowd has been awesome and the people of Italy are giving us a big hug and we’re giving them a big hug back ‘cause they’re awesome.

ELENA: How’s the tour been up to now?

ERIC: It’s been very good, we’ve had some great guys to work with and the venues have been really nice and there’s been a really nice, good crowd being showing up at the gigs and well, it’s getting better and better and tonight I think it’s gonna be the best night so far!

ELENA: I hope so for you! I’ve seen there are a lot of people already so it’s gonna be awesome. Tell us something about the recording of the new album.

ERIC: Well, wow, it was a hard process ‘cause we really gave it all, we worked a lot with the pre-production which is the part where you sit down and really go through all the songs and check so everything is, you know, as it should be and comin’ up with the ultimate ideas for every song and not leaving that to the stress of the studio time. We kinda wanted to keep the studio time to minimal and try to leave the studio time for choosing the good mix and getting the right sound which we had a lot of time to do this time, the sound and everything was really good and it turned out really fantastic, I must say that, I’m really really really proud of this album.

ELENA: I’ve listened to it and I’ve had the impression that it’s a bit harder than usual and I know that you have recorded a lot of songs so why did you choose just these 10 songs among all the others?

ERIC: Well I mean we had about 44-50 songs written, we chose about 20-25 to kinda work with for the recording to see, you know, which ones got best and which ones felt the most strongest and we narrowed them down to 10. It was the original idea to maybe have 11 songs but we wanted to have 10 strong songs and leave the audience wanting more.

ELENA: That’s good. But what does “442” mean?

ERIC: Oh (laughs) that is…

ELENA: It’s a hard question? I’m just curious!

ERIC: There is a big story behind that and… I don’t know maybe somebody can figure that out, we can set that as a contest, the guy figuring that out or the girl…

ELENA: That would be cool!

ERIC: It would be really really impressive if they understood what that meant.

ELENA: Okay so do that!

ERIC: Yeah!

ELENA: What do you think of the classic stereotype “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll”?

ERIC: Well I mean “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll” could easily be “sex, drugs and hip hop” or “sex, drugs and business men” (laughs) ‘cause I mean they do drugs and fuck girls as much as we do! If not more you know! Especially the hip hop scene today, in videos people are always saying “ah rock videos have to be naked girls and bla bla bla” but have you seen Doctor Grey and all those, not Doctor Grey maybe, I’m just naming, I don’t really know if he has naked women in his videos but all the hip hop videos they’re all showing their boobies and shaking their asses, it has been like a calling name for us, for the people who work with rock and stuff like that and I think it’s just, you know, if they like to call us “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll” well, sure, whatever.

ELENA: What’s the best thing about Italy?

ERIC: The best thing about Italy is the toilets. They’re hilarious!

ELENA: (laughs) I read somewhere, I don’t know if it was Peter’s Myspace or something that when you have to come to Italy you have to bring your own toilet…

ERIC: Yeah, if you go on tour in Europe you bring your own toilet seat, if you come to Italy to tour you bring your own toilet! (laughs)

ELENA: That’s fun! I know that toilets suck… But okay, what do you think about Italian girls?

ERIC: Ah Italian girls are “bella ragazza”! Very very nice girls and you know sometimes it’s very hard to tell out the girls from the guys because the guys are also very good-looking (laughs).

ELENA: Okay watch out then! (laughs)

ERIC: You kinda have to feel your way through before you go all the way (laughs).

ELENA: Tell us something about life on the road.

ERIC: Life on the road can be very luxurious and very glamorous and so forth and it can be the total opposite, you know, you can have a right time on the road, if you have problems in your life touring could be a very demanding thing but as long as you respect people and just have fun you’re gonna have the time of your life, it’s a bit like a vacation especially if you play rock and music, for that matter, it’s almost demand that you’re junk on your job (laughs) so I mean it’s kind of a vacation and after that you come home and don’t really remember much of the touring (laughs).

ELENA: Because you’re too drunk?

ERIC: Yeah probably, you know, something like that. But it’s fun.

ELENA: How does success with Crashdïet affect your life?

ERIC: Well success affected my life in the way that I’m a lot poorer than I used to be! (laughs)

ELENA: That shouldn’t be!

ERIC: No, I know, but the music industry today is quite twisted. Music today is free, nobody buys albums anymore, they just download which I think is a good thing because, well good thing, I mean, of course I don’t like all the work in sweat and blood and tears you put into an album and then somebody just goes and download it but the business is really changing you know and you have to kind of turn the stag around and try to put a lot of energy on other places. I don’t know, it’s meant more touring and more time from home and stuff like that.

ELENA: And how would your life be without Crashdïet?

ERIC: Oh I don’t know, I probably would be in some other country opening a restaurant or something.

ELENA: You’re a good cook…

ERIC: Yeah I like to cook a lot and I’ve always dreamt of opening a restaurant somewhere and I probably would do that somewhere warm and where it’s sun all day and not snow up to your knees…

ELENA: Maybe in Italy?

ERIC: Maybe in Italy, who knows!

ELENA: Yeah, Milano!

ERIC: Yeah, I don’t know!

ELENA: Okay Eric I wanna thank you so much for this brief interview on Rocknrollradio.it, do you want to say something for your fans?

ERIC: Well Italy is a great country and I love the people and thank you for appreciating us so much that you do and see you on the shows! Grazie!