Nonpoint bring a lot of intensity to the stage and they’ll be sharing a whole lot more heaviness with their brand new album, The Poison Red. We had the opportunity to sit down with vocalist Elias Soriano and guitarists Rasheed Thomas and B.C. Kochmit over a couple of beers. The guys go in-depth on creating and recording the record as well as their love for their new home at Spinefarm Records. It wasn’t all business as the guys also had some laughs but expressed the vital importance of baby wipes on the road. Check out our interview with members of Nonpoint below:

The new album is called The Poison Red, what does this title mean to each of you personally?

Rasheed Thomas: The Poison Red, it’s like an emergency when you think of red. Poison, there’s kind of a lot of poison in the world right now and things that are making the world that state of emergency.

Elias Soriano: I’m going to have you answer that question in other interviews, that was a great answer. That’s generally the idea, well said sir.

B.C. Kochmit: I picture red, like don’t cross, danger is associated with it. It’s a dangerous album, we’re doing it all ourselves, really no outside influence. It personifies danger, that’s what it means to me,

ES: That’s basically it, we were going for a dangerous record that was a very loud call to the alarm. It’s going to be a very heated, underground driven next five years, I think, in the social world across the board – kids, middle aged, adults all of us are going to be dealing with the same scope of “What the hell is going on?” We’re dealing with it right now and there’s a million underground movements happening everywhere. It’s almost like during the Vietnam War where there were all of these small movements happening, gay rights, peace movements, it’s all happening again and it’s not age specific. For our record, we decided that, that was going to be the basic scope –to not point fingers but to throw flags and let people know what’s going on.

Talk about the single ‘Generation Idiot’ lyrically and musically.

ES: It’s basically a warning to the world about how things are starting to anchor us down that are very intangible that we’re making things bigger than what they physically should be, your Facebook page for example. [Laughs] The hours and hours of effort and attention that people pay to that one thing or to texting, the fact that somebody texts you and then you pick up the phone and call them and it’s like, “Oh I didn’t want to talk to you,” because they can’t talk anymore because of the lack of communication.

BCK: It’s like they’ve lost the skill of human interaction.

ES: And we’re all guilty of it, I said that a couple of days ago in an interview, I was just as guilty of it. I’ll spend twenty minutes writing a four sentence message that was not me, so I stopped doing that. I actually started typing and if I mess up or say something wrong, I just correct myself. I was finding that I was meeting fans online and they were giving me pages and pages of comments and banter and I meet them in person and they can’t get two f---ing words out of their mouth and it’s everyone.

RT: It’s not hating on technology because technology can be a beautiful thing, it’s just how you use it. At the press thing today, I almost got run into three times because everyone was just on their phones, just look up!

BCK: If it wasn’t me you walked into and it was a bus, you’d be dead.

ES: David Draiman took a huge stance and he got flack for but he’s f---ing right. Why am I going to pay 50 dollars to look at a phone at a concert, it doesn’t make any sense. I could just go to YouTube and watch it, or if someone is on their phone texting and he calls them out and she goes, “Well I was on the phone because it was an emergency with my kid.”  Well you were on your phone during our set too so there was a four hour emergency and you decided you weren’t going to get up from the concert and go take care of your child? C’mon man, you were on Facebook, f---ing texting, showing people where you were, trying to make the world jealous because you were somewhere that they weren’t. It’s that jealous, envious personality, people are starting to create their own celebrity and it’s not real. I’m talking everyone from 15 to 50, everyone is swiping, following, liking, it’s this nonstop content, instead of real life and creating memories and talking.

How was the overall creative and recording process for each of you on this new release?

ES: My favorite record I’ve ever recorded.

RT: Easy to do, we did it at Uptown Recording with Rob Rucho who co-produced and engineered. We produced it too without any outside influence which was cool. It was awesome for me because I also got to engineer some of it too, I used to work with Rob at that studio years ago so for me to come in with these guys it was easy.

BCK: Normally, you do all of your guitar solos and stuff at the end and everything usually runs over, you’re crammed for time and at the end your fingers are just burning and bleeding. With this we had two separate rooms and when one song was done over here you go and do the next one in the other room.

ES: It was a great studio.

BCK: Hats off to Spinefarm Records too, they were just kind of like, “Do your thing.” No producer breathing down our neck or anything.

ES: That’s one of the reason we signed this deal with these guys. They literally sat us down and said, “Write us a Nonpoint record.” I didn’t hear a peep until we turned in the record and they were proud.

RT: Yeah, that’s the first time that’s happened in any band I’ve ever been in.

ES: I have to say, for any band looking or possibly speaking to this label that – it was something that the 36 Crazyfists guys and Brock [Lindow] told me and it was, “I’ve never been happier at a label.” I don’t think we’re going anywhere from this place, it’s definitely the most home feeling label I’ve been at after being on five different labels. It’s good to work with people that are not only kicking ass but who are there just for the music. We’ve never been happier.

What does the rest of 2015 have in store for Nonpoint?

BCK: Touring and doing whatever promotion we can and get out there and perform.

ES: It’s going to be a lot of touring, Buckcherry, In This Moment, a small quick week or two-week break then a fall tour, headlining tour either in January or February of next year.

When on tour what is one non-electronic item each of you must have on tour with you?

BCK: Non-electronic?

ES: Baby wipes!

RT: Baby wipes!

BCK: Baby wipes.

ES: You got to stay clean.

RT: You don’t get to shower as much.

ES: It keeps you clean, baby wipes, fresh underwear and socks.

RT: We’re one of those clean bands. You come on our bus and it don’t smell like man. [Laughs]

BCK: It smells like a French cheese factory.

RT: You don’t feel weird when you come on our bus like, “Ya’ll cooking something? Why does it smell salty?”

ES: You cooking fish feet? Because it smells like feet and fish. [Laughs]

 RT: If anyone wants to give us a baby wipes endorsement...

Hear that, Huggies? Bring on the baby wipes for Nonpoint! Thanks to Elias Soriano, Rasheed Thomas and B.C. Kochmit for the interview. Catch a full list of tour dates here and order the new album 'The Poison Red' here.

Watch Nonpoint’s Video for “Generation Idiot”

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