My interview with Tony Campos complete, I thought I was finished for the evening. I had an interview with OT3P's Evil J scheduled, but wasn't aware that he was still at the venue. In fact, by this time, I had already spoken to a member of OT3P's management team about rescheduling the interview. As Tony and I walked from Static X's dressing room, the tall, tattooed bass player stood directly before me.

"There's Evil J," Tony pointed out.

"Hey! I'm Micah with…"

"Dude, you were supposed to be here at 5:30," J said with his signature, evil glare, this time directed into my eyes. I froze, unsure of what to say.

Then, he smiled and said, "I've been looking forward to this. Didn't you get my MySpace message?"

"Uh…" I was relieved… I think.

"Come on into our dressing room and let's do this!"

Micah (RM): Thanks so much for doing this. I mean, especially considering the circumstances with Nick from Static X, and all.

Evil J: Yeah, man.

Micah (RM): I read that you have a degree in performing arts from Berklee. Is that right?

Evil J: Right. A Bachelor's Degree.

Micah (RM): Has music, meaning writing and playing… Has that always come naturally for you?

Evil J: Yeah! I guess I would say, yeah. I mean, if… I remember the first song, still. It was entitled, 'Silent Rage'. Ya know, but that's what happens when you're in 8... In 8^th grade. (laughs) You write songs like that. But um… it.. It… I started playing piano when I was five, and from that point on, there was always a piano in the house. My… my brother, my older brother, who played piano and was also going to school for music, as well and so, it was like always that our mom was a piano teacher, my dad played the cd player… so… That was his instrument of choice… Which was cool, ya know, I was given a really diverse sense of music at a really young age and… and it exposed a lot of unique and eccentric things and then, having parents that wanted to take the time to actually understand what I was listening to, and then translate it or compare it to what they used to listen to, ya know? They taught me that classical music was their… that version of heavy metal, back then, and which is… ya know… the coolest thing ever.

Micah (RM): Do you think that if it wasn't for that, like the piano lessons and all that, that you would be in the position that you're in today?

Evil J: Yeah, I would not be this person at all. If… If I didn't have any of the experiences that… if… if any one of those were removed from the equation, I wouldn't be who I am, or where I am, at this moment. I've had to come to the realization that everything, negative and positive, has some form of feeding that it does to you, that makes you who you are. You have to learn how to adapt and use every element of it. All the different musical experiences I've had… I play piano, I play alto saxophone, baritone saxophone and then I started playing electric bass cause I started fooling around with a guitar when I was a little kid and then started playing bass when I was in Junior High, cause they needed a bass player to play in the school band. Uh… So I got a book and a bass and I taught myself how to play, and then my mom's like, 'Let's take lessons,' and I said, 'Ok,' and then the orchestra teacher found out that I was playing electric so she asked me, 'Would you want to play an upright?' And I said, 'Sure I'll play upright,' so they gave me a bass and a book I went home and I taught myself how to play an upright, and then I started to take some lessons with that, so… I just kept going with it, more and more. I played in the marching band, I played in concert band, I played in jazz band… I mean, I got so involved in jazz band that I even made a separate group of even more intense players to try to even advance further so it's just like all those led up to the music complexity of where I'm at, now, you know. It like… If it wasn't for all that, I would have such a large artillery available to me to help contribute with this whole Otep, you know, conception idea. And then, because of that, I've been able to… She's [Otep Shamaya] been able to, like, push my envelope and my parameters so huge that it's… I mean, it's awesome to feed each other so much in so many ways, in that respect… you know, so… yes.

Micah (RM): Ok, I read on your MySpace page the… I read the list of bands that you dig, personally, and then at the end of your list, you said, '… and a bunch of shit you've never heard of…'

Evil J: You ever heard of a band called Hella?

Micah (RM): Hella?

Evil J: Yeah.

Micah (RM): Yeah, actually, I have.

Evil J: Ha ha! But a lot of people wouldn't have have ever heard of Hella. (laughs) That's one helluva band! But… That… It's, um… yeah, I mean there's… I just try to listen to a lot of different stuff and… and I'm not so much into the mainstream stuff anymore. In a way, like I really… I mean I had Tom Wates up there, but I've pretty much put up my list of eccentrics, but then, you know… There's a band called Far that was out a long time ago and I actually saw them open up for Incubus on Incubus's Science tour, and… Awesome band, and there's a band now called, Chevelle, and I love those guys… I love their band… They're just exactly… They're very, very similar, and the band Far was around a decade ago. Ya know, but it's about that time with the music finally catching up to itself and just being ya know… I'm really into Quicksand and ya know, Chick Corea Elektric Band and Jazz Fusion and stuff like that and I mean…so yeah, I guess that's a bunch of other shit you've never heard of. (laughs) And, ya know, The Charlie Hunter Trio is a… guy out of New York who plays 8 string guitar, but it's three bass strings on a fretless, and five guitar strings, and he plays 'em all at once, so he taps everything. And he's got the guitar going into like a Leslie Cabinet so it sounds like an organ being played, so, they're on Blue Note, I think, still. But they're amazing, you know, and I mean, they even did a Nirvana cover. They played… they did 'Come As You Are,' and then into 'Teen Spirit,' you know, and it was just like it's just really cool to see some sort of upbeat… Medeski Martin and Wood is another band I'm way into… and ya know… and I used to listen to, like, the Steve Vais and the Joe Satrianis and all those kinda guys. Brian Beller is a new bass player that I kinda am really into. I actually went to… He was a senior at Berklee when I was a freshman… and I saw him play a Metallica cover band show in the cafeteria at Berklee and they played, like, all old Cliff Burton Metallica stuff, and it was, like, bad… And then he graduated school and ended up playing in the band called Z, which was Dweezil Zappa and Ahmet Zappa's band, so and um, Mike Keneally who played with Frank Zappa was in the band too. So, they did that and I got to go and see that and it was awesome… I got a cd sampler and Brian Miller had a song on it, and it was like listening to… like… upbeat kind of up… up-tempo walking bass lines mixed with Primus, you know, and just really crazy effects and harmonics and just… really, all of a sudden it's going for this crazy, walking jazz thing, like the kind of stuff with John Scofield-style thing, and then into, like, this… this, just, killer groove of like almost something you'd hear Opeth or Pocupine Tree do. You know, and it's just like 'Oh man!' It's, you know… So yeah, that kind of… I'd like to have that many different elements in my music, ya know. I mean, I want to have it continuously change, and that's what you hear with us… The music… We… we don't really have any songs that sound the same, you know. You can pick it out, 'but that's an OT3P song,' but it's not because it sounds like another OT3P song. But yeah, it's what makes it identifiable is the fact that the… the same four elements are always there. There's always guitar, there's always a bass, there's always a singer, and then, you know, there's always the drummer. So, other than that, we just choose to play them differently every time (laughs) instead of, you know, the… just the rudimentary aspect approach.

Micah (RM): Speaking of how no OT3P song sounds the same, reviewing The Ascension for Revenant Media… Just that album, alone, has got so many different… I want to say, styles…

Evil J: Yeah! It… It does! It's a wide variety of influences, you know, and that's the other beauty of me getting a chance to be in this band, is that all the different things that I've gotten to experience in my past and all the different styles of music that I've been able to be a part of… I can now find ways to incorporate that into this. You know, I mean, I'll throw in a Latin bass line, like in 'My Confession,' when I'm playin' a fretless part, and I mean… There… There you go, right there! I play fretless in the verse, and then a fretted in the chorus, then the bridge and everything, I mean everybody's looking at me switching in between basses. It's just like… I get to do that! I never would have thought of it, until I got into this band, and then I was like, 'Ah man,' and now I'm like, 'Well I have an acoustic bass at home, and I have a 12 string bass at home, so I have three basses on stands,' and like… It's gonna be this monstrosity, but I just really get to explore, musically, every aspect. And, with the interludes, we really get to experiment with the tonality, and from a totally different spectrum of what the instrument's supposed to normally do. Ya know, and it… it's that total freedom of that experimentation that it's just… it makes it so much fun to me. That's why it's so cool.

Micah (RM): Is there anything you're into, besides music? I know you're into art. Otep, too. Do you have a favorite artist?

Evil J: Yeah. Uh… H.R. Giger (pronounced 'Guy-ger'), which, there's a piece of his… uh… or Giger (pronounced 'Gea-ger')… I'm not really sure. Everybody's got their opinion about how to pronounce it. But, he was responsible for the Alien. I mean, he's just done… One of my favorite movies is Dune, which was, uh…(coughs)…uh… brain fart… but he did all the work on it. David Lynch was the director, and David Lynch is one of my favorite directors because of the show, 'Twin Peaks.' I really got into that, and then, you know the whole element of that movie Dune is that my favorite director and my favorite artist combining together, efforts, and then… I guess that was really cool. But then, of course, Dali, you know, Salvador Dali, you know, who influenced Giger, so it's kind of… it trickles down that way, but I mean, those are… those are, obviously the kind of the more obvious one's but, you know, I mean, I'm into a handful of other stuff, like I'm just intrigued by life. I dig art, you know, I… I dig just being in different places everyday. I mean, that's the coolest part about being in the band is just doing this, and getting this opportunity to just experience different locations, even if it is in the back of a venue, or just a dressing room. It's just different, everyday, and it's just… ya know, it's been fun. I… I definitely enjoy recording and stuff. I wouldn't mind, probably, getting more into producing, but my more immediate goal, other than the band, is I want to get into teaching. You know, I just really wanna be a teacher… As far as, private lessons and stuff, and… and working with Peavey, they've been really great as that, my arts relations guy, David Ellefson, who was the bass player for Megadeath, so it's the coolest thing for me (laughs). I'm like, (laughs) 'Ah really?' But he's like trying to hook me up and work on me getting some clinics and stuff like that, while I'm on tour, because I presented him that idea. But, I want to do give-away contests, where you can win a free lesson, and stuff like that. You know, and I mean, but, they're just blown away that I would be willing to do that. It's the same reasons why I would go to the extent of transcribing 'Ghostflowers' and 'Blood Pigs' for bass, and then putting them on my MySpace page. I've actually transcribed the guitar part for 'Blood Pigs,' I just didn't get it up… just didn't get it posted before, and I've already written down most of the second… or most of the new record, you know, just because the more I do that, the more knowledge I get. You know, just keep feeding my brain. It's like, having to actually visually figure out how… what you've just played, after you just normally wrote it from you ear, and your heart, and then to put it down like that, you go, 'wow, it..this is pretty weird.' It just doesn't fit sometimes. When you think it would be normal, it's just totally off, and you know, it's just ongoing… it's a fun adventure.

Micah (RM): Ok. I also read that you spend a bit of your time getting tattooed.

Evil J: That's fairly obvious. (laughs)

Micah (RM): Do you have any idea how many tattoos you have, currently?

Evil J: I just actually turned down getting free tattoo work, and came in here to wash my hands, and then ended up getting this interview.

Micah (RM): Oh, really?

Evil J: Yeah, I was almost ready to go and get free tattoo work! The guy was outside, like, 'Hey man, you want to…' He… He owns a shop, and they closed down the whole shop to come to the show.

Micah (RM): Oh shit! I'm sorry!

Evil J: No, no, no, no, no…I was like, "Ah! You're the Devil to me, right now. Go away. I don't want to do that. I want to just like… When we get days off, we try to actually utilize them to relax and get rejuvenated, because we've been doing really, really great. You know, and Aaron, Brian and I are techin' our own stuff, you know. We're jumpin' the trailer, settin' it all up, playin' the 45 minutes, tearing it all down, reloading the trailer, you know, and it's like, we need our wits about us to last all day long. So, it's not… touring isn't really a go-out-there-and-party kind of thing, so much. I… I enjoy it, because of the music and the camaraderie that I get to experience throughout the bands and the crew, and that's pretty much, but… Tattoos? Oh… The other day I tried to just count what was on my hands… There's four on this one (holds up left hand), and six on this one (holds up right hand), so I've got ten tattoos, just on my two hands. Yeah… But… Yeah… I got bit by the tattoo bug pretty good, I guess. It started up there (points to right upper arm)… there's this black and grey one on my right arm that was the first one I got, and it… I don't know. It's all down hill. I got this one, and this one hasn't been done in over, like, ten years, but yeah, it's… I just… The most recent piece was this one here, that I got, and then it's just… Yeah… I think I'm gonna probably get one when I'm in Seattle. It's supposed to be a gift, so I can't say no. (laughs)

Micah (RM): Do you have a preferred tattoo artist?

Evil J: Um, the one, as of late, that I've been using the most, his name is Paul… it's tattoopaul.com or Tattoo Paul. He actually tattoos Dog the Bounty Hunter, and his son, Leland. He also did some stuff on Tom Obrien from Slayer. He… he met Dog when he was living in Hawaii, and now he lives out near L.A. Yeah, you know, he just does some really cool work. He actually did a piece… he's been workin' on a new piece for Otep. She has a Picasso piece on her arm, which is pretty rad. It's totally, so cool, because he's like, 'I've never done, or had to do a piece like this before,' but he's totally into the idea and into that weird, eccentric art, you know. He's got the top of his head tattooed which always freaks you out, because you look over and it's like something looking at you and it's not supposed to be. But, yeah, I mean, Paul's been doing really good. You know, you find different people here and there, and you jump back and forth, like my original tattoo artist that I got the majority of my upper arms and legs, Bob Murdah, but he's been passed for… for many years, now. My mom and dad, actually, got tattooed by him, too. I converted them. I got my parents tattooed. Evil. (laughs) That's why I'm Evil J. (laughs)

Micah (RM): I know of another tattoo artist named, Paul. Plays guitar for the band called, HURT. Ever heard of HURT?

Evil J: Yeah… Yeah, I've heard of them. Yeah, they rehearsed right across the hall from us. They just moved into the rehearsal space right before we were leaving. They… They wouldn't say hi.

Micah (RM): Ah! I've met them. They're pretty cool guys.

Evil J: Tell them I said hi. (laughs)