Nonpoint 
An interview with Andy Goldman
By Debbie Seagle

<--Part II
 

RNW:  So, you’re a stripped down model of a band.  No heavy jewelry, no tats.

Andy:  Once again, K.B.’s got the tats.

RNW:  Oh, so the serious one’s got the tats!

Andy:  He’s the only guy in the band with tats.  It’s the serious one.

RNW:  I’ve been doing some serious tat watching today. 

Andy:  There’s some impressive art work about today. 

RNW:  Definitely.  You weren’t in the Puerto Rico scene, where you?

Andy:  No.

RNW:  You were in the Miami scene though, right?

Andy:  It was kind of Miami.  We’re more from Ft. Lauderdale.  We’re centered in Ft. Lauderdale.

RNW:  Oh, spring break!

Andy:  Exactly.  It used to be real big there, but not much any more. 

RNW:  I’m from the Midwest, and that’s where we did spring break.

Andy:  Ft. Lauderdale and Miami are real close, like half hour away, so we would play Ft. Lauderdale and then maybe once a month go down to Miami Beach or West Palm 20 minutes north of there.  We kind of spanned that area.

RNW:  I understand you are going to shoot a video for “Endure” with cameos by your Ozzfest brothers.  What’s the story on that?

Andy:  We put a video out for “What a Day” and it came out.  We weren’t really ecstatic about the way it came out.  We got a big time producer to come in and do it, director and all that shit. 

RNW:  Did they kind of pull in the reins and you wanted to do it a different way, or what?

Andy:  It was cool at the time, during shooting, but the final edit and everything, we just really weren’t happy with it.  So this time we really wanted to concentrate on making it what we wanted to do.  So, we’re putting it together.  We have a friend coming out, the same guy who designed our album artwork, he’s going to come out and we’ll get a couple of nice cameras out and run around for maybe two or three days and just get shots of every body.  We’ve already talked to almost every band on the tour and they’ve said they’d love to do the video, so . . . we even talked to Sharon (Osbourne), and she said her and Ozzy will go and make a little appearance in it as well.

RNW:  Really?

Andy:  That’s going to be like the clincher at the end.  Its going to be awesome.

RNW:  Okay, so is it going to be like a live Ozzfest video?

Andy:  Its going to be an Ozzfest video, but for our song.  We’re going to have shots of everybody in our crew, everybody – like I said – in other bands.  We’re going to have shots of the crowds at Ozzfest and us playing.  Its probably going to be mostly live footage of Ozzfest show and there’s going to be actually a little something going on.  I’m not going to give everything away, but there’s an actual twist going through the whole thing that I think is pretty cool.  That should be out hopefully before Ozzfest is over, but the way things work, it might not happen.  We’ll see what we can do though.  We’ll try to get it out pretty quick.

RNW:  Tell me about your Spanish song, “Orgullo (Pride).” (Debbie rollllls her rrrrrrs)

Andy:  “Orguuuullo!”  Yeah, I’m not Spanish either, but I can make that sound too.

RNW:  How do the fans react to your show of pride in your band’s Latino heritage and roots?

Andy:  Well, it really depends on where you’re playing.  It depends.  We don’t play that song all the time, depending on where we are and if we can see if there’s a Latin fan base there.  Some places like the mid/northwest, north west, there’ll be no Spanish people out there, so you don’t want to get out there and do this five and a half minute song all in Spanish and they’re just like, huh?  But when we come here to California we play it all the time and kids go ape-shit over it.  Can I say ape-shit? 

RNW:  Yeah, you can say whatever you want to me sweetie.  There are no words that you can’t say to me.

Andy:  Oh cool.  But you know, I mean, we only have that one song in Spanish.  We’re not really trying to be like a Latin act or anything.  Its just that one song.  Its an old song that we’re playing and two of the guys in the band are Puerto Rican so we kind of have a tie in.  The whole meaning of pride is not just about being Puerto Rican, its about being proud of who you are, basically.

RNW:  I think that’s cool.  I think it says something about the band’s identity.  You know?  Its like, this isn’t commercial, this is who we are and what we are.

Andy:  That’s what we’ve been trying to do the whole time.  Our label has been really behind us in that aspect.  They could have maybe tried to push us as a big radio single band and got a song on the record like “What a Day” and just forced it down MTV’s throat.  Forced it down the radio’s throat.  Its just money.  If they could blow us up that way, we’d be like a big band that everybody knows for that one song.  But we kind of wanted it to be more touring based.  Like, just have a better foundation of kids seeing us like three or four times.  I think we’ll be around longer that way and have more respect that way.  We’re trying to do it that way.  Things are moving a little slower for us than other bands that we’re friends with.  Some bands we’re out with have just really blown up like, surpassed us.  You know, their record just came out.  But, I’m proud of what we’re doing and I think we’re doing it the right way and I think we have integrity the way we do it.