Even prior to their signing on Victory Records, Four Letter Lie was making waves within their hometown of Minneapolis. They had a self-release entitled Her Escape and won the annual Taste Of Chaos unsigned band contest twice in a row. Their new CD Let Your Body Take Over was unleashed on Halloween, and the guys have been haunting venues nationwide ever since. Here is a recent interview we conducted with bassist John Waltmann.

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Four Letter Lie, and give me a brief history of the band.
My name is John Waltmann, I play bass guitar in the band Four Letter Lie. As far as brief history goes, we’ve been a band for a few years now. We’ve been signed to Victory Records for about a year now. We just released our debut album last Halloween – October 31st, 2006. We’re just a band that’s going at it – who’s new to all of this and taking new challenges everyday basically.

What were you guys doing on Halloween – the day the album was released?
Halloween was also my birthday when the album was released on the same day – so that was kind of a cool thing. So we were definitely partying and having a good time – and we did have a CD release show locally here in town; and everyone had a good time – it was really a good concert.

Where are you guys from and what is the music scene like there?
We are all from the Minneapolis/Metro area – kind of the surrounding suburbs of the cities. We have a good “scene,” here – there have been some successful bands that have come out of the city. A lot of kids come out to the shows and have a good time. We’ve had new venues popping up in the area recently where a lot of the newer shows are going on. And that’s kind of bringing the scene different places around the city. And it’s kind of cool to see that happening. Everyone is real supportive – comes out to the shows, has a good time and supports all the bands.

Who originally came up with the band name Four Letter Lie, and what does it mean to you guys?
Me and the lead screamer Brian actually came up with the name. We were sitting in my bedroom reading lyrics over a band that had influenced us back in the day – they were called Fordirelifesake out of Wisconsin. They were an influential band and they had used “four letter lie” in one of their lyrics – I believe it was also a song title. We just kind of took it from there – we liked it and loved the band – and we thought it would work out good.

You’ve been doing quite a bit of touring lately. What to you has been the best and worst part about being on the road so far?
The best part – the thing about touring is you never really expect what the next night is going to bring you. You’ve got the show – you go get a hotel – stay somewhere – find a party – whatever you do that night. You drive the next day and it’s always a surprise what can happen when you’re on the road. That could be a good or a bad thing. Normally it turns out for the good on tour – just spending time with a lot of friends – meeting new people is always awesome. One of the worst things is probably weather – driving through weather with a huge 7x14 trailer and 15 passenger van – snowing through the mountains is probably the most stressful thing you could go through. Trying to get somewhere on time and everything like that. I would definitely say weather and road conditions are one of my worst fears of being on the road.

How did you guys wind up getting signed to Victory?
Well, it was kind of a longer process. Actually Connor’s brother plays in another Victory band called Dead To Fall. He joined Dead To Fall about a year and a half ago. We were all kind of bugging them – pushing our press kit to them to give to Victory. A few months after that, we were able to actually play a couple songs right before a Dead To Fall show in Chicago where some Victory people were at. We did that and they liked what they saw. We actually ended up setting up a showcase for them, and it kind of took off from there.

Is there any story behind the CD title Let Your Body Take Over?
We were just kind of going for a whole different feel with the album. We didn’t want to release a generic dark-type feeling album. We wanted to go for more of a pop party type feel. When people look at the album cover and look at the album title Let Your Body Take Over, we just wanted to get some groove going through their bones. We thought it was a good title. It’s actually ended up being the title track – we had the song and the lyrics written, but we got the album title from the song after we wrote it.

Did you guys play A Taste Of Chaos a few years ago?
We played it in 2005 and 2006. We actually won the Myspace stage contest two years in a row. It was pretty cool to see and it was a crazy experience to play in front of that many people in a big auditorium. But yeah, it was really awesome that we were able to win it two years in a row. The second year actually, we had just gotten signed to Victory about three weeks prior to the Taste Of Chaos; so that was kind of a nice introduction to what we were about to do – keep playing shows and stuff like that. Unfortunately, they’re not as big as the Taste Of Chaos one – but hopefully in time…

What was it like recording at Woodstock, and could you feel any of the history that surrounds the place?
Definitely! It was a beautiful place surrounded by mountains and trees and all these streams – it was really a gorgeous environment that we were surrounded by. We lived on – it was a horse ranch – there was a studio and then a whole other cabin in which we lived for the whole entire month. Then there was a farm that was all farm animals and it was crazy living in that type of environment coming from Minneapolis. And then literally the Woodstock strip was less than a mile away from us, where there was Bob Dylan’s old house where he lived above the café. Just a bunch of old classic rock history that came from that area that we were able to see, which was pretty cool.

Do you think that Victory will re-release Her Escape?
We have been asked about that before. I cannot see them re-releasing Her Escape per se, but maybe seeing another old song pop up from that record redone on a B-side or something like that. It’s probably a little better possibility.

When you look back at Her Escape, what do you think of it now?
That was basically the start to our band. When we had wrote those songs and they were recorded, we knew we wanted to get serious about being a band. We started booking our own DIY tours and doing everything like that unsigned. If we’re playing a local show, we’ll sometimes hear some local kids scream out a song title from that record. It’s definitely not something that we’re going to forget about, just from the past history that those songs brought – it really brought us up as a band.

I was actually able to hear some of those songs, but I found them on Limewire. What do you think about people who download your previous album from Limewire and other sources like that?
You know, it’s alright. We have some really, really old songs that I know are up there, which is kind of embarrassing for people to go and download – but everyone’s gotta start somewhere, so I’m not worried about that. Downloading music – I know we’ve accepted it as a band – it’s something you can’t get around. I’d rather have people listening to my band than not. I mean, that’s where we stand on that right now. Not really a problem for us. It can affect record sales and everything like that. If you don’t have the money to go buy the record, go and download it. I hope to see you at the show! And that’s how we think about it. See them face to face. Show support for the band. If you’ve never heard of us before, we don’t expect you to spend $15 in a record and spend $15 for a ticket. So hopefully just get a couple songs, like what you hear, and then come see us at the show.

Who in Four Letter Lie is the biggest Myspace whore?
I would have to say Brian, our lead screamer. Him and Kevin the singer have sidekicks, and I would assume that they are on Myspace all day. I don’t know if I’d really call them “Myspace whores.” Brian’s got a girlfriend that he’s been dating for a long time, but I know they’re constantly on that thing, typing to all those different people and everything.

Do you have a Myspace account?
I personally do not, no. I tend to stay away from that Internet stuff. I have one for a button company that I run with my girlfriend – it’s called Indie Buttons. We make buttons for bands and different organizations – anyone who really needs custom buttons we make it for. I’m promoting on that, so I guess I could be a Myspace whore.

Are there any Four Letter Lie groupies wandering around Minneapolis or beyond?
I would hope so. I delivered pizzas last year – this is a weird story – for Papa Johns – it’s a delivery place around here. I was actually just driving downtown delivering – I lived in St Paul which is actually right next to Minneapolis – I drove by and actually saw two girls wearing one of our shirts. I rolled down the window and just yelled something at them – I don’t remember what. It was just kind of funny, just randomly seeing two people walk on the street downtown with our shirt on. That was kind of a fun story – I hadn’t seen that before. That was about a year ago, when I had my last job.

What’s up next for you guys? Are you planning on doing any tours?
We’ve got a couple of different things up in the air. I know we have Bamboozle coming up that we just got confirmed for. That’s still in two months, but we’re super stoked for that. There’s going to be a short tour being that on the way to Bamboozle and then we have a Canada tour after that with a band called Blessthefall, who we were on tour with about a month ago. So it will be fun to meet up with those guys again in Canada.

Do you have any messages for people who support your band here in the LA/OC area?
We love your town! Your town is a party. We have a great time every time. We know that people there are really supporting us. That last time we were there, we played a really great show. And I hope that we see all of your faces there again. (Kenneth Morton)

Four Letter Lie links

Four Letter Lie: The Official Home Page!
Victory Records: The Record Label for Four Letter Lie!
Four Letter Lie on Myspace: Their Official Myspace Page!
The Highwire Daze Home Page: Return to the Main Page!

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