"First and foremost, we don't suck," Twon continues. "It's incredible to travel around to venues all around the country and see all the mediocrity that some bands think is acceptable to present to the public. We work hard to make music and to produce a live show that is powerful and entertaining. Something that makes you want to sit down and listen, but at the same time, makes you want to stand up and shout. We're also not plagued by the ‘studio magic' syndrome. 99% of what you hear on our recordings is what you'll hear live, but even better."

Hoodless has dropped their sophomore effort, Music for Jerks, to much fanfare among their devout followers. Since they are all a bunch of really great guys, for a change of pace, antiMusic caught up with the band for an extensive background chat about each track on their new album.

Keep an ear out for their single, "Innocent" for which they're also working on a video.

Touch & Cry
We brought this song to Twon a couple weeks into our rehearsal process, so it was one of the first. Musically, it felt like Guns n' Roses had a baby with Metallica that got wet nursed by Tool. Twon was drawn to the dark energy of the song so he decided to make the lyrics about something that gives a great many of the us hope that allows us to face every day with joy: Faith.In "God", the 'Universes", the "Flying Spaghetti Monster"... Whatever you call it, he wanted to explore the more sinister side of that concept. To add another layer, he decided to make it from the point of view of the object of faith. This way he could more easily portray the superiority needed when singing about such a grossly overused lyrical concept without coming across as cliche or cheesy.

Waiting
The song came from a riff Kevin brought in that we "workshopped" into a song over a few weeks trying to keep it short, explosive and moody but without completely losing a progressive edge. Lyrically it's about how anticipation and expectation drive us and asks if we will learn anything from our reactions to the two.

Innocent ( Our Single with video accompaniment to come)
Just like Touch & Cry, this song was musically completed, essentially, and then brought to Twon when he joined the band. It was very anthemic and he wanted to bring that out in the melody and the lyrics. It's kind of a conversation with between two sides of a person...not to say there are only two sides, but any more than that and we'll get confused. One side is full of whining self pity and the other has no tolerance for this. The extremes of two sides needed to make right decisions, to find what's right, even if sometimes we don't listen.

Down
Twon wrote this a few years before he joined Hoodless and is a kind of 'break-up' song to his old band M-Lab. The band worked out a killer arrangement and our producer, Joe Lambert, streamlined the lyrics while Twon tweaked the chorus to be more soaring. It became a kind of antagonistic, messianic love song. Possibly the band's favorite guitar solo on the record.

GAPO
Another song that was written early on like Touch & Cry and Innocent. This song is about mothers. That's all we're saying.

Say It Loud
Panem et circenses, or "Bread and Games" is a metaphor for a superficial means of appeasement. That is also the central theme of Say It Loud. This song is, essentially, the reason Twon is in the band. He wrote it about a year before he joined the band and everybody learned it for his audition. The first time they all played it as a band was at that audition and they've played it at almost every rehearsal since. Twon and Joe spent a couple hours reworking the chorus melody in the studio, but other than that it's basically the same song they played that first night.

Run Away
Originally the black sheep of the album, Run Away was written by Twon on an acoustic guitar then arranged brilliantly by the rest of the band. Very simply, it's about that feeling you get when you're in a situation that you need to get out of and then it shifts to the perspective of the feeling itself. Kind of sucks you into a pattern...

Be My Whore
Born from a John Irving Quote from "The World According to Garp" this song is meant to make you feel dirty/sexy. It steals lines from conversation and narrative from that book and other novels by the author. It's a song from the point of a "sexual assassin".

Underground
The only political song on the record. Twon was feeling disappointed in the arrogance our president was exhibiting in public and disappointed in the silent, scared public (who disappointed him before, but now they had someone in charge who was supposed to make everyone feel empowered, and no one was acting empowered). It was musically based on half of a song that the band had written months before Twon's arrival. He didn't like that song so he took the verse and tore the rest apart. Then Joe the producer got his hands on it, didn't like it much except the verse, gutted it, and that's what you've got now. It's as slick as you can get, but we still slip into 6/8 like we were meant to be together. Paulie plays like a badass on this one.

Why So Serious?
Twon came up with the lyrics to this song while hanging out at a teenage band concert tripping his balls off. He had an overwhelming desire to eat all of the concertgoers. He got home and come up with the words and melody. It's supposed to make you feel uncomfortable. The music was generated from a riff Kevin kept playing during breaks at rehearsals and Twon kept whining about turning in to a song. It's cute.