Dave Pelsue: There was a quiet breakup! *laughs*

Dave: Yeah! We were planning a tour. We were really excited about Love Hate... and were planning on really going after it. Flicker had just been bought by Provident/Sony BMG and there were a lot of good things. But the breakup? Bottom line is... we broke up. And really, it was just a mixture of a lot of little things and a couple big things. We really just felt like we'd hit a wall. We were really excited about some opportunities and possibilites with some of the doors that were opening with Flicker's partnering with Provident and the Sony BMG side of it, but it was really just a lot of frustrations with the label and the business side. And I don't blame them at all. There were some inner band things that sped the process along. I think when we made Love Hate Masquerade, we were frustrated with the position we were in. That record was going to be our last hoorah and our chance to let Flicker do what they said they were going to do with the new ammo they had with partnering with [Sony] and stuff. So we were on our way to that frustration sort of bubbling up and something happening, but it just kind of got sped up really quick. So Love Hate... came out and it was... Actually, I think we technically broke up before Love Hate... even came out. *laughs* So that's kind of what happened. But it's neither here nor there now. *laughs*

Dave: No, no. It was kind of a weird thing. I know for me personally, it was like just a major part of my life ceased to exist. It was kind of that way for the other three guys in the band at the time. And we just kind of let it fade. At one point we thought Flicker was going to make some sort of press release about it... It wasn't quiet intentionally. Like, I remember thinking, "Man, I hope our fans don't think that we're just disrespecting them and we don't care." But yeah, there was no reason for it to be so quiet, it's just the way it was.

Dave: Yeah! I still hear about it now.

Dave: Lots of different things. Did life. I, myself, just tried to work and have a normal life, which is really hard. It was a really weird adjustment to go from what I was doing to something completely different at like the snap of your fingers. I started playing with my brother who's a worship leader in our hometown at a church. Started playing with him regularly in his band, and actually worked at that church for awhile as a worship leader. That's basically what I did. Some of these other guys were...

Nathan Hughes: Busy.

Dave: Busy?! *laughs*

Nathan: I wasn't in the band for the third album or the second one, just the first one. I just worked for awhile. Tried to live a normal life and try do what you're supposed to do, y'know? Gotta graduate, find a job that makes decent money, and then do that every single day. Ugh...

Nathan: Or go back to music. Hmmm?

Austin Cobb: It's overrated. Not music, [work.] I think we all tried to do this. We all were like, "OK. We're getting older, it's time to be normal people and settle down with a family and stuff." And I like to think that, I don't know, maybe we weren't supposed to do that... yet?

Dave: I think that! The way we all got back together was really weird. Cuz, honestly, I hadn't spoken to these two guys (Nathan and Austin) in a long time.

Nathan: Probably like 2 years.

Dave: Yeah. I mean, because, once they were gone from Kids In The Way, we had another two or three years under our belt beyond that, and then when Kids In The Way broke up, I think deep down secretly, I always hoped and dreamed and wanted to play with those guys again and kind of - as cheesy as it sounds - really felt like it would happen at some point. But then I just got a call from Nate one day out of the blue and he was sitting down with Austin and Eric, our drummer, and he was like, "Hey, uh, we're all sitting here and we really feel like it's just time to do this, do you want to do it and are you in?" And I was like, "YEAH! This is really weird," I never thought that... I mean, I kind of thought that Kids In The Way might happen again, but I never thought that it would be with the lineup that it is now. With ALL "original members," just a mix mash of the lineups. So I called Willie right away and I was like "Hey man, we're talking about doing this again, are you interested?" Cuz Willie moved back to Arizona after we broke up. And he was like, "Yeah! I'll be there as soon as I can." And like a week later he was in Indianapolis and we were running through old stuff again! *laughs*

Dave: We're just trying to take it a step at a time. Like Austin said, we all kinda felt like it was time to grow up and live normal lives, and I still kind of feel like whether we really want to do that fully or not, we're kind of at that point where we don't really have an option, just cuz we're old. I mean, we would love to do music full-time without doing anything else, but just being older and learning some of the lessons we've learned, realize that at this point, it's probably not the wisest and the smartest thing to throw all our eggs in one basket and shove the boat off the dock and go. So we're just taking it a step at a time. We're writing some new stuff. We are looking to put an EP out in March. Probably just a 5-song EP just to give people sort of an idea of new direction, of what music we're making now. And just try to play shows that are smart and make some money. I forsee that when March rolls around, cuz Austin's finishing up school, we'll probably try to string more shows [together], y'know? Do something along the lines of a "tour," if you will. Kind of go at it a little more aggressive with the shows. But right now, we're just writing and playing smart shows and having fun.

Dave: It's really good and it's really fun and it's exciting. To me, if I were to compare it with something of Kids In The Way, I would say it's a good mixture of our first record and Love Hate Masquerade. A little more of the just down the middle rock n' roll. But, I don't know, Willie and I were talking the other day, we were listening to our first record and it's like, "Wow, we haven't listened to it in a long time and a lot of the new stuff we're writing sounds more like this than any of the other two records." It's kind of interesting, I don't know why that is. It's definitely Kids In The Way, but we're hoping to definitely expand the horizons. We've got some pretty crazy ideas with recording the EP and EPs to follow this year. I don't want to say too much, but...

Nathan: We don't want to make any promises...

Dave: Yeah, I don't want to build any hopes... But I think if all goes well this year, we're going to put some music out there that's very different, give people a taste of pretty much everything that we can do.

Nathan: It's going to be a broad spectrum. The musical landscape will be very scenic.

Dave: And that's what's cool about the situation we're in. Cuz it's like we're back at ground zero. We don't have a label. We don't have anybody telling us "Record 10 songs that sound like this and put them on a record," and so for the first time we really want to exploit and explore everything that we can do. And I think we'll do that this year and if we decide to make up a full-length record, we'll really figure out, "OK, what's this new sound going to sound like?"

Dave: Yeah, for now. It's kind of the smart way to go for us for the situation we're in.

Austin: Unless there are any labels out there that want to give us all of our publishing.

Dave: We're definitely not opposed to a label or anything like that, but we just learned so much the first time around. When you're young and uneducated, a record label from Joe Blo down the street sounds like the greatest thing in the world. But we're a little wiser this time.

Nathan: It's a little different for a band just starting out that don't have a big fanbase or markets they can count on to get them shows and come through, but we have that, so it's like "Well, we already have this and we have all this freedom. Let's just see how it goes for awhile."

Austin: Make sure you come and see us if you can.

Nathan: Yeah! Or if you want to book us for a show.

Dave: Yeah, come and see us. And just to clear it up, I'll answer this question for ALL the people that ask us this question all the time. At shows, people will be like, "So is this a reunion or are you getting back together?" So, to answer the question... I don't know what to call it? It IS a reunion, but we're back together. It's not -

Dave: Yeah. We're doing this to see what happens. If it lasts four years or fifteen years, whatever.

Nathan: Yeah, so check iTunes in late March! We'll have new tunes.