SplatterTribe: So it was a major journey just to get to that point.

Richard Young: Years and years. 20 plus....well, me, Fred and Greg.......and then of course, the first album came out and it was just suicidal. It blasted everything else dead, you know? It sold, I don't know, probably two and a half million now, but it sold like a half a million records in three months or something. People were starved to death Luie, for that kind of music. Then like, especially roots music, there was a scene going on in Rock N Roll with 'roots' people. I'm talking about the crowd that wore flannel shirts, drunk beer and got 22 pistols, you know. That crowd really, they didn't have any music and then all of a sudden we came along and we were their savior, as far as music. Everybody had a weekend band again.

I guess we were kind of the early 90's, late 80's, early 90's answer to Creedence Clearwater Revival. A band that came out of nowhere. That had a roots sound. We were able to achieve a whole lot of things and create a huge audience and following. That's why we are still here today because people never gave up on us or our music. They always know that when we do put out a record, naturally it won't be selling in the millions maybe like it used to, but there are several hundred thousand diehards out there that know when they pick up one of our records it will be a good thing to stick in their car and go party with. It's kind of like buying a Coca-Cola, when you snap the top, you know what it taste's like.

I mean, we've varied on our styles and sounds. We've changed things from album to album. There's times that we get left of center to a lot of people or right of center, but I think that's another part of what has kept the band alive this long. We haven't been so complacent. We've kept a lot of people second guessing. Not because we wanted to be thought of as smart or anything like that, just because we had to do it for ourselves. We were losing our minds. We had to create different things. That was the thing that was magical about the band and still is, that we draw music from all styles and era's like a sponge.

You know, tomorrow we might be listening to Benny Goodman playing clarinet and then the next day we might be listening to Billy Gibbons or Led Zeppelin. We listen to everything. We never turn off anything. I think that's been one of the biggest things for our success. There are little elements that we don't even know ourselves, that are in our music that we've picked up over the years, with all of our years playing. We've listened to everything. I mean we've been around long enough that we've seen a lot of fads come and go. You've got to create good music, you know?