I had the opportunity to interview Dustin on the brief UK tour in 2005 at TJ's in Newport, Wales. It was after the show and was a really cool interview, and I hope gives you a good insight behind 'Vheissu'.

Shaun: Why was Image of the invisible chosen to be the first single?

Dustin: It kind of seemed to make sense. It's very kind of anthemic and the theme kind of runs through the whole song and it kind of gets stuck in your head. It's the song that probably shows the least transition from the last album to this album. It's probably the most like the previous album but it's still got some different vibes to it.

Shaun: What about any future singles? Are there any other songs on the album that you can say sound kind of similar?

Dustin: No, not that similar to that song at all on the record. There's a lot of choices for the next single, but it's most likely going to be Red Sky.

Shaun: Someone noticed on the message board that the morse code at the beginning spells out Vheissu, is that intentional? The drums seem to be key to the entire of the song and it seems that they have been set to fit over the morse code.

Dustin: Uhm, kind of. I just put the Morse Code in a way so that it would work in like an 8/8 rhythm.

Shaun: If you imagine the drums over the Morse Code, it seems as if they both fit over one another, even if slightly altered.

Dustin: They're both kind of really syncopated even though they're not exactly in time.

Shaun: The Earth Will Shake, the imagery in the lyrics seem to be geared towards a prison. What was the influence for this?

Dustin: It was inspired by a poem by C.S. Lewis called ‘The Prudent Jailer', which was like a metaphor for saying that there's nothing more than what we can see beyond the material fabric of the Earth. Such as there is nothing more than what we can see or feel nothing like a soul. It really destroys an entire meaning or basis for morality. I think it kind of destroys beauty, as well. It mentions all these prisoners who remember the world outside and it's called ‘The Prudent Jailer' because the Prudent Jailer keeps his prisoner's minds out of prison.

Shaun: That whole theme seems quite similar to ‘Image of the Invisible'.

Dustin: A lot of the stuff on the record has kind of a theme. There's a theme of the intrinsic worth of humanity.

Shaun: Does it ever bother you that people come to your shows and sing along without looking beyond just words without looking at the content in greater detail, and trying to think through what the lyrics mean?

Dustin: No because I think most people who are really in to it at least the lyrics are meaning something to them, and they're not like really strict. I mean, that song can represent a lot of things, it's just that was just what originally started it. I think, I mean it's up to people what they want to do, you know? It makes me happy to think that people read the lyrics are engaging with them but it's not necessary and we're not like…policing.

Shaun: It must be a great gift to be able to convey things that you truly believe in through a medium as powerful as music. Sometimes it makes me really wonder if the path that I am going down is the path that I truly want to lead.

Dustin: People think that just because they're not like in…whatever profession, that they can't just share things or can't give opinions about things and it's definitely not true. I mean, we are what we are for a reason.

Shaun: Why has the song ‘Music Box' retained it's working title? It just seems out of place when compared to the other songs which all seem to refer to their lyrical content.

Dustin: Well…it's got a Music Box running all the way through it. And we couldn't think of anything else we wanted to use as a title and it sounded pretty and some times…it just kind of ‘fits', you know?

Shaun: Yeah, it's just that I remember that in one of the podcasts you made a joke referring to one of the song names originally being named ‘Casio', and that the final name for the song is now ‘Between the End and Where We Lie'.

Dustin: Well I mean, yeah. It just felt right.

Shaun: How about ‘Red Sky'? What are the lyrical connotations behind that song all about?

Dustin: It's kind of talking about, it's just got a lot of energy in and it kind of just started playing in my head and I had the melody. I started developing the ideas behind it and in the end the song kind of progressed. It kind of shows this storm that is coming, and that there is no hope but in that dark place that there is hope and I think it was an idea put forward by…C.S Lewis?...no wait, Tolkien. It's called the ‘Eucatastrophe' and it shows that at the end of the story there will be redemption. It's kind of a counterpoint to like a tragedy where at the end of the story there is no redemption, that it just takes it that far.

Shaun: Do you think that ‘Red Sky' is going to be like the ‘Don't Tell and We Won't Ask' of the record? It's like the finale?

Dustin: Uh I hope it's not because nobody ever really liked that song, I don't think. I mean, we liked it but it seems like anyone else did. So I mean, I hope that Red Sky is more popular then that song. I think it's going to be much more like us now, I mean a lot of the record seems really dark. It's all about this big large movement. It feels like it's a very brought-down, and it feels like it's had it's very dark and heavy moments and then it gets let down through Red Sky.

Shaun: Why did you guys choose the name ‘Atlantic'? I can't help but get this strong oceanic imagery from it.

Dustin: It was the name that I first thought up when I made the demo. It just felt cold, and it just seemed to fit well. There are a lot of oceanic images in the song.

Shaun: What's the story in regards to Lullaby? The song is on Burnout: Revenge, but it seems that it is not on Vheissu and the mixing seems far different.

Dustin: It's going to be remixed and put on a B-Side with something else as well. It was a song that was going along for a while and eventually it just got beat to death. There were just too many changes and it kind of ended up just self-destructing. It's still cool but we just kind of lost all perspective on it and the main reason that it's not on the record is because it doesn't really fit.

Shaun: What about in regards to the mixing? Was it recorded when Vheissu was recorded?

Dustin: Yes, it was. The mixing might just sound off because you're hearing it off of a video game thing so it doesn't sound that great.

Shaun: There have also been rumors that a great deal of the lyrics are taken from John Lennon's ‘Imagine'.

Dustin: Uh yeah, it's not really picked up on but it's actually a reply to it. ‘Imagine' is a great song, and no disrespect to John Lennon but I just think it's a lot of false promises and wishful thinking and not really a realistic solution.

Shaun: You've said before that this whole album has a sort of theme of identity, and what was it that inspired you to make this the topic to address in Vheissu?

Dustin: I'm just trying to remember…there was something…a book…I think. It's just that I think there's a lot in a name. It's very important, there's a lot of stories about people's names being changed and that being a defining moment for the rest of their lives.

Shaun: Have you read ‘the Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood? That book addresses that issue quite strongly.

Dustin: The what? No, I haven't. Yeah so, I was kind of fascinated by that, and this sense of being tied between a word and who you are. I mean, people can give each other title's like…a ‘loser' or whatever, or it could be something ‘good', and it's just talking about the fact that you can choose to rename yourself in a sense and to make your own identity and not let it become what people say of you or think of you.

Shaun: Do you think that like ‘Dustin' is a label or a name, or limiting in any way?

Dustin: No, I think that it's important. I don't know, not many people think about it nowadays but not so long ago your name was very important. Back in a lot of countries, when you said someone's name you were saying a sentence, like ‘Emanuel' means ‘God with us' or you could have been saying something about someone's character that maybe not true of them. Maybe they wanted to live up their name or whatever, but it's very important to them.

Shaun: So you think now it's not so important?

Dustin: No, I don't think it is. But I think it is important, should be important, I don't know…naming your kids. That's not really the main issue I'm trying to talk about, but it's that you can choose not to believe what people say about you. You can choose to rise above that or come below it.

Shaun: Lyrically and musically, what song are you personally most happy with and why?

Dustin: I think musically, ‘ Atlantic ' is one of my favorite songs off of the record. It's really beautiful and really unique. It has it's own vibe. It's kind of one of my favorites on the record. I've built it up in a way that is quite similar to the demo I've made.

Lyrically…I don't know. I really don't know. I like all of the lyrics on the record. It's not very flashy, it's just very solid and I tried to make sure that the lyrics and vocals fit the music well rather than trying to be too fancy.

Shaun: Do you feel that for this reason that the lyrics quite aren't up to what you wish they could be?

Dustin: I don't think it's bad, because most people would just skip by it. It's just stuff like little alliteration tie-ins between things and double rhyme stuff; just skipping stuff that to me makes it flow really nice.

Shaun: There's been a lot of talk about different instruments being used on this record, like a glockenspiel, which song really conveys these instruments the most and in what way?

Dustin: There's piano, Hammond Organ, like on ‘The Earth Will Shake', and songs like ‘Stand and Feel Your Worth' have Rhodes Piano. I'd say the most different sounding song is ‘ Atlantic ' just because it has really sparse drums and like reindeer bells in the background. It gives it a really sad vibe to it and I like it. The song with the Glockenspiel in it is also ‘Atlantic'.

Shaun: Do you feel that the extra time spent on recording the drums differently really added a different tone to the record?

Dustin: Yeah, I think that we've spent a lot of time getting the right tones and I think that they're very important to the way the record feels.

Shaun: In retrospect, and I know that you guys are very happy with the record, but is there anything that you wish you could have gone back and done differently?

Dustin: Yeah, there's always stuff you wish you could have done differently. There's always just little things where you're like ‘Ohhh, yeah.' You just get ultra critical and you have to stop yourself from doing that because you can just do it forever and by the end you're going to losing feel by trying to retrack everything, trying to make it how your brains hearing it. So, it is how it is and you just have to let it slide sometimes. But in general we're just happy with it and any changes we want to make are really minor.

Shaun: Obviously you've chosen to have Steve Osborne produce this album and there has been a lot of talk as to why you chose him, but in what ways did he affect the record? Has he ever directly changed your viewpoint on certain things or ever expressed how he wasn't happy towards how some things sounded?

Dustin: It's just part of the process. You let that person part in to your circle and you take their opinion seriously and they take yours seriously and you work it out. He's never produced a heavy record, and he doesn't listen to heavy music and he did great recording the heavy stuff. He just kind of let us do it, but he also gave advice at certain times. He would say ‘That parts not sounding heavy enough, you should retrack the guitar.' He kind of knew how to make each part what it was supposed to be like. And then with some of the more mellow or kind of weird looped drums and other things he was very helpful and helped us get those tones and would get Riley to just play for half an hour to this beat until he was really happy with it.

Shaun: Did he ever change the way that you guys looked at things in your own music?

Dustin: No, I think he was the right guy for the record, you know? He was the right guy and we knew what record we wanted to make and decided he was the guy to help us do it. He helped us do it, which is what his job is, you know? I think he did really good.

Shaun: Thank you very much for your time man, I really appreciate it. I hope everything goes well with the new record.