I've read your bio and I understand that you were childhood friends, grew up together, and started playing together in 1999, how did that come about?

Rus: Yeah, well we just basically got together, we were all in different bands, and the whole scene that we were a part of, we were all playing, our other bands that we were in, would play with each other, we all played at the same shows so down the line everyone just got out of their band and bands broke up. We were all just sitting around in a living room, Brian's living room actually, and we just figured out that we wanted to start a band. We were just like "let's do it". At first I was kind of, I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to sing in the band because I was doing solo music at the time, and I thought that was what I wanted to do, but everyone was so gung-ho about it. The first practice we ever had we wrote the first song I ever wrote in a band, so I was like, we're gonna do this.

How did you come up with the name Hotwire?

Rus: We were recording a demo, our second demo and our drummer was talking about some stuff and it had to do with EMT practice, it's some form of getting your life force back so we were "oh that's kinda cool"
Chris: It doesn't mean one specific thing, we don't want someone to go "Hotwire means this", it's basically what you take it, it's a cool name to.
Rus: and It's weird, you'd think there'd be a band out there with the name, it's just one of those names

Reading the list of bands from your neighborhood, it's kind of the who's who of rock these days. Do you think that the success of your contemporaries have helped to pave the way for you guys?

Chris: It's inspiring to see bands from our area do really well, see bands we used play with in little clubs and used to see playing little clubs now there on big buses playing for five hundred thousand people a night, it's definitely inspiring but I think if we were the only band in our area, we'd still be doing this, it's for the love of music, it's not a competition, just good friends, we feed off of each other, we help each other. Hoobastank has taken us out on tour before, we've gone out with Audiovent, and they're some of our best friends. We're actually thinking of having a festival in our area just cause there are so many great bands, just in southern California, but you can have anyone from Linkin Park, Hoobastank, Incubus, Audiovent, Home Town Hero, there are a lot of bands from our area.

How did you get signed to RCA?

Rus: We were just locally playing shows in LA and word just got out, our friend Travis Vester, we wouldn't be where we are if it wasn't for him. He worked at Immortal Records when he was younger, basically talk, and one spark let to another, that lit the fuse and the firecracker is still waiting to pop, but the fuse is still burning.

Your debut release with RCA, The Routine is due out shortly, do you have a release date yet?

Chris: We actually don't have a release date, and when we get back, we're still going to record our record, the whole record, we have a lot of demos but right now I think it will be the first quarter of 2003, maybe January.

You've been working with a lot of pretty big producers, how do you think the extra creative input has affected your music on the album and the band as a whole?

Rus: With the list of producers we have worked with, we've seen so many different viewpoints on what people think our music is, versus what we think our music is, you learn something every time, it's a learning process.
Chris: It's like having a different teacher in school, they're right around the same area; it's the way they teach you, it's the whole learning experience.
Rus: it hasn't made us write the music that we're writing now, the music that we write now is what we are as people, but as far as being influenced, it is.
Chris: Its almost like you're gaining a band member, it could be a good thing; it could be a bad thing.

Your bio says the EP is a snapshot of a band in the process of evolution, what stage in the process would you say you are in?

Rus: It's still there, the way I look at putting out records is just like someone going to be a navy seal, you go through all these steps and I think the EP is all of those; what the band was, what the band has been, and what the band will be in the future.

How has touring been for you, how long do you expect to continue touring?

Chris: We haven't confirmed any dates, it's supposed to end August 31, but as of right now, we're not sure. It's four different bands, you know we've got Killswitch, Shadows Fall, Kittie, then us and it's basically like a big moving party every day. It's basically like we have a party, then it's "what city do we play today?"

So do you have any anecdotal stories you would like to share from the road?

Rus: Last night we uhh.
Chris: Rus had an experience last night if you want to know about Austin, TX.
Rus: We went to 6th street, everybody was drinking, we drank before, big drinking band here, Jack Daniels is probably our best friend, and we ended up going to Sauce, the bar, on 6th St and I ended up waking up this morning forgetting about who was doing what, it just got so wild. So the story was today that I got lost somehow and I was sitting next to a bum with an acoustic guitar and he was singing Brown Eyed Girl" and I was singing, sloshing along with him. Our friend ended up letting some girl go to war on his neck.
Chris: Anyways, when Rus was singing with the guy, the guy pulled him aside and said "Hey, do you want to smoke crack with us?" and Rus said "No, no thank you; no thank you at all" and the guy kinda grabbed Rus by his shirt and he was like "we're going to smoke crack" and next thing you know a cab driver pulled up and saw what was going on and grabbed Rus and pulled him into the cab and he was like "let's get the hell out of here". So, Rus almost smoked crack for the first time last night.

So I gather since you will be recording when you get home you have been playing some new material on this tour?

Chris: Yes, we have about 13 or 14 songs written for the album, and since we're the opening band on the tour we've been playing like seven or eight of them a night, just depending on how much time we have but all the songs that we have been playing live will be on the record.

What single should we be listening out for on the new album?

Chris: As a band, we don't have one single in particular. Everybody's been coming up to us saying they liked a specific song that we played, and it's not one song, there's actually like four or five. We're not even sure. People say you know, I think "Nuero Girl" should be a single, "Invisible", so we'll see what happens; it's what the fans want.
Rus: exactly, exactly.

If you were Jell-O what kind would you be and why?

Rus: Nice question, I would have to definitely say I would be the kind that has little bits of stuff inside it, I'd be that kind, two different things going on at one time.
Chris: I'd either be a Bill Cosby Pudding Pop...
Rus: Pudding Pop
Chris: or I would be a shot, I want someone to shoot me, not literally but, you know.

Where do you see yourselves in five years?

Chris: Singing Brown Eyed Girl smoking crack
Rus: yeah, yeah
Chris: No, l but seriously though, because there are so many bands from our area, we used look back and go "god I can't wait till we get to play for two hundred people a night, now we're getting an opportunity to play for a thousand, so it's hard to say, five years is a long ways away. We'd like to be on a bus selling out arenas doing shots of Jell-O every night.
Rus: Wherever the wind takes us. We don't have a main goal. It's not like we're doing this to have like a specific game plan, and become like the next Korn, if it happens it happens. It's not on our agenda to become big rock stars, we don't even like concerning ourselves with that image, it happens, but it's not really our gig, though
Chris: We're just four guys here to play rock n' roll. If it happens, it happens, if it doesn't it doesn't, we keep playing if it doesn't.

Is there anything you would like to add?

Rus: I would say one thing for bands should look out for when going on tour is to definitely bring people to go on tour with you that can make your band work; people that can keep your part of the game moving.
Chris: I'd say that to start a band, don't care cause everybody out there is doing what everyone else does, don't be afraid to be stupid or write a riff that you think other people would think Is stupid but that you really like, don't be afraid. Do what you have to do to get to the next level to make yourself a better person. That's something we like to strive for.
Rus: and come up and talk to us, we're not afraid of people coming up to talk to us
Chris: yeah, come buy us a drink