XF1 literally exploded onto the Ohio music scene in 2006. Through relentless drive and determination XF1 have succeeded in being a top mid-west region band that has toured nationally with Mushroomhead, Flaw, Bobaflex, Smile Empty Soul, Hurt, Motograter, Taproot, Psychostick & many others. XF1 has also been invited and has performed at such large scale festivals as Mayhem, Carnival Of Chaos, Rock On The Range & more.
INTENSITY. PASSION. DESIRE. These are words that best describe what XF1 is all about. XF1’s message is SELF:EMPOWERMENT. YOU have the power to change your LIFE. Their live shows are legendary for no holds barred madness with a war cry of “same show, 5 or 5,000″!
XF1 has sold over 65,000 records to date of the following CD’s and have been featured on hundreds of thousands of various compilation cds by their sponsor Jagermeister, Metal Edge Magazine, the US military and various national and regional releases. XF1 has also had their top single to date: BRING IT ON featured on Thursday Night Football, ESPN, Speed TV, College Game Day and others. They are currently with Megaforce/MRi Records.
Introduction by: Band’s Bio
Interview by: Laura DeSantis-Olsson
1. How does a band make a strong connection with fans? What is XFactor1’s approach to connecting with fans?
QBall: “Well, we like to say, it might be an overused term, “We like to keep it real.” We let people know we are very approachable. We’re happy that people like our music. We’re happy that people understand the message of self empowerment that we’re putting out there. I understand what it’s like to see someone on stage and living vicariously though them. We’re trying to form friendships that last a lifetime. The fan-boy stuff is just not necessary with us. In fact, I’m kind of a private person, so it makes me feel even uncomfortable, to a degree. Even though, again, I’m flattered, but if you really want to keep it real and you make yourself approachable at the merch booth, you reach out to people you might see looking at you from across the room… I could go on and on. You don’t sell them shirts for forty bucks a piece just because they’ll pay for it. We’ve never sold a shirt of ours, on any tour we’ve been on, for more than fifteen bucks. There’s a reason why; because the people who keep it real understand that we’re in a tight spot with the economy, and it’s still tough out there for the blue collar man and woman. If you want to understand where someone’s coming from, or you want to act like your going to get along, if you want to treat them like you’d want to be treated, then what you don’t do is act stand-offish, or rockstar-ish, or better than someone else, or too good for. So, it goes back to our blue collar work ethic. However, we’re from the same small town. We kind of have that small town, cow town, mentality that we can all be neighbors. That would be fine with me.”
“For me, and unfortunately for us, and this is the honest-to-God-truth, because we haven’t made ourself exclusive enough and because we are so approachable, I almost feel, to some degree, it hasn’t made us famous enough, unlike the guys who will wait to come off the tour bus at the very last minute before they go on the stage and someone will catch a glimpse of them on their way out. It’s almost like, “Your our friend, but these guys will pay $200.00 bucks to take a picture with them. Ha ha, and you know what, (ha ha) it’s annoying. It’s a really annoying situation for us because I don’t want to act like it’s superficial and shallow. However, it almost seems if you look around at this business, the people that are usually doing things are the ones that are in a costume or they rely on a female member to be in the spotlight and push them forward. Everyone starts paying attention to these bands from then on because unfortunately they are thriving off a superficial fan base. The other aspect of that realm is what the actual musicians are themselves.”
2. Has the core message of your music remained the same since you first started making music as a band, or has it changed over time?
QBall: “It has pretty much remained the same. It has been about overcoming adversity. It has been about, again, self-empowerment. We are “good-time” guys so we party. So, it’s about getting together and raising hell. It’s about respecting others for their beliefs as long as they’re not trying to bash you for your own beliefs. So It’s really always been along-the-lines about being strong enough to stand up for what’s right. Again, when you come from a small town, like I did; poor, very blue-collar upbringing, disfunctional family, your against the odds in more ways than one. You’re either going to roll over, or you’re going to rise above it. My philosophy on that was: I don’t want to loose and I don’t want to be needy and I don’t want to be the kind of person that makes excuses. I believe that everybody has the power to make that decision.”
“That’s what most of my lyrics are about. They’re about that self empowerment and defining that inner strength and channeling it to your dreams, your successes, your goals, and learning from your mistakes along the way, hopefully.”
3. Please talk a little about your latest release Reboot The System.
QBall: “Well, we dropped a new CD called Reboot The System on September 2nd, 2014 on Mega Force Records. It is doing fairly well. We have a new single called “I Blame You” that is currently 81 on the Active Rock Radio Charts, which is pretty cool. It is climbing every week pretty well. It’s getting picked up by a lot of stations. It just got picked up by five more this week, so we have twenty-five stations we’re in full rotation on. We are also on a lot of internet stations too, including Rockline and some pretty big ones, so we’re pretty excited about that. We have had three singles, from our last record, which was called Famous Last Words, chart in the the 50s. “I Blame You” is our fist single off Reboot The System. We’re hoping to drop a video for this song right before Christmas. The song is about suicide and it’s about being there for a friend. I’ll tell you a quick story behind that. When we went on tour with Mushroom head last fall, I had my phone number for booking and promotions inside our CD. We met some people while we were down in the Southern Louisiana area. Anyway, one of their guys got one of our CDs and said he was really listening to it a lot because his fiancé committed suicide and things were tough. So, our record is, again, about a lot of empowerment stuff going on there and keeping it real. When we were told this story, it kind of influenced the writing of “I Blame You” at the time because this guy did everything he could to help his fiancé who just didn’t wan’t to be here, and he was angry about it. He thought it was selfish of her, he was angry with her for doing something that drastic, and he really loved her, and that’s what the song “I Blame You” is about. It’s about the fact that you have to be there and you have to listen to a friend, and you have to do everything you can to make them change their mind and see life is worth living. In the end, you can’t live someone else’s life for them. He was angry about that.
We’re going to use the video for an anti-suicide campaign. We’re hoping to do a world premier on Revolver Magazine’s online website. So, we’re really excited about that and we really hope the single keeps climbing. It’s always a struggle when you’re not on a big label. It’s always a struggle if you’re not on big management or big tours. We just hope that people keep requesting it and our strong fan base we call X-Nation, get behind us and let our voice be heard on these different radio stations. In the end, it’s the people that matter the most and the stations will listen if these people keep requesting “I Blame You”.
XFactor1: “I Blame You”
4. How did you choose to title the album Reboot The System?
QBall: “We chose it. I chose it, because I really believe there’s a lot of things that are flawed in this world based on greed. I just don’t think the love for our fellow man is there like it used to be. I don’t think that rock music is standing for what it should, and what it was supposed to. I do believe it’s supposed to stand for a little bit of anarchy, a little bit of rebellion, a little bit of decadence. I feel the genre contains people described by the term I used earlier, “suburbanite shoe gazers”. I go to shows and I just don’t see a lot of the things you used to see with Guns ’n’ Roses and Motley Crue anymore. The guys are up there collecting a pay check in a lot of ways. The band I hear on the radio these days are all stealing each other’s guitar samples, and they’re all stealing each others bass drum samples. It just seems like bands are punished for having a versatile CD, or versatile sound. This versatility is the thing that made bands like Led Zepplin and Queensryche some of the biggest bands in the world. I just think we’ve gotten away from that because it’s much easier for the music industry to mass produce a cookie cutter, safe sound, then it is for them to say, “Hey, develop a band with your own sound.” One of the things we’ve always embraced is our individuality and versatility of our music. We have heavy stuff. We have ballads that sound like the Black Crows. That’s always seemed to be a stickler for use because we don’t have, what they call, “the formula,” meaning you can instantly recognize whether your this band or that band. While “the formula” works here and there, for me, it makes a project fail.
“Titling the album, Reboot The System, was basically our way of saying: push the button, start all over, and don’t have preconceived ideas about how things are supposed to be.
5. What is your process for writing lyrics? Do you write them as they come to you, or do you not write at all and form the lyrics based on the music?
QBall: “Generally, when we’re writing new music, we’ll try to get into that mode. However, what will happen is I’m in my “nesting” type thing. When we’re writing a new record, I’m usually humming melodies and I’m usually writing down or voice recording lyrics, and, or both. I have a hand held voice recorder I carry everywhere during the writing process. I hum melodies and beats. Even just humming lyrics I know will turn into lyrics because I’m feeling it in that melody: so, it’s a process that through writing things down, dictating them into a little hand held voice recorder, or even using my phone to record things at times. I’ll use anything I have handy. I’ll usually spit out a lot of the melodies, ideas, and songs and then I’ll get together with our lead guitarist and he and I will write most of the music. I usually write all the lyrics. In fact, I don’t think anyone’s written a single lyric, except for myself, in the history of this band to tell you the truth (laughs). I might have bounced some ideas off them and they would choose among them. However, for the most part, I do all the lyrics and C-Lok and I generally write most of the music. I used to do it all pretty much, musically too, but it’s kind of gotten into this fifty-fifty thing. Myself going in fifty percent, and then, the band combined writes about half. This was really cool this time around. We actually had a really strong group effort this time. Everyone brought a song or two to the table, which is really nice.”
6. Who did XFactor1 work with on recording Reboot The System?
QBall: “Joey Viers. I’ve done every record I’ve ever done with Joey Viers. It’s because he’s has a top notch studio here in the Ohio area. It’s because he’s a damn good engineer. He co-produces all the records. I’ve never brought anybody in from the outside. It’s just been a conglomeration of his ideas and my ideas. So, I’ll ask the guys to come up with some pretty cool stuff to throw in there for some production. I live, eat, and breath the writing process during the time in the studio. It is generally about a month for us to do a record from beginning to end. We’re on a more limited budget. I would love to spend more time on it. However, it just comes down to commitment and me taking the mixes home a lot of time and just really listening to them over and over again. That’s where a lot of bands will spend a lot more money. They’ll work through the process in the studio. Me, I come back prepared with notes and that kind of thing. Then, the big, big guys, actually write the music in the studio. We couldn’t afford to do that. However, we do go to a very nice studio with top-notch everything as far as the soundboard and facilities. The building itself has amazing acoustics and I think it came through on the recording. This time in particular we were really prepared. This is the first album we’ve ever written from beginning to end with the same members, ever. This is the very first record we’ve ever written with every band member in-tact from beginning to end, which added a lot of cohesiveness.
7. What are the differences between pushing your music as a signed band, on Megaforce/MRi Records, compared to when you were an unsigned band?
QBall: “Well, I mean, it’s very very difficult to do anything of any consequence in this business without the long arm of the record labels: their distribution, their influence, even their legitimization to some degree. The deal we signed was so good that I never worried about being manipulated or taken advantage of, so it worked out well.
8. What is your musical background? Did you start off in music when you were young?
QBall: “I played piano when I was a young teen. I had a big brother who teased me for it, so I started playing acoustic guitar. I was into Metallica. I was into Van Halen, Pantera, and other things. I started learning a lot of riffs and tablature and what not. Then, when I started my first band, I just wanted to be the guitarist, but we couldn’t find a competent vocalist at any time. I ended up having to take on this role by default. We tried a lot of vocalists. We stood around trying to find so many vocalists that weren’t working out. In the meantime, I had all these ideas for the lyrics. I would write songs while we were waiting for people to come around. I would continue to stand in for the singer while we were a three-piece for a while. Then, it just got to the point where it was just easier to find a guitarist then it was to find a decent frontman. This was because, not only did you have to find somebody who was a competent vocalist, you had to find somebody with stage presence. That means they have to have passion, excitement, and it means getting the crowd involved. A lot of guys don’t have that totally package. A lot of guys don’t get that.”
“I call the singers that look down in between singing or songs on stage, “Suburbanite shoe gazers.”
9. The motto, “Live The Dream.” Describe how that became the idea to follow.
QBall: “Well, we have a song called “Never,” which is off our first EP, Some Things Die. It was our first real packaged product. We had a three song demo we sold a few thousand of, at first, before we actually professionally printed this 5 song EP. “Never” was one of the heavier songs we’ve done. It has a really, really big boning hook in it and the lyrics basically say, “Don’t give in, don’t give up.” When you’re in the music business, it is an extremely volatile, difficult, and manipulative. It’s basically like the Hunter S. Thompson saying, “Right down the line,” in regard to how shallow and superficial it is. It’s real easy to give up when you see guys advancing over you, who don’t have your same passion or your talent, just because they are tight with famous contacts or something. It’s frustrating. It’s frustrating, when sometimes you play a show, and there’s only five people there. It’s frustrating when you see bands who haven’t worked as hard as you, and again, don’t have your same passion, just getting those table scraps that are just few and far between. So, you really have to be the hungry pit bull and you have to keep pushing and you have to keep knocking on doors. Some will open and some will close and you hope that you get your break. However, the last thing in the world that I want to do, and that these guys in the band want to do, is they don’t want to leave anything on they table. We all want to basically “live the dream,” and the dream is about not giving up on what you want to do and not giving up on what your goals are. If you do that, I doubt you’ll have any regrets. The only regrets you’ll have are about what you didn’t do, never what you did do.
XFactor1: “Hope For Tomorrow”
“We’re coming to a club, pub, or dive near you. Look for us in your town. Hit us up on Facebook and twitter. If we meet ya, or if we see ya, or if you come to one of our shows please approach us. We want to meet you. You don’t have to worry about anything what so ever, and I will buy you a drink.”