CKY Interview with 

Deron Miller

October 7, 2002

What is the hardest thing you have to deal with in breaking the mold of today's rock music?

Deron: The hardest thing you have to deal with is getting people to realize that you have something, because the people that are ultimately in charge of  where they are going to take you on a larger scale are the people that don't know whats going on in music. I mean the people who are in charge of releasing music don't have any idea what they are doing. It's hard to keep things going when your on to something, and there is a lot of different steps you have to take to prove that to them. Proving that you have fans that dig your stuff, proving that your not just a fluke....ya know. we sold 40,000 records on our own when we were not with any record label and no one believed us. That's what I am talking about, because there is no record of it other than the fact that we did the cd's ourselves and sold them and now they are gone. Record companies and the whole industry in general has a lot of really general way of finding out how successful somebody is, it's not always accurate. There is a thing called sound scan where they track your record sales but that's not accurate. Sound scanners I think we sound scanned maybe 8,000 CD's and sold 40,000 because we weren't selling them in stores.

Is it a different feeling now from when you were more underground and now that you have more fans...is there a different feeling when you play?

Deron It's just the same thing but more people. You are not going to see that many fans not knowing why they came to a CKY show. Which is the opposite of what many bands ya know that last long now because a lot of people that go to see them live don't know why they are there. They either heard their song on the radio or their friends told them to go. They don't deal with that, that much, everybody there knows knows the band and knows the song they don't deal with are you Jess? Ya know who are you? They know (CKY fans) everybody in the band and that's what we want.

I know that you produced your own album and when you signed with Island did they let you have the same freedom as you had on your own?

Deron They had to, I mean after the word finally got out in how many records we sold on our own we were able to pick and chose and say no to a lot of things and one of the things that we said no to was any involvement outside the band with our records and our music and our shows and our packaging and our merchandice or our lyrics or whatever. The band that's with us on this tour is the exact opposite, they signed a deal, and now they have to deal with....they have to cover a Circle Third song, they have to wear certain stuff in the next photo shoot, and we just say this is what were going to do in our next photo shoot and no were not going to cover a song. They asked and they tried but it doesn't work, we just say no to a lot of different things. 

Chad interrupts us saying "interview over" and going off on how he has "set one off" before the show!! So yeah we move to the front of the bus to finish......and Deron asked with a sly smirk you are still recording that right!!??

What is the most annoying question while doing an interview.....what drives you nuts??

Deron I don't get driven nuts by any questions really. I'd be bored by some questions. I'm bored by questions about my equipment, I'm bored by questions about who endorses me, I'm bored by questions about Jackass or ya know....nothing really drives me nuts, I am not going to lash out at ya or anything. It's just that they have been asked a million times it get boring because if they don't read it off of your web site it will be easy enough to read off of someone else's so....you'd be better off asking me stupid questions that are offensive.

How do you feel about your album debuting at number 99?

Deron It's great!

Did you expect?

Deron Well we knew we were going to crack the top 200 but i didn't think we were going to be in the top 100. If it would have came out a week before it would have been 75 because 19 records came out when our did and usually there is only 10. So we were happy. That means our CKY alliance is working!!

Where would you be now if you were not in CKY?

Deron In another band, simple as that!

What do you think of artist like Eminem? They break through the mold in popular music, but he seems to be more harsh about it in his lyrics....

Deron I don't pay attention to other bands, I don't know anything about Eminem.

What was the hardest track to lay down on the record?

Deron The lyrics to "attached at the hip," becasue I didn't have any until like the day before. It took me years of re-writing them and re-doing them, not years but it felt like years!! It took months, I re-wrote that song maybe 20 times, it was hard. Vocals are usually hard because if you hear the slightest little imperfection in your voice you notice it but no one else does then you sing a line then they think it's great you think it sucks because you can hear something wrong with it so,  you have to do it over and over and over again until everybody is happy with it.

Whats the craziest thing a fan has done for you?

Deron spreding rumors that I was dating her (as he looks at his girlfirend) yeah Nicole!! which is a mistake if you take pictures with them because they post them on the internet saying "here we are out on the town" I don't care though....nothing really that weird yet. A lot of fans say some really stupid things.....and not because they are saying stupid things. Just like I used to do when I ran into somebody I liked and just didn't know what to say and I would say something dumb and it would be a really awkward silence.

Me yeah there was this one girl when Adema was here...and she called her friend on her cell phone going off on her cell phone about how she was standing right in from of Mark from Adema and started freaking out.....I thought it was kinda funny

Deron I hope she cares about Adema next week because most of their fans don't

I had a few more but they slipped my mind so thats it!! Thank you!!

~Rebecca