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RO: When you left

to start your solo career, you left a

band that had two hit albums. It seemed you were at your peak. Did this scare you?

E: It was definitely something to keep in consideration. Yeah, it was intimidating, but it was a case of I really didn’t feel deep inside me that I had any other choice. It was either this is going to work and be great for everybody, or it was going to fail miserably and be horrible for me. But I didn’t dwell on it too much, it was more I didn’t know if I had the energy to build a new project from the ground up and build a whole new fan base, and go through all the things that I, for the first time in my life, was not having to deal with so much. I had to go back and deal with them. I Mother Earth, we were at the point where we didn’t have to worry about ticket sales, we didn’t have to worry about album sales. We knew that if we booked a tour it would be a relatively successful tour. So all those things that I didn’t have to worry about for the first time, I had to worry about them again.

But yeah, it was an intimidating time, but you never know what you're capable of doing unless you

challenge yourself.

RO: How did you

alleviate your worries?

E: That’s a good question. I was sitting around, stressing myself out quite a bit. Somebody mentioned to me at that

time that the best way to

deal with what

I was feeling was to just go back to work. So I did, I just started writing songs, work- ing everyday and all of a sudden I wasn’t thinking about all the negative things that could happen. I was just thinking about the next step, and the next move, and the next song, and the momentum carried on to a record deal,

the making of an

album, and putting a

band together, and voila! That one statement that the best way to get over it was to just go back to work, right from then I started getting over it.

RO: How’s the

whole musical process -

for you on “Another Spin Around The

Sun”? How would you describe it, and how has it changed from your previous processes?

E: The biggest change was that it’s not four individuals sitting there, putting together a new al- bum. It was a whole collaboration with people. I wrote quite

a few songs on my own, and then I would start collabo- rating with others, whether they had an idea or a seed of an idea, or whether I had one and I would take it to them. Everywhere from Toronto to Vancou- ver, L.A., I wrote with quite a few people. I think I went into the studio with 26 songs, which I’ve never done with any other band, it’s always been just enough songs plus maybe two or three for the album. I was working with so many different songwriters and

musicians, that was all new, that was a new experience because you're all coming from a different place musically and you have to somehow, at the end of the day, have a product or an idea that you both feel good about. That’s not always easy to do when you don’t know the person very well, you don’t know their musical styles, influences, you don’t know what excites them — you have to figure that out in the process. That was a big difference. When you write with a band you basically know what to expect from everybody, and you know what they’re into already, what’s going to excite them — that’s a little bit more of a given. Also, you second guess a lot of things as a solo artist. You don’t have the reinforcement of your bandmates saying “Yeah, this is great, we're going to do it! Blah blah blah...,” it’s more like, “Man, is this good enough? Is this up to par? Am I going to be able to put my name on

this and feel proud

about it for the next decade?” A lot of those different thoughts run through your head. Those are the two main ones, I would say.

RO: Do you have any date in plan for the new album, or is it way down the road?

E: No, there’s no date yet. It'll be further down the road. I’m still in the songwriting process for that album.

RO: How has tour-

ing been so far?

E: It was great. We did a few warm-up shows, etc etc, and then we did Edgefest across the country. I mean, you walk out there and you're playing to thirty thousand people, it’s a rush, it’s pretty excit- ing. They only knew one song at that time, “Tripping,” so we felt like we had to go out there and win the audience over every day. That was a challenge we had, because every other band on that tour had momentum, they were coming off the end of the life of their album, so a lot of the songs they were playing were already known by the crowd. We were coming out with a new album, so we had to win the crowd over. So it was a challenge, we rose to it, and it

was a lot of fun. Since then, we've been doing sold out shows, the crowds have been really responsive, singing along. It comes to the point some times at the end of the night they’re scream- ing for more encores and we don’t have any more songs to play! [laughs] So I can’t complain, it’s been a lot of fun.

RO: What can the

fans expect from you? E: My best.

RO: Can we expect any new songs, or maybe covers?

E: Yeah, we'll throw in a few songs. We might do a cover or

two, and maybe sneak in a song from a band I was in before, and some songs that aren’t on the record that might be on the next one.

Yeah, there’ll be some

newer stuff.

RO: Do you have

any message for your fans here?

E: I love them all! {laughs} I really appreciate my fans, I’ve been blessed with some really great fans,

and sometimes when ~

I’m down they pick me up.

re POH SS Os

END