Oftentimes, it's not the band members themselves who tend to be so narrow minded and judgemental, but the fans, as is the case in which Dan speaks of with the doom "purists" or whatever they are. Usually most musicians worth their salt have diverse influences and can understand the need to grow and change over time. We've been attacked fairly regularly over the years for a multitude of reasons.....being too doomy, not doomy enough, being too death metal, not death metal enough, lyrics are too personal or wimpy, we're a "clone" of MDB, Opeth, Anathema, Paradise Lost or any other dark moody melodic death/doom type band you can think of, etc etc etc. Ultimately, what these people think doesn't really matter. People want to take certain genres of music and make it into little pacts or gangs or exclusive clubs, that's their business. I've had no interest in being a part of that for many years now. Our music may still generally be rooted in death metal and doom metal, and that's fine, but people worrying about whether or not we're true or pure enough to fit into their definition of what's correct is of no consequence to me. To sum up, if you don't like my music, that's cool and fine and dandy, just move on to something better and shut the fuck up about it.
Anyhow.....as for the east coast, I'd love to go and tour the east coast again, we've always done very well there and the fans are awesome. Bands like Agalloch and Woods of Ypres also have alot of fans there too. So who knows, maybe something can come together in the future, we'll let you know once we cross the bridge so to speak.
