Alien Ant Farm Returned to Rhode Island, still "Smooth" after all these years.

Music is a part of who you are. It stays with you. It evolves as you do over time. Music becomes a co-pilot through your life as pieces of you that once were are no more. Friends get married and drift away. Family members get older and some pass on and pass away. The music you loved has formed into a block of memory that you can pull off the shelf of your mind to reference. To have a laugh, have a cry, forget your troubles, get fired up or look to the future. In rare cases the music doesn’t lose that first feeling, that rush of adrenaline that surged through your body when you first heard it. If you’re extremely lucky, it not only changes with you, the band changes and grows with you, and changes for the better.

In the case of the band Alien Ant Farm, nothing could be closer to the truth.

Together for 20 years, longer than most modern day marriages; the bands core members have mostly remained the same. Lead singer Dryden Mitchell, and drummer Mike Cosgrove have always remained at the helm, and guitarist Terry Corso has now returned after working on separate projects over the years. Original bassist The Zamora, however, is no longer with the band and is working on other things.

The band has provided a soundtrack to my life. In 2001, the song “Universe” off the platinum selling Anthology; reminded me of seeing them in concert for the first time in Providence. That song stayed with me over the years, as I navigated a painful break up and a big move up North. The follow up album in 2003, Truant, proved to be a loving companion as the next few years pureed my heart in a blender and caused more confusion and desolation than I had ever experienced. The music from Alien Ant Farm was always there.

“ 1000 Days” became my anthem for traveling back and forth from Mass to RI. “Drifting Apart” was a literal definition of the pain I felt and “These Days” was a positive wink from the future that maybe everything was going to be ok. Thankfully, it would be.

There was a time when it seemed like I’d never hear another new song from the boys, a few years past and then in 2005 I heard that they were working on a new album and were having trouble releasing it after clashes with the record label. I was ecstatic. In May 2006, as I entered a new stage and career in my life, the bands third “studio album” was released. Titled Up In The Attic, it became my Zen. My place to go when I needed a smile, or to stay focused. Memories so good they felt like a cool breeze on a hot day. “Bad Morning” will forever remind me of working on the film Underdog in Providence, and there was nothing bad about it. “Forgive and Forget” was the perfect opening to the movie that had become my life. A steady rock anthem that gets me moving every time I hear it. “What I feel Is Mine” was and still is my take back control of your life song, and it remains one of my favorite songs of all time. That whole album like all of their previous releases, is great from start to finish.

Then it felt like I REALLY wasn’t going to hear new music from my favorite band anymore. Band members came and went, working on solo or side projects and I heard rumblings, though unofficial, that the band had broken up. Needless to say, I was sad and felt that a friend had moved away, never to see or hear from them again. Except they weren’t gone... I had all of the albums at arms reach and listened to them with a new appreciation. Like life can tell you, appreciate what you have because you never know when it could be gone.

It thankfully, was not over. In any way shape or form.

The greatest moment in my life is unquestionably the birth of my son. That same year(2012) I heard that the boys were getting together to make a new album, after releasing new material here and there. Pure euphoria ensued.

Funded in part, by the Pledge Music Campaign, work on the new album officially began in 2013.

The first song released was the funky rock track, “Let Em Know” basically saying that the band was back, it also provided me with renewed creative adrenaline that I embraced like a warm blanket. The next single released was “Homage” which was exactly that. An ode from the band to those who had meant the most to them in their life. As I wrote this article I felt the same way. This was in a way my homage to the band.

As Rocky Balboa once said “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows” and getting the new album made was not easy. The band stayed focused, and today in fact, released their 5th studio album, Always And Forever.

So many things have changed in my life over the past 15 years. Music has also changed exponentially during that time. From the way it’s sold to the way it’s listened to. From CD’s to a now digital music supremacy. From CD Discmans(remember those?) to mp3 players small enough to fit in the palm of my son’s hand. Billboard charts have now been upstaged by trending feeds online and the social media landscape, non-existent when the band first started, has now almost taken over our everyday lives.

One constant in my life and in the world of music has been the songs of Alien Ant Farm. They have been a huge influence and source of joy in nearly every stage of my adult life. So when I was afforded the chance to interview lead singer Dryden Mitchell and guitarist Terry Corso in a official capacity on January 21st after playing a show at 1150 Oak Bar and Grill in Cranston, RI, it was surreal in many ways, but also what I felt was almost a natural evolution of my life right up to that moment.

Patch: Together for almost twenty years, how have things changed? What has changed the most in that 20 year span?

Dryden Mitchell: It’s weird, I used to not care about money at all, I was pretty care free and now we have mortgages and children and wives and stuff you know, and that’s on the back of my brain a lot now you know what I mean? Before we used to just fly by the seat of our pants and we’d just do whatever and I still think that we’re like still passionate about our music but that’s a big difference for me you know? That is is a job, not just something that we love to do.

Terry Corso: That being said like you said you know we have bills to pay but then we get out here and we’re reminded of like the old days when we were pretty care free and you meet all these fans that are from what we call “The Ten Year Club” people that were in college when we started and met their girlfriend listening to “Attitude” at one of our shows, now have their kids, etc. Now when we go out they pop up and even though we’re out there trying to like pay our bills we get slapped in the face with the fact that maybe we touched some peoples lives and there’s a bigger reason for being out here you know?

Patch: How is it to see those people now and connect with those people who do have their own families maybe in a different way?

Dryden Mitchell: It’s rad to see. Listen to me, rad?

Terry Corso: Hey we’re from California people understand.

Dryden Mitchell: It’s great to see any kind of loyalty you know people say “You know you guys had a single and it lasted a summer.” and you know how radio works it’s like here today gone tomorrow kind of thing so when we see fans we’ve known for like years and years it’s really cool. You see it a lot more in Europe, not to dog America at all but when we go to Europe, once people like a band that’s it you know? So it’s rad to see, there’s that word again rad. It’s rad to see some loyalty.

Patch: You guys were in a really bad bus crash in 2002(Dryden broke his C2 Vertebra, the band suffered minor injuries and the driver of their bus was killed) Have their been any lingering effects? Dryden how are you feeling? Any residual effects to this day?

Dryden Mitchell: I constantly have some issues. I have permanent nerve damage and it’s been so long since that happened but it’s still a daily thing, because my hands go numb and you know I can feel it right now, my nerve damage is alive right now. So it’s definitely thought about on a daily, but it’s been so long I’m just used to it.

Terry Corso: If you were watching us on stage would you ever think that he(Dryden) had a broken neck?

Patch: Nope.

Terry Corso: Or that I had no colon? (Corso had severe intestinal problems which required the removal of almost all of his colon)

Patch: The final thing I’d ask is in 2000 it was the sale and more importantly the number of CD’s sold that fueled a band’s success, now in the almost purely digital age of music how has that changed your perspective on how music is listened to or purchased? Or NOT purchased for that matter.

Terry Corso: We were like one of the last of the “platinum babies” us and probably like 4 other bands were the last at that time of that time that sold a million albums you know? Now you know I think we have just embraced technology.

Dryden Mitchell: It’s what it is. Would I prefer it to be a world where someone “likes” a song or an album they buy it? Yeah, I would, because I’d be (expletive) living in Malibu right now if that were the case. Not that I need material things but(pauses) it’s a nice beach (Dryden laughs) I had seen something on social media about you know it costs 4 or 5 bucks for a coffee at Starbucks and people will do that everyday, but most people won’t pay 99 cents for a song they’ll have for the rest of their lives, that people spent their lives learning to play these instruments and learning all this stuff and again, it’s not a sob story to be like “Oh we need, we want money” but it sucks to think that if you make t-shirts for a living or whatever it’s like, “Oh these are free now” you’re gonna kind of be bummed out a little bit you know?

After the interview was over the boys took pictures and signed autographs for whomever asked.  Appreciative of their fans, as Always...

This may not be a traditional article but it’s from the heart and it and the band mean a lot to me and I couldn’t write it any other way.

Alien Ant Farm’s new album Always And Forever is available on iTunes and on CD in stores now.