Your band is noisy and energetic, but in a precise way that makes me think you've given some thought to how to get the right sound. What is your essential gear to make the perfect noise?
Nick: Well thank you for noticing that. There certainly is a long process involved anytime you're dealing with tone - especially abrasiveness vs. ambience - and we've definitely made tons of adjustments (and will probably continue to). But ultimately I think that getting the right sound comes down to the way you play much more than what you play through.

Dave: Yeah, we definitely have a certain amount of pride about our tone. For Appomattox, tone pretty much equals "distortion." For the record, everything we put down was overdriven. If we recorded something that was too clean, we found a way to distort it. After applying distortion, if we still weren't happy with it, we'd throw some echo or delay on it. That usually did the trick. Generally, we achieve said distortion with old tube amps and lots of pedals. If you wanna get specific, Nick does the whole Gibson, Marshall, Big Muff, analog delay thing and for bass, I rock the Fender, Sunn/Ampeg thing.

Was it a conscious choice to be a three-piece or just something you had to work with? What's the best and worst things about that dynamic?
James: We were in a band called Araby and there were four of us. People in that band had their differences of what they wanted to do and where they wanted to live. But the three of us just kept playing music. It started to sound drastically different and we liked it.

Nick: There was a period where I think we all wondered if we ought to add another member like a second guitarist or a keyboardist or something, but eventually everyone kind of grew into their roles and the whole thing feels pretty complete to me now. My friend Cliff and I were talking once - he's actually the guy that was in Araby with us years ago and now he's in Ladycop - and he was saying that in the great trios like the Police you could focus on any one of the instruments' parts and it would be totally interesting on its own, because all three of them had to be so inventive to make such a good racket with so few guys. I really listened when he said that, and I think as we got closer to recording we just got so much practice playing the songs on tour that we ended up with a really good sound for a trio.

What's next for Appomattox?
James: On top of more U.S. touring and local shows, we really want to tour some far away places like the U.K., Europe, and Japan. World tour for real... That would be rad!

Nick: I'd like to make a video so people can get a visual impression of us on their computers or whatever. I'd like for people to use our songs as ringtones. It'd be nice to get on a soundtrack or two so I can pay my rent while I'm on tour. Is that too buisness-y? Other that that I'm really starting to stress out over writing the next record already. We had a quite a long while to get this one together but we certainly won't have that luxury this time.

Dave: We're basically into exploring any and every avenue that will allow us to make a living doing the "rock band thing." With the demise of record companies and the "album" as we know it, the extreme hike in gas prices, and the fact that trying to have a full time band is basically just a huge money pit, it's a wonderful, yet horrible time for indie bands.