Cruel World Interview “She wants Revenge”

SUNRAY: Looking back on your professional journey. It is remarkable to see everything you have accomplished from the start until now. What is an experience that you find especially important from your career, one that has a unique significance to you throughout the years?

Justin
I mean, I think just still being here is the most sort of impressive thing, is the fact that. People still want to see us or hear us do this, and that we still want to do it.
I think that, you know, a lot of people make music, don’t do it for a long period of time.
Don’t get the opportunity to do it for 20 years.
So it’s just, even just being able to do this this long is crazy, ’cause this was not something that we
planned.
So I didn’t think about where I was at the time, 32 that I’d be doing when I was 52.

Adam
I think just, you know, growing up and finding music, really finding music that I connected with, changed everything from me.
And being able to create something that fulfills the same kind of thing based on conversations that I and we’ve had with people who connect to our music, our music has done the same thing for other people. , I think that, because I know what it’s like, so look, you know.
I think my first really good friend was the records that I listened to.
So I know how important it was for me.
Not to compare myself with anyone anybody else, but I do know, like I said, having conversations with people who express to us what our music means to them, I think that’s super cool.

SUNRAY: A few years back, I had the pleasure of witnessing your performance at Sick New World in Las Vegas, coinciding with the Deftones’ set. I distinctly recall the impressive turnout you garnered; the crowd was quite significant. You expressed your heartfelt gratitude to everyone for choosing to see you, especially given the formidable presence of a renowned band like the Deftones. How did it feel to experience such an enthusiastic audience in that moment?

Justin
We’re a group that’s pretty comfortable with being honest, and we don’t really hide behind, like, wanting to be cool.
Like, I mean, maybe if we were 20 years old and we did this, we would have, I have been a little bit more..
Mysterious or whatever, but, like, we just feel a lot of gratitude, and when you play a festival and you look out and there’s thousands of people and they chose to come see you, when you play a concert and people choose to spend money in a depressed economy and come out and see you, it’s a big deal, and, you know, Deftones are massive, and so, you know, we’ve played opposite some really big people. Like we’re playing opposite OMT tonight.

That’ll be interesting because I think there’s a little bit of an age divide in our fans, but I have no idea how many people are gonna be out there to see us, but whatever it is, we’re gonna be stoked because, like, we come to this festival every year as fans..
So, like, getting to be on the other side of it’s incredible.
Why would you not say, “Thanks”?
This is crazy.

SUNRAY: Obviously, you had something really big happen with Lady Gaga on American Horror Story, when they chose your song, ”Tear You Apart”. What was the process like with that?how did it come about?

Justin
She was filming her show, and she put music on her iPad that she wanted to get in character to.
And the first song on the playlist was ‘Tear you Apart” and the director and creator of the show came in and was like, “What is this?”
She’s like, ‘She wants revenge’
‘Tear you apart’
Theywere like, “Oh, cool.”
She’s like, “Put it in the show.”

SUNRAY: I know that kind of sparks a new generation of fans. I heard you guys are starting to make new music, going back in the studio has your writing process changed at all?

Adam
You know, we’re different people.
But the last time we made an album was 12 or 13 years ago.
So we’re discovering a new process.
We shared a studio back then you know, we were different humans, we had different experiences,
different levels of songwriting, different levels of production, things that evolved over the years. We don’t want to change who we are.
There’s certain things that are unavoidable in terms of what we bring to the process.
So I think the actual process itself won’t be far away from what it was when we first started.
But we’re actually in the middle of trying to figure out exactly what the new music is supposed to say and sound like. So far, it’s not far away from where we started.

SUNRAY: Do you guys have anything you want to plug for the rest of 2025?
Adam
It’s 20 year anniversary of our first album is next year.

SUNRAY: Are you guys going to be doing a special show?
Adam
Figuring it out.
Thank you for taking the time to be with us today at Cruel world festival in Pasadena CA

Interview and Photos by Michael Olivas ~𝕭𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖉𝖊𝖉 𝕲𝖔𝖓𝖅𝖔 𝕻𝖍𝖔𝖙𝖔𝖌𝖗𝖆𝖕𝖍