Chevelle’s Sam Loeffler on the Challenges of Eating Healthy on Tour

"We try to be good with our diet while we're on tour, but it's a bit of a nightmare," Chevelle drummer Sam Loeffler tells Noisecreep about the band's food choices on the touring circuit. "Sometimes we do OK. Last night we ate blackened fish and other good things like sautéed spinach and oysters, which is great, but it's restaurant food so it's filled with butter.

"Backstage the food choices are definitely not great. There's a lot of candy and stuff like that. But when we eat on our tour bus, we have things like chicken sandwiches and lean stuff like that. We all try to be healthy, but we definitely hit restaurants on our days off. That never helps," laughs Loeffler, who is currently in the healthy food vs. junk food battle again with Chevelle out on tour with Dead Sara.

Chevelle released Hats Off to the Bull, their sixth studio album, late in 2011. The 11-song collection debuted in the top 20 Billboard Album Charts and has garnered rave reviews including About.com gushing, "Taut and lean, catchy and mean, these 11 tracks expertly deliver their payload in four concise, punishing minutes of superb guitar rock."

When Noisecreep tells the drummer we think Hats Off to the Bull is a heavier record than Sci-Fi Crimes (2009), their previous outing, he sounds a bit surprised: "Wow. You know, we've actually have heard both sides to that. We find a lot of people actually saying that the new album isn't as heavy as 'Sci-Fi' and then there's the camp of people that say what you just did.

"The first single we released from this new record was "Face to the Floor" and to me, that isn't really a heavy song. We didn't set out to make any kind of statement with that as the first single. What we did was look at all of the songs on the album and picked a single we all felt really proud of and something that represented our band at that moment. "Face to the Floor" was the right choice for that."

"I think "The Meddler" has been a favorite for our fans, so far," says Loeffler when we ask him which new songs their fans have instantly responded to. "A lot of people have been reacting great to that song. Another one would be "Envy." That has some really cool dynamics happening in the song. The title track has also been popular with our fans," Loeffler reveals. Noisecreep asks him if he would have been able to call that before Hats Off to the Bull hit stores: "Yeah, I pretty much could have predicted it, but I am surprised that "Piñata" wasn't more of a favorite. I thought people would have totally gotten that song. Maybe it'll take some time.

"The story behind "Piñata" is actually pretty funny. Pete [Loeffler, guitars/vocals] wrote the lyrics based on the idea of walking through the mall, checking out girls and being called out for it. It's a tongue and cheek thing. We actually made a t-shirt that says "The devil made me look," which was inspired by a lyric in that song."

Chevelle's Hats Off to the Bull is available now via Epic. Check out the band's official website for all of their upcoming tour dates.