Daughters Frontman Has Mixed Feelings About New LP

Sometimes, when a band's got new material to promote, you can't get them to tone it down in interviews. The band dudes just exude excitement and will sit there and wax poetic for two hours about the songs they're "just so proud for people to finally hear." On March 9, Daughters will release the self-titled follow-up to 2006's 'Hell Songs,' and frontman Alexis S.F. Marshall is just the opposite. It seems like he's feeling conflicted about the whole situation, and who could blame him: Since the recording of 'Daughters,' the band's lost two members, leaving just the singer and drummer Jon Syverson.

But it's not just the shift in the band's lineup that's eating at him. Nor is it the fact that Daughters won't be touring in support of the new record, which is hands down the chaotic band's most commercial release to date. In fact, it's the realization that 'Daughters' is so easy to latch onto that their fan base might actually grow substantially that has Lex feeling tense.

"[Former guitarist] Nick [Sadler] wrote a lot of the stuff on there, and he was really looking to make it accessible, and see how it faired," Lex grumbles to Noisecreep. "There are definitely parts of the record that were written to see how people will respond, which is kind of disappointing. I think there's some really good s--- on there that I'm excited about. But it was definitely like a 'Let's put in a lot of recording time'...There was overthinking involved. We recorded it in May or June, that's so much time to sit and look at it. Maybe I'm over-analyzing it."

Let's just get this out of the way right now: 'Daughters' is a ferocious album. The guitars on this bastard sound insane ... kind of like if the sound a car engine makes when it won't start raped a dentist drill. Or a dentist drill raping a megaphone. The disc isn't overwhelming like the band's previous releases, and has strange, eerily psychedelic moments of psychosis. It's rife with riffs and breaks like heroin. There are even ethereal moments. It would remind you of Dillinger Escape Plan crossed with the Mars Volta. Sounds strange, but this is one of the best albums you'll hear in 2010.

"Some people are going to like it, and that's a good thing, I suppose," says Lex. "I never expect much. No one ever puts us on the cover of any magazines and we're never on anybody's top-10 lists. I don't know, I should be saying good things about this record. It's going to be great and everyone's going love it. That's what I should be saying."

Basically, 'Daughters' ain't 'Canada Songs,' and could end up scoring the band tons of accolades. Lex doesn't dig that. "If something's good, it's good," he says. "You can read Hemingway because he's brilliant and say 'This is f---ing brilliant' and you can read 'Twilight' or whatever bulls--- kids are reading, and you should be able to appreciate something good because it's good, not because Hemingway wore eyeliner and combed his hair over one of his eyes. If it's f---ing good, it's good. It doesn't matter how it's packaged or sold. As long as you feel like you're doing something for the right reasons."

He continues, "It's so easy to steer it and try to be accepted, and do this because this is what's good, and this is what's going to make our band popular. That's no good. That's not art. That's s---. It's not even s---. It's less than s---. What's less than s---? I don't even know. Trying to be other bands ... that's less than s---," he says. "Some people will love this record as a whole. Other people will only like certain aspects of it, and this will probably get people who've never heard of us to kind of latch on and say, 'Oh, I love My Chemical Romance, so I should listen to this f---ing song.' I don't know what I'm f---ing saying."