The_Network
have been doing their thing going on eight years now, and they've always had the underscore in their name. But why not just go by the Network, you ask? Why inject an unnecessary and confusing underscore? We went to the source, guitarist Peter Marr, to find out why these New England metal monsters went with the unneeded punctuation.

"We did that in 2002, early on in the band, when we had this seven-inch come out, and the reason we have an underscore is a couple of the dudes wanted to stamp the covers of every record we did, and they got a stamp and for some reason, they wanted to put an underscore on it, to make the record look better, and I guess it kind of stuck," Marr tells Noisecreep.

Of course The_Network are The_Network, but there are other bands called the Network -- like Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong's new wave side-project, which released an album called 'Money Money 2020' in 2003.

"When that band came out, oh my f---ing Christ., dude ... seriously? Now we have to deal with this s---?" At first, Marr says The_Network was considering taking legal action against the Green Day offshoot, "because our name was in print and we had stuff released before them, so I'm pretty sure we could have done something. I guess it just wasn't worth our while. We sent 'em an e-mail, and they never got back to us, and I think we just got lazy about it."

On Sept. 15, The_Network will release 'Bishop Kent Manning,' a concept album that isn't your run-of-the-mill concept record. No elves or cloven-footed creatures here, so Coheed and Cambria fans need not apply.

"It's based around a short story that [guitarist Kevin Howley] wrote about a televangelist on his death bed, who renounces God and everything he kind of preached to people. We used the story as a backdrop to everything, and each song recounts a part of his life," Marr says. "We're not trying to push the whole concept thing, because I like when I listen to a record, and find out two weeks later, after I've already started liking it, and I find out it's a concept record. It's much more meaningful to me than knowing going into it."

The album, which was produced by Converge's Kurt Ballou, is not a statement on organized religion, however. "We're not bashing God, its just a backdrop for the message we've always kind of had: F--- the man," Marr says. 'The bishop symbolizes the dude we're all talking about, and this is his story. It demonstrates the injustices of society and the stuff we've always talked about."

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