Vicki: Hatebreed seems to have definite elements of hardcore, metal and thrash. How would you describe your music?

Jamey: I think we combine early to late 1980s New York hardcore with early 1990s death metal. Lyrically we are still hardcore, but musically we are definitly more death metal than when we started out.

Vicki: I've noticed a recurring message in lines like "use your hate to achieve your goals". How much of your bandname is due to that and how much is the Misfits song?

Jamey: We believe that every negative message has a positive spin and as a band we try to make the apparent. As individuals we have choices and you've got ot make the best ones you can, or else it could have repercussions.

Vicki: So you believe in karma then?

Jamey: Yeah, something like that.

Vicki: You seem to be headlining some huge venues right now. Have you noticed a change in who goes to see you live?

Jamey: No, I think that we are lucky in that we have a pretty die-hard fan base. The venues have just grown bigger as we got more exposure, released more records.

Vicki: What about Ozzfest and Headbangers' Ball? Are people still discovering you on that or are they going there to see you now?

Jamey: They've definitly helped people see more of us. There are kids who didn't have access to all the specialist magazines, all the early DIY shows, who don't live in towns with cool record stores.

Vicki: With songs like Kill an addict (from the Under the knife demo), you were vocally straight edge. Why did you stop?

Jamey: No, we were never straight edge. You don't have to be straight edge to hate drug addition and the way it destroys families and people.

Vicki: Do songs like Another day, another vendetta herald a more political side of Hatebreed?

Jamey: Not really, they're Sick of it All lyrics that I felt were still relevent today and to what is happening.

Vicki: You're on the Ginger snaps soundtrack. Did that open any doors for you?

Jamey: The weird thing is I never got sent a copy of that film. I don't think it opened in the US, so no it didn't really effect us. I heard that it was pretty disturbing but good.

Vicki: Reading other interviews you've done, you seem really proud of hatebreed.com and your own website.

Jamey: Yeah, the web is the future. It can be used to be informative and you need to get with the times and spread the word.

Vicki: On Perseverence, you've got collaborations with members of Madball, Slayer, Neurosis, and Slipknot all on one album. How did that come about?

Jamey: We actually only ended up with Kerry King from Slayer on that. We wanted everyone else, but the schedualing didn't fit. The music and album speak for themselves, they don't need guests, it was better just having Kerry. Loads of websites and magazines have incorrectly said that, it's nice to set it straight.

Vicki: You released The rise of brutality pretty soon after Perseverance. How did that fit in with your touring ethic?

Jamey: We just went in there and did it, I didn't want to be a band that had been about for 10 years and only released two records.

Vicki: Someone from Roadrunner gave us your number, yet as far as I knew Hatebreed are on Universal.

Jamey: We were but now we've been on Roadrunner for a while now. The whole Roadrunner thing happened ages ago. It seems good here, very professional and they have more experience with our sort of metal music.

Vicki: Are you worried that Roadrunner's tendency to re-release albums 6 months later with a couple of bonus tracks tacked on will piss off fans?

Jamey: I don't think they'll do that with us. Do they do that? They've not done it to us, not that we have anything to really be bonus songs.

Vicki: Was your move from the hardcore scene to metal intentional or just the way things progressed?

Jamey: It was just like the more we played with metal bands, like Slayer bands like that, the more into metal we've become. It's cool.

Vicki: Are you looking forward to playing some shows in the UK with Anthrax and then the Download Festival at Donington?

Jamey: We're doing 3 shows with them. We're really good friends with Anthrax, so yeah, that will be great. And Download should be cool, we're looking foward to it, I'm looking forward to seeing Metallica. We were due to play it last year, so it will be cool to play this year.

Vicki: What's next?

Jamey: We're doing the European tour, then going back to headline Ozzfest with Slipknot. Then we've got a world tour: Japan, Australia, maybe Alaska.

Vicki: Talking of world tours, if you got the offer would you support KISS?

Jamey: KISS? Yeah, I'm a big fan of Gene Simmons. I didn't have a KISS Lunchbox, but Gene's new album, Asshole, I will definitely buy, it is really good.

Vicki: Finally, what is your favourite TV detective show?

Jamey: Matlock.