SHREDDING THE ENVELOPE guitarist / vocalist recently discussed the debut album, The Call Of The Flames in a new interview. An excerpt is available below:

When word got out to the public about Reffet’s project the natural assumption was that Shredding The Envelope was an instrumental project. Guest guitarists like George Lynch (LYNCH MOB, ex-DOKKEN, Michael Angelo Batio (ex-NITRO) and Joe Stump (HOLYHELL - pictured left with Reffett) on the debut cemented that belief, so it came as a complete surprise to hear vocals all over the record.

“Yeah, I probably should have been more clear about the fact there’s singing on the album,” says Reffett. “That probably would have helped. I definitely wanted to have vocals on the album. I’ve always liked instrumental music, but for me making my own music there had to be lyrics and singing. My fiancé helped me write some of the lyrics. We’ve been together for about eight years now, and we used to email our ideas back and forth when we lived in different cities. I’d write a couple lines, she’d write a couple lines, and we built this big notebook of stuff. Once we started to get serious about Shredding The Envelope, that’s when they became actual songs.”
“A lot of the stuff was written when I was strung out on drugs,” he continues. “but I’m clean now and it’s funny to look back at those lyrics because it’s like, ‘Dude, how did I come up with that?’ (laughs). I think we did a good job. She wrote half of it, I wrote half, and there’s some pretty heavy thoughts on there. Some of it was hard to write, definitely, and there are other songs that I haven’t put out yet that are going to be very tough to do.”

Stepping up to the microphone was a matter of necessity for Reffett. He had a definite focus for The Call Of The Flames and didn’t trust anyone else to do the songs justice, regardless of how good their voice might be.

“That’s exactly the case. I just got to the point where I realized that I was never going to find anybody with the same vision as mine, so I had to do it myself. I studied pretty hard, worked with different people including a guy that worked with Steven Tyler, and he really kicked my ass. I think I did a good job on the record.”
“There was a review out of Greece where they said that they couldn’t pinpoint one song that they liked better than another because every song has its own character, and I love that about the album. I hate albums where every song sounds the damn same. I’ve gotten vocal comparisons to Dave Mustaine, Ozzy, Sebastian Bach and Axl Rose, which is awesome because I love all those guys, and musically you can hear my influences, but overall it stands alone, definitely.”

Go to this location for the complete interview. Click here to check out Shredding The Envelope.