Rev Theory released their second album, the dynamic Light It Up, on June 10 through Interscope Records, but the band had been on the road since April getting the word out through their high-energy shows. Unfortunately, such physically demanding shows can take their toll: The group had to cancel a few shows at the end of June due to singer Rich Luzzi, who suffered a pinched nerve in his neck. Recovering at his New Jersey home before the band’s scheduled tour with Puddle of Mudd, which begins July 11, Luzzi spoke about the severity of his injury, the songwriting process for Light It Up and the important lesson he learned from an awful concert in his childhood.
So, how are you feeling right now?
I feel a little bit better. We’ve only canceled one show in about three-and-a-half years of touring, so I was pretty bummed out that we had to cancel a couple shows. But I’ve got some medicine in me and went to see doctors. I’ve just got to take it easy.
What caused the neck pain?
The doctors kinda feel like it was something that happened to me over a period of time. If you’ve seen us perform, you know I’m pretty animated on stage. We’re not the type of band that just stands in one place. I guess what happened was a vertebra in my neck was bulging and was about to rupture, and it was putting pressure on my spinal cord. So, I’m eventually gonna have to have surgery. But I spoke with the doctors and we can put it off for a little bit.
Did your doctors tell you to take it easy when you get back on the road?
Yeah, you know how doctors are – they’re always erring on the side of caution anyway. They just basically said, “Don’t be a hero. [When you] get out there, listen to your body, and you’ll figure out what you can and can’t do.” We’ll just take it one day at a time. But right now there’s just so much going on with our record – you know, I’ve got four other guys in my band that are depending on me, so it wasn’t the right time for me to sit out right now. I’m pretty confident that through being cautious and doing the right things that I’ll be fine.
How long had this neck pain been bothering you?
About a month off and on. Finally, it got so bad where I was like, “Man, this is definitely not right.” I actually thought I was having a heart attack – I was having pain on the left side of my body. So I was like, “You know what, I should probably just go to the hospital.” Turns out I have the heart of a 16 year old, so I’m all right.
It must be nice to have the break in between your scheduled tours.
It’s the first time we’ve been off the road since April. We were going at it pretty hard for three-and-a-half months. I’m just taking it easy right now – just been relaxing every single day and just trying to spend some quality time with family and friends. We get back out on the road on July 11 and that’s when we start the Puddle of Mudd run. And that’ll be a nice two-and-a-half month trek.
How did you guys hook up with Puddle of Mudd for this upcoming tour?
I’m not really sure how it happened. I think we have the same booking agency and Puddle of Mudd is on Geffen, and Geffen is a subsidiary of Interscope. I think Wes [Scantlin, Puddle’s frontman] got the album sent to him through Brian Howes, who produced our record and did some work with them. He heard the record and loved the record. We met him at a festival and, the next thing you know, we were on the road with them.
The songs on Light It Up bypass the brain and go right for the gut. Is there a certain way you guys write songs that make them end up feeling that way?
I think certain songs call for different ways of being written, so I don’t think that there’s ever really one true way that a song gets written. Sometimes it’s pure feeling, sometimes you go into it with an idea, sometimes you don’t even know what’s going to happen. I do know that most of all of the music stems from [guitarist] Julien [Jorgensen] and [bassist] Matt [McCloskey], and then we all get together and put our stamp on it. But I wouldn’t say that there’s one way that Rev Theory writes a song. I think we just try to be as open as possible.
Because the songs have such immediacy, they feel like they come about pretty spontaneously and easily. Is that true?
It took us about a year to write this record. We wrote numerous, numerous songs, just trying to figure out what direction we wanted to go in. We had help on the second half of the record with Brian Howes. He's an unbelievable songwriter, coming in and really crafting our songs with us – you know, nitpicking every aspect of the song, from notes to lyrics to melodies to everything. The first half of the record was done with [producer] Josh Abraham, and he’s more of a band’s producer – he lets the band capture the overall vibe of the song and he captures great sound. So, there were two different aspects to the record, but I do feel that we did put a lot of time and thought and effort into this record. It wasn’t as spontaneous as people think that it was. There were definitely songs that arose out of the blue, like “Hell Yeah,” which was one of the last songs we wrote for the record. We wrote a lot of songs for this record, and to narrow it down to the ones that made the record was a long process.
You mentioned that the band was trying to figure out a direction for Light It Up. Can you elaborate on that?
For our entire career from out first release – which was an independent release in ’05 – there were a lot of trials and tribulations. It was a lot of us doing things on our own and figuring things out for ourselves – what worked, what didn’t work. And I think the key to this record was perseverance. When someone tells you no, finding a way to get it done. And that’s what we wanted to do on this record – we wanted to write an upbeat, positive record. You know, there’s still some introspective stuff on the record, like a song like “Ten Years” and “Broken Bones,” but overall if you listen to a song like “Far From Over,” there’s a lot more hope.
