E.C.: First, you are based in Nashville, right? How long have you been together?

4 Fourty: Yes, Nashville. Been together about a year, little over a year.

E.C.: What does the name "4 Fourty" mean?

4 Fourty: 4Fourty is standard tuning for musical instruments.

E.C.: You have a CD out?

4 Fourty: Yes, the name of the CD is "I Am Human". We had a CD before that, our debut CD called "I'm Not Odd" and that went over fairly well.

E.C.: Do you put them out yourselves, or are you on an indie label?

4 Fourty: We have our own indie label called the Music of Productions, Music of Nashville Records and its released on that label.

E.C.: How would you describe your music?

4 Fourty: Its a little combination of modern edge, of course...we grew up on a lot of the '80s bands, so of course we are going to have that influence and we don't deny having that influence...while in an age of music that is basically crippled. We're trying to come out with something fresh and new. So, we are gonna say...a cross between the old and the new man! High-energy rock with distinctive melody lines and choruses.

E.C.: What is the ultimate goal? Airplay or touring?

4 Fourty: All the above. I think in a broad spectrum, the ultimate goal is definitely to get a major record label, and from there to establish and license our music to film.

E.C.: Where have you played? Mini-tours?

4 Fourty: Cleveland, Ohio…Columbus, Ohio…Cincinatti…Louisville, Kentucky…we've been to Georgia a couple of times and obviously around the Nashville area. We are pretty good at managing ourselves so far, as far as mini-tours go. But, we need to hook up with a major company that will send us out to the right venues.

E.C.: What are you main influences? I mean, the '80s connection is obvious...

4 Fourty: Our main influences as far as musically...Ozzy Osbourne to Baby Face…Lynyrd Skynyrd, Queensryche. A wide spectrum, you know.

E.C.: One thing, you won't get a lot of radio airplay with hard rock, though...the live shows are the way to market your music...

4 Fourty: For now, for now...we've geared a lot of our songs...you see none of the songs on our CD are over 4 minutes, 27 seconds, which is very radio friendly time-wise. Sixty-percent of the album is very radio friendly. And the rest is very musicianship oriented. So, we are definitely commercially qualified, but at the same time able to show that we are musicians as well.

E.C.: What about videos, are they in the future?

4 Fourty: Yeah, actually, we're working on a video production to produce a video compilation. That's in the works right now.

E.C.: Any label interest so far?

4 Fourty: We've got some record label interest from Victory Records, Capitol Records, Virgin Records and a number of U.K. labels. Right now, some of those are on the table and some are not considerable.

E.C.: Based in Nashville, you would think that most of the city is Country? Are there a lot of venues for you to play there?

4 Fourty: You see, that's quite odd, because the nickname of Nashville is "music city". It's not called "country city", its called "music city" and I think that's a good breaking point. Even though that term was coined in 1954 by Chet Atkins, ever since then its stuck...but times have changed. With Nashville, its a good spring-board for touring, you know?

E.C.: What drove you to this kind of music? I mean now that rock 'n roll has splintered into so many different sub-categories?

4 Fourty: Unfortunately, the sub-categories often consist of an ideal look and an ideal sound and we all know what that is! It is saturated. So, we figured since its all saturated, we've all been in different bands before playing what was "popular" and we just said "hey look, this shit ain’t working no more, lets go back to what happened. Let's go back to the root of the earthquake and start from scratch again." And that's what we did, we started from scratch again, and this is what we came up with.

E.C.: What is the future of rock 'n roll? And how does your band fit it?

4 Fourty: Rock n' Roll will continue to evolve period, but what goes around comes around. Musicianship is on its way back. We are bringing back the guitar solos, high energy rock, reminiscent of the late 80's with a vibrant current day feel.

E.C.: Finally, if you could realize one dream for your band, what would it be?

4 Fourty: Success beyond one album.