October 1, 2004
[interview by Jenna]

Estrella: State your name and what you do in the band.
Devin: My name is Devin Shelton and I play guitar and vocals.

Estrella: So how is this tour so far?
Devin: It's been really good, this is our first headlining tour so we weren’t sure how it’d turn out, ya know its always kind of, ya know, you don’t really know what to expect, but we had a few shows that were smaller in like the mid west, ya know the areas that we don’t play that much. But over all it has been really really good.

Estrella: What’s your favorite snow ball flavor?
Devin: Snow what?
Estrella: Snow ball??
Devin: Is that like a snow cone?
Estrella: Yeah.
Devin: Oh ok… mine is like lemon or like lemon- lime, I like the sour fruity taste, that’s me though.

Estrella: What was your worst subject in school?
Devin: I was really good at math up until like 5th grade, haha, but after that kinda went down hill, I didn’t really like geometry or algebra so let’s say probably math.

Estrella: What are your top 3 favorite movies?
Devin: That’s a good question. I’m a big movie buff so top 3 favorite movies I would have to say… [thinks long and hard] Dang, why do you gotta make me think about this? … Let's say…[thinks some more] Dangit, I’m sorry, I guess The Count of Monte Cristo would be one. For a comedy I guess, the best comedy of all time is Dumb and Dumber, just for me, it might not be one of my top 3 favorite movies but, and then I’ll have to say….[more thinking] Dangit. I like Legends of the Fall and Matrix…all those movies, sorry that’s a tough question. I don’t know I like them all.

Estrella: What’s the best or weirdest thing a fan has ever done for you?
Devin: Best or weirdest, well I would say that the coolest thing that fans do I’ve never had anything weird happen, we get e-mails a lot from people you say stuff to you and seek you out personally but it's never that weird but a lot of people make emery jackets or emery t-shirts and write all over them. We had these girls from Japan who flew from Japan to like L.A. to see us and made personal buttons for each member of the band they had made individual personality traits and different characteristics about us on the pen, I thought that was really neat. That’s probably like the most anyone has done for us.

Estrella: Have you guys ever gone out of the country?
Devin: Canada, but that’s all.

Estrella: If you weren’t in this band, what do you think you would be doing?
Devin: I’d probably be married, I have a fiancé. I’d probably be married and I’d probably be teaching music. Probably.

Estrella: What are your inspirations?
Devin: I don’t know it's weird because I grew up listening to gospel weird cheesy music and then when I got older I started listening to R&B because I thought they were awesome singers, I like to sing. I’m a singer so I love good singers and Boyz II Men was like the best band ever back then, well not a band but a boy band. And then I got into rock but that wasn’t until college which was about 6 or 7 years ago that I started listening to like Mineral, which is like an old emo band and Pedro the Lion and Brandston and all these emo bands and I was just like whoa this is kinda different because all the bands on the radio, were kinda lacking emotion. So I started listening to a lot of emo and then I started getting into all these hardcore bands like Hopesfall and Zao, a little bit and it all expanded from there. But those bands all those early emo bands like Sunny Day Real Estate probably affected me the most because that’s when I started listening to the music and that was when my friends started introducing me to those bands and stuff.

Estrella: How’d you guys get involved with Tooth & Nail?
Devin: Well actually we have a friend who works for them now, but back when we first recorded our album, he had just started working there and like he was in the mail room so he wasn’t like anything. So when you send your demo and albums to record labels, if it doesn’t look that great or something, they get so many that they don’t really take priority, they don’t really care so we gave it to him, he was in the mailroom, and he gave it to the president of the label. And I mean, it’s a good recording, it’s the one we have now so we spent a lot of money on it, they listened to it and they really liked it a lot so... it took us like 4 or 5 months to actually sign, but we did a lot of negotiating and things like that, but that’s how we got hooked up with them, we just moved to Seattle from South Carolina and they were based out of Seattle, so they were close by.

Estrella: If you weren’t in this band and you were in another one, do you think you would continue to play the same style of music that you are right now?
Devin: If it would have started at the same time, probably. Now, if like Emery broke up and I joined another band or did my own thing it’d probably be a little different just because like we are getting older and musical taste changes and stuff and we really like mellow music. I mean, we play hard and we like our style of music but we really don’t listen to our style of music at all. So yeah, it’d prolly be different probably be a bit more mellow.

Estrella: I know you guys take some time out of your performance and talk about your faith and just make people aware of what you believe, has anyone responded from that?
Devin: Oh yeah, many times, a lot of people. We haven’t had too many bad experiences with it. This one guy, one time in L.A., he was kind of an older guy but yeah he came up, he was kinda weird I don’t know if he was a little off in the head. I mean not to be disrespectful, but I think he was. But he came up to me and he was like, “I really took offense to what you said up there” and I was like, “I’m sorry..” I mean I was willing to talk about it, you know I wasn’t like trying to offend him and he was like, “This is west Hollywood, you don’t talk about stuff like that in west Hollywood.” And I was like, “What are you talking about we talk about it everywhere it doesn’t matter.” And he just kept going on and on he kinda respected me, we kinda talked for a while and he was really weird, he kinda went back and forth, so I really didn’t understand what he was saying. He would say, “You should be really afraid to say that kinda stuff here” and then next thing you know, “but I respect your courage,” so it was kinda weird. Most of the time though, people respect it even people who don’t believe the same way we do, they usually say that they appreciate us for standing up for what we believe in, but we’ve had people leave while we were saying stuff, we don’t really care we aren’t here to necessarily, specifically convert anyone or offend anybody but we want them to know what we are about and maybe somehow that can affect their life in some way, but most of it has been positive. We’ve had people come up and talk to us about their personal problems whether its drugs or alchohol or sex or whatever that may be and so it has affected us so we try we try to keep them in our thoughts and prayers and people always come back and say thank you.
Estrella: So that’s cool, you have had some kind of impact on people with that.
Devin: Hopefully, from what they say and I hope it continues that way
Estrella: Well I just think that’s really awesome, I respect you guys for that.
Devin: Well thank you, thank you.

Estrella: Do you have any advice for bands who are trying to make it?
Devin: Yeah, a lot of bands who are trying to make it and they have a lot of other responsibilities, now we were lucky because we didn’t start Emery until after college, so like a lot of bands are a lot younger than us and like in high school and the beginnings of college. So they have a lot more responsibility than, you know you want to get your degree you want to get your diploma, which I think is very important. But at the same time if you want to be in a serious band, unless you catch a really good break, which doesn’t come that often, then you really have to devote almost all your efforts into that band. Like we moved to Seattle because we wanted to get away from all distractions like our families and all this stuff and jobs and when we did get jobs in Seattle we put like 75% of our paychecks into a band account so over time we just bought all our stuff bought things that we needed. We were blessed enough to have things given to us and helped out but, I mean if we wouldn’t have devoted like so much time and energy into it. And a lot of bands are just like doing and like halfway doing it and ya know trying and mad because their not getting anywhere. So yeah, you have to devote everything into it, if that’s really what you want to do. We feel lucky because you know we do believe in God and that there is reasons for things that happen and we believe that not even for the music or that we are doing the thing we love to do but that there's a reason that we’re out here. And we want to play these kinds of places because ya know everybody here doesn’t believe the same and we’re not preachers or evangelist or anything like that, that’s not really our style, but we know that there are other reasons, like when God puts you in places for his purpose and I think that is the reason that we are doing this right now. You don’t necessarily have to believe that to be popular obviously, but ya know just defiantly try your best and give it everything you got. Unless you catch a break, your gonna fail at what you are doing.

Estrella: And closing statements at all?
Devin: Closing statements…. I like Wilmington, Delaware. I like the internet, I really like camels their kinda weird, but I like... what else do I like? Oh! and I love my fiancé Megan and we are gonna get married in like a year and a half or something and that’s all I have to say.
Estrella: Aww. Thank you.