Eight questions with Darwin's Waiting Room

Famous and infamous the world over for being the breeding ground that spawned national acts like Limp Bizkit, Creed, Puya, and the monstrosity known as the modern boy band, Florida can now add Miami's Darwin's Waiting Room to the growing list of hometown heroes. Rising like a pheonix out of the ashes of the South Beach dance scene, Darwin's Waiting Room, which features emcee Grimm, singer Jabe, guitarist Eddie the Kydd, bassist Alex Cando, and drummer Joe Perrone blend the best elements of hip-hop, metal, reggae, and punk to create a sound that is uniquely their own.

Since being signed to MCA Records, they've toured relentlessly behind their debut album, Orphan, and have shared the stage with hard rock heavyweights such as Godsmack, Deftones, and fellow South Floridians Nonpoint. "Feel So Stupid", their first single, scored a decent amount of airplay on rock radio and the video made its mark on music channels such as MTV2 and MUCHMUSIC. On the strength of their energetic live shows, the fivesome were asked to open for Machine Head as part of their "Supercharger Tour".

Before their stop at the House of Blues on Jan. 29th, I sat down with vocalist MC Grimm to discuss the band's past, present, and future.

Future: What are the origins of Darwin's Waiting Room? Grimm: The band had been around since '95, but the line-up has changed a little bit. The line-up we have now has been together since Jan. 1, 2000. Eddie joining the band was the final piece to the puzzle. We've all known each other from the South Florida music scene for years. Everybody in the band has been prevalent in the scene at one time or another. Jabe and Joe had a band prior to Darwin's called Outlit. I was in a live hip-hop group called Your Mom, which was sort of like a Roots-type thing. Eddie was in a band called Crime and Alex was playing in a bunch of different bands and doing his thing. The line-up was pretty much complete with the exception of a guitarist. Eddie was parting ways with Crime, and when he jammed out with us everything seemed to click.

Future: With so many different influences between the five of you, how does the songwriting process work? Is it complicated to keep it democratic with some many different points of view? Grimm: Every member of this band is crucial. It's not like there's somebody in the band that is Jabe's brother, or something. We didn't say, 'Well, this guy helped us out in the beginning and he built our website and he's a good friend of ours, so we'll let him in'. Everybody that's in this band deserves a place in this band. We've all worked very hard to get here and everybody has contributed more than you could possibly ask for. We're a very democratic group and we vote on a lot of different things. Usually everything comes to a vote and 3/5 of the vote wins. We all want what's best for the song. Whatever it takes to make the best song possible, then that's what we're aiming for.

Future: You guys have started to taste success within the last year. You've been signed, you're touring the country, you've gotten airplay with your first single and your video's been on MTV. It must have been a whirlwind of events for you, so how did the band as a whole handle this newfound success? Grimm: We're really grounded. We try to stay grounded at all times. We're not an ego-driven band. We have a healthy ego and we feel that we make great music because we try really hard and we put all of our time and effort into it. I think we have a long way to go, though. I think a lot of people haven't heard this record. I think the record has been slept on and a lot of people don't know it exists. If they did, I think they'd appreciate what we have to offer. There are a lot of talented bands that took awhile to break through and get their names out there. These are some of the bands we'd like to model ourselves after. You know, your Deftones, your Sevendusts, your Incubuses, where the first albums weren't sure-fire successes, but they built a loyal following through non-stop touring. It takes time, but we're a band that's willing to take that time and go the distance.

Future: There's this huge word of mouth surrounding your live show. Would you be more content to build a grassroots following and let your live show do the talking? Grimm: For any band to be a real band, you gotta throw down live. We want to be known as a live band. We want people to say 'they make great records, but their live show is where it's at'. If we have a radio hit, awesome, that's great, but if we don't it's still word of mouth and we'll continue to do things that way. I think the majority of people who know who we are is because of our live show. I think that's the attraction to this band. Future: I realize that you guys have been doing this for a long time, way before the huge rap-metal boom. How frustrating is it that some people who may have never heard of you might think you guys are jumping on a highly profitable bandwagon? Grimm: We're not rally looking to say 'we're a metal act, or we're hip-hop, or we're this or we're that'; we're just trying to appeal to a mass audience. Rock and roll and hip-hop have always been infused over the years, since the days of the Beastie Boys and Public Enemy. We're not trying to cash in on some trend and when it goes away, it's not like we'll say 'Okay let's try something else now'. We'll continue to create music that defines us. I leave labeling to the people that don't get us. People will say 'well, you have a singer and you have a rapper so you guys must sound like Linkin Park'. No disrespect to Linkin Park, they're a talented band and they write great songs and their live show kicks, but we don't sound anything like Linkin Park. If people ask us to define our sound, we just say it's Darwin's and that's it.

Future: What's it like to meet a rock/star performer that you guys have looked up to and have been inspired by way before you got signed? Grimm: Luckily, for us, every band that we've toured with has been great. We got our touring experience started with Papa Roach and Alien Ant Farm and I think they set the standard for how new bands should be treated. It was something passed down from Korn to Papa Roach. Korn told them that when they started out they were treated great and they wanted to pass that down to every new up and coming band. We became really great friends with bands like Godsmack, the Deftones, Reveille, Mudvayne, Puddle of Mudd, and others. We've had some great tours and we've been really lucky in the sense that everyone that we've met who we've admired and respected has been great to us.