From left: Duke Kitchens, Jim
Wilkes, Ronnie Winter, and
Joey Westwood
down for Hurricane Katrina. We really liked the idea of playing a show
but putting all the money towards a good cause. And we wanted to do
more things like that.

One of the singles from our first record was called “Face Down,” and it was about domestic violence. We got a lot of emails in response to it, which was great. Then we were contacted by a group called the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. They wanted to work with us, so we did a private acoustic performance in New York for the foundation.

Then we produced some merch with the lyrics to “Face Down”
printed on it, and the money from that went to charity, too. That’s re-
ally special to me, because the help is really coming directly from the
fans when they buy the shirts—it shows people really do care.
We also did the Take Action! Tour for suicide awareness. We’d never
headlined a major tour at that point, and they knew it, but they wanted

us on top of the bill, anyway. When they asked us, I don’t think we were ready for that kind of gig. But we got ready real quick, because there was no way we’d turn them down. I definitely think that suicide is a major problem with younger people today, and it’s important that there’s outreach for them.

Recently, there’s been a lot of press about a young man who killed himself by overdosing on drugs while broadcasting it all on the Internet. People were online with him and many were joking about it and egging him on.

[Pauses] I hadn’t heard about that. It really shocks me to hear that. He was obviously reaching out; he was obviously looking to talk. He got the completely wrong reaction—that’s incredible and sad.

It’s all about changing the way people think. A lot of people make fun of the issues we stand for, but the point is, we give a crap. BRIAN S TILLMAN