Don't use the word "fan" around Cove Reber, lead singer for the band Saosin. "It almost sounds degrading to me," he says with the kind of candor that is missing from a lot of today's rising stars. After releasing a self-titled full length to critical praise in 2006, Saosin has been touring ever since, all the while honing their craft as they build a larger fan base.

"If you watch our web episodes, there's this one episode where we did an in-store, and there's this girl, a huge Saosin fan who came out to the show and was was really awesome and nice. Chris egged her on into singing. So she breaks out into "You're Not Alone", which is a song I wrote, and I'm on the opposite side of the store. I'm like oh my gosh, someone is singing my song, I have to sit down," reveals Reber. "I kinda got, not necessarily embarrassed, but it was so weird. I kinda ducked down behind all the CD's like no one's looking at me. It still is weird to me when I hear  things like "You guys changed my life" from fans. It's like, What happened the past 4 years? Its weird to me cause 4 years ago, I was going to shows.  I was going to see my favorite bands when I was in high school."

Reber and his band mates share a love of music, one that is evident on their debut LP. Their music is fast and passionate, yet thought provoking and mature for their young years. It's their independent love of all things music that allows them to understand how people who follow their band feel. 

"I was doing research on what my favorite bands were doing, and all these feelings  came back" Reber states. "We are still fans of bands, and if, and when, we have the opportunity to meet them, we get those feelings. That's why its weird when someone comes up to us."

Saosion's fan base is a dedicated one, and the band could not be more appreciative. To set about thanking them, the band recently captured their live show on film, and on March 11th, 2008, Saosin will be releasing a DVD/CD package titled "Come Closer". The DVD features fan favorites, as well as many album tracks, re-imagined.

"Its really important for us to show everybody who likes our band, and even the people who are sitting on the fence, that we are talented musicians. We're not just one dimensional.  That's why for our last tour we brought out a piano and we did a piano version of an older song," relates Reber. "That was just something where we felt like this was our time to show our fans, our true fans who are gonna travel four hours to major cities just to see us play. We want to show them who we are as a band."

It was this sense of proving themselves that drove Saosin to want to do the project in the first place. "Come Closer" is a labor of love, one for which they had to do some convincing to get released.

"We basically had to sell it to the label." Reber explained. "We said we're gonna film it, we're gonna edit it, we're gonna do it all ourselves and if you like what you see, put it out. The CD that comes with the DVD, we wanted to do something special there too."

In order to provide the optimum experience for their fans, Saosin set about doing research by delving into their personal favorites. "In preparation for this DVD, we actually went out and spent a ridiculous amount of money on a bunch of live DVD's and making of the record type stuff . It was all just to prep for what we wanted to achieve with the DVD, the way we wanted it to look, and especially  with our live show as well," Reber remembers. "There was this Metallica one, and they're playing on this incredible stage that they've built themselves with all these increable lights. Then we watched Nine Inch Nails "Halo", we thought it was brilliant and this is everything we love about a live show in keeping with who we are."

A constant theme on each of the DVD's was darkness. Each band they viewed seemed to be shrouded in darkness. "While watching the NIN DVD, its really dark. We thought Lets do something similar to this where we  not always extremely brightly lit like some of the other dvd's you see out right now." says Reber, who later added, "You're kind of looking at it and going 'Is he good looking?'

_________________________________ "I kinda got, not necessarily embarrassed, but it was so weird. I kind of had to duck down behind a bin of CD's... It is still weird to me when I hear people singing my songs or things like, "You guys changed my life" from fans." - Cove Reber _________________________________

 

Looks have played a large part in Saosin's history as a band. With the emo explosion of the past few years, record labels went on the hunt to look for attractive young men who could write a tear inducing ballad and capture the hearts of their fans. Many of those bands still blaze the charts. The band, however, hopes that the chart positioning is based on how well they create, not how much they look like models. "We've always been a band where, its not that we don't like to show our faces but we've never thought that because we're good looking guys, its gonna break our band." Reber muses.

That thought process dates back to the release of their LP. "There was a huge fight with our label cause they were like 'These guys are great looking dudes, we needed to have they're picture in there so people know what they look like,'" imparts Reber.  "I think it took like two and a half years on our website to get a promo shot of us on it. It took so long. We never put a promo shot online and plastered "Hey this is who we are and what we look like'. It was always 'Hey lets take a promo shot and not use it'.  We're grateful that we stood by that, and just let the music speak for itself."

Their music makes a statement about the band. Never content to settle on any project, its this work ethic that helped convince others around them that "Come Closer" needed to be released. When it is available to the public, Saosin hopes their fans will react strongly to it. "With all of the effort that we put into the DVD, we're hoping that when people get it and watch it, as soon as its done, they go 'I wanna watch that again to see more, to see if I missed something, or I wanna show my friend.'" Reber shares.  "That's the amount of effort we've always put into our music. That's why it took us three years to record a record. We keep changing songs until they we're perfect, where we could  all sit down, listen to every single song and go 'That is a perfect song. That is something that I could listen to the rest of my life and not dislike'. That's a very hard thing to do when you've got five people who write and who have a tremendous attachment to the songs."

It's that music first mentality, along with their unassuming nature that keeps the band ground as they headline tours across the nation, playing to thousands of loving fans a night. When someone is touched by the work of an artist, they tend to idolize that person. Saosin hopes that while their fans love their music, that they also love the band for who the band are, regular people.

"I'd rather be perceived as 'Cove is an awesome dude, who is really nice, and really chill, and he's just like me'. That's something that the band kind of agrees on. We're just average guys playing music. We don't want to be  perceived as being cooler than anyone else. We're just a bunch of guys from southern California who just happen to be blessed to have gotten as far as we have," states Reber.

As the band grows and decides to dabble in different endeavors, the band prefers to keep a Do-It-Yourself status. All of the arrangements on the DVD, strings and otherwise, were arranged by the band. "We've always tried to maintain a DIY mentality about the band. A lot of the things that we've done, we've done by our selves, and this DVD is just one more thing that we've achieved. It makes us really proud."

Saosin is a band poised for stardom. They plan to start their follow up to their self-titled LP in the coming months, all the while playing shows and keeping themselves in touch with their fans. As success comes their way, you can be sure that Saosin will stay true to their current mode of not only creating well crafted music, but bringing it to the people nightly, from the front row to the back of the balcony.

"As much as we all want to go home to spend time with our girlfriends, our dogs, go see our family, whatever, we have the coolest job ever. We get to hang out with 1000 kids a night. Its like a traveling party. Not in the sense that we're alcoholics, but we take the party from town to town in hopes that people want to come to the party that we're hosting. That's just the mentality that we have. Shows are supposed to be fun."

A refreshing sentiment from a band in a somewhat dramatic genre. Saosin plays music for the sake of music, and they bring that mission statement with them in whatever city they play. A humble band on the brink, let's hope that Saosin's beliefs can help them on their way to achieving the success they deserve.