After an hour of dodging oblivious tourists marveling at the new Spiderman ride to fielding redundant questions from clueless security guards at Universal Studios who sent us on a fifteen minute joy ride around the theme park trying to locate the artist entrance to the Amphitheatre; so we could sit down and interview Soulfly guitarist, Mikey Doling.

Although, we can't complain... we had our very own private driving tour of Universal Studios in which we ended up at Norman Bates, Psycho house, drove by "The Clock Tower" from Back to the Future and concluded by parking in a lot full of demolished props like jet skis used in the film, Waterworld.

To our delight, mixed in with Middle America's bright eyed and bushy tailed vacationers who were sporting fanny packs, exceedingly tight cut-off jean shorts and purchasing "finds" like magic rocks and cartoon caricatures of themselves or their kids while guzzling overpriced sodas and slurpees were the maniacal Slayer and Soulfly fans. Dressed in their normal metal head gear ranging of either all black with the occasional eye liner to Slayer/ Soulfly tee shirts revealing full sleeve tattoos and scaring people of all ages by randomly grunting, "Slayer!!!" and "Fucking Soulfly!" It was awesome!

Amongst this crowd, separated by a few left turns and U-turns, tucked away behind "Gate 6" was Mikey Doling. We arrived a half hour late and Mikey was walking out and heading for the tour bus when I took off running for him... taken a little off guard, I apologized for our tardiness and asked if it was still cool to do the interview with us? "Of course! No problem," he said! We sat down and talked about the new record, 3, a new tour with Slayer and Downthesun, and about the newly released, live Snot record, called: Snot Alive!

Noize Pollution: You've been in Soulfly for a couple of years now and Max obviously took a big risk starting Soulfly back then. Tell us about the growth of the band and why Soulfly is what it is today?
Mikey Doling: Well, I have been in the band for almost four years and I think we have grown quite a bit since I've been here but � from day one � I think Soulfly's records have been amazing!

NP: With your new album 3, it seems that the level of intensity picked up a bit, yet you haven't lost the focus of Soulfly. Max stated, "This album is definitely an essential album in the Soulfly career." He also thought that there was a level of maturity reached on this record ...Do you feel that as well?
MD: I guess so� I tend not to look too deep into shit. I'm like, "Cool, killer songs," and that's about it. You know what I mean? I'm not like, "Oh, I think we've grown." I'm not really that guy. I always think, let's make some great songs and hope that everybody like them.

NP: Tell us a little bit about the songwriting on this album. Was it more of a group effort?
MD: Max is pretty much like the lone writer for us - it's his vision. He'll come to us with riffs and we'll get together and we will put them altogether and start putting the flavors on it.

NP: When "3" was released, it was right around the time when Ozzfest was getting ready to go. Usually, when most bands put out a brand new album, most are happy to jump on Ozzfest, yet you guys opted to play Europe and then to hit the states with Slayer. Was that the plan? If not, what was it?
MD: No, we didn't decide NOT to play Ozzfest! (laughs) We've done it twice already and with the dates in Europe- that's like three different Ozzfest's. If we would've gotten it again we would've been real lucky, I think. But, the case is we had already done it quite a bit. So, maybe next year!

NP: Tell us how Roy Mayorga got back into the band. He's been gone since the first Soulfly album and left to participate in Medication, but he was welcomed back with open arms.
MD: We called him and asked him to come back. That easy. We just felt like the chemistry was a little bit off balance and we needed him back. So, we called and said, "Hey dude, you wanna come back?" He said, "Yes," so we got him back!
NP: What do you think he brings to the band?
MD: He's definitely the right drummer for our band- that's all.