When Twisted Method’s debut album was released in July, the members of the rock band did not expect to make it into the Billboard album sales charts in the first week. In fact, that wasn’t the plan to begin with. Twisted Method’s plan will require a little suffering before they can make it big.

“Since we’re so brand new, we don?t just want to be on the radio and be over with,” lead singer Derrick “Tripp” Tibbett tells andPOP, on the line from a hotel room in Holmdel, New Jersey, where the band played an Ozzfest show the night before. “Right now, we want to play Ozzfest, start a really big fan base, and kind of show everybody how rowdy we are live.”

The plan sounds simple, similar to the saying, “there’s gold at the end of the rainbow.” The toughest part however is patience.

“It’s not like when you start, the money is flowing. In the beginning, you do starve a little bit. It’s just getting your name out,” he says.

The money may not be piling in yet, but by the year’s end, Tibbett says Twisted Method will shoot a music video and release a single to radio stations.

Being on the second stage at Ozzfest this year and releasing their debut, “Escape from Came Coma,” is quite an accomplishment for the band, which formed about six years ago in Cape Coral, Florida.

“Older people go there to die and retire or whatever they do; drive around slow,” Tibbett explains. “[The music scene] is getting better because everyone is getting tired of that. Everyone’s trying to get together to have fun and play shows and it gets pretty rowdy because there’s nothing else and everyone’s glad that they’re there and having fun.”

Tibbett, who was actually the last member to join the band, had a lot of R&B influences such as Michael Jackson, unlike the other three members, who were mostly influenced by harder rock.

“I kind of came over the top, kind of smoothened the music out a little bit by seeing and waving some notes around soulfully. We weren’t really looking for a certain sound. We kind of play what we felt and that?s what came out.”

After opening a show for Cinder, another local band, Charlie Pennachio, Cinder’s manager, “went nuts over us,” recalls Tibbett, and approached Twisted Method with management contracts. A few labels checked them out and they signed with MCA.

It took about a year from the time they began recording to when the album was released. Tibbett says in that time, the band members learned a lot about themselves.

“I learned that this is what I want to do. Just in that time frame, I feel like I’ve learned a lot more just because I’ve been to the studio already. I know how that works and how to go for it next time when we go into the studio. Step by step, me and all the guys are learning more and more as we go how to take care of all this business. We’re young so we have really open minds and we’re really interested in everything.”

A visit to their web site reveals that they did not take a complete conventional approach to recording. There is a picture of a microphone in a toilet.

“We were trying to get different sounds for the album,” Tibbett explains. So was the toilet sound used? “No, but it was a lot of fun.”

The tag of “nu-metal” is being attached to the band, and although they may not agree with the classification, they’re not about to go out of their way to argue otherwise.

“We write what we want to. They could call it whatever they want. We don?t give a ****. We call it crack-rock. If you see our live show, you see everything’s in fast forward.”

Being added to Ozzfest meant being exposed all summer to thousands of rock music fans. Tibett did not know what to expect, but says the response has been “intense.”

“We’re the youngest band on the tour. We just got out of the clubs in Florida to this major tour so we weren?t really sure. Now we’re sure, because everyone seems to really like us. The album is going over really well and we’re selling out every show.”

When Ozzfest ends at the end of August, Twisted Method plans on touring with another Ozzfest second-stage band, Motograter.

And although this album was released so recently, they’re already looking ahead to future material.

“We’re growing. Our music’s growing. The songs that we write now, we’re more sure than anything about. I’m finally getting comfortable with the way I write music and how to put it all together.”






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