Hinder keeps pushing the envelope

Known for its members' hedonistic off-stage behavior, rockers Hinder pretty much nailed it on the head when they named their major-label debut "Extreme Behavior." Drummer Cody Hanson said it was a no-brainer when it came to dubbing that album's follow-up "Take It to the Limit."

"It's what we're all about," Hanson said with a laugh during a phone interview from his Oklahoma home. "We try to take everything we can to extremes--even in our album artwork. We did three different versions of the album artwork. We did a PG version, an R-rated version and an X-rated version.

"I guess one of the printers that Universal uses to do all their albums actually refused to print the X-rated version. So we had to go find somebody else to do it."

Upon its Election Day release, the three versions of "Take It to the Limit," all of which include the raucous "Use Me" and the ballad "Without You," apparently will even be sold at conservative retailers such as Target and Wal-Mart.

"It's pretty interesting," said Hanson, who co-writes songs with singer Austin Winkler. "I guess all we had to do was put a sleeve over the cover to make it look like the regular cover and to let people know that it's the X-rated version on a sticker or whatever. I believe everybody is going to be selling it."

Releasing "Take It to the Limit" on Nov. 4 was no coincidence, said Hanson, who is joined in Hinder by guitarists Joe "Blower" Garvey and Mark King, and bassist Mike Rodden.

"We felt it would be a cool thing because it's such an exciting day for the rest of the country," Hanson said. "We figured we'd give our fans something else to be excited for as well. That way people could go vote and buy the Hinder record or maybe the other way around."

Hanson and Winkler penned "Take It to the Limit" in various locations around North America, including the white-capped resort town of Whistler, British Columbia, and Florida.

"We had a couple of destination trips for writing sessions," Hanson said. "Austin and myself went down to Florida for one at a beach house right on the water. It was pretty awesome. We did another one up in Whistler up in the mountains, which was great as well. We did the rest of the writing on the road. It was a little bit faster and a little bit easier this time.

"We try to go to Whistler any chance we can," Hanson added. "We love it up there. One of our friends has a nice little condo up there. So we try to make it up there whenever we can."

Despite the success of "Extreme Behavior" and its single "Lips of an Angel," Hanson and Winkler didn't feel pressured to follow that path.

"We knew that all we could do is write and record the best record that we could," Hanson said. "Actually, I thought [the recording and songwriting process] was a lot more laid back because we didn't have the label standing there looking over us breathing down our necks the whole time. They left us alone and let us do our own thing. The only pressure was really from ourselves because we're our own biggest critic."

In support of "Take It to the Limit," Hinder will headline the Jagermeister Music Tour with Rev Theory and Trapt. The jaunt, which kicks off tonight (10/24) in Magna, UT, will hit clubs throughout the US before wrapping up Dec. 20 in Cleveland.

"We felt it would be cool to just go back to the smaller venues and make the shows a little more intimate so we could reconnect with fans and they could reconnect with us as well," Hanson said "We thought that would be a cool thing to do right out of the gate."