Although today’s release of it’s debut album Impact might indicate that Eye Empire is a new band, the heavy metal heritage of its members says otherwise. Anchored by former Dark New Day bandmates Corey Lowery (also of Stuck Mojo and Stereomud) and B.C. Kochmit, the band also features former Submersed singer Donald Carpenter and former Texas Hippie Coalition drummer Ryan Bennett. Together, these four musicians (and occasionally some of their friends) now proudly wave the Eye Empire flag as they continue the next chapter of their collective hard rock journey. As the band continues its tour, leading into summer support dates with Nonpoint and Seether, Carpenter takes a moment to talk to Wrestling with Pop Culture about the empowering imagery and themes on the two-disc Impact release, the band’s formation and more.

Eye Empire’s debut album Impact is out today. How does this release compare to the independently released Moment of Impact?

There are some tracks that have been released on a limited basis on some collector’s issues that we’ve put out independently so far. Some of those songs did make the final version of the album. The first 1,000 we printed were hand signed and hand numbered. We did that so each CD would be unique and once those sold out after the first month and a half, we decided to do a second run of 1,001-2,000 where we changed the artw0rk and actually included some photos of anybody who bought the first album in the artwork. We changed out three songs on each of those collector’s issues, so the track listing varied a little bit and there were some new songs on the second thousand. It’s been a way for us to promote our band and give our fans from the beginning something to give them patience as we build this behind the scenes. In the end, it makes it kind of unique with the collector’s discs because there’s only a few of them out there.

The completed album is a two-disc album. What all is included on that?

The cool thing about it is it’s kind of the culmination of everybody’s faith, love, respect and support from these first three years. Each little CD and each little word-of-mouth thing that’s come along has helped build to this disc, and that’s turned into 19 studio tracks, three acoustic versions and two live recordings. So five of the new tracks are actually like bonus material.

The CD cover and other imagery are interesting, with this very unifying flag and whatnot. What was the inspiration behind Impact‘s aesthetic?

The concept is that we want our fanbase to have an identity. We realize what our place is in this, and I think that’s kind of understood from the beginning with everybody involved. I don’t think music’s about inflating the ego of the band, I think it’s about bringing the fans up to our level. We wanted our fanbase to have an identity and we found that identity within the Empire itself. We wanted to keep it simple and clean and put out the colors. Those are our colors, that’s our flag, that’s what represents our fanbase and represents us as a band.

The title Impact is about what we want our music to be about, and that’s about making an impact. It’s about writing music we can relate to and find refuge in, but it’s also about empowerment and giving the fans an identity.

Eye Empire features former members of Stuck Mojo, Dark New Day, Submersed and other bands, and you’ve worked with some of the guys from Sevendust. How did you all come together to create this band?

All of that helped us have some familiarity with each other. We were always about one degree of separation apart and we went through our little experiences and all of those led to Empire. For whatever reason, Dark New Day came to an end around the time that Submersed came to an end for me and Switched came to an end for Brad [Kochmit]. It took them a few years to find me, but those guys worked together for three or four years and put together some music and were searching for the voice. So three years ago on Halloween I came in and got involved. We feel like all of that was for this and it was all the experience and growth we needed to get to this point.

Lajon Witherspoon and Morgan Rose from Sevendust also contributed to this album. How did they get involved?

Well, Corey’s brother is Clint, who is the founding guitarist for Sevendust. Corey grew up very close to all of those guys. Morgan and Lajon live in Atlanta, which is where Corey’s studio is based. When Corey and Brad got together and started jamming on some of their early music, they needed someone to fill in on the drum set. Morgan happened to be off the road at that time and he enjoys playing music, so he sat in and jammed a little bit. When we started to record the first part of the record, it only felt natural for him to come in and complete the process on some of those early song. LJ was one of those situations where the brotherhood was growing and he’s been somebody I’ve respected for a long time coming up as a vocalist. We were in the studio working together on some other things and the opportunity came up, so we had fun with it. It’s kind of a cool way to show how carefree the process is. We’re really just a lot of people who have a lot of respect for each other and we have a lot of friends that we respect a lot who have high abilities and we thought it would be fun to make a record we could all enjoy.

You guys have done a lot of touring recently and will be on the road a lot this summer. What do you have planned for the shows you have coming up?

Yeah, we’ve been touring for about ten months playing some headlining dates. We went out with Mushroomhead, Wayne Static and Sevendust last year. We’ve played some shows with Volbeat and Five Finger Death Punch over the last few months. On July 28 we’re playing Band Camp in Madison, Wisconsin, then we hit the road with Nonpoint and Call Me No One for about six weeks before we head out with Seether, Sick Puppies and Kyng, which we’re all friends with so we’re excited about that.

I don’t think I’ve had a chance to see Eye Empire live yet, so…

I can promise you one thing; if you did  you would know. It’s all about energy. Like I said, it’s about bringing the fans up to our plane. Sometimes we feel a little insignificant out there and it’s about inflating the ego of the rock star. But for us it couldn’t be any more opposite. It’s about us coming out there and celebrating the fans being present, bringing their energy and being such an integral part of keeping music alive. That’s what it is; it’s a celebration of the fans and our love for music.

For more information, go to www.eyeempire.com.