(This was done on June 9, 2002 outside a show at the El-N-Gee Club.  Recognize one of the best bands of our time.  Recognize.)

 

Josh: I’m going to start with kind of an easy question, but you’re a three piece band.  Which is rare these days because I think a lot of bands get more elaborate with more people in their band.  They have singers just singing and three guitarists and who knows what else.

Fred:  Yeah yeah yeah.

Josh: Do you find it hard not having two guitars and not having just a singer because, God forbid, you have to actually play and sing at the same time?

Fred:  At this point,  we’re definitely used to but it was something that we had to think about in the beginning.  And we definitely worried more about our sounds than I think we would have to if we had more people.  We’re very critical when we’re playing live of our volumes, making sure that it’s full enough and yet that you can still hear everybody.  I kind of play big guitar chords as it is, so it works out kind of nicely and basically it just makes us more straight forward.  I don’t know if I said anything there.

Will:  I guess I would just add that I sort of take pride in being able to do what other bands do with fewer members.  People always come up to us and say “I can’t believe you’re just a three piece, you have such a full sound”.  It’s kind of cool as just the three of us.  We get everything done that we need to. 

Fred:  The playing and singing is just a practice thing. 

Josh:  Is it funny for you though when other bands have people that just sing?

Fred: Well, I understand that everybody has different things that they do and I’ve had bands where I don’t sing, but it was best for me to be in charge of the singing and the guitar playing and to write both.   That’s why I like it.  As far as another guitar, we’ve considered whether we should get a second guitarist and at this point we don’t see any reason to.  We like it how it is. 

Josh:  It’s good the way it is.  It’s like, other bands have twice as many members but aren’t nearly as good.  I saw this band once that had either five or six people in it and it was just some really bad pop punk, and I was like, “How many pop punk people does it take to make this band suck?”.  There were just three guitars running around and a singer.  

Fred:  Yeah, we have a lot of fun with what we do.  Three people also makes it easier with touring.  We don’t have a trailer, we just tour in this machine (points to van) and have enough room to sleep in it and everything... All our gear and everything.  It’s cool.

Josh:  It’s not that common now though. 

Fred:  Nah.

Will: We always get the power trio comment, and everyone’s always like, “Yeah, a power trio finally coming around!”.  I take pride in it.  It’s cool, I think it is. 

Josh: Let’s talk about Undecided Records now.  They’re an interesting label because their web site is not working.

(everyone laughs)

Fred:  That’s awesome.  Yeah, we know that.

Josh:  Yeah, I’m sure that’s not the first time you’ve heard that one. 

Will:  It wasn’t the first time we’ve heard that.  We’ve said that.

Josh:  Undecided Records is an interesting label because one of the bands that they’re known for- when I think of Undecided Records- is As the Sun Sets and they’re kind of the opposite of you.  And as opposed to where you have Vagrant, which is known as pop punk and labels like Victory that’s typically a hardcore label, Undecided is a pretty suiting name for them, I think, because they don’t really have a choice sound. 

Fred:  That’s true.  Those guys conciously do that.  They told me when I met them that they don’t want to have a sound that sounds like Undecided and their new attitude is really geared towards bands and music rather than their name.  They want their bands to get big, not themselves.  They’re definitely more concerned with that.  It’s been really good for us being on that label because although there are definitely bigger labels, being with Undecided, we get all the attention.  We get a large percentage of the attention that they give and the ads.  They really spend a lot of time, basically forty hours a week they spend, and a lot of it gets devoted towards us.  Especially now that As the Sun Sets broke up.  That was a factor.  But yeah, it’s two guys down in Florida.  They work in their house and pretty much all they do is the label.  It’s been a help to us so far.   We’re plannning to stick with them for a little while and see what happens.  That’s the current thing.

Josh:  Do you ever think about though not really neccesarily this year and maybe not even next year, but just some time down the line going to a bigger label?  Something like, Equal Vision, not something big like Universal or MCA. 

Fred:  Yeah.  We’ve definitely talked about whether that would be better for us.  And it’s hard to say because a lot of those labels have so many bands that we wouldn’t be treated the same.  It would help us to have more exposure, but we’re fairly happy right now.  We’ve been able to experience a decent amount of success without a bigger label.  When I was growing up in punk that was kind of more common in bands like Jawbreaker, Samiam were on labels that no one knew of.  All had their own label.  Things like that were pretty popular in those days. Not on Revelation, not on Dischord, or not on any of the good labels back then.   I like that.  I like being able to call Cliff just about every day and talk to him to see what’s going on and getting his full attention.   That’s the reason we’re doing this now.  And I imagine there will come a time where we grow, that we may move on.  Every band wants to grow.  We definitely want to do all that we can.   That’s all in the future.  It’s a little bit of time down the road. 

Josh:  You know what I think would be a really good idea for you to kind of keep the same label and to keep the same position now, but then to kind of get more exposure of a bigger label without being on one, would be to just put out an EP on EVR, but not actually sign to there. 

Fred:  We’ve actually talked to bands who are on some of those labels about doing splits and stuff like that.  I think something like that will definitely happen.  This coming winter you’ll see some sort of release like that from us, it’s pretty definite.  That’s definitely-- you’re on our wavelength here. 

Josh:  It’s just that, that way you don’t have to be on a label like that because there are definitely downsides to being on a label like that. 

Fred: You can get caught in for many albums and that’s a risk. 

Josh:  And then there’s more bands, so it’s kind of easier to blend in and they can lose focus on you.  And with Undecided, it’s like, you. 

Fred: We went down to 23 on the CMJ charts but we’ve been on there for four months now.  The record sells pretty well, and yet, it’s on a label that not many people know about.   So that’s cool with us.   We’re basically trying to grow this coming year.  We’re going on tour this coming week and we’re basically going to be full time. We’re quitting our jobs and giving as much time as we can to our jobs.  We leave Thursday for California and we’ll be out for almost a month.  Then at the end of July, we are going on tour with Further Seems Forever and that should be a good tour for us.  I have high hopes.  Then in the fall, same thing, just touring the whole time.  That’s what we’re trying to do.   Anything else, Will?

Will: No, I think you’ve covered a lot of ground. 

Fred:  I just probably answered a hundred questions. 

Will: Except the one that he asked. 

Josh:  If I had my notepad, I’d be crossing stuff out right now.  But my notepad’s in my car so I can’t do that.   This is going to sound weird to say if you look inside the place right now, but you’re actually a really popular band.   Just in the fact that, your name is every where I think.  Your name is always on sites.  The first time I heard of you, I saw you listed on a show and you were playing with bands I like, so I was like, well, they gotta be good, so I started listening to MP3s and stuff.  And it’s like, you’re still all over sites for shows and stuff.  We have cthardcore.com has show listings and it’s a good place to find a lot of show listings, and you think it’d be just CT shows, but they have shows all over now and a lot of them are for PA.  So I see your name a lot, but it’s always for PA shows, never for CT.   Even on Friday, I went to Larchmont, NY, which is a great place.  No, it’s not really.   But there was actually a kid there that had one of your shirts on.  But it’s like, if you go to a show there’s usually at least one person with a shirt on.

Will: Awesome.

Josh: And bands know who you are. 

Will:  Some times we don’t realize it because we’re just three dudes that live in Philadelphia.  We go to practice and tour and try to play shows as much as we can, but we don’t realize that anyone would know our band, we just consider ourselves to be three guys.   But, then last night we were in NY and we were playing a show with the Stryder and some other local Long Island bands and a friend of ours from the area was like, “Yeah, the Jimmy Eat World web site, you guys have this crazy long post on their message board”, and I was like, what are you talking about?  And he was like, “Yeah, any where you go, any where on the internet, put up your band’s name, put up Breaking Pangaea, and everyone will say how much they love you guys”.  I was like, that’s crazy.  I mean, we hear things like that and people say, “You guys are getting huge” and I’m just like, I don’t see it.  Things are going well, I know that, but I think we some times underappreciate it.

Fred:  I think that some times we do notice it.  People who do like us are pretty loyal and into it though.  I think that’s due to the fact that we’re on a smaller label.  And the fact that we had to earn most of what we have gotten.  We’ve been around two years now and we’ve played two hundred shows.  We’re constantly working at the band and the music as well.  I think that’s why the people who know about us, they like us a little extra ‘cause they know that we’ve worked to get where we’ve gotten. 

Will:  No one’s ever told us that they bought our CD because it was on Undecided Records.   They bought it because they like us. 

Josh:  That’s another downside to being on a bigger label, is that bands when they get signed to a label like Equal Vision, people who listen to EVR will listen to the band simply because they got signed to EVR.  They won’t really know who they are, they’ll just be like, well, the EVR bands are “cool”. 

Fred:  Right, and I don’t know how long something like that will last.   If you don’t like the band because of the band, how long is the band gonna be around?   You don’t know. 

Josh: That’s the kind of thing where one day someone just looks up and says, “Why am I listening to this?” and everyone else is like, “Yeah, this is pretty bad”.   But I think that a good sign to tell that you guys are really popular too is that you played a couple nights ago with Coheed, who is one of the big bands right now.  Coheed is a band that is really blowing up right now, where they’re like, every where you turn. 

Fred: Definitely.  And it happened really quick for them.  And they totally deserve it because they’re really great musicians and really nice guys.  They’re some of our best friends.  But I would be scared if we blew up as fast as they did.   We actually took them out on tour the first time they went on tour this past December.  And now, six months later, look how big they are.  When we went on tour with them before, they didn’t have a record out.  I’m happy about the natural growth of things and I think the future is looking exciting to me.  It’s something I’m definitely looking forward to.

Josh:  I wanna know a lot actually about Philadelphia and a music scene, because I don’t know a whole lot about Philadelphia.  I don’t know a whole lot about PA.  When I think PA, the only thing that really comes to mind is pahardcore.com. 

Will: I don’t think that pahardcore.com represents PA very well, at least Philadelphia.  I don’t know many people that check there for shows in Philadelphia.  As for the scene though, it’s a pretty rough scene.  There are a lot of fights, moreso than usual.  And at shows like the Get Up Kids.  Silly stuff like that does happen.  But it’s hard for local bands and smaller touring bands to really have good shows just because the people in Philadelphia are usually very busy.  There’s so much competition on any given night.  There’s so many things happening because it’s such a huge city-- it’s like the fifth largest city.  So that one show that weekend has to compete with all the other shows that night and then all of the other shows that weekend that people are putting their money towards all week.  But, when there is a good show, the kids do come out and they do have a good time. 

(This is when Clint stops by)

Fred:  When the big bands come to town like the Get Up Kids or At-the-Drive-In or Dashboard, there’s an enormous amount of people that come out.  Dashboard will play two nights.  Same with Face to Face and the Movielife, who played together.  Two nights at the huge fifteen hundred person place.  So there are definitely people that like that music, but I don’t know if they’re as supportive of the local scene as Washington D.C. is.  There aren’t a lot of all ages places.  There was a guy- Shawn Agnew- and he was setting up shows at the big warehouse spot and they were the best shows.  It was really happening for a year.  But every where he went, he got shut down.  And the city just wasn’t making it very easy for him.  And there weren’t a lot of people working with him.  So, ever since he slowed down it’s been a little harder for touring bands, I think.  We feel good about Philly, on the other hand, we’re a band that is fortunate enough to do well in our hometown.    We got Little League and right across the bridge is the June Spirit.  Any other happening Philly acts?

Will: It’s kind of rough.  If you want to talk about Late Night Desperate, some friends of ours, the English System.  These are all bands that are dealing with what we dealt with  a year and a half ago.  Hand over fist trying to get shows here and there and any where.

Fred:  I don’t know if we described it as being that great.

Will: Yeah, it sounds really negative but we all have a good time.   We feel very at home.

Fred:  When we play it’s definitely fun and when a big band comes to town it’s lots of fun. But then like, what’s a show you’ve been to when no one comes?

Will:  I don’t know.  There are just a lot of shows.  Some times they’ll do a Sunday show in a bar all ages.  It’s just really hard to bring kids out.   They were doing venue shows and shows in basements and things like that but it’s just harder to get kids out some times to smaller, local shows.  Some kids are trying hard to make the scene thrive as best as they can.   But it’s really rough, it’s really a hard thing to do.   It’s awesome that people are trying and I hope that in the next few years things start to pick up and we start to get more support.   It just needs support.  There are a lot of good kids, there are a lot of good bands coming through and within the area, but it just needs more support. 

Josh:  Now, I’m going to give you something that is not good but, you’re not pop punk and you’re not hardcore.   So what people want to put you as... People want to call you “emo”.

Fred:  Of course.

Josh:  If someone was doing an interview with you and asked, “How does it feel to be an emo band?”, do you just punch them in the face?  How do you respond to something like that? 

Fred: Different members of our band feel differently.  I don’t care.  I think if they call us that then fine.  I think that just about everbody in the punk scene hates to be called that, even the most emo band, which could be us.  We try to skirt the issue and say we’re just a rock band.  But I think that we have elements of Sunny Day Real Estate and Fugazi, but I think that we also have elements of stuff that really, really rocks, like Will is really influenced by Dave Grohl on the drums.   I love David Lee Roth.   So that brings a totally different element that makes us different.  I don’t think that there is a band out there doing what we do right now, as far as our songs and guitar playing and drumming and as far as being a three piece-- you’re not going to find a band that’s doing what we’re doing.  No one likes to be catagorized, basically.   But I don’t care what you call us.  Just tell me if you like it or not. 

Josh: (turns to Will) And then you hit people. 

Will: No, I don’t hit people.  You can call us anything you want, that doesn’t really matter.  We still sound the same no matter what you call it.  And people are either going to like it or not like it.   If “emo” stands for emotional, then yeah, I guess we are that since I put everything I have into what I do.  And I’m certainly passionate about it.  If that’s the description then I think it fits perfectly.  Sure, it sounds like a really wussy word which I don’t really like. 

Josh:  But then all music is really emo because everything is influenced by some kind of emotion even if you just have the feeling of “I’m going to make this CD so I can make a million dollars”, that’s still the emotion that you’re feeling.

Will:  Greed is an emotion.

Josh: Yeah.  Greed can be an emotion.  But I think that right now emo is kind of like a label of death.  

Fred:  The word just sounds so stupid that kinda kills it right away.  If you say metal, that sounds cool. 

Will:  We’ll all about kicking ass, on stage that is.

Josh:  And if anyone calls you emo.

(everyone laughs)

Josh:  What comes next?

Fred:  We, um, actually... (whispers) Should I tell him about the baby?

Will: Sure.

Fred:  I had a baby seven weeks ago, so we were taking a short break.  Now we’re touring throughout the whole rest of the year, pushing “Cannon to a Whisper”.

Josh:  Which is available now. 

Fred:  Yes.   We’re going to be doing that until-

Will: We die.

(Josh laughs)

Fred: Until the end of the year.  We’re hoping to have some sort of split come out and early summer or late spring next year we’ll have another full length coming out on Undecided.  And we’re just basically going to keep pushing it until then and never stop.   We’re definitely going to hit every where between now and December.