(This interview was done with Kyle, the singer for Grade, on July 7, 2001 outside the El'N'Gee club. Someone did an interview right before me, and I'd like to thank Kyle, even though he scared the hell out of me.)

Josh Nacho: I'm going to ask you all the same questions that he just asked you.

Kyle: Are you sure?

J.N.: Yeah. I saw his notebook earlier- I took his questions.

Kyle; (laughing)

J.N.: So, I believe the first question he asked you, was he asked you on a date... I thought Ann Berreta was a girl for the longest time.

Kyle: (laughing)

J.N.: Then I was like, "No, wait, they're not girls!" But I think the Ann Berreta guy is mad at me, cause there were these two people next to me, and they were like, "Oh my God, we only came here to see you!", and I was like, "I only came here to see Grade".

Kyle: Nah, he's not mad at you.

J.N.: But I just think it was stupid to be like, "Yeah, I was only here to see you guys", you know?

Kyle: Well, I think that people are loyal to certain bands. Unfortunately, at times, they don't want to give other kinds of music and other bands a chance. You know, people who listen to metal don't want to listen to pop punk, and the punk kids don't want to listen to metal and everyone's always against each other. With us, as a band, we listen to music. In our CD booklets, you'll find Motley Crue right beside Jimmy Eat World and the Get Up Kids... and Kool Keith, and Gorillaz-- like, anything, we just love music. And that's the way it should be. It's the metaphor of "You can't always eat apples your whole life, you want something different" and music's the same way for us. And it shows in our music- that we listen to different things. People some times get a little focused on what they listen to, and then later on, they'll figure things out... They will.

J.N.: What do you think about the fact that you draw kids from all sorts of scenes- emo, punk, hardcore?

Kyle: As fast as we are accepted in all those scenes, we are hated in all those scenes. That's why we do a lot of tours with different bands. We tour with the Groovie Ghoulies, and Voodoo Glow Skulls, Snapcase, New Found Glory, Cave In, the Explosion, the Impossibles... We try to do something different. And because we like all these bands, we're hoping that maybe other people will too. And we want to try to expose ourselves to everybody because not just the hardcore kids deserve to hear us. Everyone deserves to hear us-- and/or every band. We're hoping that if bands like the Impossibles and Voodoo Glow Skulls have fans that have never heard of us, maybe they'll like us. We're just trying to open music to everybody as best we can.

J.N.: On a personal level, do you like to have diversity more at a show than playing a straight out hardcore show?

Kyle: I think it's situational. We love playing with Bane and Ensign just as much as we love playing with the Impossibles and the Movielife. Each show has its merits. On the last tour, we did us, Ensign, the Movielife and the Impossibles on a few shows, and that was awesome. We loved it because all those kids were there, and that was really cool- that's the way it should be. But unfortunately what happens is that the kids who like Ensign will go up to the front, and then when they finish playing, they go to the back, the kids who like the Movielife go up to the front, then back, and everyone switches around. Everyone's afraid of everyone else. Then there's the handful of people- I don't want to say handful, because there's probably more than I think- who like all of them. People should be given more credit than other bands give them. It would be nice for everyone to love all kinds of music, but it's never going to happen. People are too closed minded.

J.N.: You should do a country record or something, and all the hardcore kids would be like, "Wait a minute..."

Kyle: Metroshifter did that. They've always challenged people. They'll do crazy records, then they'll do a country record, and the record they have now, Scott wrote the entire record and got other bands to record the songs, and that was the Metroshifter record. That's cool. I don't think that we would blatantly go out and do a country record though. We are a hardcore band, with a lot of influences- and we show our influences. We've done acoustic songs, we've also done really metal songs. And people go, "Oh, that sucks", but Motley Crue did it... Guns'N'Roses did it... Why can't we? (laughing) It's just the way it is- Black Sabbath and Ozzy- everyone has their lighter sides and their heavier sides. Ours are just a little more extreme than most people's.

J.N.: What did you think going into releasing "the Embaressing Beginning" when you put on acoustic songs? Did you think how the hardcore kids might react?

Kyle: We don't care. It was one of those albums that came together in a week and a half while we were in Germany. Our friend Mike decided not to do his label any more, so we came home and I scrambled to find all these songs that were unreleased-- and "Seamless" was an accident. I came back and they recorded it. The bass player and the drummer didn't even know we did it, we just kind of did it, all on a whim. It was fun, and that's why we did it. We have people go, "Those songs are AMAZING", but then we also have people go "Those are terrible? How could you do that?" And it just goes to show you, people like different things. The earlier songs make me kind of squeamish when I hear them, but other people just love them. We had all these songs that were all over the place, and we didn't want people buying Victory Style 4 because our radio edit of this song was on it, and then these songs were only on this record you had to pay another ten dollars for this- it was like, fuck that, we'll put it on one record, fifteen songs, everything's done. It was more to the fact that we wanted to keep everything in print no matter what. Even if we don't play the songs any more, people still ask for them and we think it's kind of unfair that things go out of press. It seems really too pompous.

J.N.: Yeah, especially if people want them still. Otherwise, you gotta pay fifty dollars on Ebay and find a record player.

Kyle: Yeah, it's there. It's there for the kids- if they like it, they like it, if they don't, they don't. It's a collection of really weird songs.

J.N.: For hardcore songs, "Seamless" is a really great love song.

Kyle: It's actually about eating pussy.

J.N.: Is it really?

Kyle: Yes, it is. It's actually about my first experience with my girlfriend.

J.N.: You ruined it for me!

Kyle: I just spoiled it for you.

J.N.: I'll never listen to it the same way again.

Kyle: Look at the lyrics again, then you'll realize what it's really about.

J.N.: I like my interpretation better.

Kyle: (laughing)

J.N.: You're wrong! I'm right! I don't care if you wrote the song.

Kyle: It definitely is a love song, I just don't want to admit that I wrote a love song because I feel like an idiot that I did. It's an interpretation of emotion, and a situation that involves those kinds of feelings. It's a love song... The love of pussy. (laughing)

J.N.: How does it feel to be a band that isn't compared to anyone, but has bands compared to you?

Kyle: It's pretty cool. That's what any band- I think- would try and strive to-- to be influential and not easily pinned down, to be original. And if we've achieved a sense of originality in the musical world- and I'm not saying we have done that- but that's probably one of the hardest things you can do. If other people are saying we have done that, that's the greatest compliment we could ever be paid.

J.N.: It was written down some where though, so it must be true.

Kyle: Ok then, we must be a great band. If it's written down, then, it's gotta be true.

J.N.: (laughing) I think I read it on the internet too.

Kyle: (laughing) You nailed that one.

J.N.: I wanna talk about the new CD, but I wanna talk about the cover first. I saw it, and it's a cartoon.

Kyle: It's not a cartoon, it's an illustration of a scene from hell by this amazing illustrator. It is kind of bringing back the old style of artwork of album covers. You find that most album covers these days are really boring, and copies of other really boring album covers. We just wanted to bring back and have more of an influence of older records like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Motley Crue put out than something else. We love it. Just like the album itself, the artwork has gone into a new direction. Something we've always wanted to do, but we just couldn't find someone to do what we wanted to do. And I love it. It's amazing. Anyone who's seen it loves it and was kind of shocked by it at the same time. The artwork will be just as grabbing as the packaging and hopefully the music itself.

J.N.: So what's the music going to be like? Where do you really go from here?

Kyle: Believe it or not, we've actually gone some where. It was definitely the most collective set of songs we put together as a band. I think as we got two new members writing on this album- being Brad and Charles- we got toward the same direction. Whereas, "Under the Radar", you could actually see the struggle of the songs. You could see them really trying to be some where. This one is a little more congruent, and a little more focused. It's far more aggressive than anything we've ever done before. Right now, a lot of bands have gone to making their albums a little more poppy... We went and made our album a little more metal. But it still retains all the melody, and the catchy hooks-

J.N.: All the cool stuff that makes Grade cool.

Kyle: Yeah, I guess. The guitar playing is just on a different level. The drumming is the best we've had since "Seperate the Magnets", if not better. Vocally, it's really done a lot more for me, and lyrically, it's just been the biggest jump, overall, we could have made as a band. And hopefully everyone understands it, because it makes so much sense to us. But, all the shows we've played, people have said those songs sounded great, so hopefully they'll think the same thing.

J.N.: Can we talk about Canada?

Kyle: Anything you want.

J.N.: Can you take one myth about Canada, and tell me one myth that isn't true?

Kyle: Disspell the myths about Canada?

J.N.: Yeah.

Kyle: Everyone thinks it's so cold there, but we're an hour away from Chicago and Buffalo, and they get more snow than we do. Canada is the largest country in the world, so our climate is obviously going to be different in different places. It can go from beyond hot to freezing fucking cold- not in one day, but in the different seasons. What other myths? That we always say "eh", "oot" and "aboot". Fuck, I mean, the Americans have more pronunciation problems than anyone in the fucking world. It doesn't matter where you go in the world, everyone's going to have their languistic qualities. People are just boneheads and they go, "Eh? Oot and aboot?". It's like, hey, good going, why don't you just go and be an idiot. Canada's a great place to live and Americans always want to be better than everyone else. People always just focus on all the stupid things.

J.N.: Do you say mullets or hockey hair?

Kyle: Both. Mullets, hockey hair, 1090, short longs, business in the front, party in the back... There's a million things for mullets.

J.N.: Do you speak French?

Kyle: A petite ba

J.N.: A little bit?

Kyle: Yes. Basically, being in Canada, you can't avoid French. We took French- it's mandatory up 'til grade 9. And when you're around it- it's the official second language of the country- and every label has French and English on it- it's not hard to figure it out. It's just gonna be automatic.

J.N.: That's like America with Spanish now.

Kyle: Oh yeah. I think I read some statistic that 60% of the American population speak Spanish over English, and I know that there are more Spanish speaking people than English in California- officially. And that's great. I think that cultural diversity is wonderful. It just kind of gets rid of all the racist bullshit- hopefully.