Josh: Ok, I want to give you your story as best I can and you can tell me what’s real and what’s not. 

 

Ryan: Ok.

 

Josh:  So basically you and Evan from Cross My Heart came together with Matt from Strike Anywhere, but I’m not up to date yet about your new guy.

 

Ryan:  The new guy was in Cross My Heart also.   His name’s Chris Camden.  We just got him in November.  Matt’s away a lot and we were just worried.  We wanted to have someone else.  There might be some times- depending on his schedule, if it gets busy- where we might do some shows as a three piece.  I don’t really want to, but as a last resort, like if a really great show comes up.  We were a three piece to start. 

 

Josh: Is it also just to kind of fill it out because Matt did bass and some guitars on the CD?

 

Ryan:  Yeah, he did some guitar tracks on the record too.  He’s essentially a guitar player.  Originally he wanted to move to guitar.

 

Josh: But you told him no.

 

Ryan: (laughing) We just wanted to get started, and it sounded cool when we started.  Now that we’re all touring every night, it’s nice to have another guy to vocals and back ups.  It frees me up too a little bit, because if you notice, I sing and there’s hardly any times when I’m not.  I can’t keep my mouth shut.  It’s cool, it helps me a lot.

 

Josh: I noticed you had to do some of the backing vocals at the same time as the vocals.

 

Ryan: Yeah.  It’s weird.

 

Josh: You got the “whoa whoa whoa”’s. 

 

Ryan:  Yeah, totally.  I was like, “Can’t you guys do that one little thing?” and they’re like “But you do it better”, so I’m dying.  It’s cool.  It works out. 

 

Josh: I want to shift gears, and I want to talk about your label.

 

Ryan:  All right.

 

Josh: Cross My Heart was on Deep Elm, which is known for being kind of the rock/emo label.  Matt, with Strike Anywhere, is on Jade Tree, which is also kind of a rock/emo label.  Now you’re on Equal Vision, which is known for being a hardcore label.  How is it to be on EVR, as opposed to going back to Deep Elm or going to Jade Tree or something more along a label of those sorts?

 

Ryan: It wasn’t too much of a shock- I don’t think- for those guys to put out a rock record.  But, I think ours is more of a stretch than the other ones.  The other ones had more hardcore elements, but ours is really a melodic rock record.  I never thought of Equal Vision as the label to go to.  It wasn’t like, “Let’s do a new band and get on EVR”.  And then when we talked to them, it’s like, these guys were really awesome, we like what they’re doing, and you know what, it’ll be a fresh start.  We know what it’s like being on Deep Elm.  These guys offered us a way better deal than those guys do, plain and simple.  They were way, way nice and they were totally stoked. 

 

Josh: Personally, I think that they push their bands a lot harder.

 

Ryan:  Yeah, they’ve done a lot for us.  More than anyone has ever done for me personally.  I’m totally happy with them.  They made a postcard with my face on it already, so that’s cool. 

 

Josh:  I like the diversity too.  They just have such diverse music, as opposed to just relying on one type of sound.

 

Ryan:  Yeah.  That’s what they try to do.  They have a lot of hardcore bands, and that’s awesome, but they want to add some different things in there too, which I think is great.  It was really fun when we got to play with Converge and Bane and Fairweather and Rocking Horse Winner.  That was really, really diverse.  I think it’s gonna work out.  I think if this was five years ago and we did it on EVR, people might not have responded as well.  They’d be like, “What is this crap? What is this radio rock shit?”  But it seems like the community has opened up a lot. 

 

Josh: This is a question that I’m going to steal from Prevent Falls and give to you.  Since you came to EVR, it’s kind of been Rocking Horse Winner, Time in Malta, Coheed, Prevent Falls, they seem to be adding a lot of bands.

 

Ryan:  A lot of new stuff.

 

Josh:  Do you have any worries about all these guys coming out at once?

 

Ryan:  Yeah, and then our record gets lost in the shuffle… A little bit.  But we’ve talked to them, and I’ve made an expression to them.  They say we’re one of the priority bands.  They put a lot into us- a lot on money and a lot on time.  I know Dan, his quote is “We’re gonna die trying to get people to hear this record”. 

 

Josh: I will too.

 

Ryan:  Everyone that’s working this record believes in it.  I really want people to hear it.  It’s the record I’m most proud of.  I know everyone says that about their new record, but I really feel a good vibe with this band.  It’s a lot of fun.  It’s a good band.  We’ll see what happens.  We’ll see where it’s at in a year.  {The main goal of any band is just for people to hear your songs.  However big or small it stays, we’ll see.}  The other bands, I’m sure they’re going to do well too. 

 

Josh:  I think it’s good because it’s kind of poppy, but not too poppy.  And it’s kind of catchy, but not too catchy.  I mean, I can sing along to all the words but that’s only because I’ve listened to it a million times. 

 

Ryan: A lot of people say it’s not a record that you get on the first listen.  That, really, to me is a compliment because any record that you love after the first listen, usually gets shelved after a while.  Usually it’s the records that after a while you realize, “Man, this is it”.  Those are the records that are always amazing and end up being your mainstays in your CD player.  You’re gonna see a lot of bands, and sure there’s a lot of Saves the Day clones, but what’s unique is my voice is kind of deep.  A lot of these guys sound like kids to me.  And that’s not a bad thing but that seems to be the trend- as high as you can sing and as cute as you are.  It’s like, I’m a man.  I’m an old guy. (laughing)

 

Josh: (laughing)

 

Ryan:  I sing the way I sing and hope people accept it.  I think that kind of gives it a different edge too. 

 

Josh: I know what I did, was I went through and listened to it, and pulled out a couple different songs at first.  Like I know “the Brickwall Will Always Win” was one right away I liked.

 

Ryan: Oh really?

 

Josh:  Yeah.  And then I kind of got each song there after until I just fell in love with the whole CD.  And I know that the last CD I really did that with was “Full Collapse”.

 

Ryan:  That’s an awesome record.   But yeah, you listen to it and a couple of songs catch your ear, and then you play it again and the other ones start to too.  What’s funny is a lot of these songs were going to be the next Cross My Heart record.  I wrote the songs, and then that band broke up, and I was like, “Man, we got these bunch of songs and just because we jam with them it doesn’t mean we have to kill them”.  So we got together with Matt and started writing. The next Cross My Heart record I really wanted to be more upbeat and more rockin’ because if you ever heard the last record, “Temporary Contemporary”, it’s a real downer.  It’s such a bummer record.  I was like, man, there’s two rock songs on that record and everything else is so mellow, let’s liven it up a little.   The new name, the new band, kind of brought out some life into it because that band was really becoming a drag.  So we just kind of reinvented ourselves. I’m really happy with it.

 

Josh: I think we really need something now that’s not that run of the mill generic pop punk, but yet, also, not hardcore.  I think we need a good inbetween. 

 

Ryan:  Yeah, I think that’s what we are- we’re like the inbetween band.  I don’t really know where we fit. 

 

Josh:  When it comes to the really poppy stuff, I don’t like that, but I like hardcore.  But it’s the bands that fall inbetween there that I like the most.

 

Ryan:  The ones you can’t really pigeonhole right off the bat.  Who wants to hear a billion Saves the Days?  I actually like their new record more than their older stuff because it’s more rockin’, I think they’re kind of falling into their own thing even though they’re huge and that song you can’t get out of your damn head.  A couple of years ago, everyone sounded like Sunny Day Real Estate and now everyone sounds like Saves the Day.  Those seem to be the bands that get on our bills.  It’s cool though, to each their own.  Hopefully they’ll find their own thing. 

 

Josh: Is there any kind of significance behind the name the Liars Academy?

 

Ryan:  Not really.  Honestly, I wanted to call it the Liars Club and there was a band with that name already, so Evan’s like, “Let’s just call it the Liars Academy”.  I really like this liars thing, you know, Cross My Heart is like the opposite. It was just this nice thing, so it was like, “Let’s make a tough band.  Let’s be bastards and go for the mean name”.  It was kind of cool.  It was a contrast to flipping it around from before. But there’s really no other reason for it.  We just liked it. 

 

Josh:  There is actually a band called the Liars.

 

Ryan: Yeah, and there’s Liars Inc.  There’s a lot of bands with “liars” in their name.

 

Josh:  A lot of people lie these days.

 

Ryan:  Yeah, there’s a lot of liars.   But I think the “academy” blows it off.  It looks good.

 

Josh: It’s one of those names you look at, and you’re like, “Yeah, that’s a band”. 

 

Ryan: You want a name that’s just solid.  You want a rock name.  I think it fits well. 

 

Josh: Now, I know it hasn’t been that long since “No News is Good News” came out, but are you thinking about another CD yet?

 

Ryan: Always.  Man, we got little practice amps and on the long drives we just work on new stuff.  We did it today.  We have so many ideas for the new record and they are awesome.  We just sit around and sing along and do melodies.  I can’t wait.  I’m trying to get these guys to do it.  I’m like, “Let’s do the next one now! I’m ready!” They’re like, “Hold on, hold on, we still got this record to deal with”.  We’ll hopefully have it out just a little over a year after this one came out, which was November.  So hopefully in November we’ll have it out, but it might be in January.  If it was up to me, you’d have it in like, three months.  We’ll be doing demos soon, so hopefully by the summer we’ll be getting there.

 

Josh: Why do you have the line “St. Louis is a long way home from here”, if you’re from Baltimore?

 

Ryan: Well, St. Louis was the beginning of the end for Cross My Heart.  We got in a huge, huge fight and I think we all kind of knew then that we were gonna end that band.  When we got back from the tour, we took a couple of months off and we were going to try to get it up again, but all the old things started happening again.  I literally punched a wall and fucked up my hand.  It was messed up for months and I think I broke a couple of bones.  It was bad.  So, not everyone knows we’re from Baltimore and it’s a cool line. 

 

Josh: So it’s a lie!

 

Ryan:  It’s a lie.  There are a lot of lies on the record.

 

Josh: Try to find them all, 41 in total.