Josh:  I want to give you this first because it will probably be the worst thing I have to ask you.  It’s probably something you get a lot of right now. 

Jason:  Are you going to make fun of us?

Josh:  No, not at all.    You actually signed to Revelation a little while ago.   I hear that you have all this pressure or something to put out a new CD for them.  How is that coming exactly? 

Jason:  It’s going well.  We’re just writing songs.   We’re not under any pressure at all.  I think we’re doing the Shai Hulud thing and taking three years to write an album.  They’re totally chill.  When we signed with them, we didn’t have anything written.   We have about five songs.  We’re just trying to make an awesome record.  We’re trying to make the best record we’ve ever made.    The funniest thing is, they signed us as a hardcore band and we’re going to put out an album that isn’t hardcore at all.   So I don’t even know if anyone’s going to like it.  

Josh:  Because it’s going to be ska?

Jason:  It’s kind of ska mixed with ska.  Which hasn’t happened in a while.   It’s just straight up ska.

Josh:  I heard this rumor that you brought in six horn players for this album.

Jason:  We did, but they’re strictly ska.   There’s no pop punk mixed in it.  We think it’s something more original.   We’re all going to wear suits.  There’ll be pyrotechnics.  It’ll be a big production.   When was the last time you saw a ska band with pyrotechnics?

Josh:  And dancing.

Jason: Yeah, and Danzig actually.   No dancing, but Danzig.  Glenn Danzig is actually going to be singing on 75% of the album.  

Josh:  So it’s like ska with death metal mixed in?

Jason: Well, it’s ska with Danzig.    We haven’t heard from Danzig in a while, he’s actually doing strictly ska right now.   He moved to Jamaica.   He has dreadlocks now. 

Josh:  That was the best way to kind of answer that question without actually answering it.   Without really providing any information.

Jason:  Really, it’s coming along.   We’re writing and we’re trying to chill out.  Not play as many shows.   Because we haven’t practiced in so long.   We’re actually trying to practice and be a quality band, as opposed to just playing all the time.    The thing is being able to write new songs instead of playing the same fucking set every night.  So we’re chillin’ out. 

Josh:  Ok, we’ll get away from that now.    Clair thinks On the Might of Princes is a stupid name. 

Jason:  It kind of is a stupid name.  

Josh:  Can you tell her that Clair’s a stupid name?

Jason: I don’t think that Clair’s a stupid name.

[Clair’s big moment edited, ha ha]

(Jason burps)

Josh:  I’m going to put that on Audio Galaxy or something as a new On the Might of Princes song. 

Jason:  You’ll have to copyright it.

Josh:  I’ll put it up there with like, four minutes of dead air so people think it’s a real song.

Jason:  It’ll be like, “This is our new song, ‘Blahhhhhhhhhhtttttttt’”. 

(everyone’s laughing)

Jason:  We’re doing a lot of vocal training for the album.  A lot of belching.   It’s just going to be experiemental bodily functions.   I don’t feel many bands have tapped into the bodily functions.

Josh:  I definitely don’t think anyone’s capitolized on it the way that they could have. 

Jason:  There’s so much you could do with bodily functions.  

Josh: We need bodily function-core for sure. 

Jason:  I’m singing the entire alphabet in a belch. 

Josh:  I just wanna see kids dancing and farting at the same time. 

Jason:  We’re sick of English.

Josh:  Well, there’s really only so much you can say...

Jason:  And we said it all.   Now we’re going to let our asses do the talking. 

(This is literally a five minute break worth of laughing.  Either that or Jason walked away.)

Josh:  You’re actually from that Long Island area.  Do you think it’s weird now that Long Island has kind of become a hot spot with bands like Taking Back Sunday down to From Autumn to Ashes, who are kind of on opposite ends of the musical spectrum?

Jason:  I hope we can do this without talking too much shit.

Josh:  Do you hate everyone in Long Island or something?

Jason:  No.  I don’t hate everybody in Long Island.  Long Island is a really weird place to be from.  It’s really isolated from everything else.  I used to be in a band with the drummer from From Autumn to Ashes.  I think we’re getting a lot of slack right now from the Long Island community.  I think people are trying to find their niche and what they want to be a part of.  The only thing you can really be a part of when you live in Long Island is part of Long Island.  The only thing around us is New York.   It’s an awkward place.  It’s a big shopping mall.   I feel we’re at a weird point, being from Long Island.  None of the scenes are really happy with us. 

Josh:  Except for the ska scene.

Jason:  Yeah, except for the ska scene.  Actually, when we first started out we pretty much played strictly ska shows.   No one in the scene would allow us to do otherwise.

Josh:  So you’re the biggest ska band in Long Island?

Jason:  Yeah.  All the d.i.y. kids and punk kids who talk shit about us now, talked shit about us a couple of years ago when they were ska kids.   But Long Island is just weird.  The punk kids are unhappy because we signed with Rev.   The hardcore kids aren’t happy because we’re not really a part of the hardcore community.   We’re not very... macho.

Josh:  Tough guy.

Jason:  Yeah.  We’ve never really been able to feel like we belong.  And when we did belong, I think it was for reasons that weren’t about the music we played or the people that we are, but rather the basements that we played.   I think the people that are talking shit haven’t really had a chance to talk to us as people.   

Josh:  I like your name because it abbreviates nicely to OTMOP.

Jason:  None of us agree with the term OTMOP.

Josh:  Why?

Jason:  At the Creep house there is a mop and on the mop it says OTMOP. 

Clair:  So that’s how you got your name.

Jason:  And that’s how we got our name.    We wondered how we could stretch it out. 

Josh:  So I’m the only one who likes OTMOP?  It’s actually POMTO backwards.

Jason.  Uh huh.  All right. 

Josh:  I like OTMOP though.

Jason:  Thank you.

Josh:  I like names that if they’re long, you can abbreviate them and they can spell fun things.   Most names are abbreviated and just come out as a bunch of letters without vowels and you can’t really say them.

Jason:  The abbreviation is ok.  It’s the pronunciation of the abbreviation.  Like, you don’t call DRI “dry”. 

Josh:  But I call From Autumn to Ashes “Fata”. 

Jason:  All right.   They’d probably be upset and make fun of your haircut.

Josh:  They’d probably kick my ass.   It’d be like, “You like to call us Fata?  Not any more you don’t!”

Jason:  They’d make you get a star tattoo. 

Josh:  It’d be like, “Hey, you’re in Fata!”... “What?” ... “Stop kicking me!!”

(lots of laughing)

Josh:  I think one of the most interesting things about your band that you kind of touched on before is that you have an appeal to kind of both the hardcore kids and the emo or pop punk kids, whatever they’re called.

Jason:  Yeah, we think it’s great we can appeal to someone who listens to Korn, Limp Bizkit, System of a Down or whatever, and then the complete opposite too.  It’s like, um...

Clair:  It’s like you make unity.

Jason:  Exactly.

Josh:  Great, now I can’t edit what Clair said.    On your site, you have a link to the Adventures of Pete and Pete.

Jason:  Yeah.

Clair:  That show’s back on now.

Jason:  Is it?

Clair:  Yeah, on Noggin.

Jason:  What is it?

Clair:  Noggin. 

Josh:  It’s a version of Nickelodeon.   They play like, Clarissa Explains It All and Daria too.

Jason:  I don’t know if I get that.  I might, I just got a new cable box. 

Josh:  Did you see the episode when little Pete has his favorite song?  He like, walks by this garage and a band is playing a song that gets stuck in his head, but then when he goes back there they’re not there any more.  So he gets a guitar and goes through like, every chord until he can remember the song. 

Jason:  That’s like the other day when I was trying to remember the first popular Papa Roach song. 

(Jason goes to buy drinks.  When he comes back, somehow we’re talking about the New Found Glory video when Ian is getting pizza delivered to him as he’s playing.)

Josh:  That’s the video with the girls wearing shirts that say “Typical video girls” or whatever.

Jason:  Yeah, and New Found Glory’s wearing shirts that say “Typical pop punk band”.

Josh:  “Typical Blink 182 band”.

Jason:  Yeah.  See, I’m allowed to make fun of New Found Glory, because they’re on Mtv. 

(We determine that no one likes New Found Glory any more.)

Josh:  Ok, so Pete’s got this song, and he’s trying to figure it out...

Jason:  I do remember that episode.

Josh: Will you in fact cover either that song or the theme song to the Adventures of Pete and Pete?

Jason:  No, but we will cover the first popular Papa Roach song.