Josh: What is it about New Jersey that makes people want to start bands?
Jeff: I think it’s the fact that a whole lot of people live in Jersey- it’s really jam packed with people. New Jersey is kind of rich and the area that we’re from is kind of like upper class, and a lot of kids when they’re richer they have more power and they can do more things that are odd. I mean, how rich is Saves the Day and stuff?
Nash: I don’t see that Jersey is much different than any place else.
Jeff: I think it’s just the amount of people there and Jersey’s close enough to New York City that a lot of the big touring bands come through and kids are motivated that way. It’s also really hard to establish yourself in New Jersey. We’re from New Jersey and it’s the hardest place to play.
Nash: You can’t do well in Jersey unless if you’re a big act.
Jeff: You have to be popular.
PJ: And suck cock.
Jeff: There aren’t really any hall shows any more except for this one place and all the really big bands go through there.
Nash: It’s hard to be a small guy.
Jeff: Right. Especially now because everyone came from here- Midtown, Thursday, all those bands. So you really have to prove yourself a lot.
Josh: I have this pin that says “PF”, don’t you think when people look at it they’re going to think Penfold?
Nash: No.
Josh: Ok.
Nash: Unless if you’re a retarded person.
Josh: What does Prevent Falls mean to you as a band? Do you think that if we were all padded in rubber it would prevent falls?
(everyone says “Oh!”)
Nash: I think the worst thing about our band is that people pun the name.
Jeff: I think what we’re about is just having really intense, fun, angry stuff that you could have a good time to and just keeping it- never losing the energy. It’s all about just having a really good live show and trying to convey that on the album.
Josh: What does March 5, 2002 mean to you?
PJ: It doesn’t mean anything because I already have the album.
Josh: If you can have it before that, why can’t I?
PJ: That’s the day that it hit stores.
Josh: Now, I must admit that when I first heard your song off MP3.com I was thinking “Man, these guys suck”. But then when I saw you I thought “Wow, these guys are really good”.
PJ: Are you serious? Cause we’d have to beat you up.
Josh: No. When I heard the song it was good. When I saw you, it was like, “Ahhh…”
Nash: Oh my God.
PJ: Do you actually like us?
Josh: Yeah.
PJ: Ok.
(This is the point where someone turned up the heat and I had to turn it down. PJ was near it, so take your guesses.)
Josh: So what do you think when like… Umm… When like…
(Everyone laughs)
Nash: Please can we go on.
Josh: Am I allowed to tell people that you’re a rock band?
PJ: That’s all we are. We’re a rock band. We’re nothing else. We have a lot of influences, but I don’t think you can call us anything else.
Josh: Can I call you emo?
PJ: We’re not emo.
Jeff: The songs are emotional, but we’re not emo. It’s like trying to call Glassjaw emo.
Nash: Thursday’s called emo.
Jeff: Well, I don’t think they’re emo.
Nash: Constantly, actually.
Josh: They have pits for Thursday. If you have pits you can’t be emo.
PJ: I don’t know about that.
Josh: You just need to say “If you call us emo we’ll kick your fucking ass”.
Jeff: I drive around and run over old ladies.
PJ: I don’t show any emotion when I kill people.
(Something about whores and bitches I can’t make out under the laughter)
Josh: Now I’m gonna go back and ask you some questions about EVR that I should have asked before when we were talking about it, but yeah, I’m organized. I have this written down some where. (laughing)
PJ: Sweet.
(Nash leaves for some reason)
PJ: Whack the softie.
(He actually wrote that on my window)
Josh: EVR has a reputation of being a hardcore label with a few other bands like Saves the Day, the Stryder, Fairweather, but they really haven’t had that many bands that weren’t hardcore or metalcore like Converge, Bane or the Hope Conspiracy. Sorry I’m just watching that skunk and I’m getting distracted.
PJ: Watching that skunk??
Jeff: PJ, let’s go beat the shit out of it.
Josh: I’ll take pictures.
(Laughing)
Jeff: Ok, the question.
Josh: So with all these metalcore and hardcore bands, it seems like EVR’s adding a lot more bands that are rocking and just not hardcore, like Liars Academy and Rocking Horse Winner and you. So what do you think about going to EVR- which is thought of as a hardcore label- when you’re not hardcore?
Jeff: EVR was really our first choice since the beginning so it was really the best thing in the world to find out that they wanted to work with us. It’s just cool to have a diverse label. And everyone there supports us and is really cool, all the bands.
Josh: I think EVR is good because I like almost all the bands on EVR.
PJ: It’s a good label and they sign really good bands.
Josh: This is going to be the same question only in different phrasing. Right now it seems like EVR is signing a lot of new bands at once. Do you ever wonder about kind of getting lost in the shuffle amongst all of the other bands, or how it will effect you in any other way?
PJ: I don’t know why exactly they keep signing all these bands because I think they already have a decent amount of good bands, but I think they just want to diversify it. Not everyone on the label is a hardcore fiend. Dan, the guy who primarily signs bands, he wouldn’t have signed us, Coheed and Rocking Horse Winner unless he really loved our music. What was the question- why are they signing bands?
Jeff: Why are they signing rock bands.
PJ: Well, they only had like, twelve active bands.
(Nash returns and somehow we get off track)
PJ: We actually cover a Converge song and a Rocking Horse Winner song.
Nash: No we don’t.
Josh: Do you cover anything?
PJ: We used to cover two songs, but not at the same time- throughout the course of our being a band. You’ll never guess either of them. One cover was “Just What I Needed” by the Cars. And the other was… I don’t know what it was called, but it was Face to Face. “I Won’t Lie Down”. That was a hot song, we should cover that again. That’s a good song to play live.
(Someone is singing it, ha ha)
Josh: Do you think with all the bands coming on EVR now that there’s going to be problems with all of them just kind of clumping together?
Jeff: No because we’ve been talking to EVR since last summer and they couldn’t release the album until March because they take a big amount of time to promote each album. And they’re not really taking more than they can handle.
PJ: Our CD was done way before we signed with them. So they could have just put it out when we got signed, but the thing is that a lot of bands were coming out with CDs then like Liars Academy, Burn, Converge and Bane. Our album has been done for about a year from when it’s been released. So it’s kind of old for us.
Josh: So you’re bored with it already.
Jeff: No, we’re actually writing for a second album and we have seven or eight songs done, three that we’ve demoed, so it gives us a lot of time to perfect the new stuff.
PJ: We’ll probably have a second full album ready before the first one’s released.
Jeff: True.
PJ: If we didn’t work on it so much, we could have it done in two weeks.
Josh: That’s the way to go too, like when 2Pac got shot, the legacy lives on.
PJ: I shot the fucker.
(laughing)
Josh: So we’ll see a CD on March 5th and then again in April…
PJ: March 6th!
(laughing)
Jeff: We’re kind of tired, because we’re juggling the whole band thing and school. I know we’re all taking all school next fall to record and then we all plan on going back to school in spring of 2003, so we’ll probably be releasing an album prior to that or after that.
PJ: We’re probably going to record in the fall.
(And this is when PJ takes my tape recorder and literally farts into it)
Josh: When you are on Mtv2, this is going on Ebay for so much money.
PJ: Do we get royalities?
Josh: You get thirty cents for every dollar.
PJ: I think that as of right now we’re going to take off every other semester, most likely. Unless something happens when we become bigger than we ever imagined and it wouldn’t make sense to not take off from school. You don’t have much time in the industry and when you have it you have to go with it.