(This interview took place on January the 6th in a van outside of the Tune Inn. Read it to find Brandon give me interviewing tips and tons of other interesting facts.)

Josh Nacho: Where are you all from?

Dan: I'm from Vermont.

Drew: I'm from thirty seconds away from Boston.

Brandon: Yup, same here. We started... Dan was from Vermont, originated the band, and then the two horn players- me and Dan- came in. We're from Stoughton MA, and we met up with the rest of the guys, and then our newest addition.

Dan: This loser- Andrew.

Brandon: Drew is from Quincy. So we're all from all over the place. Especially when school starts, I'm in New Hampshire and the drummer's in Vermont.

Dan: Northern Vermont.

Brandon: We're just scattered. A scattered band.

Dan: Yeah, it's all over the place.

J.N.: So where exactly is the River City?

Dan: White River Junction, Vermont. That's like, that's where I'm from. It's right there. I don't live in White River any more, but I used to. I live in the town over now. It's maybe two miles down the road.

Drew: You know, I thought that the band name meant that River City was the town that the "Music Man" was in.

Dan: No.

Drew: I thought that it was like, the River City Rebels were like, the rebels that were in the "Music Man".

Dan: It used to be like, a motorcycle gang in that area, back in the 50's and 60's. It was called the River City Rebels.

J.N.: Yeah, cause I heard of some other River City's.

Dan: Yeah, there is. Like River City High. Those guys SUCK.

J.N.: Well, no, like... (laughs)

Drew: River City High sucks. Murder City Devils suck. Lost City Angels suck.

Dan: Yeah, you tell them that too. Make sure that they get the zine.

J.N.: Yeah, I really don't like River City High either.

Dan: Yeah, they're plain. Way too plain for my liking.

J.N.: Yeah, they're just there.

Drew: I never heard them actually.

Dan: I say we should go head to head one of these days, just play a show.

Drew: We'd lose if we went head to head with Murder City Devils.

Dan: Yeah... But, we're not like them though, our name's completely different. It has "city", that's it. And three words.

Brandon: Rebels and Devils rhyme though.

Drew: And it's like, adjective... noun... (thinking)... thing.

Dan: Thing. (laughs)

Drew: Adjective, descriptive noun, noun.

Dan: It's different enough. I mean, River City High is really kind of cuttin' it. But the good thing is they're a completely different band. I like the name.

Drew: Yeah, it's catchy.

Dan: It's definitely catchy. It's a rock and roll name. It's rock and roll. And when I came up with the name, I had no clue about River City High. I knew Murder City Devils, but, that's different though.

J.N.: Do you get a lot of confusion right now with River City High and other bands that have similar names as you?

Dan: None, because it's like, emo, and then you got us.

Brandon: And we're from different parts of the country.

Dan: Yeah, it's far enough away and it's different enough of music. Nope.

J.N.: Do they mistake your sounds at all though, for being similar to theirs?

Dan: No. We did that in Chicago, we were on tour, we played a suburb and this band called the River City... Radicals, a skinhead band, was just like, harassing us.

Brandon: And we drove away and we yelled "oi!".

Dan: Yeah, we showed them. They tried to fight us.

Drew: Really?

Dan: Yeah, they had their guy come over with his nutsack hanging out and we didn't say anything 'cause they were looking for any excuse to fight us.

Drew: Wait, what does his nutsack have to do with this?

Dan: Cause they were lookin... If we looked down, they're like, "Oh"... They were just lookin for a fight.

Brandon: They were just dickin' with us. And they're like...

Dan: "You got any groupies? 'Cause we wanna rape 'em".

Brandon: Yeah.

Dan: "Do you have any beer? Come on, I know you have beer" We're like, "We don't have any beer"

Brandon: "What? You're a band and you don't got beer?"

Dan: "Oh, what, and Victory? Fucking Victory Records, what the fuck is that? Can we take your van out for a spin?"

Drew: How many of 'em were there?

Dan: There was, uh, four of them.

Drew: Stupid... So what happened?

Dan: We got in the van and drove away and McCool rolled the window down and was like, "OIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!" and they jumped up and they were like, "What the fuck?"

Brandon: Then we left. We had a twenty hour drive home that night.

Dan: No, twenty seven hours.

Brandon: Twenty seven hour drive home.

Dan: From Chicago.

Drew: Ok.

Brandon: We're troopers.

Dan: It was straight.

Drew: I'm straight. Some times. Except when Brandon's around.

Brandon: Nope. Nope.

Dan: Hey, this is a tough guy interview- stop it.

(everyone laughs)

Drew: All right then.

Brandon: Yeah, next question.

J.N.: How do you feel right now about how music is kind of at the "pop punk/emo" time?

Drew: I think everybody that likes emo, liked punk, but they're just looking for something new but still underground.

Dan: It's just the new trend. It's like the ska trend a couple years ago.

Drew: It's the people who don't wanna listen to the radio.

Dan: That genre was gone for a long time, and then all of a sudden it just pops up and it's like, "Wow, something fresh and new", but then everybody gets a hold of it.

Drew: It's just more fashionable.

Dan: Yeah. Then it gets watered down.

Drew: People are jumping on the whole fashion, the whole mod punk sense of crap thing.

Brandon: Yeah, I don't know where it really started, but...

Drew: It just evolved from like indie rock. People just wanted to go underground and then more underground and then more underground, so people brought back indie rock and basically Modest Mouse, til they were just like, indie rock- where can we go from indie rock- mix it with punk and it's emo.

Brandon: But I think they just rotate and they'll rotate back.

Dan: Everything comes around.

Brandon: Ska will come back definitely in the next few years.

Drew: I think it sucks.

J.N.: I blame Vagrant Records.

Drew: I do too.

Dan: Yeah, that's a big part.

J.N.: I blame them for signing the Get Up Kids.

Drew: There ya go.

Dan: I like how they got Rocket From the Crypt, that's awesome. Those guys are so good.

Brandon: A record label's only gonna sign what sells. Get Up Kids are huge.

Drew: Well, Vagrant made like, emo.

Dan: There's a lotta labels doing that now.

J.N.: Jade Tree.

Dan: It seems like every label's signing emo bands these days.

Brandon: Even with Hot Water Music and Epitaph.

Drew: Epitaph is signing like, a ton of crap hardcore bands.

Dan: Even to an extent, Victory just got Thursday, and this other band called Waterdown, even them, they're getting their share of the emo bands' love. But, I think they're done signing emo bands. I talked to them and I was like, "All right, no more emo bands."

Brandon: Sign some punk bands.

Dan: Yeah, I was like, "Sign a punk band so we can tour with them". There's no other punk bands on the label that we can play with really.

J.N.: At least Thursday doesn't suck. The Get Up Kids are bad.

Dan: Yeah, at least the emo bands that Victory are getting are decent bands.

J.N.: At least they're picking the right ones.

Dan: Exactly.

J.N.: Yeah, I forgot I'm asking the questions. What do you guys think of the Boston scene on a whole?

Drew: We were talking about this today.

Brandon: I could talk for hours about this.

Drew: I will say this. Instead of saying negative things, I will comment on a positive thing about Boston right now, is that there are awesome hardcore bands coming out of it. New hardcore bands, like, thrash '82 style.

Dan: (coughs) Trendy.

Drew: No. Noooo. There's like, really good hardcore bands coming out. Like Out Cold, Last In Line, that whole scene. And it's a really good scene. It's just all the metal hardcore kids that were out a few years ago, but they kind of toned down their whole image and they don't wanna fight any more and everyone just wants to listen to the music. And it's actually a really good scene, because it's growing and there are good bands coming out of there. And I think that is the only thing that is going on in Boston right now.

Brandon: Yeah, I think Boston is almost like a chicken with its head cut off. There's potential, for good stuff to happen, there's just no leader.

Dan: There's either really small bands or super big bands, there's no medium.

Brandon: Yeah, like three years ago when the Dropkicks came, they resparked the Boston scene and they united everybody. And all these bands spawned from them. We just need another Boston band to respark the scene.

Drew: I think it's annoying when there's a big band like the Dropkick Murphys.

Brandon: Yeah, well, now it's annoying, but at the time it was cool. Now it's running thin because nobody's stepping up.

Dan: All the bands are broken up, like the Ducky Boys, Blood For Blood, all those bands that were supposed to take that next level that Dropkicks did, they stopped and started new bands, so it's like starting over.

Brandon: All these bands that get big in Boston break up to form new bands to hopefully get bigger. Bands like the Ducky Boys, they pretty much peaked, they weren't gonna get bigger with what they were doing. So they reformed new bands.

Drew: The thing about Boston too is that just because there's so much going on and it's going so fast, people turn their backs on people so fast. Just like the Dropkick Murphys and the Ducky Boys. Once bands get kinda big, people are just like, "All right, now I'm done watching you and there's no where to go except to look for something else". And it's not because of the people, but just because there's so much going on.

Brandon: Yeah, like, what's the new thing. Like Darkbuster, when they won the rumble, they were the biggest thing in Boston and now people are like, "Ohhhhh", but I still fucking love them.

Dan: Darkbuster's the best.

Brandon: I loved them three years ago when I set up shows with just them and me and four people would be in the audience and be like, "Man, these guys are awesome". And then when they won the rumble there's like, 700 kids packed in the Middle East throwing beer at them, and now it seems kind of like they're going down again. So, in Boston your lifespan is not very big.

Drew: Boston... It's just crazy. The attention span is nothing.

Brandon: Bands are big for like, months at a time, then they'll fade back.

J.N.: Have you ever thought about putting together an anti-racism tour?

Dan: I asked, actually, Mike Park about Ska Against Racism and I guess he was all set on bands. But, no, no one's really confronted us about doing any kind of tours like that. It'd be cool to do, I think it'd be a real good thing, but it hasn't happened yet.

J.N.: It seems like there's a lot of bands out there now that have ARA stuff.

Dan: Yeah, I distro ARA stuff.

J.N.: But, they're all like, missing on the same level. They're not all touring together.

Drew: That might be good though. If you all team up and go around together, it's like a candle in the dark. Crass called it a candle in the dark when the Clash played with this huge anti-racist festival in London, because it was just all these people teaming up going like, "Yeah, we don't like racists". But, if you spread it out into different scenes and people that don't even neccesarily like each other.

Brandon: Yeah, because if you play shows with five bands and four don't have any views and then one does, then...

Drew: It's just like telling people about something they don't know about. It's spreading the word instead of keeping it to yourself. I think that's great when bands hate each other, but they still have ARA shit. It's just spreading the word.

Dan: Yeah.

J.N.: As far as muscially and lyrically, where do you think there's a place for politics in music?

Drew: Every where.

Dan: Yeah. It's just personal politics, it's saying what you think. That's all politics.

Drew: Music is a platform for absolutely anything- politics, non-political, anything. Music is a great platform just to let people hear what you have to say on a record over and over again, or into a michrophone in some hall.

Brandon: It's a good use for all, good and bad.

Drew: It's a forum. I think politics definitely belongs in music and if you don't choose to listen to it, leave. It doesn't matter, that's your perogative. If you don't like the politics, you shouldn't have paid eight dollars to go to the show. If you like the politics, then you can go to the show, be a part of it and discuss it.

Dan: I know with me the music comes first, and then a lot of the time it's the lyrics. If the music isn't there for me, it's hard for me to get into them.

Brandon: The music comes first, and then the lyrics are the deciding factor on the long term liking of a band.

Drew: I think I have exceptions though. I don't like music that Propagandhi plays imparticular, but I think they're interesting to listen to.

Dan: I respect them.

Drew: I totally respect them. I think they're interesting to listen to, but I don't like skate punk.

Dan: Then again, I don't listen to that. I can respect it, but I don't have any desire to listen to it.

Drew: But, see, I can sit down and listen to it. I have a weird thing like that. Like, I can listen to white power music, like, just sit there and listen to what somebody has to say.

Brandon: It's like, if you're against something, you should know what you're against.

Drew: It's like speaking with somebody that you don't agree with.

Brandon: You have to know the other end of the spectrum.

Drew: You can't just blindly go screaming your politics, you gotta know what everything's about.

J.N.: Oh, is it to me again?

Drew: We look at you when you ask the next question.

J.N.: Ok.

Dan: Yeah. That's the rule.

Brandon: Yeah.

J.N.: (laughing)

Brandon: No, I learned when you're interviewing someone, you're supposed to be quiet. And then when there's silence, someone will feel like they have to talk.

Dan: Well, he's doing a good job. This is the second interview I've done.

Drew: Let me take the time to say you are doing a good job, except you are forgetting to ask the questions.

J.N.: Thanks, I'm trying. (laughing) You've been compared to such older bands as the Sex Pistols and the Clash, how do you feel about those comparisons, especially in a scene where not a lot of people seem to know who they are?

Drew: Better than the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

Dan: Yeah, exactly.

Drew: It's so much fun to be compared to your influences.

Dan: Yeah, that's where it started, the whole thing. Going back and trying to capture that energy and that feel in the music nowadays.

Brandon: We cover a Ramones' song and every time we play it, we're like, "Anybody know the Ramones?".

Drew: Last night.

Brandon: Yeah.

Drew: "No."

Dan: "Who are the Ramones? ... Cover New Found Glory"

Brandon: Those weren't even my influences actually. I hate the Sex Pistols.

Dan: I love the Sex Pistols.

Brandon: I think they're good for what they did, but I just think they're so bad, I can't listen to them. The quality of the albums just make me sick; they're so terrible.

Dan: I think they're ballsy. The Clash- no better band than the Clash.

Brandon: Definitely Clash rocks.

Dan: 100%, that's the number one band on my list.

Drew: The Clash, Ramones, Rancid, those are my top three.

Dan: Springsteen maybe number one at this point. The Boss is deifnitely high on my list. So, yeah, I mean, it's a good thing. I like to be compared to those types of bands because that's

Drew: That's what we listen to, basically.

J.N.: Do you think there's a point now though where younger people who don't know should be made aware of bands like them?

Dan: I think everybody knows about those bands. I don't know how much they get into them, it's tough. It's like one of those things where you hit a certain age and you understand what's going on and you get it. Like, Springsteen, I just barely got into Springsteen, I guess when you get older you realize what's going on and how heartfelt that music is.

Drew: I don't think it's neccesarily vital for these kids to get into the Sex Pistols. What do the Sex Pistols mean to these kids? The Sex Pistols don't play around here.

Brandon: They were almost like a stepping stone for other bands.

Drew: It's like, people feel they have to write the Sex Pistols on their bag, but at least when I was in high school people felt like they had to write the Sex Pistols on their jeans, just so they could have that much more credibility. But, I think it's kind of good that people don't do that now. They're involved with what's going on now and I think that's the most honest thing about punk rock today. People aren't neccesarily concerned with what's going on twenty years ago.

Brandon: It's almost like television. It's like, "What's your favorite show?" People aren't gonna say it's Dick Van Dyke or something like that, it's what's going on now. Those t.v. shows were influencial back then, but now it's grown what it is now. So, people should enjoy what they have now, which is a more polished rendition of all the other bands. It's a little Sex Pistols, a little Ramones.

Dan: And back then it was really radical, all that stuff was radical, and it was fresh. And I think that's what we're trying to do at this point. Especially playing punk rock with a horn section, like "What are you doing that for, you're a ska band?" No, we're not a ska band, no upbeats in our songs whatsoever. So, I mean, that's another thing. That's another influence. It's just about trying to be out there and radical and as fresh as possible, doing our own thing.

Brandon: The biggest thing we're trying to make people aware of is having horns in your band doesn't mean you're a ska band. I was talking to some kid online, and he was like, "Oh, you guys like ska punk?" I was like, "No"... "You have horns though, right?" I was like, "Yeah", he's like, "Yeah, that's ska punk". I was like, "No, do you know what ska is? Why don't you go look it up in the dictionary?". People feel the need to have other bands attatched to their sound.

Drew: Yeah, they're pigeonholing.

Brandon: It's like, "What do you sound like?"... "Oh, it's this but it's with this". And that comes with being unoriginal. The lesser bands you can be compared to, the better. Because it's fresh, and if this catches on- punk with horns and stuff- then we'll be the Sex Pistols of this twenty years from now.

Drew: I don't think anything can come out that is completely original now. Basically everybody is just playing off their influences, and that's cool. But everybody tries to be wicked original, but it's like... We're just playing rock and roll?

Dan: It's all been done.

Drew: I just want people to see us and be like, "That fucking rocks" and that's it.

J.N.: What happened to your web page?

Dan: I don't know. I hosted it on this free server type thing, and I don't know if somebody hacked it or what. I don't know why it's down, but it just won't work.

Brandon: A new web site's on the way. Not to worry, people.

Dan: Give it probably like, another week and a half.

J.N.: What are your thoughts on a whole on Victory Records and pick your favorite and least favorite Victory band.

Dan: I think Victory's awesome. That was one of the labels growing up that every time the sampler would come out, I'd go down and buy it. It was like, them, Epitaph and Fat Wreck Chords. So I was so psyched when Tony from Victory emailed me. I was like, "Oh my God". It's like, dream come true, you know... They want us? So, that's my thought. And probably my favorite band is the Strike, but they broke up. And least favorite is probably um...

Brandon: Don't say a band that could kick our ass.

(everyone laughs)

Dan: My least favorite, just because I'm not into that music at all-

Drew: You better not say Skarhead.

Dan: I'm gonna say Skarhead.

J.N.: Those guys look so mean.

Dan: I like them, and we've played with them before, but musically I just can't get into them... Oh, no no, wait. I'll take that back. I'll definitely take that back. There was Baby Goople, remember that band?

J.N.: No.

Dan: A girl fronted band, they sucked. They broke up, but I can't believe, it was like, alternative rock with a girl singer, it was garbage.

Drew: Blood For Blood is my favorite Victory band.

Dan: Oh yeah, I like Blood For Blood too, I forgot about them.

Drew: Blood For Blood got me through high school. Go to Brandon, and I'll think of my least favorite one...

Brandon: I like Victory Records, they've been nothing but good to us. When we went to Chicago, the people at Victory put us up at their own homes, cooked us breakfast... Kathi... Kathi is awesome. She made us breakfast and treated us great when we went to Chicago and we were greatful for that. We hadn't had a good meal in like, a week when we got there, so they were awesome. We're always getting emails- they're always in touch with us and we're always in touch with them, so it's a great relationship. As far as bands, I'm more of an Epitaph person. I listen to NOFX, Rancid, a lot of bands on Epitaph. I definitely like Blood For Blood, don't know if they're my favorite though. I really like Boy Sets Fire... I'm gonna pick Catch 22 as my least favorite. It's catchy, it does what is has to do, but I just don't like what it does.

Dan: (to Drew) Give your worst now.

Drew: I'll just say, uh... Hatebreed. Hatebreed is my least favorite band on Victory. [censored remark]

J.N.: What are you guys doing after today? If you wanna plug anything...

Drew: I will answer this question. We are going to make the most amazing rock and roll record that you will ever hear. Everybody's gonna be like, "What- hardcore? What- punk? What- ska?" Rock and roll, that's all I know. I think we're gonna record in August.

Dan: I wanna do it before then cause we're rippin' and ready. And we're talking to the people at the Warped Tour about possibly getting on that.

Brandon: The Warped Tour... It's got these bands on it... I think it's definitely one tour that's going to catch on, so you should definitely check it out.

Links:

River City Rebels
Victory Records
NCA