INTERVIEW BY VIVIAN HUA.
You guys pretty much blew up overnight. How does it feel?
Mikey: There’s no way for it to really register, because we don’t have any outside connections to the world. When we get a day off here and there, we kind of hang out, but on show days, it’s like we’re in the bus and then the venue. It doesn’t really sink in, you know?
Ray: Yeah, the only thing that you notice is maybe more kids coming to your shows, but like he said, knowing how much of an effect we’ve had, we really don’t know.
Mikey: Well, little things and stuff, like you’ll be at Starbucks and the dude that works there knows who you are.
Ray: My favorite was at a Chuck E. Cheese’s. I got spotted there and got free tokens.

A lot of your fans are fanatic about dressing like you guys. On E-Bay, there’s DIY clothes for $100 per shirt. Your thoughts?
Ray: Yeah, that’s really weird, I’ve seen that. Kids will like take a Vans slip-on and draw our album cover on it, put it on E-Bay, and people will pay $400 for it. Why don’t you just draw it... or something? It’s pretty wild. Any form of self-expression is good, but I hope that it’s truly self-expression and it’s not just them trying to copy or look like someone else. I’m not really for that, but we are for people expressing themselves, so if that’s how they want to express themselves, that’s great. Hopefully it’s not to feel like any part of scene or any part of culture, [and] it’s really coming from the inside and that’s how they’ve always wanted to look.
Mikey: We kind of dress like we’re in a gang, so when kids dress like us, it’s kind of like they’re in our gang. But I mean, I think it’s awesome.

Do you guys know of any bands who aren’t well-known but should be, and if so, is there any way that you can influence their popularity with your current position?
Ray: There’s definitely a couple of friends’ bands. A band called Murder by Death. They’re a phenomenal band that has very musical, very moody music. The way they describe their music – and I think it’s a perfect description – is that it is music that would be perfect for a horror movie, and they add vocals to it. There’s a band called Moments in Grace who I think actually just broke up (Editor’s Note: You can check them out in the September October 2004 issue of Redefine). They are actually one of the best bands that I’ve heard in a long time.
Mikey: Drive By. They’re a good and stable band.
Ray: The ways bands can get your influence is if you just talk about them, in interviews or otherwise. One of the things we can do is that when you get in a certain position, you can take bands out on tour with you. You can take your friends out, and hopefully that will happen to us. Hopefully we can get to the point – it’s almost like giving back to the community and back to the scene.
Mikey: Say Anything. They’re going to be huge one day. They’re one of my favorite bands. They’re an excellent band on Doghouse. Indie-rock kind-of, Piebald-sort of.

Did you guys ever face any kind of resistance from family or friends?
Ray: No. I think we were in families that were always supportive of anything we wanted to do, as long as they knew that we were happy, they were for it. There was never any resistance. I was in college at the time and I stopped going to school to play in the band and my parents were cool.
Mikey: I got like a little flack but that’s just cause parents don’t quite understand the whole world. But yeah, they were supportive.

What are you guys working on now?
Ray: There’s plenty of touring. In September, we’re going out on our first headlining tour, which we’re really psyched about.
Mikey: With Alkaline Trio and Reggie.
Ray: We’re doing some European shows. Music-wise, we’ve been writing since when the record came out, so we have a lot of songs in the works. We also have a DVD that should be coming out sometime…
Mikey: In October?
Ray: We’re also talking about putting one or two new songs on the DVD just because we haven’t released anything new. Should be work until the end of the year. I think we’ll probably be in the studio hopefully around January or February of next year.


To check out last year’s interview with My Chemical Romance’s vocalist Gerard and guitarist Frankie, click here. Four band members down; one more to go!!