Interview by Vivian Hua

Tell us about your new album.
It’s unbelievable. It’s everything a record should be... no, I don’t know. It’s called All That We Needed. It just came out the end of January, and so far we’ve been getting a pretty good reaction. People seem to be enjoying it. We all love it, and we’re happy it’s finally out there. It kept getting pushed back.

Why?
It had to get re-mixed. The label didn’t like the way it was mixed, so it had to get re-mixed by this other dude. Some other labels were interested in putting it out and buying it from our label, but there was never a really great offer.

How does this album differ from Stop?
It’s the same style of music with the same catchy melodies, harmonies, and lyrics, but we expanded musically. There’s cooler stuff going on underneath the melodies and the lyrics that make the music as interesting as the vocals.

Would you consider your music pop?
I think it’s definitely pop, yeah. It’s catchy and memorable.
Do you think people get turned off by that label?
Pop? I don’t know. If they do, they’re dumb. Cause it’s like… whatever. Pop means it’s popular, or it’s… listenable. I don’t know. What does pop even mean? Pop means so much.
Pop has that whole Britney stigma, though.
Well, Hawthorne Heights has sold more records than us. Does that mean they’re pop? More poppy than us? I don’t know. Labels are stupid. We make songs we think sound cool. What they classify it as is out of our hands, I guess.

So why do you guys go on tour so much?
Because… we… hate… our home lives. We get beat at home. No, we love it. We want people to know and hear our music. If we’re sitting at home, we think, ‘If we were playing a show tonight, we’d be A, playing our music, which is what we love to do, and B, we’d be able to play in front of a bunch of people who may not have heard us or who might not know of us yet.’ Why would we sit at home?

How has the Take Action Tour been treating you guys?
Awesome. This is one of the best tours we’ve ever done. All of the bands are really cool; every show has been sold out so far. The crowds have been awesome and really receptive. We’ve been selling a lot of stuff, which means getting a lot of new fans.

Is this your first time playing a tour that benefits charities?
Yeah, pretty much, which is also cool. We were going to do a tour with Sugarcult, and they found out they had this Take Action Tour, and we didn’t really know too much about it. When they offered it to us, I kind of looked into it and thought, ‘Wow, that’s really cool,’ because like you said, we’ve never really done anything for a cause like that. It just makes it that much better.

Your song “Breakdown” talks about suicide. Did anything inspire it?
It was kind of weird. I started writing it about me, but I had a friend who committed suicide a few years ago. All of a sudden, I started seeing all these parallels to him in the song. In the end, it’s about both situations; it’s just a little statement on how a lack of love can be enough to get you depressed and keep you from seeing what life is all about.

What do you have to say about suicide?
I think that… suicide is bad. Don’t do it. No, I don’t know. I don’t understand how people can do it, cause even when life sucks, it’s still life. There’s still a blue sky. There’s still good music, good movies. I don’t know. I don’t get it.

What kind of bands influence you?
Good bands. I don’t like bad bands. I really like The Strokes and Jimmy Eat World. The Exit is a really great band. I think a lot of my influence comes from older stuff like the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and Bruce Springsteen. You know, the gods of music. Why aspire to be anything less?

Do you aspire to be a god of music then?
Hello? Look at this van? Um… sure! Why not! You’ve got to aspire to be something. Why not aspire to be the best? As impossible as it may be... Paul McCartney probably never dreamed that he would be as big as he is.

Tell us some tour stories.
People always ask me this, and I never have anything to say. You know what the coolest thing about being on tour is? When we first started touring, we were like, “Argggh touring.” We missed our friends and families. Now what’s awesome is that when we go on tour, we have friends everywhere. You still miss home, of course, but it gets easier the more you do it, because you know more people and get used to the whole lifestyle. I enjoy it.
That wasn’t a story.
That wasn’t a story. Okay. Story. So I had a birthday three days ago. No comment. We were in San Francisco, and we had to drive pretty much most of the day. I got to have lunch with an old friend from high school who lives in SF now. It was a nice, low key birthday. I’ve been away from home for the past three or four birthdays… so, that wasn’t much of a story either, but it was relevant and recent.

It was more of a story than the first one at least.
I’m getting there.

A lot of your fan base is younger females; so, are you single?
I am single, yes. Are those the tour stories you were looking for…?
Oh, you’ve got some of those?
No… not many. Um, no. We’re not really that kind of a band. Unfortunately. I am definitely single, and it kind of sucks. I’ve always been the kind of guy that looks for the perfect girl, looks to get married, looks to fall in love. But it’s almost impossible, being in a band on the road. Just this past summer, we had a couple months off in Chicago, and I was hanging out with this girl that I really liked. We left for tour, and I talked to her on the phone everyday. Then it became every other day, and then just kind of faded out. It sucks because I like this girl, but it couldn’t really work. We didn’t have time to develop anything real. If I had had a long term girlfriend, it would have been a lot easier because we already would have built that bond, but to be able to meet someone, build something, and have all that stuff is really hard.

Do you guys have any routines before your shows? Do you wear the same underwear?
Sometimes, but not on purpose. Actually, yesterday we started this thing where we all got together before stage and were like, “Yeah! Team! Go!” It’s kind of important sometimes because we’ll all be in five different places and then we’ll be like, “Oh, it’s 7 o’clock; now we’re all on stage.” It’s better if we get together for like ten seconds just to say, “Okay guys, let’s rock! To the top!”

Have you guys ever tried to do synchronized dance moves?
Of course, hello!? No, never. We try to keep it loose, real, honest, and free-flowing. But the Beatles… here’s a story for you! Before the Beatles were huge, every time they were playing some crappy show on the worst day, they’d ask John Lennon, “Where are we going, Johnny?” and he’d be like, “To the top!” So we try to keep that in mind when we have a bad day that we have to wear the same underwear or sleep in a van. It’s all part of the story and part of the game.
Someday.
Exactly! That’s what we keep telling ourselves. But hopefully, we’ll be right.