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| ::Interviews:: |
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| review & interview content, as well as web site graphics & design, copywrite 2003-2004 Euphonia Online. use of materials granted only with reasonable purposes. |
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| interviewed by robby sumner |
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| Interview with Alex July 28th, 2004 |
Derek Smith - Vocals, Guitar Alex Kling - Guitar, Vocals Betal - Guitar Ryan Miller - Bass Roach - Drums |
| E: So Alex, you guys are on the Warped Tour... what was the path like for getting this opportunity?
Alex: Well, we're pretty much the lowest on the totum pole for a Warped Tour band. We did this pretty much totally DIY ["Do It Yourself"]. Last year we played a month of this. We basically did it by showing up and setting up in the parking lot, and Kevin Lyman�the owner of the Warped tour... we got into contact with him, and he heard us and he liked us and he invited us inside, and then he told us we could play in our tent�we brought our own system, and he ended up putting us on stage toward the end of the dates we were doing last year... and so before the Warped Tour this year we asked if we could come along, and he said yeah, and he said "bring your tent," and that's pretty much the road. Kevin Lyman likes hardworking bands, and we worked our asses off to get where we are now. E: Is this something you'd been prepared to have happen? Had you been expecting it? Alex: Yeah, we were pretty prepared. We were pretty sure that we were going to be able to do it, and then we had to do a lot more preparing when we found out for sure that we were on it. E: Have you toured so extensively with this many bands before? Alex: No, actually, this is really our second big tour other than last year's Warped Tour. We've done Southwest touring, like in California, New Mexico, and Texas, but nothing like this before. Me and the singer and the bassist... we've got two new members since last year, but three of us did it last year, so we kind of knew what to expect. We were prepared, and the other guys, I think, caught on pretty quickly, too. E: What other achievements have you had that rival this experience? Alex: Honestly, I think this is the biggest thing we've done... but I think a big accomplishment that I'm really proud of is... you know the Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands? For Warped Tour? We got 3rd place in it in 2002, and I don't know if you know all the details of it, but basically there are like three thousand bands to start off, they narrow it down to four in each market, which is like a hundred and ninety bands, and then they have voting online, and the top five bands win like $10,000 in equipment and get to play the Warped Tour in their town... and we got our picture and name in Guitar World Magazine, so... we're pretty proud of that. E: How long was the band together before you started to see things get really successful? Alex: Honestly, I was in quite a few bands not as seriously before this band, but just the guys I started this with... like, I knew right off the bat that we had something that I was willing to put 150% in. I think we knew that we would be more successful was when... I don't know... maybe after six months to a year? We all were in other bands, and we started to get pretty good crowds in our local market right away. E: On this tour, playing virtually the same show day after day with the same bands... does it ever get redundant or boring? Alex: F*ck yeah, it does. There's a lot of bands that seem to be sounding very similar on this tour, and that kind of isn't the coolest thing... like, a lot of the bands are awesome bands, too. But I guess... just, how similar they sound gets redundant, and then hearing them every day gets redundant, you know? I guess the bands that I like, I'll watch every day... it's like, we work pretty much all day long when we're here, so I don't get to stop and chill and watch bands that often, but I'll stop by if I'm walking past a band that I like and watch them. But yeah, it does get redundant. E: Do you ever get the chance to hang out with other bands after shows? Alex: Actually, the Warped Tour is pretty much like a hang-out all day long. So we have our tent, and we'll go to other people's tents and hang out with them, and, yeah we do work a lot, but it's in one area, and we're all there, so I see the same people every day and we'll hang out and talk a little bit. The schedule of this tour is, we get there at eight in the morning every morning and we leave at ten at night, and then we have to drive four to ten hours in a night, and then you have to get up early the next day, so there's not a lot of time to hang out. E: So you don't get to see the sites or anything, I take it. Alex: Yeah, that's another thing I don't like about the Warped Tour... like... I get to see this beautiful country, and I have honestly not gotten out of Arizona a lot before this band started doing a lot of touring. I get to see, like, the freeway and what's around the freeway, and that's about it. *Laughs* E: How much of your career do you think is covered in your live set? Alex: Oo... well, actually, one of the songs we play on our set we wrote, like, four years ago, and... we've been a band for... sh*t, actually, we've only been band for three and a half years... but it was like one of the first songs we ever wrote. Pretty much 99%, we wrote in the past year. E: So the newer stuff is definitely a better representative of what the band sounds like now? Alex: Very much so a better representative. About... I think it was October, our drummer quit, and we got a new drummer... and his brother played guitar with him in another band. So we wanted to try three guitars out... and we tried the brothers out and we liked it a lot. They came in and they had a very unique style that they liked, and we liked it, but it was different from what we played. So we wanted to kind of melt everything together, and we liked how it was working out, so we did it. E: When you write songs now, is the motivation generally the same as it was when you first started out? Alex: No. When we first started the band... I think there was more... well, with myself--we have three songwriters, and there was a lot of... well, girl-related songs... *Laughs* Stuff like that. Now it's more, like... life-related issues and and different outlooks on life. And I kind of think that goes for everybody that writes songs in this band, actually. E: Have you had a lot of success with album sales on the road? Alex: Yes. We actually just came out with our new record in, like, very early May... so it's been out almost three months. Actually, what we did is... our CD release show in Phoenix, on May 7th, we had 900 people, and the deal was that they got a CD at the door with admission. So, we've basically promoted the hell out of it, so a lot of people got the CD that night. We haven't been selling as much locally as we have been on the road--we sell between fifty and a hundred a day on tour, so... yeah. E: Do you think that album sales are a good way to judge how successful a band is? Alex: You know, I think somewhat, but there's a lot of bands I see on this tour that kind of totally go against that... I think that image is a lot of stuff. Like, there are a lot of bands that are just full of very attractive males... *Laughs* And they just blast CDs all day long. This might be my own opinion, but I don't think some of them sound like they're very mature--they're not very talented musicians. Actually there's not a lot of bands like that on this tour... but there are a few, and they would prove that point wrong. So I guess it's about 50/50. E: Do you think a band appreciates its own music the same way a fan will when they listen to it? Alex: I don't know... I think it's kind of different--I don't think it's the same, but... like, I appreciate our music a lot, and I'm proud of our music, and I guess I can see fans being proud of it in some ways... but I see more fans being proud of it in the growing aspect. So no, we see it in different ways. E: Because you're in your own band and you make your own music, does that make it so that you hear other people's songs differently than people who are not in bands would hear it? Alex: Yeah, I do think that. I think everybody hears music differently, actually, in general... and I think that that's one factor that makes it different. I think that I'm a lot more critical than people that aren't musicians... I think that musicians in general hear it differently than people who don't play any instruments... I think it's just all different levels, basically. E: Well, hey, that should do it. Thanks a whole lot. Alex: Sweet! |