Alli With An I is a mid-tempo, melodic emo/punk band from Raleigh, NC. The ban consists of friends who love music and playing out in front of people. The band formed in March 2000. Alli With An I grew out of two high school bands called The Chip-Punx and Hindsight near the Raleigh area. Influences of the band include Alkaline Trio, Hot Water Music, Saves The Day, Green Day, Jimmy Eat World, The Get Up Kids, Lifetime, Midtown, among many others. Alli With An I has played over 60 shows with bands like Strike Anywhere, Fairweather, Planes Mistaken For Stars, Stretch Armstrong, and Glasseater.

Interview by Carlo Gironi / carlo@staff.truepunk.com / Answers by Michael Sileno
1. Hi! How are you doing ?

Michael: We are doing great! Thanks for asking. We are excited about our new cd coming out.

2. Can you introduce the band’s members and a story of how you got together?
Michael: I play drums, Matt, my brother, sings and plays guitar, Tom plays bass and sings, and Ry plays guitar. We started this band in March 2000 after being in previous bands and being good friends. After Tom joined the band in 2001, we really started to play out more and got to practice more. If you want more details, please check out the bio on our website.

3. Where do you come from? And how is the punk scene in the place you come from?

Michael: We are from Raleigh, North Carolina in the United States. The punk scene is actually better here than most places we have been. There are a lot of great bands from North Carolina and a lot of bands that are friends with each other. For the most part, everyone is accepting and likes to have a good time. We are fortunate enough to play with diverse bands and people, which is exciting.

4. Where does the name Alli With An I come from?

Michael: The name of the band comes from a line in the 1980s movie “The Karate Kid.”

5. You released your new LP “I Learned By Watching You” on the Law Of Inertia label; how did you get in touch with the guys at Law Of Inertia ?

Michael: We were very lucky to get to work with them. We were introduced to Law of Inertia through our friends The Scaries who are also on Law of Inertia. We maintained contact with Ross at Law of Inertia for a while and things just fell into place for us.

6. I know LOI is one of the most popular paper fanzine in the USA - are they also starting a record label now? What other bands are your label-mates?

Michael: Law of Inertia has been a record label since 1999, actually.
Our cd is their fourteenth release. Current active bands on LOI are The Scaries, Ultimate Fakebook (they just re-issued an older cd of theirs), and The AKAs (they just release the vinyl version of their album on Fueled By Ramen). Past bands include The Reunion Show, This Years Model, Hot Rod Circuit, and Billy Music.

7. You released some other stuff before your new LP - was all it done by yourselves or you were on some other record label?

Michael: Our first album “Long Story Short” was originally released with the help of Chris Carraway, who was trying to start a small local label. He basically funded the project and we took care of the rest. After the first pressing went out of print, we released it on Forsaken Recordings (The Manhattan Project, Sullivan, Bloodjinn) out of North Carolina. The album is still available through Forsaken Recordings. Most of the stuff we have done has been on our own up until this point, since we have a lot of help.

8. Your sound is very pop punk and it has also some rock influences ; where do you get your inspiration from ?

Michael: All of us have been listening to punk music for about 7 to 8 years now, so we got into it when Green Day got huge and listening to other bands like NOFX, Screeching Weasel, The Queers, The Bouncing Souls, etc. We still love 1990s pop-punk among lots of other types of music. I think we try to combine the various influences we have into our songs, but pop-punk is definitely the basis for it all.

9. What are some of the bands that you guys in the band regularly listen to?

Michael: Collectively we like No Use For A Name, old Get Up Kids, Strike Anywhere, Lifetime, Hot Water Music, and a lot more. I’ve been listening to a lot of Kudzu Wish, Rise Against, Motion City Soundtrack, and Kid Dynamite recently.

10. What about your lyrics? Do you sing about love, broken hearts and high-school dramas or you have also some other things to say?

Michael: Matt writes most of the lyrics and Tom writes them as well. Yes, most of them are about relationships involving love. We have a lot of other stuff to say, but that’s what they mainly write about. There is a song on the new record about losing someone that is close to you and being judged for how you are. We all have many other things going on in our lives and other interests, as well.

11. Have you got some plans of touring to support you new album? If so, where and with whom?

Michael: As of now, we are planning to head out in January with Outsmarting Simon (Triple Crown Records) and possibly our friends Guff (Go-Kart Records). We will be doing the southern United States. We hope to become a full-time band in the near future, so we can tour a lot more. Kudzu Wish and I have talked about coming to Europe this summer, but who knows. We will continue to play out as much as we can and hope that we can start doing it a lot more.

12. Speaking of tours, have you got some funny or interesting thing that happened to you while you were on tour? Do you want to share it with us ?

Michael: Wow! There are so many interesting and funny tour stories. We like to get rowdy and party with people from all over. We love hanging out with as many people as possible that like to have fun. You can spend all day reading our tour journal on our website. A lot of it is edited down because there is stuff that goes on that we don’t want to world to know about! I think the craziest night may have been when we saw someone get cocaine blown up their bum. That whole night was wild.

13. Do you think it is difficult for a young band to get hooked up by some label? I ask you this, because in the last year I saw a lot of unknown and untalented bands getting signed by major labels and all…how do you relate to this thing? Are you willing to get signed to some major or you just do not care ?

Michael: I think it is definitely difficult for a young band to get hooked up with a label. The bands that just get signed right away are usually bands that were in other bands previously or who have the resources (i.e.,
money) and know people in high places. Those bands probably won’t mean much to anyone years down the road. It’s the bands that have created a large fan base for themselves and stayed true to what they were about that have lasting effects on people down the road. I think we and other musicians are not too fond of bands that are spoiled and find instant success. There are so many hard working bands that are great that no one gets to hear because they are not marketable or don’t have great connections for some reason. We play music because we love it, we have an amazing time, we get to meet so many great people, and we get to travel to a lot of new places. Nothing compares to that. I’m sure we would sit down and talk to a major label, if that happened, but we are going to continue to play together for as long as we want, no matter what. As long as we are happy with how things are going, we will be Alli With An I.

14. Any final comments?

Michael: Please check out our website at http://www.alliwithani.com and feel free to get in touch with us.

15. Thanks so much for the interview, good luck on everything!!

Michael: Thank you very much. We really appreciate it.