Smoking Popes

Lawrence Arms

the danger O’s

How did you start out?

Justin: Jeff and I played in a band before and it just sort of was going no where and we were having fun with it and we decided we wanted to keep playing together and going in some different directions because there were different types of music that we liked a lot and just wanted to try those things out. And Jeff had played in a band with Drew before, gave Drew a shot, and Drew blew my mind because I’m a drummer myself and I’m particularly particular about drummers. And… it was awesome! And we just started getting together and just playing, not knowing where it would go. And the things that we were coming up with were really cool. And it’s been going well ever since for the past couple of years now.

Where do you practice at?

Justin: (laughs) All over the place! Jeff is the typical rocker in “living with his parent’s” status, so we’ve been practicing there for a while. When parents get pissed at him, we do it at our label for a while. When our label gets pissed at us, we do it at some one else’s house for a while. We just sort of jump all over the place. Yeah, so that’s how that works

What inspires your music?

Justin: Anything. Everything. Honestly, in song writing I try to stay away from the typical love song. But it’s all about relationship situations. Honestly, that’s a very strange question. I honestly don’t know what the song is about until it starts coming out of my mouth, and then it just sort of works it self out. But it really comes from the depth of my nothingness. Abyss of nothing. Everything just sort of starts with the music and we just start playing around.

Jeff: We just start writing stuff together and the music will start playing. And Justin will start humming the melody. And we’ll complete the music well before we’ll know what he’s going to be singing. And then just one practice we’ll play the song through and he’ll start singing and we’re like, ‘alright the lyrics are there.’ And we don’t really worry about that, and he worries about that and the only thing we do pretty much do is the music. And he’ll come up with the lyrics and I’ll just start singing the back ups. And if we find that nothing’s done in a practice and nothing’s written, it just changes over time.

So you record it, and that’s how you know what your lyrics are for the future?

Justin: It’s not actually in the recording, it’s just that we’ll get together, start with an idea, and we’ll just flesh that idea out over the course of maybe two months. Me personally I’m much more into the way music and rhythm makes me feel in a song, not necessarily the words. Just so that I’m happy with ‘the groove,’ and what we have going then sort of vocals will come in as a new instrumental, if that makes any sense. It’s very sort of stream of conscious, fluid way of song writing.

How do you remember it for the future?

Justin: My lyrics literally until the day that we lay them down are always constantly changing and evolving much like the song it’s self is very fluid like the writing process. It will build and change as we play it more frequently. And only when we’re finally happy with something that we’ve done, do we play it out, or lay it down. When we feel like it’s complete and ready. But up until that point, it’s a constantly changing entity, if you will. What if it’s really good and you didn’t get it on tape?

Wouldn’t you want to record it so you can get it down?

Justin: No, we honestly don’t lay down ideas as we’re writing them, it’s that we pick up from what we remember from last week. If it’s good, and we did it last week, then we’ll remember it, if that makes any sense. If it’s no good, then we don’t remember it. I don’t understand where you’re from.

Justin: Where we’re from originally? Where we lived? I actually live in West Philadelphia now. I’ve lived there for the past few years.

Jeff: Suburbs. Right outside of Philly suburbs.

Justin: And we do most of our practicing in the suburbs. I’m from West Chester originally, so this was my old stomping grounds. Born and raised.

Do you guys go to college in PA?

Drew: I go to college in Collegeville, which is a great place for a college, I guess. I go to Ursinus.

Justin: I went to school in State college, also a great place for a college–and I graduated.

Jeff: I went to high school, and I like music.

How’s the tour going for you?

Justin: The shows have been going well. We’re not actually on tour right now. Actually right now we’re in the process of getting together and writing again. Our writing process is really slow, but now we’re sort of getting together and concentrating on writing the second album already. And we’re all really excited about that whole thing and have been dedicating a lot of time to that recently, and it’s been working out well. Slowly, but really well.

Jeff: We’ve been slowing down a bit because we have a new album coming up and our songs do take a while to perfect to the way we like them. So we’ve decided that a tour wasn’t the wisest thing to do yet. We were jumping the gun. And there were too much of our lives at the moment at stake. Like Justin’s got a really good job that he couldn’t afford to give up on the chance that do the tour. And I really wasn’t in the financial position to go on tour. Just we weren’t in any situation to afford or sacrifice our daily lives for the band. So at the moment we’re just trying to concentrate on the next album and our music and maybe after that when we all have something better and more stable we’ll take it further, but right now, we just don’t know what’s going on, so…

Justin: We sort of want to put out this full length and see where that goes. At the moment we’re all scraping by, so… that’s sort of what we’re concentrating on right now.

I heard that your music is described as sounding like the Pixies.

Justin: Yeah, we’re all really into the Pixies and that sound. Just into messy, alternative type music. We’re really into the Police, too. Pixies and the Police are two big influences on us. That’s really the direction that our music has sort of ended up going. And everybody should listen to the Archers of Loathe. Cause Archers of Loathe are good. And that’s had a big impact on recent writing as well.

Drew: And I think one of the big things is like we have so many different influences that really try to make each song different. I think that you can really hear our influences, but I think that we really try to make our own sound, so… That’s one of the big things about us, too.

 Anything else?

Justin: Visit us at thedangeros.com or myspace.com/thedangeros. It’s eating the world. Everyone’s on it. It ate us, too. Transcribed by Hannah Wagner

Anberlin

Throughout rock history, from “OK Computer” to “War” to “London Calling”, third albums have defined careers. With the bombastic, breathtaking Cities, Anberlin’s cohesive and adventurous new album, the group puts itself in some esteemed company with a modern classic that uplifts as much as it initiates thought and elicits emotion. The Winter Haven, Florida-reared quintet — who have watched its career rise while touring with everyone from Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance to Yellowcard and Hawthorne Heights — doesnt just build on the energy and determination of recent singles like “Paperthin Hymn”, “The Feel Good Drag”, and “A Day Late”. Instead, Anberlin expands its grasp of what a rock record can be with the Aaron Sprinkle-produced Cities. Be it the huge-sounding, memorable roar of “Reclusion” or the bright, infectious “Adelaide”, the writing team of singer Stephen Christian and guitarist Joseph Milligan drives Anberlin – which also counts bassist Deon Rexroat, guitarist Nathan Strayer and drummer Nathan Young – as it retains the airwave ready allure that earned the band a pair of radio hits last year. But, with the sprawling, epic “Fin*” and the gorgeous, lighter-ready “Unwinding Cable Car” the group vastly widens its musical boundaries on Cities. Expect Cities to light up the globe in 2007.

INTERVIEW WITH ANBERLIN Floridian punkers Anberlin tackle the big issues: religion, poverty and eating ribs with N’SYNC. Interview by Steve Tauschke | steve@staff.truepunk.com | with Anberlin’s Stephen Christian.

“This band and our faith are two separate things,” asserts singer Stephen Christian on the phone from Springfield, Missouri. “When you label yourself a Christian band you can usually only tour with Christian bands and you only get opportunities to do the most remote things.

“We’ve been on the road with Fallout Boy and My Chemical Romance and we would never have gotten those opportunities if we’d labeled ourselves a Christian band. Sure, we believe in Jesus Christ but I don’t think that comes into play on stage. We’re not preachers, we’re entertainers.”

In his teens, Christian sang in various groups including Anberlin precursor Saga, performing mainly in churches in and around central Florida due to a lack of venues in the area. Fast forward a few years and Anberlin are selling out sizeable shows in advance and earning high praise from a diverse demographic, including the odd celebrity.

“We were in our home town Orlando and we played two sold out shows and the kids were going crazy and afterwards a guy walks up to us and says ‘hey, I’m a personal assistant to someone famous but I can’t tell you who it is, but he wants you to come over to his house’,” laughs Christian. “We were all a little sceptical about this guy wanting us to come to this house.

“But it turned out he was the assistant for Chris Kirkpatrick who used to play in INSYNC and he wanted us to hang out with him. We nearly died laughing but we all went and had so much fun, partying with the guys from INSYNC. It was a million dollar house and he had ribs and a giant waterfall in his backyard and you could see Disney World right across the lake. We stayed there until 3.30 in the morning goofing off at his home theatre. He’s a huge fan of our band. I couldn’t believe it.”

After impressing fans with their 2003 debut Blueprints For The Black Market, Anberlin shifted up a gear on 2005′s follow up Never Take Friendship Personal, produced by Aaron Sprinkle (MxPx, Acceptance).

“We wanted someone to even us out,” explains Christian. “We’re not rough but we’re a very raw band and very energized and what we knew Aaron could bring to the table was a kind of pop sensibility without taking away the rugged rock sound. We’d heard an EP that he did with a band called Saosin on Militia Records and when we heard that we were sold. He kept the heavy guitars and yet made everything sound so smooth so you could hear every note that was played. We knew that’s what we wanted.”

“It was a very laid back atmosphere too. It wasn’t rushed or pressured and Aaron used his creative mind to manipulate the songs for the best. He would take out excess parts and add in a couple of melodies he thought would fit. He works around the musicians because he’s a musician himself.”

It’s no secret Anberlin’s affection for 80s sounds has rubbed off not only on their approach to songwriting but also in dealing with the industry.

“There’s something so innocent and pure about the 80s,” says Christian, “and maybe that’s why so many bands look back to then and think that’s when music had meaning and depth. It wasn’t all about the tours you got on and how big you could get or if your video was on MTV. It was about the music and about creativity.”

“One thing I don’t enjoy about American bands is that we’ve become such a marketing tool or a product placement. It seems to be more about having good looking band members and you have to dress just right and you got to look the part to sell records and I don’t understand that.

“If you look back to the 70s and 80s, these are the ugliest men alive but they had the best music. Look at Robert Smith, he was never the most attractive man in the world but his music just exemplifies sex. I think that’s one thing the Europeans have on us, is that they’re all about the music – just music, not glitz and glamour and stardom.”

And archivists can count Anberlin as another group in today’s youth brigade keeping the Smiths’ flame burning. Christian himself cites Morrissey as a huge inspiration.

“He comes across as relating to everybody that listens to him,” he says. “His stage presence, I take a lot of notice of what he does, I see what he does live and he’s not a Mick Jagger up in your face. He has a very humble way of expressing and he’s very witty, not too egocentric but very confident. And lyrically, every song could be a coming-of-age book.”

“I think that what we are trying to break a lot of stereotypes within the indie world,” says Christian. “Previous to maybe our generation, I think a lot of bands were out there for the whole sex, drugs and rock n’ roll and now I think maybe our generation is pushing that away and saying ‘I don’t want to be egocentric, it’s not just about me’.

“Coldplay’s Chris Martin is very involved in free trade and Bono, although not from our generation, is out there fighting AIDS. In Anberlin, I think we’re trying to move away from the egocentrics. We may not be here in five years, or three years, but what will be here is poverty and we want to make a difference while we still can.”