THE WONDER YEARS -Tour Begins on Monday

Philadelphia’s The Wonder Years, will be leaving for a seven-week tour of the U.S. beginning on Monday.
The Ghostbus-Tour will find the pop-punk juggernaut teaming up with Bridge Nine’s Energy, as well as A Loss For Words, for 40 shows that cover both coasts and just about everything in between.
The Wonder Years will have copies of a limited edition (250), hand-numbered CD. I Refuse to Sink: A Collection of Prior Recordings features six tracks from the now out-of-print, No Sleep Records-released 7-inches Won’t Be Pathetic Forever and Distances. The CD is only available from the band on tour.

Tour Dates
SEP 19 - Boston, MA @ The Great American Hardcore Fest
SEP 21 - Nangatuck, CT @ Nangatuck American Legion w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
SEP 22 - Albany, NY @ Bogies w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
SEP 23 - Amityville, NY @ Broadway w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
SEP 24 - Binghampton, NY @ American Legion Post 80 w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
SEP 25 - New Berlin, PA @ American Legion w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
SEP 26 - Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom and Tavern w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
SEP 27 - Cincinnati, OH @ Warsaw Arena w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
SEP 28 - Whitesburgh, KY @ Whitesburgh Shriners Building w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
SEP 29 - Indianapolis, IN @ Studio 8 / The Murphy Arts Center w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
SEP 30 - Springfield, IL @ Black Sheep Cafe w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 01 - Springfield, MO @ Club Neon w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 02 - Lawrence, KS @ The Jackpot w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 03 - Denison, TX @ Fat Daddys Sound Shack @ Joshuas Crossing w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 04 - Abilene, TX @ Rose Park Activity Building w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 05 - Mcallen, TX @ Nikki Rowe VFW w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 06 - San Antonio, TX @ Rock Bottom w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 07 - El Paso, TX @ The Spot w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 08 - Albuquerque, NM @ Amped Theater w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 09 - Mesa, AZ @ Badlands Music Venue w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 11 - Whittier, CA @ The Green Turtle w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 12 - Canoga Park, CA @ Cobalt Cafe w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 13 - San Francisco, CA @ Sub-Mission Art Space w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 14 - Sacramento, CA @ Branch Street House w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 15 - Chico, CA @ Paradise Lost w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 16 - Olympia, WA @ Black Lake Grange w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 18 - Salt Lake City, UT @ V2 w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 19 - Denver, CO @ Quixotes w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 21 - Buffalo, MN @ The Vault w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 22 - Aurora, IL @ Doug’s Rockhouse w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 23 - Ann Arbor, MI @ The Metal Frat w/ Energy, A Loss For Words
OCT 24 - Rochester, PA @ Blue Violet Cafe w/ Energy
OCT 25 - Doylestown, PA @ Maennerchor Field w/ Energy
OCT 26 - Holmdel, NJ @ Holmdel Firehouse w/ Energy
NOV 01 - Erie, PA @ Forward Hall w/ Energy
NOV 02 - Nitro, WV @ The Brickhouse w/ Energy
NOV 03 - Mt. Airy, MD @ Mt. Airy Firehall w/ Energy
NOV 04 - Altoona, PA @ Eldolyn Terrace w/ Energy
NOV 06 - Bucksport, ME @ The Kave w/ Energy
NOV 07 - Manchester, NH @ Rocko’s w/ Energy
NOV 08 - Holyoak, MA @ Water Front Tavern w/ Energy

Anchor Arms

Florida natives Anchor Arms have spent a long time building up community ties in their hometown of Gainsville, Florida. It wasn’t until 2007 that their penchant for slowly building and soaring alt-punk was noticed by aging rock star Jon Bon Jovi who took them on his US tour of that year. The tour opened up new doors for the band and now they are touring across the world and selling hundreds of records in Virgin Megastores across the world.

Anchor Arms will be playing FEST 8 in their hometown of Gainsville, Florida this upcoming Halloween.

For more on FEST 8 check out TruePunk’s Guide to FEST 8

Strike Anywhere

When Thomas Barnett’s band Inquisition decided it to call it quits, Barnett decided he wasn’t ready to stop just yet. Quickly he assembled Strike Anywhere - named after an Inquisition song - and continued Inquisition’s legacy of fast, catchy songs. With rocking beats and riffs combined with emotional and powerful lyrics, Strike Anywhere gained the attention of the hit-makers who organize the Tony Hawk video game soundtracks. After having singles appear in the wildly popular video games the band began touring and recording more extensively. Like many mainstream bands, Strike Anywhere has taken up causes like vegetarianism and global wage equalization.

The band recently released the album “Iron Front” on BridgeNine Records.

This Time Next Year release “A Place For You”

Escapist Records has announce the release of This Time Next Year’s debut EP, “A Place for You.” The Walnut Creek, CA pop-punk outfit originally released the seven-song EP through the independent label in mid-2007 and was one of the “100 bands you need to know in 2009″ by Alternative Press.

This Time Next Year has gone on to sign with Equal Vision Records with the release of their debut full-length due this Fall. “A Place for You” will see its official vinyl release (with free digital download) in the coming months - details are currently being finalized. In the meantime, you can catch the band on their current full U.S. tour supporting labelmates Fear Before.

Set Your Goals

Formed in 2004 in the Bay Area (California) Set Your goals have been rocking the pop punk scene with North American Tours.

The band released their first self titled album in 2004 just a few months after forming with Stright on Records. With over 2 years of tours the band was able to pick up fans all over North America and began growing in popularity. The band signed up with Eulogy Records and re-releasedtheir self titled album as “Reset” in 2006. 2 months after this release the band put out a whole new album again with Eulogy titled “Mutiny!”.

Over the next year the band did a follow up tours promoting the new album and had the chance to play with some big name bands as Anti-flag, Alexisonfire and Big D and the Kids Table. The band also released a number of re-releases of songs from their 2 previous albums on “”unk Goes Acoustic 2” and “Punk Goes Crunk” both albums through Fearless Records.

In 2008 Set Your Goals despite issues (unknown to us) the band bought out their contact and signed with Epitaph Records. Their new release “This Will Be the Death of Us” which is planned for April of 2009 will be released on Epitaph Records and will be followed up with a 2 month North America tour.

Set Your goals has had a number of members over the last 5 years with several different guitar and bass players.

The current line up concists of:
Matt Wilson - Vocals
Jordan Brown - Vocals
Joe Saucedo - Bass
Michael Ambrose - Drums
Audelio Flores, Jr - Guitar
Daniel Coddaire - Guitar

LINKS

Featured on True Punk

Set Your Goals on MySpace

NOFX

On the eve of the mid-90s neo-punk expolosion, NOFX’s Pied Piper-like leader Fat Mike, already a ten year veteran of the San Francisco Bay Area scene, offered his own prerequisite on attaining punkdom’s esteemed high office.

INTERVIEW WITH NOFX By Steve Tauschke

“There can’t be any rock stars in the band,” he cautioned me during a break on a Punk In Drublic tour in Europe back in 1994. “Punk rockers are shit, they’re not very good musicians typically and it doesn’t take much to play guitar – or to yell. It’s like, fuckin’ easy! Anyone can learn bass guitar in about half an hour. Actually I taught my 78-year-old grandmother how to play a song on bass.”While Mike’s beloved grandma has since passed on - “she’d probably be pretty good by now if she hadn’t died ten years ago!” - NOFX are still dishing out albums that, in a Mad comic kind of way, depict the lighter side of punk rock and its trappings.

The quartet’s new album Wolves In Wolves’ Clothing tackles everything from drinking songs to the more serious matter of America’s flawed foreign policy, as illustrated in the ship-headed-for-the-iceberg analogy of USA-Holes.

“Yeah, it’s funny how many kids say ‘why are you singing about the Titanic?’,” laughs Mike. “God, fuckin’ stupid kids! It’s a pretty easy metaphor for America and there’s no escaping this either. I just think this country is on its way down, maybe we won’t be wiped off the face of the earth but we’re just going to turn into a country like South Africa where urban places are super dangerous, the economy sucks and everything will slowly turn into chaos. “Cities such as Detroit are fucked, you just don’t want to go there. Or Pittsburgh, which used to have 3 million people and now it has 300,000. There’s just empty house upon empty house and if you live in a city with no work, it’s just turned into a crime-ridden city and so people leave. Cities like Phoenix won’t last either because people are not supposed to live in that kind of heat. I think people will flood towards the west coast in the future. I read a report that said the cities that will survive are coastal towns that have decent temperatures.”

Notably, Fat Mike, born Mike Burkett, was instrumental in releasing on his own Fat Wreck Chords label the War On Errorism album in 2003 followed by two instalments of Rock Against Bush, leftist politico-punk compilations that in the build up to local elections re-jigged the ‘wake up America’ template of the Reagan-era Dead Kennedys two decades earlier. Back then, Mike was a teenage misfit with punk rock aspirations. He spawned NOFX in 1983.

“If you wanted to put out a record in 1984 or ‘85 there were maybe only 5 or 6 labels in the US; SST, Discord, Mystic and a few others,” he says of the group’s long-held DIY ethos. “You had to put out your own stuff if you wanted a record out and that’s what most bands that we knew did, they just put out their records and then later more labels popped up. I always thought going to a major would be the wrong career move for us. Now we’re even more DIY than before because we put out own records – we’re not even on Epitaph – and we book our own tours and pretty much do everything ourselves. “It works for us but I don’t give that advice to bands now, because it’s too hard. They say ‘oh, I want to do everything myself’ but you can’t anymore. You try booking your own tour and the clubs are not going to book you. The only reason we can do it is because we have a history. You might get popular on myspace but you’re not going to know what to do with that. You need to get an experienced booking agent and some kind of experienced record label if you want a career out of touring the world and surviving on playing music. It’s pretty hard to do yourself if you’re just starting now.”

Ask Mike for his thoughts on the myspace phenomenon and his tone turns to indifference.

“There’s kind of some good and bad things about it,” he shrugs. “For me, the whole downloading of music is bad for my record label but it’s kind of good for new bands. I’m not really one to bitch about it because that’s just how it goes. I used to tape records for my friends when I was a kid but there’s just so many bands to choose from now, it’s just really hard to find new bands – they’re so much mediocrity out there.”

“Anyone with a Pro Tools rig and a computer can get a CD out to thousands of people. It used to be that if you were good somebody would sign you and pay for you to go into the studio and then distribute your record. Now anyone can do it and maybe that’s good or maybe that’s bad, I’m kind on the fence either way. All I know is there’s more fuckin’ mediocre bands now than I’ve ever seen before. When Epitaph signed their first bands from ‘89 they were pretty good bands; NOFX, Pennywise, Rancid, the Offspring and Bad Religion; they all made an impact in the punk world.”

Despite citing Against Me, Arctic Monkeys and the “new Chemical Romance record” as recent musical highlights, Mike does concede his enthusiasm has waned considerably over the years.

“I think I’ve got 10% of the enthusiasm I used to have,” says the 39-year-old father-of-one. “One thing though, when I find a band I really like, it does make me really happy. There’s this band called The Spits, I don’t know if you’ve head them, I heard one of their records and it totally gave me faith in music again. Once in a while you see that but mostly it’s just fuckin’ depressing.”

Currently plotting a world tour of locations as yet untouched by NOFX, Mike says 2007’s road trip adventures will be documented, bloopers included, on a DVD package hopefully later this year .

“The third world crowds are the hungriest and it’s where all the craziest shit happens. They don’t have a lot of experience staging shows and so you never know what’s going to happen. We’ve already got permission to play Beijing and Taiwan and we’re going to Russia and Israel and South Africa and hopefully all over South East Asia. And we’re playing Tasmania, we’ve never been there before!”

DESCENDENTS

The band that put Californian pop-punk on the map, Descendents return after a 10-year absence with a new album, Everything Sucks. From his suburban home in Wisconsin, vocalist Milo Aukerman speaks with True Punk.

Archival September 1997 Interview by Steve Tauschke | steve@staff.truepunk.com | with Descendents’ Milo Auckerman.

Hey Milo, have you really been away at college all this time, since Descendents broke up in 1987?
I’ve been doing biological research on plants. That’s what I do, I do genetics on plants. But I stayed loosely associated with the ALL guys through that period. I did backing vocals on their Breaking Things record and they’ve always sent me demos of their stuff so I could give them input on the music.
So I’ve been in science for the past ten years but I’ve kept in touch, especially with Bill (Stevenson - drummer), he’s been my best friend for many years. But yeah, I got my PhD in 1992 so I guess if you include undergraduate work and graduate work, it took me nine years.

Aside from contact with the ALL guys, did you have any association with music during that period?
I was actually in a band for a year and a half called Milestone in 1989. It was just a band that was more of a hobby that I did during graduate school for a short time. Other than that, it’s just been the Descendents all along.

I guess the reformation album didn’t take much prompting?
Yeah, it came about basically because I started writing music again in January or February and I called up Bill and asked if he wanted to help me with some of the songs and if he wanted to record some of them. And it just turned into a fully-fledged record over the course of a couple of weeks of working on the songs. So, mainly I got back into writing music because I needed an outlet for my frustrations, and music has always been my favourite outlet.

It’s nice to see the band has retained its Thou Shalt Not Commit Adulthood maxim on the album?
Kind of one of the reasons I got back into this was because I was living a very adult life in science and I was missing a lot of the more youthful, fun stuff that we used to do when I was in the band. Music always keeps you young no matter how old you are and we’re still not committing adulthood. Ha! Part of me doing this music again is my way of re-discovering the joy of it and the fun of it.

You get to be nerds too!
Exactly! I feel like I have a personal kind of mission to celebrate nerd-dom, basically. I mean obviously I spent the last ten years being a nerd and now I’m returning from nerd-dom and trying to convert others to the faith, ha ha. I’ve been a nerd since high school and it’s something I cannot escape, something I cannot deny in myself. So I just want other people to see how great it is, ha ha!

It’s certainly great to hear a new Descendents record … will this just be a one-off album?
No, I still have a bunch of new songs that I’ve written and if all goes well in the next year we should be able to record another record. I can’t guarantee it at this point but I would say that I think it’s very likely that more stuff would come out. I’ve done the science thing for many years now but over the next year I would like to focus more on music because I’m having so much fun doing it right now. I’ve been enjoying writing songs that, in the past, is something I was never prolific at. I’m now pounding out song after song and it’s fun!

Less Than Jake

I do not even think there is any need o introduce who or what Less Than Jake is, as they are quite famous all over the world. After some albums on major label Capitol, they released a full length album on Fat Wreck Chords, and now they are releasing their “new” album of b-sides, out-takes and rare stuff called “Good Bye Blue & White” on Fueled By Ramen Records. I talked with JR about some of the things that are happening to the band right now and he was kind enough to answer.

Interview by Carlo | carlo@staff.truepunk.com

Carlo:Hello. Are you doing fine?

JR:Hi. Yeah, we’re doing well, thanks.

Carlo:Your new album “Goodbye Blue & White” is coming out soon, can you tell us how you decide to release a kind of “greatest hits” or “rarest songs” album ?

JR:Well, we had released “GB&W” as a mail-order item only, but then decided to actually have a release on FBR, since we never had an official release. So, the songs were pretty much already all there….we removed a few and added a few, but they were pretty much all b-sides and things that we never officially released. So, in answering your question, we pretty much look and see what we haven’t releasewd and go from there.

Carlo:You will release the new album of Fueled By Ramen, althought your are on Fat Wreck Chords … how did Fat Mike react ? Seriously, why did you choose FBR ?

JR:Fat Mike reacted with a loud “HA!” and then a resounding “HO-HO!!” and told us he hated us; then we had a drink and it was fine. No, seriously though, we decided to do it on FBR because, like I said, it is Vinnie’s label and it only made sense to do it there because we never released anything on it prior. And because Vinnie has a nicer butt than Fatty helped, too.

Carlo:I know this question is old and everything, but, why did you reject a major label for an indie like FAT ?

JR:We didn’t reject the majors,man…they rejected us!!! And besides, The staff at Fat is MUCH better looking that the staff at Crapitol…and they let us throw parties at the office!

Carlo:So, talking of actual stuff, I heard “blue and white” is referred to your first van ? Do you now have to say goodbye to it ? Why ?

JR:Yes. We have to say goodbye to it because the piece of shit broke down. It has been replace by “The Grey Ghost”, which is a bit newer and actually…um…runs.

Carlo:When it comes to define the music of a band, a lot of new bands mention “Less Than Jake” as an influence … are you proud of this ? What would you say to these bands who name you as influence ?

JR:Proud is a good word to describe it, but weird is a good word as well. When you start a band, I don’t think you ever expect to influence others (If you do expect that, that means you’re gonna break up soon) so when people in bands or just people in general say that, it’s about the highest complement ever and we, the band of funny guys, are quite humbled. I’m never quite sure what to say these people, but “Thank you” comes to mind .

Carlo:I noticed that your live shows are very powerufl and someway funny … do you hate so much “regular” live shows ?

JR:OK. Here it is: as a fan myself, when I take the time to buy the records, get the tickets, drive an hour and a half to and from the show, stand out in the cold waiting to get in and spend $50 in merch and $70 at the bar, if the motherfucker on stage decides to do his best impersonation of Michelangelo’s “David” and stand there…I’m not a fan anymore. Screw that. Some of the bands I’ve seen stand up there, look at the floor, don’t talk between songs and when they do they sound like idiots; basically want to play and bail. I say fuck that noise. ENTERTAIN ME, YOU JADED BASTARD!!!!! All we want is for those kids who bought the records, and the shirts, and stood out in the cold to walk away feeling like they had a great time. If that happens, then we did our job.

Carlo:Are you going to tour for supporting your new album, even tough it is a kind of “greatest hits”?

JR:Yes. we are currently touring with Hot Water Music and Bad Religion in the US in support and we will be playing fetivals and club dates in June in Europe.

Carlo:Are you gonna take part to the Vans Warped 2002 ?

JR:No. Not this summer. Maybe next summer.

Carlo:I sometimes ask this to every band I interview, are there some bands you are listening to right now that you would recommend us ? I mean, what’s in your stereo right now ? Have you got some bands to recommend us ?

JR:Yeah, a few. Right now, in no particaular order:
Recover - “Rodeos and Picassos” , the new one from Whippersnapper , The Damn Personals - “Driver,Driver”, The MC5 - “Greatest hits” and then Kiss - “Unmasked”.

Carlo:Talking of Vinnie’s label, Fueled By Ramen, can you tell us how this label was born and grew up and if you think it is one of the best around ? I do.

JR:Vinnie and his partner (not life partner, mind you) “Quad J” Jon, were fans of music and wanted a medium to release it on…enter FBR. I think that there are some really good acts on the label and I’ll tell him you think the same.

Carlo:Which are the bands on FBR you like the most ?

JR:The Stereo, Jersey, Cadillac Blindside, Recover, Whippersnapper…basically the bands I’ve seen live the most. Pollen is very good, as well.

Carlo:And which are the bands of the punk/underground music scene you like ?

JR:The Damn Personals, Lost City Angels (Both are from Boston, MA). That’s about it.

Carlo:I know you played with Bon Jovi and other mainstream artists : which is the expirience or moment you remember as the funniest or the best ? and what about the worst ?

JR:The best experince was heraing Jon Bon Jovi use the word “pussy” in a conversation with us…that also is the funniest; that was like the best tour ever and those guys rule. The worst was getting denied a meeting of Marilyn Manson at a club after an awards show because he is a big pussy . The funny thing was, his security guard who was protecting him asked me for my autograph, so fuck that lanky, washed up, half-a-homo.

Carlo:I know two years ago you had to play at the Euro Deconstruction Tour : I went to the show in Milan, Italy, but you were not there … what happened ?

JR:The van broke down…we were tired and there was no way to get there from where we were. So we went home, but we’ll be back soon, promise.

Carlo:Your music is somewhat funny and happy, and most of the time your lyrics are too: do you see music as a good way to have fun and pass the time ? What do you think of political bands ?

JR:We see music as our career, though sometimes it may seem that we don’t. As much fun as we have, we are equally just as serious about what we do. Our music and our fans are the most important things to us because without them, Less Than Jake would not exist. Political bands are what they are…we don’t like to preach our beliefs or values to others because that’s a human beings own choice to find what they are for themselves…if they listen to someone and can’t figure it out and think for themselves, they are just following another trend. People should think for themsleves and not let others push them into the machine. So, to sum up, yes…it’s more fun to play music than to work in an office, but it’s not all fun and games all the time.

Carlo:Any final comments ?

JR:Yes. Your mother!

Carlo:Ok, I really thank you a lot, thanks for your time and I hope to see you soon . take care.

JR:Thanks to you as well.

Blink 182

With his band’s flame burning bright, singer-guitarist Tom Delonge tells Truepunk about surviving in the cut throat music business.

Interview by Steve Tauschke with Tom Delonge in 1998

Hi Tom, how’s things?
“Ok, I’m in a gas station parking lot in San Diego. I’m between houses right now so I’m staying at my girlfriend’s house and the only phone people can get hold of me on is a mobile phone number and that only works above her house up on this hill. So I had to pull in here to take interview calls. Haha!”

I seem to hear Dammit wherever I go .. are you living off the band these days?
“We are, totally! It’s better than we’ve ever lived before but that’s not to say it’ll all be here tomorrow so we’re not taking it for granted or anything. We’re not even going to try to say that we’re comfortable because we’re actually all kind of scared to tell you the truth. I mean any band that has any popularity aren’t expected to be here for too long … but we usually don’t talk about money, it’s a taboo subject because the kids get bummed on ya! Haha! I mean if we were to make $10 a show some kids would say ‘oh, that’s too much, that’s not punk, you should be playing for free!’ And if we got a $1000 a show then people would just say we’re taking all their money.”

What are you most scared of … the fame or failure?
“Well, we signed to a major label (MCA) and if (sales) don’t keep going up then it goes down and you’re gone (pause) and then you know that your band failed, haha, well not failed but on a major label you’ve got to sell a lot of albums to make a living off it forever. It’s just weird. It’s an entertainers business.”

I guess it’s just music at the end of the day.
“Totally, but it’s also our livlihood right now and I don’t know how to do anything else except write songs about girls and pooping. So we’ll see how far that takes me!”

People relate to girls and pooping though.
“That’s how our songs start. Usually I or Mark get dumped on by a girl, spat on or kicked when we’re down so then we come crying to each other, hold each other, wipe each other’s eyes and we write a song about it.”

You worked with Mark Trombino (Jimmy Eat World) on last year’s Dude Ranch .. how did you hook up with him?
“He lives in San Diego and he did another band that we really liked the recording of so we decided to use him. It worked out really well. It was something new for him I think because he came from a different musical scene and it was great to get a bunch of ideas that went back and forth. He was really cool, he had a lot of ideas for our songs.”

And you asked Scott Russo from Unwritten Law to help you out on the album too right?
“Yeah, he sings with us, you know, some back ups. Uunwritten Law are a punk band from our hometown, just friends of ours.”

You guys seem to be a product of your environment, a real summer band .. tell me you use the right sun block?
“I don’t use anything because I’m always so pasty white. I welcome any type of UV rays on my body. I don’t mind bronzing up on tour because when I came home I look all hot for my chick. But I don’t seem to get all that many rays. I use Vaseline all over my body, petroleum jelly. Either that or peanut butter!”

Blink 182

San Diego punk-pranksters are back with their second album Dude Ranch bassist Mark Hoppus tells Truepunk.

Interview by Steve Tauschke with Mark Hoppus. – July 1997
Hey Mark, tell us about your idea of a Dude Ranch?
“Well, there’s another definition, like when everyone says ‘yeah, it’s gonna be a great party’ and everyone’s like ‘yeah, there’s gonna be all kinds of hot girls there’ or whatever but when you show up it’s all guys.”
Just sitting around a bong?
“Right!”
So you would you contrast Dude Ranch to your debut Cheshire Cat in terms of your approach to songwriting and recording?
“Well, Cheshire Cat we did in LA in three days and this album was recorded in San Diego over the course of about a month. We took a lot more time to try to get things to sound better and do better performances at each of our posts. I also felt a lot more pressure on this record whereas on the last one we were a tiny small band who’d never done any touring at all and it was our first album. I was just just stoked to have something to sell at our shows or whatever but for this album I felt people expected more from us. I felt we had to make a much better record and still keep our minds together.”
Was moving to a major a big step for you?
“It was a huge step. It took a year and a half to decide exactly what we wanted to do because we wanted to make the right choice. Obviously there was a lot of concern about signing with a major because we grew up in the whole mind set that major labels were inherently evil. The problem with Cargo, they are a great label and they worked really hard but they just weren’t able to get our records out to as many places as we needed them to. We have a better distribution with MCA and they honestly seem like a great label so far. They’ve been completely supportive and haven’t pushed us to do stuff that would be out of character for us.”
Have you kept your Fun With Goats publishing deal?
“Oh yeah, we kept our publishing rights for Cheshire Cat and so we had to make our own publishing company, Fun With Goats. It’s always been a running joke in the band and for some reason we think sex with animals is funny and in fact for a long time we kept telling everyone we were going to name our next album Heavy Petting Zoo and then NOFX beat us to the punch. So now we just look like we’re copying NOFX, haha! I mean we write songs about things that happen to us and our friends and we try to keep a sense of humor about everything. A lot of bands just get way down on trying to act really self-important and have a really strong message and there’s definitely a place for that. But there’s also a time to have fun with your friends and just say ‘fuck everything’.”
So is Blink your day job at the moment?
“Luckily we’re able to scrape by with the money we make from the band. We’re doing pretty good with the band but we’re not able to be the full rock stars, buying cars and things like that. We survive on our band which is all we ever wanted to do, and we get to travel and hang out with our friends so you won’t hear any complaints from us really.”
I saw you on the Warped Tour in Florida last year and people seemed to really warm to you?
“Definitely! And this year is going to be the biggest ever! Warped is doing the US and Europe and it might go to Japan again and Australia.”
So how does the whole skate-punk thing go down in Japan?
“It did ok in Japan. It did three shows there and we played one of them and it was a lot of fun. Japan rules – I love that place.”
Why’s that?
“It’s completely un-Americanized! There’s definitely influences of American culture here and there, like McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken but for the most part it’s all authentic Japanese, just like you would imagine it to be.”
On your recent tour, you had surfer Rob Machaddo on board with you right?
“Yeah, he’s a friend of ours, just through the surfers we know. We brought his band (Sack Lunch) on tour with us a few times. He’s just a great guy.

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