Warped Tour 2009 Band List

Bad Religion, a staple of the Warped Tour, will be rocking it again this year

Warped Tour is regularly the a showcase for the biggest names in punk rock. VANS, the skateboarding shoe company, has been sponsoring the event since its first year, and this year they will be bringing you the latest and greatest in rock and roll. Below is a list of the bands that will be on most stops on the tour. Band names link to TruePunk content on the band. The bands are listed by what stage they will be playing on.

For a complete list of the tour dates click here: Warped Tour 2009 Dates

Main Stage

The main stage has always been the center of the talent showcase
3OH!3
Alien Ant Farm
All Time Low
Anti-Flag
The Ataris
Bad Religion
The Bouncing Souls
Chiodos
Cobra Starship
The Devil Wears Prada
Flogging Molly
Less Than Jake
NOFX
Paramore
Silverstein
Thrice
Underoath
We the Kings

LIGHTS, the Canadian synth-pop princess, will be on the tour

Hurley Stage

A Day To Remember
Alexisonfire
Bayside
Escape the Fate
Gallows
The Maine
Saosin
Scary Kids Scaring Kids
Sing it Loud
TAT

Hurley.com Stage

Big D and the Kids Table
Black Tide
I Set My Friends on Fire
LIGHTS
Meg & Dia
Millionaires
Outernational
P.O.S.
Streetlight Manifesto
Westbound Train

Innovative alt-rockers Dear and the Headlights have signed up for the tour as well

Smartpunk.com Stage

A Rocket To The Moon
A Skylit Drive
Breathe Carolina
Breathe Electric
Cash Cash
Dance Gavin Dance
Dear and the Headlights
Every Avenue
Forever the Sickest Kids
The Goodnight Anthem
Hit the Lights

NOFX

NOFX

One of the most prolific names in punk rock today, NOFX is one of the most successful independently-managed bands in the business. Over six million of NOFX’s records were sold by the band themselves, showing true DIY spirit. They’ve told MTV along with other major media outlets to leave them “the fuck alone”. When Green Day, Rancid, and the Offspring began their rapid ascent into the mainstream in the mid-90s, NOFX was right behind them. Unlike the other bands, however, NOFX has resisted the mainstream. They turned down most offers to do an interview, and released only a handful of music videos, claiming that people were just trying to take advantage of the band for their own gain.

Also, keeping with punk’s political origins, NOFX has been at the cutting edge of left-wing rage since before Bush was president. But once the Republican party retook the White House in 2000 NOFX had made their hatred of the Bush Administration part of their public image. With other top-selling rock artists NOFX spearheaded the “Rock Against Bush” campaign in which artists from across the rock spectrum compiled politically-driven songs into several volumes of CDs.

More than 25 years and still going, NOFX recently released a new album, “Coaster”, and will be playing the 2009 Vans Warped Tour.

Warped Tour 2009

Warped Tour 2009 is here! TruePunk is your one stop for information on the biggest punk tour of the year, every year.

To find the complete list of bands playing, read their bios, look up lyrics, and listen to their tracks, click below.

Warped Tour 2009 Band List!

This is the complete tour list.

Dates in italics have already happened.

To buy tickets to an event, click on the name of the venue.

Anti Flag

The powers that be have, ironically, made life easier for Anti-Flag as Truepunk discovers from bassist Chris #2.

Pittsburgh punk protagonists Anti-Flag owe much to the American Warped tour, the popular annual music festival with which the veteran quartet has virtually grown up.

Interview by Steve Tauschke with bassist Chris #2 of Anti-Flag.

“We played two shows on the Warped tour in 1999 on small side stages and the next year we were a second stage band,” says Chris #2 (born Chris Barker) on the phone from Pennsylvania, “so I felt we were really starting to have an impact and gain some ground as a band. It’s an eye-opening experience when you see a tour where five to ten thousand people were coming out. And it wasn’t just one person walking away from the Anti-Flag show energized and empowered but a lot of people were connecting with our music and our ideas in the same way that we do. We are back again this year so we have a lot of history with this tour and a lot of landmarks in our ‘career’ have been defined through it.”

The ever-expanding Warped caravan has in recent years provided Anti-Flag with an ideal platform from which to voice their dissenting views, albeit via an old school punk soundtrack. The group’s latest album For Blood and Empire certainly tackles with aplomb what they regard as the underhanded forces of global ‘evil’; the CIA, 10 Downing Street and most topically, their interpretation of American colonial militarism.

“Any time through history where you have a war or a conflict of human interest whether it be through violence or political policy, then that’s going to influence art whether it’s painting or music or poetry – and I think that’s going on right now,” says Chris. “We’re seeing more and more artists come out not only standing against this war in Iraq but around the world. I think that’s the silver lining. It’s a total cliché but sometimes shit needs to get really bad before it gets any better and I think that’s where we’re at, another paradigm shift in our world’s history.”

Inspired by the explosive punk template of the Dead Kennedys and The Exploited, Chris, vocalist-guitarist Justin Sane, drummer Pat Thetic, and vocalist-guitarist Chris Head believe this nation’s foreign policy needs a rethink, citing local comedian David Cross’ satirical observation that ‘a war on terror is like a war on jealousy – you’re never going to end it!’.

“It’s unfortunate but in America we live in a country full of misinformed people and the reason they’re misinformed is because they watch network news everyday,” says Chris. “And that makes them afraid and once they’re afraid they can’t help but continue to watch and have that cycle of fear over and over. We as a band are trying to break out of that and say ‘you don’t need to be afraid all the time, you can be constructive and find out what’s happening in this world for real’.”

In their early days, Anti-Flag found themselves lumped in with the so-called unpatriotic minority. Now the tables seemed to have turned.

“It’s definitely far easier to be in Anti-Flag today than it was back then,” says Chris with a touch of irony. “With September 11 they – and I mean the people in power in the world – have made their bed, and in fact made it easier for us to be in a band. The error of their ways has been brought to life and frankly the chickens are coming home to roost.”

So does the fight ever wear you down?

“It doesn’t wear the four of us down because we love what we do, we love this band and the music we create and our artistic outlet. Beyond that, the celebration of all the people coming together at any show we play is more than we could ever ask for. I feel the band today is bigger than it’s ever been maybe because of the political landscape – or maybe because people just like the way it sounds.”

Avenged Sevenfold

“City Of Evil” is the name of Avenged Sevenfold’s new album, the first one for a major label. After two amazing discs on Hopeless Records, “Sounding The Seventh Trumpet” and “Waking The Fallen”, the Californian quintet is back in action with their strongest disc ever: filled with anthems from five minutes to ten minutes of epic metal riffs, piano ballads, flamenco rhythms, an orchestra and even more, “City Of Evil” destroys everything you could imagine these guys play. They play rock! [emo mode on] ps: this is the 100th interview I ever did in my life, so, it means a lot to me. [/emo mode off]

Interview by Carlo Gironi | carlo@staff.truepunk.com | with lead singer, M. Shadows. Hi there Shadows! How are you doing?
Doing pretty decent. About to leave for Warped Tour tomorrow, just got home from Germany and our new CD is out so that pretty exciting.

This is the second time I have interviewed you, so I am going to skip all of the usual questions like “where did you form, what’s your story, etc…” . I hope you are happy.
Very happy.

Your newest record “City Of Evil” just came out on Warner Bros. Can you introduce the record and describe it? How is it different from your previous works?
I feel this record is ambitious and sounds like no one else. That was the point of it. To make a record that stands on its own without a scene behind it. There is no scene for this type of music, just people who love it and people who hate it.

Your new record is also your major label debut: how did you decide to leave Hopeless and why did you choose Warner? What did they have to offer, what did you find in them and did not find in other major labels?
Hopeless couldn’t get our records in enough stores, not enough money for TV ads. Kids in big cities take stuff for granted. Most smaller towns couldn’t get our CD in their stores and every country besides the UK and USA had to get the CD by import, so it was hard for kids to hear us. We want everyone to be able to find our music so the choice was made to move to a major. Warner offered up 100% creative control and that was the difference with them and the other labels. Did you feel any pressure while writing the new songs? Did the label want to make a lot of hit singles and such stuff?
There was a lot of pressure but only pressure we put on ourselves. It was the same for the previous records; we just want them to be the best they can be. The label stayed out of our hair on this one. Of course every label wants hit singles no matter what they say to you. But, we just did our thing and didn’t worry about that stuff. I think singles happen naturally if you’re a true rock band. We can’t just sit down and write a pop single, it just wouldn’t come across right.

Compared to the older songs, the new tunes sound heavier, longer and even less commercial. Why did you decide to write such long songs with so many uncommerically heavy sounds?
We just wanted to make the next Avenged record. There really wasn’t much method to the madness other than to write songs we wanted to write and put them on the new record. Radio, MTV, length and heaviness were not things we were thinking of, we just wrote what we felt like writing. We wanted it to be a creative, ambitious and fun record.

I also noticed that you put a lot of influences in your anthems: from metal to punk, from rock n roll ballads to even flamenco and extreme metal riffs. Also there’s a part played by an orchestra. How did you decide to mash together all of these influences and where do they originate from. Don’t you think your fans are going to look scared in front of the new stuff?
We have so many influences that it’s hard to begin to name them. We listen to all sorts of pop music, metal music, some punk music, dance music, movie scores… we listen to it all and we are not afraid to use those influences and we aren’t ashamed of them. It’s music, and if you enjoy it than there is nothing wrong with that. I know about 10% of our fans just like us because they see our name on T-shirts with a cool logo and we used to scream on our records and it’s a cool scene to be involved in. Those kids won’t dig this. Another 10% just think the band members are cute and it doesn’t matter what we put out, they will say they like it. Another 10% will feel this is too big of a change in style and they just won’t like it. 20% understand us for what we are; an always evolving, ambitious band that’s always gonna throw you a curve ball and they will get this record. The other 50% haven’t heard of us yet… and this record is a perfect introduction.

Why “City Of Evil”? What does it refer to? I saw you mentioned the words “city of evil” in the first song “Beast and the Harlot” … can you describe the city of evil better, and do you think there are a lot of these cities in the world today? Is it a concept album?
It’s not a concept album; the City of Evil was written about the fall of Babylon. Other cities you can compare it to in modern day are Amsterdam, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and NYC.

What about your new lyrics? What do you sing about in general?
I sing about fun things, over the top subjects. Babylon, Fear and Loathing, Democrats and Republicans, Soldiers in the war, Dimebag, Snakes. Anything and everything. If we can take a subject and put it over the top. then we will.

There are a lot of 80′s sounds in your new album: think that after I heard it, I went and listened to Guns N Roses, Pantera and Iron Maiden as I felt a lot of nostalgia for those good years. What are the best bands that influenced you when you were teenager and that you still remember?
As far as rock records go I still listen to the same records from when I was very young. GnR, Metallica, Pantera, Alice in Chains, Queen, Iron maiden, Megadeth. Those are a few bands that I still listen to and prefer over anything going on today.

Do you consider yourself an emo or punk or hardcore band at all? What do you think of the music scene of nowadays?
I don’t consider ourselves any of those whatsoever. I think the music scene in general is pretty sad. Kids praise mediocrity. How would you describe A7X to a person that has never heard of you?
If it was some sort of scene kid I would call it a heavy rock band. If it was your typical Joe I would tell them we play metal.

I know that for your new record you worked with Mudrock, who already worked with you on “Waking The Fallen”. In previous interviews you told me you wanted to work with Andy Sneap or Terry Date in the future … will it happen soon? How did you find yourself with Mudrock? I think he stresses your influences a lot.
Mud’s a good friend of ours and I think what’s so great about him is he lets us create our vision. We basically produced “City of Evil” ourselves in the way that he didn’t touch the songs and just basically watched over the project, and I think that was the best thing he could have done with this record. I don’t have much interest in working with those other producers in the future. I like doing our own thing and producing the shit ourselves.

Lately there is a lot of hype around “emo” and “screamo” disc, especially the ones that come out on major labels. I think of the latest disc of A Static Lullaby. There was this kind of great expectation but then those records sucked and the fans got screwed up. I do not see these “fake” bands going far away. What’s your opinion on this and what about Avenged Sevenfold? Are you making music for this moment or are you trying to make music that in ten years kids will still listen to? I mean, I see my record collection and see I still listen to my old discs of Bad Religion and Black Flag, but seriously, who is gonna listen to bands like The Used and My Chemical Romance in ten years?
I haven’t actually heard the record you mentioned at first. However, I think we make it quite clear that we are not making music for the moment. We are doing things that no one is doing, we sound like no one else. We are not trying to fit in, we don’t want to be considered cool. This is music that I think kids will grow into and appreciate over their lifespan, the same way you are with Black Flag and I am with GnR.

I read that your talking with Fat Mike was very important to you … what did he tell that you did not know already?
Fat Mike has always been someone I’ve grown up respecting. The guy is obviously smart, his band is fun and great and he has had a huge impact on my life through NOFX before I met him. So, it was great to hang out and talk to him on Warped Tour and he told me if you’re not going to have fun on tour, you’ll never last. Do your own thing and make tour fun if you want your band to last. So I have remembered that and try to have as much fun as possible on tour.

What are some of the bands that you guys in the band regularly listen to?
Faith No More, Alice In Chains, Mr. Bungle, GnR, Pantera, Weezer, Foo Fighters, Sonata Arctica, No Doubt, Ozzy. Too much shit to name.

Have you got some plans of touring to support you new album? If so, where and with whom?
Warped Tour, head over to Europe, Australia, Japan, headline in the USA and after all that we’ll probably do it again.

Do you consider yourself rockstars now, after the great success you had?
No, we just do our thing, we are all best friends and we don’t think about any of that other shit. The City Of Evil was released June 10, 2005 on Warner Bros.

Interview with Lagwagon 2006

INTERVIEW WITH LAGWAGON – January 2006

Californian old-school punk vets Lagwagon return with another album in Resolve, a heartfelt tribute to the life of their former drummer Derrick Plourde.

Interview By Steve Tauschke with guitarist Chris Rest.

Hey Chris, what’s up with Joey .. problems with his voice?
“Yeah, he lost his voice. He’s not allowed to do interviews because he’s not allowed to talk. His specialist has put him on a strict regimen of no talking at all.”

You’ve just come off a European tour … it must get bigger every time over there?
“Right, when I joined the band Lagwagon was at its peak, that was in 1996, and we took a long break around 2000, that was when Joey starting writing the Bad Astronaut record and during that time I think people kind of forgot about us a little bit. But since we started putting out records again the audiences have been getting bigger and bigger.”

Was that a beneficial break for the band looking back?
“I don’t think so. I mean I was able to do other stuff in the meantime, I was playing with my old band RKL, but it didn’t take us long to get back where we were though.”

How did Derrick’s death last year affect you guys?
“He was a good friend of mine even though I was never in Lagwagon with him, he played with RKL for about a year. He was just a really great guy and it was a really big loss to all of us. Writing the record definitely had its sad moments in the studio, you know, going through the songs, but I think it may have been therapeutic to all of us through the course of the process.”

What did you enjoy most about him?
“A lot of it was his sense of humour. He was so smart, he always had something funny to say, even in the most dismal situation. He was just a hilarious person and his humour really rubbed off on everybody around him.”

Were there any signs that he was suicidal?

“When he left the band he was having a really hard time but I don’t think he was suicidal at that time. But I think in recent years he definitely showed signs of those tendencies. Everyone around him was trying to help him but I think he was sort of just done. His body was pretty damaged, he got hit by a car and he just had a really hard couple of years before that. He was having trouble playing as well as he wanted to and was still struggling with substance abuse. He was just not happy.”

So was he receiving treatment for depression?
“I think most of the time he was trying to self-medicate but I’m sure he had seen people in the past. I don’t know much about that.”

The album is a great tribute to him .. were you involved lyrically, aside from Joey?
“Not so much really, it was mostly just Joey. I think that when he started writing the songs he wasn’t even thinking about a Lagwagon record, he was writing down his feelings and it just came pouring out. Once a few of the songs were written it just made sense that they should be Lagwagon songs since Derrick spent so much of his life in the band.”

The final track Days of New is quite heart-wrenching .. you playing that one live?
“We have, not every night but quite a few times.”

Joey produced this album .. he seems comfortable doing that.
“Yeah, and it seems like we try a different thing every record. But Joey will definitely have a lot more control from now on
because he has so much knowledge now of the recording process, he’s done it so many times with other bands and been involved with our recordings that it just seems silly to give all the control to someone else.”

Speaking of production, I especially enjoyed the fuzzy, fat sound of Double Plaidinum.
“Yeah, it’s got heaps of bottom end with all those Fuzz Face and Big Muff pedals used on that. Like any time there’s extreme fuzz, it’s usually one of those pedals being used. I think that was a little trick Jawbreaker used to do a lot and Joey got into that at the time. I was popping in and out during the recording and I know Ken Stringfellow sang a lot on that record, a lot of backup vocals that I can’t even do because they’re so high.”

You’ve been a touring muso for quite a few years now … you must have some war stories saved up?
“One thing that was kind of funny was we were leaving on a tour flying out of New York and we were travelling with No Use For A Name and (singer) Tony (Sly) from No Use was deathly afraid of flying so he took a bunch of sleeping pills right before we took off. But about ten minutes into the flight they had to turn the plane around because something was wrong with the engine and so Tony was passed out already. They told us we’d have to try again tomorrow we said ‘there’s no way, we have to get Tony on a plane right now or we won’t be able to go at all because he doesn’t have any more medication’. So we managed to get him on a standby flight. He stumbled on board with the help of some friends.”

How’s the camaraderie in the punk scene these days?
“I wouldn’t say there’s much rivalry, that’s for sure. And it’s the same on the Warped tour, everyone just becomes like a big family, although people have their differences sometimes. The Warped tour can be a strange thing because you’ve got so many people from so many different places on such a long tour.”

Has the scene changing a lot in your mind? Obviously various younger bands are adopting 80s pop influences.
“I think the sound is definitely getting darker and the metal is coming back so strongly which I’m not opposed to but I’d hate to see a whole bunch of bands go in the same direction – it’s just kind of boring.”

Looking back over the last decade or so, do you feel the huge commercial success of groups like Green Day has impacted on other bands, such as Lagwagon?
“I definitely see a lot more young kids at the shows and actually more people are just into punk rock now because of it. But at the same time, the last Warped tour we did it there was a lot of bands on there who were on MTV and we weren’t and it kind of made us the little guys on the totem pole and it wasn’t as good a tour for us as it has been in the past. But when we do our own tours it’s still really good just because there’s more kids listening to punk rock.”

Do you consider Lagwagon to be carrying the flag for that old school sound?
“We’ve definitely had our happy moments as far as song writing but I think we’ve always had sort of a dark theme in our songs over our entire career.”