First of all why don't you introduce us to all the members and what there purpose in the band is?
Erik - Bass, screaming, businessage
Kevin - Guitar, vox, tallness, drunkeness Marcus - Guitar, vox, dressing nice, stuff Brandon - drums, counting, making excuses
How did ya come up with your band name?
Erik - ...By accident. We're all big fan's of Kevin Smith movies, especially Mall Rats. As most people know, there's the Stan Lee segment of the movie, and Brodie forces his way through the mall line. He says "on side, Red!"....OR SO OUR DRUNKEN MINDS THOUGHT!!! He actually says, "one side, Red!" We'd always say something like "on side, Red!" then somebody else would yell, "get 'em, Steve Dave!" It was fun. One day at a show Kevin thought that would be really good name to switch to (we were Flipside at the time.) We thought about it for a little while, then changed the name. It's probably one of the most mis-understood and mis-pronounced band names ever. some people have said 'on side ramp,' 'on site red,' and even 'considered,' which is where we got the name for our current demo EP. Some people have even asked if our name meant we were communists, so we told them we were...
Marcus - It's funny that you ask, because it's such a difficult question to answer. The story goes that we all (the band and some drunken friends) used to sit around and watch Mall rats, drink, and have drunken karaoke as the band attempted to play popular cover songs, so people could sing along and have fun. This usually made for a good time and an excuse for Evan (one of the drunken friends) to get completely wasted. Eventually we adopted the catch phrase “One side Red! Get’m Steve Dave” from the movie. But being the alcohol-laden assholes we were, we would always say On side Red. Soon enough we changed our band name to On Side Red from Flipside, and by the time we realized we had been saying it wrong it was too late.
What are all your feelings on how people are categorizing different punk bands, now a days?
Erik - It's confusing and funny because it's all just rock and roll. Honestly, I don't know what most of the categories are or sound like; if it sounds good and I like it, I don't care what it is catagorized as. For all i care, it can be classified as "Music-Erik-Likes" instead of "neo-post-hardcore-ultra-technical-emocore." That doesn't even make sense, but some of the catagorizations I've heard kids give bands are just as insane. Usually when I try to describe our band, I'll say punk rock because some of it's punk and some of it is just rock. It's not just punk and it's not just rock.
Marcus - Personally I don’t find the need to get as specific as some bands do. It’s amazing some of the words they are able to come up with to specify their music. I mean where is the line drawn between Hardcore Emo and Post-emo Hardcore? I just don’t get it. I say screw it! It’s all rock and roll.
What is your definition on what punk is?
Erik - It's music... I'm not sure what the lifestyle is people talk about. There was a time when it made sense (cerca The Sex Pistols, Black Flag, etc), but the people today who would be stereotypical punks seem different to me. Don't take that the wrong way: I like them if they're cool to me, and many have supported us, but i have my doubts if it's just an image or what's really going on. You can be rebellious and have your own radical ideas of government, religion, and society without growing a mohawk and cutting the sleeves of your studded leather jacket. If that's what you really feel, then by all means GO FOR IT. If not, don't do it for the image because eventually you're going to get your assed kicked. I have many anti/non-mainstream ideas and i don't act like most people..but I don't look like a crusty either. Lately though, Punk has become the heavily marketed, cool catch-phrase recently. You can thank the big labels and mass media for that...I won't name names of how has cashed in on it.... Another thing that bothers me about punk today is when people ask me what kind of band we are, and I say 'punk,' they say "oh, like blink182?" No...not like Blink182. If we did, we'd be called Blink182. Then I go into describing the bands I like, but the person doesn't know them because they've never been on TRL or they're not cycled through on the radio a trillion times per hour...
Marcus - I’m not really sure what punk is to be honest with you. All I know is that if you play up beat aggressive music it’s considered punk. I don’t think it takes being anti-everything, skateboarding, breaking glass, and tattoos to be ‘punk,’ though. To me it’s more of a mentality, kind of a freedom of thought and getting away from the mainstream. I think a lot of kids now think that punk is all about studded belts, black clothes, and bad attitudes. I know at one point I used to think so. Basically, people just want to be different and they need to find way to do so. All in all, no one can really define ‘punk’. It’s just a matter of what is punk to you.