SS: HOW'S THE TOURING GOING, THIS VAN ISN'T BREAKING DOWN LIKE THE LAST ONE?
MIKE: In the past we've had every type of van. Every combination of rental and insurance and everything. They've all failed us. No matter what sort of AAA we get, they always break down and so we decided to splurge and we got this one and we're going to be paying this one off for another year and it's worth it. That bit of stress that you get from being on the road and hoping that it starts every time you get in it and not turning off on the highway in Texas. Our old van stalled like every hour on the 19 hour drive from Austin to Tempe, Arizona, so we got this baby and she's doing great.
SS: WHY DON'T YOU GIVE YOUR NEW ALBUM A PLUG RIGHT NOW.
MIKE: We've got Songs from Suburbia coming out on July 21st and it's a good album. We put these songs together and we got them recorded really quick but I think it sounds great. It's a great versatile album. It's got some good hard edges to it, it's got some good party tunes, some good ska tunes, some good punk tunes, I think it's a well rounded album. Our single is called "Jolene" and that's what we're going to throw at the radio stations and hopefully they'll play it. I think it's a song that represents us. It's hard to pick a song that represents us since we do several different styles of songs but they're all going to be energetic and they're all going to be fun because that's what we try to be about.
SS: WHAT HAPPENED WITH MOON, WHY AREN'T YOU ON THAT LABEL ANYMORE?
MIKE: We originally signed to do a one album contract and we did the album and after that we were looking around for something different. To be truthful with you, that's all it was. We wanted something that could give us good distribution all around the country and we wanted someone that could really push us because if it's a good album and you don't get good distribution, no one's going to know about it. But we love Moon, they're still selling our stuff now and we'd like to do some 7"s with them later on. But we had a one album contract, that was Static World View, and that's it. We still try to keep good ties with those guys because we love those guys. The Toasters were the first guys to bring us out on tour and it was great.
MIKE: Ignition kind of appealed to us because they were guys who used to work for major labels who were frustrated with the sheer size of those companies, putting out 140 records a year. So many times, the bands are good and they'll sell 35,000 albums and that's a lot of albums but it just doesn't fit the quota of the label and they get dropped, so they were all sick of that procedure and started their own label. They're only going to put out 6 albums a year and they're putting a lot into the bands as far as Marketing strategies. And it's not an all ska label or an all punk label, they like picking different kinds of bands. Like they have a band called BTK which is like a hip hop groove band and they have Samiam and they just signed Anthrax. We're going to try to do a project with Anthrax, that's like our goal for this label.
SS: IS IT GOING OKAY WITH IGNITION SO FAR?
MIKE: Yeah. We're kind of still in limbo right now. The album hasn't come out yet. We did our press shots, the shots for the posters, we did stuff for the video, stuff for the stickers and T shirts. All we've got so far are the T shirts and stickers so we're waiting for the posters, the video, the album, the 2 song sampler thing. So up till now we've just done the preliminary work and now we're waiting for the final product.
SS: I HEARD THEY WEREN'T PROMOTING YOU THAT WELL UNTIL THE ALBUM COMES OUT?
MIKE: We had a publicist and she was great. I don't know what the hell we're doing now. We don't have a publicist and it's not great but hopefully soon we'll have someone who's as competent as our old publicist, Ariel. We wanted to get somebody like her who could give us a big push. But we're on this label and they supposedly have their own publicist. We're getting to these shows and not a lot of people are showing up. We're looking in the paper and they're spelling our name wrong or we're not in there at all. So we're still feeling on the ground with this so far but we've got a 4 album contract with Ignition so we've got 3 more.
SS: WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT SKA GETTING SO BIG RIGHT NOW?
MIKE: There are a lot of bands that deseve it but really haven't gotten the respect that they deserve. Bands like Skavoovie, The Skalars, Thumper, and MU330. I mean they're terrific bands and they've got some great styles but they're not getting the things like Save Ferris and some of those other bands are getting. I don't really know too much about them but it seems that Reel Big Fish haven't been around a lot and it's ashame. I'm not saying that they don't deserve it because they're obviously rocking but there are so many other bands out there that aren't getting where they deserve to be.
MIKE: Well we're from all different parts of Connecticut but we base ourselves in New Haven. It's been a really really cool scene around there. It started off with tons of ska bands and ska shows all over the place. We used to play with 6 opening ska bands, punk bands, hardcore bands. Not as many bands seem to be around anymore and I don't know why.
RON: It used to be a lot of different bands playing together like a punk band with a ska band with a hardcore band. There would be those kind of shows and once ska started getting its momentum going, a lot of ska bands started popping up.
MIKE: But the scene is really cool, there are a lot of cool clubs. The Boiler Room is like the place where we sort of started in New Brittain, it was fantastic. The Legion Hall up in Hartford by the University of Connecticut. There's not that many bands anymore. There are some good bands though like Hatebreed, they're from New Haven. They're a great bunch of guys and they play good hardcore music.
SS: IS HARDCORE REALLY BIG UP THERE THEN?
MIKE: I think hardcore is probably the biggest scene out of all now. A lot of people just got sick of the ska thing. A lot of kids that used to be in ska bands just started thinking that ska isn't cool and decided that they wanted to be hardcore kids instead. It's a little trendy, Connecticut's a little trendy.
SS: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF HARDCORE ITSELF?
MIKE: We all listen to hardcore music. They're just all bands that we love. I love listening to Judge, Killing Time, Sick of it All, and Snapcase. I think some hardcore bands do a little too much preaching but that's fine, if that's the kind of band you want to be. I don't think I could do that though.
SS: ARE YOU REFERRING TO THE STRAIGHT EDGE MOVEMENT?
MIKE: Not just straight edge. People who are straight edge, I mean it's great if you could do it. I mean if I could be straight edge it would be great but I don't want to be. But I tip my hat to whoever can do it but anybody who forces their views on anyone else I can't stand, but that goes the same for religion. I don't need to reprimanded by my peers. It's too bad that hardcore music has that kind of bad wrap because there are a lot of good hardcore bands out there.
MIKE: Five weeks, it ends on July 3rd in New York. We're all looking forward to the end of the tour. We're meeting up with some good friends of ours tomorrow, The Amazing Royal Crowns, we're going to do some shows with them. Then Florida is always really cool, then we've got DC, and the Trocadero in Philadelphia is awesome, and Coney Island High in New York -- I love playing that place!
SS: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF SPINAL TAP?
CHRIS: "There's just a fine line between stupid and clever."
MIKE: We love Spinal Tap! We love it and we've seen it a million times. A lot of those things really happen. Doing a signing and no one's there, you're opening up for a puppet show in this cheesy town. I swear that kind of shit happens to you and you're like "Oh my God, this is what it's really like!" But we love that movie, we should have brought that on the road to watch.
SS: SO WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO IGNITION RECORDS?
SS: WHAT'S THE SCENE LIKE IN YOUR HOMETOWN?
SS: HOW LONG IS THIS TOUR YOU'RE DOING NOW?
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