Interviews

FF: But nothing cataclysmic?

B: No.

FF: Good. Moving on then…what are your opinions on Myspace? A Plague? A surprisingly good tool?

B: I think it’s a really convenient tool, but it’s also another black hole, you know, something that just sucks up people’s time. It’s people sitting in front of their computer for hours having bullshit interactions with people. It’s a good tool for bands, I guess. But in terms of music, everyone thinks it’s the new medium for instant band success.

FF: Like MTV.

B: Yeah, you know, people thought that about Purevolume, though. There’s always a new industry theory about what makes a band big. There’s so many bands that have contacted us that have like 17,000 friends. But I mean, who the fuck are they? You look at the Melvins and they have like 600 friends. I think it’s super cheesy, but it’s cool in the sense that really makes booking tours on your own a lot easier. So, I guess it’s cool for that kind of thing, but I don’t know…It’s just a part of the gross MTV2, Orange County culture boom that’s going on right now.

FF: Speaking of touring, how did you guys get hooked up with The (International) Noise Conspiracy?

B: We’ve been lucky. We’ve gotten to play some shows with bands that we really like and respect and that’s always cool. But we’ve also done tours where we know we want to go on tour and some other band wants to at the same time. So, you sort of have to think: Well, we don’t like your band, but we’ll make more money going out with you. With the price of gas now, I don’t know how bands book their own tours anymore. If you’re constantly touring, you don’t really have any way of saving up money for touring, you’re just kind of stuck with whatever gets handed to you. This tour is fun and it’s different. I think it’s cool because most people that are here are here for T(I)NC and have no idea who we are. But it seems like people are excited about it. I stand by their politics and I think it’s cool that people are still doing topical song writing. It’s definitely better than some of the tours we’ve done in the past, some of the embarrassing stuff that we don’t like talking about.

[Drummer Chris Common hops into the van.]

FF: The next question I had for you guys was whether or not going on tour abroad has affected you in any way, especially in terms changing cultural values or anything of that nature?

B: I think that whenever you go and visit another country or culture you need to actually interact with people. Do something besides hanging out with other Americans. Everyone has different values and different value systems. You really learn that the way you grew up isn’t necessarily the only way that things can work. I used to be straight edge and then I went to Europe and I was like “Oh, man, they have beer at the teen centers.” I figured out that alcohol doesn’t make you an asshole, being an asshole makes you an asshole. Chris: Being out there in different scenery is nice. You tour the States so much that it just seems like it’s all the same thing. Everything runs differently in Europe. It’s funny because everyone gets excited when you tell them that you’re going to Europe. They say: “Oh, you have to see this or see that.” When really, you’ll just be seeing the inside of a paneled van for 15 hours a day.

B: You know, when people go backpacking in Europe, they just don’t interact with people. They talk about all the sights that they got to see. But if you ask them if they met anyone or have any funny stories, it’s always no. I guess I just play in squats and shitty punk places, but at least I have a handful of new friends.

FF: You guys have definitely been around the music scene for awhile. What’s your favorite place to play?

C: All over the different areas of the country there are always certain places that we tend to have a lot of fun in. It all really depends on whether or not you had a good experience at the club in the first place. Then, we you go back, you’ll probably just have another really good experience. There’s a lot of clubs and a lot of venues that act like you’re a burden on them, so I think it’s great to play somewhere that just treats you fairly.

B: I don’t want to sound too much like T(I)NC, but Europe is cool because all the spaces there aren’t ClearChannel or House of Blues-style venues with big bouncers that think that you’re their paycheck for the night. All of the venues there are much more volunteer-based. They’re spaces that city or the state set aside for art and culture. They’re just run differently with a different motive.

C: It’s nice because in Europe, they’re usually putting on a show because they really want to bring your band in, not just because it’s their job.

B: Yeah.

FF: The new stuff. How’s that going?

B: It’s going well.

C: We’re just taking our time. We could squeeze out a record in a couple of months or we could just relax. We all have very different ideas with what we want to do with this record, not to just stick to the same formula of thinking “Hey, we’re good at being a ‘thrashy-noisy-rock band,’ let’s do that.” We’re going to try some new things, definitely.

C: We’re also kind of privileged now that I own a recording studio with Matt Bayles. Now we can go in pretty much whenever we want and get demos in studio quality, which really helps us get an idea on what does and doesn’t work.

FF: What’s the relationship with Matt? I know he did the EP as well, not to mention Botch and a ton of other stuff from the Seattle area.

C: He’s a good friend

B: Yeah.

C: A great engineer and a good friend.

B: Seattle’s tiny and incestuous and everyone knows everyone else…

FF: Is it really that small and incestuous? I keep hearing that but I don’t know if it’s an exaggeration or not. Either way, does it help creatively or do you think it gets a bit smothering at points?

B: Well, I think that Seattle is geographically isolated enough that we’re removed from that we’re a bit removed from the things that tend to make music kind of bad.

FF: Unlike L.A.

B: [Laughs] I don’t know. I just feel that Seattle is a bit more for artists rather than careerists. I definitely think that the Seattle scene is small, though, especially when you go to New York or L.A. and you can drive thirty miles and hit an entirely different scene full of entirely different people. Here, you can play Anaheim, then Pomona and then L.A. and have each show be completely different. I guess Seattle is kind of a tiny place, but I like it. God damn it, I like it.

FF: You guys have been around in different scenes for awhile. Is getting older and growing beyond the scenes troubling at all? Is it weird to have things just kind of stagnate?

B: On the one hand, I think we’re sort of lucky because I think our audience tends to be a little older anyway. I think we write music for ourselves and that generally appeals to our peers. But when I see younger kids out there, I think it’s exciting and I try to think back to what the equivalent band would have been when I was growing up.

C: It’s great to come out and see younger kids at shows and have them “get” what we’re doing, not that we’re some flabbergastingly technical band or anything. But our crowd is a bit older and we tend to relate to the people that aren’t into the whole My Chemical Romance boom.

B: Yeah, see, I think it’d be really fucking creepy if we were like that. I mean, that singer from My Chemical Romance is 28 and I’m 28 and I’m just thinking: “Wow, don’t you feel like a creep?”

FF: You don’t want 14 year olds plastering your picture all over their notebooks?

B: Well, I work at a teen center and I enjoy working with kids and helping kids get into music, but at the same time if the only people that related to my music were 14 year olds, I’d feel like there is something wrong.

FF: What are you guys listening to right now?

C: Everybody is so different, I don’t know.

B: I don’t know either. [To C:] What the hell do you listen to?

C: I have to be secretive about it man, I don’t want you guys to find out. I listen to, um, show tunes and Hawthorne Heights records. I’ve been listening to some jazz, but no real artists that I’ve been flipping out over. I do love the new Paul McCartney record, but that’s about it.

B: I think I’m sort of done with punk and hardcore music to the extent that it’s just become really commercial and lame and the complete antithesis of what it’s supposed to be. Now, I’m just listening to bands that I feel are punk rock, but not really in sound. I’ve been listening to a lot of weird, psychedelic folk stuff and a lot of noise. A couple of us are pretty in to Khanate. They’re very odd, with some 20-minute long songs and just real textural sounds.

FF: So, do you guys think then that maybe the problem with the punk and hardcore scenes today is that they just wrap themselves too tightly in their own culture to the point where they just sort of cannibalize each other and stagnate?

B: They’re just trying to get kids to mosh and sell t-shirts. They’re not doing anything interesting. They’re just the new hair metal bands.

C: Yeah, it’s all about how good their press photos can look in AP and how straight their hair can look.

B: I liked bands when they seemed mysterious and it was a big deal when they came to your town. Now, if I see one more fucking picture of Fall Out Boy or Hawthorne Heights and that guy with manicured eyebrows…god…I just want to know who at their label told them that that would be a good idea.

Visit www.myspace.com/thesearmsaresnakes for music and tourdates.