Interview

Pictures

EP: Before we get started, can you tell me your names and what you do in the band?

Steve: I'm Steve Snere and I sing.

Brian: I’m Brian and I play bass.

EP: So I wanted to ask you first, you've had several member changes throughout your time as a band, the most recent being the departure of Joe Preston for Chris Common, your new drummer and producer. How has that affected the band and your song writing process?

Steve: Well, the other guys we had playing with us before were more like fill-in guys. We had one guy, Ben Verellen, who stuck with us for quite some time but he wasn’t really a drummer so he kind of took off. And our friend Erin helped us for a while but he plays in Minus the Bear, so he couldn’t stay with us. So basically we’ve only had one other real drummer before this point, and just several guys helping us out. So this has been nice because we have somebody who’s in the band and cares about it. I mean not that those other guys didn’t, but its more stable now- if stable is the right word.

Brian: Haha I don’t know if you want to use that word…

EP: And Chris also has his own recording studio?

Steve: Yeah he owns a real nice recording studio with Matt Bayles in Seattle so that freed up a lot of time for us because we don't have a huge budget or anything to record records. But with what we had, we had more time.

EP: Yeah, it must have been nice to be able to set your own deadlines.

Steve: Yeah exactly, I mean deadlines- we gave ourselves more time. Well our budget would have only been for two weeks, but we were able to push it to six or seven. And no one's really taking any money really so…

Brian: Usually we normally just go in, record all the songs and then we're done. But this time we were able to tweak with it a little more, to find ways to make it sound better, and see if there was anything to do to make them more interesting.

Steve: We spent a little more time on it this time. Chris is a really good drummer and a smart kid- he also fixes all our guitars and shit when they break.

EP: I’ve heard that "Easter" was your reaction to the influx of Christianity in the punk music scene right now. Am I right?

Brian: Well I mean not necessarily…

Steve: Well, I mean I get what you’re saying. I think it’s been talked about a lot, but that’s not necessarily exactly what I’m thinking. I mean there’s some of that in some regards, but I think its not so face level on what I was getting at. There’s a lot to spirituality besides just Christian values. I have my own spiritual beliefs too although I don’t try to impose them on anyone else- but it’s not a direct attack on fucking Christian hardcore, I don’t think that’s my biggest concern right now. I think my bigger concern would be Christianity effecting laws in the United States. And you know they always have been, but it seems even more so right now, so in that regard, that’s what it would be more about than Joe schmo Christian band. I guess, there’s a lot to do with spirituality and that stuff too…

EP: How was your tour with Underoath last year then?

Steve: It was…you know they’re nice guys but I think we took on a little more than we should have. I don’t think it was exactly what we should have done, but we gave it shot. It was just a little odd for us, it’s not really the direction we should have been going in. We’re two different sets of people pretty much.

Brian: Yeah it’s weird, living in Seattle I’m so used to thinking, the handful of Christian musicians that I know, I would say they’re very liberal and forward thinking creative individuals. They have those Christian values and those views but they also, they didn't vote for George W. Bush, they don’t believe that women don’t have the right to control their bodies, and they don’t think gay people aren’t equal. They’re sort of just like these people that have these spiritual views but that’s the extent of it. So I think when we agreed to do it [the Underoath tour], we were like "yeah you know they seem like nice dudes, whatever, they're probably just like David Bazan and all these other people we knew in Seattle that were Christian but really down to earth and cool." But then when we went out with them I realized these guys have completely different values and political perspectives.

Steve: Yeah a little more to the right than we thought they would be. But I really don’t have anything against them at all, I just think we’re different people. I mean, I saw Tim the guitar player in Seattle and we hung out. I had never really talked to him much about any of that stuff before, and I was kind of drunk so I was all like, "what to you think about this and that," and we had a good talk. I’ve got nothing against them.

EP: So how has this tour with French Toast and Mouth of The Architect been going so far?

Steve: It's been awesome, it’s been good. It’s been a while since we've done a headlining tour. We normally do a lot of support tours with bigger bands so those were always fuckin huge and shit, but these shows have been up and good. This is our first full U.S. headlining tour, we’ve done some smaller ones before. It’s been good though, it was nice to pick some bands that we wanted to go on tour with, a kind of revolving cast. We’ve met some cool people and it’s been awesome.

EP: How has the response to your new album been so far?

Brian: It's been good, it seems like people really like it. I haven't really heard anything bad about it. I’ve seen one or two bad reviews but it seems like they are complaining about things that are seen as virtues to the band. Like saying, "there’s too many ideas, not enough songs." And I’m like ugh alright whatever, they aren’t going to like our band no matter what. But it doesn’t matter.

Steve: I think we've set it up exactly how we want, like we can do whatever we want now with our music, but it’s not going to be a big surprise to anybody.

EP: How do you feel your music sound has evolved since "Oxeneers" and your first album?

Steve: Well with our original EP I really liked the textures that were on it, it was a bit more sprawling, with a lot of room to it, a lot more going on. Our "Oxeneers" record was a bit more straight to the point- thrashing punk rock. With this new one, my vision of the band has always been something like "Easter," so I felt like it was more of us coming into our own honestly. I think it was the record we were supposed to make this whole time.

Brian: In the last three years of being a touring band, we see a lot of music every night. When we listen to that much stuff we get a little burned out and then start listening to other stuff to broaden our musical horizons. It’s just a natural thing where we are listening to different stuff.

EP: So what music has been playing on your ipods recently?

Steve: I guess Paul Simon. I've been listening to a lot of Latin music…The Lost Sounds, Subtle. I think we’re all a little different, so Brian would be on a different page.

Brian: I listen to a lot of country music and I listen to a lot of avant guard noise. Always something a little new, you gotta mix it up.

EP: What's your opinion of today’s music scene and all these bands that are coming out of nowhere and getting huge without earning it or touring beforehand? Is it frustrating?

Brian: It kind of sucks. I was talking to someone about that last night- that I thought the one virtue of independent music and punk music is how you start out small and slowly build yourself up. And if you work hard you can build a solid fan base- it’s this gradual growth. And if you look at mainstream music there’s all these overnight success stories, but these overnight success stories also tend to be overnight career enders. Its like one record is huge and when the second one comes out no one gives a shit anymore. It just seems like there's a lot of that in the music scene right now. Like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah come out of nowhere, and has this huge album that everybody buys- but their second U.S. tour doesn’t do nearly as well as their first one. And no one really cares about their second record whenever it comes out. I don’t want to necessarily single them out, I don’t know their sales figures or anything. It’s probably also the way more stuff is being marketed- businesses are being run a lot more like major labels.

Steve: As far as the MTV bands and shit, that's the way it’s always been. In my opinion that doesn’t have anything to do with what were doing. Like My Chemical Romance is a completely different fuckin ball park.

EP: Yeah, and it’s not like you guys are trying to be on MTV.

Steve: No not at all. I mean I’m not against it but I’m not like busting my ass trying to do it. If it happens then it happens, be it 5 years later, 6, 7, 8, 10 years later or never…probably never haha.

Brian: I guess I don’t have any problem with bands getting popular if they work for it. Like Death Cab For Cutie, its like you guys have put out five fuckin records, and 5 records later they’re going fuckin platinum. And if you work hard, get shitty tours, play fuckin community centers- if you do everything you’re supposed to do and now you’re getting successful, then that’s great. If you look at, say, My Chemical Romance, it’s like you were signed by a major label before you were even on an independent.

Steve: And you were opening for Minus the Bear on your first tour before you got signed.

EP: Wow I didn’t even know that.

Steve: Yeah both Minus The Bear’s opening bands on that tour got signed.

EP: Well on a different note, what’s the worst nine to five job that you’ve ever had?

Steve: I built toner cartridges for printers, like ink cartridges. I was living in Iowa and I would go in at five in the morning and I’d work ten hour days. I would fucking clean them and re-build them and go home and be all covered with ink. Like alriiight I’ll go to sleep now. So that's mine.

Brian: I've had so many shitty jobs I don’t even know anymore.

Chris: Washing dishes was really bad at this one place.

Brian: I did kitchen maintenance at this cafeteria when I went to school and that was pretty bad. Scooping dead rats out of the dumpster- that was pretty awful.

Chris: Just for dinner, so I can eat!

EP: That sucks haha…I’ve got just a few more questions.

Steve: We’ve got nothing but time, don’t worry.

Brian: We can keep chatting here.

EP: What's the best tour you’ve been on? Or do you even have one? I saw you guys last year with Minus the Bear.

Steve: That's always fun with those guys. I also really liked touring with Isis.

Brian: Yeah, we've toured with Isis and Minus the Bear a bunch of times, they're our boys. Very good friends.

EP: Did you guys dress up for Halloween?

Steve: Haha yes we did it was fuckin awesome. We did the nativity scene, so everyone was like a Wiseman with robes on and shit, and I was Mary with a black wig and a dress. And we had bought a big Jesus doll and we put it in a basket and filled the stage with hay And this guy is crafty, (points to Chris) so he ran a tube through the Jesus coming out of its mouth and put the tube in a bucket of green milk- and then hooked up a switch. Towards the end of one song our friend Dob came out and played two songs with us. So when Dob came out he was the devil and then everything went crazy. And I started stripping, and Chris hit this switch and the baby starts puking green-

Chris: Vomiting all over the fuckin crowd, it was awesome.

Brian: Steve was rolling all around in the hay with puke all over him.

Steve: It was pretty funny we got some video and we might throw it on YouTube. It was really really funny, I was blackout fuckin drunk, all I remember is this big nasty wig full of hay. But it was fun though. Did you dress up?

EP: Uhh, well I didn’t dress up this year.

Steve: Aw well that’s not very festive

EP: I know, well I normally do-

My friend Dana: Well my roommate threw a party but then we left.

EP: We were trying to go on this haunted hayride thing, it’s this haunted forest in Maryland, and we drove like an hour to get to it. But when we got there, there were like 500 people there and the line was-

Steve: Ridiculous.

EP: It was soo long. And we ended up leaving because it was freezing out.

Steve: I would probably have done the same thing.

EP: So that was about as festive as I got.

Dana: It's not as scary when there’s like 500 people.

EP: Yeah I was like this isn’t even scary.

Dana: We would have been better off in a random field.

Steve: Or you could go to a broken down house in the woods, that would be scary.

EP: Yeah I was like we should just go to a graveyard and run around.

Dana: We ended up going to a diner.

Steve: Aw well that’s still fun. You could steal kids' candy.

EP: Haha anyway…are you looking forward to seeing Borat?

Brian: Yes!

Steve: Yeah, that came out yesterday didn't it? We’re all, we've got a plan. We're gonna be in North Carolina this weekend, so all the bands are gonna go together and see it. But we think its funny as shit so I can't wait. Did you see him on Conan?

EP: Aw no I missed that.

Steve: It was really fuckin funny.

EP: So what are your future plans?

Brian: We're going to the UK after this tour and then to Japan and Australia and New Zealand in January. We’re going to Europe in April.

Steve: We'll be playing CMJ, and then South By Southwest. Which will be kind of short and then we’ll do another one. We’ll be around. Hopefully trying to write some more songs in the middle of all this. Do another record soon.

Brian: We'll see what we can do. I don't like putting out a record every two years I’d rather do one almost every year, but it ain't always easy.

Brian: Nope. It's a go-go-go lifestyle, man.

EP: Well I guess that's about it, unless you have any final thoughts. Thanks for doing the interview.

Brian: Yeah no problem, thank you for doing it.

Steve: We appreciate it, are you guys coming to the show tonight?

EP: Yeah, we're definitely staying.

Steve: Hopefully there will be people there. We will see.

Brian: We'll find out.

Dana: Do you think you’ll top last year's performance where you jumped on top of the trash can?

EP: Yeah! Do you remember that?

Dana: You were touching the ceiling practically and everyone was freaking out.

Steve: Hmm I don't remember, did I drag it out from somewhere?

EP: You found it behind the stage. Haha I remember last year I had listened to your album and thought "yeah this band is pretty good," and then I saw you live and was like "holy shit you are crazy!"

Steve: Well I'd say we're gonna be a bit geriatric tonight…well, we'll try not to be, but Chris almost, he may have broken his hand. We don't know, but last night in New York we went a little crazy. My feet are fucking destroyed, and so are my knees. But you know, I think we try to have as much fun as possible and that’s all you can do.

Brian- We'll self medicate.

Steve: Yeah we'll self-medicate.

Brian: We'll numb ourselves to make us feel better.

Steve: We'll worry about the pain tomorrow.