State your name and position in the band.
Danny Stevens, singer

How was it recording with Mark Trombino (on your newest album) because I mean, talk about a resume!
Yeah! It was interesting actually. You know to work with such a name as Mark Trombino, we didn’t know what to expect because the person we’d worked with on the previous records was a guy that had never really done anything big and we were his biggest record that he’d ever done. So going from that to Mark was a sort of really really big jump. We didn’t know what to expect and from day one of meeting Mark we knew that it was going to be different we knew that it was going to be out of this world. It was so professional, so good and he just knows what he’s doing so much that it was so good working with him.

When you were making the record did you listen to a lot of music or did you try and stray away from listening so much so the record could be as authentic as possible?
I don’t know, I’m always listening to music you know? But I don’t listen to what you’d maybe expect, I listen to pretty much only country music and soul music, and that’s about it. I think that it inspires me a lot.

Your first single is called “My Temperature’s Rising” can you tell me a little about the song?
It’s actually the first song that I wrote for the record, it was the very first idea that I even came up with. I met this girl and yeah, it’s just about that you know? A lot of the record is about that and it’s just a metaphor for how much that I’m falling for this person you know what I mean? How much I really care for and like this person. It goes through kind of a whole doctor scenario through the whole song and you know the feeling you get when you’re around somebody that you really care for. That kind of fuzzy feeling you get, it’s kind of about that.

Now you guys recently shot a video for that song too right?
Yeah!

Can you tell me a little about the concept?
It’s going to be really funny. We feel like our last videos have never really portrayed us as characters, as who we actually are. The “Warm Me Up” video was very dark and we weren’t really happy with it. But this video is almost all acting for us. The first verse and pre-chorus are us in a garage practicing and then basically, I get hit in the face with a water balloon. And we turn to see these four little kids laughing at us. The story goes on and they pull all these pranks on us I our practice space, so we get them back tenfold. We pull these crazy terrible pranks on these little kids and we go back to the practice space and we’re all like “Yeah we got those fuckin little kids” and then we start practicing again and all the sudden you’re going to hear “excuse me” and there’s going to be three very disgruntled mothers looking at us. While their kids are soaking wet and covered in worms and all this crazy stuff. So it should be cool. We just wanted to do something that was fun and funny, and not too over the top but something that people would wanna watch more then once.

Kind of moving off the topic of the new record, following Champion you guys played mostly headlining shows. Are you planning on doing any headlining tours this year?
I hope not. No, it’s cool to do headliners but we’re not a headlining band we’re not a big enough band to do a headlining tour. I just love doing support tours especially when a records coming out just because it brings new people to your band. And that’s the point of being in a band to share your music with as many people as possible. So when we were headlining here we were drawing all the people and we weren’t exposing anybody new to our music so it was hard to sell records for Champion and I think that really really hurt us a lot. We toured with Boys Like Girls in November and December of 07 and the upcoming tour with Kevin Rudolph will be our first support tour since then. We’re just really excited to get out there again.

That sort of goes along with my next question. There was a video posted from the UK when you were on tour with Alkaline Trio where you gave some pretty disrespectful crowd members a piece of your mind. I guess my question is, is it hard to go out on stage to a crowd that’s immediately unreceptive to new music, or do you see it as a challenge where you say ‘I’m gonna get these people by the end of the set’?
Usually it’s like that, usually in my head I’m like, okay I’m going to win these people over no matter what it takes. But that tour was really difficult. We were out with the Alkaline Trio and if you know anything about them they have a cult following. So most of those people are like in there thirties and they just have loved that band from day one and only love that band. It happened previously on the tour, but I was on stage, and the whole set I was just getting flipped off and booed and telling me to fuck off and all that. So by the end of the set, it was the last show of the tour and I just had enough, and I did my little rant and walked off stage. All our publicity people were freaking out, everybody was freaking out and super mad at me but everybody got over it pretty quickly.

As a band you guys are pretty notorious for having a grueling touring schedule, so is it weird for you guys to have a lot of off time whether it’s to make a record or just time in between tours?
It’s amazing. As much as I love touring it’s always nice coming home. It’s hard being on the road so long, you never realize how much you miss your home until you’re taken away from it. And especially in a case where you’re taken away from it and you don’t have another kind of homey place. You know, if you move out it’s a different story but when you’re out on the road and you’re constantly moving from city to city to city and you never get a goodnight sleep and you never eat real food and you never see your friends or family so it gets hard. It’s very different from anything you could even imagine. For people that have never done it they think it’s the best thing in the whole wide world but it’s really hard to travel like that all the time, especially since we’re in a van and not a bus. But it’s definitely worth it, I wouldn’t be doing it anymore if I didn’t love it.

Recently you guys lost a member, and what I’m curious to know is, was it an easy decision for you guys to just let Timmy switch over to the bass and just not get another band member?
I mean that was really the only option that we had because what had happened was so quick, it happened when we were recording the record and after we finished recording we had to fly to the UK to do the Alkaline Trio tour. So it was almost like a no brainer. We were like, well we don’t know anybody else that knows the parts, we had a bunch of people asking us, but Timmy already had the work visa to go over there, so we said “Timmy just learn the bass.” The first show it was awesome! It was almost meant to be, because it was so much better, and so much tighter then it had ever been. It just clicked and after the show we all just kinda looked at each other and said that was one of the best shows we’ve played in years, holy crap this is actually really awesome. All our friends in Jack’s Mannequin, New Found Glory and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus were just like “you guys should’ve been a four piece a long time ago” so we’re staying like that for the mean time. Maybe down the road getting someone who plays keys, or another guitar player, but I think Timmy’s gonna stick with the bass.

Have you ever had a moment on stage where you stopped and said to yourself “Wow is this really happening?”
Yeah, it doesn’t really happen as often as you think though. It’s weird but when it does happen, you almost forget where you are and just say “oh my god this is unbelievable.” I think the first time that ever happened for me was when we were in London and we played the festival called Give It A Name and we were on the second stage, there were only two stages, and we were playing in front of like 10,000 people, and half the crowd was singing our words. I was on stage and I said “oh my god, is this serious? Is this honestly happening right now?” The whole rest of the set was just awesome! It was the coolest thing in the whole world.

What is the one lyric you’re most proud to have written?
It’s on the new record actually. It’s from a song called “Los Angeles” it’s my favorite song on the record and it says “I said lets go and baby maybe I can show you what you need to know, and how to cope, citizens can listen in but they’ll never know about this love…” and then it goes on but I like the citizens and cope line because the girl I’m seeing, her favorite band is Citizen Cope so I tried to throw that in. I just thought it was clever I guess?

Who would you like to say shut up to?
If I could say shut up to anybody… I don’t know. I’m drawing a blank. Um, Carlos Mencia. He’s not funny, he’s just annoying.

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