Q: Welcome to Hartford. Is this your first time playing here?
Pete: No, we played here once with Catch 22 and we’ve played at the Emperor’s Ballroom on many occasions.
Q: Congratulations on your success. It must have been like a whirlwind?
Pete: Thanks, yeah.
Q: You guys have been together now over a year?
Pete: Two now.
Q: And you’re from Chicago?
Pete: From Chicago, yeah.
Q: So who came up with the name for the band?
Pete: We were just goofing around, playing at a show and this kid in
the crowd yelled it out.
Q: I know you’ve had a couple of different members in the band.
How did you come together with this lineup?
Pete: The people we have now just "vibed" together so much better. We just "gelled" and we’ve been together ever since.
Q: Were you all friends?
Pete: Yeah, I’ve been friends with everyone, except Patrick for a while now. And now Patrick is my best friend.
Q: What is the best thing about being in a band?
Pete: Being able to go see the world with my friends.
Q: What’s the worst?
Pete: Never being home ever, never sleep ever, never eat good food ever, never seeing your friends outside of the band. There are a lot of bad things but there are a lot more good things.
Q: What is your favorite song to play?
Pete: Either "Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner" or "Saturdays."
Q: If you could play anywhere in the world, with anyone, dead or alive where would it be and with whom?
Pete: Probably in Hawaii with Joy Division. Somewhere warm!
Q: Do you have any "before the show" rituals?
Pete: We always "high-five" each other before we play. We didn’t do it once or twice and it was a really weird show.
Q: Who is the little boy on your website, under Journals?
Pete: Joe, our guitarist, when he was a baby.
Q: Does anyone in the band have any kids?
Pete: No, I don’t think any of us are ready for it at all.
Q: Are any of you married, girlfriends, or fiancées?
Pete: I guess our singer and his girlfriend are very serious and I think our drummer has a girlfriend.
Q: How many shows do you do per year?
Pete: About 290.
Q: Have you just played in the US or do you travel around the world?
Pete: We’ve been to Europe and we are going to Japan in two weeks, we’ve been to Australia and the UK.
Q: Do you guys have a tour bus?
Pete: No, we tour in a van.
Q: How do you guys stay sane doing all of this touring?
Pete: I watch a zillion DVD's a day. I pretty much go on my computer and watch DVD's all day and write a lot of stuff. We message each other. It doesn’t get boring. When we get to the venue is when it gets boring cause then you have to wait around all day.
Q: Have you watched any good DVD's lately?
Pete: I watched the "Firestarter" series, "Along Came Polly."
Q: Who chooses the songs you play on tour?
Pete: Me and Patrick write out the initial list but the band pretty much goes with how everyone is feeling. We only know a certain amount of songs so it’s more like picking the order.
Q: Who writes your songs?
Pete: Our singer writes the music, then I’ll write the lyrics. Then we put them together as a band so everyone can contribute. Our guitarist wrote a couple on the last record too.
Q: What inspires you?
Pete: I guess everything, experiences in life. I have a really negative outlook on everything so I tend to be overly bitter.
Q: Weren’t some of you in a political band before?
Pete: Yeah, me and our drummer were. It was cool. I still believe all of the things that I believe whether I’m overtly political or not.
Q: If you weren’t a musician, what would you be?
Pete: I don’t know. A guy in a record store trying to be a writer.
Q: What are the bands plans for the next five years?
Pete: I really don’t have any idea where I’m gonna go cause I couldn’t tell you how I got here. We’re going to put out a record next year on Island Records. We’ve done two videos, one that got played on TV. I don’t think that we’ll do another video from this record. Maybe we will at the end of the summer. I think the main plan is to write the next record and if the label wants to shoot a video, I’m sure we would do it.
Q: You’re going to be on FUSE IMX soon?
Pete: We are going to be on IMX on Wednesday (June 16). We were on once before and it was pretty cool.
Q: We all know how the record companies feel about online downloading music for free, how do you as a musician feel about it?
Pete: I don’t think that we would have the amount of people here tonight if it wasn’t for downloading. I don’t think you should be stealing from people but I personally happen to be a downloader and I think a lot of the fault lies with the record industry treating the consumer as the enemy, the kids that are buying the records are the enemy. There’s a million other reasons why. Costs can be cut in so many other areas. True changes need to come about and there needs to be somebody younger doing it. There’s 40-45 year old guys and they don’t really have a grasp about what’s going on right now in music. You have 45 year old guys telling 20-something year old guys what to do and how to please 14-15 year old bands. It’s pretty stupid. You have these bands that will have one single on an entire record that’s good, why would you want to buy that? I wouldn’t buy that record. There needs to be true change rather than dropping prices by seventeen cents. I guess my opinions on it are kind of weird..
