interview from punkbands.nl
Your new album "so long, Astoria" is gonna be released in about a month. Can you tell us something about it?
John: The title is a reference to an early 80's movie called the Goonies. It's a sort of a kids kinda movie, but adults like it too. It's about these kids and their town is gonna be bought out. They've got like one last change to try find those jewels, riches which is from a pirate ship that they think is in Astoria and so they go up this crazy adventure to try and save it.
The theme of the album has a lot to do with memories passed.
The record is more story telling and not really all based on relationships. I think we beat that to death on other records. Kris is more grown up so the songs are more grown up. But still it are heart songs. That's pretty much the theme… There's a song about his relationship with his daughter. And one about a girl who wrote us a letter, who was really sick and thought she was going to die. And she was really inspired by The Ataris, so Kris wrote a response to her in a song. Then there are those songs who deal with like how it's a lot more fun not being grown up, than being grown up. And then there's the song "So long, Astoria", which is the first song on the record. This is about just memories, just being a child, stuff like that. It's really the best lyrical record that Kris has ever written today. It's kind of a natural progression. Like if you listen to Anywhere but here, to Blue Skies, it's like different bands. You hear that it's a kid that wrote all those pop/punk tunes. Blue Skies is like, wow is this the Ataris?! And End is Forever strained it up a little bit. It's all in progression. So this record, production wise is a lot better too. We had more time and money to put in to the sound that we really wanted it to sound. So I think it's by far the best thing that the band has ever done.

So did the music also change?
John: It's a little bit more grown up. It's more rock than pop/punk I think the band is still classified under some bands like New Found Glory, Good Charlotte. I think we all share the same genre. I just think that this record strays away from the anti pop punk songs and just goes more to The Foo Fighters and Jimmy Eat World stuff. So there's not so much off the sing a long pop stuff. Which is cool, but I just think that it's good to try and step away from that. Just kind to do our own thing. And it still has Ataris written all over it.

And did your own musical taste also changed?
John: I think that Kris still will listen to All, Descendents, and Jawbreaker and Jets To Brazil. Personally, he listens to some weird stuff like Karate and some stuff like that, I'm not really into that. It kinda puts me to sleep. Now I still listen to the same records as I always have. I listen to Sick of It All, Bouncing Souls, NOFX and stuff like that. So no, our musical tastes are pretty much still the same.

You just told me that you had a better recording studio and more money to record this album. Is this because you switched labels?
John: Yeah, that definitely has something to do with it. They allow a lot more; we have more time and more money. At the independed label it was like ,you're touring so much and then you have like 2 weeks to throw yourself in a studio and try to get it done. It's because of money restraints and the time it just doesn't allow you to do what you really want. Colombia is just like "take your time, this is your budget and make a good record". And that was what we wanted to do.

You just released your first single called: "In This Dairy". You also shot a video for it. What was it like to shoot it?
John: It was cool. It has a part where Kris was looking like he was in Indiana or something, but it was in LA. Kinda hard to do that but it was a wide angle. So it's him kinda taking pictures of his memories. And we also did a live fan shot of us playing in front of a crowd. But that was actually not what we wanted to do. We wanted to do a self performance for fans but that just didn't work out. We are very fan orientated; we just wanted our fans to be in the video, being part of it. But they did some digital effects, which I haven't even seen yet. But there was a green screen behind us, and the stage that took all the pictures that Kris had taken and they blew them up like big pieces and pasted them all over the stage. So the stage all is like a big picture board. And we're playing on top of it. It's in this old crusty building in L.A, like it's inside a warehouse.

Was that the bands idea?
John: Well, Kris actually dealt with the treatment of the video. We had to be given a budget treatment from different directors. But some of them were really out there, some of them where from LA. And they said: let's do the same thing that's already been done. Like some of them were like straight, Jimmy Eat World, Blade rip off. They where like "ow, let's make a part of the scene where are kids making out". We got something like "no way, it's already been done". So right now it's pretty much how Kris wanted it to be. Just him taking pictures.
They built like a little hotel room, in a warehouse. Just in the corner. And Kris is like sorting out pictures and putting them up. And some of the pictures come to life for like 10 seconds. That's like the digital effect stuff. It's pretty rad, it's pretty weird, got to see it without the digital stuff, but with all the other stuff. So it's like a little movie, it's really cool! It came out great!

So do you've got any idea when it's gonna be broadcasted over here?
I have no idea about the European channels. I'm not really sure what they're catered to but in America it's MTV, M2.
At this part of the interiview Kris walked in and because he had nothing better to do, he decided to join the interview

Over the time, you recorded a lot of acoustic songs. Is there any chance that you will release an acoustic album?
John: I don't know what the future will bring.
Kris: Maybe it's something we rule out. I like to play acoustic songs. But if it happens, it will probably be at least a year before we will do it. I think it will be a possibility, but not within a year. Because right now we are focusing on our new record so much. We have a lot of work to do.

You've toured a lot in the USA and also in Europe, is touring in Europe different that touring in the USA?
John: I think there are really some differences for sure. I've seen a lot less barricades at shows, like bouncers. The kids in Europe don't feel as much pressure.
Kris: The kids over here can do what they want. They don't really mind if they jump of stage. The clubs are much more easygoing here. In the US there are so many rules and regulations. Every one is afraid that everyone will sue them. They kinda sue everybody; everyone's kinda sue-happy. So it's like somebody jumps off the stage and break their leg, they sue the club. But it's their own fucking fault, climbing on the stage. If they know better, they know that sometimes if you jump off the fucking P.A, those big speakers, I might hurt my leg. But some times, it's a lot of fun!
John: Yeah, there should be more enter at your own risk. But it never really is that way.

And are they more enthusiastic?
John: Some places are and some places are kind of a feel out. Like we haven't played in Germany much and we played there yesterday, so actually that was a good crowd.
Kris: So when we come to Europe I think in some certain markets it's kinda playing the for the first time all over again. Like when you're a young band, you're starting out in America I think it's like that in Europe too, and some places that you've never been to, it's like you don't know what to expect. So you're really nervous, you're exited. In America I think we know, when it are gonna be good shows, or the most horrible we've ever done.
John: We know in what places we can expect the bad shows. There are like a few places in the US that where no matter how many times you play there, it's really hard to have a great show. The ratials between good shows vs. bad shows are not so good.
In New Orleans and Louisiana you know… In New Orleans that is a crazy town.
Kris: In New Orleans, the scene is really small there, it's grown, but honestly we played there like 5 times and only one time we had a good show. It's just when everyone's asking "hey do you wanna go back to Louisiana". And then we've got something like "mmmm…maybe not". So we kinda push it of. So the bands do have quite a voice to be able to say where they want to play. So if there's a kid who says "we want you to play in Berlin", it's like well ok, fucking hey we remember that too. So we try to make that happen. But if I had a bad show somewhere, or a bad experience. Sometimes we actually determine where we play. That's why a lot of bands don't play in certain areas in the US. Like the South, Alabama, Mississippi, Indiana. All that stuff is close to where I grew up. A lot of bands skip that area because it's really hard to fit that in to their tour, because it's such a weird place.
John: Yeah, extreme south and the extreme north are always fucked. And even in the middle, we just skip that.
Kris: So when bands tour in America they go around the country. And then they go over to Chicago and other countries and then they go back across. And they don't hear us when they go trough there cross the top, and there's no cost. There's a bunch of states up there and they skip that shit because there's a lots of mountains.
Like bands in Europe they skip Scandinavia a lot, like Sweden and Norway. But Sweden has such a big punkscene and they always have. With bands like Millencolin and the Hives. The thing is, we never played in Sweden yet and we really wanna play there. So maybe one time in the future.
John: Yeah, but it will be like a 2 day event to get up there. So it takes us an extra day to travel and an extra day to travel back… all that stuff.

So what's the best place you've played so far?
Kris: It kinda goes like this: there are some places like NY City who has the greatest crowds in the US. Second will probably be England like London is always great. In Italy we did some great shows, Belgium has been crazy. I like playing here in Holland too, it's really cool. People are really friendly. I don't think that we've been able to play here enough. And we're trying to make up for that and do more shows in the Netherlands and Germany as well. Because in Germany we always had fucked up things happen. Last time when we where in Germany our bus driver threw all my shit out of my bunker. He threw our drummer's shit out, and then our drummer threw all my shit out of the bus. The next day I woke up and went to the bus to get my plane ticket and it was no where to be found.
John: yeah and so we missed a really big festival
Kris: So it's not really because of the shows, but we just had bad luck in Germany.

Do you guys ever check out punk related websites?
John: Yeah, I do. I check out the news, like punknews and stuff like that.
Kris: We like to keep familiar with the music we listen to. I wanna know how our friends bands are doing. Who's doing really good in music and who's not. I`m just a really big music fan. Not just punk music, i`m really digging a lot of other stuff, like a lot of indi rock and alternative bands. We just try to pay attention to what our fans are into. When you check our website you might see that we have a section for questions on our message bored. And we also ask our fans questions like "what music do you listen to?", "what's your favorite band that we should take on tour?", "what songs that we don't play should we actually play?" . Things so we can get feedback, Because we feel that our fans are the reason that we're playing music. It's like, i`m a song writer and he's a songwriter, but in the end, If no one listens to your songs you can be the greatest song writer in the world but you would have no audience. So it's really important to know what our fans want from us. We work for them, you know.

I wanted to ask you what is the thing that keeps you going as a band. But I think that you already gave me the answer in the last question; the fans.
Kris: Be able to get everybody see singing along every night. To go like 3000 miles from your home. When we're outside the country, and then you see some people, who speak very little English, singing a long the lyrics of all of our songs. That's a good feeling. I know there's not one fucking Japanese song that I can sing the lyrics to. And they know the lyrics to our songs. So i`m just like " damn, that's crazy" It's a really cool feeling! I wish I could sing a long to Japanese songs! Yo guys check it out! (kris is trying to sing a song in Japanese :). And then they will be like "WOW, you learned Japanese?" "Yeah dude, I learned it from the radio".

So what songs do you like playing best, when you're on stage
John: Ehm. What's you're favorite? (he's asking kris) Is it everwood?
Kris: Everwood is cool!
John: I think 1*15*96
Kris: I like the songs that have big musical break downs. The parts where i`m not singing.
John: Yeah I love that!
Kris: Some of them are fast songs.. it's just time that in that songs we actually can play music and not play little parts when i`m singing.
I really don't like playing the song "hey kid". Because i`m 26 now and that's a song I wrote when I was like 15 years old. So it's really a silly song. Because right now we kinda evolved to a serious band. So playing that song sometimes almost takes away all the other elements of the song. Just like you're singing this really silly song, and the lyrics are "bitch bitch bitch".

So are there still fans who ask you to play that song?
John: Yeah, we still do it.
Kris: As a fan myself if I go to a band, I hate it when they don't play the songs I want to hear. So we go out of the way and let kids request songs and we just try to play them. Like last night we played a song that we didn't fucking played in 1,5 year. But we just did it.

You've toured with a lot of great bands. Is there any band that you wanna tour with again? Or any band that you haven't toured with that you really wanna tour with some day?
Kris: Sugarcult! I never get sick of touring with them! On out new tour in the US we're taking Juliana Theory, Further Seems Forever and Yellow Card. It's good to tour with new bands, that you haven't met. It's like 15 new friends, plus you know their crew as well. But then again, if you tour with the wrong band and you've got the wrong chemistry, it's like having the worse days of your life.
John: It's really uncomfortable. You've got those situations in a band have like a manager or something, and he doesn't really wanna be friendly to you. But then you just make it up and be their friend.
Kris: Then you'll at least be in the tour, respecting each other. A lot of times I just sit there and break all of their gear and get crazy and jump of their shit. And if it's a really good show, things like that happen. And sometimes you break shit all the time. People tend to get pissed of on me, for doing that. But that's ok, because i`m a big fucking child. We just get paid to do that. It's better to get paid to break things every night! Definitely for us… It`s a show!

So why aren't you touring with one band right now?
John: We are actually. We just broke of the Kung-Fu tour.
Kris: Just for us to come to the Netherlands by ourselves. The other bands on the Kung-Fu tour did the Amsterdam show already. So we couldn't do the tour, because we weren't over here yet. And we just where like "we got to do an Amsterdam show". We can't leave out Den Bosch and Amsterdam. We also wanted to make sure to do Belgium too. Because Belgium is a really good and strong market for us, one of my favorite places in Europe. We where like " what's the point of coming out just to do Italy and the UK?", that would be cheating on the rest of Europe. And because of that, we didn't have the time to get a support band. So we just said: "Put on a really good local band". And hopefully they did.
John: The support act in Germany was really good. They're called Everest. They where kind of an emo band, with keyboards and stuff. They sounded a little bit like The Reunion Show.

Do you know any Dutch punkrock bands?
John: Terrorgruppe? Ow no... they're from Germany right?
Eeeehhmmm who's like a big Dutch band?

Undeclinable Ambuscade?
John: Yeah! that's what I was thinking of!
Kris: yeah, undeclinable ambuscade is not really big in the US. But we where on a comp with Fat Wreck, called Short Music For Short People. They had like 100 bands doing 30 seconds songs. So we where on there and they where on there, so we where on the same comp together¦It's a good band!