Cobra Starship

Sophie interviews Alex Suarez at the 2008 Warped Tour

It’s on a cloudy day in Montreal that I met Cobra Starship’s bassist, Alex Suarez. He was my first interview of the day at Jean-Drapeau park, located on a small island on the south shore of Montreal. I had met Gabe shortly during the Honda Civic tour last year when they performed at the Bell Center and also saw them again later on, when Cobra Starship came back to Montreal on their headlining tour. I briefly spoke to Alex that night, but this was my chance to finally get to know him a little more. We sat on a small bench under a tree not too far away from the press tables that were setup for the day at Warped Tour and before I could even start with my first question, I was aready laughing. He mumbled a few words and apologized as he threw away the gum that he seemed to be annoyed with. We then started discussing their current experience on the 2008 Vans Warped Tour.

CONFRONT : So we’re with Alex from Cobra Starship! First of all, a few Warped questions. You guys are doing the whole tour?

Alex: We are doing the whole tour.

CONFRONT: So you started at the very beginning, doing the whole thing…

Alex: We actually started ten days prior to Warped Tour to work our way to the West Coast.

CONFRONT: Really?

Alex: So we’ve been out for a LONG time!

CONFRONT: Wow! So how is it going so far, tired or?

Alex: It’s doing pretty great!

CONFRONT: Great? Yeah? Everybody’s good?

Alex: Yes, everybody’s great!

CONFRONT: Good! And how do you like Montreal?

Alex: I love Montreal! It’s my favorite Canadian city!

CONFRONT: Seriously?

Alex: No doubt!

CONFRONT: Awesome! So this is not your first time doing Warped, or is it?

Alex: This is my first Warped Tour experience ever in my entire life.

CONFRONT: Oh awesome! And how do you like it so far?

Alex: I love it! It’s so fun! We have a shower on our bus so it makes it really easy.

CONFRONT: Wow! That’s luxury!

Alex: It’s luxury, it is luxury travelling. It’s great! It’s a huge hangout and it’s a blast!

CONFRONT: Any awesome tour stories so far, anecdotes, somebody falling on their ass or anything?

(Both laugh)

Alex: Mmm… Trying to think. Nothing really crazy has really happened so far. Gabe pulled his ankle one day dancing on stage.

CONFRONT: Oh!

Alex: So yeah, you know, it happens!

CONFRONT: New band discoveries?

Alex: New band discoveries. Well one band which I almost toured with a long time ago, I finally got to see for the first time ever was Say Anything. And they’re like one of my favorite bands now.

CONFRONT: Really?

Alex: Yeah! I love those guys! They’re awesome guys, I love all those dudes to death.

CONFRONT: Great! So new album, new writing? What’s coming up?

Alex: We’re writing on Warped Tour. We don’t have a set date yet. We’re just writing some hits you know, no big deal.

(Both laugh)

Alex: Yeah… We’re just actually having a great time writing songs, so, it’s really fun!

CONFRONT: What’s been inspiring you lately?

Alex: Just fun you know. We’re like the party band you know…

CONFRONT: Exactly!

Alex: So, we just try to do that in our music.

CONFRONT: So what are the plans after Warped? You have another tour I think?

Alex: We do in the fall.

CONFRONT: With who?

Alex: Forever The Sickest Kids, Hit The Lights and Sing It Loud.

CONFRONT: You think that’s going to be fun?

Alex: It’s going to be awesome!

CONFRONT: Great! You like those bands?

Alex: Yeah, all the bands are really sweet.

CONFRONT: Great. Questions about the current album. What inspired the song “Pleasure Ryland”?

Alex: Um… The West Coast Hip-Hop, you know. Kind of get that vibe in there. “Pleasure Ryland” is kind of nicknamed after Ryland…

CONFRONT: Yeah!

Alex: He kind of came off with the the main musical riff so… You know, we named the song after him.

CONFRONT: Awesome! How’s Papi Razzi doing?

Alex: Papi’s doing great! We haven’t seen him in a while. He sends me text messages from time to time.

CONFRONT: What came first, him or the song? How did that work out?

Alex: The song came first. His real name is Papi Fernandes, but he took the nickname just because he loves the song so much, he’s like our biggest fan.

CONFRONT: And he just started to… write gossip…

Alex: That’s it! We hang out with him yeah, he just kills it! He’s a sweet dude.

CONFRONT: Yeah he’s awesome!

Alex: Yeah!

CONFRONT: I read what he posts all the time! (laughing) Who had the idea, the concept story, for the video of “The City is at War”?

Alex: We all live in New York, you know, we go to these like clubs, you know, you kind of experience the whole thing. On the Honda Civic Tour when we were writing that song, we were hanging out at these after-parties with like Fall Out Boy and stuff like that. We don’t really belong on the red carpet or anything like that, but every once in a while we get invited and it was kind of funny to be on that side. Usually we’re the guys that are like: “Hey we’re Cobra Starship!” and they’re like: “Who?”, you know?

CONFRONT: AH! (in a disappointed tone)

Alex: Yeah, you know, it happens! But you know what, we think it’s funny when it does! We don’t expect people to know us anyways you know. I mean we’re glad that some people can recognize us and stuff but… So we kind of went through that whole experience and it was just like really funny to be on the inside of all this stuff that we just grew up watching and just seeing all this stuff happen. So it’s kind of what that’s about, it’s all about who you know and it’s kind of funny how it works out.

CONFRONT: Well it’s a very funny video!

Alex: It is!

CONFRONT: Who invented the “Guilty Pleasure” dance?

Alex: Um…. I think that we were making our video that we made for it and I think that we were all kind of piecing it together like, “Let’s have a dance! Let’s do this…” (imitating the moves) and just kind of all came together yeah! I think it was Gabe’s idea to have a dance though.

CONFRONT: Nice! Any collaborations in the future, people you want to work with for your album or?

Alex: Um… There’s a lot of people we want to work with, I don’t know who we’re going to work with though.

CONFRONT: Ideally…

Alex: Ideally…

CONFRONT: Yeah, in dreamland!

Alex: I don’t know, Justin Timberlake, you know, no big deal… (acting all relax and faking as if Justin is no one really known)

CONFRONT: Oh yeah, no big deal!

Alex: Yeah! I got it though… (smiling)

CONFRONT: Well great! Thank you!

Alex: Yeah!

CONFRONT: Looking forward to the new album!

Alex: Yeah, us too!

CONFRONT: So you guys are on at?

Alex: At two!

CONFRONT: Perfect! I’ll try to come see you guys, thanks!

Alex: Alright!

I unfortunately didn’t get to catch Cobra Starship’s performance that day as I was delayed by other interviews I had to do, but I sure am very eager to hear the new album and will make sure not to miss them when they come back again soon to Montreal in November. Make sure to catch them too and check out their MySpace for more information and tour dates at:

www.myspace.com/cobrastarship

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