Melissa sits down with Quinn and Dan from band The Used
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The Maine is a five member group formed in 2007 in Tempe, Arizona. While they have only been involved in the music scene for two years they have already toured with some big name bands such as Boys Like Girls, Good Charlotte, The Academy is…,  3OH!3 and Paramore. They have released one studio album as well as 3 EP’s including a Christmas one.

On their July 11^th Vans Warped Tour date in Montreal drummer Pat Kirsch and guitarist Kennedy Brock joined me in the small media tent to discuss. Kennedy showed up barefoot which was very smart because several times during the interview we had to stop and help dump tons of rain water off the roof of the tent. Despite the horrible downpour the guys of The Maine joked around and left me with an amazing first impression of the band.

KENNEDY: Do you speak French?

CONFRONT: I do!

KENNEDY: Salut! Ca va? That’s all I know.

CONFRONT: Oui! Toi?

KENNEDY: Oui!

CONFRONT: Have you been working on your French skills since you arrived in Montreal?

KENNEDY: *laughs* Yes!

CONFRONT: Is this your first time on Warped Tour?

KENNEDY: It’s not our first time but this is our first whole tour. We did ten days last year and now we’re on the full thing.

CONFRONT: What’s the experience been like so far?

KENNEDY: It’s just been crazy!  Today is very insane because it’s the first real day of rain so far on the tour.

CONFRONT: Really?

KENNEDY: Yeah the weathers been great for the other shows! It’s been awesome because there have been so many kids coming out and everything has just been perfect. I seriously could not have asked for it to be better.

CONFRONT: Have you had a favorite stop so far?

KENNEDY: Favorite stop? What’s your favorite been Pat?

PAT: Toronto yesterday was pretty awesome.

CONFRONT: Is there a reason Toronto stood out for you guys?

PAT:  It’s just cool to be in a different country and still have so many kids come out to see us play.

CONFRONT: How has the fan reaction been so far?

PAT: It’s been awesome!

KENNEDY: Yeah! It’s been really good.

CONFRONT: Warped Tour attracts thousands of people every single day. What do you guys do to draw in new fans?

PAT: In the mornings we walk around with signs promoting our band and our CD and stuff. We try to interact with as many fans as possible and spread the word. We like to be where the fans are.

KENNEDY: We really try to make it a bit more personable you know? The fans are the reason we’re here and we really like going out and talking to everyone. We make it a point that either before or after our set we’re at our tent hanging out and meeting new people.

CONFRONT: Is there one thing you guys had to bring on tour with you?

KENNEDY: There’s one thing I did not bring that I now really want and that’s a bike.

CONFRONT: Really? Why’s that?

KENNEDY: Everything is so far away! It would be a lot easier.

CONFRONT: You don’t get one of those golf carts that brings you guys places?

KENNEDY: *laughs* No! I wish.

CONFRONT: What do you to stay entertained on the road?

PAT: On Warped Tour there really isn’t much down time. We’re always busy doing something. We just all hang out together a lot and discover new bands.

CONFRONT: Who are some that you’ve discovered so far?

PAT: There’s this band from Arizona called This Century that we all really like.

CONFRONT: Were there any bands that you guys knew about before joining the tour that you were excited to see?

PAT: Lights!

KENNEDY: Yeah Lights. We’ve actually toured with a good amount of bands that are on the tour now like Hit the Lights, A Rocket to the Moon and 3Oh!3 so it’s really cool to get the chance to just hang out with them every day.

CONFRONT:  So you’ve had the chance to share the stage with a bunch of bands that you know on this tour?

KENNEDY: Yeah!  We get to hang out with a bunch of our best friends on this combined tour. It’s just so cool.

CONFRONT: You’re releasing a deluxe version of your album “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop”…

KENNEDY: Yes we are! It comes out on Tuesday

CONFRONT: How does it differ from your first release of that same album back in 2008?

KENNEDY:  Basically it includes some bonus tracks and a 30 minute documentary called “In Person” which features the story of the first day we started the band.

CONFRONT: Since we’ve never interviewed you guys before can you just give me a brief history of how the band was formed?

PAT: Sure! Well me & Garrett, our bass player, played in a band together for awhile and then we needed a singer so John came over to my house and played a cover song for us and he played it and we loved it and he joined the band. Then our guitarist quit so we got Kennedy and our other guitarist left so we got Jared and that was it and then we started to go on tour.

CONFRONT: How many years have you been together?

KENNEDY: Two years.

CONFRONT: Do you guys have a favorite song to cover or one you’d like to cover?

KENNEDY: We actually just started covering Def Leppards “Pour some sugar on me” and we’ve been having a lot of fun with that. I think we’ve got it down and now we’re having fun with it.

CONFRONT: So in your two year careers you’ve had the opportunity to tour with so many bands. What would your dream lineup be? Who would you love to tour with?

PAT: Dream lineup? Us, Third Eye Blind, The Starting Line and Britney Spears!

CONFRONT: Oh I wasn’t expecting that!

*Everyone laughs*

PAT: Yeah well…*laughs*

CONFRONT: The magazine has five questions that they ask every band. So what was the first and last album you guys bought?

KENNEDY: The first album I bought was Third Eye Blind’s “Blue”

CONFRONT: I think you’re the third person I’ve spoken with today who’ve mentioned Third Eye Blind as their first album.

KENNEDY: Really! They’re awesome. The last album I bought was This Century’s EP!

*We take a break from the interview to dump water off the roof of the media tent so that it doesn’t collapse on us*

KENNEDY: It’s so rainy!!

CONFRONT: You haven’t seen weather like this yet?

KENNEDY: No! Not at all! It’s been so sunny and hot. We’re from Arizona so we’re not used to seeing this *laughs*

CONFRONT: Have you ever been to Montreal?

PAT: Yeah! We played last summer with Boys Like Girls and Good Charlotte.

*It starts to downpour again and Kennedy, whose back was to the rain, turns and shows us his drenched shirt*

KENNEDY: This is crazy! Oh and someone dropped an umbrella!

*Kennedy bends down to pick it up*

CONFRONT: Oh that’s mine! Don’t worry about it. It’s not going to get any wetter at this point.

*We stop to dump the water again*

CONFRONT: Alright! Ready?

KENNEDY: Yup! Let’s do this. This rain doesn’t scare me.

CONFRONT: Finish the sentence: I would never….

PAT: Eat chocolate. I hate chocolate.

KENNEDY: I would never eat the same piece of chocolate that he ate after he ate it.

CONFRONT:  I have never…

KENNEDY: I have never done a front flip standing on the ground!

PAT: I’ve never seen this much rain ever in my entire life.

CONFRONT: Do you guys have any preshow rituals?

KENNEDY: We do this thing that we call “partying”. We get in a circle and we changed it up tour from tour but we all chant “We like to party”.

CONFRONT: Good way to get yourselves pumped up before a show!

KENNEDY: Oh yeah definitely!

CONFRONT: What are your plans once Warped Tour wraps up?

PAT: We’re going on tour this fall.

CONFRONT: With who?

PAT: We can’t say yet!

CONFRONT: Oh so people are just going to have to keep checking your myspace…

KENNEDY: Exactly!

PAT: But we will be on tour!

CONFRONT: Finally, what do you guys want your legacy to be as a band or as an individual?

KENNEDY: I hope that we consistently toured. Hopefully we’ll have a positive influence on our fans and they’ll remember us in the best way possible!

CONFRONT: Thanks so much guys!

KENNEDY: Thank you!

PAT: Thanks!

CONFRONT: Good luck getting back to your bus.

KENNEDY: Oh I’m running back! *laughs*

For more information on The Maine’s fall tour you can visit the following websites:

www.myspace.com/themaine

http://www.absolutepunk.net/artists/showlink.php?l=4906

Part 1 of Angel’s interview with drummer, Pat Thetic
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During our series of Warped Tour interviews, I had the opportunity to sit down with Singer Cove Reber, guitarist Justin Shekoski and bassist Chris Sorenson of the band, Saosin; an interview I had been looking forward to for a while.  So it was just as the rains began that we sat down near the water to have a chat.

CONFRONT: I don’t mean to grab you but you had a ‘thing’ crawling on your back.

CHRIS: I had a creature?

CONFRONT: Yeah.

CHRIS: What was it?

CONFRONT: I don’t know but it was big and green and crawling toward your neck.

COVE: Hey there are two beavers over here.

CONFRONT: There are a lot of them on this island.  Is this your first time playing here?  I mean at the Jean-Drapeau Park?  Cause you’ve been to Montreal a few times before.

COVE: Yeah I think so.  It’s nice though.  Even in the rain.

CONFRONT: Well as we get started, I won’t ask you to give us a recap of how you became a band because I’m fairly sure we talked about that the last few times we spoke.  But you guys have an album coming out around the time this interview will go live, right?

JUSTIN: Yes.  We have an album coming out.  We have an album coming out September 8^th, 09 called ‘In Search of Solid Ground’.  We actually just finished it before coming on the Warped Tour.  So we are pretty excited.  We are playing three songs from the new record on the tour.

CONFRONT: I read that three of the songs that are found on the ‘The Grey’ EP are going to be on this new record.  Is that right?

JUSTIN: Yeah.  They’re all somewhat different now.  We’ve done that a couple of times with songs we were working on before and it’s always neat to have fans hear the songs during their evolution and they hear how they turn out on the full length.

CONFRONT: How has the reception been to the new material?

JUSTIN:  It’s been good.  This is the first time we’ve been able to play it live so Warped Tour is always a good place to gauge what songs are doing well; and we kind of picked some of faster tempo-ed songs to play so I think they are getting received very well.

CONFRONT: Can you give me a little background on this album.  Like what it’s about, if there is a concept behind it and the recording process and stuff like that.

COVE: I can tell you about what it’s about.  The name of the record kind of sums it up really.  It’s the search for something stable and I think we’ve been through so much as a band that I kind of saw us in the place before we started the record that we didn’t really know what was going to happen in the band’s life; so I just kind of started writing songs about what I was going through and what it felt like we were all going through.  So that’s pretty much what the record is about.  Chris can tell you about the recording process.

CHRIS: The recording process was long and drawn out over a year.  We started back in April of… it’s raining hard.

CONFRONT: Do you guys wanna move from here?

CHRIS: No, no.  I was just thinking for the show.  So, we started back in April of 2008 and started the actual music recording up until about October of 2008 and then went out on tour with UnderOath for three months and got into the studio with Butch Walker; did some vocals for a couple of songs.  Finished the majority of the rest of the record at our house and then met up with a couple of other producers, John Feldman and Logan Matter, and we mixed the record ourselves, produced five songs on the record and now it’s coming out and it’s weird.

CONFRONT: What’s the anticipation like for the record after having worked on it so long and now it’s going to be released to the public?

CHRIS: It’s so hard to tell because you get attached to something; it becomes a part of you.  So the anticipation becomes now just to get it out and see what the reactions are.  Because we have our own opinions about it but those don’t really mean anything and those are easier to change than the actual facts.

CONFRONT: It’s been three years since the last album right?

CHRIS: Yeah it’ll be three years in September.

CONFRONT: Three years seems like a long time.  Why so long between records and why is now a good thing for you to be putting out this record?

CHRIS: There is nothing really tactical about it.  We’ve been touring a lot.  We tend to take touring more into consideration rather than recording; just because it’s just what we’ve built this band on: rigorous touring.  And then I like said, recording over the course of a year is a pretty long time for a band to take.  Normal records take about four months.  And as far as when it’s being released it’s kind of like the soonest it could be released.  We were mixing it until about 2 days before we left for this tour so it’s kind of like the soonest that it could get done.

CONFRONT: Is there something that you’ve learned during the recording of the previous records that you specifically applied to the recording of this record or contrarily, didn’t apply to this record?

CHRIS: Well we kind of went back to our roots as far as recording a lot of it ourselves; and producing a lot of it ourselves.  And what we realized is that we are pretty good at doing that ourselves in comparison to some of the Grade-A producers.  A lot of our stuff really held up.  And that’s cool for us.  Because the line is blurring between what the artist is capable of and what the artists has to hire to deliver something worthwhile.  Finally the industry is  adopting the idea that you kind of don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a lot.

CONFRONT: Have there been any good tour stories so far on this leg of the tour?

CHRIS: No not many stories so far.  I mean we know our friends, we know all of our bands, Alexisonfire, Senses Fail, all of these bands we’ve toured with before.  But there’s like a huge new wave of artists that are out and kind of taking over the tour if you will.  So we haven’t met a lot of them.  It’s cool to see a lot of the bands that we have met.  Like a couple of days ago Paramore played in Cleveland as special guests.  And when we were on the tour in 2005 they were on this stage called the Sheer Girl stage which is like this piece of wood with two pipes underneath it.  So that was cool to see.

CONFRONT: Have you discovered any new bands or artists on this year’s tour?

CHRIS: No not at all.  Justin found this band called Emmure which is like a moshcore, hardcore band.  Their pretty good.

CONFRONT: Cove, I read blog a few days ago and in one of your posts you more or less bashed a band – not that I can remember their name right now – but you were saying that they sucked essentially; BADLY.  Are you worried at all that you are tour with these guys that bad blood might arise or confrontations might take place.

COVE: No not really.  The Warped Tour is known for being a punk rock tour and when you get out there and you’ve signing to track it’s like ‘where’s the punk rock’ in that.  I’m not worried.  I just saying what I did all day and how it made me feel, you know.  I try not to actually bash anybody.

CONFRONT: Well you kind of literally said that they really sucked.

COVE: Ok well go watch ‘em.  You’ll think the same thing.

CONFRONT: (laughing) I believe you.  I don’t doubt they are bad.  I’m just pointing out that that’s what you said.

COVE: A lot of people are missing a lot of other great bands for the sheer value of just seeing how terrible they are.  There are a lot of bands that are on this tour that are that way.  I’m just saying don’t miss some other great band that you’ve never heard of because you are watching this band that you know but that that suck.

CONFRONT: Is there some tension that settles in after that?

COVE: No.  I mean we did a show with A Day to Remember in Memphis and anybody who went to that show pretty much know the reception that they got.  It’s just a different type of breed of music.  It’s just not what we grew up listening too, what we grew up appreciating.  We grew up appreciating real bands who actually play their instruments and actually do things live.  And that’s what I respect.  I can’t respect someone who gets up there and doesn’t do anything.  You’re selling the biggest lie in the world.  That sucks.

CONFRONT: Is there anybody that you’ve toured with that you would love to tour with again?

COVE: Inner.  Innerpartysystem.  They are awesome.  We did a tour with P.O.S. and UnderOath but it was like only two weeks so I would like to tour with P.O.S. again.  He’s a sweet guy.  I don’t really know anybody else really.

CONFRONT: What are the plans after Warped?  Are you going out on tour?

JUSTIN: Actually, in August we are flying to Japan to do Summer Sonic.  We are leaving Warped Tour for a couple of days and then coming back.

CHRIS: We are going to play with Nine Inch Nails.  My Chemical Romance.  Everybody is claiming it to be the return of My Chem.  So we’ll see how that goes.

COVE: It’s going to be cool.

CONFRONT: Alrighty.  Well that’s pretty much all I have for you guys this time around.

CHRIS: Cool.

CONFRONT: Thanks so much and try to stay dry until your set.

COVE: You Too.

To learn more about Saosin please visit the link below.

www.saosin.com

www.myspace.com/saosin

And to see the full Saosin picture gallery, please follow the below link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/confrontmagazine/sets/

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