Interviews Archives - Damian Burford: Freelance Writer/Podcaster from Denver, CO & Napa, Ca

Interview // Mikey Erg! On The Ergs Return, working with Steve Albini & more!

Mikey is most famously known as the Drummer/Front-man for New Jersey’s own Power-Pop Punk Rock Group extraordinaire, THE ERGS! Not to mention Mikey plays in way too many bands to list, and we tried! Some of those groups include: WORRIERS, Jon Snodgrass, All Away Lou and oh so many more! In this late night call, we sit back and sip IPA’s and chat the night away. We cover a lot of ground. We talk about SPARKS, Growing as a songwriter, Working with Steve Albini, Descedents and oh so much more! But most importantly we talk about one of the BEST pop-punk bands of all-time, THE ERGS, and how they came to start (occasionally) playing/recording together again! THIS INTERVIEW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT MOSTLYHARMLESSPODCAST.COM. I fell in love with Mikey Erg in 2005, and my life has been better for it ever since. The Ergs were touring through Southern Colorado with the “nerdcore” hip hop superstar, MC CHRIS. I went to the show that night, at the Black Sheep with the purpose of interviewing MC Chris for my then, Mostly Harmless Magazine! I liked Chris. He was goofy and weird and wrote rap songs about Star Wars, Robotussin and Blizzards! He even worked on two of my favorite cartoons, SEALAB 2021 and Aqua Teen Hunger Force! MC Chris was burnt out on interviews and we did not want to chat. Instead of letting it get me down, I took my tape recorder over to the merch table for The Ergs and introduced myself, asking if I could interview them after their set. Thankfully I had listened a little, and written a few notes. We gathered outside the Black Sheep and I fell in love with the three loveable boys that were Joe, Jeff and Mikey. It was also the start of a lifelong obsession with THE ERGS! I’ve gotten to spend time with Mikey all over the country. Whether in Chicago, Gainesville, New York City or Colorado Springs… Anytime I see Mikey out on the road, he greets me with a hug. As I was gearing up to restart Mostly Harmless for a third or fourth time, I was having a crisis of confidence. I wanted to do this thing that I’ve loved since I was 16, but at 40 years old.. I’m too old right? But here was Mikey, still out there living his dreams. I had wanted to learn more about the Who and Why behind the man who has written so many of my favorite records, and inspired so many wonderful adventures! Thankfully Mikey was once again on board and we jumped on a late night zoom call, sipped on a couple of delicious IPA’s and shot the shit and called it an interview. I’m so god damned lucky to be able to call this Saint of a human being a friend of mine. He makes my life, and my music collection oh so much better by being a part of it. He inspires and encourages a number of my dumb ideas and my late night record purchases. I hope this chat teaches you a thing or two about songwriting, or what you can learn by working with a pro like Steve Albini. Maybe you’ll even decide to check out a SPARKS record or two, but we both agree, you should definitely check out SPARKS BROS, the killer documentary directed by Edgar Wright of Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz fame. It’s streaming now on Netflix, and we both have the Blu ray on our Christmas list. If you would like to listen or read the original Ergs interview, conducted in 2005 outside the Black Sheep in Colorado Springs, you can read that interview here: Or listen at: http://mostlyharmlesspodcast.com/flashback-episode-1-w-a-wilhelm-scream-the-ergs/ This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Hey, buddy, what’s going on? So good to see your face! It has been a very long time! What is it 18 years since I last was interviewed by you? What was that? That was the MC Chris tour, So, 2005!? I was I was fortunate enough to see The Ergs twice in Colorado Springs of all fucking places. Once with MC Chris and another time with Hunchback at JJ Nobody’s Triple Nickel Tavern. You were at the Triple Nickel! That was a night. There’s a famous among us- It’s not a famous photo or anything- There’s a famous photo of all of us cheersing Whiskey River, Willie Nelson’s whiskey at the Triple Nickel. We stayed at JJ’s that night. We got to see the infamous collection. I’ll say no more. I mean, yeah, if you know, JJ, Nobody… then you know…. [Laughter] The other day I was watching the Sparks documentary [The most excellent film directed by Shaun of The Dead/ Baby Driver director Edgar Wright] and I assume you are a Sparks fan? Oh, not only am I a Sparks fan, but you probably know this about me: I am a consumer of music and also of rock documentaries of musicians that I love… And I think that the Sparks documentary is the best rock and roll documentary that I’ve ever seen! They did it so right, where they didn’t skimp. It’s two and a half hours long. They don’t skip over even a millisecond of their career, but it’s concise enough where the average person can get into it. There’s been a lot of talk about GET BACK [the Peter Jackson directed, 9 hour long Beatles Documentary]… If you’re a casual Beatles fan. It’s probably not the movie for you. But as a massive Beatles fan, I’m so glad that they left all that shit in. But no one wants that from the Sparks documentary. Even as a massive Sparks fan, there was stuff that could have been talked about, but this is the perfect documentary. It’s got everything and it’s got some stuff that maybe massive fans didn’t know. Have you been a Sparks fan for a long time? I got into them…not a long time ago. I

Interview Hutch Harris // The Thermals. Creative Life, New Records and The End Of The Thermals! (Dec 2021)

THIS INTERVIEW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT MOSTLYHARMLESSPODCAST.COM. I’m moving away from Denver with the love of my life Claire and her Dick, the tabby cat. I am quitting a job that I thought was going to be my dream job. I am on a healthy medication and meditation routine. I am creating more than I have ever before. What does this have to do with Hutch Harris or The Thermals? You’ll see. I almost made a very stupid decision to stay here in Denver and run this little restaurant, while the love of my life moved away without me. Claire wanted to move away and explore her passions, but I wanted to stay here in Denver and explore where this path had taken me. I wanted to BUILD SOMETHING. I feel like I have been on a path to this place for so long. This path brought me to the front doors of the little restaurant that I help run. I thought this was the end of the path and the place I had always been working toward. I thought this was it. I thought I had made it. And it was there on that path that I found myself night after night cleaning out the grease traps on our industrial fried chicken fryers. Cleaning out those fryers, I would often sing to myself and that’s when when the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, “Here’s Your Future,” from The Thermals popped into my head. “god reached his hand down from the sky, he flooded the land, then he set it a fire, he said, “fear me again. know i’m your father. remember that no one can breathe underwater.” so bend your knees and bow your heads, save your babies, here’s your future, yeah here’s your future!” That night, Claire was out of town and I knew I’d be going home to a quiet and lonely apartment. I had nothing to really look forward, and soon this was going to be my future if I let Claire move away. Those lyrics staying in my head for weeks… “Here’s Your Future…” I’m not the smartest cookie, but elbow deep in old fryer grease, I realized I had already been building something with this woman I love. I was a dope! I had building a pretty GREAT life! I didn’t want her to go without me. I wanted to be with her, no matter where. I can find another job. I can run another restaurant, but I can never find another woman like her. So I sat and thought about what I really wanted to build. I thought about the things that really bring me joy. Cuddles with Claire and the kitty, writing about art, Interviewing people and just living a simple life. I just want a happy, creative, easy life and I wasn’t going to get that if I stayed here in Denver, cleaning out the fryers. Later than very night, I was sitting here enjoying one too many beers and a few too many tokes off the peace pipe and a Facebook ad scrolled across my screen from THE THERMALS page, announcing that Hutch Harris had just put out a new solo record, SUCK UP ALL THE OXYGEN. A manic idea took hold that I could maybe, just maybe, interview Hutch Harris! We could talk about quitting things and compare our creative processes, but really I just wanted to tell him how much that damned song meant to me in these moments of my life! How this song helped me decide that the path that lead me here to this place, was also leading me away from this place! So I fired off a rambling message to Hutch and to my surprise, he said YES! He would be on the show. That morning I was nervous for a whole lot of reasons. Right before we had our chat, I fired off an email to my bosses at the restaurant and let them know my last day would be January 15th and I would be moving to parts unknown with the love of my life. It felt like some kind of destiny taking over and taking me along for an adventure. The chat went well, I was a rambling mess. My diarrhea of mouth is worse than ever, but as I listened and edited this interview together… I could hear that under the rambling looney nonsense I was spouting off and calling questions, I could see that I do actually have a talent for this kind of stuff. I just need to calm down, relax and maybe drink a lot less coffee. It’s all part of the creative process. For those who may not know, do you mind catching us up on what happened to The Thermals? It’s been three or four years, I think. The last record we did was in 2016 and then we toured, but not as much as we usually did for the other records. We toured most of that year, I think. And then a year or so later, I was like, “I think that’s good enough for me.” I wanted to leave.. it. I wanted to stop doing it because I felt if I didn’t stop doing it, it was just going to be the same for the next 30 years, or until we stop doing it. And I thought about that, my life and my creative life. They were just going to be kind of a flat line for the rest of my life, If I didn’t stop doing the band and do something different. So I just told the band that. They weren’t thrilled but they understood, I felt like it had a good run and I just kind of needed to do something else at the end. How scary was it ending this project, that had been such a big part of your life? It was fine. I knew what it was going to be like. I just knew I

Off With Their Heads Interview // Ryan Young on In Desolation (New Noise Magazine Issue #1 – March 2013)

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors. You’ve got a new record, HOME, coming out into the world in March. After all the hard work and effort, how does it feel to be putting this thing out into the world? Good. It’s been finished since the end of July. I honestly thought it would be released in the fall, but I guess their deadline was too close to Xmas. I was told it’s a bad idea to release records around that time. I was pretty bummed at first (knowing we would have to wait so long), but I realize that the label certainly knows more than I do about putting out records. It’s a deeper, darker and ever more personal record than the already incredibly personal records that preceded it. Yet, you do it so effortlessly and fearlessly. Do you get nervous putting so much of yourself out there? I wouldn’t say it’s effortless or fearless at all. I hate going in to make records. I know that the only way to make it powerful and meaningful to myself is to dig way into all the shit that I put off dealing with since the last record. I was always afraid that I would run out of things to write about as I got older. It turns out that there seems to be an entirely new set of worries and problems that come with getting older. Back when we did Hospitals, I felt like I could do whatever I wanted and there were no consequences. There weren’t, really. I was 24 and couldn’t die (believe me, we tried!). Now I’m 31 and a full grown man. The problem is that I don’t feel like one or even want to be one! I’m watching all of my friends and old band mates get married and have children, and I just want to get back to 24, you know? I think that’s been my new problem, and that’s obviously not going away. The actual making of the records is stressful in the lyric sense because I’m writing until the minute I record vocals. I might have something, but I usually change it to the most pressing thoughts I have right before they hit record. It’s also pretty embarrassing singing some of the shit I write to an engineer for the first time. I still haven’t gotten over that. It’s the ability of a true artist to make work look effortless!Then I must be a true artist, because that shit is hard! I’m 31 too and I’m in the same boat. I don’t want to grow up, I don’t want to have kids. I want to go out 5 nights a week and go see bands play each and every night. I don’t want to stop. I’m afraid to stop. What I really like and what really grabs me about HOME, is many of the themes hit home for me and hit home hard. I might have made this idea up, but the ideas of feeling alone in a room full of people. The ideas and feelings that I’m in a hole I’ll never get out of. And here’s another guy with the same shit going on in his head, but he can kind of play guitar and can sing. The honesty hits home. How important is honesty, or am I making that up in my head? haha It’s super important. That’s why it takes me so long to write. I procrastinate because to be perfectly honest about it, I’m not a very honest person publicly. If I go out to a show, or hang out at a show that I’m playing, I don’t want to talk about this shit. I want to have fun. The switch flips when I get home though. It’s kinda like that episode of It’s Always Sunny where Charlie is explaining that they have to huff glue and eat the cat food to fall asleep as fast as possible. I have a similar routine. I think Home is kind of a deeper explanation of why I feel the way I do all the time, and less about the specific shittiness like the previous records. So when someone like me comes up to you at a show and tells you that they understand how you feel and feel that way too, that maybe your honesty has helped them through some dark times as well, Does that freak you out? Not at all. I think it’s cool when people say stuff like that. It happens more often these days than it used to. It just depends how that conversation goes down. I think you should use music like this as therapy or an escape. Same goes for the show. People just have to keep in mind that I am not a therapist. I can’t help anyone on a personal level. I can give you some music, but I have no good advice. That’s where the title for the song “Seek Advice Elsewhere” comes into play. When you are at an OWTH show and are having a good time, roll with it. Don’t dwell on whatever problem you have while there, and please don’t put me in the position of feeling bad about it. I’m there doing the same thing! Let’s move in and talk more about that album, entitled HOME. It’s a simple, but loaded title for a loaded album. What does HOME mean to you? I never really have an idea for a theme when doing a record. I think this one stemmed from us touring for 5 years straight. It’s about all the different places that I’ve called home over the years, and why each of them has never clicked and felt right. I still don’t feel like I’ve found the “home” that everyone who is content with their lives has. I guess right now, my

Tim Barry interview on 20 years of train hopping, how his daughter changed his world and more! (New Noise Magazine Issue 01 – March 2013)

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors. In the year since TIM BARRY has released 40 Miler on Chunksaah Records, he has celebrated the 20th anniversary of his first train ride. He has also become a new father to his daughter Lela Jane Barry. We join Tim and talk about his early train ride memories, battling diabetes and how having a daughter may or may not change his song writing. I’ve read that as of March, it has been 20 years since your first train ride. That is correct! It was actually right about this time of the month, too. It was about mid March. I can’t remember the exact date, but my buddy Ronnie [Lee Graham] took me on this first trip. We debated the date a whole bunch. I kept saying it was 1994 and he kept saying 1993. I decided it would sound cooler if it was ’93. So that is the year I went west. He was probably right. So 20 years ago, right about this time of the month, I took my first freight train trip from Richmond, Virginia down to Rocky Mountain, North Carolina. We hitchhiked down to Raleigh and rode some more trains around North Carolina. I don’t even remember how we got back, but it was the first of those wanderings that I did. What was that experience like? The guy I was riding with, Ronnie Graham. He grew up in a trailer park in Salisbury, Maryland. He didn’t come from a family of wealth. He didn’t come from a family of wealth and like a lot of those families, they had chronic health problems. A lot of his family died young. Others were in prison. His dad was in prison for a long time. He had a transient uncle who rode trains and he sort of turned Ronnie onto it. Ronnie had ridden trains a bunch, just out of necessity. I was sort of obsessed with Woody Guthrie and a lot of the early folk singers, back then 20 years ago. I had instructions. I had a person with me who had experienced so much, so my nerves weren’t as shot as if I had done it on my own. He did most of the footwork. He went into the train yards and talked to the workers and found out which train we wanted. We found an open box car and just drank beer waiting for the train to leave. I was more fatigued by the time the train rolled out at six in the morning heading south out of the CSX ACCA Yard. I was more fatigued at that moment than anything else. It was a hell of an experience. Do you think you would be the person you are today, if it had not been for that first ride? I think I probably would have found another obsession. That’s just the kind of person I am. I just have an instinct to keep moving. I don’t want to sit down. I’m always making plans. I rarely think about things that I have done. I generally focus on things that I want to do. I do many things that are considered normal or abnormal: Music, gardening, camping, canoeing, and riding trains. It never ends. I guess you are where you come from. So yeah, I would be a different person if I didn’t start riding trains all those years ago. What I like about trains is not just the fulfillment of my wanderlust. It is that they are a parallel for life. When I think I have a specific train route in time and the crew change points down, they change. It starts all over again. It becomes another mystery that I feel the need to conquer. Is it track maintenance? Has there been a derailment? Was there a bridge collapse that forced a reroute? I just start ticking and ticking. Again, it’s a parallel for life. Once you think you feel pretty scheduled with routine and with things falling in place, it is thrown for a loop. You have to start all over again, and learn it all over again. I think that’s what quelled my interest. A lot of the people who are obsessed with trains, like myself, are also obsessed with illegal forms of art on the trains. They’re also obsessed with things like birding, tree identification, and hiking every trail in the state. It might even be a neurosis because I find myself interested in all those things as well. It’s very strange the way the brain functions. [Laughter] Train Riding was such a large part of the cultural landscape of the depression era. Many of your songs have a depression era quality to them. Do you ever feel that maybe you were born in the wrong time? Nah! [Laughs] Josh Small is my right hand man and plays music with me. The first time I met his father, Rev. Bobby Joe Small; he is from the first generation of a gypsy family that settled down. Mr Small said to me, after seeing Josh and I play music together for the very first time, “Tim, you old timey in a modern way!” I’ll take it. I don’t mind being old timey in 2013. I think we have a lot more conveniences than the dust bowl era. In the year since TIM BARRY has released 40 Miler on Chunksaah Records, he has celebrated the 20th anniversary of his first train ride. He has also become a new father, to his daughter Lela Jane Barry. We join Tim and talk about his early train ride memories, battling diabetes and how having a daughter may or may not change his song writing. Congratulations on your baby daughter! She’s about fifteen pounds and in my left arm as we talk right now, while juggling her and the telephone

Me First and The Gimme Gimmes // Fat Mike interview about DIVAS. (New Noise Magazine Cover Story #09 – April 2014)

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors. A Diva is a force to be reckoned with. A powerhouse singer with an overwhelming, powerful attitude to match. A Diva is likely to get their own way, no matter what the cost. Regardless, a true diva can shape significant portions of the cultural landscape of popular music. It’s a fitting theme for the Avengers-esque punk rock powerhouse of Me First and The Gimme Gimmes. The band is known for its general infighting and party time attitude, while taking popular songs and crafting them into their own songs. Those powerhouses who form Me First and The Gimme Gimmes have always been Joey Cape (Lagwagon) mixed with the might of Chris Shiflet (Foo Fighters/No Use For A Name) with the added prowess of drummer, Dave Raun (Lagwagon/RKL) and the almighty Fat Mike Burkett (NoFx/Fat Wreck Chords) on the bass centered around the majesty of singer, Spike Slawson. Each generation has their own Diva to look up to and call their own. In the punk rock world we have Fat Mike. Hours before he heads to Japan for a week-long Gimmes tour, we speak with Mike from his San Francisco home. Mike sounds tired when he picks up the phone and explains that he had spent the day at the beach riding bikes with his daughters. What we get is a Fat Mike who is very open and honest about his feelings towards the project, the newest album and his past feeling about Divas. In my head I associate Divas with the 70’s. You grew up in the 70’s, and do you have any memories of the then Divas scene? Well, My mom and my dad divorced when I was four. They only had two records. They weren’t music listeners. They just had a stereo and when they had people over, they would put on a couple of records. They only had two. One was Barbara Streisand. I grew up with very little music in the house. I knew Second Hand Rose by Streisand for sure. That’s not why we did Divas. We like to come up with a theme and this way we could play popular songs of the past five decades. What I like about Divas is that you guys cover a little from every decade with this record. Is there something about these songs you choose? We just listen to a bunch of the songs, and it’s surprisingly hard to do a Gimmes album. With the country album we went through about a hundred songs to get twelve good ones. People don’t really think about that. People are all the fucking time [telling me], “Hey Mike, Why don’t you do this cover? That would be a really good one!” I’m just like, “Shut up. You have no idea how hard it is to do a song that sounds good in punk rock style.” We went through every Britney Spear song. We couldn’t find one. We couldn’t find one that was good. There is nothing for chord progressions. They are all dance songs. We tried it with Beyonce and Pink. The only Pink song we liked was the Tim Armstrong one and it’s kind of lame to do that. [Editor’s note: Rancid’s Tim Armstrong co-wrote and produced songs for Pink’s 2003 Try This album. The song “Trouble,” a Rancid outtake was reworked for Pink and won a Grammy. The song was later recorded by Tim Timebomb And Friends in 2012] It’s really hard to find good songs. When you go in to make a record like this, do you think to yourself anything along the lines of, “What would Celine Dion do?” Yeah, we don’t take it that seriously. We just try to get through it. What’s cool about the Gimmes now, we get to record at the Foo Fighters studio for free. They have a HUGE awesome studio now, the 606. It’s with the board from that movie, Sound City, came from. So we go there, hang out and go over songs. We just try to knock them out. So we’re not really thinking. I was wasted the whole time. Joey [Cape from Lagwagon] wasn’t there. We don’t really like recording with Joey. We argue too much. He comes in and does his parts, but he is on his own. What are the tours like? All you guys have such big personalities, how do those personalities fit on the same bus?We have a good time. We are all interchangeable, which is kind of cool. We’ve done tours without everybody, well everybody except for Spike. Spike is the only person that we really need. It’s just easier that way. Chris [Shiflet] is in the Foo Fighters. He only plays three or four shows with us a year. His brother [Scott Shiflet, also of Face To Face] plays with us too. Brian Baker [Minor Threat & Bad Religion] has been in the Gimmes and Warren [Fitzgerald] from The Vandals has been in the Gimmes. Some people from RKL [Rich Kids on LSD] and some people from Screw 32. Nowadays if we are going to replace any of us, we have to replace them with somebody who is kind of popular. Do you get jealous when these people are out on the road in place of you?Oh no, not at all. I’m busy doing other stuff. I was kind of bummed that this last European tour was our most successful tour ever. So that was kind of a bummer. It’s nice to know that after twenty or so years, our tours are bigger than they ever have been before. Are the tours bigger thanks to the internet making you guys more accessible?I don’t know if it’s the internet. The internet doesn’t help some bands, and it hurts other bands. The Gimme Gimmes are one of those bands that nobody loves, but

Dwayne – Chris Fogal on his new project with Andy Tanner (New Noise Magazine #14 -Dec 2014)

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors. Chris Fogal must not like his haircut, because this is a man of many hats. He’s the lead guitarist and vocalist for the vastly underrated pop-punk band The Gamits, and the lead guitarist for TaunTaun, now a Denver metal institution. On top of those two bands, Fogal owns and operates one of Denver’s premier recording studios, Black And Bluhm. It’s there that we chat with Fogal about his newest project, Dwayne with Andy Tanner from Laymen Terms, Andy Thomas from Tin Horn Prayer and Switzerland’s Michael Marti from Goodbye Fairbanks. Fogal, you already have The Gamits and TaunTaun. What do you get out of starting another band? Well, TaunTaun doesn’t do much anymore and the Gamits had just finished a bunch of touring overseas so it seemed like the perfect time to do the Dwayne thing. I really needed to write some stuff that had nothing to do with either of the other bands. I also have a new band from Switzerland called Midrake in which I play the drums so I’m up to 4! In January it looks like I might be in 5 bands! You’ve known both Andy’s for years with Tanner being from Laymen Terms and Thomas from Only Thunder and Tin Horn Prayer, how did Michael Marti come into the mix of things?Michael is our Swiss friend that I have been touring with for about 13 years on and off. We are super tight and even go on vacations together and stuff. We always talked about doing a band together so it was him and I that started Dwayne. Originally it was gonna be the two of us with acoustics so we could just have an excuse to get in a car and drive all over Europe eating food and partying. It became a whole band later when the songs started coming together. That’s when I called on the Andy’s to join the party. Recording technology has advanced so far and so drastically over the last few years, you can do almost anything without being in the same room. You own your own studio with Denver’s Black in Bluhm, What stops you from having more Frankenstein projects such as this one?Well nothing really. Right now I’m beginning collaboration with a couple buddies. I shouldn’t spill the beans until it actually happens but one of them is in the middle east and one is in California so yeah, there are no limits these days! With your other bands having such exciting and memorable names, why did you drop the ball with Dwayne? I never thought the Gamits was a very good name but at the time we came up with Dwayne I was pretty drunk and I wanted a name that raised no expectations and was not serious in any way. I asked my friend Dan something like ” what’s a stupid name from the 70’s or 80’s?” and the first thing he said was Dwayne! I don’t know why but I thought it was super funny and out of the whole list of potential names it just stuck. What are the future plans for Dwayne? How are you going to pull off double duty on a Gamits/Dwayne tour? We just got some great news on the label front and the tour front so in November we do a short midwest tour with both bands, then it looks like the album won’t be out until January so we will do some more USA shows after that. Then we head to Europe for Greotzrock and at least three weeks of tour over there. That’s not until May so there are no plans past that. I’d like to record more soon. Oh, we will also have a flexi vinyl record in November with a B side not on the album and a couple downloads that are on the album so there’s that.

BoySetsFire’s Nathan Gray on While A Nation Sleeps (New Noise Magazine #02 – May 2013)

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors. BoySetsFire have ended their radio silence and returned to unleash upon us While a Nation Sleeps. This is the band’s first release in seven years, although vocalist Nathan Gray is quick to mention that he has been busy with other projects during that downtime such as I AM HEARSAY and THE CASTING OUT. While not playing music, Nathan has formerly worked as an employment consultant for people with disabilities. At the moment he is an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) representative on a Coast Guard yard, “watching people work.” It was there on the Coast Guard yard on his lunch break that Nathan stopped to talk about the upcoming record. In a press release you spoke that “We didn’t want to do this record, we had to do it. Something inside us still ached and we needed to share it with you.” Some writers describe themselves as conduits for the universe at large. So for this record, are you a conduit or does this come from another place within you? I’m not a big fan of hocus pocus. I don’t believe the universe is doing this to me. I believe that my own dysfunction does this to me. I believe that’s what it is for all musicians and artists is their own feeble dysfunctions, which others can see as very cool. [Laughter] I believe that a lot of musicians and artists were pushed by a dark force, to an extent, that is inside us. That’s why we do it. It’s to let out those demons. I feel that most artists and musicians, if they do not do that, they will end up killing themselves or somebody else in the process. That is our psychology couch. I go to music. I go to what we do with BoySetsFire and with my other bands, to get out what I need to get out and be a well adjusted person. Or at least as well adjusted as humanly possible. I think for us it is more desperation that being a conduit. Listening to the new record, I’ve found that the new album is both angrier and mellower than the older albums. Does it feel that way to you? I do think it is mellow and angry all at once. That is just sort of who we are. We have a maturing process. I find that at the same time that as you mature and get older, you don’t always completely mellow out on some things. You almost get more pissed as you get older. “Really? It’s 2013 and this shit is still going on?!?” [Laughs] It’s bizarre how certain topics and things can be relevant for SO. FUCKING. LONG. You just look around and there is hysteria and stupidity everywhere. At the same time with a lot of things, there is a mellowing out, that I especially feel with our more melodic songs, that’s more of us fitting into our style. That’s what we became in a lot of ways with our more melodic sound. That IS BoySetsFire’s melodic sound. I don’t think we’ll ever refine our heavy style. With every album the heavier songs sound different from every album to album. As with the more melodic songs, seem to follow a certain path. I’m not quite sure why that is. It does seem to be working that way. I guess we have found our way for the more melodic songs and it just comes naturally and our heavy songs come naturally, but in this weird schizophrentic way. They are always different, all the fucking time, and every fucking album. Does the anger ever go away? It comes and goes, ebbs and flows. It is what it is. If it didn’t, I would be psychotic. [Laughter] If you’re always angry or always happy, there is always something wrong with you. [Laughter] I think that’s why BoySetsFire comes off so schizophrentic at times. It’s so up and down and up and down and happy and sad and angry and glad. That’s why it comes off that way. I really enjoyed the Charlie Chaplin quotes from the film The Great Dictator used in the album. In particular the quote: “You must speak.” “I Can’t.” “That is our only hope.” With BoySetsFire you have ultimately become a speaker for the speechless. You’ve spoken that BoySetsFire has saved your life though the voice that it has given you. What attracts you to being that voice? I don’t know if I could even tell you. It’s not natural. I think a lot of times self preservation is a lot more natural than to speak out. At the same time, You have to think that in some ways, speaking out and speaking for others is in a way self serving. It works for some people and it doesn’t work for others. Some people, it gives them a good feeling and makes them feel like they are accomplishing something. That in some way they are preserving their own freedoms by helping others with theirs. I feel like that is where my empathy comes from, to an extent. I do feel empathy for people. It’s a natural thing that comes about, while at the same time there is this knowledge that that empathy comes from a very natural place. It’s not some kind of artistic, fancy cosmic thing. It’s something that some people just have. You have it in you and it’s this driving force, just like self preservation. They are connected. When you fight for other people’s freedoms, when you reach out and touch someone else’s life. Well, in a lot of ways that comes back for you and the society you live in. How does the gratitude of a listener who has been helped by your music effect you? Of course if effects me positivity. It’s an honor.

Chumped – Anika Pyle Interview on Teenage Retirement (New Noise Magazine Issue #13 – Nov 2014)

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There may be errors. Chumped have created the soundtrack to your future up all night singalong drink-a-thons with your best friends. The band have crafted simple, elegant and most importantly catchy pop-punk songs about the ideals that we hold dear in our youth and yet will resonate with those of all ages: friendship, growing and loss. The band’s first two EP’s have garnered them extraordinary praise and an already intense following. Their full length debut, Teenage Retirement, is one of the most anticipated records of the year. We talk to vocalist Anika Pyle about relocating to New York City from small town Colorado, dealing with the praise, gigantic festivals and returning to The Fest 13. Teenage Retirement comes out this fall. How does it feel to have come from small town Colorado, all the way to one of the largest cities in the world and to have found success, and more importantly do you view your current praise as success? Wow. Success. How do you measure that? I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish as a musical unit. If you had asked me 5 years ago or 2 years ago if I would be making a record and doing what I love with my best friends and sharing a bill with bands that literally changed my life I would have laughed in your face. I think I measure these small but amazing things we do as success. You guys came out of the gate and garnered a ton of praise for yourself titled debut. How does that early success effect the work you put into Teenage Retirement? Teenage Retirement was a succession of beer drinking and Cheetos eating that began with the Chumped EP…a natural progression if you will. No, I think we put out that EP, with full intention of pressing it ourselves and giving it to our moms and when people other than us even paid attention to it, it floored us and really inspired us to keep making more music. I think we were all truly shocked that anyone other than us gave a shit. We wrote a full length record because we weren’t done writing songs, we had more things to say and more music to make, but it felt good to have one under our belt. Plus, there are way more Cheetos to be eaten. It’s 2014 and we need to shed the idea of Male or Female songwriters and focus on just being songwriters, how do you work to continue to work to blend those lines? Do you have any interest in being a “role model?” and does that title frighten you? I’m a woman in a band. There are many others. Get over it. I’ve never really thought of myself as being important enough to be a role model and thinking that someone might look up to me is a little terrifying. However, I had a lot of people in my life who shaped who I am as a musician and a person. So I guess if I was that person for someone else I’d be humbled by it. You guys are a band that is right at home in my basement, yet you opened up Riot Fest Chicago. How was your experience being part of that gigantic machines?Riot Fest was maybe one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. I think we definitely felt like a tiny blip in a giant universe but getting to see so many of my favorite bands while getting turnt with my best friends? Anytime. We were totally honored and would do it again in a heartbeat. With so many of your contemporaries playing more and more of these larger festivals, how much is playing Riot Fest Chicago a kind of “Ghost of Festivals to come” experience for you, and what do you learn playing these giant festivals?We were totally blown away when we got asked to play Riot Fest. There were zero expectations. It was definitely the biggest stage we’ve ever played to a big crowd of people we’ve never met before and I think we learned a lot about our comfort levels. It was a really different experience but honestly super inspiring. The biggest lessons we learned were “don’t be scared” “bring beer.” Our set time was so early that even the bars weren’t open. This October you are returning to your proving grounds of the Fest, but with a lot more time, experience and fans under your belt. When returning, I imagine the band being like a bunch of kids going back to school after summer vacation. What are you going to be most proud of to show or tell all your friends?We are incredibly proud of Teenage Retirement and we’re stoked to be able to play some new songs in Gainesville. Fest is a really magical weekend and I can’t wait to tell all my friends that despite the fact that they’re all idiots, we love them.

Filmmaker Adam Green Talks About ‘Digging Up The Marrow’ (New Noise Magazine – March 2015)

Elway – Tim Browne interview on Leavetaking & moving to Chicago (New Noise Magazine Issue #2 – May 2013)

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors. There are three things that should immediately spring to mind when thinking of Fort Collins, Colorado: The Blasting Room, Surfside 7, and Elway. Elway, or the band formerly known as 10-4 Eleanor, have taken their small town roots and have grown into a healthy body of excellence. After six years of growth in Colorado, a place that holds the band’s namesake as sacred as Jesus Christ himself, Elway have packed their bags and sailed the seas to the concrete ocean of Chicago. We join Guitarist/Singer Tim Brown just days after recording the follow up to their 2011 debut, Delusions to talk about the move to Chicago, recording with Matt Allison and their new album: Leavetaking. You’ve moved the week of recording from the snowy mountain town of Fort Collins, Colorado to the third largest city in the states. The name of the album, Leavetaking alludes to moving on. How much about it is leaving Colorado? Leavetaking does in part refer to my moving to Chicago and the experiences that lead up to my doing so, but the overall theme of the album is not so solipsistic. The album is about parting ways with the past, and the sort of ups and downs that that entails. Of course the lyrics reflect my personal experiences to a certain extent, but in writing them I tried to focus on the emotions and thoughts that frame situations like my own rather than the unambiguous minutia about my life that may or may not be relatable. What do you hope to gain by living in Chicago vs. Colorado? I lived in Colorado for most of my life and I spent the last six years in Fort Collins. It’s a small college town. I graduated college and started touring a lot of the time. It seemed every time I was back in town more of my friends would have moved away. I just sort of receded into this pattern of drinking a ton to pass the time between tours. I don’t want to make it sound like I was at some rock bottom and I needed to get my shit together because that’s nowhere near the case. I still drink all the time; I just do it in a locale that is still exotic to me. I won’t hit rock bottom for years! I don’t resent the times I spent in Fort Collins, but after a certain point I felt like I needed to move on, you know? I moved to Chicago because I love this city and had the good fortune to meet a ton of great people here over the years. It’s always felt like a second home to me, and I’m currently quite happily exploring what it feels like to have it as my first. I suppose I am hoping to gain good times and meet different folks in a different part of the world. Same reason why we forgo financial security to tour with a punk band. You guys seemed to benefit from being one of the few punk bands in the small Fort Collins scene. Will you miss the Big Fish/Tiny Pond aspect of the musical scene in Fort Collins? Because the town is so small, the music scene in Fort Collins has a real ebb and flow to it. The only music that is constantly popular and successful in that town is jam/newgrass/dubstep or whatever is the college genre du jour. DIY punk and indie bands are a constant as well, but being able to consistently play great shows is tricky there. Our band is a byproduct of a high water mark for the DIY scene in Fort Collins. When we started playing in 2007, it seemed like there were tons of house show spots and everybody was really enthusiastic. We cut our teeth playing basement shows and Surfside 7 at a time when there was a lot of enthusiasm for what we were doing. Over the years, that feeling came and went and shows got worse and better and worse and better in infinite succession. The truly great thing about Fort Collins is that it is an easy place to have your home base. It wasn’t until we started touring really consistently that we started to garner momentum as a whole. Our friends in Fort Collins have always been very supportive. I don’t know that we were ever big fish in a tiny pond there though. There is no real punk ‘scene’ to be on top of. We built a scene playing alongside our friends in indie bands and alt-country bands to whoever in the narrow demographic of ‘music-savvy drinkers’ would listen. It was a great way to start out. With a new start there is an excitement of the life you can create in a new city. How did that excitement show itself in Atlas Studios? The prioritizing and task-management that any move requires was something of a stress factor during our time recording at Atlas. Joe and I were frenetically searching for jobs during the day before our sessions would start. We ate microwaved spaghetti and shitty white bread because we were broke and had to be a little spendthrift. The upside was that it was incredibly liberating to know that after we finished the record we could crawl out of the windowless sound cave at Atlas and get to know a new city. I certainly hope that the urgency comes across on the record. Many of your favorite records have been recorded by Matt Allison at Atlas Studios. Is there something magical in the air of that room? Is there a residual vibe from the previous artists that have shared that room with you? Before we ever came to Atlas, the thought of doing a record there was extremely intoxicating. The stuff that has come out of

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