 |
|
| Home · Reviews · Interviews · Contests · Blog · Forums · Follow Us On Twitter |
|
by Tony Pascarella Published: June 9, 2005
Tony: What is your name, age, and position in the band? Christian: My name is Christian. I am 25, and I play guitar. Tony: So do you guys corner the market on awesome names? Christian: You mean bizarre names? Yes. We do. We asked actually, when we were trying to put the band together, we found the most--when we tried people out, it wasn't even on their skill. It was on their names. Jason Vena: Ryan's last name was actually Smith. And we said you need a way cooler name. Christian: Yeah, we need you to make a name with every letter in the alphabet. Jason: What about Zwiefelhofer? That'll do. Christian: [laughs] Tony: So how did Acceptance get started? Christian: Jason, our singer, and our other guitarist Kaylan, met-- Jason: Be honest and tell him we were just a piece of bacteria. Christian: The band was formed billions and billions of years ago. Jason: To a lizard. Fish. Christian: And then the fish turned into a monkey. And then, you know that whole rigamarole thing. And then somewhere along the line, this band was formed by our singer and our guitarist meeting at Warped Tour. They were in different bands at the time; just deciding to start to play together and trying to play a different style of music that they'd been usually playing with other bands. That was like, ninety-eight, ninety-nine. A long time ago. And the other members just kind of fell into place like--bands played musical members for a while just 'cause when you're young your plans change and your idea for your life changes. So a lot of people went to college, some people got married, and people have come and gone at different times in this band. But this unit has been together for two-and-a-half, almost three years now. Tony: Phantoms has been out for a while now. How are your fans reacting to it? Christian: Overall, I think they're pretty happy with it. People keep buying it, so that's a good sign. And kids are singing the songs at the shows. I think overall everybody really likes it; I think a lot of people weren't expecting us to make that record. Everybody's really stoked. To us, it was just a natural progression from our EP. A lot of other people--fans were just kind of blown away. I think they're pretty happy. Tony: Can you talk a little about the creative process that went into the album? Christian: The EP came out--2 years ago, 3 years ago--I can't remember when it came out. And ever since that point, we've been writing. Because a lot of those songs on the EP were old songs. Some of those songs were really old--multiple years old. So since that point, everybody in the band's been writing. We toured really heavily when that EP came out; we toured really heavily after that, we toured for the entire year or so. And then, two Januarys ago we got back from touring and we decided that was when we were going to start taking the time to write the next record. And everyone had been writing, and everybody had a lot of different ideas. We took a break for the holidays and got back together in January. We just started writing as a band, and recording. Jason has a lot of recording stuff at his parents' house. So we spent a long time writing, and re-writing, and rearranging. We probably had 30 songs that we were messing around with at one point, or more. Eventually we had to go through this whole thing with the producer we were going to use. We wanted to use Aaron Sprinkle, but our label was not down with that. He--we're on a major label and he'd never done anything on a major label or anything like that. They made us go through--for like six months--meeting with all these other producers. Meanwhile, we were still taking the songs that we'd written and re-recording them. A lot of times, when you play something at practice or when you listen to it recorded, it's a lot different. You start noticing things. So we kept doing that. Basically we just did preproduction on our own for a long time, and eventually our label saw it our way and let us go with Aaron. We went in with a bunch of complete songs and he helped us pick which ones we were going to choose for the record. Probably went in with like 15 or more songs and we ended up with 12 for the record. That was a little long-winded, I'm sorry.  Tony: I interviewed the guys from Over It last weekend and they told me to tell you guys how much they love you. Nick told me to say something about you guys having his children. Christian: Yeah, Jason having his children. Tony: I guess I have to turn that into a question. How has your relationship with other bands been and who are some of the bands that you guys love? Christian: Our relationship is--generally we get along with everybody we've ever toured with. Different bands, you connect differently; just like when you meet people you connect differently with them. Overall, we have a pretty good time on tour; we make a lot of good friends. Some best friends--I don't know. Almost every band we tour with and we keep in touch with and have good relationships with. It'd make other people mad for us to say, "These are our friends and these are our friends." Pretty much everybody we've toured with, we have a good time with, we miss them, we always talk about touring with them again. I mean we've toured with a lot of bands over the last three years. Tony: How was the transition from the EP releases on Rocketstar and Militia Group to Columbia? Christian: How was the transition? It was a little unexpected, a little surreal, I guess is the word I'm looking for. We never expected--I mean everybody dreamed and everybody was working very hard for a certain goal for this band, but it's one thing to have dreams and hopes and it's another thing to see those things come to fruition. At the time, it was just like, "How are we here? How is this happening?" It's not much different [between] major label and independent label. The game doesn't change that much. Just like baseball, from minor leagues to major leagues, you're still playing baseball. It's just a different kind of game; it's a lot bigger and there's a lot more at stake in a major league game than there is on a minor league game. So I guess that's the closest relation you can make to something else in the world. That's the difference to me. But what we do hasn't changed. We're still out touring, we're still doing the same stuff we've done since we were on Rocketstar Records. Now it's just a whole different ballgame. Tony: Now I personally love "Different." But others have commented about it going against the grain of singles being upbeat. How did you guys go about choosing it? Christian: A lot of people have brought that up before. The way--our band, we never--there's no model. There's no equation about how you can go about your career. A lot of people say, "You should do this first, then you should do that, and then you should come out with your ballad." We don't really base our decision-making process on what other bands have done and what the norm is. With "Different," when we got done with that song--even when it first got finished, as the band writing it before we recorded it, we knew it was a really good song. Whether it was upbeat or slow temporal or whatever, we knew that it was a really good song. When we finished with the record, we felt like--we love every song on the record--we thought a lot of them were really strong, but we thought that "Different" was hands above a lot of the songs. For us, it was like if you've got Michael Jordan on your team, you're going to play him. You're not going to put in Pippen and then you're not going to put in someone else and then put in Michael. You want to come out strong, and you want to come out strong. Like I said, this is a different ballgame now. A lot of times, you don't have the luxury of doing some sort of, "Okay we're going to put out an upbeat song, then we're going to put out a mid-tempo song, and then we're going to put out a slow song." These days, in this industry, sometimes your career might be one song, and if that song doesn't do good, you're done. Well, on your label, you're done. As a band you won't be done. So that's kind of--we liked the song, we thought it was a good song, and we really weren't too concerned. A good song is a good song. It doesn't really matter if it's a rock song or if it's heavy or whatever. Tony: So what's your favorite song off the album? Christian: My favorite song personall is "So Contagious." It's towards the end--no, actually it's number two on the record now. When we first finished it, it was toward the end. But that's song my favorite because initially, when that song was written and the final version, after we basically went into the studio and just tore the song up and reconstructed it, it turned into a completely different song, but a better song. And I really liked the song when we first wrote it, so now that's why I like it so much. It totally went through this whole rearrangement and ended up being the coolest song to me. So that's my favorite song. Tony: Do you have the next single set, or are you going to wait and see how "Different" does? Christian: We don't have the next single set yet. I think the good thing about our record is that different people at our label have named probably every song on the record for a single at some point. It's like, "Oh yeah, I think this song should be a single," or "Oh yeah, I think that this song should be a single." We're like, "Oh, great, that one? Whatever? Okay great? Awesome. That'll be sweet." Everybody really likes every song on the record. It hasn't been talked about seriously yet. We don't know. It could be--I don't even know. It could be any song. Tony: You guys sold about 8500 copies the first week. How does that number compare to your expectations as well as the label? Christian: I think it was above a lot of people's expectations. Regardless of what label you're on, that doesn't sell records. Your track record and what you've done before that is what you kind of use to gauge what you're going to sell. We had sold about 20,000 of our EPs before that, which really isn't that many. I mean, 8500 is almost half of what we had sold of that EP in two years. It's been--the album's been out for five weeks, and we've already outsold the EP that was out for two years before that. It's been selling really well, and I don't think the label had any expectations. It's not like we had already sold 200,000 records, and they were like, "Oh great, yeah! They're going to come out and sell 500,000 records now." Everybody was stoked; everybody was really happy about that first week. Everybody in the band--like it was great. Tony: What song do you most like to play live? Christian: Ooh. Um, that's a good question. I don't know. I like them all; our entire set, basically. I like playing, I like being up on stage, I like our set every night. We change a lot of the songs we play, too. I don't know; I don't have a favorite. Tony: Phantoms leaked way in advance of the release date. In fact, I don't know if I've ever heard of an album that leaked that far in advance. How did that happen and do you think it was helpful or harmful to the band? Christian: We have no idea how that happened. We basically got out of the studio and went on tour, and a couple weeks aftter we got out of the studio we had heard that people were downloading it on the Internet. Which was completely mindblowing to us; we have no idea, still, to this day, how that happened. The way we feel about it is that--we don't really feel that peer-to-peer for bands like our size is the enemy. For fairly unknown bands like ourselves, and well, most bands out there, it's a good thing. It helps; if kids are talking about it--that's how kids find music these days. They go online and they find songs and they download them, and then other kids tell them that you can go online and check it out. That's the way it's done these days. For smaller bands, it's a good thing. For us, it got leaked, and if it was a good record then people were going to start talking about it and other kids were going to download it. Maybe it got us a bunch of fans, who knows? But on the flip side, say we get to like Metallica-size or Eminem-size, that's really affecting their records sales. And in the end, people can argue this until the frigging cows come home. In my mind, it's still stealing. I download songs, but I generally do it to preview records. If it's good, I'll go and buy the record; and if it's bad, I won't go and buy the record. I think that's pretty fair. But I also had friends that their entire CD collection was downloaded and burned CDs. Tony: What was it like working with Aaron Sprinkle on the album? Christian: It was awesome. He had done our EP before that. We get along with him, and we work with him very well. It's always fun with Aaron. He feels like the sixth member of the band, and at the same time we really respect his ideas, and we really respect his talent. He's a producer in the most sense of that word. He produces records, he doesn't just turn knobs and tweak levels. He deconstructs a song and then reconstructs it with you. Like, "Why are you guys doing this here?" or "Why is this here?" As good of a songwriter as you think you are, it's hard for you to get outside of that and look at a song like producers can. They can look at it and go, "Well, this stuff doesn't make sense here." He's really good at that and we love him. Tony: If you had the opportunity to go back in time when you were working on the album in the studio, would you do anything differently? Christian: I would spend more time. I would want to have more time altogether for the record. I felt a little rushed trying to do what we were doing in the amount of time we were given. I'd like to do it at our own pace. I'd like to have a big enough budget where you could--not waste time, but just get deep down into certain ideas and be able to--I felt like a lot of time we were working against the clock, which is not a good way to be creative. If we wanted to spend an entire day working on one part, that would have been awesome. But we didn't have that luxury. It was like, "Okay, we've got to be done. We've got to do these things. This has got to be done by this time; this has got to be done by that time." That being said, I love our record. I think it's really cool, but it would have been cool to have more time. Tony: How long did it take to record the album? Christian: I think we were in there for like five weeks, six weeks. So like a month and a half. I can't remember though; it flew by. It really did. Tony: Who would you cite as your influences? Christian: It's different for each person in the band. The band itself has never had any bands that we aspire to be like or sound like. A lot of different people in this band listen to a lot of different stuff. It's actually pretty funny how different it is. There's a lot of things that everybody agrees on, but if you have everybody in the band up here driving, they're usually listening to a lot of different stuff. Like I listen to really heavy stuff. You know, Jay [Jason Vena] listens to a lot of pop, like The Beatles, U2, and Coldplay. Ryan listens to a lot of pop, and Ashlee Simpson and Chingy and crappy rap stuff. But I think that's what makes our band interesting. And everybody writes, so everybody gets their own little influence in there. Tony: I had the opportunity to see you guys the last time you were down here, when you played with Copeland, As Tall As Lions, and Lovedrug. Christian: Right down the street. Tony: Yep. Honestly, it was the first exposure I'd had to Acceptance. I thought your live show was exceptional. Christian: Thank you. Tony: Do you guys have to put a lot of work into rehearsing or does it just come naturally? Christian: We have a bunch of members in this band that are OCD. So we are probably one of the most anal bands for live shows. A lot of people are just like "Whatever, let's go out there and have a good time." But for some people in the band, sounding good is having a good time. When you think about it, this is our job. I play guitar for a living. If you can't do that every night, to the best of your abilities, I mean--play your parts right, these are your songs. Why are you doing this? So there's that part of it, and we like to have fun on stage; we like to rock out. But never to the point of sacrificing the integrity of the song. When we go in to record, we want to always be able to do the recording live and make it sound good. If we do a harmony on the record, we're going to do the harmony live. If we have keyboards on our record, there's going to be a keyboard player on the live show. It's definitely something we work at and we bust our butts. When we have the time, we definitely practice our butts off. Tony: So what do you like to do to pass the time on the road? Christian: Me personally? I read a lot; I read a lot of books. I practice a lot. I have a lot of tablature books; I have these guitar exercise videos that I play a lot too. I like tosleep a lot. It's one of my favorite pasttimes actually. Tony: Now you're from Seattle, which owns the title of grunge capital of the world. Is it more difficult for bands in that area to overcome the stereotype and make it big? Christian: The funny thing is people ask us about that all the time. Grunge--that would be like saying because DC was the hardcore capital of the 80's; that would be like asking them the same question. Grunge happened well over ten years ago; it died a long time ago. When it died, it died in Seattle, too. There are no more grunge bands. It was just a phase just like hair metal was a phase in Hollywood. It's so funny; everytime we travel, people across the country are like, "So, grunge, huh?" And we're like, "What are you talking about? Grunge--that was like ten years ago. No, there's no more grunge anywhere." No one's ever been like, "Are you guys a grunge band?" But at the same time, since grunge was Seattle; all the bands in the grunge scene were from Seattle. And at that time, they ruled music. So I think that everybody in Seattle that is a musician realizes that and is kind of proud of that and wants to kind of continue that, you know? To have a stream of good music coming out of Seattle; which I still feel like there is. There are a lot of good bands that are coming out of there that are big. Modest Mouse, Minus The Bear, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Blood Brothers, Death Cab For Cutie, like all those bands are from Washington. Tony: That actually leads into my next question. With the success of Acceptance; you're one of a number of Seattle-area bands that have risen to prominence in the last year or two in the indie and alternative rock genres. What's in the water up there? Why is Seattle such a music powerhouse? Christian: I think honestly, a lot of it has to do with the weather. Because it's so melancholy there for most of the year, like nine months out of the year, there's not a lot of outdoor time unless you want to get rained on. It gives a lot of people a lot of time to stay indoors and be creative and practice and write. I think it has an effect on your emotions, too. If you look through the history of artists, whether it be musicians or painters or whatever, they're a little weird, you know what I mean? Most artists are a little strange, a little off. I think the weather in Seattle is catered for those kind of people--indoors. It messes with your emotions sometimes; it's kind of depressing there. If you don't like it, most people move. If you grew up there and you don't like the way that makes you feel, most people don't stay there. They go to California or they go to Arizona, or they go anywhere. The people that stay that are musicians, they stay because they enjoy it. They enjoy the way that makes them feel. That's my theory. Tony: So who would your dream tour be with? Christian: Oh man. I don't know. Foo Fighters, maybe. That'd be awesome. Jimmy Eat World would be great. U2 would be awesome. Coldplay. Me personally, Metallica would be my dream tour, just because that's my favorite all-time band ever. Tony: What is your touring schedule after this? Christian: We do this tour--goes until July 10th, I believe. And then I think we go home for a little bit--like a week or two. Then I think we do a week or two of Warped Tour dates on the East Coast. And I think we're just basically--there's nothing booked. The record's out, so we're just going to be on tour for as long as we can be on tour. Whatever opportunity presents itself, we're going to be on it. Tony: I have a couple interesting questions here. If you could be a flavor of ice cream, what would you be and why? Christian: Oh, man. A flavor of ice cream. I don't know. Good god, these ones are always the hardest questions. I don't know. Spumoni, maybe? Tony: Does that even count as a flavor? Christian: Yeah. Well, you order it, don't you? You order it as spumoni. Spumoni because there's a lot of different flavors in there. It's not just one thing, there's a lot of different things. I've got a lot of different stuff going on. I'm pretty weird. Tony: If Acceptance were a kitchen appliance, what would it be? Christian: Kitchen appliance, huh? Dishwasher, maybe. Because we've got a lot of really anal people in this band. Everything's got to be clean, everything's got to be orderly. Not just personally, but as a band. The image, everything. There's got to be a certain cleanliness to this band. Tony: What's your favorite movie? Christian: Fight Club, probably. Tony: What's your favorite album, not named Phantoms that was released in 2005 Christian: The new Bloc Party CD I really like. Can't stop listening to it for some reason. It's really good. Tony: Is there anything else you'd like to add? Christian: We appreciate this interview and we appreciate the opportunities that we have every day as a band. To anybody reading it, I would hope that anytime you would meet us or anytime that you would talk to us you would get that feeling that we're not trying to take any of this for granted and we definitely feel like we've been blessed and we really are grateful for every day that we have doing what we're doing. Links: Official Acceptance Website Purchase Acceptance's Phantoms from Amazon.com To contact the author, use the "Contact Us" link at the top of the page. He will respond to all e-mail, hatemail included. If you are a publicist or associated with a band/label and would like either the author or any staff member to review your disc or conduct an interview, please use the same method of contact, and I will get back to you as soon as possible. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 1997-2009 Burlee LLC. All rights reserved. | Reprints | Privacy Policy | Disclosure | About Us/Contact Us | RSS Feed |