ESILY
By Veronica
Carl: Guitarist
John: Bassist
Kevin: Guitarist
David: Drums
Mark (Absent): Singer
SP: Your name stands for “Everyone says I love you”. How did you come up with that name??
Kevin: It’s the name of a Woody Allen movie.
Carl: If you go around and check out Woody Allen’s film listing, you’ll find out that most of his movie titles are names of bands. “Everyone says I love you” remained untaken. So we made it ours.
SP: Who is the musician you look up to, the bands you look up to??
Carl: I don’t know their names, but I have to say to two guitarists from Story of the year. (*Ryan Phillips and Phillip Sneed*) They are really good, really melodic.
David: Travis Barker, amongst others.
Kevin: Kurt Cobain, the guys from Blink and the guys from Green Day were the ones who inspired me mostly.
John: Matt Freeman, from Rancid. He’s an excellent bassist.
SP: What can we expect to see on Sunday??
David: Something really energetic, fun. Fun is important. I’m sitting in front of the TV all the time, so I have to sweat it out onstage, lose that weight I’ve gained. (*Laughs*)
Kevin: In your face, strong.
John: Songs that we like to play, so the energy on stage remains positive.
Carl: Jo is right; we played songs we didn’t like and it wasn’t the same on stage. So we need to be playing the songs we like. Also I’d say short, since we are pretty new, we don’t want to bore people out. We want them to enjoy our set and make them want more of what they’ve just seen. We want to stand out, and we are really prepared, we did a lot of promo, we and stuff. We’ve been practicing every day for the past month.
Kevin: So to resume; short, sweet, fun and in your face.
SP: What was your reaction when you found out that you guys were playing the Ernie Ball stage at Warped tour??
David: We were psyched. It’s the most important tour…it’s the place to be.
Kevin: It’s the biggest tour. We’re playing Ernie Ball and were gonna make the most out of it.
Carl: It’s another step, something a bit bigger to keep us going. It gives us a bit more experience. We thinks it’s important to go step by step and we are ready for this, we can take it.
Kevin: And it sure looks good on your band history.
SP: You guys attended Warped Tour before; With which one of the bands you met turned out to be the best meeting??
John: Guttermouth, not necessarily for their music but more for their “Crazy” attitude, they were really good.
Kevin: Bands who didn’t have the big head. David from Simple Plan was really nice. We had dinner with him, he paid us shooters, shared stories from the road. It was surprising because of their status, but he was really cool.
Carl: I’m gonna say Pennywise, because the drummer was hanging out at their tent after their performance. I remembered there was this guy we knew from around, he was a journalist, and he walked up to him and asked for an interview. He said; “Sure, get to our bus tonight and knock”. He was allowed inside their bus and did the interview, even if he wasn’t this journalist from a major media.
David: Yellowcard came up to us and Warped to ask us something we totally didn’t expect. That was pretty surprising!! Their drummer was also really nice; I don’t really speak English, but he stood patiently and talked with me for a long time, which is really cool of him.
SP: If you could go on tour with any band, which would be the one that you’d be really psyched about??
David: Rise Against and Billy Talent. (*Everyone agrees*). Rise Against are a really different band, their sound and the singer’s voice. I’m sure we could learn a lot from them.
Kevin: Thrice. Teppei is awesome. I’d always be on his side of the stage and observe him intently.
SP: What’s your take on groupies?? And by that I mean the hysterical ones, the stalker type. Would you want to have those??
Kevin: Any band worthy of being called “A band” should have groupies. Sometimes you meet people that are not all that interesting, but that’s part of it.
John: We spent the evening with this kind of fans once. We stayed anyways, since they had come to see us. But is does make interesting jokes afterwards!! (*General laughing*)
Carl: Some are totally going overboard sometimes, getting through the phone book to find out your phone number or address, or even get more info with a piece of your clothes. Even if you dated them, they’d still wanna know more about you. It’s worse than being in a relationship with a controlling girlfriend!! (*General laughing*)
David: You need this kind of fans, who follow you to most of your shows. They are the one who spread the word about you, who’ll buy your merch and all.
SP: With which producer would like to work with??
David: John Feldmann because he’s John Feldmann!! On our first EP we worked with Luc Tellier, who’s a fan of Feldman and who’s influenced by his work when it comes to producing. So we kinda have the same sound we would have had working with Feldmann.
Kevin: Chris and Tom Lord-Alge for what they did with Blink-182 and Billy Talent.
Carl: When you listen to Blink live, it’s good, but not as much as it is on CD. He was able to take a band that sounded great and make them sound awesome.
SP: Some people are saying that MySpace has been overused for publicity and bands. What’s your opinion on that??
Carl: It’s not like it used to be. Now there are not only bands promoting their shows. Now you have all sorts of publicity, bands begging other bands to check out their music, cell phones sellers and all. It’s really aggressive, and because of that, people are joining other communities. It’s taking away the opportunity for local and indie bands to get promotion, to be heard.
David: MySpace is really useful in terms of getting feedback from the fans, how they liked our show.
Kevin: We are another band amongst others, and we can’t only relate on MySpace for promo.
SP: What is to you, the best way to get promotion??
David: MySpace. (*General laughing*)
John: We just said that it wasn’t the best way.
David: It’s not the best way, but we still use it anyways!! We are trying to come up with original ways to get our name out there, to stand out.
John: We have a team behind us also, who help us with the promo.
David: Yeah, KRACK communications, just to give out their name!!
Carl: We want, when someone types our name on google, we want them to find out more than our MySpace page and our homepage. There has to be more, like this interview for example.
SP: If you could cover a song of your choice, which one would you pick??
Carl: “San Dimas High School football rules”, by The Ataris.
Kevin: Blink 182’s “Adam’s song”, it’s a really intense song, or “Stay together for the kids”. Both are slow but really intense and powerful songs.
John: MXPX’s “Chick Magnet”, as a bassist it’s a good song, for the rhythm and all.
David: Yellowcard’s “Ocean Avenue”. That was my favorite song for a while.
SP: If you could get signed by any label of your choice, which one would it be??
Kevin: We’d love to be signed by Fearless, or on a label that doesn’t treat its acts like numbers. We want to be “Taken care of”. (*Everyone agrees*)
SP: A few bands have been leaking songs from their upcoming album in hopes to create hype around it. Others are totally against file sharing. What’s your vision of it??
John: It’s a good way, its environment friendly and it doesn’t create pollution so what’s so bad about it??
David: I don’t mind having people downloading our songs. I don’t think we’ll be millionaires out of CD sales. People come to our shows and buy merch and that’s what the most lucrative.
Carl: It’s affecting record companies, not bands. A band doesn’t get that big of a percentage of the CD sales. We get more out of people buying our merch.
John: And sometimes, it’s the team behind the band who’s against it and they are bigger than the band itself. So you can’t really judge a band out of their opinion on it.
David: People are not paying a buck, but they are still listening to our songs.
Carl: I remember this band putting 3 songs online for us to download, and then you had the cover picture you had to download and cut. It was a do-it-yourself album and that’s a great way to gather fans who’ll spread this out.
SP: Montreal band SUBB wrote “Following the dots” which is about selling out your soul to make more money, to be famous. Would you ever consider changing your style completely to make it big??
Kevin: We’re not gonna sell out. If the record company wants us to change, then it’s not the right one.
John: Evolution in sound is ok, it happens. Some bands changed their sound a bit, for them personally because they liked that style too, or wanted to try something new.
Carl: The best example that comes to me is Simple Plan. Before they were Reset, which was more politically oriented and harder, edgier. They changed and people didn’t expect that change it sounds. It was radical.
Kevin: You have to keep in mind though that Simple Plan was a whole other band, with a new line-up. So that’s why they changed their sound.
Carl: We want to give the fans what they want to hear, while staying who we are.
Kevin: We are not selling out…No.
SP: If all goes according to your plans, where do you guys see yourselves in 5 years??
Kevin: We’re a band that tours full time. Have a good time behind us, a label that supports us and for which we are not just another number.
John: We’re touring the world, we’d have a few countries under our belt by then.
Carl: We’re playing new songs; if in 5 years we are still playing those songs…we have a problem!! We’ve been working on new stuff, and we want to release another EP soon so. But in 5 years, I wouldn’t mind playing some old stuff for our older fans. Some of them are already requesting songs during our shows.
David: Touring worldwide in a super expensive tour bus would be nice.
If you are planning to attend the Montreal date of the Warped tour on Sunday, make sure to check them out at the Ernie Ball stage at 12h00. Merde les gars!!