This is just a backup of the original interview. You should check the original one here.

Interview

By Kent Bamberger @ Hate Something Beautiful
With the whole band
On March 9th, 2006

Introduce yourself.
Kellen: I'm Kellen and I play bass.
Vinnie: I'm Vinnie and I sing.

This one is for Vinnie. Why did you give up on music initially?
V: I didn't really give up on music... The Movielife was turning into not such a positive thing anymore. Everyone was blowing it into different directions and nobody could agree on anything as far as touring, or as far as anything. Everyone was just kind of... I don't know. I didn't want to break up, but I think it worked out for the better. This band is so different vibe wise. When we're on tour everything is so much more peaceful. There's more of a respect going around now. The Movielife was a great time, but it wasn't... Towards the end it became kind of... stale. The shows were great, the kids were amazing, but you don't want to get up there and fake it, and that's what I thought some of the guys were doing. I pretty much called a meeting and was going to quit because I didn't want to be around the negativity anymore. But before I could quit everyone just kind of decided to break up.

Are you (Vinnie) the main song writer for the band?
V: On this record, definitely the chief songwriter, mainly because a lot of the record was written before the band was a band, and it was just me. Everyone definitely had their two cents on the record. The newer material is definitely split up; everyone's got their shit that's going to go. So it will be interesting, what ever works out. Once I get to sing over a song, if it works it works, it doesn't matter who wrote it. So we'll see, everyone's just going to chuck in everything they've got. I have a feeling that it will be way more of a collaborative effort.

Were there any songs that didn't make it to the record?
V: Yeah, there is one song that we recorded... Well there was a bunch that were written that got cut early. We recorded 13 and 12 made the record. We didn't want 13 songs on there for one, and two, we should leave this one song, it's called "Summertime Rivington Vibe". Yeah, we call it "Summertime". It's a good vibe, it may pop up somewhere down the line. We did a lot of work on it in pre-production, but it didn't feel natural and I didn't feel like it was going the right way.
K: It was the last song we wrote before we went in to go record, so we kind of felt rushed. It has it's good parts, but it just felt rushed.
V: Yeah we had to change a lot of the structuring around so I had to trim a lot of the lyrics and I hate doing that. I don't want to compromise any of that. Maybe "Summertime Rivington Vibe" will pop up on the next record if we can work it out, if not, I don't know. It's recorded so we can always use it as a b-side or something, but it goes back to I don't know if I want to release it.

Where does that name come from?
V: "Summertime Rivington Vibe"? A girl I was dating moved over to Rivington Street in Manhattan, and I remember it being a very romantic time. Really sexual, just summer time, good times, you know. I wasn't working, I wasn't doing anything so I would just chill there with my hot ass chick, and just chill back. Take the dog for walks and shit. But she was killed in a spelunking accident. She didn't actually die in a spelunking accident; she got gonorrhea in her eyes... Naw, that is stupid. I guess it's funny because the lyrics are... it's almost like writing a love song about someone that you have really bad feelings about. It's kind of hopeful, you know. We had broken up, and it was disastrous how we had broken up, just brutal. I don't know, I just felt like writing another love song about her. Almost pretending.

Are there any plans to make a video for a song off of the new record?
V: Maybe. Our record label hasn't...

Done anything?
V: Exactly. I mean we want to. Hopefully they will let us soon.

Do you have any ideas of what you would want to do?
V: Yeah, I mean it depends on the budget. I don't know, I guess there is a lot of stuff with the label that is being corrected. Maybe when they get done sorting their stuff we can get back to business. But right now, we should have a video. Every band has a video except us. It's not one of those things that you can blame on the label, or maybe you could, but we're not going to do that in an interview because they'll read it and I don't know... take it away.
K: Take away our video. They'll take it off the air.
V: I don't know, hopefully it's not an indication about how they feel about us. Hopefully it's just apart of their economic crisis that they are going through with their distribution and we hope that gets resolved. We know they love our band.

What is your favorite way to pass the time on the road?
V: Halo 2, smoke mad gange.
K: Drink beer. We listen to music.
V: Listen to lots of tunes, write music, lyrics. Read books, hang out with other dudes.

Do you have any new music written for another record?
V: We have two finished as a band. I've got 4 or 5 cooking, Mike's got some cooking, Brandon's got some cooking, Kellen's useless. Kellen doesn't help at all, he just says write it. I'm just kidding.
K: I don't even play on the CDs.
V: One day me and Mike will collaborate, then one day Mike and Kellen will collaborate, then one day me and Brandon will collaborate. We all just share each others... I don't know. We definitely have at least 10 songs in the works.
K: A lot of riffs that need to be put together.
V: So far, so good. We're going to play a new one tonight. Its definitely a heavier song, the heaviest we've ever done but it's not an indication of how the new record will sound. I guess in a sense...
K: Probably is.
V: I think that in a sense the new record is going to be a little bit more aggressive, but there's also going to be songs that totally aren't, that's just the way they're coming out. Not aggressive like fucking scream and mosh, well the new song has a brutal mosh that we're stoked on. A really self indulgent mosh. I mean aggressive in anyway, in a punk way... like there is a song that sounds like an English punk song. There's a song that sounds like Drive Like Jehu, or not sounds like but in your head when you picture it. It never sounds like that to anyone else.

Well that's a good thing then right?
V: Yeah, from the amount that I steal when I'm writing, it's a good thing that it eventually turns into something else, because then everybody would know that I steal a lot. I think that every song writer does that, for real. I'm not going to say who I steal from because people will be able to figure it out. There's one song that is pretty much my version...
K: Going to jail rip off.
V: My version of a song that I grew up loving. I'm not going to say what it is, if anyone can figure it out. It's pretty deep seeded, you wont really know unless you are listening for it.

Have you guys done a headlining tour yet?
V: We haven't been on a real headlining tour, but when we need to play shows between dates we will go out and headline a show here and there. I mean hopefully towards the end of the year we can go out and do a small club tour. We need to make some fans first.
K: Yeah, for sure.

Do you like headlining better then supporting?
V: No, not yet. I know that we will if people come. There's places that we can do headlining shows and a few hundred kids will come out and that is amazing to us. But to do a headlining tour there would be a lot of shows were there wouldn't be very many people. So that's why we're out here working. Trying to make everyone else's fans.

Do you guys play the same set list every night of the tour, or do you change it up?
V: No, it depends on the tour. If we are playing more of a punk tour, we'll play more of an aggressive set. When we headline, we'll play anything off the record, we'll take requests. If there is someone that came to our show just to see us, we'll do anything they want.
K: If you yell out a song...
V: If you yell out a song from I am the Avalanche we will do it (laughter).

Have people been yelling out to play Movielife songs?
V: No, you get a douche bag here and there, but people are generally respectful. Every once and a while you'll get it, like "Play Hand Grenade!" That's like one of our worst songs (laughter).
Brandon: I like that song.
V: I guess I like it, I just think I sound like a big pussy on that record.

What do you do to prepare for the show?
(Collectively): Smoke weed, drink beer.
K: Sometimes, we haven't been doing it that much this tour, but we'll do a chant.
V: We have a little chant, a little beer spilling chant that we do. We don't get real fucked up or anything but it's nice to have a few beers.
B: I like to go in the van and play Kelly Slater.
V: Just spend time with our friends on tour.
Mike: About 20 minutes before we play I find myself pacing around, trying to get my hands warm because I always feel cold for some reason.
V: I piss 5 minutes before we play, and then right as we go on I have to piss again. Like seriously, less than an ounce of piss comes out.
B: We like to pass gas quite often.
V: The weirdest thing is that I've never stretched for an Avalanche show. I used to stretch all the time, I never stretch now. I feel fine.
K: Weren't you just holding your chest in agonizing pain?
V: That's because I have an elf living in my stomach. Yeah there's this weird Time Bandit little person living in my chest that pulls on my tendons and makes it hurt. I don't know what's wrong with me.

Did you say Time Bandit?
V: Have you ever seen the movie Time Bandits?

No. Well actually I think it's in my Netflix queue (it was).
V: Oh really? You have to watch it. A bunch of little people or midgets or what ever you want to call them used to work for God, and they pretty much... so they stole a map of time travel and of all the portals all over the universe from God and left. These little midgets get down with this little English boy, who is not a midget, because his closet was a portal for 1980 or something. The whole idea of the movie was that they would go and rob Napoleon, and go and take all his tapestries and vases and then they would disappear into one of their time portals and it would close. They would go back 500 years so the person they just robbed wouldn't have been born for 500 years, so it's kind of a victimless crime. Not really a victimless crime at all, actually, but you get off scot-free. The whole point is that God is chasing them through out the movie to try and get the map back. It's a really trippy movie. Terry Gilliam worked on it, who also did Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. I think George Lucas got down with it too. It's kind of a fantasy movie.

Is it from the 80s?
V: Yeah I think sometime in the 80's.
K: Or 70's.
V: Yeah, it could be late 70's.
K: I was just trying to make fun of you. It didn't work.
V: Why, because I was born in the 70's? Oh, burn!
K: I said it didn't work, alright (laughter).

Do you have a keyboard player?
V: Nope.

Do you play to a track?
V: No, we don't have any keyboards. What ever keyboards that are on the record we don't play live. We've been thinking about getting down with a musician who can play keyboards and acoustic guitar, because there is a lot of tracks where there is an acoustic behind the track. We might work up to that. If we can find a multipurpose person that can do a lot of things.
K: That doesn't want to get paid.
V: Yeah that doesn't care about money at all. That doesn't have a cell phone bill to pay.
K: We'll smoke you up and give you 10 dollars a day for food. But you have to pay for some of your own food too.

How have the kids responded to you on this tour?
V: It's been pretty good. We've been lucky enough to have some of our fans come out to the shows. It's cool to show up in Chicago and have some kids know who you are, even if the majority of them don't. Then there's like a lot of older people who come to see No Use (For A Name), and some of them dig it and some of them don't. If I was older and went to see a punk band that I grew up on, I might not be too interested in the opening bands. So I guess I can understand that. I think that we're making some fans for sure.
K: It's definitely cool to see some of our fans singing along, and then after there will be a couple of people that are like hey I've never heard you guys before but you put on a really great set. Then they come see you next time.

Have there been any crazy stories that have happened on this tour?
V: From this tour...
K: Last night was a pretty good story.
V: Oh god, last night was the most drunken night ever. I feel like complete horse shit right now.
K: Last night we were in Detroit, and it just so happened that our really good friends in Bayside were playing just down the street with the Smoking Popes. Our show was really early, so we got done playing and loaded our stuff up and ended up going over to the club and they hadn't even shown up yet, so we started drinking and hanging out. Finally they showed up, they played an acoustic set which was cool, then Smoking Popes played. Bayside was so late though, that they played another set after Smoking Popes for anyone that wanted to stick around. By that time, we were all wasted, like screaming at them. Vinnie and I were on the ground...
V: I was on the floor. I don't know how I fell over, I don't know who knocked me over or just lost my footing, but I was on the floor during their set, just...lost. We were just singing along, having a good time but it's really Bayside's fault because they showed up so late that it gave us like 3 extra hours of drinking time. There's nothing to do at the show, no bands were playing because they were waiting for Bayside. So all there was to do was drink, or bowl. But who bowls with out drinking?
B: Then Kellen bought everyone at the bar 4 drinks.
K: Oh fuck.
V: Kellen bought... I bought one round of drinks that cost 59 bucks. And to give you an idea as to how much of my money that is, I had, to my name, about 90 bucks. So I spent...
K: 66 percent.
V: 66 percent of my life's savings last night. I'm in no position to buy drinks, I had no idea what I was doing.
K: Well you did good at the casino earlier that day.
V: Yeah, well I won 50 bucks playing blackjack yesterday.

Where is your favorite country to tour?
B: Hopefully Japan.
V: Yeah, I mean it looks like we are going to be going to Japan with No Use, which is a dream come true.
B: The last show of our European tour that we just got off of was in Paris, was very... insane. The place was completely sold out, and oddly enough there was a lot of people that knew who we were. We had never been there before, and neither had any of the other bands, and it was the best show of the whole tour.
V: France is nice, Austria is cool. Vienna is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.
B: Holland is always going to have a warm spot in my heart.
K: Anywhere in the UK.
V: Yeah the UK is awesome. I would say we have more fans in the UK then any other country, including the states. We've been there three times already.

Didn't you do your first tour there?
V: First two shows. And our first tour there, you're right.

What were some of your favorite records from the past year?
V: Nada Surf- Weight is a Gift. The Forecast- Late Night Conversations.
K: Modern Life is War- Witness.
(Collectively): Coldplay, Say Anything... Is A Real Boy, Converge.
V: Mastodon.
B: The Audition record is awesome.

Which band has been the most fun to tour with?
V: Sorry, you are going to get a list here.
K: The Forecast.
V: The Forecast is amazing. Punchline, this is our second time out with them. Halifax is a great time. Audition is a great time. RX Bandits, Head Automatica, Gym Class Heroes, Mxpx, Starting Line.
B: Told you this would happen.
V: Seriously, we have been so lucky to be able to tour with so many awesome bands, and bands that we respect. To get respect from bands that you respect is more important to me then the crowd liking us. I just love the idea of someone who I look up to in a song writer sense on the side of the stage singing our words and watching us every night. Tony from No Use watches our band... you know, we look up to that guy. We don't tell him that.
K: I probably got really drunk last night and told him that after I tried to have sex with him (laughter).

What's the story behind "My Second Restraining Order"?
V: After all this shit went down... alright. My girlfriend that I dated for three years... this is a long story but I'll make it short and leave out some of the shit that I probably shouldn't say... She went to San Francisco to visit her father (she lived in Manhattan), and while she was there Nada Surf was playing and that was like our band, you know. We both love them a lot. So she went to see our band play, and she didn't want to go alone, so one of my friends from San Francisco was around and I told her to go with him and that he'll show you a good time, and I called him up and asked if he could show her a good time. So he showed her a good time. She cheated on me after three years at a Nada Surf show, which was our band, which is really fucked up. When I found that out, she flew back to New York, I woke up. I didn't sleep when I found out, I found out over the phone, and I went as soon as it was light out on a train from Long Island into the city. I planned on... I didn't know what I planned on doing, I was fucking crazy though. I lost it. I'm a pretty mellow guy, and I lost it. I lost it, and went completely crazy for about six months. Her dad called me because I was pretty much trying to beat down her door. I obviously wouldn't touch a hair on a woman's head ever, but I didn't know what I was going to do. I think I was just going to yell or something. I called her and I was like "I'm outside, you need to talk to me" because she didn't even tell me. I got a text message saying "I'm so sorry", and I'm like what is this? And then he calls me and tells me. So I actually didn't get a restraining order, but her dad called and said he was going to get a restraining order and I said I'm not doing anything wrong. I obliviously wanted to just talk to her and hear it from her. Three years, you owe me that much. So I called it "My Second Restraining Order" because it almost was. I had a restraining order when I was 19 for violence.

What is the one interview question you hate?
V: Oh this fucking idiot in Florida, who obviously didn't know anything about our band, which is... If you're an interviewer, either as a hobby or a job, you should know something about the band that you are interviewing. Do research, take it seriously. I don't want to sit here with you if... basically this girl was asking "If you were on an island, who would you eat first?", and she asked us to say all the things that we don't like about each other.
K: Yeah what do you hate about each member of the band (laughter). Someone farted really bad and we were just like lets get the fuck out of here.
V: Yeah we were like "It smells bad, interview over". She just didn't know anything and was clearly there because she wanted to see The Honorary Title for free. That's annoying because we take our time out. I mean obviously our time is precious (laughter), we are more then willing to talk to anybody that wants to know about our band, or that wants to shoot the shit, but not if you are going to be an idiot. I could spend the half hour hanging out with the guys in Punchline and not talking to this girl who clearly doesn't care. She had never ever heard us and she didn't care. That's annoying, it happens, but if we get a sense of that we will make a mockery of the interview and say stupid shit. It's a little disrespectful to come into a situation and be like "Whose ass would you eat... If you had to eat someone's asshole out, which guy in the band...?" Actually that would be funny if they came in with that. It's just annoying for us when someone clearly has no idea about anything.

Do you get personally offended when your record gets a bad review?
V: I take it personally.
B: We all do a little bit.
V: It's hard not to take it personally when you put so much time and heart into it.
Mike: It's like making a painting and having someone spit on it. You put so much work into it and some one just bashes it. It's going to happen though.
V: It's their right, if they don't like it they should say they don't and tell the truth. But for us to spend a year making and recording the record, and then someone pops it in for 30 seconds... or those reviews where you know they didn't listen to it at all...
M: Yeah one review said we sounded like a mix of Limp Bizkit and 311.
B: Are you serious?
V: No someone in England said it sounded like a mix of Linkin Park and 311.
M: When someone says that we sound like Linkin Park and 311 then its obvious that they didn't even fucking listen to it.
V: They probably went through and heard a dubbed reggae part in one of our songs, and if there is a dubbed reggae part, I would probably say it sounds like Jimmy Cliff or Bob Marley. Not 311, what the fuck is that shit. But if someone puts the time into reviewing it, you can't hate on them for that. It goes back to the responsibility thing where the interviewer has the responsibility to know their shit and the reviewer has the responsibility to actually listen to it. If they listen to it and hate it, then that's their opinion. We've got some good feedback. You know what really pissed me off what was in Alternative Press. I'm not talking bad about Alternative Press... well not because I'm afraid of them or anything, but I think they are good, I think that they like us because they've done a couple of spreads on us. But the thing that really bothered me about the AP review was that they put it right next to Brandon (from Movielife) band, and they hardly reviewed each of our records. They put them together and reviewed them together, and I was like come on these are two different records that deserve their own attention. Brandon's record is incredible, I'm sure Brandon was like "What the fuck man, I can't get my own review?" Which is what I'd say, "I don't want a joint review with Brandon."
K: I'd like a joint.
V: So that was kind of annoying, but it's funny because there was this spread that was hyping us up. And that happens, that's what happens with magazines, that's what press is. AP has been real cool to our band, so that's why we were kind of surprised at the review, or lack there of. They came out to the show the other night and they were into it. But it's true, I would never talk bad about them because they are the only magazine in America that puts us in it.

What kind of touring plans do you have for this year?
Ratt (Brett): We are winding up on this tour right now until late March, and then we join with...
V: Shit, I got to drop out of this interview, we are playing in 10 minutes!
K: What? The opening band hasn't even played yet.
V: Oh, my bad my clock is an hour behind (laughter).
R: Yeah we are doing a tour with The Receiving End of Sirens, and that's every thing we have confirmed. Most likely we are going to do a tour with Bayside and Halifax.
V: We really want to go on tour with Rx Bandits, so hopefully they'll ask us.
R: Yeah, and we are doing the last two weeks of Warped Tour on the Smart Punk stage.

I saw that you are playing Chicago tonight, St. Louis tomorrow, and Milwaukee on Saturday. Are a lot of your tours set up like this?
K: Sometimes we will just have days were it does that.
V: There are so many bands that you have to compete with. This tour was against NOFX a few nights, which is the worst possible show for this tour to be against.

The acoustic version of "I Took A Beating" sounds like you took out the electric guitar and put the acoustic over the track. Is this true?
V: No, well yes. Well we recorded it with... its because the drums are full on, so you feel like it should be. We recorded it that way, and then we tried it the acoustic and piano way we thought it would be cool. But once we started playing it live, it turned into more of a punk song, so that's why we recorded it full on. It's cool to have two versions and it would be cool to break it out every once and a while live.
K: Yeah like we were saying before, if we get a guy who can play acoustic guitar or keyboards then we can do stuff like that.
V: (watching MTV) I love Lil Wayne. Look at that jacket.

Would someone looking at your sound scans be surprised when they come to one of your shows?
V: We honestly don't look at sound scans. But we should be doing okay, judging from people coming to see us. And the amount of sound scan records doesn't reflect the amount of people that have the record. Our record leaked like a month before and there was like 500 people waiting to download it in a matter of an hour, so we were like cool. Obviously we all steal music, we all put our iPods onto other people's computers and drag music over. This shit's awesome man, I love it.
K: Download our entire CD, give it to as many people as you want.
V: We just want people to come to shows.
K: Don't even fucking buy it.
M: Well you can buy it if you want (laughter).
R: Yeah if you buy it you obviously get the artwork and all of that too.
V: I think the artwork is important.

Yeah I have talked to other bands and they said they have not got that much from their album sales.
V: Yeah, you don't really get that much. I'm sure the labels don't like you promoting it, but it's something that's going to happen anyways. People are doing it, I do it, it's great. Stealing $10,000 worth of music in a matter of 5 minutes is like going into Toys R Us when you're a kid and going on a shopping spree.
K: Peeing in the closet.
V: When I load up my iPod to a bunch of music that I didn't pay for, it's like treating yourself to new clothes.
K: It's like going to Red Lobster and getting the Admiral's Feast.
M: We are also supporters of artists that we love.
R: Yeah you go to their shows and buy tickets and shirts and are supporting them in that way also. We may go and listen to a bunch of bands that you would have never bought their records, but you may come across a band you really really like and then you start supporting them.
V: If I have money in my pocket, which is very rarely lately, I will support the bands I love for sure.
K: Yeah CDs are like 20 bucks now.
V: I'm sure Nada Surf would way rather have me download the record and come to the show and buy a t-shirt and have a good time and sing a long then have me buy it and not come.

Are you friends with Brand New? Have you heard any of their new songs? What is up with them?
V: They recorded their record, and their record is done. We heard some shit and it sounds incredible. They took a long time off, but you know when they come back they are coming back strong. I think that they are going to be huge, and this is going to be their most intelligent record. They are an incredible band; Jessie is an incredible songwriter and lyricist, and all around good dude.

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