Joanne: What got you into making music?
Mark: I started playing piano when I was in kindergarten. I don’t know why exactly, I think it’s because my older sister did, and I wanted to. So I started playing really, really early and music always made sense to me as like what I liked to do. I mean I played various sports and stuff but music is kind of like what fuels my every day activity. And my mom is really into music and my uncle is really into music and he gave me a trombone when I was little, and I started playing guitar and blah blah blah. And one thing led to another, and here I am playing music. It’s what I do. Joanne: Good story.
Mark: Thank you, I thought it was good.
Joanne: Applause.

Joanne: What is it like coming from the Chicago scene?
Mark: Uh, as opposed to other scenes? Because I wouldn’t really know.
Joanne: No, because all these awesome bands have come out of Chicago lately and it’s been crazy.
Mark: Well Chicago has been wonderful ever since I started going to shows when I was in 6th and 7th grade. It kind of comes and goes in waves like when I was younger, like really young, there was a lot of punk rock in Chicago, lots of really cool bands like Slapstick and Peg Boy, and Apocalypse and Oblivion and all these bands that turned me on to playing music in basements and all that stuff. Then there was a big hardcore scene for a while, which, you know, we were all a part of and now as of late there’s kind of a new breathe of fresh air with bands coming out of Chicago and the scene is definitely thriving right now. There’s a lot going on, a lot of kids coming out to see shows. I don’t know, it’s a good time to be from Chicago I guess um, we’ve always been from Chicago. But yeah, bands like Rise Against and Fall Out Boy, yeah its cool. I’m proud to say I’m from there. And I’m a White Sox fan.

Steph: I have a question. What side, south side or north side?
Mark: Gotta go south side.
Steph: Alright good.
*laughter*

Joanne: Who were your influences?
Mark: Personally or like as a band or what?
Joanne: It doesn’t matter.
Mark: Whatever?
Joanne: Influences, whatever.
Mark: Well, I’m just going to go out on a limb and say that the reason this band is existing, the reason that we are playing the kind of music we are is because of a lot of Midwest indie rock band that were starting to surface when we were in high school. Bands like Braid, and The Get Up Kids, and Texas Is The Reason…It’s kind of funny that we’re out with Hey Mercedes on this tour, well they’re not playing tonight, they dropped off…
Joanne: Yeah to play in Worcester, they’re evil.
Mark: Yeah, last night was their last night in Lancaster. But like Hey Mercedes were all in the band Braid and just to like be on stage with them has been awesome and nervewracking and exciting. I’d say a lot of those Midwest emo rock bands really opened a new book for us, or turned the page musically for us, for things that we wanted to do. Bob?? from Hey Mercedes/Braid has been a big influence on me…The Promise Ring from the Milwaukee area was really important to us. Of course all of our various elders and older siblings and whatever because they were playing shows in backyards and basements when we were young…all that stuff contributes to why we do what we do.
Joanne: I’m dying (I was! Being sick sucks…)
Mark: I hope that was a good answer.
Joanne: That was a very good answer.

Joanne: How did you end up on this tour with The Early November?
Mark: Uh, a combination of things. For starts we’ve played with them a couple times before this tour, and we get along with them well and we get crazy with them. Also, like, we’ve almost toured with them a few times, and we share a common booking agent, and it was a matter of time where it was finally going to happen, we were actually going to go out together, and this package was just perfect. It’s one of those packages where I watch every band, you can’t say that about every tour you go on. When we tour, we usually buddy-buddy up with a band, or a couple of bands but on this tour it’s been everybody just having a great time and all getting along, both as people and musically. It’s been a lot of fun. Yeah, I’m really, really happy it happened, it’s been great.

Joanne: You guys are going on tour with Thursday right?
Mark: Yep.
Joanne: How’d you end up on that tour?
Mark: You know, I’m going to have to put my hands up in the air *puts hands in the air*, and say I don’t know. Obviously, we were…you know, touring with a band the size of Thursday is kinda mind-boggling to us. We’ve actually met them a few times, like they were on Victory, and the left Victory around the time that we signed to Victory, and there was really no common bond there. We weren’t a Victory band with them ever so we don’t really know exactly how it happened, but we got the invite and we were obviously prepared to drop everything we were doing to say yes, we’re going to take this. And it should be a great experience and like I said, we met the guys before and we kinda did play with them at Hellfest but we didn’t hang out with them or anything. So, we’ll see, it should be good, 18 days, 16 shows, yeah it should be great.
Joanne: We’ll be there.
Mark: Where? At the Palladium?
Joanne: Yeah.
Steph: That’s my home.
Mark: Worcester. It’s spelled totally different then how you say it.
Steph: Worchester.
Mark: Worchester.
Joanne: Worchestah.
Mark: But you guys call it…
Joanne: Worcestah.
Mark: *mocking me* Worcestah. You’re from Boston. Last time we were in Boston, we got in trouble. It was funny but well…Someone was outside the venue we played, it was called Bill’s right across from Fenway Park, like Bill’s Bar or something…
Joanne: Oh my god, I hate that place.
Mark: Yeah, it was a long time ago, it was like in July or something. And this guy was like, “Up here in Boston, we all know how to pahty.” And we go “Yeah. You do know how to pahty in Boston.” So then we kept saying it on stage, we were like “We hear everyone in Boston knows how to pahty. It’s great.” Half of them were like “Yeah!” because they were kind of drunk, “We do know how to pahty!” Then the rest of them were catching on that we were kind of making fun of them, you know, pahty, party, whatever you want to say.
Joanne: I got made fun of when I went to Chicago. What about you?
Steph: When I went to Chicago?
Joanne: Yeah.
Steph: Oh they picked up my accent, my Boston accent right away.
Mark: It’s funny.
Joanne: Well, Chicago accents are funny.
Mark: They aren’t funny. Chicago is the perfect accent. We are what other accents are based on.
Steph: We’re all jealous of your accent.
Mark: Yeah.
Joanne: We all want to be from Chicago.
Mark: Of course.
Joanne: I don’t understand why they call it pop. I will never understand it.
Mark: Pop?
Joanne: You call soda pop, and I don’t get it.
Mark: Soda…pop. Well isn’t it technically soda pop?
Joanne: Well yeah but…
Mark: Who cares?
Joanne: I care!
Mark: How about soft drink? Soft drink.
Joanne: That works.
Mark: Cola. Coke. In Texas everything’s a coke. You want a coke? Sure. It’s just a coke.
Joanne: Okay.
Mark: This is going well.
Joanne: It is, it’s going great.

Joanne: If you could put together your own tour, who would be on it?
Mark: *laughs*
Joanne: Oh god.
Mark: No, I wasn’t laughing because it’s evil. This is the question I’ve been asked so many times that we have this answer ready to go, just let it out. It goes like this. It goes The Who, now obviously they can’t join us, The Dismemberment Plan, Hey Mercedes/Braid because they would both have to be there together because they’re the same band, and The Promise Ring. And then we would be opening but we would be playing before the doors even opened out of respect for those other bands. And the fact that we would feel like idiots playing with them. So, we are before doors on the Mystery Tour, or on the…not the Mystery Tour the…Hypothetical Dream Tour.
Joanne: That’s a good tour though.
Mark: Thank you.
Joanne: You’re welcome.

Joanne: Describe your live show in 5 words or less.
Mark: *pause* Five words or less? Uh, alright. Bill Cosby is my father. Joanne: How would you convince someone who has never heard you to come to your show?
Mark: Uh, hm.
Joanne: Remember, they’ve never heard you.
Mark: And I’m supposed to just sway them into coming to see us play?
Joanne: Yeah.
Mark: Um, I would probably…oh man, I’d have to make something up and say some celebrity or some celebrity’s brother is in our band. Like, you know that guy from Everybody Loves Raymond, what’s his name, Ray…
Steph: Romano.
Mark: Ray Romano, yeah. His nephew is in our band so you don’t want to miss that.
Steph: But Bill Cosby’s son is in the band.
Mark: Well yeah, Bill Cosby’s son, but that’s separate. Ray Romano’s nephew is in our band, for the love of God you cannot miss us. We have to be good.
*laughter*
Mark: That’s what I would say. I would be lying…
Joanne: I would go.
Mark: But it would sway anybody. I don’t know who wouldn’t go.
Joanne: Would you go.
Steph: Yeah.
Mark: See?

Joanne: How did you come up with the concept for the CD?
Mark: Well, we were watching Everybody Loves Raymond and…no, I’m kidding about that. Like the concept of the layout, or the CD as a whole…?
Joanne: The layout.
Mark: Well, the name of the photographer is Chris Strong and Chris Strong has done some artwork for all sorts of bands like if you’ve seen the cover of Hey Mercedes' "Everynight Fire Works"…or any of their stuff, he did some Saves the Day stuff, some Joan of Arc stuff. He’s really good at taking every day life and intensifying it and making it vibrant and beautiful. He’s from the greater Chicagoland area, and now he lives in Chicago and we met him and asked him if he’d like to do it…Because the name of the album is “Remember Right Now”, and what it’s supposed to mean is, it’s kind of like a past, present, future album, where have we been vs. where we are vs. where we’re going to be. And this whole remember right now thing is that we’re from Chicago, we’re proud to be from Chicago, not only are we proud to be from it, but this a place where we’ve grown up not only musically but as friends and as I don’t know. We went to school together, we’ve done a lot of things together and to go around Chicago and take a whole bunch of different photos of places that mean a lot to us, he just kind of fired his camera away. We went out and were like “Dude, shoot whatever you want”. And he got some pictures like Lake Shore Drive and the cover of the album is off his own balcony at his house, or his apartment, which is cool. We kind of gave him free reign on it, we didn’t specifically tell him what to or what not to do and we just love his work. And we figured the combination of him, Chicago, and a camera would result in something we wanted, and it did.

Joanne: How did you come up with the song “I Loved The Way She Said L.A.”? That was one of our reader questions.
Mark: Well the name of the song is taken straight out of one of my favorite books called “On The Road” by Jack Kerouac and I think that book…I read it for the first time while we were touring, then I reread it for the second time while we were touring though it doesn’t really apply…it’s obviously not about a band touring it’s a much older book but there’s so much in that book, so much I got out of it and so much I connected with I took the title straight from there, although the song isn’t about that at all. The song’s about being in different places at different times. Specifically the person I wrote that song about is from Chicago, and so am I, and their favorite place in the planet is southern California, Los Angeles, San Diego, that whole area. And on two separate occasions I had been in Los Angeles and she had been at home, and then vice versa. It’s funny because I love Chicago more than anything else in the world and she wants to leave, she doesn’t like Chicago, she wants to be in California. Now when I’m in California I have a great time but I always think when I’m in California how glad I don’t live there and how much I’m happy I live in Chicago. The song is specifically about being in different places at different times and…I can’t really go into too much more detail without getting all gushy gushy.
Joanne: Awwww.
Mark: Those two factors came together to make the song happen. That and ironically, even though I didn’t know that ahead of time, that book happens to be one of her favorite books as well.

*I get paranoid that the tape recorder isn’t recording, and Steph’s phone makes a funny noise that amuses Mark*

Joanne: What’s in your CD player right now? Name three CDs that you are listening to.
Mark: Kanye West, I’m not joking, you know who that is?
Joanne: They –he, him, it is coming.
Mark: Him. The Format.
Joanne: Yay, I have that CD with me.
Mark: And sadly, Hey Mercedes. It’s not sad because it’s Hey Mercedes, it’s sad because we’re on tour with them and you’d think I get enough of them every night but nooo. Actually, we’re touring with The Format. Yay!
Joanne: When? Where?
Mark: It’s actually The Format and Piebald and us.
Joanne: I want to go. It should come here.
Mark: I don’t know if we are. We’ll find out.

Joanne: Recommend one band that everyone has to know about.
Mark: You’re going to have to repeat that one time slower and in English.
Joanne: It’s not my fault I talk fast.
Mark: Okay.
Joanne: Recommend one artist or band our readers have to know about.
Mark: Ohhhh, okay. Mark: Well hopefully they already know about them. I’m gonna go with Maritime. There’s a band called Maratime, and it’s from the ashes of The Promise Ring and The Dismemberment Plan together. And they are awesome. Maritime. Mar-i-time.

Joanne: In your opinion what is the one band music didn’t need?
Mark: Oh, that’s so cruel.
Joanne: I know.
Mark: I’m just gonna say Creed because it’s a pretty standard response. I don’t want to get in trouble with anybody except Creed, I have no problem getting in trouble with them. So, yeah, musically I could do without them, yeah, sure, that’d be great.

Joanne: If you could meet – meet…
Mark: Meet.
Joanne: Meet any person dead or alive who would it be and why?
Mark: Oh man.
Joanne: It always takes everyone like 10 minutes to answer this.
Mark: Yeah, because it’s saying if you could meet any one person. I could probably come up with a better answer after thinking about this for like a year straight. So on the spot I may come up with something terrible. Uh, I’d have to go with Cuba Gooding Jr. I’d love to spend some quality time with him, sit down, have a mocha frappuccino…and discuss life, what it’s like being the brother of Omar Gooding from Wild & Crazy Kids if you remember him…
*laughter*
Steph: That was one of my favorite shows.
Mark: Did you ever put that connection together? Yeah. Actually I’m going to change my answer to Omar Gooding. I’d like to sit down with Omar Gooding and talk to him what it was like being on Wild and Crazy Kids, not to mention having a brother that’s way more famous and wealthy.
*laughter*
Mark: Omar Gooding is my final answer.

Joanne: What color is your toothbrush?
Mark: White and purple.

Joanne: What’s your favorite Starburst? I changed this one due to the reason that we are obsessed with Starburst.
Mark: Oh man, I think the pink one. Whatever one the pink one is.
Joanne: Isn’t that everyone’s favorite?
Mark: I don’t know, I’m just saying whatever the pink one is. I don’t know if its…
Joanne: Is it watermelon?
Mark: No!
Joanne: Okay…
Mark: I think it’s strawberry.

Joanne: Is the glass half-full of half-empty?
Mark: Half-empty.
Joanne: Why?
Mark: Because you gave me an option and I took one of them, I have no idea why.

Bouncer guy: What are you guys doing?
Mark: An interview.
Bouncer guy: With who?
Mark: With me.
Bouncer guy: You’re in a band?
Mark: Yeah.
Bouncer guy: Which one?
Mark: Spitalfield.
*Joanne’s note: For the remainder of the interview they kept walking back and forth, obviously wanting to kick us out but not knowing how to do it haha*

Joanne: What is the best month? Joanne: No ice.
Mark: Yeah, look at me, I’m in a T-shirt or a sweatshirt and I’m good. I don’t need gloves, I don’t need a hat, I don’t need a winter jacket, and I certainly don’t need to be in a bathing suit…so mid-April to mid-May is the best month.

Joanne: What do you think of the music scene today?
Mark: The music scene?
Joanne: Yeah, the music scene as a whole.
Mark: Are you talking about the rock music scene or music in general…?
Joanne: Music in general.
Mark: Well I’m going to have to say that I guess it’s a love-hate thing because for starters I love music, and I love all types of music so I could care less what’s currently popular or whatever. It just happens right now that pop-punk is everyone’s new favorite thing. On one level that’s really cool for me because I get to expand our horizons as a band, and more and more people will be interested in hearing us or checking us out but on the other hand it’s like “Oh, that was my favorite band, not your favorite band…” It’s unfortunate, and then on another level as it becomes more and more mainstream it gets more and more watered down and unoriginal and that sucks. But I bite that bullet on a regular basis and just deal with it. Whatever is popular two years from now I hope to still be doing what we’re doing.
Steph: I have to say that’s a great answer.
Mark: Thank you.

Joanne: If you weren’t in a band right now what do you think you’d be doing?
Mark: If I wasn’t playing in Spitalfield what would I be doing?
Joanne: Yep.
Mark: I would be at the end of my junior year at Colombia College in Chicago getting my music degree and I would be in music composition scoring music for film. That would be what I would be doing. Either that or I’d be somewhere in a gutter face down.
Joanne: Aww that wouldn’t be good.
Mark: I’m just saying, one or the other.

Joanne: What was the worst job you ever had?
Mark: Worst job? Uh, you know I didn’t really mind my jobs too much. I worked at a hot dog place and I thought that was awesome so I’m not going to complain about that. The worst job I’ve ever had? As in something I’ve been paid to do?
Joanne: You don’t have to be paid. You don’t get paid to mow lawns do you?
Mark: Multiple lawns, yes. I mowed lawns. Okay, I’m going to go with mowing lawns, that was the worst job I had. Because it was hot and smelly and I don’t tan, I burn, I’m pale. And old ladies that were widows complained to me about people stealing their tools and having grass in their backyards and expecting me to deal with it all for their measely 5. Then they bring me out a diet caffeine free Pepsi for my troubles which is lukewarm. Yeah, that was the worst job I ever had, mowing the lawn for that damn widow.
Joanne: Was that some long contained rage?
Mark: Yeah, I guess. You resurfaced it.

Joanne: What do you think about downloading music with programs like Kazaa?
Mark: I think it’s a glorious, glorious thing. I guess if you’re Metallica it bugs you but I’d say it helps us more than it hurts us, especially the size band that we are because the more people that hear about us, the more people that are going to come out and see us and the more people that are going to check out our album. Mind you, you can download it all the way through but I think most real music fans out there download it because they can’t get it, then buy it when they can. Or hopefully they will, or maybe if they download the album they’ll come to the show and buy a t-shirt. Either way as long as they’re not sitting in a cave, and downloading it, and never leaving the cave and spreading the word of what they’d just downloaded then so be it. If it wasn’t for mp3.com we wouldn’t have half the fan base of what we have now.
Joanne: It doesn’t exist anymore.
Mark: Yeah, but if it weren’t for it. I know it got shut down but it’ll be back.
Joanne: Pure Volume took over.
Mark: Pure Volume took over but Pure Volume is like 1/100 of the size as mp3.com. But it’s gonna get there, Pure Volume is great and I’m glad it exists but it sucks that mp3.com got shut down. Actually on a complete side note, not side note, well we were talking about…one thing about downloading is that sometimes unfinished work gets out for downloading early and that does kind of hurt when you’re the artist or musician behind it. Because if you were like painting and you weren’t done with the painting and people started showing it to people you’d be like “No no no, it’s not done yet” and sometimes advanced copies of stuff do get out when they’re not supposed to be out and that sucks. There’s nothing worse than it going from hand to hand to hand and by the time it gets so far away they don’t know it’s the early unmastered version or unmixed version. And they’re just like yeah it’s cool…but it could be so much more. And then they judge you on that which sucks. I’m sorry.
Joanne: Why are you sorry?
Mark: Because I ranted and raved.
Joanne: But that’s what makes a good interview.
Mark: You’re right.

Joanne: What are your future/recording plans.
Mark: The plan right now is to stay on tour through most of the summer and probably late summer begin recording the new record which if all goes to plan should be out late fall. I mean that’s all we can say. Based on the tours we just recently got like this Early November one, and the Thursday one…we’re going out with Sugarcult for a little while, then we got Piebald. There’s a lot going on for us right now and to a lot of people we’re going to be a brand new band so to just pump out a new album right now would make no sense. We’re just want to keep touring this one and get in front of as many new kids as we can. And in the meantime we’ll probably start playing a few new songs live once in a while, especially to kids in areas that have seen us time and time again just to give them something to look forward to because I’m sure they’re tired of seeing the same songs but whatever. That’s the plan right now.
Joanne: You guys don’t come here that much do you?
Mark: No, we really…don’t.
Joanne: That’s not cool.
Mark: Well, this and Thursday back to back.
Joanne: That’s in a month.
Mark: Yeah, hot diggity damn that’s good.
Joanne: That’s a long time.
Mark: No its not!
Joanne: Yes it is.
Mark: Boston’s far away.
Joanne: Chicago’s far away.
Mark: Yeah I know. I live there.

Joanne: What advice do you have for up and coming musicians?
Mark: You’re going to really have to repeat that one and slower and in the dialect that I speak.
Joanne: I’m trying. What advice do you have for up and coming musicians?
Mark: I guess…for starters, I’m flattered that I’m giving advice because I’m probably an up and coming musician myself but the one thing about being in a band that I think is very important is to make sure that you love doing what you’re doing. Make sure that putting your entire life on hold to go on tour and to be with the same five guys in a band is what you want before you do it. It doesn’t mean you can’t do it and try it to find out but what I’m saying is make sure you really put your heart behind what you’re doing because it’s not that easy. Whether you get success real quick or over a period of a few years or whatever…as long as in the end you’re happy doing it, that’s more important than anything else. Because I find that it’s much like a family when you’re on the road. You’re gonna fight, you’re gonna get along, you’re gonna have great times, you’re gonna have bad times, and as long as you’re with the people that you care about and playing music that you care about, nothing else should really matter in the end.
Joanne: Great answer
Mark: Thank you.

Joanne: Any last words?
Mark: Shamrock Shakes are totally gone and I’m totally depressed about it. Yeah, our tour manager Joe and I would have a Shamrock Shake every day. We averaged out that Joe would have approximately 1.7 Shamrock Shakes a day divided over however many days…yeah. But anyway…are you hearing that?
Steph: Yeah.
Mark: That’s my phone, you can leave it there, it’s cool. Yeah, that was my last statement. Thanks to anyone reading, and thanks to you for doing it.
Joanne: Thank you for doing it.
Mark: You’re welcome.

For More Information:
• Official Site: www.spitalfield.net
• Label's Official Site: www.victoryrecords.com

<< Back To Interviews