Thanks to Kathi for setting it up, Ryan for making sure it happened, and Vinnie for taking the time to do the interview.
Joanne: State your name and what you do in the band.
Joanne: What got you interested in music?
Joanne: What was it like opening up on the Civic Tour with Good Chahhhlotte (damn my Boston accent) and New Found Glory?
Joanne: How'd you get involved with the whole MADE tour?
Joanne: Would you rather play arenas or smaller clubs?
Joanne: What's your favorite venue to play?
Joanne: What's your least favorite place to play?
Joanne: Who has been your favorite band to tour with?
Joanne: What has been your most memorable moment ever on tour?
Joanne: If you could put a tour together with The Movielife and any other bands, who would the other bands be?
Joanne: If you could meet any person dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Joanne: How is Dan fitting in with the rest of the band?
Joanne: How is the new CD different or better than the previous CDs?
Joanne: Who writes the songs?
Joanne: What are your thoughts on today's whole "punk" scene?
Joanne: What was the last CD you bought?
Joanne: What has been your most embarassing moment on or off stage?
Joanne: What is the question you get sick of answering?
Joanne: What color is your toothbrush?
Joanne: What advice do you have for up and coming musicians?
Joanne: Do you have any last words or shoutouts?
For More Information:
Vinnie: I'm Vinnie and I yell.
Vinnie: Growing up in a punk and hardcore scene pretty much got me interested in this kind of music but my dad got me interested in music when I was young.
Vinnie: It was pretty crazy, I mean we never played venues that size so it was…it was crazy. But it was amazing, we made a lot of new fans and Good Charlotte and New Found Glory are old friends of ours so it was just major like hang out time and it was a pretty luxurious tour, so not what we're used to.
Vinnie: Oh, why is this put on by MADE?
Joanne: Yeah.
Vinnie: A lot of the time sponsors get involved in tours and they try to push their product. We benefit by advertising and things like that, they pay for commercials on TV, and blah blah blah. And we're friends with Benji and Joel and Steve who pretty much runs MADE and that's our homeboy so he came to us and was like, "Listen, you wanna help out with the tour, we wanna get everyone and put some commercials on TV," so we we're like awesome, that'd be cool. Cause god knows the tours we've done in the past like…people would be like "Oh when are you playing?" and we'd be like..uh, last week. *laughter*
Vinnie: Smaller clubs, definitely. I mean arenas are an exhilerating experience but I just feel that the music belongs here.
Ally: Good answer!
Joanne: Yeah, I like that one.
Vinnie: But I mean, I would do an arena tour again but I'd definitely be happy to get back to a small club after that.
Joanne: Yeah the fans like the small clubs too.
Vinnie: I'm sure.
Joanne: Arenas are a pain.
Vinnie: Um, the Norva in Virginia Beach because the dressing room is like the size of The Palladium *laughter* and ah, it has…it's just a really nice club, and the club is owned by the family, it's a family owned club and it's just a really beautiful club, really great place. But beyond the club, the dressing room is actually like 5 rooms, it's like the size of a house. It's got like a hot tub, it's got a sauna, and like shower rooms and like a crazy kitchen with soda fountains and it's like bizzarre. And we were just all pimpin' and hanging out, and we all took pictures like "This will never happen again!" *laughter*
Vinnie: Um, I don't really have a place that like I dread going to. Just because even if a place is like, even if a place is necessarily not the nicest place or whatever, we still get on stage and do exactly what we do in a place like this. You know what I mean? So like for us we just…if it's not a cool environment we make it a cool environment by doing what we do.
Vinnie: I could list a ton of bands right now. We've been really lucky, I mean to be able to tour with the bands we've toured with the past few years. I mean Thursday, Finch, The Used, Glassjaw, uh, Good Charlotte of course we just got off tour with, Hot Rod Circuit's amazing, Further Seems Forever, Autopilot Off. Like there's so many amazing bands that we've been really luck to tour with so like, I mean I could list literally, like every band we've toured with the past three or four years it's just been amazing, we've never really had a negative experience.
Joanne: That's always good.
Vinnie: I mean negative experiences with touring, we've had a lot of negative experiences but not with relationships with bands.
Vinnie: On the Civic Tour in Los Angeles we covered a song by the Descendents which is one of our biggest influences and just one of my favorite bands and the guitar player from the Descendents played it with us and it was like one of the best days of my life, it was amazing. We did a European tour with All who is pretty much the Descendents with a different singer and we became friends with him then and he played the song with us and it was like the coolest thing ever.
Vinnie: Ah, this is another one of those questions, I could go on forever. Minus The Bear, Jets to Brazil, Phantom Planet, Glassjaw, Thursday, Thrice, Alkaline Trio…
Ally: That's nice!
Vinnie: and The Used, Pedro The Lion.
Vinnie: I would be me, I wouldn't wanna be anyone else..
Joanne: No, if you could meet…
Vinnie: Oh meet? I would meet me, I wouldn't wanna meet anyone..
*laughter*
Ally: Yeah…I was like wow…
Vinnie: Shit…Homestar Runner
Ally: Haha that's awesome.
Joanne: Yeah, that's good.
Vinnie: Awesome, I mean it's been almost what, maybe like a year and a half since he's been in the band so like at this point, it's like he's been in the band forever, that's what it seems like. Dan's just brought a lot of excitement…Dan's just brought kind of the next level of just like…It's crazy that he's the newest guy and he's one of the guys that really like pushes issues and he's like "We gotta do this and this and this and this…" and I'm like man, good thing we got you in the band.
Vinnie: I'd say its different and better. The previous CDs, The Gambling Problem EP, I would say that it's the worst thing we've ever done. A lot of people like it but, I like it, I don't like it as much as the other things we've done but um, this one just kinda has more heart and soul, kinda like the same heart and soul the earlier CDs had. I just thought the Gambling Problem was a mix between a hundred different things that went wrong and I'm just glad that our new CD was released, I like it a lot, it seems like the kids are really into it too. We play new songs, and sometimes it’s the first time people have seen us play the new songs and they really like it.
Joanne: This is my first time I've seen you at all.
Vinnie: Cool! I hope you like it!
Vinnie: We all write the music and I write all the lyrics and vocal…the melodies or whatever.
Vinnie: Um, there are grass root punks that would say what we do is not punk..and hell we agree. Um, I don't really know if this has anything to do with punk anymore. It's more like what it is, like I dunno what it is, but whatever it is, it's awesome. And kids are for it, and kids get into it, I guess you could call it punk as an overall thing. But I mean, there's bands that are considered punk that I would not want to be held in the same genre with. So, I dunno, I mean there's so many blurred lines between what's punk or emo or hardcore or whatever, it's all like weird labels that don't necessarily fit anyone exactly the right way. So I dunno, as long as…I mean this is music where, you know, we're a band from Long Island playing like aggressive, energetic, and sometimes mellowed out sometimes whatever. We play in a punk scene I guess primarily, and there's gonna be a thousand kids here tonight and that says a lot about what this is. I mean, I never knew we'd play here, I never knew I'd even be a band. So whatever it is it's awesome, and the support is awesome so, even if it's not from "punk" kids, it's just kids, it's just people and everyone's getting psyched about it.
Joanne: Oh yeah, before I forget, I dunno if you guys know, you have a livejournal community.
*discussion about livejournal and how Vinnie has no clue what it is but promises to check it out*
Vinnie: That's cool! I'm gonna go look and make sure no one's talking bad about me…nah I'm just kidding *laughter* That's really cool though, stuff like that that we don't even know about.
Joanne: Yeah, there's some other kids here too.
Vinnie: So some people will be talking about tonight's show?
Joanne: Yeah.
Vinnie: Shit…Oh! Pedro The Lion, the whole EP, it's like the first thing he ever released. That's the last CD I got.
Vinnie: Um, off stage, I'll like…I dunno, to get embarrassed you have to have too much like, pride, you know what I mean? And like for me, as soon as something stupid happens to me, or I do something stupid I'm just like "Oh well, I'm stupid, so it's no big deal," you know what I mean? So it's like, say there's a thousand kids here tonight and I trip over my shoelace and fall on my face, it's happened before, I'll just be like…Uhh..what can I do? I'm not gonna pretend I'm cool, 'cause I'm not. *laughter* I dunno, things like that happen all the time. On stage it's just like, a song ends, and it's like okay, I have to talk now but sometimes I have nothing to say and I just wanna play. *laughter* So I have to say those are some embarrassing things…I'm still learning what to do.
Vinnie: Tell us the history of the band. It's like go check the website…
Ally: Go look it up!
*some talking happens, can't tell what's going on*
Joanne: Go check the website…
Vinnie: We call those check the bio questions. There's lots of check the bio questions.
*more talking, can't pick out words*
Vinnie: It's white with turquoise.
Vinnie: Don't try to be the next -insert band here- you know what I mean? Don't try to be the next…I dunno I don't want to say any bands. But there's a lot of bands out there that are like I wanna be just like them, so I'm gonna try to write songs just like them, so I can be rich and famous and I can be a pop punk superstar. That sucks. I guess it works sometimes because there are some bands like that on the radio right now. But I dunno, like play music that you love because you love making it. People will respect that. Don't expect to get rich and famous because that doesn't happen. Really it happens like 0.001 percent of the bands. Just do it because you love music and it sucks to see like, insincerity and people exploiting it so I would be more of a fan of a band on that end of the spectrum rather than the other end. But that's just me.
Vinnie: Buy our new record, check it out please, or if you don't have money steal our new record, but come to the next show. And if you're here at the show right now thank you very much and thank you guys for doing this interview.
Joanne: And thank you for doing it.
• Official Site: www.themovielife.com