Interview: Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy

Fall Out Boy

On Thursday, May 4th I was able to sit down with Pete Wentz before Fall Out Boy’s sold out show at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD. I was able to ask some follow-up questions to Part One1 of our ABSOLUTExclusive interview with him as well as address some things that we and you felt were missing from that series of questions. Once again, I’d like to thank Pete for taking an hour out of his hectic schedule to do this. I’d also like to thank Fall Out Boy’s tour manager, Dan Suh, for making sure everything ran smoothly. Hope you enjoy…

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Interview: Matt Watts of The Starting Line

The Starting Line

I’d have to say the “Screaming Is For Babies” tour is one of my favorite tours in a long time; how’d it get put together and how’s it been so far?

Well this is kind of like our first real headlining tour—we headlined the Drive Thru tour before, but this was like the first chance for us to go out and headline and pick the bands that we wanted to pick. We got a list of who we could take on the tour, and we wanted to make it sort of a diverse bill of bands that we’re all fans of, and we knew the Cartel guys a little bit before going into it, but not really all that well, and we met the Gatsbys guys on Warped Tour, and we’re just fans of all the bands on it. It’s a lineup that I’d love to see if I was going to a show because there aren’t really two bands that sound alike, and I love going to shows like that. Kids that come for us or Cartel may have not heard Copeland or Gatsbys, and to introduce them to a new band is awesome, especially bands like that.

How does it feel to have your most successful tour in quite some time when some people had maybe written you off?

It’s cool man. The fans are there and it’s proof that good work ethic and grassroots touring makes real fans. Kids support the record, although our record label hadn’t and didn’t really get it out there in full force, but our core audience seems to really like the record or people who didn’t like the last record might like Based On a True Story. It all comes down to the songs, and if people connect with the songs, they’ll support your band.

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Interview: Brett Detar of The Juliana Theory

The Juliana Theory

Brett, first off, I want to say thank you for taking the time to do this interview. You’re music has been a huge inspiration to me, as well as many of the readers on absolutepunk.net.

Thank you! It’s no problem at all. 

I think the first question on everyone’s mind, is will ever see a farewell tour, or maybe a farewell show? 

Well Caleb, unfortunately for the kids who wanted to see us one last time in the States, our final show was in Cologne, Germany. We did not want to do a farewell tour because the last thing we wanted to do was to prolong our breakup. It’s been rough enough just breaking up, let alone 6 weeks of shows under that knowledge. Also, there were a lot of logistical things that got in the way of doing one final show Stateside. 

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Interview: Matt Squire

Matt Squire

This interview was conducted via email on January 14th, 2006 with record producer Matt Squire (Northstar, The Receiving End of Sirens, Panic! At the Disco, The Junior Varsity, Hit the Lights, etc., etc., etc). I don’t know how to thank Matt enough for the work he put into this interview. It was extremely long, he’s a busy man, and yet he still came up with detailed, thorough answers.

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Interview: Vinnie Fiorello of Less Than Jake

Less Than Jake

Hey, Vinnie. It’s nice to have you here again for round two of the “Brandon vs. Vinnie Interview Series”. What’s been happening since the last time we sat down?

Well, we are in the studio recording our new record in North Hollywood. It’s been 18 days so far. Howard Benson is producing it. He did our Hello Rockview record, but also POD, My Chemical Romance, Motorhead, Papa Roach, Rooney, and The All-American Rejects. It’s going fast. We are almost done.

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Interview: Ryan Ross of Panic! at the Disco

Panic! at the Disco

How exactly did the band come about and what made you want to start one in the first place?

Well I have known Spencer, our drummer for most of my life, and I met Brent in high school, he transferred schools in his junior year, and met Brendon in their senior year. We had him come to a band practice to try out for guitar, I actually started out as the singer, and in one of those early practices we had him sing for some reason and found out he had a much better voice than I did.

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Interview: Mike Green

Mike Green

Thanks to Mike Green for taking the time out of his day(s) to answer these questions for me. I highly suggest reading all of the text below because it’s extremely informing, especially to those who are interested in pursuing careers in the music business. 

How long did it take you to build up your name to the point where you were able to make production your full time job? In other words, when did you realize, “This is my career and this is what I will be doing to pay my bills and survive”?

I always loved recording and have played guitar for 13 years, but never really had any formal training. My formal education was in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley (Go Bears!) class of 2002. I was designing computer chips for a living when I went to a show and saw a then-unsigned band called The Matches play. I loved the band the first time I saw them and told them that I would record them for $100.00. So we ended up working together for nine months for $100.00!! And those sessions are the ones that are on the Epitaph release of their album!

I was very fortunate that The Matches album on which I worked received a lot of recognition. I’m also very appreciative of The Matches because they also took me to a lot of their A&R meetings where I made some of my best contacts. I had so much fun working on the Matches record that I decided to tell my dork boss to “shove it” and I decided to be a producer/engineer/songwriter full-time. It’s like this: if you have no wife, no kids, no mortgage, and no responsibilities, why not do something you love for the rest of your life?

In response to “how long did it take to make a name”, my first real album came out mid 2004 (The Matches), but I’m too shy to say whether or not I’ve “made a name” for myself, so once I’ve made a good enough name you’ll do the math.

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Interview: Kaylan Cloyd of Acceptance

Acceptance

So Phantoms came out a few months ago.

About five months ago. Well, April 26th.

Ok, yeah, that’s five months. So how has life been since then? How has life changed?

How has it changed? I don’t know necessarily that it’s changed. For us, I think, we’ve all been anticipating finally having a full length record out and having it, since we had the EP out and we toured on it for so long. That was like a collection of songs, I mean, some of those were really, really old songs, even at that time we recorded them. For us, the change is just being able to get out there and play stuff that we feel, that we wrote together as a band. With that record, everybody in the band now was there when we made it. Our other songs before, people came into the band after the fact and stuff. We’re just excited that we get to play something that we created. As far as life, I’m not sure how much life has changed. We’re still living in the RV, living in here and on tour all the time. It’s kind of similar, we just get to play different songs now.

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Interview: Andrew McMahon of Jack’s Mannequin

Andrew McMahon

So, you are in a few bands (Something Corporate/Jack’s Mannequin). How did you first start getting involved in music?

Since I was little I was always fascinated by music. Whether I could play or not, I would grab every musical instrument I could get my hands on. Eventually around the age of nine on the heels of my uncle passing away, I found myself at the family piano, writing my first song. From there I never stopped and spend most of my time thinking about music and those rare perfect songs.

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