Post by meghan on Oct 14, 2008 21:45:31 GMT -5
Interview by Meghan Kearney
First just go ahead and say your name, your band, and what you play.
I’m Cyrus, I play drums in New Found Glory and also another little band called International Super Heroes of Hardcore.
So a couple weeks, you could even say days ago you guys signed to Epitaph?
Yeah it was actually a couple weeks ago; it’s been a couple weeks in the making too but we officially announced it a little bit ago.
What was the process you guys went through to pick which record label you wanted and finally deciding with Epitaph?
Well, it was a little difficult, it’s definitely different this time just because we had options and in the past we’ve been tied to other contracts where you really couldn’t choose anything. So we knew that we wanted to find a label that number one, supported us, number two, understood the whole state of music right now and especially our genre of music, and Epitaph was the only label, like we talked to a couple major labels and stuff like that and ya know, there were a lot of labels interested, but Epitaph was the only one that really stuck out. We went there, we hung out with them and immediately just got it, like they feel like a family and they’re definitely into their music and obviously Brett Gurewitz, the owner he really knows what he’s doing, he’s been around forever, he’s still one of the only labels making money. So it was kind of like a no-brainer for us and we’re really excited to be on Epitaph and our record comes out in February now. So I guess its good!
I read that you guys were trying to steer clear of the major labels now?
Yeah, I mean in a way it was kind of the inevitable. We knew it was gonna happen, we knew that if we talked to major record labels they would treat us like any band out there, and its way different then when we first signed to a major label. It doesn’t matter who you are now-a-days, they wanna do these like 360 deals and all these things where they make money off of other stuff besides just the music. And Epitaph is not a label like that. Epitaph just puts out your CD’s and they make money on the CD’s and so do we, and that’s the way a classic record label works so.
You worked with Mark Hoppus on the new record and he described you guys as being “a whole new band.” What do you think made him feel like this?
Well, I think one of the things actually has really nothing to do with the music, just personally we really feel like almost a new band, not new in the sense that nobody’s ever heard us before, but just like a new start. Ya know we have Epitaph, we have the new label and I think we all just feel at a different point in our lives now where we know what we need to do, we know who we are and we were just trying to find the right home for all of this. So having Mark in there was also part of that picture. We wanted to find a producer that we felt really good with, worked really well with, and somebody that could be there as another person that could give us ideas but not your classic producer that you always see, or just your big name because he’s a big name. Mark is a really good friend of ours, we’ve known him for a long time, so we know he understands us from back in the day and I think there’s a lot of those elements coming back into our record now-a-days and I think its one of the reasons why we’re so excited about it, its because it really blends like the older stuff with a little bit of the newer stuff.
You pretty much answered my next question, how was it working with Mark?
Did anything really exciting happen? Anything crazy?
Well, the best thing about it was just right off the bat jokes galore, ya know we’ve known him forever so there was no pressure at all where you would almost think there would be a lot of pressure to record a record, especially such important of a record. But we also recorded at Mark’s studio and he was able to really help us. We didn’t have a label when we started to record so that sometimes can be weird to people, but he was cool with it, he really believed in us, and again he knows that we know what we can do, we’ve done this before, we’re not a new band, but at the same time we definitely wanted to have somebody else’s opinion on some of these songs and he was able to do that for us.
So what is the process of the new album right now? Are you guys still working on it?
Well, we’re done recording and we’re actually getting mixes right now as we speak, we got another one today so we’re like a third of the way through of the mixing, and we’re right on track for the February release. And its fun for us because we almost haven’t really listened to the songs in a little while, we want to like, leave them. And Neal Avron who is the guy who produced our old stuff is mixing the record so its good to have him back from the past but he was busy with other projects so he just started it now, and to hear these songs again, its sick. We’re actually going inside a lot and playing them on the speakers during sound check on the big, big systems and it’s awesome.
Wait, like now? Inside?
No, no, nobody’s gonna hear it yet! It’s just for us earlier!
Oh okay! What would you guys say you did with the sound on the new album, more towards Nothing Gold Can Stay or more towards newer stuff like Coming Home?
Well I’m really scared to compare this to a certain record or a certain sound because everybody will take that one word or one thing I say and run with it. But I can definitely say it’s different than Coming Home which I know a lot of people, it kind of took them for surprise. The songs on Coming Home are awesome, and there’s nothing wrong with those songs.
We love that record.
I love that record too! I just think that this record is a little faster and a little edgier than Coming Home was. But it still has a lot of the same elements in like the song writing and the choruses and how catchy it is. So that’s where I kind of say that we brought back some of the old, the edginess and the faster tempo songs. You’re gonna find a lot of that on this record but there’s a lot of energy like we always have had. I know playing these new songs live are gonna be INSANE. And again, one of the reasons why we’re so excited!
Would you say it’s a bit like the new EP?
Well, no it doesn’t go that far either. This EP was specifically heavy, almost hardcore sounding and that’s why we added those covers on there. It was a full idea, like let’s play some new songs, but also these are new songs that are very much influenced by these bands, and we had the cover songs. We didn’t want people to think that’s where we’re gonna go, that’s why it was on Bridge 9, it was an EP, it wasn’t full length or on the same label we’re gonna be on now. I think it’s just again, trying to paint a full picture for people, if you don’t know us, that’s another side of us. This is part of the reason why we are who we are and it is some of the elements that you may hear on songs; even songs in the past have some of these elements.
So the album is due out in February, do you have any working titles for it yet?
It’s gonna be called “Not Without A Fight.”
Why’d you guys decide to name it that?
I think it just kind of goes in with the whole idea that we’ve been around for a while and we really feel like a resurgence for us that after eleven years now we’re still relevant. We’re on tours with bands like Four Year Strong, A Day to Remember and ya know, a lot of these bands maybe they first got into bands like us, and it’s almost like another generation. But it makes us feel awesome that we’re still out here and I hope that people don’t just think we’re like the old guys out there. We’re really still trying to do this and we still have so much fun every night playing not just old songs, but new songs. I think if anything you can take the “Not without a fight,” like we’re not going down without a fight, and we’re still here.
I have a few ISHC questions, obviously the sound is a lot different from New Found Glory, what else would you say is different from performing as New Found Glory?
Well it gives us a chance to not really worry about the New Found stuff and almost take on different characters. I mean we name ourselves after characters. We don’t take it too seriously, that’s another thing. It’s very fun. Its fun to play fast, fast songs. The set goes by extremely fast, like I think we only played for twelve minutes in there or something like that. But it’s just another outlet to almost express where we came from again. We’ve always been fans of hardcore music but people would die if they heard New Found just sound like that. So this is a way for us to go “ok it’s not New Found, its still the same people but its just a different thing.” And then the lyrics too are really fun, we don’t take the lyrics seriously but we do talk about serious things, ya know, its way different than your average hardcore band.
I also read that there’s going to be a new EP or album from ISHC with a title about Harry Potter?
Yes.
I’m obsessed with Harry Potter so I have to ask about it. “Harry Potter is Hardcore?”
Yes. You got it. Harry Potter’s Hardcore! Don’t tell the author that!
That’s very cool.
It’s just another release and we’re gonna have more songs come out on that. We’ve recorded a bunch of stuff for ISHC so you’ll randomly hear it. It may just be an EP or a 7”, but yeah, you’ll be able to find it.
Record label wise what is ISHC going to do? Will ISHC go over to Epitaph with you? I know right now they are on Bridge Nine.
I think ISHC for as long as we can we’re gonna try and keep it a separate thing. That’s something that definitely has no reason to be on a major label or have any of that kind of stuff to do with New Found, like its almost as if we want it to be a completely separate band, but we cant escape the whole New Found thing. So touring wise its almost always going to be New Found with ISHC playing, and record labels we’re definitely gonna do what we want to do.
During your ISHC set you were playing with hoodies over your heads or wigs. When you perform as ISHC do you try to act like you’re not New Found Glory? Ya know some of these kids might not even know its you…
I don’t know if its necessarily trying to fool people or anything just we want to make sure people don’t think “this is New Found,” so if somebody walks in and they’ve seen our faces before, maybe not heard our music, they may get confused. And we want to make sure we have New Found as one thing and ISHC as the other thing. And again it goes into the whole not taking it to seriously and having fun. So if I can hide behind a mask why not?
Lastly, what are you guys as a band listening to right now?
Oh, you’re gonna get a looooooot of different answers on that one!
Well just pick your fave right now.
I really don’t even have a favorite. When I go out on tour its weird, I don’t listen to the radio at all, so it’s all these bands. I was a fan of Four Year Strong coming in. I listened to Day to Remember coming in. All this music I think when you go on tour like changes, you definitely become a fan of a lot of their stuff cause you hear it all the time. But they’re really good songs. So bands like Four Year Strong, Set Your Goals, I love guys like that. I also listen to a lot of hip-hop but there’s no reason to get into that, it just makes me a little different, anyway, I listen to random stuff.
Well that’s all so if you have anything else you want to say feel free.
Buy our record in February when it comes out and we’re gonna be back out on tour in the spring I think.
All over?
Yes definitely U.S. in the spring. We’re going to South America and Europe next month, and I think Australia and stuff in January. World travelers but at the same time we’ll be back in the spring!
First just go ahead and say your name, your band, and what you play.
I’m Cyrus, I play drums in New Found Glory and also another little band called International Super Heroes of Hardcore.
So a couple weeks, you could even say days ago you guys signed to Epitaph?
Yeah it was actually a couple weeks ago; it’s been a couple weeks in the making too but we officially announced it a little bit ago.
What was the process you guys went through to pick which record label you wanted and finally deciding with Epitaph?
Well, it was a little difficult, it’s definitely different this time just because we had options and in the past we’ve been tied to other contracts where you really couldn’t choose anything. So we knew that we wanted to find a label that number one, supported us, number two, understood the whole state of music right now and especially our genre of music, and Epitaph was the only label, like we talked to a couple major labels and stuff like that and ya know, there were a lot of labels interested, but Epitaph was the only one that really stuck out. We went there, we hung out with them and immediately just got it, like they feel like a family and they’re definitely into their music and obviously Brett Gurewitz, the owner he really knows what he’s doing, he’s been around forever, he’s still one of the only labels making money. So it was kind of like a no-brainer for us and we’re really excited to be on Epitaph and our record comes out in February now. So I guess its good!
I read that you guys were trying to steer clear of the major labels now?
Yeah, I mean in a way it was kind of the inevitable. We knew it was gonna happen, we knew that if we talked to major record labels they would treat us like any band out there, and its way different then when we first signed to a major label. It doesn’t matter who you are now-a-days, they wanna do these like 360 deals and all these things where they make money off of other stuff besides just the music. And Epitaph is not a label like that. Epitaph just puts out your CD’s and they make money on the CD’s and so do we, and that’s the way a classic record label works so.
You worked with Mark Hoppus on the new record and he described you guys as being “a whole new band.” What do you think made him feel like this?
Well, I think one of the things actually has really nothing to do with the music, just personally we really feel like almost a new band, not new in the sense that nobody’s ever heard us before, but just like a new start. Ya know we have Epitaph, we have the new label and I think we all just feel at a different point in our lives now where we know what we need to do, we know who we are and we were just trying to find the right home for all of this. So having Mark in there was also part of that picture. We wanted to find a producer that we felt really good with, worked really well with, and somebody that could be there as another person that could give us ideas but not your classic producer that you always see, or just your big name because he’s a big name. Mark is a really good friend of ours, we’ve known him for a long time, so we know he understands us from back in the day and I think there’s a lot of those elements coming back into our record now-a-days and I think its one of the reasons why we’re so excited about it, its because it really blends like the older stuff with a little bit of the newer stuff.
You pretty much answered my next question, how was it working with Mark?
Did anything really exciting happen? Anything crazy?
Well, the best thing about it was just right off the bat jokes galore, ya know we’ve known him forever so there was no pressure at all where you would almost think there would be a lot of pressure to record a record, especially such important of a record. But we also recorded at Mark’s studio and he was able to really help us. We didn’t have a label when we started to record so that sometimes can be weird to people, but he was cool with it, he really believed in us, and again he knows that we know what we can do, we’ve done this before, we’re not a new band, but at the same time we definitely wanted to have somebody else’s opinion on some of these songs and he was able to do that for us.
So what is the process of the new album right now? Are you guys still working on it?
Well, we’re done recording and we’re actually getting mixes right now as we speak, we got another one today so we’re like a third of the way through of the mixing, and we’re right on track for the February release. And its fun for us because we almost haven’t really listened to the songs in a little while, we want to like, leave them. And Neal Avron who is the guy who produced our old stuff is mixing the record so its good to have him back from the past but he was busy with other projects so he just started it now, and to hear these songs again, its sick. We’re actually going inside a lot and playing them on the speakers during sound check on the big, big systems and it’s awesome.
Wait, like now? Inside?
No, no, nobody’s gonna hear it yet! It’s just for us earlier!
Oh okay! What would you guys say you did with the sound on the new album, more towards Nothing Gold Can Stay or more towards newer stuff like Coming Home?
Well I’m really scared to compare this to a certain record or a certain sound because everybody will take that one word or one thing I say and run with it. But I can definitely say it’s different than Coming Home which I know a lot of people, it kind of took them for surprise. The songs on Coming Home are awesome, and there’s nothing wrong with those songs.
We love that record.
I love that record too! I just think that this record is a little faster and a little edgier than Coming Home was. But it still has a lot of the same elements in like the song writing and the choruses and how catchy it is. So that’s where I kind of say that we brought back some of the old, the edginess and the faster tempo songs. You’re gonna find a lot of that on this record but there’s a lot of energy like we always have had. I know playing these new songs live are gonna be INSANE. And again, one of the reasons why we’re so excited!
Would you say it’s a bit like the new EP?
Well, no it doesn’t go that far either. This EP was specifically heavy, almost hardcore sounding and that’s why we added those covers on there. It was a full idea, like let’s play some new songs, but also these are new songs that are very much influenced by these bands, and we had the cover songs. We didn’t want people to think that’s where we’re gonna go, that’s why it was on Bridge 9, it was an EP, it wasn’t full length or on the same label we’re gonna be on now. I think it’s just again, trying to paint a full picture for people, if you don’t know us, that’s another side of us. This is part of the reason why we are who we are and it is some of the elements that you may hear on songs; even songs in the past have some of these elements.
So the album is due out in February, do you have any working titles for it yet?
It’s gonna be called “Not Without A Fight.”
Why’d you guys decide to name it that?
I think it just kind of goes in with the whole idea that we’ve been around for a while and we really feel like a resurgence for us that after eleven years now we’re still relevant. We’re on tours with bands like Four Year Strong, A Day to Remember and ya know, a lot of these bands maybe they first got into bands like us, and it’s almost like another generation. But it makes us feel awesome that we’re still out here and I hope that people don’t just think we’re like the old guys out there. We’re really still trying to do this and we still have so much fun every night playing not just old songs, but new songs. I think if anything you can take the “Not without a fight,” like we’re not going down without a fight, and we’re still here.
I have a few ISHC questions, obviously the sound is a lot different from New Found Glory, what else would you say is different from performing as New Found Glory?
Well it gives us a chance to not really worry about the New Found stuff and almost take on different characters. I mean we name ourselves after characters. We don’t take it too seriously, that’s another thing. It’s very fun. Its fun to play fast, fast songs. The set goes by extremely fast, like I think we only played for twelve minutes in there or something like that. But it’s just another outlet to almost express where we came from again. We’ve always been fans of hardcore music but people would die if they heard New Found just sound like that. So this is a way for us to go “ok it’s not New Found, its still the same people but its just a different thing.” And then the lyrics too are really fun, we don’t take the lyrics seriously but we do talk about serious things, ya know, its way different than your average hardcore band.
I also read that there’s going to be a new EP or album from ISHC with a title about Harry Potter?
Yes.
I’m obsessed with Harry Potter so I have to ask about it. “Harry Potter is Hardcore?”
Yes. You got it. Harry Potter’s Hardcore! Don’t tell the author that!
That’s very cool.
It’s just another release and we’re gonna have more songs come out on that. We’ve recorded a bunch of stuff for ISHC so you’ll randomly hear it. It may just be an EP or a 7”, but yeah, you’ll be able to find it.
Record label wise what is ISHC going to do? Will ISHC go over to Epitaph with you? I know right now they are on Bridge Nine.
I think ISHC for as long as we can we’re gonna try and keep it a separate thing. That’s something that definitely has no reason to be on a major label or have any of that kind of stuff to do with New Found, like its almost as if we want it to be a completely separate band, but we cant escape the whole New Found thing. So touring wise its almost always going to be New Found with ISHC playing, and record labels we’re definitely gonna do what we want to do.
During your ISHC set you were playing with hoodies over your heads or wigs. When you perform as ISHC do you try to act like you’re not New Found Glory? Ya know some of these kids might not even know its you…
I don’t know if its necessarily trying to fool people or anything just we want to make sure people don’t think “this is New Found,” so if somebody walks in and they’ve seen our faces before, maybe not heard our music, they may get confused. And we want to make sure we have New Found as one thing and ISHC as the other thing. And again it goes into the whole not taking it to seriously and having fun. So if I can hide behind a mask why not?
Lastly, what are you guys as a band listening to right now?
Oh, you’re gonna get a looooooot of different answers on that one!
Well just pick your fave right now.
I really don’t even have a favorite. When I go out on tour its weird, I don’t listen to the radio at all, so it’s all these bands. I was a fan of Four Year Strong coming in. I listened to Day to Remember coming in. All this music I think when you go on tour like changes, you definitely become a fan of a lot of their stuff cause you hear it all the time. But they’re really good songs. So bands like Four Year Strong, Set Your Goals, I love guys like that. I also listen to a lot of hip-hop but there’s no reason to get into that, it just makes me a little different, anyway, I listen to random stuff.
Well that’s all so if you have anything else you want to say feel free.
Buy our record in February when it comes out and we’re gonna be back out on tour in the spring I think.
All over?
Yes definitely U.S. in the spring. We’re going to South America and Europe next month, and I think Australia and stuff in January. World travelers but at the same time we’ll be back in the spring!