Untitled Document

Sara: For the record state your name and what you do in Say Anything.
Alex: I’m Alex, and I play bass
Parker: I’m Parker and I play keyboard.

Sara: So Parker…
Parker: Yup!
Sara: How is I and The Universe going?
Parker: It’s going good actually, we, we as in me, we’ve been pretty busy wouldn’t you say?
Alex: No.
[Everyone laughs]
Parker: Shut up!
Alex: We have been busy, you’ve not been busy with I And The Universe.
Parker: No, but we’ve been on tour enough where it’s like, at this point, it’s like we go on tour it’s a lot of this [plays air drums] and a lot of this [plays air bass] and a lot of this [plays air bass and drums] then like a lot of singing and stuff, and then I go home and then it’s like.
Alex: I don’t have time.
Parker: I’m not like in the mood to do that right when I get home. It’s like if I have a week between tours, 2 weeks, it’s like gosh, I want to live a normal life and go hang out with friends
Alex: Eat sushi
Parker: Yeah, go eat sushi, like be normal. But! Having said that, this fall, the talk is all of us will be going and doing out side project ventures. Alexander T. Kent, XO is Jeff and Jake, and then Coby and Max’s band, Two Tongues. If that was to happen then I would probably record a record myself.
Alex: Sweet.
Parker: It is.

Sara: Now, for Alex’s question, how is Gnome Records going?
Alex: Pretty good. We pressed a Boomsnake LP in May, which you saw. [everyone laughs] Boomsnake is touring thoroughly throughout the summer, mostly west coast, and northwest regional. Kind of 2 to 3 week situations and then they will be hopefully touring off of that until we sell 500 of the records. And then we pressed a Snuffaluffagus 7-inch and he is on tour right now.
Sara: Yeah and I went to that show!
Alex: Oh! You did? Was it good?
Sara: Yeah it was.
Alex: Okay, cool. And then…
Parker: Aminals?
Alex: Aminals. Yup. And that’s kind of it, pressed the records and we’ll see how they do the rest of the year.
Sara: Any plans this summer?
Alex: Um, I want to get a good website together, some other stuff, figure some shit out but just kind of taking it easy.

Cath: Well, I don’t know the answer to this, but Sara probably does, but I am going to ask it anyways, what made you decide to start your own record label?
Alex: Me?
Cath: Yeah.
Alex: To help my friends out!
Cath: Yeah?
Alex: Yeah, all my good friends are really good musicians and I have not, that many resources and a little bit of financial help to help them to work towards something cause you know it’s kind of hard to get a start in general in the music industry. It’s not like I’m that much of a help but if I can even help a little bit it feels good to help my friends out.

Sara: Your turn or mine?
Cath: I don’t know
Alex: Ask 2 questions each!
Sara: Yeah, cause I already started that
[Parker passes out candy to everyone]
Olivia:: You are like a candy man.
Cath: I don’t know what to do because I want to eat this but I want to ask the question at the same time.
Parker: The candy man from Willy Wonka, the original candy man from the original Willy Wonka…
Olivia:: The creepy guy?
Parker: No, not Gene Wilder. The candy man from the original.
Sara and Alex: [sing] The candy man can…
Parker: And he is like in this store and is all like [creepy voice] “check out all this fucking candy”
[Everyone laughs]
Olivia:: That’s really creepy.
Parker: What a weird hat.

Cath: This is a Parker focused question.
Parker: Parker focused!
Cath: Yeah! I read in an interview that you did with Rolling Stone that you and Jeff are in a hair-growing bet for Warped Tour, and I know the tour has just started but do you think you are going to make it? And who do you think will back down first?
Parker: This is awesome I can get my digs in right now.
[Everyone laughs]
Parker: I mean honestly, reality is, he is a strong, strong, component, he’s got a level of pride
Alex: And drive
Parker: And drive, that I have not seen in a long long time.
Alex: Since Bill Clinton.
[Everyone laughs]
Parker: So the only thing, my only option, I think left at this point is to somehow mentally spin him out of control. Do something, that maybe, might freak him out. So, there is a Manic Panic booth here and they make hair dye. I might dye my hair some crazy ass color the entire thing, half-way through the tour, maybe it will spin him out of control, maybe he won’t know what to do, and maybe he’ll put scissor to his hair. Or maybe he’ll trim his sideburns or something.
Alex: I think both of you will last but if anybody pussed out it would be you for sure.
Parker: I think I might put some hair color in it and see what happens.
Alex: I’d be really proud of you if you made it all the way.
Parker: Would you do something if I did something?
Alex: Hair…. Dye….?
Parker: Yeah!
Alex: I don’t know.
Parker: Just a little bit
Alex: I’m not a hair dye guy.
Parker: Like a ¾ Jeffree Star
[Everyone laughs]
Alex: Yeah.
Parker: Like almost bright pink
Alex: I’ll think about it.
Olivia:: His hair is lighter so it would be even, that much brighter.
Sara: You could go with a nice blue.
Alex: Yeah, like an electric blue.
Cath: You could get streaks maybe, that would be sweet.
Sara: Yeah, highlighted blue
Alex: Yeah
Cath: That would be interesting…

Sara: Okay let’s go back to the interview… what would you change about the current music scene?
Parker: Um, the only problem I have with the current music scene is that there are too many bands and I don’t know how to figure the ones I like, so maybe bands need to have more tags associated with them.
[Silence][Laughter]
Parker: You know what I’m saying?
Alex: You mean more genres?
Parker: When you tag photos and it’s like Florida, trip, camping, river rafting, ore, squeeze my little brother, whatever. You know what I mean? Maybe there should be that for bands, where it like totally nails down exactly what they sound like. There are so many new bands that come out, they have like a cool name, I go by names, that sucks! You know, you can’t judge a book by its cover. It could be like the Pizza Boys and they could rule. Okay.
Alex: Um, I think that the way that the scene is really fashion driven and everyone kind of seems to be conceptually self involved, I think that there needs to be a lot less scum in the industry, signing really shitty bands, who in turn getting on fucking tours like Warped Tour like I don’t know. I just think that there are a lot of people that aren’t passionate and I wish that people would be more passionate about music.

Sara: So you recently finished touring with Weatherbox and Manchester Orchestra, how’d that go? Since I wasn’t there.
Parker: It was great.
Sara: Good, way to break my heart more.
Alex: Yeah, I hate to break your heart, but it was fucking awesome. Definitely the best tour…
Parker: Weatherbox stole the show dude.
Alex: I’m a big Weatherbox fan.
Parker: I am too, I watched them every night almost.
Alex: It’s really fun to take out bands that you can watch every night, or you can be on tours with bands that you can watch everyday because there have been tours that we’ve done…
Parker: You played every night with them
Alex: Yeah, that was exciting.
Parker: You got to go play guitar with them
Alex: I’ve been friends with Brian from Weatherbox since like 5th grade.
Parker: So it was like being on tour with friends, like since you were such good friends, I was entitled to be pretty good friends with them.
Alex: Yeah, yeah!
Parker: Cause like… connections.
Alex: Yeah, so easy.
Parker: And Manchester Orchestra we had already been on tour with.
Alex: And you know what…
Parker: And Biffy Clyro… we made amazing friends with
Alex: Definitely when you go on tour with a band, like a week, sometimes when you take out like one four a week, and, then like another one for a week, and then like switch it up, sometimes there comes a band that you make really good friends with, like Manchester Orchestra we took out, we did co-headline with Saves The Day, they came out for like nine or eleven days or something and we made such good friend with them that we had to have them back out another time cause they are so good and just such amazing people, and so that was really awesome. Biffy Clyro is fucking amazing, I mean it’s so weird because you don’t really realize how big they are in Europe, I mean like…
Parker: UK!
Alex: They draw like I don’t even literally know the statistics, but like 3 to 7 thousand, just like fucking huge, and there were like 2 to 4 on our tour. It’s hard for some bands have a hard time breaking in America you know what I mean? But I’m sure they are going to obviously, they are fucking amazing but uh, it was a really great tour.
Sara: Good!

Cathy Um, speaking of touring, do you have any funny or interesting tour stories you’d be willing to share.
Alex: I don’t know, what’s a good funny tour story?
Parker: Jake bought white pants. I don’t know we’ve got a million, I mean
Alex: So many…
Parker: What level do you want? You know?
Alex: So many things happen that you can’t really, like pinpoint any one them, but the ones that you remember in your head aren’t like not…
Sara: Appropriate?
Alex: Appropriate. Literally. I’m not talking about like naked chicks! I’m just like talking about like appropriate, just like not appropriate in general. I’ve actually mentioned this one that was inappropriate before and someone got mad at me because I wasn’t supposed to mention it but uh, I’m sure there would be some, I don’t know… can you think of any?
Parker: No…
Alex: Sorry…sorry!
Parker: Oh! Well... we hit a bull once. We smashed into a bull, the bus they slammed on the breaks and hit a bull’s head and kill it.
Sara: Dinner?
Parker: And we were like “Oh my God!” And there was blood everywhere and the door was all messed up and we were like “what did he hit?” and he was like “A bull!” But he was Canadian so he said it was no big deal, he hits moose all the time.
Sara: Okay….
Cath: I don’t have anything to say to that.
Parker: Wow, Anberlin has their own sunglass company.
Alex: No!
Cath: They are just Anberlin sunglasses!
Sara: I had Limbeck sunglasses!
Olivia:: I think Cobra Starship had some too.
Sara: Limbeck started them!
Parker: Who?
Sara: Limbeck
Parker: Ohhh, I love Limbeck.
Sara: No, no, no, I LOVE Limbeck.
Cath: We love Limbeck
Sara: …We love Limbeck.
Parker: They are my friends… Robb from Limbeck recorded like my first band’s demo in house.
Sara: Oh... well…
Cath: Have you seen Jon Cheese? He’s here.
Parker: Yup!
Alex: Yep!
Parker: Today! We were playing and Jon Cheese had a fucking giant sign that said like “buy tour comp CDs” or whatever and he was out there and he was like “YEAAH!!” and I was looking at him [does eye to eye hand motion] [everyone laughs] he was so far away, at like the sound booth, and I could see him, it was so cool. The other day he was like trying to sell someone a CD and like he was like showing him it and I was “Shut up!” I like screamed it and went right by him, and he was like “what?” and then he was saw me and was like “oh you” He’s so cool man, he’s like everyone’s friend. You remember seeing the shirts?
Sara: I have his shirt!
Parker: Of course you do. You’re a Limbeck fan, you got to have that shirt.
Sara: I actually got it at the Piebald tour you did.
Parker: No big deal.
Alex: Oh! Cool. Great tour.
Parker: We played a skate park one day.
Alex: Yeaaah! Nashville or something…
Parker: We played the half pipe.
Alex: Oh! Yeah, we played like pretty much in a half pipe, and there was like a full pipe and then like a little stage over here with like stairs above you to go down other ramp
Parker: I thought it was, it was like cool put it was freaking me out because cause like this one guy was rollerblading, cause he went like off the side of the half pipe and then like a full flip and on the other side, like he kept going over us as we played with rollerblades. [Everyone laughs]
Olivia:: That’s pretty awesome…
Alex: Hey Parker, when is the last time you went rollerblading?
Parker: I tried to go like five years ago and then I tried to like stop and I fell. [Everyone laughs] Like I fell badly, I skinned my hand it was like “why did I try to rollerblade again? I should go ice skating! Ice skating is much cooler”
Sara: Literally.
Alex: I try to go ice skating a couple times year but a few years ago for like New Years, I was in New York City, and I went ice skating I was ice skating with my wife, Annie, and we were ice skating around I was like, cause I used to play ice hockey, and I was like “Hey! Watch this” and I was going to show her the whole thing
[Sara laughs]
Alex: Yeah!
Parker: The hockey stop? You were trying the hockey stop.
Alex: Yeah, I was trying the hockey stop.
Parker: Spray a lot of ice. You badass.
Alex: I used to be able to spray it really high.
Parker: Oh! Of course you did.
Alex: And I literally, like, fell down, like really bad and she thought I meant to do it on purpose, and she came over laughing and she was like “ha ha that was really funny!” and I was like “this really hurts!” Yeah, I don’t talk about it with her.

Cath: Okay, what was it like recording “Got Your Money” for the “Punk Goes Crunk” CD and why did you guys choose that song?
Alex: Well! Let’s see… neither of recorded on it.
Parker: Yeah, so.
Alex: I remember when we got the offer, it was awesome. We were in the middle of doing In Defense Of The Genre, when we got that offer, and I had to drive up from San Diego to LA to do it and I was just lazy… I don’t eve know if there is any bass on that song…
Parker: Are you stoned?
Alex: No. I don’t even know if there is any bass on that song, but it’s a good song. Supposedly, we got sued.
Sara: Yeah, I read about that.
Alex: Yeah, so we got sued, so we didn’t actually… it didn’t work out. [Everyone laughs]

Sara: So, how do you think Warped Tour is going to go for you guys?
Parker: Oh, it’s going to be the best thing that we’ve ever done.
[Silence]
Alex: Wow, that’s a statement.
[Everyone laughs]
Parker: But everything we do is the best thing we’ve ever done. Like the next thing we always do, is usually always better. It’s literally been that nonstop. I mean we went from The Bled, we were like playing in these basements and The Bled at like 500 kids come out for them and we had like 100 and 30… 5
Sara: .2
Parker: And it was good but now it’s like, you know different.
Alex: [laughs] Yeah!
Sara: So this is the best interview you’ve ever done?
Alex: Yeah, the best interview we’ve ever done.
Parker: Yeah, exactly, it generally doesn’t ever downgrade right?
Alex: Yeah, it usually gets better. Hopefully, it doesn’t ever downgrade really.
Parker: Yeah, so there you go.

Sara: Is A Real Boy did so well were you at all concerned about the expectation fans were going to have for In Defense Of The Genre since Say Anything became so idolized after that?
Parker: But they liked it.
Sara: huh? [Everyone laughs]
Cath: What was your question?
Sara: I don’t even know.
Alex: Is A Real Boy did so well were we scared of the expectation for In Defense Of The Genre?
Sara: Thank you. I’m glad you understand my gibberish
Cath: Yeah, he was the only one that understood what you were trying to ask.
Parker: People like it so then it’s like instant worry free.
Alex: It was nerve-wracking but exciting just because, as long as I guess you don’t get insecure about, it’s really fun. Recording was fucking really awesome. It’s just like exciting, another album is coming out, it’s been so fucking long and we just knew that it would be good.
Parker: When we first listened to it, in that van in New York, remember?
Alex: Yeah Yeah yeah.
Parker: Then it was like… yeah. This is good.
Alex: It was exciting; everyone is always excited about that kind of shit.
Sara: Did that long wait create any extra pressure?
Alex: Um…it sort of created a little extra pressure but that extra pressure drove us and motivated us, to try harder, etcetera, the album ended up taking us, we started it in January and we were supposed to try and have it done by the end of March, for the Saves The Day tour and then try and get it out sometime that summer and we didn’t, we were barely half done by March, so then we did the Saves The Day tour, then we came back, and I didn’t start my bass until late May and then didn’t finish the whole thing up until like fucking end of July… August, it was still going on, we were adding songs, and cutting songs and still doing all sorts of shit up until like mid-August I think. We took so long, but it just helped us strive to be better.

Cath: If you could choose an animal to be your band mascot what would it be and why?
Alex: Penguin. Easy. No worries. No explanation. Penguin.
Parker: I’ll back that.
Alex: Best animal. I collect what can I say? You choose an animal. I feel like you did kangaroos the other day.
Parker: Hm, I’m more of a giraffe…
Alex: Okay.
Parker: Cause they are like looking up above, and like “everyone is really weird. I’m hungry” [Everyone laughs]
Cath: Good to know you have the mindset of a giraffe
Parker: Yup.

Cath: If you were stuck on a deserted island with no food and no one but your band members who would you eat first and why?
Parker: Jake, cause he takes really good care of his body and probably taste great.
Alex: I’ll stick with what you said.
Parker: I’m just saying, the meat is just like a good, it’d probably be like a prime piece of meat. You know what I mean?
Alex: Yeah…
Laura: I think it’s really awesome that you didn’t hesitate there at all
[Everyone laughs]
Parker: That’s an easy question.

Sara: If you could go back in Say Anything’s history change anything, is there anything you would change?
Alex: Probably, would have kicked Max out a few years ago. [Silence] Just kidding.
Sara: Cricket, cricket.
Alex: No, we wouldn’t change anything, maybe like little things but then we would have to think about it for a while. I would change anything.
Parker: Oh yeah, like I said… downgrade, so it’s like I wouldn’t want to change anything to mess up where we are now. Everything has been like, linked and good.
Alex: Yeah, it’s been great.

Sara: What do you want fans to take away from your music?
Alex: The reason that I joined Say Anything in the first place, before I joined Say Anything I was a really big fan of Say Anything because my old band did a tour with Say Anything 3 or 4 summers ago and just the way that Max writes his songs so passionately and honestly, it’s just an example of, what is good in the music industry today, there is so much bullshit, that when someone comes along who has natural talent in songwriting just, is passionate and you can hear it in the music that he is passionate, you can hear it so well. I want people to take from that, that honesty is important and to be passionate about something in life because a lot of people go through life doing things that they don’t want to be doing, and fuck it do what you want to do as long as you can get by. Whatever is most important to you, be passionate about it, and stick with it.
Parker: Yup. Um, yeah no, it was good because I met a bunch of guys who were really passionate about the same thing and it’s like awesome.
Alex: No bullshit.
Parker: That’s why I like Say Anything cause it’s like again we were talking earlier about fashion, whatever it may be, anything, but like, straight up playing music. There you go.

Sara: Do you have any closing statement?
Alex: Whatever.
Parker: Let’s go watch Angels dude!