Paul: Hi, please introduce yourself and your role in the band!
Yuri: Hi, My name is Yuri. I play drums in the band.
Paul: After a long spell away from the UK you’ve been over a few times in the last couple of years. Was it a conscious decision to not come over? Since you’ve been over have you realised there is a loyal MxPx fanbase and are now making the effort to come back whenever possible?
Yuri: It wasn’t a conscious decision to not come to the UK for so long. We just felt like we didn’t have the support necessary from our labels to make it work. Yes, now we know that people want to come out to our shows, we want to have a stronger presence in the UK.
Paul: Is there a difference between US and UK crowds?
Yuri: I think that UK crowds are more laid back than US crowds. But I think that UK people in general are little more chill, on the whole than Americans.
Paul: You’re on the Good to Go tour, what can we expect from the MxPx punk rock show? Will we hear a selection of old and new songs?
Yuri: With so much material out it’s hard to please everybody by playing their favorite obscure MxPx song. Our philosophy when it comes to making our set lists has always been to play the hits and get out. No, but seriously, we try to play songs that represent the best of the best from the most popular records, and lately we’ve been throwing in as many requests on the fly as possible. I like that part of the set because it’s a little more chaotic because some songs people ask for we haven’t played in years, so it can be kinda scary. But that’s what makes live music fun. Anything can happen.
Paul: When you were writing ‘Secret Weapon’ did you try and set out to do anything differently from your previous records? There had been some criticism that a couple of your recent records, particularly ‘Panic‘, were perhaps a little more melodic than your earlier work. ‘Secret Weapon’ – shifts back to a more aggressive sound. Did the decision to go back to Tooth and Nail and back to your old production team give you the impetus to revert back in style again?
Yuri: Actually we had the idea to get back to our more aggressive style before the whole T&N thing came about. I think we were just ready to kick a little more ass than we had on the last couple of records.
Paul: Are you writing for a further record yet? Can we expect more of this style of music or will you change things around again? What can we expect from MxPx in 2008?
Yuri: We haven’t started writing for our next record yet. We’re working on another cover record at the moment. We’re hoping to have that out this year. Other than that we’re doing a lot of touring, domestic and international.
Paul: You’ve always been prolific in terms of releasing live CDs or b-sides records, do you have anything like that in the pipeline? Another DVD release or covers CD perhaps?
Yuri: We’re working on a few things, we’ve always liked to give our fans a lot of options and it seems like we’ve always got something in the works.
Paul: Realistically, how long do you see yourselves doing MxPx? Not many bands have the longevity or success you’ve had after all!
Yuri: I think we’ll do it as long as we have fans coming to the shows and buying our records. We continue to go to new places, and the world just keeps getting smaller and smaller. But there’s still a lot of the world left for us to play in. There’s always more to do, so there’s never been a reason to stop.
Paul: Do you have any regrets as a band? If you do, what were they and what would you change?
Yuri: I wish I had paid more attention to the business side of things, and that we had kept a tighter reign on the people around us. It’s a common story in this business, and I wish it had been different for us.
Paul: As a band you received the keys to Bremerton, how did that come about?
Yuri: We played a benefit concert for our county’s housing authority, who have been working so hard to bring our run-down city back to life. So since we were part of the whole revitalization effort they gave us the keys to the city.
Paul: Have you found you’ve been treated any differently now you’re home-town ‘celebrities’?
Yuri: Not really, maybe a little bit, but nothing crazy.