It’s in this latter category that Pass Away fall. What started life as a side project for members of I Am the Avalanche and Crime in Stereo now feels like a fully realised band, creating the kind of cathartic and emotional punk rock will appeal to fans of The Menzingers, The Flatliners or Iron Chic.

‘Thirty Nine’ is the band’s second album and, while their debut was a short and scrappy affair, this time things feel fuller and more considered; the production far cleaner than that of its predecessor.

For the most part, the songs feel more memorable too. Opening acoustic number ‘Chic’s Beach’ is an odd way to kick things off, though it does do a good job of establishing the heartfelt honesty of the lyricism. Second track and lead single ‘Halloween’ does a far better job at establishing the record’s tone; harbouring a similar energy to bands like Gnarwolves, there’s a welcome sense of familiarity, as well self-deprecation, which would have been a far more fitting way to open proceedings.

Elsewhere, ‘Bartender’s Lament’ provides a slice of Menzinger’s style nostalgia and the most memorable chorus on the record. ‘Bushwick’ is another acoustic offering, though this time feeling far more fitting than the aforementioned opener. Coming at the half-way point it provides some brief respite from the record’s driving punk rock, if not from its angst.

‘Coffin Hands’ and ‘Brooklyn Psychotherapy’ round things off in perfect fashion and are definite highlights. The former a cathartic and rousing number that proves to be the strongest track on the album, the latter a slackery conclusion to the record; the piss and vinegar so often previously masked by inherent self-deprecation now finally erupting in the form of erratic guitars and a snotty vocal delivery.

Packing buckets of promise, ‘Thirty Nine’ is the sound of a band coming into their own, yet it doesn’t quite reach its full potential. While the album highlights are excellent, there are too many moments that feel like filler in comparison. That said, it’s by no means a bad record either. What it is, is an album of plaid shirt punk rock for the craft beer generation. And if, like me, that ticks your boxes, you could do far worse than spending some time with it.

DAVE BEECH

Joining the likes of Hot Water Music, Against Me!, Superchunk, Hum, Rainer Maria, The Movielife and more are the following bands:

Bigwig, Clownvis Presley, Mean Jeans, Crime in Stereo, Radon, Static Radio, Street Eaters, Sweet Cobra, Ducking Punches, The Apology Tour, Meatwound, Taking Meds, Young Ladies, Zeta, Edmonton, Protagonist, Life is a Vacuum, Gusto, OOF, Brown Palace, Consent, Flat Stanley, Loose Bearings, PYRE, Shakers, Widow and Children, and ARMS.

It will take place in Gainesville, Florida between October 27-29. All details and tickets can be found at the official Fest Website. Don’t forget that Pre-Fest will also take place in Little Ybor from the 25th to 26th October!

They join the stacked line up that includes Enter Shikari, who will perform ‘Take To The Skies’ in full, Don Broco, Bowling For Soup, Less Than Jake, Reel Big Fish, We The Kings, Cute Is What We Aim For, Beartooth, Tonight Alive, Against Me!, The Bronx, Goldfinger, Mad Caddies, The Movielife, Trophy Eyes, Like Pacific, Neck Deep, Citizen, Turnover, Deaf Havana, Frank Iero and The Patience, We Are The Ocean, The Maine, Crime In Stereo, Sorority Noise, Too Close To Touch, Seaway, WSTR, Boston Manor, and Stray From The Path  Set It Off, Memphis May Fire, I Prevail, Ice Nine Kills, Oceans Ate Alaska, Crossfaith, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, Waterparks, With Confidence, Milk Teeth, Black Foxxes, Decade, Counterfeit., Fort Hope, SHVPES, Puppy,The Gospel Youth, Ocean Grove, Vukovi, Area 11, Sylar, Homebound, Casey, Makeout, and more.

The festival will take place at three dates across the May Bank Holiday weekend, and the dates for the event’s are below.

Slam Dunk Festival south has now sold out but tickets for the remaining dates are on sale now from the official Slam Dunk website.

May
27 BIRMINGHAM NEC
28 LEEDS City Centre
29 HATFIELD The Forum

The stacked line up includes Enter Shikari, who will perform ‘Take To The Skies’ in full, Don Broco, Bowling For Soup, Less Than Jake, Reel Big Fish, We The Kings, Cute Is What We Aim For, Beartooth, Tonight Alive, Against Me!, The Bronx, Goldfinger, Mad Caddies, The Movielife, Trophy Eyes, Like Pacific, Neck Deep, Citizen, Turnover, Deaf Havana, Frank Iero and The Patience, We Are The Ocean, The Maine, Crime In Stereo, Sorority Noise, Too Close To Touch, Seaway, WSTR, Boston Manor, and Stray From The Path  Set It Off, Memphis May Fire, I Prevail, Ice Nine Kills, Oceans Ate Alaska, Crossfaith, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, Waterparks, With Confidence, Milk Teeth, Black Foxxes, Decade, Counterfeit., Fort Hope, SHVPES, Puppy,The Gospel Youth, Ocean Grove, Vukovi, Area 11, Sylar, Homebound, Casey, Makeout, and more.

The festival will take place at three dates across the May Bank Holiday weekend, and the dates for the event’s are below.

Slam Dunk Festival south has now sold out but tickets for the remaining dates are on sale now from the official Slam Dunk website.

May
27 BIRMINGHAM NEC
28 LEEDS City Centre
29 HATFIELD The Forum

How are you guys doing?

Fantastic!

I heard you just flew in this morning?

Yeah, we got off the plane about three hours ago and we’re onstage in about an hour. We’re feeling kinda brain dead right now! There’s no guarantee any of our equipment works, so that’s something we’re gonna have to look into.

So, how did your return to the UK through Hevy Fest come about?

To be honest with you it’s actually really kinda great, because typically to do a European tour, so much goes into it. There’s so much planning, like travel visas and work permits and lodging and transportation. It’s quite a big production to get a European tour going, but for this they [Hevy] were like: “Do you wanna come over? Come in on Thursday, play on Friday and go home whenever you want” and we were like “Hell yeah! A weekend gig for us”. It’s great.

And what sort of relationship do you guys have with the UK in general?

Oh man, we love it. It’s like a second home. I think we’ve toured here more than anywhere else. To be honest with you, we might have been here more than we’ve been to California, or at least a comparable amount.

What memories have you got of the UK?

A zillion, honestly. We’ve played so many great shows. We played with Sick Of It All in London. We did a sold out Brixton Academy with Four Year Strong and New Found Glory, which was crazy. I think to date that’s our biggest club show we’ve ever played. Playing Download was fun! We got to watch Stone Temple Pilots from side stage and Slash was walking around in his top hat and everything, it was totally surreal. We played our record ‘Troubled Stateside’ in its entirety at The Peel and we’ve never done that anywhere else other than Long Island.

…and onto Crime In Stereo, how does it feel to be a band again?

It’s amazing. Breaking up the band needed to be done, it truly was absolutely something that needed to occur but it was a bad decision… if that makes sense? It was totally the right decision but it was also a bad decision, so having gotten away from it and taken a break, it’s fucking amazing to be back.
You don’t realise how much you miss something obviously until it’s gone. I mean how much a part of our lives Crime In Stereo was for so long. When it was gone, for the first few months it was like, “Ah, I’m home, this is great, this is awesome, I can be a professional now”, then four or five months in I was wondering why I was missing it so much. All our friends would be leaving for tour and we’d be feeling that too.

There must be no substitute for that feeling of being in a band and the buzz of going on tour?

There really isn’t. I’m sure it’s similar to football over here but in America, you hear professional athletes and NFL players say all the time that they have to be forced out. They literally have to tell you, “Ok, you’re done playing” because once you’re done, you’re done and you can never go and get it back, so you should play until they throw you out and that’s I think how we feel. We’re gonna play until just truly nobody cares anymore and nobody can stand us and then you have to force us out because it’s not something you should wilfully give up.
We’ve had friends recently, friends that are in big bands or whatever who have been on the verge of breaking up and we’ve told them “Don’t” because once it’s over, it’s over. The only reason for bands to actually break up is if you truly, personally cannot stand each other, like if you can’t stand to even be in the same room, like if you fucking hate each other then fine, y’know? But as long as you can be somewhat personable and get along, there’s no reason for bands to break up because it’s such a positive experience. What happens is you get burnt out because you’re on the road for ten months out of a year for years at a time. I know it sounds like a lot of fun but you get like, murderous, seriously homicidal.
So yeah, that’s really the thing, for us anyway. Growing up being into hardcore and punk rock, you only know that mentality where you put out a record, you go on tour for two/three years straight, you play everywhere that there ever is to play. You play every show and you stay out on tour for as long as you can and you just do that over and over and over again. That’s all we ever knew so that’s what we did. We kind of realised later that you don’t have to be on tour ten months out of a year. You can still do shows here and there. You can do a festival and still live your life. It’s a much healthier way to do it.
What was really eye opening to me was towards the end before we broke up, we got signed up by this major talent agency. One of the top four talent agencies, I mean the two smallest bands on their roster was us and Baroness, and Baroness are huge. Anyway, the woman who owns this thing was a legend in the music business, she was the one who created OzzFest and the first time we ever sat down with her for a meeting she’s got like reams of data in front of her. She explained that it was all of our numbers; shows we’ve done, ticket sales, CD sales in specific cities, how many people have downloaded the album and where. I had never seen any of that stuff before and had no idea it even existed. She was basically like “Alright, last time on tour you played Cleveland like four times, you sold 20 records there, nobody likes your band there, why do you keep playing there?” and I’m like, “That’s what you do.” That really was my answer, I was almost stunned at her mental approach to it. I explained that’s what you do and she was like: “But why?” And I don’t think it was wrong for us to do that. I do think it was the right thing for us to do at that time but now we’re all in our thirties y’know? So we don’t need to go to Cleveland four times a year, especially if people truly don’t care. I’m not bummed about it! If people want us to play then we totally will but it used to be that every year we’d play all these places and every show would have like sixty kids at it and it wasn’t until somebody asked us if this was really the smartest way to do this? And it’s like no, it clearly isn’t. It’s absolutely nothing against those cities or anything like that, it’s just there is a more efficient, intelligent way to do it other than the general punk rock lifestyle attitude towards it of playing anywhere and everywhere, which is amazing… for like the first seven years and then you just wanna fucking murder everybody on the planet [laughing].

So, people wanna hear about new music that might be on the horizon: do you have an update?

Yes! New music is officially on the horizon. I know we’ve said that a lot but we didn’t mean it insincerely. Basically now that we’ve got adult lives and careers at home, we’ve been trying to figure balancing our lives with doing the band and now we’re in a good place with that. We have studio time booked, we start recording at the end of August through September and October. There will definitely be a new full release, either a long EP or a full length early next year and most likely we’ll have a single or 7” out at the end of this year. I know we’ve said that so it might seem like lip service or whatever but things are officially booked. It takes a lot to get it rolling but the ball is rolling now.

And future UK plans?

Definitely. We have to go back out to California because it’s been a couple of years but then we’re coming back to the UK for sure.

And just a quick word about the Long Island scene, who should we be looking out for?

What’s funny is that all the bands that were coming up and opening for us when we stopped doing this a couple years ago are all fucking gigantic. Bands like Backtrack and Incendiary, they’re huge now. Iron Chic and I Am The Avalanche. To be honest with you I almost feel sheepish trying to answer this question because I’m sure there are a thousand amazing bands that I don’t even know about yet because I don’t have my ear to the ground like I used to.

There’s like two Long Islands: there’s the scene of Long Island kids who are trying to rip off Brand New and Taking Back Sunday and Glassjaw. We love those bands but the bands that they then spawn are not my thing for lack of a better term. And then there’s the real Long Island hardcore scene that spawns the Backtracks, the Iron Chics etc. Which is the scene that put out Brand New and Glassjaw, that’s where they came from. That half of the Long Island scene always puts out phenomenal bands so I’d always encourage people to stay up on that.

CHRIS MARSHMAN

Hevy fest have announced 11 more acts for the August camping weekend festival including Saturday night headliner The Vandals, who’ll be heading over especially to the UK for Hevy in the middle of their US tour. Another UK Exclusive comes in the shape of the reformed Long Island legends Crime In Stereo, with their appearance on the Friday of Hevy being their first in the UK since their 2011 hiatus. Below is the full list of additions to the lineup announced tonight.

The Vandals (UK Exclusive)
Crime In Stereo (UK Exclusive)
Capdown
The Ocean
Amenra
Feed The Rhino
Maybeshewill
Save Your Breath
Apologies, I Have None
Moose Blood
The Murderburgers

Unfortunately, Monuments have had to pull out of this years festival after deciding to embark on their first US tour, postponing their Hevy appearance till next year. Nai Harvest have also had to step out of the lineup due to unavoidable personal commitments. Moose Blood will be taking their place on the line-up.

We are also able to reveal the stage splits for each day:

Friday 15th August

MAIN STAGE
Finch
Kvelertak
Crime in Stereo
Maybeshewill
INVSN
Apologies, I Have None

2ND STAGE
Deez Nuts
Feed The Rhino
Brutality Will Prevail
Texas in July
TRC
Oathbreaker
The One Hundred

3RD STAGE
TesseracT
Amenra
Iwrestledabearonce
Devil Sold His Soul
The Safety Fire
Empire
Counting Days
Terraform

//

Saturday 16th August

MAIN STAGE
The Vandals
Reel Big Fish
Capdown
Save Your Breath
Moose Blood
The Murderburgers

2ND STAGE
Structures
The Ocean
‘68
Empress AD
Dead Harts
The Catharsis

3RD STAGE
Stampin’ Ground
Pay No Respect
Worthwhile
Polar
The Hell
Palm Reader
Show Your Teeth
Lets Talk Daggers

A limited allocation of Tier 1 tickets are currently available for £59. Once these sell out, Tier 2 tickets will be introduced for £69, followed by £79 for Tier 3. Head to their site on the link below to buy tickets.

www.hevyfest.com 

facebook.com/HevyFest
twitter.com/hevyfest

Sharks got us underway with a set that is probably best described as trying to be old school punk. The vocals are belted out with great passion, even if he is at times trying to be a little to Johnny Rotten/Lydon. The majority of the set comprised of short punk songs sung with all the might possible accompanied by plenty of power chords at a decent speed. The penultimate song being the exception from this sound. ?Glove In Hand? was more melodic, longer and generally a bigger sounding effort. It was a solid set without being outstanding but they were definitely the better of the 2 support bands. (3/5)

Wounds, the 2nd support band, rather than the main support, based on the fact they’ve apparently shared order with Sharks on this mini tour are next up.

These guys adopt a sound that tips it’s hat more to the hardcore side of punk and probably ranks as one of the most bizarre sets I’ve ever seen. Never have I seen a lead singer spend the entire set anywhere but on stage. His position ranged from the top of the speakers, just off the stage, to the floor, to the top of the defunct piano towards the side of the stage, etc. The vocal delivery was equally strange. I don’t recall an occasion where I’ve seen a front man scream his lyrics to the side wall so much, instead of out to the crowd. I can only assume this is nerves as it gets less frequent as the set draws to a close. Intense but very surreal. (2/5)

Crime In Stereo soon arrive to finish off a big helping of live music during this long weekend. The one disappointment being there are little more than 50 in attendance to see it. They start energetically, looking to get the crowd involved/going but initially few respond during ?Not Dead? apart from a handful at the front. Although Animal Pharm a couple of songs further in does seem to have a greater affect and is probably the highlight.

Based on what’s preceded them this evening you’d argue their performance is more ‘conventional’ but that’s not a criticism. Kristian, (vocals) donning his grey hoody throughout, gives it everything and is well received by the crowd who he gives plenty of love back to. They project a level of gratitude that feels like they’re enjoying being in the UK right now. Alex and co. also back him up well and collectively they sound really good tonight.

The majority of the set comprises of tracks from ‘? Is Dead’ and their latest effort ‘I Was Trying To Describe You To Someone’ and they come across mostly in a way that would be more comparable to a ‘Daisy’ Brand New than the earlier days, as they’ve been labeled previously, this is most prevalent in the encore of ‘Exit Halo’.

CiS come across as a band a little lost as to what they want to sound like currently but it’s enjoyable nonetheless. I just feel they’ve lost some artistic direction around where they want to be. I’d definitely like to see them again though. (3.5/5)

Jamie

I’m sure it’s a question you’ve been asked a thousand times, but what’s the story behind the band name?
-No cool story, just some dumb name we came up with at one of our first practice’s in Scotty’s basement way back when.

If you had to describe your sound to someone who isn’t yet a Crime In Stereo convert, how would you sum it up?
-Yikes. We’re a hardcore band, but not in the Sheer Terror/Agnostic Front sense of the term. We definitely don’t have a typical hardcore sound, although a lot of our older stuff has a Dag Nasty/Lifetime slant to it. I would say we’re a hardcore band in the same way that Refused and At The Drive In and Fugazi were hardcore bands, although not sounding like any of those bands per se.

You’ve bounced around various record labels, why have you opted to switch and change for different releases? What attracted you to Bridge 9 for ‘…Is Dead’?
-As a band, we’ve always had a strong belief in what we did, and we’re always just looking for someone who shares that strength of belief. Bridge 9 fit that bill perfectly. We had wanted to be with that label for a long time, and they eventually came around to us, but we were under contract to another label. We found a way to make it work, and everything has been gravy ever since.

The name of the new album is interesting…would it be too obvious to suggest you’ve named the record ‘Is Dead’ to signify a change in sound and the birth of a new band? What are the real reasons behind the album name?
-That basically is the reason behind the album name. Congratulations, you’re clairvoyant.

Which brings me on nicely to the change in sound. The new album seems to have attracted some negative comments by your old-skool fans (at least a few on our forums anyway) about the fact you’ve slowed things down a touch. Why have you moved from the faster, more technical punk sound of your last few records?
-Well, it basically come down to the fact that as musicians, there’s really only so much you can do while playing at breakneck speeds. It gets to the point where you’re doing the same drum beat in every song, the same vocal style, same leads style. There’s no room for experimentation with drum beats or guitar tones when you’re going at light speed. Also, we’ve always been a lyrically oriented band, and it makes it next to impossible to get lyrics the way you want them when you only have a minute and a half to work with, and you have to shout every word at the top of your lungs. We love all our old fast stuff and we still play a bunch of it live. We just wanted to branch out as musicians and see what we could do.

Which bands/albums influenced you during the writing of the new album? On a similar note, for me there are elements of Long Island bands such as early Brand New that would appear to have influenced the songwriting, did you go back to those roots when it came to writing/recording?
-Well, I know there has been a lot of comparison to Brand New with this new record, but I wouldn’t say we’re really influenced by them. They’re great guys and ridiculously talented but we never set out to try and do what they do. However, we do use the same producer, the equally-ridiculously-talented Mike Sapone, and I think Kristian has that “Long Island” voice, which leads to a lot of the BN comparisons. I think Kristian, Jesse, John Nolan, Vin Caruana, a lot of the dudes around here have a very similar sounding voice, all of whom I think were heavily influenced in their early years by Silent Majority’s Tommy Corrigan, and that’s what I think shines through the most, the Silent Majority influence. But to be honest, being consistently compared to Brand New is a compliment, not a criticism. People have tried to criticize us on this record for “seeking out Brand New‘s producer”, but we’ve been with Mike Sapone forever. He produced The Contract and The Troubled Stateside with us. I think we all just grew together at the right time, as musicians, producers, people, whatever. I could never list all the bands that influence us because the 5 guys in this band listen to 5 very different styles of music. If you asked me, this album was influenced by Lifter Puller and Fugazi. If you asked Mike and Kristian they would tell you its Blacklisted and Hot Water Music. So I don’t know..take from it what you can.

How did the recording process go? Who produced the record and why did you opt to use that person? Did you do anything differently from your previous recordings?
-The recording process was actually kind of miserable. I was working and going to grad school at the time, so I would teach high school science from 7:30 to 2:30, go to grad school from 4:30 to 7:30 and then be in the studio from 8pm til like 2:30 am, and get up and go back to work everyday on like 3 or 4 hours sleep. It took us probably 10 weeks to record this record, but we were only in the studio for a handful of hours each day. Mike Sapone helmed the controls once more for this record, and in my opinion, he’s really the best producer on the planet. There’s a reason why all these giant Long Island bands who can afford a zillion dollar guy like Rich Costey or Butch Vig go to Sapone. He’s the best.

Crime In Stereo have always been known for the time and effort that goes into the lyrical content. On previous records much has been made about the political comments made within your songs – would you say you are a political band, or do you think bands don’t talk about politics often enough?
-I don’t like being labeled a political band, because we’re not Anti-Flag or Rage Against The Machine. However, we live in a highly politicized world and to me, it’s like, how can you not think about these things? So, I never set out to write something political, but I think my writing always takes on a socio-economic slant somehow. But also, for the people that know me, those are the kinds of things I’m inclined to talk about anyway. They don’t crop up for me just when I’m writing lyrics.

How do you see the music business model developing in months/years to come? Are you a fan of the MP3 and downloading? Do you think radiohead’s decision to allow people to pick the price is something other bands will consider?
-Yeah, the Radiohead thing was tremendous, as is that album. I think it’s incredible. Anyway, the problem with things like that is that Radiohead is one of the 4 or 5 biggest bands on the planet. You really can’t be successful with their new model unless you already have 5 million fans. So yeah, if you’re Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails and you’ve fulfilled your contract, then this is definitely the future. I think you might start seeing labels doing contract extensions on big artists like they do with athletes, so that they never achieve an independent status. Problem is if you’re not Trent Reznor or Thom Yorke, your small band DOES need the help of a label. Studio time is expensive. Ad space and marketing programs are not only astronomically expensive, but are in a finite quantity, so those front-of-store displays in Best Buy are fought over tooth and nail. Not to mention the industries worst kept secret, that Payola is not only alive and well, it never really went away. The major label model is unfortunately, just a symptom, not the problem itself.

The new record is also available on vinyl – was this important to you when it came to releasing the record? Are you all vinyl nerds?
-Vinyl is crucial. I don’t know what that means, but I heard some kid say it and it sounds appropriate here.

It’s getting to the time where the top 10 lists of the year come out, which records would be high up on your lists for 2007?
-Sheesh. I’m always terrible about these things because I can’t remember what came out more than a few months back. I’ll give it a shot though. I really enjoyed records this year from Nine Inch Nails, Capital, Lifetime, Interpol, Modest Mouse, Bad Religion, Against Me!, Tegan and Sara, Minus the Bear, Blacklisted, Radiohead, Attack in Black, Band of Horses and The Weakerthans. I’m sure I forgot a bunch. Oh yeah, there’s this band Crime in Stereo I’ve been hearing people talk about..

I’m sure it’s a question you’ve been asked a thousand times, but what’s the story behind the band name?
-No cool story, just some dumb name we came up with at one of our first practice’s in Scotty’s basement way back when.

If you had to describe your sound to someone who isn’t yet a Crime In Stereo convert, how would you sum it up?
-Yikes. We’re a hardcore band, but not in the Sheer Terror/Agnostic Front sense of the term. We definitely don’t have a typical hardcore sound, although a lot of our older stuff has a Dag Nasty/Lifetime slant to it. I would say we’re a hardcore band in the same way that Refused and At The Drive In and Fugazi were hardcore bands, although not sounding like any of those bands per se.

You’ve bounced around various record labels, why have you opted to switch and change for different releases? What attracted you to Bridge 9 for ‘…Is Dead’?
-As a band, we’ve always had a strong belief in what we did, and we’re always just looking for someone who shares that strength of belief. Bridge 9 fit that bill perfectly. We had wanted to be with that label for a long time, and they eventually came around to us, but we were under contract to another label. We found a way to make it work, and everything has been gravy ever since.

The name of the new album is interesting…would it be too obvious to suggest you’ve named the record ‘Is Dead’ to signify a change in sound and the birth of a new band? What are the real reasons behind the album name?
-That basically is the reason behind the album name. Congratulations, you’re clairvoyant.

Which brings me on nicely to the change in sound. The new album seems to have attracted some negative comments by your old-skool fans (at least a few on our forums anyway) about the fact you’ve slowed things down a touch. Why have you moved from the faster, more technical punk sound of your last few records?
-Well, it basically come down to the fact that as musicians, there’s really only so much you can do while playing at breakneck speeds. It gets to the point where you’re doing the same drum beat in every song, the same vocal style, same leads style. There’s no room for experimentation with drum beats or guitar tones when you’re going at light speed. Also, we’ve always been a lyrically oriented band, and it makes it next to impossible to get lyrics the way you want them when you only have a minute and a half to work with, and you have to shout every word at the top of your lungs. We love all our old fast stuff and we still play a bunch of it live. We just wanted to branch out as musicians and see what we could do.

Which bands/albums influenced you during the writing of the new album? On a similar note, for me there are elements of Long Island bands such as early Brand New that would appear to have influenced the songwriting, did you go back to those roots when it came to writing/recording?
-Well, I know there has been a lot of comparison to Brand New with this new record, but I wouldn’t say we’re really influenced by them. They’re great guys and ridiculously talented but we never set out to try and do what they do. However, we do use the same producer, the equally-ridiculously-talented Mike Sapone, and I think Kristian has that “Long Island” voice, which leads to a lot of the BN comparisons. I think Kristian, Jesse, John Nolan, Vin Caruana, a lot of the dudes around here have a very similar sounding voice, all of whom I think were heavily influenced in their early years by Silent Majority’s Tommy Corrigan, and that’s what I think shines through the most, the Silent Majority influence. But to be honest, being consistently compared to Brand New is a compliment, not a criticism. People have tried to criticize us on this record for “seeking out Brand New‘s producer”, but we’ve been with Mike Sapone forever. He produced The Contract and The Troubled Stateside with us. I think we all just grew together at the right time, as musicians, producers, people, whatever. I could never list all the bands that influence us because the 5 guys in this band listen to 5 very different styles of music. If you asked me, this album was influenced by Lifter Puller and Fugazi. If you asked Mike and Kristian they would tell you its Blacklisted and Hot Water Music. So I don’t know..take from it what you can.

How did the recording process go? Who produced the record and why did you opt to use that person? Did you do anything differently from your previous recordings?
-The recording process was actually kind of miserable. I was working and going to grad school at the time, so I would teach high school science from 7:30 to 2:30, go to grad school from 4:30 to 7:30 and then be in the studio from 8pm til like 2:30 am, and get up and go back to work everyday on like 3 or 4 hours sleep. It took us probably 10 weeks to record this record, but we were only in the studio for a handful of hours each day. Mike Sapone helmed the controls once more for this record, and in my opinion, he’s really the best producer on the planet. There’s a reason why all these giant Long Island bands who can afford a zillion dollar guy like Rich Costey or Butch Vig go to Sapone. He’s the best.

Crime In Stereo have always been known for the time and effort that goes into the lyrical content. On previous records much has been made about the political comments made within your songs – would you say you are a political band, or do you think bands don’t talk about politics often enough?
-I don’t like being labeled a political band, because we’re not Anti-Flag or Rage Against The Machine. However, we live in a highly politicized world and to me, it’s like, how can you not think about these things? So, I never set out to write something political, but I think my writing always takes on a socio-economic slant somehow. But also, for the people that know me, those are the kinds of things I’m inclined to talk about anyway. They don’t crop up for me just when I’m writing lyrics.

How do you see the music business model developing in months/years to come? Are you a fan of the MP3 and downloading? Do you think radiohead’s decision to allow people to pick the price is something other bands will consider?
-Yeah, the Radiohead thing was tremendous, as is that album. I think it’s incredible. Anyway, the problem with things like that is that Radiohead is one of the 4 or 5 biggest bands on the planet. You really can’t be successful with their new model unless you already have 5 million fans. So yeah, if you’re Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails and you’ve fulfilled your contract, then this is definitely the future. I think you might start seeing labels doing contract extensions on big artists like they do with athletes, so that they never achieve an independent status. Problem is if you’re not Trent Reznor or Thom Yorke, your small band DOES need the help of a label. Studio time is expensive. Ad space and marketing programs are not only astronomically expensive, but are in a finite quantity, so those front-of-store displays in Best Buy are fought over tooth and nail. Not to mention the industries worst kept secret, that Payola is not only alive and well, it never really went away. The major label model is unfortunately, just a symptom, not the problem itself.

The new record is also available on vinyl – was this important to you when it came to releasing the record? Are you all vinyl nerds?
-Vinyl is crucial. I don’t know what that means, but I heard some kid say it and it sounds appropriate here.

It’s getting to the time where the top 10 lists of the year come out, which records would be high up on your lists for 2007?
-Sheesh. I’m always terrible about these things because I can’t remember what came out more than a few months back. I’ll give it a shot though. I really enjoyed records this year from Nine Inch Nails, Capital, Lifetime, Interpol, Modest Mouse, Bad Religion, Against Me!, Tegan and Sara, Minus the Bear, Blacklisted, Radiohead, Attack in Black, Band of Horses and The Weakerthans. I’m sure I forgot a bunch. Oh yeah, there’s this band Crime in Stereo I’ve been hearing people talk about..