sandiegopunk.com
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SDP: So I guess let's start off with
who you are and what you do. |
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Jesse: Um, It's true. We're actually named after a lactating contortionist. She's a stripper from Nevada, and we got the name because Dallas, our singer/guitar player was watching the Discovery Channel and it had some uh some program on contortionism in general, and then they had this whole thing about a stripper who brought it into her act, and her stage name was "Alexis Fire" and I guess the name of the segment was "Alexis ON Fire" so we stole that, and about a month or two after we got the band name and were getting the website up and we got an email from the webmaster asking us to take down the website because she had the name copyrighted and all this and that, and it turns out they were lying to us, so we've gone ahead and trademarked the name and we've had no problems since, and I'm sure she's had lots of hits from kids not knowing that our website is actually NOT alexisonfire.com so there it is.
SDP: Yeah I've noticed your myspace account, you guys have been on there just about a month and have something like 1500 kids on there.
George: That's funny, because we didn't start that. I have no idea how we got on that.
SDP: That's not you guys?
George: No, that's not us. Any friendster or myspace thing, we don't really buy into that shit. I don't even own a computer. I mean it seems like a cool site if people wanna like do that for us.
SDP: It's funny, the main one says "The only official site for Alexisonfire" and has like the name of your manager and things like that.
Jesse: Hmmmm, maybe our manager or the label set it up.
SDP: You guys released an album Watch Outabout a year ago, last May, right?
George: Uhhhhh yeah, June?
Jesse: May in Canada, June in the States I think.
SDP: I hear that the album went gold in Canada?
George: Yup, I mean we get like video support in Canada a lot, we have something like, five music videos, and they've been really, really supportive. It's been really crazy, and they've really helped us out a lot, to be a band that's got a gold record without radio play and just having our video played on Much Music is pretty unbelievable for us.
Jesse: Also being the type of band that we are make it more amazing, and first of all getting video play in general is pretty unbelievable, the fact that we have a gold record now, it's just...
SDP: How do you guys feel knowing that you've done what most bands with major media backing, such as MTV, and radio can't even do?
George: Well first of all, a gold record in the United States is different than a gold record in Canada. In Canada it's 50,000. You know Canada has like, a tenth the population than the US, so yeah. I mean, per capita we're big in Canada but compared to here it's not that uhhh... But still no one has sold gold in Canada in this genre.
SDP: So how's the tour going so far? You're on the road with Rise Against, Only Crime and Tsunami Bomb.
George: It's been really really cool, like everybody's been, everybody's really awesome, like we're playing to a lot of newer audiences, a lot of people who haven't seen us before, and the response from them has been, we're selling a lot of CDs which we don't normally do as much of, it's been really good, it's been really fun, all the bands on the tour really all just get along and stuff.
SDP: So what do you guys plan on doing after this tour?
George: Well this tour goes on for about a week and 1/2? Then we got.... We're kinda like home and back, or home and kinda like out on tour, back at home, out on tour back at home up until warped tour and then and then we're gunna, we're pretty much going to be touring constantly with a few dates here off here and there, but uh, until uh at least I think August maybe? And then we're gunna take August off to uh write and record.
Jesse: So a whole bunch of well deserved....3 months off?
George: We'll probably take a lot of time off..... We deserve it we've been going for a year and a half straight so...
SDP: On the new album there's a song called "Get Fighted" and it kind of seems like you guys are speaking out against the fashion core, scene style and everything like that, which is basically every kid in the scene right now, or at least the San Diego scene, what's the song about really?
George: I don't necessarily have a problem with people dressing how they wanna dress because they can do whatever the fuck they want, that song's just more, that song's about, how dancing at shows is more fun than dressing up to go to shows like, that song is about people who go to shows with the...you know the people who are there to fuckin socialize, and you know they obviously don't give a shit about the music but it's just something to do every fuckin' Friday night, then they go out and they're like "Oh yeah, oh yeah, OMG look at my brand new fucking...you know my brand new white belt and I wanna go show off to all my friends." And like I don't know... You know, "look how good my hair looks today and I wanna go out and.." yeah that shit, that shit is fuckin lame! Those kids, those kids are all gunna be gone in three years anyways they're all gunna have fuckin' cocaine addictions or fuckin you know? They're all gunna be GONE! But at the same time, I dunno, at the same time they can do whatever they want. Look I don't wanna criminalize anyone dressing how they wanna dress, they're there, but they don't care about the music you know? I don't know, ya know? They're just taking up space I'd rather see passion in kids than fuckin' pretty haircuts and pretentious bullshit. Taking tickets away from kids who actually wanna be there.
SDP: So is there a big difference in Canadian fans and US fans?
George: Kids are kids, I mean, kids are kids no matter where you are, and stuff like that. I think Canada, I think a lot of kids they're not exposed to a lot of the scene kind of stuff, like the hardcore and the screamo and the punk they just know they're kind of music, and if they don't know how to dance, you know like they're not aware of like the moshing and the swinging your arms and stuff, they don't freak out they just let their bodies react to music however they feel and whatever happens happens, they just go in and have as much fun as they can. And don't care what people think about them. I think America definitely has a lot more of the fashion of the population and the scene where yeah, you get the kids who LOOK LIKE they know everything about the music they're listening to, and you know you get all the kids coming out who look like screamo hardcore kids where in Canada, at least for us now, I think we've alienated most of that fan base, and all the kids who are into that are too cool for school for us and get mad because we get played on Much Music and we've gotten a much younger fan base, like, under 12 is when they start coming and it's awesome! I mean there's a lot younger kids at shows sometimes and it's fun, and at the same time I can relate to those kids cuz when I was 15 years old I was the kid at the show that didn't know SHIT. I was there, dancing like a moron and I'm sure all the older kids were lookin' at me goin' like "that kid is a fuckin' nerd, he doesn't know, like "oh look at him dance he doesn't know anything." But yeah we were there, I didn't know anything but that was the fun part, that was great! You know no one comes into the scene knowing everything dude, I dunno.
SDP: So what kinds of shows were you out being a nerd at 15?
George: Punk shows, all kinds of punk shows, Anti-Flag, Fat Records bands. Local shows with our friends etc.
SDP: Well the new album is Watch Out, it's on Equal Vision Records, you guys are on tour....forever.
Jesse: *Laughs* Yeah check the website www.theonlybandever.com
SDP: Any closing words?
George: Uhhhhhhh giggle weasle hahaha. San Diego, "Saun" Diego possibly, the greatest city in the history of time, German's founded it. San Diego is German for "a whale's vagina" *laughs* that's it. Oh! Stay sweet hahahaha!
Alexisonfire interview conducted
February 2005 by Matt Smith.
(Thanks to Greg at Equal Vision for setting it up!)
Pictures courtesy of equalvision.com.
http://www.theonlybandever.com
http://www.equalvision.com
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