Katie Knoche: Name and what you do in the band?
Phil: My name is Phil and I play bass and sing in A Static Lullaby.
Katie: Could you tell me the names of the other band members?
Phil: There is Joe who is the screamer, Dan who sings and plays guitar, Bret 		A Static Lullaby
bangs on the drums, and Nate who also plays the guitar.

K: Who and/or what are some of your influences?
P: Well… other than music, a big influence for our band is life and everyday things that happen. Our biggest influence isn't necessarily from music, but from things that happen to us... Musical influences are probably anything from U2, Deftones, Glassjaw, Jimmy Eat World… wow anything we hear. A lot of bands we tour with influence us (not directly where we will hear a riff then use that riff), but going on tour with a band such as Vendetta Red and seeing how they play live, influences us self-consciously to write in a certain way. When we go on tour with certain bands the way they act, present themselves and play affects us, but mainly are influences are everyday activities, just living… Our influences do not necessarily affect us just lyrically either; it could be just a single note. For example, getting in a car crash could influence you to write a certain note pattern or scale.

K: What are some of the best tours you've been on?
P: This one! This one and the From Autumn to Ashes tour… that was a crazy tour

K: I've heard your music classified under many different genres. What genre would you classify your music under?
P: Just rock n' roll, cause this whole emo, screamo, hardcore whatever is bullshit because that is not what we think we are… We are not saying 'Oh, lets go be a screamo band.' Thursday and Glassjaw are big, but it's not like we say 'lets jump on that sound'… When we formed the band and we were writing songs, at that point we had never even heard of Thursday or Glassjaw... I had just been introduced to Thursday a couple weeks after we formed the band and it is kind of funny how we get thrown into the same genre when we really don't sound like each other. It's just that we use the same combination of singing and screaming yeah know? I would just reiterate our style as rock n' roll with a little more fucking balls to it.

K: How was it creating your first, full, length album, And Don't Forget to Breathe?
P: It was amazing! Working with Steve Evitz (?) was like a dream come true. Every joke we would make he would know and he would crack us up with his jokes; he was into Eddie Murphy standup and South Park, which is our comedic taste, but yeah some of the things that came out of his mouth were the most hilarious shit I have ever heard… He is one of the coolest, down to earth guys too. He was really easy to work with and he made us work when we needed to work. We are going to work with him for our second album.

K: How is it being signed to Ferret Records alongside fellow record mates From Autumn to Ashes?
P: Oh Awesome, FATA… Those guys are amazing. They're crazy and we have a really good time together because we relate to one another so well. Every band on Ferret we really, really like… We love FATA, The Rise, Scarlet.. It's just an awesome label to be on and it seems like everyone is coming up together and it is just a really exciting time. Ferret was once a small label and now it is gradually getting bigger.

K: What CD's are in your CD player right now?
P: Let's see here: Coldplay, The Dismemberment Plan, Recover, The Used, Vox, Vendetta Red, Coheed and Cambria

K: How's road life?
P: Road life is fun, this last week has been really easy, ya know just been hanging out with our friends Finch and meeting a lot of new kids… Pretty hectic with the amount of kids, but at the end of the day you are not that stressed out because you know you're making your quota and you're gonna live and make it through the next day. Tour life is soo much better now than it was a month ago, but even back then I would have told you I was having a ball.

K: What makes your music unique?
P: To tell you the truth I believe we put a lot more thought into the song process then a lot of other bands do.. Not to put down any bands in particular, but a lot of bands these days are using a lot of things I have heard before. Yes, we do use some things you've heard before, but we get our sound from mashing together all of our influences from old music, to new music, hardcore to even piano rock, EVERYTHING. What makes us unique is that it is not one guy at the helm, it's five guys working together, putting their heads' together, and I think when it's like that and it's a team work kind of thing you get a better product.

K: With emo breaking through and for example, The Used getting more play on MTV do you think we will see more of this genre becoming mainstream?
P: I really hope that it does in a way, but seeing the way things are going with The Used getting big I am not really thrilled. It is getting really tacky, really fast and I am not saying The Used is responsible, I am saying the world reacted differently then I thought they would. It is becoming a mall hot topic kind of deal that ends before it begins, it looks like it is going to be, buuuuut then it's done. When it first started getting exciting with this genre and a lot of bands were getting signed to major labels it seemed like it was going to be the new "rap rock" (not in comparison to the style of music, but in comparison to the size it would become). Unfortunately to me, it seems like it is going be a flash in the pan, but whether it is or not, in a year from now I am not going to be the same person I am today; I am not going to write the same music. Certain bands you can expect a certain sound from, but we are not one of those bands… Our next record might be calypso! We don't know, so I am not worried about trends, about anyone labeling us… They can label us whatever they want, we are going to do whatever we like and what is said will not affect us.

K: What does music mean to you?
P: Music is life. Without music I don't have a reason to live. For my whole life music has been the crux, ever since I was a baby dancing in my house with my grandma and when I got older buying Pearl Jam, Green Jello, Nirvana, Weird Al, CDs with allowance or with Christmas money. In junior high I remember becoming introduced to punk rock, and then in high school I became jaded and someone introduced me to emo and indie. Soon I was sick of crying and got into hardcore, and it's like no matter what I'm listening to right now I'm happy to hear new music. Music is what I wake up and go to sleep to and it is what I do for a living. This is what I am going to die doing.

K: Are there any lyrics you can recite that have affected you?
P: Oh God, umm, there is a line in a song... I dunno I am settling here cause there is a line in the song that I like a lot better than this one, but I love this line: its from the new Hot Water (Music) record it's like in the first or second song, "No looking back sinking ships." When I think of this, I think of looking back and seeing all off the people who told me I couldn't do shit or that I was a loser for trying to accomplish what I was doing and now, looking back… They are all sinking ships, they are all pieces of shit, they are all pathetic losers who work at K-Mart.

K: As you guys have progressed as a band and tasted success how has that changed you're relationships between each other?
P: A lot of opportunities were thrown at us at a very early stage as a band… Being a band for only a week we were offered a deal with a label and after being a band for three months we did major label showcasing, which is playing for a number of major labels and being taken out to dinner. There were a certain number of times where we could have gone with a major label when the band was young and it would have ruined the band. The year we spent on the road independently and selling our CD and crying, fighting, hating and loving is really the only reason why we are performing today and standing strong. Everything that has happened to us has happened for a reason, this band is together because of fate and is together because whoever is up there wants it to be and if you don't like it you're pretty much fucked.

K: How did you guys form the band?
P: Well it is kind of a funny story, I was in a band with a couple friends for a long time and I became a pretty respected person in the music community and I would get people shows and help them out. So one day I started helping out this band Nostalgia, Joe (the screamer) was the lead singer of that band and Bret was the drummer. Dan joined Nostalgia after Nostalgia's lead guitar player left for the army. Dan had previously been in a band with Nate. When Dan joined Nostalgia, Joe and him came up and talked to me about what their goals were for their band and what they were missing. I brought up what I was missing in my band and when all was said, it just seemed retarded that we weren't in a band together, so we all agreed a band needed to be formed and we actually practiced the next day. We tried this other guitar player, but a week later we picked up Nate… He hit the songs better than the other kid (no offense to the other guy, I love that kid) it just worked out so much better for us. Within a couple weeks we decided we were all gonna quit our jobs, school and go on tour. I even quit high school, I mean for a while I tried to do both at the same time with independent study or whatever and the school got fed up. So for now I am putting that on hold and doing what I love, but I am definitely going to go back to high school and hopefully one day go to college. It might be when I am eighty but I want to have that chance.

K: Is there any meaning behind your name or was there another band name you had in mind previous to choosing A Static Lullaby?
P: I don't think there is a meaning behind our name, but some people in the band might think so… Dan might say yeah, Joe might say yeah, but it wasn't planned to be more than a name, we just came up with it at one of our first practices. I do know when we heard it, it seemed to fit our style of music perfectly. But yeah our name was going to be A Boy's Dream and yeah… enough said, A Static Lullaby is a better fit.

K: Who is/are the main songwriter(s)?
P: I would have to say at the beginning Dan and Bret were the main songwriters, but since then Nate and I have become big contributors to the songwriting process. How we see it is that everyone is equal… Everybody is there everyday and is working and thinking. Even the payment plan is divvied up equally. We are all one unit, there is no boss, no captain on this ship. We all yell at each other "no go that way, no that way"… It's fucked up, but hey that's the way it has to work.

K: What are some upcoming tours?
P: Right when this tour ends we are staying on tour with Movie Life and One Line Drawing and Vendetta Red are joining us for west coast dates. After that we are doing some headlining shows on the west coast and Midwest with a band called Scarlet, who just signed to Ferret and after that we are going on tour with Brand New and Hot Rod Circuit. We are also planning on playing at the Skate N Surf festival in New Jersey. After that I don't know where we will be, but yeah definitely be ready for lots of touring.

K: Does "Charred Fields of Snow" have anything to do with Osama Bin Laden and/or terrorist attacks?
P: "Charred Fields of Snow" is not about Osama, nor it is not about an Iraqi person or Arabian person directly. It is about war on people. Everything that is going on right now is a war on people, not on a country. The song is about not having a war and the whole situation. Read the lyrics and you decide what it is about.

I would like to thank Phil for his thorough answers and make sure to check out A Static Lullaby when they come back in town and check out their CD "And Don't Forget to Breathe."

http://www.astaticlullaby.com
http://www.ferretstyle.com
A Static Lullaby interview and picture by Katie Knoche.

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