Photo courtesy of Fat Wreck Chords
What sort of equipment did you use in the production of this album?
We did the record at Atlas Studios in Chicago. Justin Yates, who works with Matt Allison there, engineered it. I have a late ’70’s Gibson acoustic guitar, which was the main guitar I used on the acoustic tracks. I also have an old Gold Top Gibson – that was my electric guitar on the record. Neil played drums and bass on the record as well. I can’t remember what bass he used. He’s got an old Astro vintage and an Axiom bass, which is awesome. We were just having fun trying to make a sort of old sounding record and bring the songs to life more than just an acoustic record. We were just trying to build a cool landscape of sound with what we had available.
You obviously have a very poetic lyrical style. Whose lyrics do you admire personally as an artist?
I grew up listening to a lot of punk rock music and the bands that were probably most influential to me were Jawbreaker, Bad Religion, The Weakerthans and a lot of the Bay Area punk rock music – and certainly a lot of local Chicago music. I think all of those writers have had some sort of impact on me. Not that I’ve ever written Bad Religion lyrics or anything (laughs). I really like Leonard Cohen and a lot of that sort of old kind of lyrical writing. I like to read, man. I try to read a lot of stuff. When I think about writing lyrics, I’m just trying to synthesize all the things I take in into something that makes sense on paper to me, you know what I’m saying? I love movies and books and art and culture and I sort of take it all in and put it all out (laughs).
Does touring as a solo act ever get lonely after having done mostly band shows?
I don’t tour a ton. I haven’t in a while. I’m doing little batches of shows for this record to start things out this fall. I’m going to do some west coast stuff, the midwest, the northeast. In the past, the solo tours I’ve done have always been with somebody else – like I went to Europe with Mike Park and we rode trains together and played shows. I’ve always had a camaraderie with someone. But I can only imagine if you’re doing this really alone – for real, for long stretches – you probably start to lose touch a little (laughs). I’m sure it can get lonely. For me right now, what works best in my life is going out and doing little groups of shows, but we’ll see what happens. I’m not in a place right now where I’m grinding too hard.
Why the move to Portland?
Well my girlfriend is from the west coast originally. She actually grew up in Oregon. She moved to Chicago and we were living there for the last several years and I was just ready for a change of scenery. I grew up in Chicago and I identify with that place. The record is a lot about that place. I’ve lived there my whole life and I just wanted to know what it was like to live in a new place. Portland is a nice town, man. It’s pretty out here, it’s really livable, there’s a lot of creative, cool stuff going on around here. I’ve always wanted to be on the west coast for a while and see how things go out here. But honestly man, I was just ready for a change. It’s funny, you tour a lot, you travel a lot and you get a sense for what other places are like, but until you move to a place, you can’t get that same experience of actually being there and being like, “Man, this is where I live now.” It’s just a very different experience than traveling.
You’ve talked about this a lot before but I’d love to hear it from you directly. Your band The Lawrence Arms got kicked off the Warped Tour for life several years ago. Talk to me about that.
Oh man, yeah. Many, many years ago. That must have been like ten years ago? It’s probably more than that. Yeah, I don’t know how dramatic it really is. Basically, we got on a couple dates at some point, some midwest shows I think. It was brutal. We were driving probably eight to ten hours a night just to show up in the morning and… I don’t know man. I think Brendan [Kelly, bassist] said some things on stage that maybe were viewed as a criticism of the general culture there and, you know, that was kind of that. We weren’t welcome back (laughs). It’s awesome now though – the mythology of the story is just amazing. I love it (laughs). Honestly though, with The Lawrence Arms, the Warped Tour just wasn’t our vibe, so it’s all good.
Before The Lawrence Arms, you were in a band called The Broadways which is reuniting at Riotfest Chicago later this year. How did that reunion come about?
Yeah, I was in The Broadways. We did two records on Asian Man. We actually reunited a couple years back for an Asian Man 15-year anniversary thing in the Bay Area. That was the first time we had played since we were like 19 years old or something, and it was just for fun. This next one is a chance for us to play in Chicago, which is where we’re all from, and revisit half a life ago. It’s good to hang out with those guys and practice the songs. It’s been long enough now that I think it’ll be a good time. And Riotfest is just crazy – the amount of cool bands and friends, basically family, that are going to be there – it’s going to be a really good vibe. It should be a lot of fun. I don’t know how tight the show will be, but it’s cool (laughs).
Yeah, the lineup for Riotfest is sick. Who are you most looking forward to seeing there?
Oh, I’d have to see a list. There are so many bands. I grew up on [Bad Religion’s] No Control and stuff like that – those were some of my favorite records. Seeing Bad Religion is always awesome to me. The Replacements are playing, which is nuts. We’ve got a lot of friends playing. Chuck Ragan is playing and I always love to see Chuck play. It’s going to be crazy, man. Riotfest really went for it this year.
