By the way, who is Doug Hastings?
He was a friend of Vinnie’s that lived in Venice, Florida.
What’s your biggest vice?
Working. Being gone. Or when I’m home, I’m working on songs, staying focused and staying busy with the band.
I’ve asked other people in your shoes that and they all say drinking.
Yeah, I mean, drinking goes along with touring and partying and what not. But no, it’s not an everyday thing. It’s definitely not a vice. I do like to tie one on now and again though (laughs).
I know a lot of your band mates have side projects. Vinnie with Paper and Plastick, Roger with Rehasher, Buddy with Coffee Project. How do you spend your time away from the band?
Well I just got done with a guitar lesson. I give guitar lessons in my spare time. I write songs. Right now I’m writing songs for other artists. I have a publisher in LA who shops my songs to people. And I’ve got a girlfriend. So I’m pretty busy outside of the band. Plus right now we’re writing songs for our new Less Than Jake record so I’ve been rehearsing with the band three days a week. And I travel a lot. I live in Gainesville so I have to drive about three hours to get up there and I stay a couple days then drive back home, so…
I’m just going to throw this out there because I had to answer it not too long ago myself. What matters most to you and why?
What matters to me now is that I get up and feel good about myself and know that I’m going to do the best that I can do for that day. Whatever happened yesterday – fuck it. And whatever happens tomorrow is going to happen, so just do my best for right now.
You reissued Borders and Boundaries through Fat Wreck Chords last October. What was that all about?
Fat Wreck Chords had put that record out and we had re-released all our other records, so we did that one. At this point we’ve done Borders but we still have Anthem and In With The Out Crowd to re-release with bonus tracks and everything. We haven’t done those yet. That’s next on the list. We had re-issued all the other ones on Sleep It Off and [Fat] Mike came to us and said “Hey, I want to re-issue Borders” and we were like “Cool, let’s do it.” That’s kind of what opened the dialogue back up with us and Fat Wreck Chords. So we did that, and then we went ahead and combined all the EPs for Greetings and Salutations, and now we’re going to do a new record with [Fat].
What’s the most meaningful gesture you’ve received from a fan?
Mostly life stuff. You know, stuff like “I wanted to commit suicide but your songs saved me.” That’s when it really hits home that you’re doing something more than just writing songs and being in band. You’re actually touching people.
Yeah…
And I don’t mean like touching some chick from fucking Missouri where she shouldn’t be touched. I mean, that could be nice too sometimes but…(laughs).
Where would you stack up the new album versus the others?
I don’t really rank the new album. It’s kind of like a b-sides collection. It’s just a bunch of songs that we threw together. But I think our best record overall is probably Anthem. It’s just a really special record. It fucking sounds great to this day. It’s a big, powerful record. That doesn’t mean that someone’s opinion that Losing Streak or Hello Rockview is better is wrong because those records could have hit that person, like I said, at a certain time in their life or whatever. But overall, I think our best record is Anthem.
Last one. What’s one misconception of Less Than Jake that you want to clear up for the record?
(Pauses) Probably none because even bad press is good press. Even if there is some misconception or some mystery surrounding the band, that means that people are talking about you. If there are misconceptions, let them be.
