Jon Wark
10/13/03, 05:35 PM
October 13th, 2003
Ace from the Early November called me today for this interview, and he was a cool dude. At the end of this interview they were going on stage minutes later, so I thank Ace for doing this interview, because it's scary to talk to ANYONE before you take the stage. Check it out, buy their new record "The Room's Too Cold", and go see them live when they do their headlining tour in November.
--------------------------------
Wark: Where are you today?
We are in Pennsylvania, not really sure where, all I know is we’re in Pennsylvania.
Wark: What did you have for breakfast?
I had a number 6 from Wendy’s. A Spicy Chicken sandwich, with cheese. With Sweet and Sour sauce to dip.
Wark: And to drink?
I had a Lemonade!
Wark: What inspired you to start playing guitar?
I wanted to play guitar, I don’t know, there was just an acoustic guitar in my basement, from my step dad. He was in cover bands that played bowling alleys every week. He was a drummer, he didn’t really play guitar, but he had an acoustic, and it was just sitting there, and that’s pretty much how it happened.
Wark: What is the concept behind “The Room’s too cold”?
The concept… the best way I can explain the CD. Everyday life. It has a lot to do with disappointment. There’s no real concept, it’s just like about things that happen everyday. It’s just me expressing. It was a weird time for me, I wrote this CD all around the same time. You know? In life it seems like everything is attacking all at once, that’s the best way I can describe it.
Wark: Overall, what inspired your lyrics for this record?
Lyrics, I guess it was a lot of things really. You have your relationships, and everything. I got inspiration from everything that would happen. There’s so much good, but there’s also so much bad. Normal stuff, normal everyday things.
Wark: If there were anything you could change on the record, what would it be?
There’s always a few things here and there that you know you could do better. I’m really happy with the way that the record came out. Nothing really. Our main goal was to make everything sound really raw and really real. We recorded to tape. We recorded to analogs, I mean we didn’t use pro tools at all…we used pro tools a little bit for the mix down, we didn’t mess with anything else. We didn’t use pitch bender, or anything like that. Strictly we wanted to keep it all real. It’s tough to rely on just yourself. Making music sound a certain way. It’s easy to just go on a computer, and you can basically do anything.
Wark: Was it hard to work with Chris?
Working with Chris, with the relationship me and Chris have, I tell him what I like, I tell him what sound I’m going for, and he says Okay, and he just tries to help out with that. There’s no butting-heads. He doesn’t “produce produce”; I produced the CD he just like helped it get there, whatever we needed, like things I didn’t know how to do, he helped us out, like he was very easy to work with.
Wark: How’s the tour been? Who are you sharing a bus with on this Drive Thru invasion tour?
We’re sharing a bus with Home Grown on this tour. I can’t wait to get back in the van. It’s a little tough, but you get through it. We’re all friends so we all understand.
Wark: What do you do in your free time on the bus?
We usually gamble a lot. A lot of Texas Hold ‘Em. A lot of Poker. I’ve been writing songs for an acoustic project that I’m doing when we get home, and that’s basically all. Texas Hold ‘Em, and watch some movies every once in a while.
Wark: What are your favorite movies?
I’d say Forrest Gump is one of my favorite movies. Better Off Dead, of course! We’ve been watching A River runs through it, with Brad Pitt. That’s a great movie! We’ve watched Forrest Gump like 100 times on this tour. We watched Better Off Dead four times in a row in one day. That’s basically all we watch on this tour, because we don’t have many movies. Anything with Jack Black also! Our drummer has been gaining weight, and growing a beard so he’s got the Jack Black impressions down, like he wants to be Jack Black. So he used to be a skinny little kid, and now he’s gaining weight, and growing a beard and growing his hair. He’s starting to look like him. And he sounds exactly like him, you can’t even talk to him serious anymore. You talk to him and he’ll just do him Jack Black all day long. That’s who he wants to be.
Wark: Awesome, that guy sounds cool. How many songs are you recording for your acoustic project?
I’m only going in for 2 weeks, so I’m only gonna record like 12 songs. There will be 10 songs on the CD. As soon as I get done recording, we go on our first headlining tour. We’re taking out Count The Stars, Copeland, and Hidden In Plain View. Then after the headlining tour, which ends December 16th, we’re going to Europe with Home Grown. It should be fun.
Wark: What records are you currently listening to?
Definitely Copeland, and the new Saves The Day! It’s so good! I listen to Damien Rice all the time. Of course my favorite records of all time are Clarity (Jimmy Eat World), and Four Minute Mile (Get Up Kids). Those CDs never leave my CD player. Also “…orange rhyming dictionary” by Jets To Brazil.
Wark: Do you ever read books?
No, I’ve never finished a book in my life. I was really bad in school, I can’t really read very well. I’m the kid in class that stutters the whole time, when I’m called on to read, but the teacher still made me read.
Wark: What’s the Drive Thru tour been like?
It’s really like a family, it really is. Everybody hangs out with each other all the time we’re always on each other’s buses. It’s weird, because I wasn’t sure how it was going to be coming into it, but it’s like a huge family. We’re together all the time. It’s cool. I’ll be really sad when the tour’s over, because we’ve made a lot of friendships here. I can’t wait for this tour to end though, I’m tired of being in a bus, and I wanna go back to the van. When we can get hotels everyday and shower. I wanna play a new set too!
Wark: Any cool tour stories?
Well, the other day I got knocked out by Serg on stage. He was spinning around really fast and swung his bass and smashed me right in the head. I was out cold on stage. It was during the third song. They took me to the hospital, and that was that. Kenny from The Starting Line and Buddy from Senses Fail came out and played Every Night’s Another Story. They played one more song in the set for us. Buddy sang and Kenny played guitar. It’s been a very hard and tiring tour. Last night, Jeff forgot the end we play on Every Night’s Another Story… For the past two years we’ve played it last at every single show. We’re playing it and Jeff forgets to go to the end of the song, and nothing happens, and we all just stopped. It was the most ridiculous ending of a song I’ve ever heard. We all stared at each other for at least a minute, and then we went back into the song. It was funny.
Wark: What turns you on?
Sergio Anello, I’d have to say.
Wark: What turns you off?
Sergio Anello, I’d have to say.
Wark: If heaven exists, what you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
Wow, uh let’s see. I don’t really know, I don’t know how to answer that question because I’d try to be funny, but I’m not funny so it won’t work out good! Just roll with uh “Yo!” That’s good. I’m a boring, lame guy. Here’s what you get out of me. Haha.
Wark: Anything you wanna say to the kids reading this?
Thank you so much for taking the time to read the interview! Thank you so much for listening to a song from the band or anything. Thank you very much for supporting us.
--------------------------------------
www.theearlynovember.net (http://www.theearlynovember.net)
Ace from the Early November called me today for this interview, and he was a cool dude. At the end of this interview they were going on stage minutes later, so I thank Ace for doing this interview, because it's scary to talk to ANYONE before you take the stage. Check it out, buy their new record "The Room's Too Cold", and go see them live when they do their headlining tour in November.
--------------------------------
Wark: Where are you today?
We are in Pennsylvania, not really sure where, all I know is we’re in Pennsylvania.
Wark: What did you have for breakfast?
I had a number 6 from Wendy’s. A Spicy Chicken sandwich, with cheese. With Sweet and Sour sauce to dip.
Wark: And to drink?
I had a Lemonade!
Wark: What inspired you to start playing guitar?
I wanted to play guitar, I don’t know, there was just an acoustic guitar in my basement, from my step dad. He was in cover bands that played bowling alleys every week. He was a drummer, he didn’t really play guitar, but he had an acoustic, and it was just sitting there, and that’s pretty much how it happened.
Wark: What is the concept behind “The Room’s too cold”?
The concept… the best way I can explain the CD. Everyday life. It has a lot to do with disappointment. There’s no real concept, it’s just like about things that happen everyday. It’s just me expressing. It was a weird time for me, I wrote this CD all around the same time. You know? In life it seems like everything is attacking all at once, that’s the best way I can describe it.
Wark: Overall, what inspired your lyrics for this record?
Lyrics, I guess it was a lot of things really. You have your relationships, and everything. I got inspiration from everything that would happen. There’s so much good, but there’s also so much bad. Normal stuff, normal everyday things.
Wark: If there were anything you could change on the record, what would it be?
There’s always a few things here and there that you know you could do better. I’m really happy with the way that the record came out. Nothing really. Our main goal was to make everything sound really raw and really real. We recorded to tape. We recorded to analogs, I mean we didn’t use pro tools at all…we used pro tools a little bit for the mix down, we didn’t mess with anything else. We didn’t use pitch bender, or anything like that. Strictly we wanted to keep it all real. It’s tough to rely on just yourself. Making music sound a certain way. It’s easy to just go on a computer, and you can basically do anything.
Wark: Was it hard to work with Chris?
Working with Chris, with the relationship me and Chris have, I tell him what I like, I tell him what sound I’m going for, and he says Okay, and he just tries to help out with that. There’s no butting-heads. He doesn’t “produce produce”; I produced the CD he just like helped it get there, whatever we needed, like things I didn’t know how to do, he helped us out, like he was very easy to work with.
Wark: How’s the tour been? Who are you sharing a bus with on this Drive Thru invasion tour?
We’re sharing a bus with Home Grown on this tour. I can’t wait to get back in the van. It’s a little tough, but you get through it. We’re all friends so we all understand.
Wark: What do you do in your free time on the bus?
We usually gamble a lot. A lot of Texas Hold ‘Em. A lot of Poker. I’ve been writing songs for an acoustic project that I’m doing when we get home, and that’s basically all. Texas Hold ‘Em, and watch some movies every once in a while.
Wark: What are your favorite movies?
I’d say Forrest Gump is one of my favorite movies. Better Off Dead, of course! We’ve been watching A River runs through it, with Brad Pitt. That’s a great movie! We’ve watched Forrest Gump like 100 times on this tour. We watched Better Off Dead four times in a row in one day. That’s basically all we watch on this tour, because we don’t have many movies. Anything with Jack Black also! Our drummer has been gaining weight, and growing a beard so he’s got the Jack Black impressions down, like he wants to be Jack Black. So he used to be a skinny little kid, and now he’s gaining weight, and growing a beard and growing his hair. He’s starting to look like him. And he sounds exactly like him, you can’t even talk to him serious anymore. You talk to him and he’ll just do him Jack Black all day long. That’s who he wants to be.
Wark: Awesome, that guy sounds cool. How many songs are you recording for your acoustic project?
I’m only going in for 2 weeks, so I’m only gonna record like 12 songs. There will be 10 songs on the CD. As soon as I get done recording, we go on our first headlining tour. We’re taking out Count The Stars, Copeland, and Hidden In Plain View. Then after the headlining tour, which ends December 16th, we’re going to Europe with Home Grown. It should be fun.
Wark: What records are you currently listening to?
Definitely Copeland, and the new Saves The Day! It’s so good! I listen to Damien Rice all the time. Of course my favorite records of all time are Clarity (Jimmy Eat World), and Four Minute Mile (Get Up Kids). Those CDs never leave my CD player. Also “…orange rhyming dictionary” by Jets To Brazil.
Wark: Do you ever read books?
No, I’ve never finished a book in my life. I was really bad in school, I can’t really read very well. I’m the kid in class that stutters the whole time, when I’m called on to read, but the teacher still made me read.
Wark: What’s the Drive Thru tour been like?
It’s really like a family, it really is. Everybody hangs out with each other all the time we’re always on each other’s buses. It’s weird, because I wasn’t sure how it was going to be coming into it, but it’s like a huge family. We’re together all the time. It’s cool. I’ll be really sad when the tour’s over, because we’ve made a lot of friendships here. I can’t wait for this tour to end though, I’m tired of being in a bus, and I wanna go back to the van. When we can get hotels everyday and shower. I wanna play a new set too!
Wark: Any cool tour stories?
Well, the other day I got knocked out by Serg on stage. He was spinning around really fast and swung his bass and smashed me right in the head. I was out cold on stage. It was during the third song. They took me to the hospital, and that was that. Kenny from The Starting Line and Buddy from Senses Fail came out and played Every Night’s Another Story. They played one more song in the set for us. Buddy sang and Kenny played guitar. It’s been a very hard and tiring tour. Last night, Jeff forgot the end we play on Every Night’s Another Story… For the past two years we’ve played it last at every single show. We’re playing it and Jeff forgets to go to the end of the song, and nothing happens, and we all just stopped. It was the most ridiculous ending of a song I’ve ever heard. We all stared at each other for at least a minute, and then we went back into the song. It was funny.
Wark: What turns you on?
Sergio Anello, I’d have to say.
Wark: What turns you off?
Sergio Anello, I’d have to say.
Wark: If heaven exists, what you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
Wow, uh let’s see. I don’t really know, I don’t know how to answer that question because I’d try to be funny, but I’m not funny so it won’t work out good! Just roll with uh “Yo!” That’s good. I’m a boring, lame guy. Here’s what you get out of me. Haha.
Wark: Anything you wanna say to the kids reading this?
Thank you so much for taking the time to read the interview! Thank you so much for listening to a song from the band or anything. Thank you very much for supporting us.
--------------------------------------
www.theearlynovember.net (http://www.theearlynovember.net)