Jamison Kane
04/10/04, 02:35 PM
[On April 5th, 2004 I sat down with the guys of Gatsby’s American Dream after their St. Louis show, in a quaint little Hamton Inn, right off of Boone’s Crossing on I-40. This is our conversation, transcribed in the more accurate way I could manage. Enjoy.]
JAMISON(AP): For starters, if you guys wouldn’t mind stating your name, social security number, and what you do in the band Gatsby’s American Dreams.
BILLY: I’m Billy, I’m Gatsby’s tour manager.
NICK: I’m Nick, I sing.
RYAN: I’m Ryan, I play guitar.
BOBBY: I’m Bobby and I play guitar and I baby-sit my little brother Billy. [Laughter]
[RUDY walks out of bathroom]
NICK: That’s Rudy, he poops and plays drums. [More laughter]
JAMISON(AP): If you will, to begin, describe your band in your own words.
NICK: I’d say we’re fun… and interesting. [Laughter]
RYAN: And totally gay. [More laughter]
NICK: No, really, I think that describes us pretty well.
JAMISON(AP): Fun and interesting? Does anyone have any additional comments? [No response] Okay, this is going to be a very short interview. [Laughter] Okay, so why should I, the average music connoisseur, listen to your band, Gatsby’s American Dream, over, oh, say, the 50,000 other pop-punk, emo, screamo, heartcore bands that have popped up recently. [No immediate response] Haha, you’re like, “Hey, you’re right, you shouldn’t listen to us…” [Pause]
NICK AND RYAN: … Yeah. [Laughter]
BOBBY: Because you have good taste in music. [Laughter] Because Gatsby’s has a good live show.
ALL: Yeah.
NICK: I mean, basically, we’re just trying to do something different. I guess that’s a little cliché.
[RYAN leaves to take a shower]
JAMISON(AP): Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve been a band for about three years.
NICK: Yeah, that’s about right.
JAMISON(AP): Have things changed much? And do you ever get used to the fanfare, from, well, not from tonight obviously [Laughter (there were only about 30 people at the show)], but from maybe say your home town. And do you feel that you’re getting all the credit your deserve, or less, or more and why.
NICK: The first question, have things changed, I think things have changed a lot. We’ve got a different drummer and a different bass-player… The difference from our first CD to our second is, like, huge. And so, yeah, I think we’ve gotten a lot more mature. And do we think we get what we deserve? Eh…
BOBBY: I don’t know, I think we’ve spent, like, the past three years paying our dues. You know, we’ve done, like, completely self-booked tours over and over again and it finally feels like it’s starting to pay off, you know, like we’re starting to draw a lot of kids from all over the country and I think we’ve worked a lot harder than most bands do to get to the point where we are. You know, because a lot of bands get the support like of a big label before they get to the size that we’ve gotten to and you know, we’re been doing it pretty much DIY with an indie-Seattle label and uh, you know, we’re really happy where we are and we’re happy that we’ve earned it and, yah know, didn’t get any handouts from a big label.
NICK: Yeah, it makes everything you get, like, ten times more meaningful. Was there another part of that question too, that we forgot to answer? [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): No… Next question, true or false, the bigger a band such as yourself gets, the more difficult it is to maintain creative control over your music. Please explain.
NICK: I think that that’s something that we’re not really... willing to compromise. I mean, honestly, it does come down to the band’s decision. Like, we’ve straight up been told from labels, you know, “This would be a great place for you if you threw some big, catchy choruses in your songs” and we’re just like, “It was nice talking to you” and it’s definitely a choice, and the band always makes the choice.
JAMISON(AP): This is kind of a silly question, but, in your opinion, what’s the best song you’ve written as a band, to date?
NICK: Aw, man, I don’t know… [To BOBBY] What do you think?
BOBBY: Let’s see… Uh… [Pause]
JAMISON(AP): Are there any favorites to perform live, then?
NICK: I really like playing “Work Lies Sex Love Fear Hate Friendship” live… It’s just kind of different from the rest of our set it feels like, and I don’t know, yeah, it’s just fun. I actually think that’s one of my favorite that we’ve done together, too…
BOBBY: Boy, that, uh, that “Manifesto” sure is a great song though [I had mentioned to BOBBY earlier that night that “A Manifesto of Tangible Wealth” was my favorite of their songs], too bad we didn’t play that live. [Laughter]
NICK: What about you, Rudy, do you have a favorite?
RUDY: Yeah, I like “Reprogram”. I think that’s a good one to close with.
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, that’s a good one. I actually have a question about that song later.
NICK: Oooh, alright, segway. [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): No, I can’t ask that one yet, because it’s my closer and it’s the strong one. You’ve gotta finish strong. [Laughter]
BOBBY: Yeah, you’re a pro, man.
NICK: It actually is kind of nice that you know who we are and have heard our music beforehand.
BILLY: Yeah, we get a lot of, “So, are you guys, like, named after that Great Gatsby book? [Laughter]
NICK: Actually we wrote it.
JAMISON(AP): Actually, now that we’ve on the subject, I’m sure you get asked this a lot, but, could you explain a little of the logic behind the name? What is it about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work that appeals to you guys so much as a band?
NICK: I think we just drew a lot of parallels between what we saw going on in music and what we saw going on in the story. [Band murmurs in agreement].
JAMISON(AP): So, yeah, well, does that mean that you’re all very much into literature and that sort of thing?
BOBBY: Well, yeah we all read lots of different things. I think everyone in the band reads a lot. Except for Rudy. [Laughter]
NICK: He never learned Rudy just hits things and he ended up being a good drummer, he grunts a lot [Laughter].
JAMISON(AP): So you drew a lot of parallels between Gatsby and the music industry, does the same go for Ribbons and Sugar [Gatsby’s second album]?
NICK: Yeah, that comes from Animal Farm, that George Orwell book. It’s just like another example of, well, I mean if you read that book I know that everyone comes away with something different, but I think that, kinda the same thing, we just saw the same thing- [BOBBY interjects]
BOBBY: What we were feeling musically before we did Ribbons and Sugar, how the whole idea came about, was just like, you know, we were coming into contact with a lot of indie labels, and we were just like really surprised like as we came along further and got more involved in the whole music world of touring and labels and meeting people and that kind of stuff, uhm, just realizing that a lot of these indie labels that are totally pretentious and preachy about how awful majors are and all this stuff that, you know, a lot of them operate very similar to the majors, and sometimes in a lot of cases are actually a lot worse than majors, and you know, majors at least are starting to do artist development again and all this stuff, while indie labels are just fucking looking for the band that’s going to play music that sounds like another band that’s already blown up.
JAMISON(AP): That’s a pretty accurate analysis, yeah.
BOBBY: And, you know, we’re not saying that majors are better than indie labels or anything like that, but it was just, like, you know, the idea that these supposed upstart indie labels that like, claim to be you know, trying to change the music industry and be independent and they cry about how awful majors are and the truth is they just want to be the majors. And, bringing us back around, that’s exactly what happened in Animal Farm. You know, the pigs, they cried about the farm and how corrupt the whole system was and how it needed to be changed—but they didn’t want to change the system, they just wanted to be the farmers themselves, so that was the parallel.
[RYAN gets out of the shower and enters the room]
JAMISON(AP): Okay, so you guys know what’s going on in music right now, right. So there’s a lot of bands that are popping up all over and some are even getting some serious play. Like, MTV is starting to pick up on a lot of these underground bands and with the advent of the whole FUSE network thing… Basically, where do you see this “scene” going on five years? Do you think it’ll blow up, i.e. the whole Nirvana/grunge thing of the early 90’s.
NICK: Personally, the way I see it right now, with what’s going on with the whole scream/sing emo thing, it feels like ska did. [Band murmurs in agreement]. Yeah, I mean, personally, I think it’s just the new ska and people who are actually writing interesting songs will stick around and…
BOBBY: You know, stuff comes and goes in waves, you know, they’re just fads. There was ska, and then, you know, punk was big, and then it was the emo thing and now it’s screamo and soon it’s gonna be something else before too long. And there’s labels that ride through that and last and everything and there’s artists that do too. For example, I don’t know, think about a lot of those bands that like, blew up for five minutes like Reel Big Fish or Save Ferris or…
NICK: Mighty Mighty Bosstones.
BOBBY: Yeah, all those bands, and I mean, the Bosstones were around forever and you know those bands just, like, blew up when the whole scene became more of a trend or a fad than it was actually about the music but now, you know, all those bands have disappeared and it’s going to happen to screamo too.
BILLY: The good thing about Gatsby’s is that no one really categorizes the music so it’s not really part of any real scene.
JAMISON(AP): In regard to that, what I hear a lot is “smart” rock. You know, just the more intelligent side of what’s going on right now, that’s what people describe you as.
[Band reflects]
NICK: I guess that’s better than dumb rock. [Laughter] No, really, that’s a huge compliment to pay us, we appreciate that.
BOBBY: And it’s a lot nicer to get that than, I don’t know, I just feel like sometimes people will miss what we’re doing. Like, you know, they’ll hear something within like, the first three minutes of one of our records and they’ll just kind of lump us in with other emo bands and stuff and anyone that listens to our music and gives it, you know, a fair shake…
JAMISON(AP): Like how you don’t have choruses, like, ever? [Laughter]
BOBBY: Yeah, there’s some weird shit going on in our music than what you’ll hear in a lot of, you know, emo bands and that’s not bragging, it’s just different. And that’s what’s most fulfilling is that we just feel like we’re creating something new, you know?
BILLY: Right, but you’re still making music and you’re not, like, fucking being weird just to be weird [Laughter] like the vocals are still beautiful and the music, like, still works as a song even though it’s not verse, chorus, verse.
NICK: Man, this is the best interview ever, maybe.
BILLY: No, I thought Kurt Loader did a good job [Laughter].
JAMISON(AP): So do you guys have any specific goals for your band? Are you looking to see anything or do anything or sell a certain amount of records?
NICK: To be able to do this for like a living and not have to work when we go back home, but I think that like a lot of our personal goals have been met. Like, playing in Seattle with a packed house and the kids are singing. When I was young and growing up and going to shows or whatever, that’s all I ever wanted, was to have my music be felt by like a bunch of kids, so that’s a personal goal that we’ve already met.
BOBBY: It would be really nice to be able to have our CDs available to kids in stores and stuff like you know, we’re on such a small label we don’t really have the distribution to get our stuff out nation wide. And like, there’s still a ton of people who haven’t even heard us or heard Ribbons and Sugar because our label is so small and like…
JAMISON(AP): So are you looking to try and get to a bigger label, by the way?
BOBBY: Well… Yeah.
NICK: Yeah, sure, I mean…
BOBBY: We just want everyone to be able to have a chance to hear our music you know, like and be able to form their own opinion and if it’s not put out there, there isn’t really a chance of that happening, so…
NICK: Basically we want to be rich and famous. [Laughter]
[RYAN jumps on top of BOBBY who is laying in bed]
NICK: Back to the gay part.
BOBBY: Smart rock my ass, we’re gay rock. [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): Okay, I’m sure this’ll be different for everyone, but name a dream tour line-up. Four spots.
NICK: Oooh, bands to go with…
RYAN: Living bands?
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, anyone.
RUDY: I always say Radiohead, I love that band.
[It was too hard to tell who was saying what, so this is just a big cacophony of answers]
BAND: Beatles… Strokes… Queen… Snoop Dogg… Outkast…
NICK: That’d be fun. Those guys get crunk. [Laughter]
BOBBY: I’d really like to go out with Further Seems Forever.
JAMISON(AP): Really? You hear they got the singer from Sense Field for their new record?
BOBBY: Is it Senses Fail or Sense Field?
JAMISON(AP): No, Senses Fail is a shitty screamo band, Sense Field has been around for… man, forever.
NICK: Is he good?
JAMISON(AP): Huh, oh… Uhm, I don’t…
NICK: Dude you’re on camera you better watch your words. [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): This is kind of along the same vein. Dream band line-up. Five spots.
RYAN: Like with yourself included in the band?
JAMISON(AP): Whatever, just like, the supergroup.
[Again, too hard to tell who is saying what, so this is just general answers]
BAND: Me and Julian from the Strokes… On bass, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers... No way, dude, Les Claypool from Primus.
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, I’d go with him over Flea.
BOBBY: How do you know who Les Claypool is, you’re like ten? [Laughter]
BILLY: Chris Martin on vocals [Singer from Coldplay. BILLY looks exactly like the guy]
JAMISON(AP): Or how about just you, and you push him out of the way.
NICK: No, Andre3000 on vocals. That’d be sick.
BILLY: Can you put in the interview that I look like Chris Martin? [wink, wink]
NICK: What about drummers, Rudy? The guy from Soundgarden?
RUDY: Yeah, that’d be good. How about the guy from Helmate?
NICK: Singer… Man, I don’t know…
BILLY: Cody from the Blood Brothers on guitar?
JAMISON(AP): So what, if any, prevalent musical influences go into Gatsby’s American Dream?
BILLY: Elliot Smith.
BOBBY: Yeah, and Radiohead… Ryan Adams…
BILLY: Bobby, I think some of your guitar is like, Propaghandi, on the first album especially.
BOBBY: Yeah, big influence.
NICK: As far as, like, vocals, just like influences from stuff I would listen to when I was younger, I listened to a lot of like R&B and like, just straight up pop.
JAMISON(AP): Name a band that you like that people probably wouldn’t expect.
BOBBY: Spin Doctors. [Band laughs and mocks] I love Spin Doctors, man.
JAMISON(AP): Pocket Full of Kryptonite was like the first album I ever owned.
BILLY: Bobby likes Maroon 5, man! [More laughter]
RUDY: Oh, Motley Crue. I love Motley Crue.
BILLY: Man-o-War.
BOBBY: You’re the tour manager, shut up. [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): No, no, as far as I’m concerned, he’s in the band.
BOBBY: [To Nick and Rudy] Don’t you guys listen to anything you’re embarrasses of? You guys both like Mest, don’t you? [Laughter, then pause, the more Laughter].
JAMISON(AP): Joke of the night, joke of the night!
NICK: What’s the deal, what’s the dealio, dealio.
JAMISON(AP): You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, I don’t see why you wouldn’t but, uh, how do you feel about what’s going on in Iraq right now?
BOBBY: Well it’s obvious that it’s just, like, ridiculous that we went over there all because, well, like, the whole reason for us going over there in the first place was weapons of mass detruction [WMD, from here on out], and, there were no WMD. And now they’re admitting that the intelligence that they had that said that there were WMD was false. And so, the question is who is going to get fired over this? We destroyed a whole country, removed their government and, like, killed Saddam’s sons and we did all of this stuff because of WMD. Sure, maybe Saddam was an asshole and it was just a shitty government but that’s, you know, for them to sort out, not for us. Like, we don’t get to just go in and fix people’s countries.
BILLY: Yeah, and we left him in power for like ten years.
BOBBY: Yeah, we never had a problem with all that until there were WMD and then it’s like, oh let’s go in there and clean it up but then there’re no WMD so does that mean we get to bring Saddam’s sons back to life and put Saddam back in power?
NICK: Not to mention that we empowered them in the first place and it’s our problem, so I mean…
BOBBY: So it’s like, what the hell did we even do over there? We just destroyed a country and it’s just a piece of shit now and they just blow stuff up all the time and they’re like, killing people and it’s in a state of constant turmoil. I don’t know…
NICK: Well when they’re on the verge of civil war, it’s… we just made things worse.
BOBBY: It’s retarded, we had no right to just go in there.
BILLY: And it’s like we fought just to fight, we weren’t, like, pushed to fight.
NICK: Yeah, well it was a preemptive war, and like, preemptive war, that’s not in the constitution… that’s not constitutional.
BOBBY: And countries that actually have WMD like North Korea, we’re not doing anything to. Like those guys could just blow up other countries right now. And that guy is crazy. And we go in and wipe out this country that doesn’t have a single WMD.
NICK: And it’s just so telling when you see Bush get on the airwaves and tell them over the radio not to touch the oil fields. That was like the first thing we even said to them, “Do not burn the oil fields.”
BOBBY: “We’re not coming for the oil, but please don’t burn it!” [Laughter] “We’re coming for your own good, don’t touch it!”
JAMISON(AP): So I gather that there are no opposing viewpoints in the band? [No response, then laughter].
BILLY: But we know a guy in a band that is a republican.
JAMISON(AP): Who’s that?
BOBBY: It’s really weird.
BILLY: No, you don’t need to talk trash on the internet.
BOBBY: Yeah, we can’t say who it is but it’s just really weird because he like, seriously gets mad if you say something against Bush.
NICK: Yeah, he’s got Bush-Cheney stickers on his guitar case and stuff. [Laughter]
BOBBY: Nice guy, though. [Band agrees] Good guy. I hope he reads this. [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): Okay, this isn’t my strong one, but it’s equally good. Well, no, it’s not equally good, but it’s cool. Ready?
NICK: Yeah.
JAMISON(AP): Rate the television show “American Dreams” on a scale of 1 to 10.
RYAN: TEN! TEN! I love it! [Laughter] Best show ever!
BOBBY: My mom watches it all the time.
NICK: [To me, Jamison] What, do you really like the show or something?
JAMISON(AP): I’ve never even seen the show. [Laughter]
BOBBY: Then whose question is this?
JAMISON(AP): Mine, I just imagined that this would be a lot funnier than it’s actually turning out… Think about it… American Dreams… Gatsby’s American Dream… See the… connection?
RYAN: OH, oh. No, I don’t watch it because it’s… similar to my band’s name. [Laughter]
NICK: That’s like a Craig Kilborn question. 5 questions.
RYAN: No, I really do love it.
NICK: I really like The O.C.
JAMISON(AP): Everyone likes The O.C. Do you know Mischa Barton is my age?
NICK: How old are you anyway?
JAMISON(AP): 17.
NICK: Yeah, that’s wild.
BILLY: You look like Codie Banks.
RUDY: Frankie Muniz!
BOBBY: Oh, dude, you do!
NICK: Codie Banks!
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, yeah, shut up. Here’s my power question. Ready?
NICK: Yeah.
JAMISON(AP): Here we go… Halo. Xbox. How good are you guys?
RYAN: No one’s ever beat us.
BOBBY: Better than any band out there.
RYAN: We’ve been challenged, like, everywhere and we have never lost.
NICK: Yeah, we’ve never, ever been beaten on the road.
JAMISON(AP): Really?
NICK: Yeah, kids always come up to us and they’re like, “Dude, I’m the best Halo player at my school. I’m the best in this city. I’m the best in the state.” And they’re, like talking all this trash and I’m like, dude, you can’t touch me. And every single time we smoke them. And, for example, like, last time we played what was the score? Same situation, we came to a kid’s house and he had, like, a Halo carpet [Laughter] No, really he did, like in his room and he’s all talking about it and he’s really into it. [To BOBBY] What, so did you play one on one?
BOBBY: I think we played like four people, him and two of his friends and me. And I had more kills than all of them combined.
JAMISON(AP): You gotta be kidding me.
NICK: Yeah, and this kid was talking trash like, crazy…
BOBBY: And this kid was like seriously a Halo nut and he was talking all this trash about how, like, he’d never been beaten before and he didn’t even come close.
JAMISON(AP): Jeez…
BOBBY: And then he got mad and posted this naked picture of me on the internet. [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): Well who really won that one, huh? [Laughter]
NICK: Bob’s the best Halo player in the band though, so if we have one on one matches he represents.
BOBBY: But as a band, we’re very strong.
JAMISON(AP): Man, I like you guys a lot more because of that.
BOBBY: We’ll play any band out there four on four for a hundred bucks.
JAMISON(AP): Hold on, say that into the camera, I’m posting this.
BOBBY: [To camera] We will play any band for one hundred bucks, winner gets the other band’s 100.
NICK: And I play poker too.
BOBBY: Yeah, we’re big poker fans.
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, I’d read that somewhere, I think.
NICK: We’re pretty decent.
BOBBY: We gamble a lot. We always plan our tours around going to Vegas. [Laughter]
NICK: Vegas fucks me up. The last three times I’ve been there I’ve lost three hundred bucks each time.
JAMISON(AP): Oh man. So you’re not very good, huh? [Laughter]
BOBBY: No, he’s good, he just doesn’t know when to quit. He always gets up like 300 bucks but then he loses it, like, plus 300 more.
NICK: Yeah, that’s what happens. They give you a lot of free alcohol and then you don’t even know what’s going on anymore and you get really mad when they tell you to stop.
JAMISON(AP): So is it true that one of your guys’ songs is actually, like, about Halo? [Laughter]
NICK: No, no, no.
JAMISON(AP): Well, because I had heard that Reactivate, Recontruct… Well, actually I don’t know all three words, but that one… [Laughter]
BOBBY: Asshole. [More laughter]
NICK: It’s not, like, about Halo, but it like drew some parallels, kind of like the book references, too, there were just parallels. It was kind of like the idea that that character is like, half-human, like he’s a cyborg. [BOBBY starts laughing]
JAMISON(AP): What’re you, just messing with me? He’s over the laughing.
NICK: No, I think he’s making fun of me, actually. But anyway, it had to do with like, coming to terms and kind of like finding yourself.
BOBBY: That’s what Halo is all about. [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, that’s why I play.
NICK: Oh, are you a player?
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, I try.
NICK: Nice.
JAMISON(AP): I was actually considering trying to challenge you guys, but now, man, I’m scared. But anyway, last question, rate the questions in this interview on a scale of 1 to 10.
RYAN: I wasn’t here the whole time so you guys answers.
NICK: Oh, man, I’d say it’s like a 9.
BOBBY: Yeah, 9.
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, that’s about what I wanted to hear. I was shooting for 7 to 9 range.
BOBBY: We’ve never had an interview that I would rate over a 6. Most interviewers really suck and, and you’re doing a really great job.
JAMISON(AP): Parting comments?
NICK: Thank you.
BOBBY: Yeah, you guys are super cool for coming out to the show, man.
BILLY: Nader 2004.
JAMISON(AP): What was that?
BILLY: Nader for president, 2004. [Laughter]
NICK: Anyone who’s reading this, go to our website.
JAMISON(AP): Oh, no, don’t worry, no one’s reading this. They quit by, like, question 5.
NICK: Oh, cool, well then just you should to www.gatsbysamericandream.com (http://www.gatsbysamericandream.com)
BOBBY: www.purevolume.com/gatsbysamericandream (http://www.purevolume.com/gatsbysamericandream)
JAMISON(AP): Alright guys, thanks for doing this.
[End of interview. Huge thanks to the band and to Chris Martin, er, Billy for making this happen and getting me into their amazing live show that night. Anyone who doesn’t listen to this band is retarded.]
JAMISON(AP): For starters, if you guys wouldn’t mind stating your name, social security number, and what you do in the band Gatsby’s American Dreams.
BILLY: I’m Billy, I’m Gatsby’s tour manager.
NICK: I’m Nick, I sing.
RYAN: I’m Ryan, I play guitar.
BOBBY: I’m Bobby and I play guitar and I baby-sit my little brother Billy. [Laughter]
[RUDY walks out of bathroom]
NICK: That’s Rudy, he poops and plays drums. [More laughter]
JAMISON(AP): If you will, to begin, describe your band in your own words.
NICK: I’d say we’re fun… and interesting. [Laughter]
RYAN: And totally gay. [More laughter]
NICK: No, really, I think that describes us pretty well.
JAMISON(AP): Fun and interesting? Does anyone have any additional comments? [No response] Okay, this is going to be a very short interview. [Laughter] Okay, so why should I, the average music connoisseur, listen to your band, Gatsby’s American Dream, over, oh, say, the 50,000 other pop-punk, emo, screamo, heartcore bands that have popped up recently. [No immediate response] Haha, you’re like, “Hey, you’re right, you shouldn’t listen to us…” [Pause]
NICK AND RYAN: … Yeah. [Laughter]
BOBBY: Because you have good taste in music. [Laughter] Because Gatsby’s has a good live show.
ALL: Yeah.
NICK: I mean, basically, we’re just trying to do something different. I guess that’s a little cliché.
[RYAN leaves to take a shower]
JAMISON(AP): Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve been a band for about three years.
NICK: Yeah, that’s about right.
JAMISON(AP): Have things changed much? And do you ever get used to the fanfare, from, well, not from tonight obviously [Laughter (there were only about 30 people at the show)], but from maybe say your home town. And do you feel that you’re getting all the credit your deserve, or less, or more and why.
NICK: The first question, have things changed, I think things have changed a lot. We’ve got a different drummer and a different bass-player… The difference from our first CD to our second is, like, huge. And so, yeah, I think we’ve gotten a lot more mature. And do we think we get what we deserve? Eh…
BOBBY: I don’t know, I think we’ve spent, like, the past three years paying our dues. You know, we’ve done, like, completely self-booked tours over and over again and it finally feels like it’s starting to pay off, you know, like we’re starting to draw a lot of kids from all over the country and I think we’ve worked a lot harder than most bands do to get to the point where we are. You know, because a lot of bands get the support like of a big label before they get to the size that we’ve gotten to and you know, we’re been doing it pretty much DIY with an indie-Seattle label and uh, you know, we’re really happy where we are and we’re happy that we’ve earned it and, yah know, didn’t get any handouts from a big label.
NICK: Yeah, it makes everything you get, like, ten times more meaningful. Was there another part of that question too, that we forgot to answer? [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): No… Next question, true or false, the bigger a band such as yourself gets, the more difficult it is to maintain creative control over your music. Please explain.
NICK: I think that that’s something that we’re not really... willing to compromise. I mean, honestly, it does come down to the band’s decision. Like, we’ve straight up been told from labels, you know, “This would be a great place for you if you threw some big, catchy choruses in your songs” and we’re just like, “It was nice talking to you” and it’s definitely a choice, and the band always makes the choice.
JAMISON(AP): This is kind of a silly question, but, in your opinion, what’s the best song you’ve written as a band, to date?
NICK: Aw, man, I don’t know… [To BOBBY] What do you think?
BOBBY: Let’s see… Uh… [Pause]
JAMISON(AP): Are there any favorites to perform live, then?
NICK: I really like playing “Work Lies Sex Love Fear Hate Friendship” live… It’s just kind of different from the rest of our set it feels like, and I don’t know, yeah, it’s just fun. I actually think that’s one of my favorite that we’ve done together, too…
BOBBY: Boy, that, uh, that “Manifesto” sure is a great song though [I had mentioned to BOBBY earlier that night that “A Manifesto of Tangible Wealth” was my favorite of their songs], too bad we didn’t play that live. [Laughter]
NICK: What about you, Rudy, do you have a favorite?
RUDY: Yeah, I like “Reprogram”. I think that’s a good one to close with.
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, that’s a good one. I actually have a question about that song later.
NICK: Oooh, alright, segway. [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): No, I can’t ask that one yet, because it’s my closer and it’s the strong one. You’ve gotta finish strong. [Laughter]
BOBBY: Yeah, you’re a pro, man.
NICK: It actually is kind of nice that you know who we are and have heard our music beforehand.
BILLY: Yeah, we get a lot of, “So, are you guys, like, named after that Great Gatsby book? [Laughter]
NICK: Actually we wrote it.
JAMISON(AP): Actually, now that we’ve on the subject, I’m sure you get asked this a lot, but, could you explain a little of the logic behind the name? What is it about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work that appeals to you guys so much as a band?
NICK: I think we just drew a lot of parallels between what we saw going on in music and what we saw going on in the story. [Band murmurs in agreement].
JAMISON(AP): So, yeah, well, does that mean that you’re all very much into literature and that sort of thing?
BOBBY: Well, yeah we all read lots of different things. I think everyone in the band reads a lot. Except for Rudy. [Laughter]
NICK: He never learned Rudy just hits things and he ended up being a good drummer, he grunts a lot [Laughter].
JAMISON(AP): So you drew a lot of parallels between Gatsby and the music industry, does the same go for Ribbons and Sugar [Gatsby’s second album]?
NICK: Yeah, that comes from Animal Farm, that George Orwell book. It’s just like another example of, well, I mean if you read that book I know that everyone comes away with something different, but I think that, kinda the same thing, we just saw the same thing- [BOBBY interjects]
BOBBY: What we were feeling musically before we did Ribbons and Sugar, how the whole idea came about, was just like, you know, we were coming into contact with a lot of indie labels, and we were just like really surprised like as we came along further and got more involved in the whole music world of touring and labels and meeting people and that kind of stuff, uhm, just realizing that a lot of these indie labels that are totally pretentious and preachy about how awful majors are and all this stuff that, you know, a lot of them operate very similar to the majors, and sometimes in a lot of cases are actually a lot worse than majors, and you know, majors at least are starting to do artist development again and all this stuff, while indie labels are just fucking looking for the band that’s going to play music that sounds like another band that’s already blown up.
JAMISON(AP): That’s a pretty accurate analysis, yeah.
BOBBY: And, you know, we’re not saying that majors are better than indie labels or anything like that, but it was just, like, you know, the idea that these supposed upstart indie labels that like, claim to be you know, trying to change the music industry and be independent and they cry about how awful majors are and the truth is they just want to be the majors. And, bringing us back around, that’s exactly what happened in Animal Farm. You know, the pigs, they cried about the farm and how corrupt the whole system was and how it needed to be changed—but they didn’t want to change the system, they just wanted to be the farmers themselves, so that was the parallel.
[RYAN gets out of the shower and enters the room]
JAMISON(AP): Okay, so you guys know what’s going on in music right now, right. So there’s a lot of bands that are popping up all over and some are even getting some serious play. Like, MTV is starting to pick up on a lot of these underground bands and with the advent of the whole FUSE network thing… Basically, where do you see this “scene” going on five years? Do you think it’ll blow up, i.e. the whole Nirvana/grunge thing of the early 90’s.
NICK: Personally, the way I see it right now, with what’s going on with the whole scream/sing emo thing, it feels like ska did. [Band murmurs in agreement]. Yeah, I mean, personally, I think it’s just the new ska and people who are actually writing interesting songs will stick around and…
BOBBY: You know, stuff comes and goes in waves, you know, they’re just fads. There was ska, and then, you know, punk was big, and then it was the emo thing and now it’s screamo and soon it’s gonna be something else before too long. And there’s labels that ride through that and last and everything and there’s artists that do too. For example, I don’t know, think about a lot of those bands that like, blew up for five minutes like Reel Big Fish or Save Ferris or…
NICK: Mighty Mighty Bosstones.
BOBBY: Yeah, all those bands, and I mean, the Bosstones were around forever and you know those bands just, like, blew up when the whole scene became more of a trend or a fad than it was actually about the music but now, you know, all those bands have disappeared and it’s going to happen to screamo too.
BILLY: The good thing about Gatsby’s is that no one really categorizes the music so it’s not really part of any real scene.
JAMISON(AP): In regard to that, what I hear a lot is “smart” rock. You know, just the more intelligent side of what’s going on right now, that’s what people describe you as.
[Band reflects]
NICK: I guess that’s better than dumb rock. [Laughter] No, really, that’s a huge compliment to pay us, we appreciate that.
BOBBY: And it’s a lot nicer to get that than, I don’t know, I just feel like sometimes people will miss what we’re doing. Like, you know, they’ll hear something within like, the first three minutes of one of our records and they’ll just kind of lump us in with other emo bands and stuff and anyone that listens to our music and gives it, you know, a fair shake…
JAMISON(AP): Like how you don’t have choruses, like, ever? [Laughter]
BOBBY: Yeah, there’s some weird shit going on in our music than what you’ll hear in a lot of, you know, emo bands and that’s not bragging, it’s just different. And that’s what’s most fulfilling is that we just feel like we’re creating something new, you know?
BILLY: Right, but you’re still making music and you’re not, like, fucking being weird just to be weird [Laughter] like the vocals are still beautiful and the music, like, still works as a song even though it’s not verse, chorus, verse.
NICK: Man, this is the best interview ever, maybe.
BILLY: No, I thought Kurt Loader did a good job [Laughter].
JAMISON(AP): So do you guys have any specific goals for your band? Are you looking to see anything or do anything or sell a certain amount of records?
NICK: To be able to do this for like a living and not have to work when we go back home, but I think that like a lot of our personal goals have been met. Like, playing in Seattle with a packed house and the kids are singing. When I was young and growing up and going to shows or whatever, that’s all I ever wanted, was to have my music be felt by like a bunch of kids, so that’s a personal goal that we’ve already met.
BOBBY: It would be really nice to be able to have our CDs available to kids in stores and stuff like you know, we’re on such a small label we don’t really have the distribution to get our stuff out nation wide. And like, there’s still a ton of people who haven’t even heard us or heard Ribbons and Sugar because our label is so small and like…
JAMISON(AP): So are you looking to try and get to a bigger label, by the way?
BOBBY: Well… Yeah.
NICK: Yeah, sure, I mean…
BOBBY: We just want everyone to be able to have a chance to hear our music you know, like and be able to form their own opinion and if it’s not put out there, there isn’t really a chance of that happening, so…
NICK: Basically we want to be rich and famous. [Laughter]
[RYAN jumps on top of BOBBY who is laying in bed]
NICK: Back to the gay part.
BOBBY: Smart rock my ass, we’re gay rock. [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): Okay, I’m sure this’ll be different for everyone, but name a dream tour line-up. Four spots.
NICK: Oooh, bands to go with…
RYAN: Living bands?
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, anyone.
RUDY: I always say Radiohead, I love that band.
[It was too hard to tell who was saying what, so this is just a big cacophony of answers]
BAND: Beatles… Strokes… Queen… Snoop Dogg… Outkast…
NICK: That’d be fun. Those guys get crunk. [Laughter]
BOBBY: I’d really like to go out with Further Seems Forever.
JAMISON(AP): Really? You hear they got the singer from Sense Field for their new record?
BOBBY: Is it Senses Fail or Sense Field?
JAMISON(AP): No, Senses Fail is a shitty screamo band, Sense Field has been around for… man, forever.
NICK: Is he good?
JAMISON(AP): Huh, oh… Uhm, I don’t…
NICK: Dude you’re on camera you better watch your words. [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): This is kind of along the same vein. Dream band line-up. Five spots.
RYAN: Like with yourself included in the band?
JAMISON(AP): Whatever, just like, the supergroup.
[Again, too hard to tell who is saying what, so this is just general answers]
BAND: Me and Julian from the Strokes… On bass, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers... No way, dude, Les Claypool from Primus.
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, I’d go with him over Flea.
BOBBY: How do you know who Les Claypool is, you’re like ten? [Laughter]
BILLY: Chris Martin on vocals [Singer from Coldplay. BILLY looks exactly like the guy]
JAMISON(AP): Or how about just you, and you push him out of the way.
NICK: No, Andre3000 on vocals. That’d be sick.
BILLY: Can you put in the interview that I look like Chris Martin? [wink, wink]
NICK: What about drummers, Rudy? The guy from Soundgarden?
RUDY: Yeah, that’d be good. How about the guy from Helmate?
NICK: Singer… Man, I don’t know…
BILLY: Cody from the Blood Brothers on guitar?
JAMISON(AP): So what, if any, prevalent musical influences go into Gatsby’s American Dream?
BILLY: Elliot Smith.
BOBBY: Yeah, and Radiohead… Ryan Adams…
BILLY: Bobby, I think some of your guitar is like, Propaghandi, on the first album especially.
BOBBY: Yeah, big influence.
NICK: As far as, like, vocals, just like influences from stuff I would listen to when I was younger, I listened to a lot of like R&B and like, just straight up pop.
JAMISON(AP): Name a band that you like that people probably wouldn’t expect.
BOBBY: Spin Doctors. [Band laughs and mocks] I love Spin Doctors, man.
JAMISON(AP): Pocket Full of Kryptonite was like the first album I ever owned.
BILLY: Bobby likes Maroon 5, man! [More laughter]
RUDY: Oh, Motley Crue. I love Motley Crue.
BILLY: Man-o-War.
BOBBY: You’re the tour manager, shut up. [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): No, no, as far as I’m concerned, he’s in the band.
BOBBY: [To Nick and Rudy] Don’t you guys listen to anything you’re embarrasses of? You guys both like Mest, don’t you? [Laughter, then pause, the more Laughter].
JAMISON(AP): Joke of the night, joke of the night!
NICK: What’s the deal, what’s the dealio, dealio.
JAMISON(AP): You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, I don’t see why you wouldn’t but, uh, how do you feel about what’s going on in Iraq right now?
BOBBY: Well it’s obvious that it’s just, like, ridiculous that we went over there all because, well, like, the whole reason for us going over there in the first place was weapons of mass detruction [WMD, from here on out], and, there were no WMD. And now they’re admitting that the intelligence that they had that said that there were WMD was false. And so, the question is who is going to get fired over this? We destroyed a whole country, removed their government and, like, killed Saddam’s sons and we did all of this stuff because of WMD. Sure, maybe Saddam was an asshole and it was just a shitty government but that’s, you know, for them to sort out, not for us. Like, we don’t get to just go in and fix people’s countries.
BILLY: Yeah, and we left him in power for like ten years.
BOBBY: Yeah, we never had a problem with all that until there were WMD and then it’s like, oh let’s go in there and clean it up but then there’re no WMD so does that mean we get to bring Saddam’s sons back to life and put Saddam back in power?
NICK: Not to mention that we empowered them in the first place and it’s our problem, so I mean…
BOBBY: So it’s like, what the hell did we even do over there? We just destroyed a country and it’s just a piece of shit now and they just blow stuff up all the time and they’re like, killing people and it’s in a state of constant turmoil. I don’t know…
NICK: Well when they’re on the verge of civil war, it’s… we just made things worse.
BOBBY: It’s retarded, we had no right to just go in there.
BILLY: And it’s like we fought just to fight, we weren’t, like, pushed to fight.
NICK: Yeah, well it was a preemptive war, and like, preemptive war, that’s not in the constitution… that’s not constitutional.
BOBBY: And countries that actually have WMD like North Korea, we’re not doing anything to. Like those guys could just blow up other countries right now. And that guy is crazy. And we go in and wipe out this country that doesn’t have a single WMD.
NICK: And it’s just so telling when you see Bush get on the airwaves and tell them over the radio not to touch the oil fields. That was like the first thing we even said to them, “Do not burn the oil fields.”
BOBBY: “We’re not coming for the oil, but please don’t burn it!” [Laughter] “We’re coming for your own good, don’t touch it!”
JAMISON(AP): So I gather that there are no opposing viewpoints in the band? [No response, then laughter].
BILLY: But we know a guy in a band that is a republican.
JAMISON(AP): Who’s that?
BOBBY: It’s really weird.
BILLY: No, you don’t need to talk trash on the internet.
BOBBY: Yeah, we can’t say who it is but it’s just really weird because he like, seriously gets mad if you say something against Bush.
NICK: Yeah, he’s got Bush-Cheney stickers on his guitar case and stuff. [Laughter]
BOBBY: Nice guy, though. [Band agrees] Good guy. I hope he reads this. [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): Okay, this isn’t my strong one, but it’s equally good. Well, no, it’s not equally good, but it’s cool. Ready?
NICK: Yeah.
JAMISON(AP): Rate the television show “American Dreams” on a scale of 1 to 10.
RYAN: TEN! TEN! I love it! [Laughter] Best show ever!
BOBBY: My mom watches it all the time.
NICK: [To me, Jamison] What, do you really like the show or something?
JAMISON(AP): I’ve never even seen the show. [Laughter]
BOBBY: Then whose question is this?
JAMISON(AP): Mine, I just imagined that this would be a lot funnier than it’s actually turning out… Think about it… American Dreams… Gatsby’s American Dream… See the… connection?
RYAN: OH, oh. No, I don’t watch it because it’s… similar to my band’s name. [Laughter]
NICK: That’s like a Craig Kilborn question. 5 questions.
RYAN: No, I really do love it.
NICK: I really like The O.C.
JAMISON(AP): Everyone likes The O.C. Do you know Mischa Barton is my age?
NICK: How old are you anyway?
JAMISON(AP): 17.
NICK: Yeah, that’s wild.
BILLY: You look like Codie Banks.
RUDY: Frankie Muniz!
BOBBY: Oh, dude, you do!
NICK: Codie Banks!
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, yeah, shut up. Here’s my power question. Ready?
NICK: Yeah.
JAMISON(AP): Here we go… Halo. Xbox. How good are you guys?
RYAN: No one’s ever beat us.
BOBBY: Better than any band out there.
RYAN: We’ve been challenged, like, everywhere and we have never lost.
NICK: Yeah, we’ve never, ever been beaten on the road.
JAMISON(AP): Really?
NICK: Yeah, kids always come up to us and they’re like, “Dude, I’m the best Halo player at my school. I’m the best in this city. I’m the best in the state.” And they’re, like talking all this trash and I’m like, dude, you can’t touch me. And every single time we smoke them. And, for example, like, last time we played what was the score? Same situation, we came to a kid’s house and he had, like, a Halo carpet [Laughter] No, really he did, like in his room and he’s all talking about it and he’s really into it. [To BOBBY] What, so did you play one on one?
BOBBY: I think we played like four people, him and two of his friends and me. And I had more kills than all of them combined.
JAMISON(AP): You gotta be kidding me.
NICK: Yeah, and this kid was talking trash like, crazy…
BOBBY: And this kid was like seriously a Halo nut and he was talking all this trash about how, like, he’d never been beaten before and he didn’t even come close.
JAMISON(AP): Jeez…
BOBBY: And then he got mad and posted this naked picture of me on the internet. [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): Well who really won that one, huh? [Laughter]
NICK: Bob’s the best Halo player in the band though, so if we have one on one matches he represents.
BOBBY: But as a band, we’re very strong.
JAMISON(AP): Man, I like you guys a lot more because of that.
BOBBY: We’ll play any band out there four on four for a hundred bucks.
JAMISON(AP): Hold on, say that into the camera, I’m posting this.
BOBBY: [To camera] We will play any band for one hundred bucks, winner gets the other band’s 100.
NICK: And I play poker too.
BOBBY: Yeah, we’re big poker fans.
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, I’d read that somewhere, I think.
NICK: We’re pretty decent.
BOBBY: We gamble a lot. We always plan our tours around going to Vegas. [Laughter]
NICK: Vegas fucks me up. The last three times I’ve been there I’ve lost three hundred bucks each time.
JAMISON(AP): Oh man. So you’re not very good, huh? [Laughter]
BOBBY: No, he’s good, he just doesn’t know when to quit. He always gets up like 300 bucks but then he loses it, like, plus 300 more.
NICK: Yeah, that’s what happens. They give you a lot of free alcohol and then you don’t even know what’s going on anymore and you get really mad when they tell you to stop.
JAMISON(AP): So is it true that one of your guys’ songs is actually, like, about Halo? [Laughter]
NICK: No, no, no.
JAMISON(AP): Well, because I had heard that Reactivate, Recontruct… Well, actually I don’t know all three words, but that one… [Laughter]
BOBBY: Asshole. [More laughter]
NICK: It’s not, like, about Halo, but it like drew some parallels, kind of like the book references, too, there were just parallels. It was kind of like the idea that that character is like, half-human, like he’s a cyborg. [BOBBY starts laughing]
JAMISON(AP): What’re you, just messing with me? He’s over the laughing.
NICK: No, I think he’s making fun of me, actually. But anyway, it had to do with like, coming to terms and kind of like finding yourself.
BOBBY: That’s what Halo is all about. [Laughter]
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, that’s why I play.
NICK: Oh, are you a player?
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, I try.
NICK: Nice.
JAMISON(AP): I was actually considering trying to challenge you guys, but now, man, I’m scared. But anyway, last question, rate the questions in this interview on a scale of 1 to 10.
RYAN: I wasn’t here the whole time so you guys answers.
NICK: Oh, man, I’d say it’s like a 9.
BOBBY: Yeah, 9.
JAMISON(AP): Yeah, that’s about what I wanted to hear. I was shooting for 7 to 9 range.
BOBBY: We’ve never had an interview that I would rate over a 6. Most interviewers really suck and, and you’re doing a really great job.
JAMISON(AP): Parting comments?
NICK: Thank you.
BOBBY: Yeah, you guys are super cool for coming out to the show, man.
BILLY: Nader 2004.
JAMISON(AP): What was that?
BILLY: Nader for president, 2004. [Laughter]
NICK: Anyone who’s reading this, go to our website.
JAMISON(AP): Oh, no, don’t worry, no one’s reading this. They quit by, like, question 5.
NICK: Oh, cool, well then just you should to www.gatsbysamericandream.com (http://www.gatsbysamericandream.com)
BOBBY: www.purevolume.com/gatsbysamericandream (http://www.purevolume.com/gatsbysamericandream)
JAMISON(AP): Alright guys, thanks for doing this.
[End of interview. Huge thanks to the band and to Chris Martin, er, Billy for making this happen and getting me into their amazing live show that night. Anyone who doesn’t listen to this band is retarded.]