By: Debbie Cavallo, Jessica Zietz
     http://www.recroommagazine.com

The Date: March 8, 2003

Jessica: Just to start off with a basic question, how long have you guys been a band?

Jon: We've been a band for almost two and a half years; solid lineup probably for a year and a half.  I joined the band after almost a half of a year.

Jessica: And what do you play?

Jon: I play bass and do like background screams and stuff.

Debbie: That's always good.

Jessica: How would you say that the style of music has progressed and changed since the band started?

Jon: Well, the songs that were on the EP were kind of a different variety of music, like it was songs with hard parts and songs with melody and some songs had screaming and some didn't.  Light A Match came out and a lot of the songs on there are still older songs, about three quarters of the album is older material, but the stuff that we've been rehearsing for a new album that we're gonna be doing probably...we're probably going to go record between the months of September and December.  The newer stuff we're writing is more mature and I know everyone says this, but it's the best stuff we've written for sure.  I don't know how to explain it.  It really brings out all of our influences, so I think going to record with Ed Rose for Light A Match helped our band realize how much we needed to improve as musicians and makes us want to improve every single day, cause we're just like, "Okay, we do this as a job and we love it, so we better put all of our heart into it."

Jessica: So you would say that's responsible for the change?

Jon: Yeah, totally, cause we went there and we weren't ready at all and then we just took things more seriously with the songwriting process, we wanted to involve all of our different influences.  We had a common idea of what we wanted our music to go toward.  Our newer stuff just really stands out.

Jessica: Is there anything that happened while you guys were trying to get started that made you think that you just wouldn't be able to do it?

Jon: Well I joined the band before they were signed and before we even had a fanbase in our hometown.  I moved out from Minnesota to join the band, so I left everything behind.  So there were times in the beginning stages where it was really hard, like not being able to make enough money to eat, going weeks without eating.  Playing endless shows at really shitty bars to nobody, we'd have like two people every single weekend.  We'd just be like, "Well when is this gonna happen?"  Music starts with goals.  A goal can be from wanting to record a demo to wanting to play a show to wanting to go on tour.  I think with us, things started to happen like that, like, "Okay, we're gonna write more songs, okay, we're gonna try to get into this venue."  And it took a long time for that to happen, cause we went from the band who played in front of five people to the band who played to six, seven hundred people.

Debbie: Had any of you guys taken professional music lessons when you started out?  Did any of you really not know how to play your instruments well?

Jon: All of us were involved in music in some way, shape, or form before playing in the band.  Armin did drum line in high school, Shawn pretty much taught himself how to play guitar.  Shawn's pretty much responsible for writing all the songs for the band.  He's just amazing.  All the guys in the band are amazing, everyone's improved so much.  Josh has played in bands all his life and plays tons of different instruments.  With me, I took piano, I played guitar, and then I took bass lessons and piano lessons when I was in college.  Taking lessons made me not want to play music because it made me feel like I was so limited because I had to do things a certain way and I just wanted to play rock music.  If people don't think it's talent, then whatever, people are entitled to their own opinion.  We like what we do, so that's why we do it.

Debbie: How long did it take you guys to get your first demo out?

Jon: They did it before I was in the band.  They recorded the four song EP, it's called The December EP.  That's what was available on MP3.com originally.  That's how I heard of the band.  They did that at a local studio in Riverside, where the band originated from.  When I join the band, we still didn't have the CD pressed.  What we did was, we burned it onto CD-Rs, put them in sleeves, and people would buy them.  We were really lucky that people actually liked our music.  Noise Ratchet helped us get started with good shows, we played a couple good shows with them and they helped out a lot.  And then we started getting on bigger shows with bigger bands.  We only did two thousand of the demo and that's out of print. 

Jessica: What did it feel like to finally see your video on Much Music?

Jon: That was weird, cause for me, I grew up sitting in my room idolizing bands.  When we shot the music video, it was cool, but it wasn't like...all of our friends do music videos and they have the makeup and all of that crap.  I'm not saying it's stupid, but with us, in the video, we're like sweating profusely.  We're sweating everywhere and we didn't have any of that stuff and it was just like, "Aright we're gonna videotape you and this is it."  So when we saw it on there, it was just hard to believe, cause we went from being a band so small to being...I mean, we're still small but to be seen on TV and for my family, who still kinda doubts that the band even exists...they're like, "Why'd you quit college to do this?"  Same with all of our families.  They think it's just a bunch of fun and games.  We're really trying to work with this, so seeing the video on there is a huge reward.  We're really lucky.

Jessica: I was looking at the bios on the site and saw that Josh is reading Howard Zinn.  What's your stance on the war with Iraq and the situation there?

Jon: We're kind of biased too, cause our drummer's Persian.  With me, I'm kind of a pacifist.  I'm not really into war.  For me, if we did go to war, I could never fight in a war so I don't know what I would do.  I know if I got drafted-

Debbie and Jessica [who have to talk in unison at all times]: We're moving to Canada.

Jon: Yeah, that's what we said!  We were like, "We're moving the band to Canada."  I don't know.  I want there to be protection in our country and I'm not ungrateful for what we have.  Cause people sometimes are like, "How can you say you don't want people to go to war with Iraq when they're trying to build nuclear weapons that could kill everyone on the face of the earth?"  So it's okay for us to have weapons, but they can't have weapons?

Jessica: We have enough weapons to blow the world up seven times over.  We only need to blow it up once.

Jon: Yeah, exactly.  Like I said, I'm a pacifist.  I'm not trying to say I'm a wuss or anything; I just can't imagine killing anyone.

Jessica: I don't blame you-

Debbie: - for not wanting to go to war.  I mean, there are a couple people I'd like to take out, but no one in Iraq.  Just a couple people from here.  Okay, are you pleased with where your band is now or do you feel pressured to get out there more, play more shows, make another video?

Jon: I'm proud of where we're at.  I think that being in a musician and being in a band, you should always be progressing to the next stage.  And it doesn't even matter if you don't know what it is.  You just shouldn't settle for second best.  There's so much more that we can do and we might not know what it is, but if we keep working hard and keep doing what we do...touring, recording, just doing this whole heartedly.

Debbie: You guys have been compared to Thursday, Atreyu, and Thrice.  Do you agree with the comparisons and were you influenced by them?

Jon: Being compared to those bands is very flattering; it's a huge compliment.  We're friends with Atreyu, we're from the same area.  Atreyu and us started out pretty much around the same time.  They were a band longer than us, but we started gaining popularity around the same time.  They were coming to our shows, we'd go to their shows.  With the other bands, to say we're clones of them and we sound like them and that's it..people will review the CD and say, "I heard it the first time and it's called Thursday.  I heard it the first time and it's called Thrice."  People don't even know that there's three decades of rock influence in our music.  They don't come to our shows and see what we're about.  With the newer material, I think people are going to get away from that comparison.  I think the only thing that might share common similarities is the screaming and singing dynamic.  In the new material, there's no screaming.  It's just rock.  It's still very heavy, driving music.  It's not on purpose, but the newer stuff, it just doesn't seem like it [screaming] fits.  So it's a good comparison, I don't think we sound like them, but if people say that we do and that's what gets them into us, that's awesome.

Debbie: Which one of your songs gets the best reaction from the crowd?

Jon: "Wide Eyes" is an old song, it's really popular on MP3.com.  Everyone likes "For A Friend" and I think people are really starting to get into "On Building."  It's the song we have the video for.  I think it's awesome because that song kind of represents where our music's going.  Our newer music's even beyond that.  People know the lyrics and they're jumping over kids to come and grab the microphone.   It's awesome.

Debbie: One time, we interviewed the singer of a band and he had just been dumped by his girlfriend and had to go and play the show.  We were just wondering, how do you deal with your outside problems?  Do you just put them aside from the show or are they still just on your mind and affecting you on stage?

Jon: Well today, there were problems, I'm not gonna say what, but I'm upset right now.  Regardless of how I might feel and regardless of me being upset about something, whether it's internally with the guys with the bands or if it's just things outside of my life, people pay money to come and watch my band play.  It's a privilege for me to get onstage and play for people.  I'm not gonna have a shitty attitude, not because I don't want to, but it's not fair to other people.  I shouldn't come off as an asshole to other people.  Without fans, the people who listen to our music, our band wouldn't be where we're at.  So when I get onstage, it's a way to get out aggression, it's therapy for all of us.

Jessica: So it's the last show of the tour.  What are your plans for after the tour?

Jon: Well, our singer's flying home to see his fiancé and then we're driving to California and we have two or three weeks off.  Then we hit the road with Hopesfall.  That's like a month.  After that, we have a couple weeks off.  We're still debating what we're gonna do after that.  There's an opportunity to tour with Mest and then there's another opportunity to tour with Bigwig.  We're deciding which one we're gonna do.  Then we just found out last week that we finally got a tour with Brand New.  That's gonna be June and July.  I'm excited, I hear they're really nice guys.

[Everyone rambles for a good ten minutes about how incredible Brand New is.]

Jon: I'll be driving the van and I'll put in the CD and I'll be like, "YEAH!!"  August we're gonna do a co-headlining tour with Open Hand.  Then we're taking off a few months cause our singer's getting married and we're writing new music and recording.

Thanks to Jon, Mike Cubillos, and the rest of The Beautiful Mistake!

~ recroommagazine