(Courtesy of Bedlam Music Management.)
It's not often us here at ThatRockBlog.com get to sit down with bands we admire and shoot the shit. For this little chat, we thank the kind people at MSOPR for hooking us up with George Pettit and Chris Steele of Alexisonfire.
ThatRockBlog: So, we gotta know, what's the deal with the body? You guys were shooting a video and found a corpse?
Chris Steele: Yeah... Well, we were filming [Young Cardinals] at Niagara Falls, on the Maid of the Mist, and it was still open to the public and tourists. At about the halfway point of the video shoot, we just heard talk of a body in the water. Of course, we were kind of nervous; like, did one of our fans jump off the boat? But we got details there was [a body] so as we came back and docked, they locked off an area, got it to shore and it wasn't that big a deal.
TRB: Holy crap.
CS: They obviously don't publicize that all the time, but I think it does happen quite often at Niagara Falls.
TRB: Good to know. Any pre-show superstitions? Like, do you guys do a chant or light a bonfire or anything?
George Pettit: Men.
TRB: What?
CS: It's kind of a sporting thing. Like a baseball or football chant. We say "men". M-E-N. "Men". On the count of eight, we go, "MENNNNN!" Then some stretches, a couple push-ups and just be ourselves.
TRB: Bizarre. Any bad habits on tour? Have you noticed any band members, like, mumble sexual things in their sleep or...?
GP: Our guitar tech gets drunk and sings. Ratbeard eating up all the bandwidth with eight pages open on his computer. That's a bad habit.
TRB: True. That's a dick move.
CS: Also, being on a tour like this, there's twelve guys on a bus, so you're bound to lose a few things. Actually, our drummer likes to play little pranks and there was a terrible prank the other day when he took George's shoes and hid them in the microwave. Where we heat up our food. Awful.
TRB: You guys ever go up on YouTube and think to yourselves, "Wow, that kid's really butchering my song"? Or is it like a flattering thing, even when it's really, really bad?
GP: It's a little bit of both, probably. I mean, it's cool we inspire kids to play instruments. Sometimes you see someone that's not so good at playing your instrument, sometimes it's cool when you see someone from really far away.
CS: Yeah, especially a territory that we haven't played before, and knowing there's a scene that follows Alexisonfire and they play at local punk shows in, like, Brazil. We haven't even played in South America!
GP: And Singapore. Mexico City. Stuff like that. A bunch of places we've never actually played, you find people playing Alexisonfire songs. Some are better than others.
TRB: Any plans to go over to those places, or not so much?
GP: We've been trying to get over to Brazil for a while now. I don't know about Singapore...
TRB: All right, last question: If you could sum up your entire Warped '09 experience in five words or less, what would those be?
GP: Porta-potty, rock the house.
* * * * *
ThatRockBlog: So, we gotta know, what's the deal with the body? You guys were shooting a video and found a corpse?
Chris Steele: Yeah... Well, we were filming [Young Cardinals] at Niagara Falls, on the Maid of the Mist, and it was still open to the public and tourists. At about the halfway point of the video shoot, we just heard talk of a body in the water. Of course, we were kind of nervous; like, did one of our fans jump off the boat? But we got details there was [a body] so as we came back and docked, they locked off an area, got it to shore and it wasn't that big a deal.
TRB: Holy crap.
CS: They obviously don't publicize that all the time, but I think it does happen quite often at Niagara Falls.
TRB: Good to know. Any pre-show superstitions? Like, do you guys do a chant or light a bonfire or anything?
George Pettit: Men.
TRB: What?
CS: It's kind of a sporting thing. Like a baseball or football chant. We say "men". M-E-N. "Men". On the count of eight, we go, "MENNNNN!" Then some stretches, a couple push-ups and just be ourselves.
TRB: Bizarre. Any bad habits on tour? Have you noticed any band members, like, mumble sexual things in their sleep or...?
GP: Our guitar tech gets drunk and sings. Ratbeard eating up all the bandwidth with eight pages open on his computer. That's a bad habit.
TRB: True. That's a dick move.
CS: Also, being on a tour like this, there's twelve guys on a bus, so you're bound to lose a few things. Actually, our drummer likes to play little pranks and there was a terrible prank the other day when he took George's shoes and hid them in the microwave. Where we heat up our food. Awful.
TRB: You guys ever go up on YouTube and think to yourselves, "Wow, that kid's really butchering my song"? Or is it like a flattering thing, even when it's really, really bad?
GP: It's a little bit of both, probably. I mean, it's cool we inspire kids to play instruments. Sometimes you see someone that's not so good at playing your instrument, sometimes it's cool when you see someone from really far away.
CS: Yeah, especially a territory that we haven't played before, and knowing there's a scene that follows Alexisonfire and they play at local punk shows in, like, Brazil. We haven't even played in South America!
GP: And Singapore. Mexico City. Stuff like that. A bunch of places we've never actually played, you find people playing Alexisonfire songs. Some are better than others.
TRB: Any plans to go over to those places, or not so much?
GP: We've been trying to get over to Brazil for a while now. I don't know about Singapore...
TRB: All right, last question: If you could sum up your entire Warped '09 experience in five words or less, what would those be?
GP: Porta-potty, rock the house.
TRB: Amen.
* * * * *
Alexisonfire perform tonight with Vans Warped Tour '09 at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA. Interview by Shannon Mackay and Benjamin Luk, conducted August 14, 2009 in Vancouver, BC.
0 comments:
Post a Comment