Interview by Attiya
May 18, 2009
http://www.theveerunion.com
Estrella: Could you tell me your name and what you do in the band?
Crispin: Crispin and I am the lead singer of the band.
Estrella: For someone who has never heard of your band before, how would you describe your style of music?
Crispin: Well most people want to know whether you are a country band or a rock band and I would say that we are just an alternative rock band. I like the keep things nice and simple you know, if you like this kind of music then you’ll like us.
Estrella: If you weren’t in a band what would you be doing with your life right now?
Crispin: I don’t know, I always thought about being a Police officer. But to be honest, I never really thought of doing anything beside music so it’s hard for me to answer that question.
Estrella: So I was looking at the names of the members and I’m wondering if they are all your real names, last name… nicknames? What’s the story behind those?
Crispin: Well, yes you’re kind of right. Fid his last name is Fiddler, his first name is James but so many people have that name and people just have always called him Fid.
Same with Roots, his last name is Roots, first name is Mark but people have just called him Roots.They’re nicknames turned to their first names.
Estrella: What are some of your musical influences?
Crispin: I would say when I started doing rock music Led Zeppplin, Radio Head, I’m a huge fan of A Perfect Circle. But I don’t like to pitch all my listening into on genre though. If it’s a good song, I’ll listen to it.
Estrella: Do you guys have similar taste?
Crispin: I think everyone has there common bands we all love, but that’s the one common thing I can say about this band… We’re diverse and open minded, especially when we get into the rehearsal space, we don’t think “we’re not going to do this”, we try until it feels right.
Estrella: So you guys are pretty cute and I know girls are dying to know: Who’s single and who’s taken?
Crispin: Everyone is single!
Attiya: I didn’t expect that
Crispin: Haha well when in a band it’s hard to hold down a relationship. Some bands can do it. But with us it’s have a relationship or be a musician.
Estrella: Describe each band member in a few words.
Crispin: Crispin is Blaxel Rose, Eric the party guy, Fid the stage faller, Roots pukey-mon, and Neil the nature boy.
Estrella: How are you guys feeling now that your new album, Against the Grain has been released? Are you relieved, excited, what?
Crispin: We’re ecstatic about our record! Every band works so hard but we put everything into this! We’re happy, we’re on the road, on tour. When we hooked up with our manager we said we want to be on the road. We just don’t want to tour in a van anymore and we aren’t. We party with our best friends. We’re happy doing this and we plan on being on the road forever.
Estrella: Do you guys actually check your MySpace or does someone else run it for you?
Crispin: Us, we have some people do updates and stuff but it’s just us. We do the interactions. If you’re not interacting with your fans then you’re not a band. Without the fans, we don’t get to do what we do.
Estrella: What’s your favorite song to perform?
Crispin: “Seasons”, without a doubt. Every time we play there is such great energy from the band and the crowd, you know singing along. It’s also our first single and it’s great watching people sing the lyrics.
Estrella: What do you guys do on your off days?
Crispin: We just potentially go shopping, that’s what us girls like to do, haha just kidding. However, basketball, I may be the worse basketball player ever lived. But Roots, Roots is great at basketball, he actually got a scholarship to University for basketball. But he decided to be a rockstar instead and here he is. Oh and drunk bowling is a big thing. So we like to do things normal people like to do but we just have a very cool job.
Estrella: You fellows are currently playing gigs all over the U.S. with different bands, how are you liking it so far? Any cats fights or things like that?
Crispin: Honestly, no fights. We’ve never really had that happen. Maybe when touring with bands from our hometown, but there is always some animosity between bands from the same town. Every band we are on tour with we pretty much bounced between buses and have a beer you know, drop the egos and hang out and just chill. Framing Hanley actually turned out to be some of our best friends! We played a show in Nashville and literally called them in and said, “Hey, let’s hang out!” I imagine we wont get along with everyone, but no problems yet.
Estrella: Any crazy tour stories?
Crispin: Let me think, first to mind, we played this gig and it was just a weird group of girls and one girl wouldn’t stop crying… I felt bad, like I literally felt bad. I’m like “Hey, we’re just normal people!” and every time I said that she would cry more! It actually got to the point of being awkward. Then I started to think I think, maybe we’re making an impact!
Estrella: Let me ask the guys (he goes to the rest of the band)
Eric: Video contest…
Crispin: Oh yeah! One guy, he was like “I’m the biggest TVU fan!” I can’t even explain this video but we had to make some phone call to his parental guardian in the end. He’s pretty much said, if he didn’t win he’d slit his throat… as a band you get to play some roles. And another one, a girl just took a felt tip marker and markered her whole body!
Estrella: That’s got to be flattering.
Crispin: Yes 100% flattering! We’re down to earth guys just with a cool job and when people put on you up on the pedestal, it’s kind of confusing. Hopefully, our hard work is paying off and no one slits their throat!
Estrella: Have you ever played in Europe?
Crispin: No, but we were just talking with this Hinder guys and they’re going to Europe and same with Black Stone. We can’t wait to go! That’s one of thing we look forward.
Estrella: What are you guys doing 30 minutes before you’re about to go on stage?
Crispin: This is an easy one for me. Actually, I’m going to give you and hour before. We begin with shitty shots and that’s basically us buying the cheapest, worse vodka you could ever imagine; mixing it with something that does not mix with vodka and every 5 minutes an ounce and a half of shot until were ready to rock. Eric and I and… well now Fid sings too, go to vocal warm ups. Then, right when we go on stage we have our chant; which I can’t say because it has too many swears words! Then we get on stage and rock.
Estrella: Do you have a motto you live by or a quote?
Crispin: Yes, we do: “work hard, play hard”
Estrella: How do you want to be remembered years from now?
Crispin: I think more than anything, the band that is remained honest about what they create. I think somewhere along the lines the music business has lost that. There is so much pressure on bands to basically be something. They have to dress like this, sing these lyrics. We want to be the band that writes their own songs and dress how we want. When we create a record we wanted to be honest and real. To have longevity as a band, you need to be real and honest. Don’t get me wrong some songs that are written for bands are good and some bands do make that sound great! But this is us, these lyrics say what they say we’ve experienced in our lives.
Estrella: Any last words?
Crispin: Yeah, it would be great if you let people know to get our record Against the Grain all over America… well, not Germany. Also check us out on http://myspace.com/theveerunion. We’re very interactive, we’re on there all the time.
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