The Reunion Show

This interview was conducted with Skully on November 9th, 2002 at the Chain Reaction in the middle of the worst rain storm Los Angeles has had in years. Their album, Kill Your Television, is out now.

LAPunk: Let's start at the beginning. Can you tell us how you got hooked up with Victory in the first place?

TRS: Well, we had been touring for a while, and we were doing a tour with Student Rick and Showoff. Actually...let me start earlier than that. The first show we ever played, we filled in for Midtown when they got in a van wreck. I remember, it was the 16th of 2000. They asked us to fill in for them at that show, which was in our hometown of Long Island. We were like 'Sweet, we'll do it!' Well, Tony of Victory was there. He saw us that night but he wasn't interested in doing anything with us yet - it was only our first show, we weren't really together, we hadn't found ourselves, we weren't even, really, that good.

LAPunk: How long were you together at that point?

TRS: Like a month.

LAPunk: Oh, your first show, ever.

TRS: Yeah! Ever. So, fast forward a year, we've been touring as much as we could. We played Fireside Bowl, and then we played it again, and after that Tony is like 'I definately want to work with you guys.' He offered us a deal, and we worked it out...at that point we were friends with Taking Back Sunday, and we were so impressed.,.we were just blown away with the work Victory did for them.

LAPunk: Was that the deciding factor?

TRS: It was definately a deciding factor. I mean, we loved a lot of things Victory had to offer - they have a big staff, we saw what they did for a lot of their bands, bands like Snapcase..even though we don't sound anything like them, we still like their music, ya know?

LAPunk: Yeah, speaking of which, what do you think about being the only...well, not the only, but...yeah, Victory's changing their line up a little bit.

TRS: Oh absolutely, they definately are. I think it's good, you know, I think labels should try and do that. There's no reason to just do one thing exclusively. Why not? There's something for everyone, you know, there's a lot of music to be heard, we're happy to be one of the bands that isn't so heavy.

LAPunk: OK, so your album just came out, can you tell us about the process behind that.

TRS: Well, we had a bunch of different producers we wanted to work with, we were narrowing it down, and one of the guys we wanted to work with was this guy Nick, who did Superdrag, a huge influence for us...he worked with Jimmy Eat World, Frank Black, tons of great bands. We gave him a call, sent him our music, and he was like, 'Yeah, let's do this.' At the time he was producing the new Foo Fighters, which just came out the same day as ours actually. So we flew out to Los Angeles, Victory hooked us up, we had a car and a house, it was awesome...we came out here and we did the record at Silverlake where Saves the Day and The Anniversary did their last record. It was really great working with him, he added a lot, he made the record sound good and gave us a lot of motivation and inspiration. He wouldn't accept half-assed, he was like 'Do it again, do it better.' He pushed us.

LAPunk: OK, here at LosAngelesPunk.com we try and focus on the L.A. music scene...can you describe a little bit the differences you notice between here and the east coast?

TRS: There's definately differences. I like both, but one of the things I like about the East coast is there's so many cities, so like, each drive is like an hour or two or three. We come to this coast, it's like seven or eight hours easy everywhere. California's a little better, but like we'll do maybe San Diego over to Arizona and the drives are a little more tiring. It's just a different vibe out here, we definately dig the west coast, we like the laid back and relaxed atmosphere.

LAPunk: And the weather's great.

TRS: Typically, not today! It's so weird, we were bummin' man, we were all psyched for some nice California weather...

LAPunk: 'Cause you all grew up on the East coast.

TRS: Yeah, we're from Long Island.

LAPunk: So what were some of your influences out there?

TRS: Locally? Bands like Silent Majority, bands like Glassjaw who we're good friends with, you know, Mind Over Matter, some of the more heavy bands. We were just out there...you know, there's so much music happening right where we're from. It's so cool, there's so much great music happening right in our backyard. It's a great place to be involved in the music scene right now.

LAPunk: So you've been on the road for a while now, any tour stories yet?

TRS: Oh yeah, oh yeah. See, so our first two tours were with Brand New, and they were just the most awful tours ever. Me and their drummer Brian booked the tours ourselves, and every night it was just awful. This was right when we started, no one knew who either of us were, the shows were just miserable. But it was so much fun, we just got to hang out and have a blast. So one day, Brand New's van broke down in Indiana. So, we pull off to the side of the road and help them, and they had to leave their van or we'd miss the show. So they moved all their gear into our van, so now there's nine of us, plus their gear, so we were just packed out. So it's raining so we go to roll the window, and the pin from the window pops out. And Garrett's fiddling with it, and pffffft, all of a sudden the window flies off and smashes this Mack truck behind us. And we're all huddled together, and we're all 'Oh my God, this sucks!' and it's pouring, and rain is coming in...it was just miserable.

LAPunk: I heard some of your radio interview today on UC Irvine, and you all seemed stoked about your beards.

TRS: Yeah, well, sometimes you need to spice it up, ya know? I'm into Fall Skully right now, Autumn Skully 'cause it's a new month, it's November. So I figured I'd grow the beard, and Brian from Brand New and Phil from the Movielife are all growing beards and moustaches. But I'm winning right now, because I have the best beard. They're close behind though. I dunno, we got nothin' to do, so we grow beards.

LAPunk: OK, and explain the deal with you and Jewish drummers!

TRS: Oh, yeah, so you heard about that too? Let me tell you the story on that. I don't believe in God...no wait, I take that back. I don't believe in religion. Don't even get me started on religion, I'm very into spirituality but religion, not my thing. But my dad was Jewish so I have the Jewish feel. And Brian's Jewish and Evan's Jewish, so it's weird, we're all on tour together, we're all Long Island drummers and it's very strange.

LAunkP: And you all rock.

TRS: Yeah, it's all rock and roll.

LAPunk: OK, so what's next for you guys?

TRS: We're gonna do a couple shows with Avail and Hey Mercedes, and then we're doing the tour with Taking Back Sunday and the Starting Line. Very excited, that's gonna be sweet. Then, we're back here with Hot Rod Circuit in February.

LAPunk: Any concluding remarks?

TRS: Just...enjoy music as you like it. If you like something, and it may not be 'cool,' if you like it, it's there, and it's art...it's there for entertainment and it's there for fun. People lose sight of what's important, music is subjective, you know, it's cool if someone else likes something, you can think it's complete crap. Or if you like it, then who cares, it's a positive thing.

LAPunk: Awesome, thank you, and good luck!

TRS: Thank you.

Interview by Mike Kaminsky