The Reunion Show

August 8, 2003. The Glasshouse Pomona. After battling Los Angeles traffic for a good three hours, I had the opportunity to chat with the very cool guys of The Reunion Show. The band just finished their tour with the Aquabats and are heading home to work on recording their follow up to Kill Your Television.

LAPunk: Lets just start by having you guys say your name and role in the band.

Skully: I’m Skully, I play the drums.

Brian: I’m Brian, I sing and play bass.

LAPunk: Lets talk a little bit about Kill Your Television. Its been about a year since its release and has been doing really well lately. I heard the video is getting some air play on MTV2. Did the album live up to your expectations and what not?

Skully: We were psyched when we finished it, ya know.

Brian: I would say it needed time to catch on a little bit, with the right tours we were able to like really do pretty well with it. It’s weird cause when we're off tour we're like, no one’s really talking about it. I think its more like, for us its more important to be playing live to promote our record. I mean like some bands just put it out and do really well. The record for us as far as our expectations was what we wanted.

Skully: Yea I mean, obviously its tough ya know some bands just take off right off the bat, ya know like massively huge. We didn’t just sell a million records, its not all about record sales. Its about doing something that you're proud of.

Brian: That you're happy with.

Skully: And it's cool ya know. We’re just gearing up to write the next one and we're very excited about it.

LAPunk: That’s just what I was gonna ask, what are your guys' plans for a second album?

Skully: Today’s our last show, were going straight home and we're gonna spend pretty much the rest of the year just writing and getting prepared to record.

Brian: Yes, we should be recording sometime, probably like sometime in late November or early December.

LAPunk: Do you have any ideas for the new album?

Brian: We have a few songs actually.

Skully: We're gonna play some new stuff tonight. And we have a lot of new stuff.

Brian: There’s a bunch of complete stuff that we’ve even recorded. But there’s way more ideas.

LAPunk: And what can fans expect, differences, similarities ya know?

Skully: Its definately gonna be the reunion show, but its gonna be different.

Brian: Its like ya know, every band says it, it’s the more mature second record. When you make your first record you're like "Ah lets go and do it," and then you're like "wow that’s how were doin’ it now". We go back and we're like "alright, next time we do it we’ll think about it a little more" ya know. Its gonna be a more well thought through record.

Skully: Yeah, and I think its gonna be a lot darker.

Brian: It’s a little bit darker. But some of them aren’t so dark., well some of them are dark.

Skully: We’ll see. Its about killing people.

LAPunk: Is this album gonna be released on Victory as well?

Brian: Yes.

LAPunk: How has it been working with them? Have they been treating you well?

Skully: yea, they’ve been hooking us up.

LAPunk: How long have you been on this tour? This is your last show tonight right?

Brian: Well, this particular piece of the tour was very brief. But like..

Skully: It was like 10 shows.

Brian: But if you wanna go way back, we left May 30th, we went to Europe. Then we pretty much went straight into doing our headlining tour, that lasted about three weeks or so. And then we jumped on this Aquabats tour and we’ve been out for like 2 months now.

LAPunk: Did you guys have any fears or anticipations with this tour or the headlining tour?

Skully: These shows with the Aquabats, we had no idea what to expect. Sounding we're totally different.

Brian: These kids are so zealous and obsessive over the Aquabats.

LAPunk: Yea, I saw em all in line as I walked in, they’re pretty hardcore.

Brian: Yea, the cards are stacked against us. Its hard to turn over a fan of the Aquabats because life doesn’t exist outside of the Aquabats for many of them. Ya know, to the extent of, they’re wearing.

Skully: Can you imagine if that was true? If they were like"What do you mean there’s other bands? What are you saying? My good man, only the super heroes." But its been good though. See like I think in a way its been good. It makes our jobs a lot harder, but it makes us go out there and kick ass.

Brian: Its cool because, like shows that are billed with a lot of different sounding artists, they’re good because there’s a lot of different sounding music out there. Even if we're only reaching some of the Aquabats fans, still those kids would never ever have heard of us otherwise.

Skully: Never ever would have bothered to listen or like check us out, had it not been for us touring with a band that they really like, that we sound nothing like. So its cool in that sense. But it is different and more difficult.

Brian: There’s like a selection going at shows, any kind of show, not just saying the Aquabats/Reunion Show tour, but like any kind of show any tour where there’s different kind of artists like playing together. There’s only a select group of people that come out of it like "wow I liked every band."

Skully: Its never gonna happen.

Brian: I mean ideally everyone’s like "Ah yea everyone should like be able to enjoy all these different bands" but like there’s a select group of people that really get it and that’s cool

Skully: And its still worth it.

Brian: Cause ya know what, those are the people that we're looking to reach. I’m not looking to convert some kid that’s never gonna listen to my band, like if he’s gonna be like "I’m just gonna like the Aquabats and that’s it." And never gonna listen to my band, I’m not gonna be in his face and be like ‘No you're gonna like my band.’ Its not gonna happen.

Skully: But its cool. Its good to play in front of different people, ya know.

LAPunk: Alright, do you guys have any cool stories from the past couple months you’ve been on tour?

Skully: So many man.

Brian: Well we got to play with Cypress Hill.

LAPunk: really, tight.

Brian: Yea Cypress Hill and Kelly Osborne actually.

Skully: Yea and the same day I got to eat lunch with Matt Hoffman.

Brian: yea dude.

Skully: that was awesome.

Brian: So many different things happen when you're on tour, and then people ask like ‘ah dude what happened on tour?’ And you're like ‘ya know, played shows and stuff’. Meanwhile like a million things happen and you're like ‘Oh yea there was that time I got held up at gunpoint’

Skully: yea I got held up at gunpoint.

LAPunk: Whoa, we gotta hear this story, where was that at?

Skully: That was actually just before this tour. It was at the Asbury Park Surf and Skate Festival. And I had like 8 thousand dollars on me. The guy put a gun to me and said uh, ‘gimme all your money. Take everything out of your pockets.’

Brian: And this guy..

Skully: He had no idea, ok I was completely drunk. Like, really, really drunk.

LAPunk: That probably makes it safer huh.

Skully: It does, believe me.

Brian: Four thirty in the morning this happened.

Skully: I had all the money on me from the show we played, the big festival and I’m goin back to the hotel. Just ripped, ya know just not even with it at all. And I’m just trying to process all this shit that’s happening.

Brian: And ya know what he does...

Skully: yea...

Brian: Instead of giving him the money. He fuckin runs.

Skully: I ran away. But it was for the best, cause we didn’t lose any money.

Brian: And he didn’t lose his life.

Skully: Yeah, he didn’t shoot me.

LAPunk: So that was a good decision after all.

Skully: There was all kinds of crazy stuff that happened to us on tour. Like when we were on tour with Fall Out Boy we like played insane pranks on each other like every day.

Brian: Yeah, they put a bottle of piss in our van. Then our old guitar tech, who went home, he smeared his own shit on their window.

LAPunk: Ahhhh, that’s pretty nasty

Brian: It culminated with me, accidentally, ok well.

Skully: Listen to this.

Brian: Then I passed out, and they decided to write on my face and I woke up and I’m like kinda incoherent and I walk to McDonald’s and people were looking at me really weird. Cause like no one was around at the hotel so I went to McDonald’s and I have no idea that I have stuff on my face. And I go back to the room and I see myself in the mirror and I’m like ‘who did the fuck did this? Who wrote on my face?’ and I’m like really freaking out about it.

Skully: He goes berserk

Brian: I go berserk. The first thing I do is I take our guitar tech, I grab him and I’m like holding him over the balcony and I’m like "tell me who did this."

Skully: It was like, he almost killed him. Hahaha.

Brian: I was like "tell me who did it" and I’m like hanging him out our motel window. And he was like "it was Fall Out Boy, they wrote on your face" and I was like alright I’m gonna go find them. So I go to their rooms and I’m already like ‘ah man, what am I gonna do, I’m not gonna do anything to them.’ So I go to their window and knock on their window and they’re all like ‘no, no,’ they’re all scared cause they think I’m gonna like bust one out on them. So I start walking away and I see this bottle on the ground. So I’m just gonna throw it at their door and scare em. And I’m drunk ya know. And I go to hit the door, but I miss and I hit the window and it went through the window.

Skully: Shattered the entire window. Shattered two panes of glass in the hotel.

LAPunk: Hahaha, Oh man. Did they end up charging you guys for it?

Skully: No.

Brian: No we got out of it cause we told them that there was some crazy drunk guy, which there was.

LAPunk: haha, and it was you.

Brian: So like after that I kinda laid off drinking. Even though I’m drinkin right now.

Skully: haha

Brian: I kinda eased up cause I felt really bad. And like the next day they were really scared. Yeah, we were all gonna go to the movies together and they were like "dude is it cool if we go to the movies with you guys? You guys aren’t pissed or anything are ya?"

Skully: haha

Brian: I was like ‘nah dude, it was a mistake, I wasn’t trying to like break anything. I was just pissed and it kinda got out of hand, ya know’

Skully: No more tour pranks.

LAPunk: It sounded like you guys had fun.

Skully: Yeah it was cool.

Brian: It was awesome, we love those guys.

LAPunk: I wanted to talk about the Jawbreaker Tribute album. What song did you guys contribute to that?

Brian: We did the unlisted track, the very last track.. We wanted to do something that was a little, like we didn’t want to do just a straight up cover. We’ve never really covered a song before. And we were like I don’t want to do a cover and make it sound just like the song. I guess to many bands do that and thats cool, but I was just like why don’t we just take something that is totally different than what we do and try to make it our own. And we were like alright lets just take this track and rock it out.

Skully: We worked with the arrangement a little bit and then changed a little.

LAPunk: You gave it your own touch and everything?

Skully: Yea like we tried to. I didn’t want to change it too much, like I’m a huge Jawbreaker fan and I know how people feel about diehard Jawbreaker fans who are like ‘I hate this band doing this’. You never have that leg up.

Brian: Well its hard for any artist to cover a band that people are very passionate about cause pretty much anyone who’s gonna cover it, it’s not gonna be the song.

Skully: And that’s hard. But I think when a band takes the song and really works with the arrangement and give their own rendition and interpretation of it... that’s much better, anyone can just fuckin learn a song straight up. Just learn the parts and play it. That’s not as interesting.

Brian: We kind of tried to go somewhere in the middle, we didn’t totally fuck with the arrangement and change everything, but we didn’t do it exactly as it was. We kind of gave it our own feel and did it in our own interpretation. At the same time maintaining the Jawbreaker essence of it.

LAPunk: So was Jawbreaker one of your guy’s influences?

Brian: They’re one of my favorite bands.

Skully: Defiantly one of Brian’s all time favorite bands. I love them, we all listen to them. We love Jawbreaker, they’re a great band.

Brian: a very important band.

Skully: A very under appreciated one as well.

LAPunk: With a lot of punk recently they’ve been under appreciated.

Skully: Oh yeah, there’s a lot of kids who don’t know who they are.

LAPunk: Yea especially these days.

Brian: Oh yeah, there’s tons of bands that I think totally. I’m not saying they ripped them off, but ... They’re definately influenced by them. Its good to know that bands like Alkaline Trio, Hot water Music and stuff like that were definately influenced by them.

Skully: Very influenced by all bands.

Brian: Laurence Arms for instance like stuff like that, they are very Jawbreaker influenced. Kids love those bands but may not know.

LAPunk: Yeah, you drop the name jaw breaker these days and they’re like, who?

Skully: Oh thats a cool movie!

LAPunk: yeah and that was a horrible movie.

Skully: yeah.

Brian: Anyways thats the deal with that yeah.

LAPunk: Did you guys have any other influences besides Jawbreaker?

Skully: Oh yea, tons, tons.

Brian: Well there’s like the obvious ones that if you listen to our music you’ll be like Weezer, The Pixies, The Foo Fighters, The Cars, Elvis Costello. But then there’s so many other things I mean..

Skully: We're constantly listening to music.

Brian: I think that everything you listen to at some level, if you listen to it enough will influence you whether you realize it or not. If you listen to Queens of the Stone age all day, you’ll be like hey man check out these heavy riffs I got.

Skully: Yeah and not only music, you gotta have movies in there too. You just start thinking of things. George Harrison had a very famous court case, which he lost actually. For the song "My Sweet Lord," which was a very big hit for him. And its on the album All Things Must Pass, which is a terrific album. And he was sued by I believe a Motown singer and he lost. He said that he was totally ignorant, he had no idea that the songs were so similar and his argument was like ya know anything you listen to can feasiblely influence you and you don’t even realize it.

Brian: You may not realize that you heard something a year ago and now its into your head and you don’t intentionally try to copy it or rip some one off, but it does happen.

Skully: And I think there’s a certain amount of truth to that, however in that particular instance he lost. And he lost a lot of money over that.

LAPunk: yeah, interesting point. So what have you guys been listening to lately?

Skully: Bright Eyes, Bob Dylan, I’ve been listening to Bright Eyes or Bob Dylan. I’m sorry.

Brian: What have we been listening to? We always listen to Super Furry Animals or Fountains of Wayne.

Skully: I listen to the Pavolt record almost everyday when I’m driving cause its like a good driving record.

Brian: yeah.

Skully: Certainly the new Brand New record.

Brian: yea new Brand New.

LAPunk: Yea that cd hasn’t left my cd player since I bought it.

Brian: oh its untouchable. Its so good.

Skully: Seriously, I was like...it was weird cause like when they recording it, they were all like, it was weird cause Jesse kept on saying ‘this is horrible.’

Brian: He was like, I’m not sure about this record.

Skully: He was like ‘I’m not sure if people are gonna like it.’ He was really stressing about it.

Brian: He was dead wrong: As soon as I heard it I was like Woah! Dude it was weird like I’ve never known people who’ve made a record this good.

Skully: Like when I heard it, like we have a lot of friends in bands and when I heard that album I kinda felt really weird. Cause so many of my friends make albums and a lot of them are really good and I like them. But never has one of my friends made an album that I was like woah, like i felt like this is like a work of art, this is a work, a piece of music that is beautiful and...

Brian: Its alright dude one day we’ll do that.

Skully: whatever I’m not worried about it. I’m just so proud of them, ya know cause we’ve known them for so long and they’re such close friends and uh they’re, they were always a great band, but this latest album..

LAPunk: it’s a total different level.

Skully: it’s a whole new eschelon and I’m really proud of them. Its really beautiful. I think its, well I won’t go on anymore, but its great.

LAPunk: What are some of your guys' favorite things about playing in the LA area?

Brian: Believe it or not, I am one of the few people on planet earth that likes LA. Once you get past like the kinda phoniness of a lot of the.. I mean you know, LA is very fake sometimes, but there’s a lot of cool things.

Skully: I love LA too man.

Brian: I love all the venues out here. Like the Troublador has been really cool to us, this place is really cool.

Skully: there’s a bunch of cool places that we’ve often played at here

Brian: Southern California is just awesome.

Skully: The Chain Reaction, that super DIY punk kinda place, its great. Kids come out to enjoy the music and we love playin there. Thats the ideal atmosphere.

Brian: I would say outside of New York, Chicago and the LA area are like the three best places to play. I just love being here. Its cool, it’s a different feel than being in New York. I love New York and I love our fans in New York. Fans here are a little different, they’re a little more happy.

LAPunk: It’s the weather.

Skully: yea the weather’s great. Everyone’s like ‘This rules!’

Brian: That’s why we chose to record out here, just because well it’s probably cause there’s better studios out here and the people we need are out here. We’re more than happy to take a month off and just come out here and just hang.

LAPunk: Awesome, is there any thing else you guys wanna add or say?

Skully: well the only thing I wanna say is I’m very excited to work on our new stuff. Definitely keep your ears out for that cause we're gonna be demoing in the coming months and I would like to start getting some demo’s and get feedback from people. The rest of this year we're gonna try to focus on the record.

Brian: we’ll be playing some shows, but just the weekends out here.

Skully: Unless something amazing comes up, like if someone is like ‘alright guys you're going on tour with the Foo Fighters,' we’ll be like ‘alright the record can wait for a little while’

Brian: Barring anything very very unlikely like that, we're gonna be really focused on that.

LAPunk: yeah I look forward to hearing it. Thanks you guys.

Skully: thanks!

Interview by Katie Plourd