Exploding Fans From Coast to Coast
Story of the Year is currently in studio writing their third album. To help ease the pain of waiting, here’s an interview with did a little bit ago with Dan Marsala (vocals) and Josh Willis (drums). Usually interview two people at a time is great for the banter; in this case, it was a godsend. Find out what the band thinks tastes like a “Muddy, sweaty, steamy pile of cock dipped in honey” in…
10 Questions with Story of the Year
- by Mattias and Dave-Os -
1. You
wanted to capture the heaviness of your lives shows in “The Wake of
Determination” as opposed to the softer “
D: The fans almost exploded as soon as they heard the new record. I don’t know exactly how they responded; the only way I could really tell is from being on stage and talking to people here and there, so from a live-show perspective I think everybody really responded very well. The shows have been going really good. There’s more intensity in the songs, so therefore it just comes across live just as well. We’ve always been about just playing shows and that’s always been our strongpoint. So live-wise it’s definitely just been getting better and better as we go along. This album didn’t sell as much as the first record.
J: I know why though. The difference between the amount of people who bought our first record and the people who bought our second record was the number of people who imploded.
D: Like I said, you know, with the roughness of our new record, once our fans really did get “The Wake of Determination” experience…
J: They just died.
D: They couldn’t exactly continue to be our fans because they were not here with us anymore. That’s a problem you have to face in the music business. When you blow your fans up, you lose fans. But you know, there are more people to be exploded on the next record still so it’s all good.
M: What can we expect from the next record?
D: Exactly the same situation. Except for this time we’re going to go totally acoustic.
J: Make people re-appear.
D: That way we’ll gain all-new fans and then we can explode them on the fourth record. No, the next record will probably be along the same lines as this record, possibly even heavier, but maybe some slower stuff too. It’s definitely going to stay in the same direction. We like heavy stuff; we like to play intense songs so.
2: On-stage stunts – How often do you guys practice those? Any live mishaps so far?
D: We practice every night on stage but that’s about it. I mean there’s no way to practice what you’re really going to do. It’s just kind of…
J: You got to do it and hope that nothing happens.
D: Yeah. When you do things everyday, you find a good spot to do it during the set and you get use to it there. Every once in awhile someone will do something really weird and you’ll be like “Oh my God, How did you not just die?” but you know, we’re nice and limber fellas. Luckily, we’re in decent shape and we survive – we do injure ourselves a lot though. There are a lot of injuries during our sets: random guitar hits in the face, sore ankles and knees and backs and everything else. You just go with it.
3: For your single “Take Me Back”, how far back are we talking? Full House days? Charles in Charge days? Or even Happy Days days?
J: Probably Full House days *laughs*
D: It’s kind of about just being young and not knowing how much the world sucks or how much life can suck. It’s more about wishing you could go back and be irresponsible and not have to worry about anything and just be a kid. So for us, yeah, it’d be like Full House days.
J: I did watch Charles in Charge, re-runs though.
D: Yeah Charles in Charge was on when we were pretty young, but yeah I’d be down with going back then. Happy Days, that’s a little before our time, so we can’t take you back that far.
4. “Anthem of Our Dying Day” has got to be one of the most imagery filled songs. If you guys could paint an image of Story of the Year, what would it look like?
J: Gwar
D: We’d paint ourselves in Gwar’s costumes because they look cool. *laughs* An image of ourselves? I don’t know. We’re pretty normal. We’re not very image-conscious. We just kind of go out and wear clothes… We don’t wear make-up. We keep it pretty basic. If I was to do an image of ourselves, it would just be five normal people – like five dudes in the crowd [points at the crowd lined up outside]. They’re all girls but we’re kind of girls anyways. That would be our image out there.
M: Five girls?
J: Five chicks.
M: In their teens?
J: Yes.
5. If you owned a “Big Blue Monkey” what would its name be, and what would you feed it?
D: We did
own a big blue money at one point; he was not alive but… We fed him air because
he was a huge blow-up big blue monkey when our name was in fact “Big Blue
Monkey”. If I had a real one, I would name it either Gerald or
Kumi. Ever see Harold & Kumar go to
6. If there were a Story of the Year movie, what would it be about and who would play you guys?
J: Well Brad Pitt would obviously play me.
D: Well yeah, obviously. I’d be the Brokeback Mountain Jake Gyllenhaal. All five of us would be on a mountain indeed, and we would all be herding sheep. Actually, that script for Brokeback Mountain was modeled after our earlier career before the band.
7. What are your favourite brands of clothing?
J: Hanes white t-shirts. Represent.
D: We go cheap. I like Dickies’ shorts. They gave them to us for free until recently when they told us they can’t give them to me anymore. I was kind of bummed about that. But yeah, I sport Dickies on a daily basis. We get free Etnies shoes, free DVS shoes – we sport that stuff a lot. Nike.
J: Pretty much whatever they give us for free.
D: When you’re in a band you’re like “Hey wanna give me some clothes? Sweet I’ll wear’em”. It’s all about getting the free stuff.
8. If you owned a factory, what would you like it to manufacture?
J: Rubber thumbs.
D: Just thumbs?
J: Fake rubber thumbs. I don’t know why.
D: Like extender thumbs?
J: Yeah, like big huge rubber thumbs.
D: Then the crowd could give us a big thumbs up in between every song.
Os: That was a really fast answer.
D: That was! He’s been on it. I think he’s been thinking about that for awhile.
J: It’s actually a side-project we’ve been working on – rubber-thumbs.com
9. What would you guys say is the difference between Warped Tour crowds and Taste of Chaos crowds?
D: Taste of Chaos crowds… they’re a little smaller. It’s indoor so less people. The crowd doesn’t smell as bad. It’s kind of the same, but it’s a heavier band line-up usually. It’s usually a little bit more older crowd; more dudes probably. The people were a little more tougher.
M: What do you like better?
D: I don’t know. Well obviously it’s better to be inside and not outside in 210 degree weather – although I don’t know what that is in Celsius. It’s hot, way too hot.
J: With Warped Tour though, you get to see a whole lot more bands.
D: Way more bands. It’s usually that every good band at the time is on Warped Tour. There are always a lot of bands to watch and a lot of stuff going on. They’re both sweet. Kevin Lyman represent!
M: You once said that the Taste of Chaos tasted like “warm cock covered in Diet Pepsi”. What would the Warped Tour taste like?
D: My Grandma saw that by the way.
J: A steaming pile of cock.
D: A steaming pile of sand-covered cock… or dirt-covered cock.
J: Dipped in honey.
D: Sweaty too. Muddy. Muddy, sweaty, steamy pile of cock.
J: Dipped in honey.
D: Dipped in honey because it is kind of sweet sometimes.
10. Who would you like to see next on Band of the Day?
D: Adair.
J: Yeah, Adair.
D: Or
We’d eat anything if it was dipped in honey. Anything except what was previously mentioned in this interview. Big thanks again to Dan and Josh for making us laugh more than a few times. Oh, and a big thanks to ourselves for writing such awesome questions. Stay on the lookout for Story of the Year brand Rubber Thumbs.
We Want Charles in Charge of Us,
The Botd Team