“We just have no reason to be sad anymore” [State Interview]

By Dave Donnelly

State: What was your inspiration for the record?

Frank: Well after the last record, we toured two… two and a half years straight, and we decided to take an extended break, just living our lives again. And about eight months into that break…

Mikey: Yeah, that’s when the itch started.

Frank: …we got it together and did a song [a cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Desolation Row’] for theWatchmen movie soundtrack and it felt good just to be making noise and playing together again. So we decided to get together again. About two or three months after that we convened out in LA, started picking up guitars and playing, and we wrote about 20 or 30 songs. We started to record them, kind of ran out of time, got the mix in the studio and we were kind of unhappy with how it was finally coming about. So we put it all on hold and went back into another studio, met up with Rob Cavallo who did our last record and wrote four brand new songs and liked them way better than the 20 or 30 that we had written before.

We just kept going, and slowly but surely this concept started coming about, like a setting kind of thing. Picture it: an apocalyptic event occurs and it’s 2019 – what would the band sound like? There would still be music, there would still be shows – if there were kids still alive – but what would that band be like? We started to pick up instruments that we weren’t really familiar with and never really experimented with before – didn’t really know how to play – and what you’re hearing is a band sort of excited and, I think, psyched to be creating.

Mikey: It was definitely a period of exploration and it was exciting for all of us. We were doing things that we never thought we could do. That was very exciting and very fulfilling.

You all inhabit different characters on the album, or at least that’s the presentation, was that a conscious thing?

Mikey: We kept any character elements strictly to the video. It’s not supposed to be anything more than that.

The idea of the radio broadcast – was that central to how you wrote the songs? Were you writing “radio songs,” the sort of songs that could sound like they were coming out of your radio one after another?

Frank: I think the idea of having a narrator to bring you through the world… the idea is to have a pirate radio station emerging from this apocalyptic world. But definitely, I think, at least some of them are crafted pop songs. That’s what we do – take the formula for a pop song and kind of twist it and make something ugly beautiful.

Mikey: The DJ was kind of a nod to some of our favourite films – there’s a radio DJ who comes in and guides the viewer/listener in a few different things: The Warriors and Vantage Point and Reservoir Dogs did that really well. It’s kind of like a tiny bit of the inspiration for that was from that.

There’s more of a power pop vibe than on the last album, sort of a bit more carefree, less serious topics…

Mikey: We’re at a more positive point in our lives. We’re more happy people, have amazing, supportive family and friends around us and we just have no reason to be sad anymore. We’re just very much into having an amazing time. That kind of carries through in the songs.

No plans to go on another two-year tour…

Frank: Nah, I fucking hope not.

Mikey: Hahahahaha.

Frank: I think we’ll have to be more smart about it.

Mikey: Yeah we’ll be wiser when it comes to that. We won’t drive ourselves to the point of exhaustion and mental anguish. We’ll do everything smarter this time.

Last question: ‘Vampire Money’ is a rip on Twilight, right?

Mikey: Sort of! It’s a rip on anyone repeatedly telling you to do what you don’t want to do. It just so happens that that can be the context that people pull out of it. It’s not necessarily a dig atTwilight, it’s just a dig at a nagging. It’s a dig at someone nagging at you

Source: State