I sat down with Ryan, the drummer for theAudition, at the Masquerade in Atlanta, Georgia.
I can’t urge you enough to listen to this band. Their album is amazing, and they sound even better live.
Trevor: Alright. First off, why are you guys so damn catchy?
(Laughter)
Ryan: I have no idea. I don’t know. We put a lot of work into our vocals. Danny and I write the lyrics. Then we write the song with all the instruments and we work really hard on vocals until we’re happy with them. We like catchy songs. We write what we like. We like all kinds of different types of music. We like pop music. We like writing things you could sing along to, basically. That’s probably the best answer for that.
Trevor: What was the recording process like for “Controversy Loves Company?
Ryan: We started writing about November of last year, after we got signed to Victory. We wrote for about three months, then we went into the studio in April for a month. We tracked drums, then guitar, bass, and vocals. It was a long process but we recorded with John Naclerio who was our producer and he made us feel really comfortable. He did other bands like My Chemical Romance, Brand New, and Just Surrender. There’s a lot of pressure when you go to write your first CD, but John just made it really easy for us. We hung out and it was a lot of fun. A lot went into it, but it was easier than we thought it would be.
Trevor: Shance C. Drake did your video for “You’ve Made Us Concious.” Were you guys attracted to him? What made you want to work with him?
Ryan: Basically, we’d seen the videos he’d done: Hawthorne Heights, Fall Out Boy, Paramore. Seeing the work he’d done before, we thought he was great. He wanted to shoot our video and agreed with the concept of it. He helped us out a lot. He’s a cool dude. He’s really chill and a lot of fun.
Trevor: Were you guys pleased with the outcome of the video?
Ryan: Yeah, you know. You look at it and you say, “You could’ve done this.” or “You could’ve done that,” but at the time it’s a music video and you’re pleased with it.
Trevor: I’ve probably watched that video a million times.
Ryan: You like it?
Trevor: Yeah, it’s very well done. I think I first went to that website for the Paramore video.
Ryan: That video is awesome.
Trevor: Yeah, they’re good kids. I saw your video on there, though and was like, “Oh, I didn’t know they had a video for this song. That’s awesome.”
Ryan: Thank you man, we appreciate it.
Trevor: You guys have been on the road with Spitalfield for a couple of months now. How are the kids responding at shows? How often did you play out of Chicago before you got signed?
Ryan: Before we got signed, we did a lot of mid-west stuff. We never really went to the West Coast at all and we never went to the East Coast at all. We did Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, but we never went into Minnesota much. Getting out..we’ve been on a few tours now, and a bunch with Spitalfield. It’s really cool, because those guys are awesome. We’re sort of the same style of music, so it fits well, and the kids are getting into it, so that’s cool.
Trevor: Are you a Bob Nanna fan?
Ryan: I listen to Hey Mercedes. I liked Hey Mercedes back in the day when I was a little bit younger, but Bob’s a cool guy.
Trevor: You toured with City on Film, right?
Ryan: Yeah, yeah. It was us, them, Down to Earth Approach, Somerset, and Spitalfield. It was a good tour.
Trevor: For me that would be overwhelming. I don’t know. I’m a huge Braid fan.
Ryan: Yeah.
Trevor: He’s been doing it for a while now. Just the fact you guys were touring with him. I don’t know. I’d get like, starstruck or something.
Ryan: Yeah. It’s not like that because he’s such a normal dude to me.
Trevor: He’s from Chicago, so I’m sure that has something to do with it.
Ryan: Yeah, definitely. He’s from like, two towns away from me. He’s a really cool dude to tour with.
Trevor: Any weird tour stories? I read one about some kid breaking into a house..?
Ryan: Oh yeah. We were staying..where were we? We were on tour with Aiden, The Hurt Process, and the Junior Varsity back in July. We were in North Carolina, I think, and this kid invited us to his house afterwards. We walk into this house, this big mansion. This nice, huge house. For this eighteen year old kid to have, we’re all like, “This is kind of weird.” So we’re just hanging out, partying kind of, and we look at the pictures on the wall. His face wasn’t in any of the pictures.
(Laughter)
Ryan: So we figured he was squatting on the house, and like, broke in or something. Any other weird stories, though? I was just thinking about this today and now I can’t remember. A lot of weird stuff happens, though. I don’t know. I can’t think of any right now.
Trevor: What are you planning for the holidays?
Ryan: We play in St. Louis the 20th. Then we’ll be home the 21st in the morning and we have to practice all day the 21st. We have a show with our friends theAcademyIs…, The Hush Sound, and The Junior Varsity at “The Metro” in Chicago on the 22nd. Then we have a week or so off. We’re playing a show in Detroit then ending the year in Chicago on the 30th. So we have like two weeks off, then we start a tour off with June, Small Towns Burn a Little Slower, and Forgive Durden January 6th.
Trevor: Anything planned after that tour? Anything for the new year?
Ryan: Yeah, we’re going on tour with Mae, right after that. It’s more of a West Coast thing. We’re kind of booked up until March.
Trevor: Are you going to do Warped Tour any this year?
Ryan: I’m sure we’ll do some Warped Tour. It’d be awesome.
Trevor: Warped Tour is another one of those things where you’re probably going to get starstuck at some point.
Ryan: Oh for sure. All of those bands..some from ten years ago. Bands that are huge now. There’s going to be a ton of people. We’re looking forward to it and spreading our music through more kids.