This was a group interview conducted at Warped Tour. We decided to split off into groups after a few questions. Check out more Matchbook Romance information at their website, www.matchbookromance.com.

VALIDA: What’s a typical day like on you for on the Warped Tour?
ANDY: For me it’s mayhem. We’re on a bus now, last year we weren’t. When you go into any new environment, like Warped Tour, where nothing is like it is at home, y’know, where you always keep towel here and you always keep your bag there. It’s never constant; everything is constantly changing. I find myself so confused all the time. I’ll probably spend like an hour just getting ready to go to the showers after getting outta bed, because I’m just so absent minded, it’s crazy. Then we play, we sweat, take a shower after that, we do interviews like this, we hang out with friends, and that at night-time, it’s usually like a barbecue, and everyone just hangs out and has a good time. It’s a big thing, it’s fun.
AARON: Punk Rock Summer Camp.
RYAN: Then we get on a bus and play Halo and things like that til we arrive at the next city!
JUDAS: That’s right.
RYAN: Ryan Key is going to get his ass whooped in Halo by this kid [points at Judas].
ANDY: We are seting up tournaments. Judas is very good at Halo, if you guys are familar with the game, he’s probably the best. We have faith in our boy. Ryan is now his representative.
RYAN: Yes, I’m now his manager. We have plans to take the Yellowcard and New Found Glory bus this week.
JUDAS: Motion City Soundtrack.
RYAN: Motion City Soundtrack is not a problem. Motion City Soundtrack is like a warm up.
ANDY: Which reminds me, we have to go over there later.
RYAN: I already brought the deal to Yellowcard.
JUDAS: I spoke to Ryan about it too.
ANDY: Alright, let’s talk about this later.
ALL: [laugh] That’s warped tour!

[Since there are 4 band members and 3 interviewers, we discuss splitting off and each interviewing a member or two, instead of doing a group interview. It’s hectic with a lot of discussion, but we decided to split. First the third interviewer asked her first question to the whole band]

OTHER INTERVIEWER: The thing that we’re oriented on over at RebelNoise is politics…
ANDY: Fuck Bush. [laughs and says under his breath] There’s a sexual connotation with that too, and uhh, I fully recommend that too.
RYAN: Quote of the week.
ANDY: Fuck Bush.
OTHER INTERVIEWER: So what’s your stance on the whole war situation, everything that’s going on with the election, who are you for, who are you against?
RYAN: I’m not for anybody. I’m against Bush. The war is stupid. A bunch of my friends are over in Iraq, and it pisses me off. The end.
ANDY: I think the one thing that really sucks is that there are so many hidden truths about the country, ever since the beginning, when the country first started. And this doesn’t make me unpatriotic, I love my country, but obviously everyone knows that there’s so much shady shit going down 24/7. And that’s going to happen whenever there’s a person in power. For instance, the President is just a puppet, y’know he’s got all his wigs telling him what to do and he just basically gets up there and says what he’s told. And Bush just sucks at doing that, he can’t even represent…
RYAN: He can barely speak the language.
ANDY: And I mean, I won’t even bring up Fahrenheit 9/11. That movie opened people’s eyes. THis is something that should be done all the time just to keep the country in check. But I mean, it shouldn’t even be propaganda. It should just be based on pure, hard facts, kinda like Fahrenheit 9/11, but with no propaganda-intentions behind it. Things should be released like that from people that are like almost against the government, because then you get to see what the hell is going on from different sides of it. Personally, the war, I think, I believe in my heart that it’s an oil war. I don’t believe that going after Iraq was the smartest thing to do. And just for that, and because of Bush’s beliefs about the environment, like all the bills he’s passed… He’s approved logging in national forests; like it’s a national forest it’s not supposed to be used like that. He’s approved bills to put roads through the forests, because these forest are so big and there are little towns on the outskirts. And because of the dense forest, the towns lose money because they are so hard to get to. He wants to make highways going through these forests to boost the economy. But it’s a fucking national forest, it’s not for that, it’s supposed to be untouchable, that’s the whole point. Just because of that, that one reason only, I want him out of office. I mean, there are a lot of other things too, but…

OTHER INTERVIEWER: Are those political feelings that you have, they’re obviously very strong, are those anything that you try to bring out into the open with your fans or does it musically influence anything?
ANDY: Yea, actually I’ve talked to a bunch of really big websites that actually wanted to launch with us and other huge parties, we’re basically going to launch this thing on a bunch of websites with a popup with all the things Bush has done, like just strictly facts, not my opinion or anybody’s. And if kids want to read it, that’s that, it’s up to them. I’ve put things on message boards.
AARON: Don’t vote for Nader, you’re just wasting your vote.
RYAN: Just vote for John Kerry, [laughs] there we go, made it easy for you.
[here we split up]

VALIDA: Alright, so you are Judas and you play guitar… how old are you?
JUDAS: I’m 20.

VALIDA: What’s the biggest difference between playing to a Warped Tour crowd and out in a regular club?
JUDAS: Well with a Warped Tour crowd, theres a whole lot more competition, because there are a lot of other bigger bands here. And sometimes we’re on at the same time, so sometimes fans have to choose between us and like Yellowcard or Taking Back Sunday, so that can hurt sometimes, it really depends on who is playing at the same time. Plus, it’s outside and all day long, so that wears people out. Usually the crowds aren’t as energetic at the warped Tour as they are out in the clubs just because it’s hot all day and that gets tiresome.

VALIDA: A lot of touring bands are infamous for their cellphone use, how many hours, I mean minutes, a day do you spend on average on your cellphone?
JUDAS: I hate talking on my cellphone. I’m not a phone person at all, I like to be able to look at a person when I’m talking to them. I also think it’s kinda rude to be hanging out with people and walk away to talk to someone on your cellphone. So I’m not on the phone much, I don’t use it unless I have to, so I don’t even spend an hour a day. But it’s ringing right now, and I don’t want it to, so I’m going to to turn it off. Sorry.

VALIDA: If you had to stereotype each member in the band, y’know like one is the “chick-magnet” another is the “shy one” etc. who would you say fits which role the best?
JUDAS: Well none of us get chicks, so there’s definitely no chick magnet. We’re really just a happy-go-lucky band, we just like to hang around, play on the bus, and drink beer.
VALIDA: Is there anyone that is the biggest partier?
JUDAS: I’d say Aaron, Aaron and Ryan are probably the biggest partiers. They drink the most, at least. I don’t drink that much, well until this tour, anyway.

VALIDA: Do you guys carry out any rituals each time before you go on stage?
JUDAS: We always hi-five before we go on stage, everyday, and like stretch and do warm-ups too. The weirdest thing is probably the hi-fives. We used to do movie quotes, like one of us would say a movie quote and the rest of us would guess which movie it came from. That really helped to keep us from getting nervous and stuff. But we don’t have a problem with getting nervous anymore, because we’ve been doing this for so long.

VALIDA: You guys are sharing a bus with Rufio, do you have any funny stories about them?
JUDAS: I love those guys, they’re great. I mean, we’ve only really been on the tour for like five days now. So nothing really crazy cool has happened yet. We’ve just been hanging out on the bus, drinking beer, and playing Halo, so… they’re good guys.

VALIDA: What’s your favorite thing to eat while out on tour? I know they provide meals on Warped Tour, but when you’re out on other tours, do you have any favorite fast food joints?
JUDAS: I don’t like to eat fast food. We eat so much fast food out on tour, it’s disgusting, it always makes you feel like shit when you eat that much fast food. We try to find healthier places to eat, like have you ever heard of Panera Bread? Yea, Panera Bread is good. Subway, sometimes we stop at, which is better than getting a burger at McDonalds or Taco Bell or anything like that. For the most part, anywhere which isn’t fast food, so we can just feel about ourselves and eat healthy.

VALIDA: What international touring have you guys done?
JUDAS: We’ve been to Europe twice, we went once with the Ataris and we did a UK tour with a band called Jackson. And we’ve been to Canada a few times.
VALIDA: If you could go play shows in any country, where would you go?
JUDAS: I’m looking forward to going to Japan and Hawaii definitely, which we’re hoping to do in like January.
VALIDA: Awesome.
JUDAS: And New Zealand, I wanna go to New Zealand… And Australia.

VALIDA: What’s been your favorite tour so far?
JUDAS: Favorite tour… That’s tough. I’m going to have to say the Warped Tour. There are so many bands, and we’re friends with so many. Everyday we just hang out and have a great time. Plus we’re on a bus, so we don’t have to worry about driving our van across the country.
VALIDA: If you could to pick three bands to go out on a dream tour, they could be dead or anything, who would you choose?
JUDAS: Um.. Yellowcard, Alkaline Trio, and Bad Religion.

VALIDA: Are there any smaller bands that you’d like to recommend?
JUDAS: Letter Kills, definitely. Motion City Soundtrack. Northstar. Bleed the Dream. The Matches. That pretty much covers it. Oh and A Faith Called Chaos, I just found out about them not too long ago and they kickass.

VALIDA: What’s your favorite Matchbook Romance song, or what song means the most to you?
JUDAS: My favorite song of ours is “My Eyes Burn,” just because I like the vibe of the song and the way it feels to play it. It’s fun and I just like it.

VALIDA: What’s the craziest thing that a fan has ever done to/for the you/band?
JUDAS: Yesterday in Chicago a fan brought us a scrapbook that all of our fans had made. It’s probably like 50 pages long with just pictures and fan letters and stuff like that. I was really shocked, it was so cool. It shows that our fans are really supportive of what we do.
VALIDA: That’s really cool.
JUDAS: Yea it’s awesome.

VALIDA: Alright, I’m going to have you pick a number between 1 and 18, and it will give you some random, silly question and that will be it for the interview.
JUDAS: 7.
VALIDA: 7? What’s your favorite kind of tea and what’s your favorite kind of candy?
JUDAS: I don’t like tea, I’m scared of tea. I don’t drink any kind of tea ever.
VALIDA: Coffee?
JUDAS: I drink coffee. Black coffee, no milk, no sugar.
VALIDA: Whew. And candy?
JUDAS: Candy… I like Jolly Ranchers.
VALIDA: Favorite flavor?
JUDAS: Grape. Anything grape is cool with me. I’ve got a big grape thing.

VALIDA: Alright, I think that’s about it. Thanks a lot.
JUDAS: Yea, thank you!