Driven Far Off

I was able to sit down with Anthony (second from the left) of Bayside at their sold out show in Pomona, CA. He gave me inside look at what’s going on in Bayside and what’s to come of the Victory Records four-piece.

Please introduce yourself however you’d like.
I’m Anthony, I play in Bayside. So far…this is pretty easy.

Yes, you = Anthony, me = Michael. Now that it’s settled…
Nearly every show has sold out on this tour, how does it feel to be on the road again?
It’s incredible. This is probably one of the most fun tours we’ve ever been on.

You guys were on Conan O’Brian a couple weeks ago, what was that experience like for you?
It was a trip, it was really surreal. When it came time to actually play, we weren’t as nervous as we thought. He’s awesome, we were a lot more nervous when we got there and were setting up but when it came time to actually film we were pretty comfortable.

Walking Wounded, was released about a month ago, What’s the response been?
It’s been an amazing response. It’s really exciting as a band, and something every band goes through is trying to force their new music onto their old fans. That whole battle has been really easy, the fans have been taking to it.

Lyrically, the songs on Walking Wounded are honest and bold, in head on a plate, the lyrics read, “I’m pouring out my soul, I find the right words to express myself instead of fitting round pegs in round holes.” What fueled these words?
Something I’ve never done because I feel like it’s bad for my health is reading reviews and reading press. It gets me so angry and stresses me out, so I’ve kept away from it. Lately, I have been reading it all. It drives me insane. We’ve never really touched on it before but on “Head On A Plate” and “Popular Science” we’re starting to take jabs at the music industry and other bands we think are a joke. After a day of reading reviews and gossip online and people who think they know everything about music and shit like that I just wanted to call everyone out on that. That line, specifically, is what I feel like a lot of bands are doing.

I also read one of your blogs from this tour where you quoted different message board posts and music reviews, all being quite distasteful and shallow, what keeps you going when you read such ruthless things?
Honestly, I was feeling this thing where I got really pissed off at these people on message boards and who run websites, who have the right to criticize something they don’t do. It pissed me off that they have this platform to criticize music and bands. I decided that I’m at a point where our band is pretty big and we have a lot of fans so I have a platform, too. I’m going to start calling out all of those people. If they feel like they can criticize music then I’m going to start writing reviews about websites and magazines.

Your band’s history contains tragedy, and triumph since, do you feel like within your band you embrace the events of the past, or are they more things you’d like to keep personal and separate?
I think we definitely embrace it and we want to bring what we’ve been through into our music but not so much in an obvious way. What happened to us, happened to us. We took some time to be together and be friends and help each other through everything. Through that we became different people, we became stronger- Optimistic, more powerful people. Rather than the depression that came with it, we wanted to put that in our music.

Does any of that history have to do with your record’s title, the Walking Wounded?
Walking Wounded- a lot of people ask, and call it a morbid title. It’s not, it’s just kind of what we feel like we are. We’re wounded but we’re on our feet.

Next week you’re showcasing for your label at South By Southwest, how do you feel at a label with quite a diverse roster of artists, Victory Records?
It’s awesome. I think we are on the best label. We love all of the people that work there, we love all of the bands. It’s really a sense of community that a lot of other labels don’t have. All of the bands are friends.

What was it like doing Bayside acoustic?
It was really therapeutic. We didn’t want to bring all of the sadness into walking wounded, so that was our therapeutic record. We really enjoy playing acoustic so we do tons of in-stores. We do two every week on this whole tour.

What are your plans for after this tour?
After this tour, we’re going to Europe for a couple weeks, then Canada for a couple weeks, then we’re doing the whole Warped Tour this summer. Then we’re headlining a Victory tour in the fall.

Any last comments?
I think people really need to check out our record because we wanted to make a record, and I think we succeeded in this, for the casual music listener. Something to put on in the background, while you’re driving and something that’s catchy but we also wanted it to be something under that. We wanted to make something that if you want to read deeper, it’s there.

Well, thank you so much.
Thank you!