Interviews

Smoke Or Fire

Interview with Band on Apr 1, 2005 by Archive Bot

Smoke or Fire are the latest band to come from the bountiful punk scene of Richmond, Virginia, and they do the city proud. Originally and from Boston, the guys moved south of the Mason-Dixon because shit was cheaper and the bands were better. Move ahead many months where Fat Mike heard an unfinished record, showed interest, offered to release their debut full length, took them to the Punk Rock Bowling Tournament...and ta-da, their first album is finito and they call it Above The City. Punkbands.com writer Katherine Ellsweig got the opportunity to sit down with the band and ask everything from being on Fat Wreck to changing name from Jericho to Smoke or Fire
 
PB: Punkbands.com was a big fan of your album and recently gave you a five star review.  What was the reaction to that, was it expected and what kind of precedent, if any, did it set for other press feedback?
 
SoF: We were really excited about it! I was just so happy that it got that kind of reaction because we were really happy with the album but you never know how well it’s going to do and how other people are going to perceive it.  It was great for us to read that kind of stuff; it makes us feel like we’re on the right track. When we went about writing that record we just sat down and really concentrated on it but you never know how well it’s going to turn out until you listen to them back and we were really happy with the way everything sounded.  There really hasn’t been much criticism at all for the album; I’ve been out on tour for the last month but Fat Wreck will forward the reviews to me and I got to read a few the other day and so far they have been amazing. It’s been really great. I’ve always thought that the way to do things is just to put honest lyrics in your songs and play as hard as you can. That way, people may not like you but they really can’t criticize you because you’re playing as hard as you can.
 
PB: A lot of bands will say that they don’t read reviews or particularly care what the critics think.  Something I think they don’t realize is that with sites like this one, the people who review the CD’s are also the listeners. We’re all at this website because we love this music.  You obviously do read reviews, so what kind of role do you think media criticism plays in music in general, in your music and do you take into consideration what other people say about it?
 
SOF: I definitely read reviews. I’ve heard a lot of bands say not to read them but I don’t know, I think you’re always curious to read how other people see you and what other people have to say.  I don’t know that it would change anything because we’ve been doing this for quite a while and even when we weren’t popular at all, I don’t think criticism would make me want to do anything different. I do think the media has a huge influence what people are listening to.  The hard thing is that things get categorized too easily and not enough people actually go out and do the work themselves to hear about a band.  I don’t think enough people actually just go out and buy a record; they just wait for other people to do the work for them first
 
PB: SXSW was recently, I think about a week ago. I assume it was your first time playing the show. They always say “everything’s bigger in Texas,” so what did that show do for you and what kind of reaction did you receive?
 
SOF: It was crazy! I really didn’t get to enjoy that much of it because we were on tour with Against Me and we had played a show in Houston the night before, so we got there [Austin] at four or five in the morning on the day of the show and we all slept kind of late. When we got up, we had to do some press so we basically ran from the hotel to where the interviews were and ran past what seemed like two hundred clubs with just tons of people everywhere. When we got to the club, there was one show ending so there were seven bands loading and unloading before the next show so it was just mayhem. We had a great time; there were a lot of people from the industry there so I guess some people get nervous like it’s an audition but we didn’t have any pressure.  It was nice to see some people from Fat Wreck there and we got a great reaction. We were on the same showcase as From Ashes Rise and I hadn’t seem them in like two years so I was really happy to see them, but as far as the other shows around town, we didn’t really get to go and see or do anything.
 
PB: You recorded at New Alliance studio in Boston, where you’re originally from. What made you choose to go back to Boston to record, and was going back to where you came from important for this record?
 
SOF: We had recorded a few demos at New Alliance and we recorded our last record there with our friend Ethan.  Everyone there has always been so nice to us; Alban, who runs it, is just so in love with music and he’s really not concerned with money.  He’s always been really great to us. When we were spending time writing this record, Alban had decided that we could record it up there and they could front us the studio time because we really didn’t have any money at the time. He had enough faith that it would get picked up and whoever would pick us up would pay the tab.  I think it’s important for us to go back to where we came from; it’s good to step away and look back at things from a different perspective. A lot of things on this record are a look back at Boston so going back seemed pretty fitting.
 
PB: FatWreck signed you guys pretty suddenly. Getting signed to Fat Wreck is a huge deal for any band. What was your initial reaction to singing to Fat and what are your expectations from it now?
 
SOF: My first reaction was pretty much shock. We had sent out the record and had just started getting responses from the labels we had sent it to. Fat Wreck was our number one choice but we never thought that would happen. We had started to talk about different labels that were interested in us. One day I was sitting on my couch watching TV and Fat Mike called me out of the blue. They had never even heard of us before until someone handed them the album and told them to listen to it. He loved it and called me.  I said, “yes” right there on the spot because I knew what the bands response was going to be. I called up Jeremy, who I grew up with (we bought our first guitars together) and he didn’t believe me. It took about five minutes of convincing him to get him to believe it. We were absolutely ecstatic. As far as expectations, there aren’t really any. It’s nice to be able to be on a label and be working with people who are always willing to work hard for us, they’re the kind of label that make you want to work hard and put so much effort into it because you know they’re doing the same.
 
PB: Tell me about the title of the new record, “Above The City,” and where it came from and why you chose that as the title to such an important release.
 
SOF: Well, obviously the first line in the fourth song, but other than that, in Boston we spent a lot of time on rooftops. Down south, people hang out on porches but in cities, you drink and party up on rooftops.  So it’s partly because of that and the lyrics about where I was at the time. I went to see Howard Zinn speak at Boston University right after 9/11, and in his speech he talked about how he was in the military and he never realized that when he was dropping bombs out of airplanes, this was happening and people were really dieing.  For him, 9/11 brought about a kind of guilt.  So I guess that’s part of it too.
 
PB: Why did you guys have to change your name from Jericho to Smoke or Fire, and why the name Smoke Or Fire? Also, how did your fans react to this sudden name change?
 
SOF: A couple of years ago, when we decided to put an album out on Iodine Records, there were a lot of bands getting sued, like American Nightmare, so it was a big deal legally to make sure that your name was “ok” before putting out a record. We found out that there was already some Christian rock band who owned the rights to the name Jericho. So, we contacted them and they basically just wanted us to add something to our name to make it a little different.  We added RVA (Richmond, Virginia) because it’s hard to just change your name after six years and we figured it wouldn’t be that noticeable because a lot of bands will put where they’re from on their t-shirts and stuff.  Then when we got signed to Fat, they needed something in writing. So, we contacted them again and they said they’d sign a mutual agreement so that we could keep our name. They then contacted Fat Wreck saying that they wanted money so we really didn’t have a choice. We had about a week to change our name because the artwork for the album was already done and everything.  Trying to come up with a new band name after seven years is tough and I was just really frustrated with it so one night we were playing a card game and in the beginning of the game, you had to say something like “smoke or fire,” and I just said lets just be smoke or fire and everyone else was like “ok.”  The people who knew us as Jericho think it ’s stupid and I don’t blame them.  Some people think we changed our name because we got signed to Fat Wreck, which wasn’t the case, but the people who knew us as Jericho are just like “What?!?!”