Interviews

Circa Survive

Interview with Anthony Green on Jul 31, 2006 by Archive Bot

Anthony Green stands near the imposing tour bus, smoking a cigarette and catching up with old friends when a smiling young fan approaches and gushes, “Other than Jesus Christ, you’re my hero.” Anthony Green, lead singer of the Philly-based Circa Survive, takes a drag and cracks and incredulous smile.  “Fuck Jesus,” he deadpans.  Green’s response was obviously soaked in sarcasm, but during the show he’d had the front row fighting for a cough drop he’d found in his pants pocket. From where I was standing it looked a lot like the faithful jostling to receive holy sacrament.  But seriously, Anthony Green has an angelic voice, but he’s no messiah. He doesn’t even have a beard or wear sandals.
 
By: Greg Weissel
 
Can you give us the one sentence history of Circa Survive?
 
Me and my best friends who I always wanted to start a band with saw the opportunity to do what we’d been wanting to do forever and did a little bit of rearranging in our lives to make it work.
 
So you left California and moved back home to Philadelphia?
 
Uh, I was going to kill myself.  I literally said that to the Saosin dudes when I quit. ‘Guys, I’m going to kill myself if I stay out here.’ And they just said, ‘Fuck you, man.” I mean, I hated my life, I was thirty pounds overweight, I hated the music. They wouldn’t even let me be involved in the writing process. They just wanted me to come and write vocals. I was just over it.
 
So where do you see Circa Survive headed?
 
We’re putting out our next record on Equal Vision.  We don’t need any kind of major label.  We have a really dedicated group of friends who come out to see us in every city so far. It’s been really cool with a really positive vibe from the crowd.  So what do we need a major label for?  If you do something like that now, it’s cutting your chances of being a successful band.  They’re putting you in too big of places, they’re putting you with bands you don’t like.  A major label like Capitol can turn your record down. ‘Nope, we don’t like this. Make another one.  But we own this one.’
 
You have a really impressive voice.  At what point did you realize you could become a successful singer?
 
When my buddies and I would jam, no one else would sing, so I just started doing it.  My singing wasn’t good, I mean, we listened to some crazy shit: Cap’n Jazz, Joan Of Arc, Piebald, The Promise Ring, and metal. At that point I didn’t care about my voice, but just recently over the last three years has it been something I’ve taken seriously. I started putting it together: making the good sound and feeling it in your body - that correlation has come recently. I’d never really felt that before.
 
Your unique singing is also a part of The Sounds Of Animals Fighting, a mysterious collective who also just released material on Equal Vision.
 
We recorded the first record when I was still in Saosin and the Saosin dudes told me not to do it. So I did it, because we weren’t writing, and I had to do something.
 
TSOAF definitely feels more like an outlet and less like a focused project.
 
Yeah, for the second one I was out in California with Circa Survive on tour and one night after a show I went to my buddy’s house when we’d recorded the first one and I just laid down the vocal melodies.  That was it.  Everything else got done around those melodies.  I didn’t hear any music, I didn’t hear any melodies.
 
It’s a tough record to listen to.
 
I don’t enjoy it. It’s not about whether or not I’m happy with how it came out, but that’s not really my thing.  I’m disappointed that there weren’t songs.  It’s all just a bunch of weird shit. I like that, I love Broken Social Scene and stuff like that, but weird shit all the time- I’d rather hear some songs.
 
What’s next for the Circa Survive sound?  The psychedelic light show and the illuminated beach balls in the crowd gave tonight’s set a bit of a Flaming Lips vibe.  Is Circa heading down the path to eccentric jam band status?
 
No! It’s fucked up, but we’re actually playing heavier.  It’s still melodic, it’s still light, we’re not making some screamo bullshit; it’s just heavy fucking rock.
 
What was the name of that new song you played today?
 
‘The Difference Between Medicine And Poison Is The Dose.’
 
Did you name the plastic owls that were on stage?
 
I have names for all the owls.
 
I only saw two. How many are there?
 
Uh, seventeen.  Actually, I think a couple of them have been decapitated.  We’ve been trying to think of ways to get the crowd interact during the show, and one of the ways we thought of to do that without being lame was: ‘What if we got huge fucking beach balls?’  We went online and were looking for blowup owls, and we saw this website with light up balls.  We ordered a box of them, just to see what they looked like, and as soon as we got them we were so excited.  They were so bad ass.  At the Henry Fonda in LA, we dropped fifty.
 
At this point, the crowd that had been waiting on the periphery started getting agitated and shouting things like “We love you Anthony!” and “I think you’re hot!” so I let him go.  I offered to take him to the other killer show happening that night in Santa Cruz, Embrace The End/ The Taste Of Blood/ Arsonists Get All The Girls, but he sadly declined citing health reasons.  “It’s been so easy to talk me into things on this tour.  You’re the first person I’ve said ‘no’ to, but I’ve been feeling sick.”  As I walked away, I heard the kid who had compared Anthony to Jesus say, “You make me want to play music.”  There can be no higher compliment for a musician to receive, and Anthony Green, a genuinely nice guy with a great band, deserved to hear it.