Interviews

Hot Rod Circuit

Interview with Mike on Nov 30, 1999 by Archive Bot

Thanks to Mike of Hot Rod Circuit and Jessie of Vagrant for making the interview happen. Pictures courtesy of Vagrant.com and Fickle.org. 

PB: The new album just came out. What is your favorite song off of it and why?
HRC: My favorite song off of it…. I like all the songs. My favorite one I’d say is probably “Lets Go Home.” It’s a little bit different than all the other songs we’ve done before. I mean, well all these songs are pretty different than the other records.

PB: I noticed that this record is kind of a mix between the other two records.
HRC: Yeah it’s kind of a mix between the other two records, which is a good mix I guess. But yeah that’s probably the song I’d go with.

PB: Compared to your first two LP’s, have you noticed more of a response to your new album? If so, do you think it has anything to do with the promotion and distribution that Vagrant provides?
HRC: I’d say yeah. We’ve sold a lot more records in a shorter period of time so far with this new one. I think its probably mostly because of the distribution. I can walk into any record store that I’ve been in on tour and find our new record and the old records I can still walk in and not see them anywhere. But that’s changing now. So that’s cool. Our old records will be more widely available cause Triple Crown has a new distribution deal now. I hope that the label switch and everything attributes to the response but at the same time I hope it’s the hard work that we’ve put in too, and not just because we’re on Vagrant now. Cause you know we toured 8 months out of last year and we were out supporting a whole bunch of good tours and stuff. So hopefully…

PB: With the whole state of indie music becoming more main-stream, what are the chances of us seeing Hot Rod Circuit’s music on TV?
HRC: I don’t know. We’re doing a video. We’ll see what happens. I know there are some radio stations already that want to play the song. But everything’s kind of on hold until we do the video and until we start picking up speed with this record a little bit more. There’s a possibility, don’t rule it out. But we’re not out to be like, “we’re gonna be on MTV!” You know what I mean? If it happens it happens, if it doesn’t it doesn’t. Were gonna make a video, were gonna release our song to commercial radio and we’ll see what happens.

PB: What song is the video for?
HRC: The Pharmacist. It’s our first song on the new record. 

PB: Do you guys have any other jobs? Or has this band been successful enough so that you don’t have to work?
HRC: Casey works at a coffee shop when we're home. I used to work there. Andy and Jay don’t work. I don’t really work. I record bands on the side, but it’s not really a job per say. I only do maybe two records a whole year, cause I just don’t have time to do it. I mean we get by. We pay our bills. I mean were not living comfortably or anything, but you know it’s all right.

PB: So you guys live in CT. When you aren’t working or doing the music thing, what do you guys do?
HRC: Well I live in Boston, but the other guys live in Connecticut. But I don’t know. Just hang out with our family and friends and stuff. Casey and Andy are both married and Andy has kids so he hangs out at home and plays with the kids all day. Casey works and hangs out with his wife and hangs out with his friends. Jay hangs out in New Haven with his buddies too. I sit around and watch DVD’s all day. That’s pretty much what I do. I just buy a lot of movies and watch a lot of movies. I have a pretty boring life.

PB: Is Boston far from Connecticut?
HRC: Two hours. It’s not very far. We don’t really practice ever cause we’re always on tour. So… it’s not so bad.

PB: Who did the artwork for the “If Its Cool With You, then Its Cool With Me” album and why is there a picture of a lawnmower on the cover?
HRC: That album should be called poor planning on our part. That’s called, “you have two days to finish your artwork and we don’t have anything.” So Mark Bricky did the artwork. He sent us an email with like 6 different layouts and we just picked one. I don’t know why there’s a lawnmower on it. I’d rather not talk about it. None of us really particularly care for the artwork.

PB: Yeah, I just found it kind of random and I thought it was funny.
HRC: Yeah, That’s about it. It’s very random.

PB: People often abbreviate the bands name, like they just call you Hot Rod or HRC. Does that bother you?
HRC: No. I don’t care. I mean HRC, Hot Rod, whatever. People call us a bunch of different things: Hot Rod Circus, Hot Dog Circus, Pot Rod Circuit. Whatever. We don’t give a shit.

PB: I read somewhere that you are coming out with a release this summer on Triple Crown entitled, “Been There, Smoked That.” Perhaps you can tell us a little bit about it and what exactly it is that you guys have smoked.
HRC: I haven’t smoked anything. But uhhh, it’s a bunch of B-Sides, the first EP that is out of print now, some live stuff that we did on the New Amsterdam’s tour, which is acoustic, some Antidote songs from the Antidote records, since everyone always asked about that... you can’t ever find it anywhere. A lot of quotes, between song quotes from Jay.

PB: Quotes about what the songs are about or what?
HRC: No, like from shows. Like for instance there was one point where he said, right after we signed to Vagrant and we were on the New Amsterdam’s tour. Matt (New Amsterdam’s) and us shared the stage and went back and forth instead of doing two separate sets, and we’d just tell stories and jokes and stuff between songs, and the big joke to that whole tour was that now that we signed to Vagrant there’s a part in our contract, 4.5, that says Jay gets beer. Cause Jay likes to drink beer a lot. So we’d just make jokes like that. Just stuff like that. You know, just funny shit basically. 

PB: I know that you guys have been busy lately, switching labels, releasing new music, touring, etc, but are there any other exciting plans for Hot Rod Circuit in the near future?
HRC: We’re going to Europe for the first time. We were supposed to go May 10-16 with Saves the Day but we're actually going May 1-16 now. Were gonna play over there with this band called 100 Reasons. I guess from what our manager says it’s kind of like an English version of what a Vagrant band would be here, and Cave-In’s also playing that. So that will be cool. We do that for a week, then we do Saves the Day for a week too. So we go to Europe and we do that. We have a bunch of random shows before that. We’re going home tomorrow, finally!

PB: How long have you been on the road?
HRC: We’ve been on the road for six weeks. So we get a couple of days off, then we’re just doing some random shows, then we go to Europe for two weeks, then we come home and start the Get Up Kids tour right away. Yeah and after that, we don’t really have anything planned until October, which is Vagrant America 2. And there’s been… well I can’t say that so never mind. But yeah just Vagrant America 2. Hopefully, we’ll be off for the rest of the year so we don’t have to tour in the winter time and stuff like that. So I don’t know, we’ll see. We’ll see what happens between now and then.

PB: Well, thank you very much Mike for giving Punkbands.com the opportunity to do this interview. Anything you want to add?
HRC: No. I don’t think so. I guess that’s it. Thanks a lot for the interview.