Interviews

Bouncing Souls

Interview with Brian on Nov 30, 1999 by Archive Bot

I'd like to thank Bryan of The Bouncing Souls, Zok, and Hector over at Epitaph for being so damn cool. This is an interview with Bryan of The Bouncing Souls. 

PB: What role did New Jersey play in the bands upbringing and what caused you guys to move to New York City?
BS: The upbringing. That's the role it played. It was like all our formative years as humans and as a band. We grew up in New Jersey and learned the ways of New Jersey people. It's a great place in the world I think to grow up. We started the band in New Brunswick and were there for five years. The thing about New Brunswick is that it's such a transient town and people are always moving through it. Thats what makes it feel like not a city to me. That's why in the Winter of '93 I felt like I had to get out of there. I felt like an old ghost in an old ghost town. So much had changed and all the people I knew were gone. Literally the city itself was changing. It's always still got a big place in my heart because it's so much memories. It formed who we later became, but I like New York City because it feels more infinate. I need to be in a place where the world in keeping up with me and people are up at night.

PB: My first Souls ever was at The Trocadero in Philly with High Standard and NOFX. Now you're headlining the True Believers Tour. How do you think you guys got to this point?
BS: I think we're doing great. I'm totally happy with the way that things worked out. It's nothing any of us could have ever have foreseen or planned. It's just a feeling that we always tried to improve ourselves and our situation. We do whatever it takes. Ya know? We only have ever felt comfortable doing it in our own way. Every decision we make has to feel good. That's the story with MTV. It just feels crappy to us and we just won't do it. We'll do other things like if a radio station wants to play our song. We want people to hear our music, and we'd love to have people see our videos too. There are just certain things that feel bad, and we decided MTV has nothing to do with what we do at all. There's a whole industry that focuses on writing hits like major labels and MTV, then we write albums and every song counts. Sorry that took so long to answer, I needed to get my thoughts together.

PB: It's ok some bands just give you one word answers like Dashboard then there are bands like Saves The Day that yell at you for calling a girl fat.
BS: People are fuckin soft! I've been doing this fifteen years almost man. Like you get some sort of grit out of the experience if nothing else.

PB: How have The Souls evolved through all of your labels? Is that band happiest at this point in your careers?
BS: We're still happiest at this point, and if it was any different we would change it. Chunksaah was us doing it by ourselves and trying to do every single detail ourselves. We were really balls out about taking the whole DIY thing to its fullest extreme. After a few years we realised that we needed some help drastically. Since we were touring out there it would be great if our records were available in stores. It was about that time that we met BYO. Actually, we never singed to BYO but lisensed the first two records to BYO. It made a major difference and was a major step up having our records in all of the stores. Just having BYO take care of all that stuff. A few years went by and the contract ended with BYO and it was right then when Brett from Epitaph approached us and described his label. We were like "wow this sounds great", and we hit it off really well with Epitaph. We've had a great time every since, and again it was one of those feel good things. 

PB: I know the band is big bmx fans and was wondering what your bike of choice is and why?
BS: Well, my bmx of choice is the bmx I ride which is a Redline. Why, is because I kind of custom built ya know? It's nothing special and not worth much at all. It was given to me by Sue Blank the girl that used to work for The Blank's. She used to race bmx bikes so she gave me one of her old ones and it's like a '90 or a '91. It's like an XL size jumping and racing bike, it's tough! Looks like shit but it rides great.

PB: If you're a fan of The Bouncing Souls you have heard or seen the names of Johnny X, Kate Is Great, Lamar Vannoy, and more. Who are these people and how big of an impact have they had on the bands lives?
BS: They're our friends and our closest friends. You probably know people that inspire you, and they are just great people. I could write essays on all of them but it would be long and boring. Actually, I plan to after this tour to do "FAQ's" thing and write something about each one of those people for people who want to know.

PB: This past summer was the second full Warped Tour the band appeared on. You guys seem like a crazy bunch of guys so I was wondering if there were any moments that stuck out more than the rest?
BS: Beer Bong Olympics........ done that! We see people doing the Beer Bong Olympics and just go beat 'em up. Sometimes we get into talking and stories come up, but whenever someone asks me in an interview I blank out. Thing like waking up in a motel and someone placed a bible in a bar of soap on the windshield of our van. Funny things like that happen. Along the way a lot of things happen not even at shows. Eight peoples walk into a Denny's after a show, and it's like all the time. When you're on tour you're in a big walking line of freaks. (Kate Is Great walks into the dressing room. She's cool!) When we're home from tour we're supposed to help her at Chunksaah but I'm always doing the art and being busy. We're trying to catch up and make Chunksaah a more legitimate label. Now we have the Arson's album coming out.

PB: How did the addition of Michael from Mephiskapheles (your new drummer) effect the new album "How I Spent My Summer Vacation"?
BS: The writing of this record was more effortless than ever. McDermott's personality is perfect. We just get along perfectly and he's really chill and really open minded. He's up for playing anything so writing songs was easy. We kind of knew Michael indirectly. We played together but I never met him. Someone that knew him told us about 'em so we set him up there and he tried out with five other people. As soon as he sat down and hit the first beat of Hopeless Romantic we were like "ohhhhh fuck" ! It was just dead on. He's a totally awesome drummer and cool guy too.

PB: I personally feel the new album is the band's best work yet. Please compare it to S/T and Hopeless Romantic.....
BS: I agree with you and I love it dude. I don't listen to any of the other records hardly. The thing about Hopeless is that we were everywhere. We'd be fucking around and take a silly joke and turn it into a song. Anything went and had no agenda at all. S/T was like we were one million miles per hour and we were like crazy. With Hopeless we tried to push more air and open it up a bit, less tight in the ass ya know? After Hopeless I was like we have to rock harder and no gimmics. I just wanna fuckin rock out. Our only agenda with the new album was just to fuckin rock period. 

PB: What's the word on Chunksaah? Any new releases coming out besides The Arsons?
BS: We've got The Arsons full length coming out after that we've got up our sleeves the Sticks and Stones anthology cd which is all the best Sticks and Stones shit which is fuckin awesome. It's your New Jersey heritage. Other ideas we have is a split with Vision called So Jersey which will be each of us covering one anothers songs and Bruce Springsteen songs. The Boss! It's all about The Boss really. I love New York where I live but love New Jersey because of The Boss!

PB: Lastly, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to talk to punkbands.com. On a lighter note who is more bangable Britney or Madonna?
BS: I've met you before. Is your name Tim?

PB: Yea, plus I was working on a compilation to feature you guys.
BS: Oh yea, yea, yea I know who you are.

PB: We go way back dude. JERSEY!
BS: That's right. Madonna though. She just ooozes sexual energy. Britney Spears doesn't ooooz sexual energy to me, anymore than a Barbie doll does which is a piece of plastic that is useless. I'd just much rather go to bed with Madonna. She's dirty and when we're talking about sex what's better clean or dirty? Think about it, clean you leave that at the door. It's time to get dirty when you close the door. Get that thing wide opened and see what its got. Like a fast Harley dude. Take it out on the highway and open her up.

PB: Open it dude! Open that shit up!
BS: I love old. I wrote "I like your mom" and I wrote that song when I was in high school. Greg's mom was pretty hot, a little trivia for ya. "I like your mom" was kind of written about Greg's mom. There were a few moms mixing it up in there but Greg's mom was the main purpose there.