Two years
after their glorious return on Dutch soil, Face To Face once more came to
Amsterdam’s Melkweg club to perform in support of their new Album : Three
Chords And A Half Truth, out on Rise Records.
The report
on that show, can be found here : http://punkrocker-rockclimber.blogspot.be/2013/08/face-to-face-melkweg-oude-zaal.html
But there
was more to it. I had the chance to talk
to Scott and Trever prior to their show, and here’s what they had in store for
me.
Q : How is the tour going so far?
TREVER : Well it’s only been a week, and it’s been
all over the map, so it’s hard to say.
It’s been a combination of festivals and clubshows and they’re very
different from eachother. But I think
they’ve all been really great in their own way.
The clubshows have been small and sweaty and hot but they’ve been a lot
of fun. A lot of really good people are
showing up and we’re having a really good time.
At festivals we get a bigger audience, and festivals are great because
they have nice soundsystems and great backstages and good food and all
that. But you have to roll in early and
set up real quick, and hurry to do your show, so they’re a bit more stressful.
Q : Did you guys actually see anything of John
Coffey’s set earlier this week? [@ Free&Easy festival]
TREVER : No we missed that… We hung out with them for
a while backstage though, because we shared a room together.
Q : I’m just asking because they are a
promising Dutch band, and they are a bunch of crazy guys, who are awesome to
see live.
TREVER : They do have fantastic moustaches…
Q : Can we talk about 2011 for a while,
when you guys played Belgian’s Pukkelpop
festival, before the horrific storm came in?
I’ve been wondering ever since, how did the news reach you, how did you
guys experience that? Were you still on
the festival grounds at the time?
TREVER : Oh yes, we were going to watch the Foo
Fighters, and when the storm hit the festival, there was a total lockdown, no-one
was allowed to leave until really late that night. It was a really crazy thing, Scott, why don’t
you tell it from your perspective…
SCOTT : The actual event, the storm, came on real
suddenly and took everyone by surprise.
And when something like that is going down, you know, wherever you are,
you’re just bunkering down and kind of riding it out. You don’t know the extent of the damages
then, and afterward it really took awhile, even the next few hours, for the
extent of what had happened to really sink in.
Then the rumors start coming in.
You hear about maybe one person that died, or maybe just got injured,
and all of that while we were just wandering around as we couldn’t leave or
couldn’t use the main roads because they were obviously needed for ambulances
and firefighters. So we were basically
just trying to get ourselves together, and our stuff together. And then bit by bit the tally keeps rising
and it really dawns on you, the extent of what just happened, and it was
shocking and horrible. Especially
considering we had only played a set an hour and a half prior to that event and
it was calm blue skies. So it wasn’t
even one of those days where you think : “ooh, this could get a little dicey…”.
TREVER : Yeah it really came out of nowhere… But you wanted to know how we found out. Just word, rumor, travelled around and passed
by everyone who was still there, and of course everyone also wanted to find out
what had just happened. So after a while
when we felt it was safe, we went around, to see if we could help, and it was
all just, you know, really crazy…
SCOTT : I’d been in contact, texting back and forth
with my brother [Chris Shiflett of Foo Fighters, who were supposed to headline
that day of the festival] because I wanted some tech supplies once he got
there. So when the event happened I just
texted him that, if they weren’t already there, they didn’t have to bother
coming at all, because there was no way the festival would continue.
Q : Okay, thanks for giving us your view on
that tragic day… Trever and Scott, the
two of you did an acoustic tour a while ago, how did that turn out?
TREVER : Yes, just two acoustic guitars, and it went
really well, it was fun and a bit nerve wrecking, because I had never performed
acoustic for an audience before. Also
because we didn’t rehearse a whole lot for it.
It started off as just an idea but before we knew it shows were booked
and we were out there. But once we did
two or three shows and kind of got into the swing of it, it was fun. It’s a very different emotion to play that
kind of music live and have that kind of experiences from the crowd, which is
also really cool in a totally different way from a regular, energetic Face To
Face show.
Q : Did you play songs off your solo record, or
just acoustic versions of Face To Face songs?
TREVER : No we only played the Ignorance Is Bliss
record, from the first track to the last.
Q : Any plans of doing that again on, let’s say
a second leg of that tour?
TREVER : Never say never, but we don’t have that kind
of plans at the moment. But it was a
good experience, and if I feel like we could do more of those, I wouldn’t say
no…
Q : Concerning the new album, first one on Rise
Records, where you are on the roster next to Dave Hause, Bouncing Souls, Hot
Water Music, Polar Bear Club,... that’s some good company…
TREVER : As a matter of fact, that helped us make the
decision to do the record over there.
Q : Did Rise Records actually approach you
guys, with some sort of a deal?
TREVER : Well, this is how it went down : We were
talking to our manager about what labels we could go to, and we were exhausting
our options, and he said : “What about Rise Records?” Because he had someone else working with
them, having a really good experience.
So he knew the guys that ran it, said they were really cool and that
they knew what they were doing. So I
said we’ll do it like this, just email over there and find out if they’re fans
of our band, and if they are, then that’s where we want to be, it doesn’t
matter what the money is. So he emailed,
and they wrote back, like fuck yeah we want to have you over here on our label,
we are longtime fans, and that was that.
Q : You probably also know that some ’fans’
I’ll call them, of ‘typical’ bands on the Rise roster before they signed Hot Water
Music, The Souls, … were a bit suspicious about the new direction Rise Records
was taking, which I think is for the better.
TREVER : Yeah well, we are also not huge fans off a
lot of those like Warped Tour style bands…
The company you’re in is sort of important on a label, but it’s much
more important that the label people themselves are a fan of your band, and
your record.
Q : So Three Chords And A Half Truth is your
first effort on Rise, are there plans for like two, three or more albums?
TREVER : Can’t really say, don’t know… There’s no contract signed for more, it was
just a one record deal. But the feeling
is good, I would do more records with those guys, they’ve done really well with
getting our album out there.
Q : Lyrically, I sense a lot of criticism
towards religion in its, let’s say, most ugly shapes and forms. Was that a choice, a conscious decision?
TREVER : I don’t really know, I don’t think so. But one thing that wàs a conscious decision
was the sound of the album that Scott and I, on our acoustic tour, were talking
about the whole time, while driving the car.
We were always on about what kind of a record we were wanting to
make. And it was all about how we wanted
it to sound, not what it would be about.
The approach I took was, I would come up with a bunch of song titles, I
told Scott, and then he took the initiative, sort of emailing me, well and how
about all these… And since we live in
opposite sides of the country, we would both demo songs up, individually. Scott would send me his, with a few words in them, sometimes a
sentence, that I use to form the rest of the lyrics. And I think because I’m a little bit older, I
pay some more attention to the news and what’s going on in the world. I’ve become slightly more politically minded,
but I’ve never been one to take up a cause, we were never a political punk rock
band, it’s always been more about personal stuff, overcoming my own personal
struggle. This record does have some
more politically minded stuff, but they’re still vague…
Q : About the setlists of your shows, how are
they formed? Is it a joint decision with
all the members?
TREVER : Oh yeah! Always.
Q : Because, and this is purely personal, I am
an old days fan, I started out listening to the first couple of albums, and I’m
glad you always play a lot of songs off those records. But I would love to see more of the new songs
being played.
TREVER : That’s great to hear, and we would love to
play more new songs. But it’s our
experience that people who have your sentiment are a minority. The fans always want to hear the old stuff.
SCOTT : We will periodically pull something out and
try it out, even for a few shows. But
sometimes we feel that it creates a low, or a dead spot in the show. And we really don’t just go out there and
play what everybody wants all the time, but we do still love to play all the
old songs too.
TREVER : I think it’s relatively balanced among the
whole discography. We don’t do Ignorance
Is Bliss, but we do a few songs off Reactionary, and Laugh Now Laugh Later,
actually every other record is represented at least by one song. And we now have three songs off the new
record in our set.
SCOTT : We had four, but we took one down…
TREVER : Maybe it’ll be fine here, people here seem
to react to the new record better than in The States.
Q : Something else, is Face To Face for you
guys your most important ‘occupation’, do you have anything else going on
jobwise?
SCOTT : This is it!
TREVER : Well it’s not entirely, to be fair. It’s our most important one, but we do other
stuff. Scott plays in Me First & The
GimmeGimmes. I have Antagonist Records
which takes up some time.
Q : you surely know Dying Scene, they recently
published a list of the richest people in punk rock, with the usual suspects
like the three guys in Blink182, Dexter Holland, Billie Joe Armstrong, … And there was one comment that caught my eye,
from a guy who wondered why the guys in Face To Face weren’t on the list.
SCOTT : Oh, because we’re the poorest people in punk
rock!
TREVER : Well we have been successful in this
business, in the way that we have been able to do this for a living without
having to supplement it with other work, which already is amazing to us. But at the same time, let’s be real, we don’t
have songs on the radio, no videos on MTV…
Q : Punk rock has never been gone, but my
feeling is that a was a bit quieter in ‘the scene’ for some time. And I have the feeling that these last few
months, things are firing up again, and some bands try to take advantage,
trying to catch the train, but for the wrong reasons. Trying to earn some money off some kind of
revival that’s going on, fighting eachother with lawsuits…
TREVER : [whispers] you mean Black Flag…
Q : Yeah.
TREVER : [laughs out loud]
Q : But also for instance Save Ferris, starting
again, and having former members going mad saying they can’t use that name…
TREVER : Oh I barely notice that…
Q : Well it bugs me that some of those bands
take up all the attention that could and should go out to other bands, like
you, who were in it, and still are in it for the right reasons.
TREVER : I don’t look at it like that, I mean, if a
band succeeds in capitalizing off punk rock, it means they have a lot of fans,
and then that’s fine by me. I think the
first reason for bands reforming or coming out of a hiatus, is because they
feel their fans demand it.
Q : Where do you see your band in let’s say
five to ten years from now?
TREVER : In a retirement home, sitting in a rocking
chair… No seriously, I can see myself still playing in five years, ten might be
a little bit of a stretch… It’s hard to
say. And I can only speak for myself,
there are of course other members in the band to consider.
SCOTT : I see myself in five years answering the
phone, with Trever calling : We’re hitting the road again!!
TREVER&SCOTT : [laughter]
Q : Final question maybe,
in 2014 Big Choice will celebrate its twentieth anniversary. I know you’ve said on a few occasions that
you were never really satisfied with how the sound on that recording turned
out. Isn’t it a good moment to
re-release it?
SCOTT : You had it re-mixed, haven’t you?
TREVER : Yeah, but we never re-released it. But, we have plans to do some stuff, just not
only with Big Choice… We’re looking more
at, what is it, in two or three years we will have been a band for 25
years. So I was excited about the idea
of possibly re-releasing every record on the catalogue, in a 25th
anniversary edition, including Big Choice.
All albums would at the very least be re-mastered, and include a couple
of rarities, or previously unreleased tracks.
And I’d like to roll all of those re-issues out maybe one every six
months when we approach that 25th anniversary.
Q : That’s actually a great idea! I’m looking forward to that… Another something about Big Choice, that has been
bugging me, personally, for almost twenty years now. At the end of the record, there’s this bit
with voices, people talking to eachother, what’s that about? Is that truly a secretly recorded thing? And who is it that’s talking?
TREVER : No that’s totally set up! [laughter] No, I’ll tell you, it was at the time, a
totally different time in the nineties.
People don’t really seem to give a fuck now, but in the nineties everyone
was really, really paranoid in punk rock about being called a sellout, or going
to a major label, or you’d have people judging you for charging too much for a
ticket or a t-shirt. There was a very
kill-rock-star attitude in the nineties, and we were sensitive to it, probably
hyper sensitive to it. So we did go to a
label that was, not a proper major, but it had major label distribution,
Victory Music, and we did get some criticism for that. So, what happened was, we released Over It,
that EP, with them first. And when that
was released, Disconnected started to get airplay in Los Angeles. But that created a problem for us, because
Big Choice was ready to come out, and the record company suddenly wanted
Disconnected stripped off it. And I was
kind of okay with it, because it was already an old song, but then again, we
also didn’t want to kill the airplay we were getting with it… Anyway, we were touring when that became an
issue and it caused a huge fight in the band, in our Fun Seeker we were driving
around in. So the way that we came up
with to solve this, was to say, we’ll add a second bonus track, so that
Disconnected isn’t the only thing. Cause
we wanted to make it clear that it’s not part of Big Choice, so it’d be Big
Choice, plus bonus tracks, Disconnected and Bikeage, a Descendents cover. And then the other thing is, when you’re on
tour, driving a lot, you spend a lot of time together, and you think of the
stupidest things that all of a sudden can become the funniest things if you
repeat them often enough. So one of our
brilliant ideas as we were in tour mode, was, why don’t we come up with a skit,
and that ended up being the thing that it is.
So that we could kind of maintain some integrity, and everyone will
think that we didn’t really want to do it.
It was a bit of a joke at the beginning, but because we had a little bit
of power at the label, and we had them over a barrel, they agreed to do
it. And that is in fact the president
and the A&R guy from the label on that recording! We were actually still in the studio
finishing the record when we told them, look if we’re going to do this, yóu
have to come in the studio and we’re going to do this sketch. And they said, well we don’t care, okay we’ll
do it. And we weren’t reading from a script
or anything, it was all recorded ad lib, but we gave them a setup, like, you
got to come in here and tell us that we have to put Disconnected on the record,
and then we’ll react.
Q : And who was the one saying, there’s no way
this song is going on the record?
TREVER : Well that was Matt [Riddle, former bass
player], because he truly didn’t want it on the record anyway, so he didn’t
have to act very hard.
Q : Okay, so finally, anything else you guys
want to add for our readers?
SCOTT : Yes, our album Three Chords And A Half
Truth, out now on Rise Records!
TREVER : Yeah, check it out! That’s what we’re out here promoting now, so
give it a listen, it’s a bit different.
SCOTT : We like to throw you a curb ball every now
and then… We don’t want to make the same
record over and over again. So
sometimes, maybe, we get a little adventurous for our fan base, and then
sometimes we hit it straight on the nose.
But we have to always feel like we’re engaged in what we’re doing.
TREVER : I think the Europeans are really open to the
new record. We got a lot of criticism in
America that it isn’t a fast enough album, for whatever reason, but we hope a
lot of people enjoy it.
