House of Blues – Chicago, IL – October 14, 2006
by Dan Hargesheimer
Dan Hargesheimer: What’s your favorite song on the new album and why?
Steve Klein: That’s such a hard question because they were all made from scratch and they are all our babies. But the songs I would say that I like to play live are ‘On My Mind’ and ‘Coming Home.’ ‘On My Mind’ is one of those songs that you hear right off the bat and just from the beginning riff, it seems like a complete thought… people love that song. It’s one of those first listen songs that you get as soon as you hear it. ‘Coming Home’ is one song with an amazing arena rock chorus that anyone, you don’t even need to know the English language to be able to sing the chorus. Those two songs are definitely my picks for the best two songs on the record.
Dan: Do you know what the next single is going to be off the new album?
Steve: It could be either one of those songs that I just talked about. There is a big debate… so we’ll see what happens.
Dan: What did you guys do different on this album than the rest?
Steve: Tons of stuff different. The first thing was that we went in this house in Malibu called Morning View, where a bunch of bands recorded including Less Than Jake, and Incubus… why they named their record Morning View. It’s this empty mansion where we were able to set up all our equipment… we just woke up and wrote songs. We wrote about 30 songs for the record. Usually, we are on tour writing songs on the back of the bus and it felt like we were rushed to a certain extent on our last records, and on this one we were really relaxed and able to set our own pace. This disc is less guitar-driven and more melody-driven… more than any other of our records. Everything about the record is way more classic rock sounding because this guy Thom Panunzio who’s done a bunch of classic rock records like Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen and Ozzy, and the list goes on and on… he kind of brought this different element to our band. Considering we didn’t use the same producer that we had for 3 others… Definitely using a new producer and co-producing with his kind of made it sound different.
Dan: What has been your favorite music video to make so far?
Steve: I thought that the ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ video was really cool… something that we just had the idea and did it. It was just playing as the seasons were changing. It was the craziest video we’ve had to do because we would be playing and the rain machine would be going, and then the snow machine, and then us playing with the wind blowing… it was just a really cool video with the special effects. The ‘All Downhill’ video was really cool, but we didn’t have to do anything just because everything was done with a green screen. All in all, that video came out pretty cool for its time because no one really had videos like that.
Dan: Your tour has been going on for about 10 days now, has your new disc been well received by the fans?
Steve: This is our first record that has been critically acclaimed I guess you can say because AP gave it a 4 out of 5. A bunch of really really good reviews and we don’t usually get very good reviews ever in our career so it’s a really good feeling to get some respect (then laughs).
Dan: What did you guys do in your free time while recording this new album?
Steve: A lot of poker, and you know just hanging out. Malibu sounds like a big town, but really it’s kind of a small town where everything shuts down early so you kind of have a lot of free time to ourselves to kind of just hang out and recollect… try to think about where we wanted to go with this record… we had some growing pains and it kind of worked itself out to be something great I feel.
Dan: I have your DVD that was shot in London, what has been your favorite place to play overseas?
Steve: Japan definitely. I think that’s the only country we go to and get culture shock because no one there speaks our language. No one speaks English, they don’t really teach it in schools… you can go to mainland Europe and call a taxi, and kind of get places… but there if you don’t have someone with you that speaks Japanese you’re not going to get anywhere. But then again on the other hand you go to the shows and all the kids know every single word to every single one of your songs in English, even though they don’t speak a word of English… but they do ‘Heys’ in between everything.
Dan: This is your 7th released disc; do you guys plan to record and tour for some time to come?
Steve: I hope so…As long as people are still buying records and coming to the shows we’ll still do it.
Dan: Since last touring, has your band mate Ian been on the Atkins diet and lost weight, ate a lot and put on his ‘winter weight,’ or stayed pretty close to the same?
Steve: He’s always the same… he just kind of does that as like his little inside joke really.
Dan: Can we expect to see him with his shirt off like usual on tour?
Steve: I don’t know it just kind of depends on what kind of mood he’s in. He’s kind of spastic that way… changes his image a lot.
Dan: When did you guys realize that this band was going to take off and become something big?
Steve: I guess when we started getting national tours with Less Than Jake… like we were nobody and Less Than Jake gave us a tour. Blink 182 called us and gave us a tour… then we had our first major label record. We did ‘Tour of the World’ with Green Day and to me, you can’t really ask for more than that. Those guys were major influences on us.
Dan: When you are out on the road, what’s your favorite place to eat?
Steve: This place called Fogo de Chao… actually there is one here in Chicago
Dan: Who’s been the most fun band to tour with or party with?
Steve: I’d say Less Than Jake. On the Civic Tour we had a club setup in our dressing room and after we got off stage we had a dance/disco party every night… so it was a pretty fun tour.
Dan: Do you have any idea of how many copies you guys have sold of your new CD?
Steve: We don’t really pay attention to that… we like the songs, we’re playing the shows every night and we know the fans and kids every night are singing every single word on not just our old songs but our new songs too. To me that means a lot, because that shows that the fans are growing with us and our fans love our new music.
Dan: In the near future, what’s one band you would like to tour with?
Steve: We like to keep it a secret. We’ve been talking about some tours with some larger bands… we don’t want to ruin it, and nothing is really set in stone in the music business.
Dan: Who or what are you going to be for Halloween?
Steve: Still haven’t decided yet… we need to get on that… because it’s getting close. I had a couple ideas I could picture us being a glam band with shiny shirts and long hair that would be funny, but who knows.
Thanks to the guys from New Found Glory for letting me invade their personal space, and to guitarist Steve Klein who let me pick his brain for a few minutes.
Thanks also to Geffen Records and to Dan Klores Communications for setting up the interview.
