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Bayside made for an interesting interview. The reason for this is that I have yet to hear their music. Victory sent out an Email to all zine type folks saying that a bunch of their new bands were about to enter the studio and would be willing to do interviews, so I took advantage of this opportunity. I wonder if any other fanzine has entered this territory, but I'm all about opening new doors and challenging myself. This interview was done with Anthony, who is the singer/guitarist of Bayside. His answers were interesting and now I can't wait to hear their album..
PL: Sell yourselves to a group of buyers at a trade meeting who know nothing about you or your product.
Bayside is a rock band who are passionate and energetic and bring rock music to great levels of emotion. Lots of catchy hooks, wild guitar solos and heart felt, truthful lyrics.
PL: Define hype and how it applies to Bayside.
Hype is when 5 fat men in suits sit around a table, smoke cigars and randomly decide who the next band they want to make rich and famous are. They then pull all of thier strings and spend all of thier mony making sure that sed "hype band" is on every music channel, in every publication and every gossip circle. This, unfortunetly, does not apply to bayside.
PL: Take me through the whole studio process. The ups/downs...anything that a kid with dreams of music would want to know about doing a professional recording for a large independent record label.
The studio process starts in your bedroom writing a million songs. Then take the budget you are givien and decide on a producer that has done things that you want our record to sound like. Basically after that you go into thr studio and spend about 14 hours a day, everyday, in the studio trying to nail all of your parts in the time you have. We got to spend a real awsome amount of time and we got to work with a great producer so our experience was awsome. It was really just about a month of waking up, making music all day long and going back to sleep. Definitly a dream come true for any serious musician.
PL: Do you guys deal with any sort of pressure since you're from Long Island, which seems to be dubbed as the next big music scene? What are you reactions to this pressure, if any?
I don't think that we deal with too much pressure because of the "Long Island thing". We are friends with alot of the other long island bands just from growing up in the same scene and what not but we have never really concidered our band a part of the Long Island band pool. We don't do all of the tours that they do together, we don't have the same management or anything. Alot of those bands are like best friends and are always working together. We are'nt really in that group though. I think if anything the Long island tag makes people more interested to check us out which is great.
PL: What do you predict will happen once this record drops?
I think that our band is expecting really awsome things after the record. We tour all year round as it is but the tour will be stepped up even more. We are so incredibly happy with the record and we really think that everyone else will be also. We want to be the best band in the world. We'll have to wait and see what's happens though I guess
PL: Pretend I'm a five year old and explain to me the process of pre-production (I know this question should be up a little, but I just thought of it).
Pre production is a really important part of making a record, especially on an independent label. It's where we take all of the songs that we have written for the album to our producer and we all decide what songs we want to use and what we want to do when we record them. For example what we want to change about them, what kinds of sounds we want to go for, what kinds of effects we want to use. It is molding what everyone wants the album to sound like. This is important for all bands making records but when you don't have an unlimited budget, it helps with saving tim to have everyone know exactly what is going to happen when you get into the studio.
PL: Are you guys doing music full time? a) If so, how tough of a decision was it to put all other life on hold to perform your art to the mass of listeners? b) If not, what jobs are you currently holding and then answer question 7a assuming that the decision will eventually arise.
We have been a full time band for about 2 years now. The decision wasn't very hard to make. I think that I have known for a really long time that I wanted to make music for the rest of my life and I'm not really good at anything else so dropping evrything else to do it was just expected. After the decision was made, it has been a really hard life style to mantain though
PL: How do you feel about doing interviews and talking about yourself and having specific questions that you've heard thousands of times before to answer?
I love to do interviews when the questions are interesting. It's just like a good conversation. However, most interviews, the questions are all the same and real boring. thos are just kind of a burden to do. it's part of the actual "working" aspects of my job. i like good ones though. this one is interesting
PL: How would life be different if you lived on a farm?
I would still be a musician I think but the peacefulness of living on a farm as aposed to living in new york city would probably alter my mood to make me play more mellow, relaxed music and alot less agressive. The amount of vegitables I would be surrounded by would probably make me eat alot healthier also.
PL: What has shaped you into the person that you are today?
I think that my family and very close knit group of friends are responsible for who I am. I think that I have a good set of morals and idea about life and I think that my family is respoonsible for that. I have had the same group of friends since I was very young and we are very much a family. we have cultured eachother alot.
What has shaped you into the musican that you are today?
I am the musician that I am now because of the wide variety of music that I listen to. I have a really huge music collection and I am always looking for new things to listen to so I think that taking influence from such a wide variety is what has shaped me musically.
PL: What is the scariest part about being alive?
Worrying that there will be hills that you wont be able to get over. I am the most afraid that there are things that will be coming up that I will have to do or deal with that will be too difficult for me. It's more the fear of that happening then it actually happening in the past.
PL: Feel free to add anything that I may have missed.
The new album, "Sirens & Condolences" will be out January 27th on Victory Records. check out www.baysiderocks.com. thanks, i liked this interview. i hope it was'nt boring