Back in October of 2006, I was lucky enough to get to hang in California with Bane. They were doing a US tour with 3 other excellent bands: A Global Threat, Strike Anywhere and This Is Hell. Personally, I had never really noticed This Is Hell. Sure, I had heard the name before, but I had never gone out of my way to check them out. After a few days, I got to know the dudes and then on the third day, I actively paid attention to them playing. At this point, I kicked myself for not paying attention earlier. This band was ill! All the dudes get into it, and Travis knows how to work the crowd. Over the next couple of days, I had the chance to hang with Travis more and realized, “yo, this dude knows what is up.” From there, I knew an interview had to go down. After leaving tour, I told Travis I would set one up. And with my superhuman speed, it only took 4 months for me to write it up. Faster than a speeding bullet. Of course, he turned it around much faster. Before they head off to Europe on an amazing tour with Comeback Kid, The Warriors, … Europe get psyched!
Without further ado, here’s the interview. Get into it.
HYE? – yo dude, how’s your edge?
see below…
HYE? – when did you fully realize what straight edge was? and what does it mean to you now?
hmm, probably when i first started going to shows… i remember hearing the term and never really knowing what it meant… i remember being asked by Daryl of Glassjaw and Vinnie of The Movielife who were both edge at the time if i was… and i think i replied with “i don’t know” haha, because at the time i truly didn’t know what it meant and felt to dumb to ask…. to answer the second part of your question, i don’t claim that i’m sxe when people ask, i don’t really feel the need for the label… i never did and still don’t have the desire to drink or do drugs.. it was kind of one of those things where i was “straight edge” before i even knew what it really meant, i was always just scared that if i drank or something my mom was gonna catch me haha…so i guess to truly answer the second part of the question, i do what i feel is right for me…. there are some people who i think make straight edge look silly and others that make me very proud that i share a similar lifestyle….
HYE? – what is support? what’s the deal with this little company?
it’s a “clothing line” that my girlfriend and i started, it’s still in the very early stages, we have a lot of friends who are great artists, we want to showcase their work and hook people up with some sweet gear in the process… we only have a few designs up at the moment…. the first design we did was the “i support same sex marriage” design… i got a shirt like that a few years ago on tour in atlanta, and i wore it so much on tour and everyone would ask me where i got it and how they could get one, so i asked around to friends in atlanta and they said the kid who made them isn’t making them anymore, guess he dropped out of the scene or whatever… so we decided to make some so people could get a hold of them, because i think it’s a great message, it blows my mind when someone gets bummed out on something that has zero affect on their life… but also because of that shirt people tend to think that we are a political or not for profit based kind of company, which isn’t the case… you can check the designs out at www.supportshirts.net.
HYE? – who is the best stage diver you know? who is the worst? at what show did you execute your best stage dive?
hahah, great question… best stage diver, i don’t personally know him but i’ve seen Ray Lemoine do some amazing stage dives, especially at Floorpunch’s “final mosh” at cbgb’s… i think you ask this question knowing that everyone is going to say that YOU are the worst stage diver (Editor’s note: Would I do that? No …) …. and i agree… although i think 95% of stage divers are bad at it…. it’s a art form, everyone one tends to choose quantity over quality and i think thats a bad move….. my best stage dive… hmm, i’ve had a decent amount of solid dives in my 10 year career…. the ones that stick out to me are all Movielife shows, huge front flips over barriers… one was in wales at a show with Lost Prophets, like 5000 kids… i have it on video hahah
HYE? – you sing for this is hell. do you think people would be surprised to learn that you are straight edge? when i say people, i really mean “fans of the band,” specifically. also, when are you going to start sporting camo pants and varsity jackets on stage?
haha yes, everyone thinks that i’m a smack head or something because of my raccoon like eyes… it runs in the family… as for the camo pants and varsity jacket i don’t see that happening anytime soon… i don’t need a core uniform to sing in a core band….
HYE? – suppose this is hell battled soldiers. you get to represent tih, rick gets to represent soldiers. who would win in the following competitions?
a) home run derby
ME
b) stage diving
I’d say TIE, he’s little and has pulled some huge front flip type stage dives in his time….
c) psyching up a crowd
HIM, i hate talking, let alone begging a crowd to get into it, he’s a fucking lightning rod…
d) stand up comedy
ME for sure, i’m convinced people enjoy our band way more during the breaks when i’m talking
e) cooking
ME
HYE? – if you had the power to cause one hardcore band to reunite for one show, what band would you chose? what venue would pick for this monumental event?
man, there is so many bands that i’d love to see play again or for the first time… a band that i always loved and would love to see is Battery… as for the venue, i wouldn’t really care.. as long as it had a good stage to jump off of…. and i think in a close second would be CIV….. i would have rather seen a CIV reunion tour than the GB tour that happened…. crazy i know…
HYE? – what touring band pulls the best pranks? which band is the chillest to tour with?
the only band that pulled some pranks that we’ve toured with that i can remember is Most Precious Blood… last show of tour in med set they just start tossing cardboard boxes at us on stage and throwing cups of water on me from the balcony.. that was funny… they would fall under chill bands as well… along with Bane, Comeback Kid, Darkest Hour, I Am The Avalanche… i mean honestly we have toured with a lot of bands and i’d say 98% of them were awesome and easy going….
HYE? – speaking of touring, how do you flip a van in western canada and not miss a single show of your tour? what exactly happened there?
haha, well we were in the midst of a 12 hour drive from vancouver to edmonton…. the weather was amazing for the whole drive… we are about 2 hours from the show and we hit a bad patch of snow and ice… Rick is driving… and he’s going slow… and all of a sudden i feel the van fish tailing and hear Rick yelling “shit shit shit shit” – we have hit our fair share of ice and had our fair share of close calls, but this just didn’t feel like it was going to end good… i was laying on the second bench so i just braced myself, we wound up doing a 180 and going off the highway backwards into a ditch and rolling onto our side, the trailer flipped and busted out our back window… luckily everyone was totally fine, cops and tow trucks came… towed our van and trailer out of the ditch, brought it to a impound.. the cops drop us off at tim hortons like two blocks from the impound and go on their way haha… it was a sunday i think, so after many phone calls we finally got this cunt to come to the impound so we could recover our van and trailer…. they didn’t think it was a good idea for us drive the van or trailer in the shape it was, we said thanks for the concern, paid the 800 bucks, hooked our trailer back onto the van and drove to edmonton and played the show, and finished the final week of tour…. when we got back home the insurance company deemed the van totaled and the trailer didn’t last much longer after that tour either….
HYE? – another tour related question. tih is a non stop touring machine, but a lot of the tours don’t really seem to be hardcore tours. how did you end up touring with bayside or i am the avalanche or glassjaw? was there a conscious decision to tour with non hardcore acts? how does that experience differ from touring with outbreak or bane? the crowd feeling it?
well all three of the “non core” tours you mention above we did were with friends band essentially… to me i don’t view hardcore as a secret society, i WANT younger kids to get into hardcore because i think it’s great, there are so many good bands with so many good things to say, it’s not like anyone was born with a fucking Black Flag shirt on, you got into hardcore somehow, chances are it was through a punk band, or a metal band… or maybe a metal core screamo spazzy kind of band, regardless why try to shut people out? those tours we got asked to do and we were stoked, it’s fun doing something that is outside the box you know? the Glassjaw stuff was especially cool because growing up on long island they’re one of the first bands i saw, i never thought that 10 years later i’d be in a band touring with them… and honestly on long island Glassjaw was always considered a “hardcore” band… so i don’t think that was really out there ya know? we don’t make a conscious effort to do anything… if we get asked to tour with a band, we sit down as a band and discuss it… it’s all music to me, i’m not going to rule out touring with a band because they’re not a “hardcore” band… especially if they are buddies of ours, i go on tour to have fun and hang out with friends… and to answer the last part of your question, i think kids for the most part were stoked, because it was fresh to them, they aren’t used to bands playing that style of music or the band walking around, hanging out at the merch table, it seems so wild to them, it’s cool to show kids that there are plenty of bands out there that don’t hide backstage, that we are grateful and we are just like them….
HYE? – as a show attendee, what was your favorite show, and why? what was your favorite tih show?
another very hard question, where do you come up with these brain busters mr murphy….. favorite TIH show would probably be our first London show… it was pretty surreal, like 300 kids going insane, we’ve played some amazing shows on Long Island of course and a handful in Syracuse stick out in my mind… as for a show i went to see… fuck man, i’ve been to hundreds of shows, i guess a few that stick out in my mind would be of course my first show ever… 96/97 on long island.. VOD, H20, Silent Majority…. i’m kinda bad with years but another awesome show i saw on long island was Saves The Day, Farside, Fastbreak, The Movielife, Kid Dynamite… i saw a handful of sweet shows in the boston/worcester area… 420 fest with Bane, AN, Panic, Right Brigade…. Bane at the met cafe, anytime i saw Bane at the palladium, Suicide File twilight release show at the ICC was a wild one…. i could go on and on….
HYE? – what bands get you amped up these days? psyched on the edge and psyched on the core?
umm when i’m checking out a band i don’t really care if they’re edge or whatever, if they are cool, if not whatever… i’ve never liked a band just because they were edge… but two current straight edge bands that come to mind that i think are sweet are Down To Nothing & Let Down…
HYE? – who is cooler: pike or merrick?
look at the time, let me get to the next question..
HYE? – what music have you been giving a lot of play lately? how does your playlist change when you are chilling with a special lady?
lately i’ve been listening to a lot of Seaweed, Down To Nothing, Nightmare Of You, Leeway, Crime In Stereo…. my girlfriend grew up in NYC going to shows and probably saw a ton of bands that i would have loved to seen.. but we listen to a lot of the same stuff…. i would say a few bands we can jam together would be… Jawbreaker, Lifetime, Squeeze, Elvis Costello, Head Automatica, I Am The Avalanche….
HYE? – any closing thoughts, shout outs or words of encouragement?
in 10 days we start recording our second LP… it should be coming out in jan/feb of 2008… keep an eye out for that, murphy please practice your stage dives for Bedards well being….. keep the faith!
