August 11th 2002

Planet Verge: How did the set today go?
Billy: It was rough. Benji and Joel didn�t get here until literally 30 seconds before we were about to walk out on stage. They went to visit their mom and got stuck in traffic. They were driving around the shoulder and passing people and going through red lights. People were honking at them. They called us on the phone and were like, �We�re not gonna make it!� It was really crazy. Then it was like a movie. They showed up two seconds before we stepped on stage and it was one of my favorite shows on the whole tour. It was really awesome.

Planet Verge: They drove all the way from Maryland?
Billy: No, their mom lives in New York sometimes.

Planet Verge: Did you ever go to Ocean City?
Billy: Yeah.

Planet Verge: I�m going there tomorrow. Are there any cool places to go?
Billy: Cool. The boardwalk is like the big thing. There�s like a million hotels and a million miniature golf courses. The golf courses all have themes. One of them is like you�re at an island full of dinosaurs and there�s one with castles. Miniature golf is pretty popular there. On the boardwalk there�s a rollercoaster and a wax museum, just normal kind of stuff. The boardwalk is full of shops to go to for like a mile. I love it. I haven�t been there in a while, though.

Planet Verge: How is the tour going so far?
Billy: Good. Warped Tour last year was cool, but this year is ten times cooler for some reason. We get to play the main stage every day this year and last year we only got to play every once in a while. The crowd�s been really big and it�s been really awesome.

Planet Verge: Is it hard playing in the afternoon. Do you prefer playing at night?
Billy: Yea. I woke up at 12:00 pm and the tour manager was like, �You�re playing at 1:00.� You gotta wake up and go right out on stage. It�s ok. I definitely like playing. Like 5:00 or 6:00 at Warped Tour is prime time. If you play too later, you spend all day in the sun and you�re tired. So that�s the best time.

FM Sound: How psyched are you to be playing Warped Tour?
Billy: As psyched as I could be. For a band like us, this is the tour of the summer. I think Ozzfest is alright, because there�s some cool bands. But I�m glad that we�re on Warped Tour. After two years on the tour, you have like 50 new friends. You can meet people so fast. You make a lot of friends and everyone hangs out at the free BBQ every night. Everybody goes and hangs out really late. It�s really cool.

FM Sound: Do you like Warped Tour better than being on tour with just another band?
Billy: It�s really different. It doesn�t even feel like a regular tour. When you�re on a club tour, you�re playing in clubs every night and all day you have nothing to do, so you can walk around the city you�re in. On the Warped Tour, you�re usually in a field or a parking lot in the middle of nowhere, you can�t really go anywhere. At the same time, at the Warped Tour, you have 1,000 different people to hang out with. On a club tour, there�s just a couple. They both have their advantages.

Planet Verge: How does the new album compare to your previous one?
Billy: The new album, we are really proud of. We really, really like this new record. The last record we did in about a month and a half all together, like started working on it, finished mixing and whatever. This one took four or five months. We spent a lot more time on this record. Everybody says that the second record is always more grown up. I really think that it is. Most people come to our shows and say �I love your CD, the songs are good, but live you guys are much harder.� So we decided to make this CD a little harder, a little bit more intense. But at the same time, there�s like three or four ballads on this record, there�s a couple really slow, love songs. For the most part, I think this one is just like a rock record, not a punk record, not pop punk, just a rock record. I think that�s what we wanted.

Planet Verge: Have you been playing a lot of the new songs during your sets?
Billy: Not really. We�ve only been playing two of them: �Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,� because that�s the first single so we want to play that and �The Anthem� is one that we have been playing on our old tour a lot. But it doesn�t sound like it does on the record. We changed a lot and it�s also going to be on the John Madden 2003 video game for football. That comes out this week, so we figure everybody will start to know that song. So we�re playing those two for now.

Planet Verge: Do you have a favorite of any of the new songs?
Billy: Yes, �Bloody Valentine.� We actually played that a little bit too, but we ended up putting a full orchestra on that song. It�s a really cool song. Just having strings and stuff on it makes it sound awesome. It�s really crazy.

Planet Verge: Who produced this record?
Billy: Eric Valentine. He did the first Third Eye Blind record and all the Smashmouth records. He�s real good. He�s just thinks of some things that I could never think of in my life. Like, �Let�s try this guitar with this and this� or �Put a microphone in a bathtub.� Just weird stuff like that, we spent so much time trying to get find sounds. Then when you hear it all come out, I don�t think that we could ever recreate the same thing, we just did so many cool things.

FM Sound: What�s the best part about being on Warped Tour, for your band?
Billy: I like hanging out and meeting friends, but just going on stage is awesome. Last year there was a good amount of kids. We�ve been touring a lot, we did Warped Tour and a headlining tour, and our fan base kept getting really big. It felt good, where we were, that we could play clubs around the U.S. and have people show up. Then we stopped for five months to do this record and came back on Warped Tour kinda nervous. Like, �Do you think kids are still gonna like us? Or did they forget about us?� The crowd just tripled and we were like, �How did this happen?� It feels really good. We walk back from the bus after each show and we�re like, �Man, where did all this come from? We haven�t really been doing anything.� We�re really thankful and we�re really lucky. So I�d say that going out to play is my favorite part of everyday.

FM Sound: Any negatives?
Billy: There are negative things, but I could care less about them. There�s the kids who love Bad Religion and the NOFX, who are older kids who have been listening to punk forever, and think that when we come out on stage we think we�re this cool punk band. I don�t think we�ve ever even called ourselves a punk band. These kids just assume that we think we�re punk and they�ll throw stuff on stage and give us the finger. We got so many kids in front of us that like or music and then one kid who�s throwing a bottle, whatever. That�s about the only negativity though.

Planet Verge: Are you going to do a headlining tour for the new album?
Billy: Yep. In late October/November, we�re gonna do a full U.S. one. It�s not going to be super huge. We�re going to play some smaller cities that a lot of bands don�t usually hit, then give the record some time to work itself up. Then later on in the spring, like March or something, we�ll probably do a full tour.

Planet Verge: Do you know what bands you�re going to take out with you?
Billy: We�re still in the process of picking them. We don�t really know yet.

Planet Verge: If you could have a dream tour, who would it be with?
Billy: It would be Silverchair, for me. They are my favorite band. I�d do anything to play with them.

Planet Verge: Are there any bands whose sets you like to watch?
Billy: Yea, The Used, but yesterday was their last show. They are the best band to come out in years. They are just amazing. Their CD is awesome, their live show is awesome. That is the only band that I would wake up to go see, if they were playing earlier. Other bands like New Found Glory and MXPX are our friends, I like to watch them. But as far as any new bands, it�s The Used.

Planet Verge: If you could be Spiderman or Superman, who would you be?
Billy: Spiderman, definitely. Superman is ok, it�d be cool to fly and all, but I like how Spiderman can just swing around on webs and all. That�s such a good question because I live for comic books, they are my favorite thing in the world. Superman I never got into. Batman is probably my favorite, I would be him over anyone. Batman doesn�t have any powers, all the ways he gets around are by little gadgets and stuff. But to be able to shoot webs out of your arms and crawl up buildings, that�s awesome.

Planet Verge: Is Batman your favorite movie, out of the comic books?
Billy: Yea. That new Spiderman movie was really good, except Time Burton is definitely my favorite director. He did the two Batman movies.

Planet Verge: What do you think about downloading songs?
Billy: In all honesty, all I want is for people to hear our music. If you like our band and you have our music, that�s good. Truthfully, this is the only job that I have and I would like to make money playing music. If kids buy the record, that�s cool. It�s how we pay our bills. I think for bands that are not signed, the Internet is great to get the word out on their music. For new bands, it�s the coolest thing in the world. Once you get signed and your lively hood is based around making money off your records, it bugs me out when people come to signings with burnt CD�s. I�ll sign it anyway, �cause I�m glad that they listen to us, but I don�t really like it too much. I like to get live tracks and acoustic songs that you can�t get on the record. But if I like a band, even if we�re on tour with them and they say I can have their CD for free, I�m like, �No, I�m gonna go to the store and buy it.� I think if you really like a band, you should buy their record.

Planet Verge: What do you think is the one CD that everyone should own?
Billy: The new Good Charlotte album, The Young and Hopeless, out October 1-shameless plug. No, of course I wish everyone would hear our band, because that�s what I would like. I guess Silverchair, Freakshow. That�s my favorite CD because after their first album, Frogstomp, no one listened to them anymore and they don�t get respected. Freakshow, the one that came after it, I think is the coolest one. Everyone should buy that record- and our record too.

Planet Verge: What was the first concert you ever went to?
Billy: I went to the New Kids on the Block when I was in like second grade. Then I went to Pearl Jam when I was in sixth grade. That was my first cool concert.

Planet Verge: What go you personally into music?
Billy: Since I was a little kid, I had record players and I would sit down with earphones and listen to Kermit the Frog, �It�s not easy being green.� That was my favorite song. I had Sesame Street records and my mom would just sit me down and I would listen to these records for hours. No one in my family is a musician, but they just like music a lot, especially my dad. I�ve been around music a lot. I remember when I was 14 going to the mall and buying posters and Circus magazine and ripping pictures out. There was not an inch of my room that didn�t have a picture of a band and I would look at it all day and say, �I want to be like these bands. I want to be in magazines.� It wasn�t a thing of �If I get to do this,� it was �When I get to do this.� I think pretty much, it was Silverchair, being that they had Platinum selling record and they were 15 and the songs were so good. I was like 14 at the time and said �If they can do this, then I can do this.� I got a guitar and me and a few friends-I had another band called Overflow for a few years with my friend in high school when I was like 13. We were together for four years, trying really hard. I thought it was really cool and I just wanted to do it really bad.

Planet Verge: Do you think tours like this ever get monotonous?
Billy: I get tired and bored a lot, but that�s what video games are for. I never get tired of going on stage and playing. There�s definitely days where you�re not having a good day and you�re sick or tired and your really don�t feel like going on stage. But then, three songs in and the crowd is really going and you�re like, �Wait a second, this is awesome. I don�t care if I�m sick.� It gets tiring, but I never get tired of playing, no.

Planet Verge: What�s the craziest thing a fan has ever done for you guys?
Billy: We get some crazy things. One time these girls bought Ken dolls and made clothes for them to make them look like us. They put hair implants and piercings and drew our tattoos on them and gave them to us. That took a lot of work, you know? They took cotton balls in one�s head to make it like bleached out and colored it in with pink marker for Benji. We actually took them and hung them from little ropes in the front of the bus. Our sound guy thinks all that stuff is so funny and he collects it all. He tapes pictures up on the bus and stuff.

QUICK QUOTES:
"I told myself I�ll never get tattooed. I�ll just get pierced and stuff 'cause you can take that out. I got one, then two and then I just went for it. Being around bands all the time, you see all tattoos and get ideas."