“Just watch out for ‘sensitive.’ If someone starts saying they’re ‘sensitive’ to you, it’s bad news!”
Against Me! singer Tom Gabel has learned a lot in the two years since he and his anarchist-punk bandmates made the jump from an indie label to Sire Records.
The list of industry terms he’s compiled on his Blackberry is probably the funniest evidence of this. From “viral campaign” to “cultural significance,” Gabel’s assembled an impressive database of bullshit words and phrases, with “sensitive” occupying the number one position.
“If someone at a record label tells you that they’re ‘sensitive’ to your needs as an artist,” he explains with a laugh, “it means that they’re going to be very, very manipulative, but in a very subtle way.”
Against Me! have also learned another word along their travels: sellout. The myopic punk crowd, ever concerned with rebelling against the mainstream, did a major-league freak-out when Against Me! ostensibly switched teams. What they didn’t consider was the novel idea that Gabel and his band hit upon: If you’re unhappy with what’s going on in the mainstream … change the mainstream.
With the release of their Sire debut, New Wave, in July, that’s exactly what they did. The record is being hailed as one of the most vibrant, colossal and fierce offerings of 2007 – the best album of the year, if you want to listen to Spin.
In the midst of the escalating hype, Team Last Call tracked down Gabel in his hometown of Gainesville, Florida, to talk about the thin line between sellout and revolutionary.
Team Last Call: It seems like everyone on planet Earth is freaking out about your new album. What’s that like for you?
Tom Gabel: Stuff like that, it’s nice, it’s cool, it’s awesome. Anybody who tells you that they aren’t happy to have their work appreciated is lying to you. But that’s not necessarily why you do it. It’s more just something cool to show your mom. “Check it out, mom! You can go to Barnes & Noble and get this magazine!” It’s like coming home with a good report card.
TLC: On New Wave, it seems like you’re moving in a more positive direction – less “this situation is screwed up” and more “here’s something you can do to change it.” What was the catalyst for that?
TG: I think it’s not so much, “Here’s something you can do.” It’s more, “Just do something!” Whatever it is, be motivated and try to be positive about things. There were personal things that happened in my life that were a sea change. But also, it was kind of taking a look at where we were as a band and feeling grateful and very fortunate and thinking, “This is an awesome situation to be in. Why not make the best of it?” I feel like it would have been really in bad taste to put out some self-bemoaning album as a major label debut. “Life is horrible. All these things suck!” I feel like it was a real opportunity to do something that wasn’t self-centered.
TLC: What was the motivation for you to move to a major in the first place?
TG: I never wanted to be a band that was defined by its record label, because I think that’s just ridiculous. So while Fat [Wreck Chords] was an amazing label and we appreciate everything that they’ve done for us, it felt like if we would have stayed it would have been stagnating. It would have gotten less exciting, and we could have just shit out a record every two or three years and kept doing the same thing. I think in taking risks and taking on challenges, that’s where you grow as a person and that’s where you grow as a band. So it was important for us to move on.
TLC: That’s not nearly as scandalous as it’s supposed to be.
TG: [laughs] Sorry! It’s boring. There’s no devious subplot. It’s a boring numbers thing. “This makes sense for these reasons.”
TLC: People have been yelling “sellout” at you guys for years almost every step forward you’ve taken.
TG: Totally. It was funny, when it was time to face this decision – “OK, do we want to sign to Sire?” – never was there a moment when we were like, “Oh, damn, we’re signing to a major label.” We just came to this point where it’s like, “You know what? No one else knows what’s best for us. We know what’s best for us. So let’s just ignore everybody else.”
TLC: So you’re not worried about that sellout perception?
TG: Not at all. Anyone who would really throw an accusation like that is an immature person. Usually, stuff like that is motivated by jealousy or motivated by complete ignorance and a misunderstanding of the situation. I mean, the idea that somebody else who is completely removed from the situation and isn’t in the band, who’s never been in a band, who’s never worked with record labels or anything like that, would know more about it than I do – it’s stupid.
TLC: You seem on your albums like you have this overarching sense of purpose. Where does that come from?
TG: I think a lot of it comes from – as cliché as it sounds – but it comes from punk in general. For me, the most important lesson I learned from punk was to question things, to question everything. A lot of that will then in turn be questioning myself, and that’s something that I constantly do. I question my motivations, I question the way I interact with people – everything – and that comes out a lot in my writing.
TLC: For a lot of people, major labels mean limousines and pimp cups. But I read that you guys still practice in a squat.
TG: It’s a glorified storage unit. [laughs] People have a deep misconception when it comes to major labels. They think you sign to a major label and then suddenly the label just pays for everything. You couldn’t be farther from the truth. As a band, we choose all the bands we tour with, we take care of all of our day-to-day business, we pay our own taxes, we take care of setting up our own tours. All our record label does is put out the record for us and put it into stores – and they set up this interview.
TLC: I keep reading these comparisons between Against Me! and Nirvana, or between New Wave and Nevermind. How do you even react to something like that?
TG: Well, I take it with a grain of salt. Obviously, people are making that comparison because we worked with Butch Vig, who recorded Nevermind. So it’s a really easy thing to say. But in general in the music world, especially right now with every music-related business magazine talking about, “This year, sales are down 50 percent! File sharing is ruining the music industry! What are we going to do? CDs are dead!” – it’s almost like talking about the next Nirvana is the music industry’s version of Christ coming back. “He’s returned!” It’s like a fairytale.
TLC: You guys are in a unique situation where, because of the whole “punk cred” issue, you can’t really go backwards.
TG: You have to keep progressing. You want to keep growing and you want to keep learning. You don’t want to regress – I almost fear that.
For me, playing in basements and VFW halls, we did that for years, and we’ve played some of the most amazing shows of our existence as a band in those situations, and I would hate to have the memory of that ruined by going back and trying to force ourselves into that again. You want to have the fondest memories of those experiences.
"Hey, man," I said, "how's it going?
He stared at me for a moment, clearly puzzled, before a smile spread across his face.
"Oh, hey!" he yelled across the bar. "I didn't recognize you. Been packing on the pounds, huh?"
This was awkward on several different levels.
First of all, there's the inherent weirdness of having a near-stranger tell you to your face that you are fat.
I mean, in the dude realm, this ordinarily isn't a big deal. Getting called fat or hairy or ugly when you're hanging out with your guy friends is kind of par for the course. You don't get upset about it. In fact, you're usually just grateful it wasn't accompanied by a smack in the hoo-has.
But this guy crossed the dude line. Because "fat" is one thing. But "so fat that your face has devoured itself" is a different animal altogether.
And then there was the "huh." Without the "huh," he would just have been making a statement. A totally unwarranted statement, but a statement nonetheless. But the "huh" turned it into a question – a question that, according to the faces of everyone sitting around me, I was expected to answer.
"Hey, big piggy fat-face, you've gotten so fat that people can barely make out the normal human face inside your new fat fatty pig-face – don't you agree?"
I really didn't know how I was supposed to respond. I've always made it a point to carry around a few "backup pounds," just in case I was ever marooned on an island or something like that. You never know when your airplane might crack in half and dump you and a bunch of strangers on an uncharted mass of land inhabited by polar bears, body-snatchers, deadly clouds and mysterious government hatches.
But still, I've never been overweight enough for someone to actually call me fat. To my face. In front of lots of strangers. How is someone supposed to react in a situation like that? Britney, where were you when I needed you?
The way I figured it, I had two options available to me: 1) Take the childish route and punch him in the face, or 2) Take the childish route and punch him in the neck. Never underestimate chubby-kid angst.
But I didn't do either. I decided that my greatest weapon wasn't my fists, but my rapier wit. I'd give him a good, old-fashioned tongue-lashing, a devastating verbal assault, a kick right in the proverbial hoo-has.
So here's what I came up with:
"Yeah. Heh. I guess I have."
Zing!
I spent most of the following week thinking up other lines I could have used to stun him, including such classics as, "Shut up!" and "You're the one who's fat!"
When I wasn't busy doing that, I was obsessively staring at my own ass in the mirror and trying to decide if I really had gotten so fat that my face had imploded.
I consulted with a panel of experts, by which I mean my mommy, and was thoroughly assured that I hadn't gained a pound since high school. I just had a little extra cuddliness to me. Baby fat, is what she called it.
When I asked my wife what she thought about the issue, she tossed one of our cats at my face and ran out the door, which I chose to interpret as, "I am hot for your body, and I have to leave now before I am overcome with fiery passion."
But still, numbers don't lie. Especially the numbers on the tag of my pants, which reveal to anyone who cares to look that, from the waist down at least, I am officially rounder than I am tall. This is a shocking thing to realize. Like, if you tried to wrap one of my pant legs around my waist, I'd smack you. But then if you tried again, you'd discover that the pant leg doesn't go the whole way around. Something has gone terribly wrong.
I figure that a person can choose to react to being a fatty in one of two ways: by accepting responsibility and taking action, or by refusing responsibility and blaming someone else.
So far, I've got about 10 or 15 names on my list, all of whom in some way are responsible for my weight gain.
Mitt Romney, Tom Cruise, Gene Simmons – I know they all factor in somehow, although I can't prove it. Either way, they creep me out.
In the end, though, my list wasn't helping any, so I decided to take up jogging. Well, not so much "jogging" as "flailing around the elementary school track like a wounded walrus." After a month of jogging every morning, I somehow managed to actually gain about two pounds, which is kind of remarkable. But I stuck with it, and now I'm proud to report that I've lost a grand total of five pounds, which, if you're really bad at math, is practically 10 percent of my body weight. So take that, dude in the bar that I barely know. Now who's fat!
Oh, it's still me? Crap.
This month, the fun finally begins with the Iowa caucuses. As per usual, America is looking to Team Last Call to help it separate the good candidates from the bad, to distinguish which ones are virtuous, which are trustworthy and which are Republican.
We decided to tackle this monumental task by interviewing each and every one of 2008's leading candidates. It was the only way we could determine who among them was capable of leading this great nation of ours and who was a bald, bucktoothed, opportunistic 9/11-milker.
Unfortunately, none of them were available. But someone else was: Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist and perennial presidential candidate Dave Barry.
To this point, Mr. Barry's bid for presidency hasn't received much media coverage, due in part to the fact that he hasn't raised any money, participated in any debates or picked what we in the industry call a "political party." Despite that fact, Barry's campaign seems to be doing remarkably well. In fact, he claims to be currently leading every single presidential poll by a wide margin, a phenomenon that has somehow gone unnoticed by the media – until now.
Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the hope of tomorrow, the voice of the people, the single-most important fake candidate in the 2008 presidential elections, Mr. Dave Barry.
Team Last Call: All serious presidential candidates have a "platform." What sort of platform do you have, and where did you get it?
Dave Barry: I got it from the American people, with whom I agree about everything.
TLC: Would you say that you're more Republican-y or Democrat-ish?
DB: Yes.
TLC: What is your greatest strength as a candidate?
DB: I can make really funny noises with my armpit.
TLC: What do you think is your biggest flaw?
DB: I am too modest, considering that I am way smarter than everybody else.
TLC: Why hasn't the mainstream media picked up on the fact that you're leading in virtually every poll?
DB: I'm sure they have a legitimate reason, such as heroin addiction.
TLC: Do you have any skeletons in your closet that could damage your chances to win the presidency?
DB: Those were consenting skeletons.
TLC: Do you think your good looks will come into play during the upcoming election? How about Hilary's?
DB: How about Hilary's what?
TLC: Are you worried at all about being "Swift Boated" by another candidate?
DB: That was a consenting boat.
TLC: You might end up being the first president in U.S. history to make the Internets a major part of your administration. How did you first learn about the Interwebs, and how long did it take you to master them?
DB: Once I found out about the whaddycallems, tubes, it was a piece of cake.
TLC: As President of the United States, do you plan on learning how to pronounce the word "nuclear?"
DB: This will be my highest priority.
TLC: I've noticed that you have very many "highest priorities." Of these highest priorities, which do you think is the highest-est?
DB: I agree with the American people.
TLC: I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on the issue of illegal immigration.
DB: So would I!
TLC: Global warming – real-life crisis or left-wing conspiracy?
DB: Yes.
TLC: Americans are the fattest people in the world. Respond.
DB: Are you going to finish that?
TLC: Studies show that many American teenagers are unable to locate the United States on a map. How do you plan on fixing this national epidemic?
DB: We need to stop putting all these confusing foreign countries on the map.
TLC: I strongly dislike cilantro. As president, how would you go about officially making this an illegal substance?
DB: I am so with you on this. I can't believe people deliberately put that stuff into food. Why not just add a dash of rat doots while you're at it? The thing is, if we make cilantro illegal, we will immediately create a smuggling industry that will enable criminals to make billions of dollars. So we would want a piece of that.
TLC: If elected President, you would probably have the power to create an official sixth food group. What would that group be, and why?
DB: Ginger.
TLC: Scarlett Johannson never returns my calls. What do you, as president, intend to do about this?
DB: I will meet with her personally.
TLC: What can I, as a Barry supporter, do to help you win the presidency?
DB: You can (send money) tell your friends (to send money).
The preceding interview was conducted on Dave Barry's online political forum at www.realcities.com/mld/realcities/news/politics/qa_forum.html. Questions and answers are reprinted with the express-written consent of Mr. Barry himself, who, as far as you know, is a huge fan of our column.
Marshmallowed (marsh-mel-ode) adjective: The state of having been tricked, duped, fooled, bilked, bamboozled, flimflammed or otherwise suckered into bringing a seemingly cute and harmless animal into one's house, only to have it turn into the devil.
I'll use it in a sentence: "Honey, the new cat just ripped off my leg and ran off with it into the woods. I'm afraid that once again we've been Marshmallowed."
My wife, you should understand, has a bit of a bad habit of bringing every injured, homeless or lost animal she comes across into our home in order to "nurse it back to health," which is wife-talk for "keep it and love it forever and ever." Dogs, cats, bunnies, horses, goats, warthogs – if she spots an animal wandering around by itself after dusk, that creature doesn't stand a chance. One minute, it's walking though a field, enjoying the cool evening air, maybe snacking on some nuts and berries; the next, it's trying to wriggle its way out of a box in our house, trapped on all sides by blankets and stuffed animals, most likely with a pink bow tied around its head, while my wife tries to feed it warm milk from a bottle.
Mr. Puddy, Maggie, Bonkers, Henry, Buffy, Teeny, Three-legger, Daisy, Marshmallow Kitty, Patterson, Miss Tiger: That, in chronological order, is a list of the many, many animals that my wife and I, by which I mean my wife, have brought into our house since getting married eight years ago.
A quick mathematic calculation reveals that we take in an average of 1.375 animals per year, a number that makes us, scientifically speaking, idiots. And of those 1.375 animals we take in, approximately 1.375 of them end up totally Marshmallowing us.
The term originated from one particularly cute and pathetic stray cat who, about a year ago, decided to start hanging around in our backyard. It was riddled with fleas, covered in mud, inexplicably shaved on the side of its head and looked overall like it had just very unsuccessfully tried to mate with a rhinoceros.
Considering that our house is the size of a walk-in closet, I was quick to declare to my wife, the cats, the dog and the other dog that there was absolutely no way we were going to be bringing another pet into the house.
"Oh, no way. There is no room for another animal here!" my wife agreed. "By the way, his name is Marshmallow Kitty."
Later that day, while Marshmallow Kitty sifted through his new litterbox in the middle of my office, I couldn't help but wonder exactly how much looting and pillaging I had done in my previous life to deserve this.
At the same time, Marshmallow Kitty did seem to be an especially sweet and timid cat. I sort of felt like we had done the right thing by taking him in. Of course, that was before he turned into the kind of beastly, bloodthirsty hellcat that, given the opportunity, wouldn't hesitate for a second to push your grandma in front of a bus.
The horror began the next evening when Marshmallow came trotting up to my wife, gave her a charming little meow and, for no apparent reason, hurtled himself through the air, latched onto my wife's shin and start shredding it like George Bush's military service records.
My wife grabbed the cat and chucked him across the room. Rather than running away like a normal cat, Marshmallow crouched close to the ground, growling like an idling tractor, his eyes glazing over with a diabolical sheen. Then, hissing ferociously, came charging back at my wife and sunk his teeth into her calf.
I quickly blasted the cat with our Waterbottle of Terror, and it scrambled out of the room, shrieking. The trouble was over. It had been a disturbing incident, but ultimately no harm had been done, with the exception of a little doggie unrest.
The next morning, as my wife was reaching into the refrigerator for some milk, Marshmallow lunged in front of her, sank his teeth into a loaf of bread and dragged it across the kitchen, finishing off two or three slices in the process. This soon became a regular habit, only sometimes the cat would forego the bread in favor of your leg. We would later turn this into a party game called "Truth or Open the Fridge."
The day after that, Marshmallow attacked my face during dinner, snatched an entire chicken leg from my plate and managed to devour the whole thing, bones and all, as he ran. Like, seriously.
The day after that, he sent a houseguest fleeing from the room after apparently mistaking her feet for a pair of plump, juicy rodents. It became clear to us at that point that Marshmallow Kitty had to go. For whatever reason, he had transformed from a sweet, homeless kitten into a little spitting, hissing gargoyle with a serious case of bloodlust, kind of like a shorter, skinnier version of Dick Cheney. And I'll be damned if I'm about to have some hairy little republican running around my house and stealing my chicken leg. Plus, he gave our nervous little dogs the runs.
So off to the Humane Society he went. It wasn't an easy decision, especially considering how much we love animals; on the other hand, it wasn't a difficult decision either, considering how much I love not having a cat lurch onto my bed in the middle of the night and try to remove my face with its hind claws.
Did we learn our lesson from the Marshmallow incident? Of course not, which is why, a few weeks ago, we welcomed yet another cat, Miss Tiger, into the fray. That makes five animals currently living in our house, which averages out to approximately .83 animals per room, 1.6 animals per floor and 2.5 animals per human.
Here's how I first learned about our new housemate:
Scene: My workplace, Monday, around 10 a.m.
The phone rings.
"Hello?"
" … um, hi."
"Oh god, you found another one."
Miss Tiger had apparently made the mistake of wandering around behind our house, all dirty and flea-bitten, with a rabies tag from 2001. So into our house she went, quarantined to – you guessed it – my office.
So, like … anybody need a cat?
We've received hate mail from a staggering cross-section of society, from members of the local government to doctors and lawyers to – from the looks of one letter – what we're assuming was either an angry toddler with a good understanding of conservative politics, or an angry conservative with the vocabulary and judgment of a toddler. Which we realize is redundant.
Most of the hate mail we receive is from one of three groups: Hummer drivers, republicans or people who actually listen to Nickelback on purpose. Put them all together, and you've got one big, seething, over-compensating, bad-taste-having group of people. Who can't spell.
Over the past few years, we've been called just about every name in the book. Some we appreciate more than others, if only because they at least show a little imagination.
Some of the more noteworthy ones include:
"Creepy Nazi freak."
"A hate monger and a criminal."
"A very small person with a very dark, hateful heart."
And our personal favorite:
"A gay."
Now, you might be thinking, "What is wrong with these people? I personally find Team Last Call witty, hilarious, illuminating and, above all else, really, really good-looking."
Thanks. We couldn't agree more. But we do have to admit that, with the possible exception of "a gay," we probably earned most of those names. We have a big mouth, and we know it. The way we figure it, if you're going to sit there poking a bear with a stick, you kind of have to accept some responsibility for the mauling to follow.
The problem is not that Team Last Call is mean. The problem is that we don't have an "off" switch. When we see something that deserves to be made fun of, we're drawn to it like Larry Craig to a bathroom stall.
We're not "out to get" anyone in particular, unless that person is evil, practices evil things or supports evil people who practice evil things. You know, Wal-Mart, Haliburton, Steelers fans – those kinds of people. Our motto is, "Hey, man, stop being evil or we will totally write jokes about you."
Apart from that, our main goal each month is simply to make lots and lots of jokes. Sometimes those jokes involve poking the bear. But other times, it's totally the bear's fault. For example, if that bear comes rolling down our street in a Hummer with a "Support Our Troops" sticker on the back, we really don't have any choice but to fire away. The joke is already there, right in front of our eyes. It's a punchline on wheels, getting ironically funnier with each gallon of gas it sucks down. We're not even writing the joke here. All we're doing is putting the joke into print. We are but vessels.
That being said, there is no easier way of writing a new column than by reprinting and making fun of our hate mail. We couldn't even tell you how many times we've been sitting at our computer, staring at a blank screen mere hours from our deadline when, like manna from heaven, into our inbox pops a little gem of incoherent meanness long enough to account for a good third of our word count. To the barely literate writers of those letters, we have this to say: thank you.
It is with that in mind that we would like to present you with Team Last Call's first annual Poke The Bear List, which involves a number of volatile subjects that we're sure will open up the minds of our readers, provoke discussion and, most importantly, make it much, much easier for us to reach our word count in future months.
We'll start with Hummer drivers, a favorite subject of ours if for no other reason that the fact that they, above all other readers, have so often shown their willingness to eschew things like spelling and grammar in favor of good, old-fashioned vitriol. Where would Team Last Call be today without such column fodder as, "If your [sic] not gay, then you have an inordinate fondness of the male genitalia"?
Clearly, it would be a pity to let this dialogue dry up. So, let's see … how about: Scientific studies show that people who drive Hummers are hung like gnats and, if their [sic] not gay, have an inordinate fondness for Larry Craig. Respond.
Next comes Nickelback, the Jerry Bruckheimer film of bands. These perm-haired knuckle-draggers represent the absolute lowest common denominator in music. They've taken art to a drooling, castrated, monkey-brained level that is only useful to the sexually confused jocks of red-state America who need a distraction from the fact that the towel boy makes them feel all tingly between their legs. Discuss.
Next we'll discuss the idiot developer who is lobbying to build a Wal-Mart location within our city's limits. This is the worst idea ever. Let's use a metaphor to illustrate:
Imagine that the city is your face, and that the developer is a plastic surgeon. Now imagine that the plastic surgeon is asking permission to purchase part of your face in order to build a gigantic ass on it. That is essentially what this numbnuts is proposing. Just imagine how many downtown shops a Wal-Mart would run right out of business. With this guy in town, it's clear that the last thing our city needs is another ass-face. Respond.
We'll conclude with the most obvious item on our list: George Bush. This one is such a no-brainer that it almost seems silly to write about it. Saying you don't like President Bush is like saying you're mad at Satan, or that you've had it up to here with theft and murder. It's just sort of implied. So instead of coming up with some kind of clever rant, we'll simply direct you to a helpful video that ably illustrates our feelings about ol' Dubya: Do a Google search for "asshole" and click on the first result.
OK, that's about all of the meanness we've got in us for the month. Now, for the love of God, let's see those letters. We took the time to make up a bunch of insults; the least you can do is return the favor. Ass-faces.
With the release of their 2004 pop gem So Jealous, Tegan and Sara Quin established themselves as the indie-pop world’s twin queens of cuteness.
In the years that followed, they toured with everyone from The Killers to Neil Young, graced the year-end “best-of” list of nearly every magazine that counts and were famously covered by the White Stripes. As if that weren’t enough to make the gossip columns, Tegan and Sara also caused a stir as the world’s first pop duo to be comprised of identical twin Canadian lesbians.
On their highly anticipated sixth album, The Con, Tegan and Sara continue on their journey into the darkest depths of indie-pop. Produced by Death Cab’s Chris Walla, the record is at once enjoyably depressing and confusingly uplifting. Front to back, it’s the darkest, spookiest 34-minute pop hook you’ll hear all year. Team Last Call tracked down Sara at home in Montreal to talk about life as a twin, a lesbian and … oh yeah … a brilliant musician.
Team Last Call: The Con has a really melancholy feel. The songs are like this big tangle of relationships and personal issues that you’re caught up in.
Sara Quin: I’ve never sat down and thought, “I’m going to write a really happy song. It’s gonna sound really happy and the lyrics are going to be really happy!” I always sit down and write songs that feel heart-wrenching.
There’s an introspective, melancholy nature to life and to relationships. I was just reading an e-mail today from this girl who was madly in love, and yet her e-mail sounded so sad. And I was like, “What is it about love that makes us feel sad?” I wonder if it’s the intuitive, maybe even subconscious understanding that ultimately you’re alone, and even if you’re connected to someone, it’s just a matter of time until you’re not. I know that’s kind of a pessimistic view of love and relationships. [laughs] I think that Tegan and I both have a tendency to sort of fixate on those topics, and we sort of both live on that emotional plane.
TLC: How does having a twin sister in your band affect the whole dynamic?
SQ: I think there’s something unconditional about the relationship that Tegan and I have. We’re related and we love each other. The relationship between us is different than, say, the relationship I have with my drummer. If I’m really pissed at my drummer, I have to think of a way to deal with it that is professional and appropriate. I’m his employer and we’re friends. There are these awkward things you have to navigate all the time with other humans. But there’s something about your family where you can bypass all of that and just get to the root of it. You can go, “You’re a fucking asshole. You’re driving me insane,” and then just move on.
TLC: “Identical twin lesbians” is like a music journalist’s dream headline. Do you think people make too much of it?
SQ: I certainly wouldn’t highlight that or focus on it. It’s as relevant or irrelevant as, you know, whether or not somebody is heterosexual. Me and Tegan being gay is just a part of who we are, and there’s no part of me that feels ashamed about that or uncomfortable about that. But on the other hand, how many articles start with, “White, heterosexual …”
TLC: Right! “White heterosexual singer-songwriter John Mayer is releasing a new album …”
SQ: [laughs] But I don’t write the articles. I don’t choose to focus on those things. We try to be interesting and talk about a lot of different things. I mean, I could talk for 10 years about my writing process and my life and my views on politics and philosophy. I’m an intelligent person, and I can pretty much riff on any topic you can give me. But ultimately, almost every article that has ever come out talks about exactly the same things and mentions that we’re gay and identical twins. It’s managed to not hurt what is a really satisfying career. We have a really great audience and support from the media, so I try not to complain too much.
TLC: As a fan of your music, I’m not quite convinced that I should really care about your sexuality. It’s more of a distraction than anything.
SQ: I always find it interesting that a guy will be like, “I mean, I really relate to your music. Why do you think that me, a guy, can relate to what you do, when you’re gay?”
In a weird way, we have so much in common, me and the hetero dudes. We both like girls! We’re singing about girls, you like girls – can’t we all just get along? [laughs]
TLC: So many things have happened for you guys in the past 10 years, any of which you could look at and kind of have your mind blown.
SQ: Oh my god, yes. I mean, looking at it all on paper is mind-blowing. But when you’re living through it, it’s just a job. It’s been 10 years of work, and there’s like 360 days of every year that are hard and boring. You’re out there fighting tooth and nail to get paid 50 bucks. Then something great happens, and you’re like, “Thank god! I was just about to quit!”
We really want to make sure that we establish a career that’s not going to disappear overnight. The fact that we can go out and tour, and a lot of times fund our own tours internationally, that’s really exciting to us. But at some point I’m going to have to figure out exactly how it is that I’m going to put shoes on my kids’ feet and retire at some age. In terms of our career, I just want to keep making records and keep playing bigger shows and meeting great artists and writing great records. I can’t imagine that ever stopping.
There are essentially two types of Jimmy Eat World songs – loud, anthemic rockers and sensitive, syruppy pop tunes. On its new album, Chase This Light, the band sticks to the formula, but ups both the bombast and the romanticism. It’s like the band spent the past three years lifting weights all day and freebasing packets of Sweet’N Low all night. The rock songs are more athletic, the pop songs are more unapologetic; sometimes they’re even the same song. It’s Jimmy Eat World running at 11.
The result is the musical equivalent of a John Hughes film – something big, dramatic, joyful and borderline cheesy (and aware of it, and not caring about it) that evokes memories of high school football games, first kisses, breakups, makeups and the girlfriend you had for one week at summer camp. Basically, Chase This Light is the soundtrack to the moment when Samantha exits the church and sees Jake Ryan waiting for her across the street.
Team Last Call caught up with guitarist Tom Linton three days after the album’s release in mid-October. He was scuttling through the streets of Anaheim, rushing from an in-store signing session to a sold-out show, and still managed to sound chipper despite the fact that we were probably his 30th interview of the day. That’s rock and roll for you.
Team Last Call: Are you guys listening to a Disney soundtrack?
Tom Linton: [laughs] We’re, like, in downtown Disney and there are speakers above my head. We’re playing the House of Blues in Anaheim. I’ve never been here. I don’t think it’s connected to Disneyland – unless it is.
TLC: So, Chase This Light feels overall just much bigger, with a lot of those get-up-and-go songs. Was that a goal at all?
TL: Every time we put out a record, we just want it to be better than the last record. With this record, we were able to record it in Tempe in our practice space. I think one of the goals we had was we just wanted to have over 20 songs to choose from, and we ended up with almost 30. I think we definitely wanted each song to be different. Sometimes you buy records and a lot of songs sound the same. One thing we try to do is have every song stand out on its own, and I think we were able to do that on this record.
TLC: You guys have like two totally different kinds of fans – the people who have been following you for a long time and think of albums like Clarity as being one of those life-soundtracks, and people who got into you because of “The Middle.” Is it weird for you to be straddling that?
TL: It’s always nice when you put out a record to see new faces coming to the show. We don’t really put a barrier on people that like our records. We just try to make everyone happy. We go to the website and see what people want to hear and stuff like that.
TLC: It seems like eight out of 10 bands on MySpace list you guys as an influence. Has it been weird transitioning into, like, the daddies of indie-rock?
TL: It’s kind of weird. It makes us feel kind of old, like old men. We’re all in our 30s, but I think we’re playing better now than we have ever before. It’s flattering that people list us as one of their favorite bands. It feels good.
TLC: You’re about to hit the 15-year mark. Did you ever think you guys would be around this long?
TL: It’s definitely weird. I think when we all played in bands when we were kids – at least the bands that Rick [Burch, bassist] and I were in – it seemed like they would only last for six months or something. There were always people leaving the band. I think after one year with this band it was like a major mark for me. It’s pretty crazy that we’ve been able to play for as long as we have. Everything seems like it’s working out so far.
TLC: After all of the punches you guys took from records labels over the years, hopefully you’ve gotten the bad stuff over with and can do another 15.
TL: It’s definitely crazy. We’ve gone through a lot of stuff with record labels. People are getting fired all the time and bands are getting dropped. So I think it’s just something that we’re going to have to deal with – especially now with people not buying music as much. It’s an interesting time right now. We’ll see what happens.
TLC: People have always written about you guys like the little emo band that could. You were the first band that broke through the mainstream that people stuck that label on. Do you feel like you’ve maybe, finally, been able to shrug off that “emo” label?
TL: No, I don’t think so. [laughs] It’s funny, I was telling Jim [Adkins, frontman] the other day, like, every interview, they always ask, “All right, so you guys are like the leaders of emo?” Every interview people always bring up emo. I guess we just kind of laugh at it. We think it’s funny, and there’s nothing really we can do about it.
TLC: It’s funny, because you could make an argument that emo came and went before you guys were ever successful.
TL: Yeah, totally. I have no idea why it got tagged on us, but there’s nothing we can do about it.
TLC: So, what’s the experience been like now that this album’s out the door?
TL: I think all of our shows so far – we’re not playing stadiums or anything – but all of the shows have been sold out. The record got leaked on the internet a couple weeks ago, so a lot of the kids are out singing the new songs already. It seems like they’re all into it, so it’s all been good.
*Reprinted from Fly Magazine
