Vans Warped Tour–an alternative and punk rock festival that has touring the country since 1995–will make a visit to New Orleans next week. Arizona-based pop-punk titans The Maine will take part in the festivities once again, so I decided to see what they had in store for us. I caught up with drummer Pat Kirch for a chat about the group’s newest album, American Candy, Vans Warped Tour, and what the future hold for The Maine.
How is touring with a festival different than touring on your own?
I think that it’s a nice break from a regular tour. Just even in the sense of like you’re playing in the day so that way you kind of have the night to do what you want. Generally on tour, we are kind of just hanging around all day and then at night just doing the show. So this is just kind of the complete opposite of that which is nice just as a break from the routine of doing regular touring. But then the biggest thing about it is the opportunity to play in front of brand new people. We’re doing our own tour we are just playing for the people that came to watch us. This way we get to play in front of new people and have fun and hang out with all the other bands and all that stuff.
Does New Orleans in particular mean anything to you as the music scene or as the city?
I mean we’ve had really great shows there. I think we’ve played at the House of Blues in New Orleans probably six times by now. I mean obviously the city is built on music and we always try to go out after the shows and go to a bar and watch a band play. There’s just incredible musicians everywhere between all the venues and the bars and people playing in the streets. I think it’s just being there kind of reminds you why you do what you do,which is because you enjoy to play music. I think seeing people that are just playing music for the love of it and not being concerned with making money or having success or anything like that is just a great reminder of why you began to do what you do.
Yeah thats awesome. You guys have grown up a lot from and changed from Stay Up, Get Down to your newer album American Candy. Other than growing up what else has sparked that change?
Oh man. I think we are on a constant search for brand new music, and when I mean new music it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s just come out now. It’s just brand new to us, which could be things from the 60’s or the 70’s that we just don’t know yet. Before we were a band, we’re fans of music and I think that we’ve just always let that be the biggest part of what we do. In the two years between every record we’re finding out about new music that we haven’t heard of and just trying to expose ourselves to new things which brings on inspirations that we didn’t have before.
What inspired American Candy?
American Candy we rented a house in the middle of the desert in California out in Joshua Tree and we built our own recording studio out there. So I think the freedom of being able to do whatever we want and not being around other people at all just really made it that we were just having a good time, and we were really inspired by the idea of the album before American Candy was a little bit of a darker record. So, we wanted to make just something that was fun, uplifting, [and] upbeat. Something that was real short and to the point, that you heard it once and you wanted to listen to it again.
Do the words “american candy” mean anything to you?
I think now looking back at it American Candy the words and just this whole time period of the band it really just, to me, it means like a brand new beginning. I think after Forever Halloween we had kinda gone as far down this one path that we had been going on since the beginning of our career and I feel like we took it as far as we could with Forever Halloween. And American Candy I think now will always represent the beginning of this next chapter and who knows where that’s going to take us, but it will always be the beginning. I think it’s just really revived our joy and you know we’ve been doing this now for almost a decade and it feels like we could do it for a really long time and I don’t know if I always thought that people would enjoy what we are doing for a long period of time. And I think that now we feel like we just have so much to say that we want to keep doing this for a very long time and I think American Candy is the beginning of that.
I really enjoyed the music video and the song “Am I Pretty?” I liked that it felt natural, and I liked the people in the beginning telling their own stories. What inspired you guys to do that?
It’s been a while since we made a video that’s very true to the message of the song. So we pretty much just took the words from the song and it just came together from that. I think the big thing that we want to get across with it is the way that you’re feeling and the way that people on the internet make people feel and the mean things that people say and comment and all that stuff because they feel that they are invisible behind a computer screen, that you’re not the only one that has those thoughts. It’s happened to everybody and everybody is insecure and everybody has problems with themselves. I think we really just wanted to get the message that you’re not alone in how you’re feeling. Do your best to be happy with who you are.
You guys have been around for a while now. How do you guys stay connected and grow together as a band?
We’re just really good friends. We hang out all the time when we are at home and on the road. The band is our friends and everybody that works for us are friends from home. Our manager is my older brother. Everything is just very connected in that way. So, it’s just very easy. It’s never something we really think about or talk about really. I don’t know for whatever reason we don’t have any problems with getting a long, and I think the real trick with it is the fact that we’re not trying to play any games.I think when bands have those problems is when that first thought is money and success and they have a record label that is trying to get them to sound a certain way and act a certain way and that causes tension once certain members of the band don’t want to do certain things. So for us, we control everything we do and we only do what we want to do and that just makes for a happy environment.
So what can fans expect when they come to see you guys at Warped?
Oh man, expect to be very hot and to need to drink a bunch of water. Our set, there are no real breaks in it. We just play through the set. It’s very like upbeat and fun. We just want people to go out there and dance. It’s only half an hour for each band so we are just going to play as many as we can fit in that time period. So, I think it will be fun. We are playing things from all the records so, it’ll be a good mixture of everything we’ve done as a band so far.
What comes after Warped Tour?
Next, we will begin to work on the next record.
Cool!
Yeah we’re just kind of in the very beginning stages of discussing how we want to record it and everything. So we’re excited. Being on tour is really fun but recording is really where we get the most joy.
Do you guys write on the road or do you guys write in the studio? A little of both?
Usually it happens at home. It’s kinda hard for us to write on the road. Although, John, our singer, says he is going to try it a bit more on this tour, just to see if anything comes. In the past, we’ve always had a hard time writing on the road, and that probably comes from we don’t just play the set and just hang out on the buss all day. We are out there promoting the band and taking pictures with fans all day and hanging out at the merch table and stuff. So, we’re like always pretty busy and by the end of the day we are exhausted. So we’ll kinda see. I have a feeling that maybe on this tour just for how excited we already are about the songs that we’ve already been working on. I think that we might do a little bit more work on the road this time.
The Maine will be perform at Mardi Gras World when Vans Warped Tour comes to New Orleans on Monday, June 27.
