Bouncing Souls Interview with Bryan & Pete Circa 2001-2002

In honor of interviewing The Bouncing Souls for my podcast, Mostly Harmless (http://www.mostlyharmlesspodcast.com), I unearthed my interview with the band from 2001 or 2002. I'm not completely certain.

I was only 20 years old. I remember thinking it was shit, but rereading it now, it is not too bad. Pretty ameturish, but still it has heart. You have to remember, this was at the time my ALL TIME FAVORITE BAND IN THE WORLD, and I was nervous... But I have found memories of climbing the stairs to the then backstage of the Ogden and meeting Pete and Bryan. It was such a thrill. So exciting.

I was sitting literally on top of the world and I was meeting my heroes. It was proof to me that anything I put my mind to was possible. Thank you Bryan and Pete for helping make that happen.


DAMIAN: What’s up guys? How you doing tonight?
BRYAN: Not so bad.
DAMIAN: What’s been going on with you guys for the last few weeks? On tour with Madcap, Flogging Molly and One Man Army. Been going pretty good?
BRYAN: Best tour in the world ever. Having a good time so far. Good shows.
DAMIAN: you guys just got back from a European tour with Bombshell Rocks. That pretty good too?
PETE: Had fun.
BRYAN: Both of them were good times.
PETE: Good Times, but not as much as this tour. This is like the tour to end all tours.
DAMIAN: How long you guys been on tour?
BRYAN: Its like ten days.
DAMIAN: How much more you got?
BRYAN: God, like six more weeks.
DAMIAN: So its still got some more time for things to go wrong, eh?
PETE: Nah man. It keeps getting better.
DAMIAN: Shit. Hope I’m not jinxing it…
DAMIAN: So how did this tour come about, with all of these great bands, in one place?
BRYAN: We just put it together ourselves. We discovered Madcap, and became friends with them on the Warped Tour. Flogging Molly… It was just an idea we came up with.
PETE: It just kind of happened.
BRYAN: And One Man Army, yea. I guess the line up all came together on the Warped Tour. That’s where we were when we all decided.
PETE: They are all bands that we wanted to go on tour with and we threw it together.
DAMIAN: New Album. In my opinion, It’s the best one yet. The new drummer, Mike McDermott, He’s awesome. He really goes off on the new album. Where did you find this guy?
PETE: Philly.
BRYAN: We found him in Philly. We kind of found each other actually.
[At this point, a drunken Johnny from Madcap comes in…]
PETE: What’s up Johnny?
JOHNNY: Did you hear me ask the fucking crowd man?
BRYAN: Nah man. What’d you say?
JOHNNY: Hey guys what did you think of the Springstien we played before coming out?
And the crowd went “YEAAAAA!”
PETE: Really?
JOHNNY: I SWEAR TO GOD MAN! I was thank the Souls for that. And they all yelled “YEAAAAA!”
“BRRRRUUUUUUCCCCCEEEE”
PETE: Thanks Johnny.
JOHNNY: Yeah, see you guys later.
DAMIAN: So mike. He came from where? Mephiskapheles? What happened to them? They break up? He quit?
BRYAN: I think they are still going.
PETE: I think Mike was kind of like a hired gun for them.
BRYAN: He was a mercenary drummer for years. He was the ska mercenary guy who played in every fucking ska band.
DAMIAN: And now you guys got him. The non-ska band. So I gather he’s working out then. How was it in the studio with him? With out, Shal.
BRYAN: It was great. It was like fucking effortless.
PETE: It was like a breath of fresh air.
DAMIAN: I can tell from the shows. The shows have a lot more energy, now. Even the old songs-
BRYAN: Its better. Everything is so much better.
PETE: We had to teach McDermott all of our songs. We had to relearn them completely ourselves. In doing that it was like a whole different line up.
BRYAN: It is just way tighter.
DAMIAN: So how long have you guys been together? Ten Years?
BRYAN: No. More like thirteen.
DAMIAN: Thirteen? Wow.
BRYAN: Yeah that is some shit…
DAMIAN: So you guys go from being a struggling band back then, to practically selling out this place tonight. How does that feel? That’s got to be pretty great, huh?
BRYAN: It feels great absolutely. It’s like a feeling you can’t really describe. It’s great. When you completely try to express yourself, and then you succeed. Then you go out and try in front of people, and people respond positively, It’s totally great.
DAMIAN: Some of these are more geared towards the lyric writing. A lot of the new album seems to be about growing up, getting older, maturing.
BRYAN: We wrote like 90% of the lyrics, Pete and me.
DAMIAN: The majority of the album is about growing up. What was it like growing up in this environment? Do you still feel like kids?
BRYAN: As our friend Mattie says, Punk music provides for our prolonged adolescence. Its true.
PETE: The life that we have lead is kind of like a time machine. It’s a kind of weird time warp. Like we have not gone through the things, that a lot of thirty year olds have gone through. You know? We’ve just been fucking around, just like we did in high school. Music keeps you young. I don’t feel my age at all. You’re seventeen all the time.
DAMIAN: Who owns the first two albums? I heard that you guys bought them back from BYO.
BRYAN: Actually we never sold them to BYO. They were always on Chunksaah, but we licensed them to BYO. We kept renewing the actual deal with BYO and then we decided to take ‘em back to Chunksaah. Try to make a go of it. Chunksaah is like a long project for us. We really want to make a go of the label. So that’s the first important step. Now we are trying to get some decent distribution for those. It’s still primarily mail order, for now.
DAMIAN: What else do you guys have coming out?
BRYAN: We have a full length coming out from a band called the Arsons.
DAMIAN: That was, what? Ex-members of Grey Area?
BRYAN: Yeah. Its going to be good.
DAMIAN: When does that come out?
BRYAN: December…
PETE: Probably January.
BRYAN: You can keep up with that stuff on the website.
DAMIAN: What is next. You guys have been all over the world. What do you plan to do now?
BRYAN: Actually, this is going to be our last tour for a while. We are going home for the holidays, hang out there. We’re going to work out on our hanging out and drinking skills.
DAMIAN: Greg, he lives out in LA now doesn’t he?
PETE: Yeah.
DAMIAN: How is that working out? Is it a strain?
BRYAN: We are usually together at the same places anyway. We are usually on tour together, which is more than half the year. Then we have official jam sessions, Greg will come out to New York. He’ll just crash and hang out in New York and we’ll jam every day.
DAMIAN: There was a time in my life when I was getting, getting very down and depressed. I listened to the albums over and over again. They helped me get out of my little funk, and feel better. Do you hear a lot of comments and things like that?
BRYAN: Actually I read that sometimes on the guest book. It is like the greatest thanks you could ever get, EVER. It feels great. You don’t think of any of that when you are writing that. When you are doing what you do, you know? When you hear it, It feels great. Makes it worth it….