The Bottom Line

Issue date: 4/26/06 Section: Music

What do you think of this current tour?

The pros of it are all the bands are completely different and have really not too much in common, and I think that's a pretty good thing for the indie rock scene right now because it seems like it kind of got genre-defined a little bit too much over the last few years, especially with the hardcore scene. The cons… In Virgina last night people didn't get us or people didn't get Criteria. The overall tour has been an extremely f***in' positive tour for us. It has exposed us to a lot of things and a lot of people, which is a good thing, in theory, for us.

How do you feel about Poison the Well's live show?

I've always liked Poison the Well. I think at the very beginning of the tour they hadn't been on the road for two years and they were working some shit out, but I think they're really strong now, they're really solid. I have never seen Poison the Well f*** up.

I don't think they were ready to play today.

I don't think anyone was ready for what happened today. But we got up there and those kids took away everything that I felt shitty about.

Any good tour stories?

(laughs) I think you were part of a happening today!

Yay!

That's one of them. We've been driving around with HORSE now for three days since their transmission blew. Our transmission actually blew on our last tour; we had to cancel our last show. Shit breaks all the time.

When I first listened to you guys, I thought there were two guitars.

(laughs) Thanks a lot.

Are there any challenges in just being a three-piece?

F*** yes. F*** yes. We have to work twice as hard. You know, with three guys… Andrew is stationary on the drums and he's a f***ing madman and if I am at the mic, I am limited to how much I can move around, and if I am on guitar, Tim's got to be on it, and when Tim is singing, I've got to be on it. It also is an advantage because being a three piece we can do things normal bands can't do. We really didn't get to do it at all tonight, but we usually improv a lot.

No song is ever the same tempo any night. No song is exactly the same. That's what keeps it interesting for us as a band. There aren't very many power trios anymore. I think it's kind of a dead art form. I think that the rise of the three piece band is starting to come back.

What are your overall goals as a band?

I mean it depends on what we're talking about.

Is there anything that sticks out to you?

Of course. I mean, this is our job. I think we are the most concerned with making kids feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves. It's about bringing together a lot of different kinds of people and trying to give them something in common for however long we're on the stage. Ultimately, we want to be able to support ourselves. To go home and have enough money in our pocket and pay rent, and record records and just keep doing it. I think that's our goal, is to just keep doing it. We don't have any illusions, we're not concerned with being rich and famous. Everybody wants to make money. There's no illusion to that either. We want to make money. But we never want to compromise the way that we write music to do so and we never will. Ever.

Whose dad worked for the Eagles and Allman Brothers? Was that you?

I don't know where the Allman Brothers thing came from, that's kind of a rumor. My dad did play the bass, and after the bass player of the Eagles left the Eagles, he did a side project and toured and stuff and my dad was the bass player for that. If it was now, my dad would've been in a very successful indie band. It was a lot different back then, so it's hard to explain to someone, or even for him to explain to me. Its hard to understand how they even toured. I mean he didn't have Mapquest.

Yeah, no cell phones.

You didn't have e-mail, you didn't have cell phones. Like how the hell did you do this? I don't understand how that worked.

What kind of impact did that have on Fall of Troy?

As a little kid watching my dad play music was just amazing to me. I was just infatuated with instruments and music and the way it felt. Like the bass in your chest, the kick drum, the screaming guitars.

What type of challenges do you face when you are developing your unique sound? I mean do you guys jam out or write it out?

It's a combination. Sometimes I'll write a whole song and bring it to them. Sometimes I'll write half a song and bring it to them and we'll just sit there and rack our brains until we've decided that "Okay, this is going to go there." As much as our sound is different, our way of writing every single song is completely different too because it plays a huge part in how the song is going to sound. On our next record we're definitely putting songs together in a very different fashion, one of our next songs on the next record is going to be written completely on drums by Andrew, and then me and Tim are going to write to it.

Will you ever release the "Ghostship" demos?

Absolutely. We demoed those a long time ago, not having any idea it would ever get around as much as it has. We're going to do our next record, which is going to be completely new material. Then we're going to do a split with The Number 12 Looks Like You at some point, and then our next full length, is going to feature the demos. When you have a song that you've written years ago, it's changed shape so much on stage that it's not even the same song any more. We're into that idea. I think we want that to come across on that record more than anything else. We're taking our sweet time.

(a kid from inside the show comes up from behind me and holds out his hand so Tom can slap it)

People just want to touch you. Wow.

Just continue.

What can you tell me about the Seattle scene right now?

I love Seattle. I think it's changed a little bit in that most of the underground bands in Seattle were kind of undiscovered for a while and I think that there is kind of starting to be a resurface of underground bands that are actually really good in the area…all of the really good underground bands in Seattle got noticed and picked up. If you don't have something to offer the kids in Seattle, they don't need you. They can go down the street to the next club, to the next band and get their minds blown because there are that many good bands in Seattle.

What is your ideal audience?

We could be playing to 1300 people at the metro in Chicago with a barrier and that's f**king amazing, but also a show like the Ottobar tonight, where we get here 35 minutes before, and play for 15 minutes, and have kids make us feel so appreciated, and so wanted, and that means a shit ton to us. Seeing that they appreciate it that much. That's what this is about for us. We're trying to get out there and touch everybody.

Did you try to steal the show tonight? (laughs) Because that's what happened.

We go on stage and do what we do regardless of what tour we're on and where we are and who we're playing with or how many people are there. If there were 10 people there we would've put on the same show as if there were 10,000 people there.

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