You Blew It are currently on tour with The Front Bottoms to promote their latest record, Keep Doing What You’re Doing. During their sold out show at the Troubadour I sat down with the Florida based band to talk about recording the new record. In the midst of our conversation we diverged from the topic at hand to have a more interesting conversation involving Adam Sandler movies, Will Smith’s discography, and beards. Also, Weird Al. We talked a lot about Weird Al.
Mondo: Evan Weiss of Into It. Over It. was the producer of your latest record. I want to know how did you guys link up with him?
Tanner: We’ve been friends with that guy for a long time. I think you were on the Fake Problems tour with him.
Mondo: Not that one but a few others
Tanner: Well that’s when we met him. He was on tour with Fake Problems and then we just kept in touch. He had similar goals, we had similar goals. So a really friendship formed through that. One night we had just started writing the new record and I asked him “hey man, as a friend, can you tell me what you think of this?” So I sent it to him and he was like “let me produce the record.” The we immediately said yes and that’s how it happened.
Mondo: That’s cool, how was it working with him?
Andy A: It was a breeze. It was the most natural pairing, honestly.
Tanner: Matt Jordan too, Matt Jordan was the engineer but he did a lot of producer stuff on the record too.
Mondo: He did some boss stuff to get the points.
Tanner: Yeah, the two of them combined are perfect.
Andy A: Seriously.
Mondo: That’s tight. Do you have any funny tour stories that might be embarrassing?
Tanner: Embarrassing tour stories… Basically one day we got held up at gun point by the Austin police. It was just Tim and I. Tim was our old drummer. Essentially they thought fireworks were guns. We came out of the house and had 12 cops pointing their guns at us; scary time but not really embarrassing, only kind of embarrassing.
Andy A: On this tour the only embarrassing thing that’s happened so far was when Brian from the Front Bottoms broke a guitar string and he put his guitar down. I mistook this as him telling me to come on stage to play the song with them when he just wanted another guitar. So I go up there, fumble, and drop a pick. Then I put the guitar on my body and realized it didn’t have a string. So I looked really amateur.
Tanner: That’s pretty embarrassing.
Mondo: That’s a lot more lighthearted than the last one. The gun one is funnier in retrospect, I bet it wasn’t so funny at the time. Alright, I don’t know if this is on all digital copies of the record but on the promo copy I received all the mp3 file names are named after different types of alcohol. Is that on all downloads or just promo.
Tanner: Just the promo; hopefully only the promos.
Andy A: Who knows?
Mondo: Has anyone else brought this up?
Andy A: I’ve seen it on twitter a couple of times.
Tanner: Basically when we wrote the song I would go over to our fridge and top of our fridge is all the liquor. So I would look at the liquor and go “this demo is called crown royal.” Then it got mastered that way because we hadn’t come up with titles yet. So hopefully those aren’t going out as digital downloads.
Mondo: It would be funny if they did.
Andy: Yeah. It would be funny to see people getting mad at us for not playing something, “why didn’t you play Kahlua!?”
Tanner: We kind of like those song names better anyways.
Mondo: When I first saw that I was a bit confused. This is in relation to the start of your set tonight. Is Slayer your official intro music? If not how did that happen tonight?
Andy A: I wanted to razz my own band I thought it would be funny if we had intro music because we never do. We usually just get on stage. People walk in and we play. So it was special night and decided to prank my band by playing Slayer.
Tanner: People started cheering.
Trevor: Yeah they got excited.
Mondo: People got fucking pumped. That was the most metal thing ever. To have Slayer has your intro music and then sound nothing like Slayer.
Andy A: Some people might have been a little let down. None of us are Dave Lombardo or Kerry King.
Mondo: You’ve got a bit of a beard going on.
Andy A: Yeah but it’s not a good beard.
Mondo: It’s not a bad beard either. It’s an ok beard, a decent beard. Like a 6!
Tanner: Well as far as beards go it’s ok. As far as punk beards go it’s a 10.
Mondo: Yes. I can back that. Alright, everyone has tossing around the phrase “emo revival”, I want to know what is your guys whole take on this?
Tanner: The general emo listener will tell you that emo never went away which it hasn’t. I totally agree with that. I think the griping over calling it an emo revival is kind of a nonpoint. Emo is obviously way more popular now than it was 5 years ago. I think the media and people talking about it were just using emo revival as a way to describe it. In the past couple of years the people I’ve talked to about emo revival about, we’ve both used that term. Now they’re complaining about how it never went away and it didn’t but I think people are just getting nitpicky over it. I’ve said this before but I feel the media coverage is kind of creating a bubble kind of like it did in the early “oh ohs”.
Mondo: The early “oh ohs?”
Trevor: That’s going to catch on.
Tanner: It’s great that this bubble is going to eventually pop just like with any kind of trend in music, fashion, what have you. So I think they’re definitely setting a time limit on it but I don’t know why we can’t just jump around with the Front Bottoms while it’s still here.
Mondo: Yeah. Totally. I mean people just want something to gripe about on the internet.
Tanner: It’s like in middle school, the whole middle school syndrome. Coheed and Cambria got big and everyone called them sell outs. Except they’re applying that to the whole genre(of emo).
Andy A: For the record Coheed and Cambria is sick
Tanner: Coheed and Cambria is sick as fuck.
Andy A: We listen to them in the van regularly.
Mondo: Speaking of the van. You talked about this on stage and you’re wearing a Weird Al shirt, so I have to know: top 3 Weird Al songs?
Tanner: Are we counting down or going from top to bottom?
Mondo: Any order. Just give me the hits.
Andy A: Let’s countdown. 3. Amish Paradise.
Tanner: Number 2 is a tie between polkarama and Your Horoscope for today. That is the most underrated Weird Al song.
Andy A: Number 1 is Albuquerque. Albuquerque is a musical masterpiece. Anyone who says Weird Al sucks has never heard Albuquerque. It is a piece of music history right there.
Mondo: Excellent choices. I was at the Comikaze Expo in LA back in November and he had a short Q&A panel. What sucks is it started late and got cut short so it was only like 20 minutes.
Tanner: I still have yet to see him live. I’m kicking myself.
Mondo: It wasn’t a live performance but it was nice to see him answer some questions and be jolly.
Tanner: Yeah. I love that guy.
Andy A: Honestly, it was one of the first cds I ever bought and I think Tanner as well.
Tanner: Weird Al and Will Smith for me.
Mondo: Was it Big Willie Style?
Tanner: Big Willie Style and Willenium.
Mondo: You know, WIllenium just didn’t hold up to the magic of Big Willie Style.
Tanner: No dude, you’re wrong. “I’m comin’?” Such a banger.
Andy A: What about “Afro Angel?”
Mondo: I’ll give you that but the title track kind of brings it down a little. You gotta admit that. I mean he sampled The Clash but it wasn’t very good.
Tanner: I’ll agree with that but you can’t deny “da butta.”
Mondo: Do you think we are overdue for a new Will Smith album?
Tanner: We are.
Andy A: We are also overdue for a fucking Independence Day 2.
Mondo: They’re making a new one but he isn’t going to be in it.
Tanner: He and Jeff Goldblum aren’t in it.
Trevor: Or Robert Laggia
Mondo: So what’s the point?
Andy A: Not Promising.
Mondo: They just want to put out a sequel for the sake of putting it out.
Tanner: I assume 20th Century Fox is doing it. If you’re listening 20th Century fox, fuck you.
Trevor: Also, they should at least have cameos.
Andy A: Yeah seriously.
Other Andy: Yeah, just have Will Smith pop in.
Mondo: Was it Bill Pullman or Paxton who played the president?
Andy A: Pullman.
Mondo: He is the main focus of this one and however much time passed between the release dates of each m movie is how much time has passed in the films.
Andy A: So like 18 years?
Mondo: Just about
Other Andy: It came out in 1996.
Andy A: Whoa.
Tanner: No fucking way.
Mondo: I mean he could technically still be the president but realistically the fact they haven’t set up some kind of new voting system or government is a bit troublesome.
Tanner: I mean maybe it’s going to be incredible. We don’t know.
Mondo: Maybe. I mean if they give Mae Whitman a bigger role it could be interesting. Who was the kid who played Will Smith’s son?
Andy A: He’s in Major Payne, I know that.
Mondo: If they give him a bigger role I will probably end up watching it
Tanner: They also have the girl who is the president’s daughter who played Ann in Arrested Development.
Mondo: Yeah, that’s Mae Whitman.
Andy A: What’s her last name again?
Mondo: Whitman.
Tanner: Is she going to be in it?
Mondo: I don’t know but I hope.
Tanner: When I heard the name I didn’t know who you were talking about but pretended like I did.
Mondo: You did know. You just didn’t “know know”.
Tanner: Yeah.
Mondo: I have a few fan questions that I will ask while we’re still being silly. How much do you like Billy Madison and is that where you got the name of your band?
Andy A: I think Billy Madison is a really good movie.
Tanner: Not as good as happy Gilmore.
Andy A: Happy Gilmore is definitely funnier and a better movie but Billy Madison is extremely silly. It’s a movie you watch at a sleepover when you’re like 12 years old.
Other Andy: I still watch Happy Gilmore like once a month.
Andy A: Happy Gilmore is a staple in my home.
Mondo: Plus it’s on tv all the time.
Tanner: The whole part where he hits the lady. (Tanner then proceeded to act out part of the scene.)
Mondo: I mean it’s got Carl Weathers. You can’t beat that.
Andy A: Dude, Carl Weathers.
Tanner: To answer your question we love Billy Madison but Happy Gilmore is better.
Andy A: We should have been called “Grizzly Adams”.
Tanner: We should have been called “The Price is Wrong.”
Mondo: Did you cry during the notebook?
Andy A: I didn’t cry during the notebook. It’s a good movie but it is highly overrated and I like Ryan Gosling. He’s a cool dude.
Tanner: I cried more during Big Fish.
Trevor: Big Fish is pretty sick.
Tanner: I cried like a baby during that movie.
Mondo: I cried too.
Andy A: I sobbed like crazy.
Tanner: When he is carrying his dad out in front of everybody he knows…
Andy A: Eddie Vedder did a song for that movie and I love that guy.
Mondo: The best part is right at the end when he realized that his dad may have told farfetched stories there were real people behind them. Like the twins, they may not have been conjoined but they were real!
Tanner: I think I’m going to cry right now.
Mondo: We’re going to wrap this thing up because I love the song playing right now. It’s a fan question and it’s a two part question. Have you ever considered changing your name to “you blue it?”
Tanner: Funny story, we really want to make a shirt that says “you blue it” with Tobias painted as a blue man but it hasn’t happened yet.
Mondo: Awesome. Have you thought of putting out an EP called “you blue it” exclusively on blue vinyl?
Other Andy: Or we could cover the blue record.
Everyone in the room: WHOA!
Mondo: Idea!
Andy: We are definitely doing a Weezer cover EP.
Tanner: I’m calling Kevin Duquette from Topshelf Records right now.
Mondo: Do it. Do you have any final statements?
Tanner: I am going to speak for you guys. Go Heat.
Andy A: Fuck Yeah.
Tanner: Go Dolphins.
Trevor: The Dolphins are rebuilding.
Tanner: One last thing to everyone on the internet. It’s not punk to like sports but it’s also not punk to make fun of people for liking sports.