Transcript (auto-generated, may contain errors; songs left out)
Hey, this is Chris from The Draft. You're listening to Sound Scene Revolution.
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with Chris from The Draft. The Draft, you may know, in fact you should know, because everybody and their mom has been covering this band, is former members of Hot Water Music. Every member except Chuck Reagan, who we also interviewed. So technically, we have all of Hot Water Music interviewed on our website. Later, we're going to cut and paste the two interviews together and make it a Hot Water Music interview. It'll be fucking awesome, and you're totally going to want to be here for that. But for right now, it's just Chris from The Draft, and we got some questions for him, and we have a giveaway at the end of the show where you can win a copy of A Million Pieces, or what is it, In A Million Pieces, and a Draft t-shirt, which only comes in size large, but it's free, so don't fucking complain.
Before we jump into the interview, we're going to play a track off of their album. The first track we're going to play is track 11. It's called Long Shot. So check it out, enjoy it, and stay tuned.
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That's me. Hi. So I guess the first and, I mean, the obvious question that everyone's going to ask is, the draft happened, I mean, pretty immediately after, you know, most people found out about the hiatus of Hot Water Music. Was it kind of, did it feel like you almost immediately had to jump into a new band, or was it kind of, took some time, down time? Well, I mean, Hot Water even breaking up was like, that was just years of talking, you know what I mean? So it wasn't really a surprise to anybody. You know, we were talking about slowing down on the last record, and I don't know. I mean, like, we had all talked, and we knew that me and Jason and George wanted to continue touring a lot, and keep spending a lot of time in the studio and going, you know, full steam, you know.
But Chuck really wanted to spend more time at home, so we told him, you know, okay, if we do that, then that's fine, you know, Hot Water can be this, like, whatever, you know, we'll never play or anything, but we don't have to break it up, you know, but we're going to do something else. While you want to stay home, we'll probably be doing something else. So, yeah, I mean, as soon as he told us he wanted to not do any more tours, it was like, okay, well, all right, well, we're going to do this then, and it was, like, immediate, like, we already knew. And so we played, I don't know, six, eight months, and then we started thinking, you know, maybe it was not looking like Hot Water would get back together, so I don't know.
I mean, everybody had a different opinion about it, you know, like, some people thought it was a good idea to break it up, some people thought it was a great idea, some people thought it was a bad idea, but that was our decision to make it just, like, clear that it's over, you know, so it probably seemed, like, really sudden, because already the record's out, and it was, like, six months ago that we officially broke it up, but I don't know, it was years of talking, you know, we're all still friends, and, you know, it's all still cool, yeah, cool. Now, I know I don't want to try and, like, get on Hot Water music too much, but the music that the draft has made is, it's similar, but it's, you know, at the same time, it's pretty far off, different wise, was that, again, a conscious decision, or is it just, like, with Hot Water music where it would change from every album?
Well, I mean, probably both, probably both, I mean, we write the way we write, you know what I mean, and sometimes we think we're taking big steps, and really they're not that big of steps, you know what I mean, but, yeah, I mean, we really wanted to try some different stuff out, and we wrote a lot more than this on this record, you know, there's, there are a lot of songs that did not make it on the record, and we were just writing whatever the hell we wanted to, you know, it was anybody that had any idea, like, let's just jam it, and play and have some fun, and that was really the whole thing, like, let's just have a lot of fun with this, jam with our friends, you know, like, whoever wants to be a part of it, like, let's jam and write fun stuff, you know, and that's just kind of how it came out, so, I mean, it's going to sound a little like Hot Water, because it's the three of us, but it felt very different when we were writing it, it just felt, well, of course, it felt like a new band.
Now, was it, it's Todd, right? Yeah, Todd Rocchio, yeah. Now, was that kind of, did you have auditions for the new member, or was it just kind of like someone you had played with, sort of? Well, I wouldn't say that. Todd was, Todd was in a band with Jason and George called Unitas, he was in a band called Discount that we toured all over the world with, you know, his brother used to be Hot Water's tour manager, you know, we're, we're just super good friends, but when we started the band, we just, like, the first batch of songs, we just wrote as a three-piece, we didn't really want to jump into, you know, like, committing to anybody, so we were just jamming as a three-piece. We went up to Maryland, where Hot Water was recording, and did some demos up there, and we had a buddy, Brian Baker, he played guitar with us on the first batch of songs, but, I mean, that was obviously, he's in a band, you know what I mean?
So, it was never, like, a tryout, it was never an audition, it was like, this is a friend of ours, he's great at guitar, we're going to have some fun up in the studio, we came back home, and all of a sudden, all these songs that were three-piece, were now four-piece, and, and our ideas were just growing, and it became obvious that we, you know, wanted a lead guitar player, and so, I mean, we jammed with a few people at home, all friends of ours, and, and really, I mean, we all knew that Todd was probably the guy from the get-go, he's so devoted to, he's just, he's got the drive, man, you know, he just jumped right in, that's a hard thing to do. Yeah. Now, your, uh, record just came out, what, two weeks ago, or something like that?
Uh, something, maybe last week? Maybe last, the 12th? The 12th, what is today? I don't know. The 20th. 20th? So, eight days, yeah, last week, shit. Sound Guy and Airmen knows more about it than I do, that's not so good, but, um, it came out on Epitaph, now, when you guys originally got together, was it kind of like, just, did Epitaph originally approach you when you guys got together as the draft, or did you kind of demo around?
Well, I don't know, from the very beginning, I mean, I, I'm pretty good friends with Brett, who owns the label, and, you know, we write music together every once in a while, and we talk about music a lot, and he's one of those guys that I call for advice about everything. Yeah. So, when we were starting the new band, he was the first one I called, like, what, you know, what, what should I do? Yeah. You know, and obviously, you know, take some time and write some fucking songs, right? That's, that was the obvious answer, right? But, uh, I don't know, I mean, we talked to probably every label, or, you know, we just sent out demos like we always have. You know, we wanted to hear what people were saying, and we just kept recording more and more stuff, so it was good just throwing tapes out and getting a little bit of feedback, but, but really, I mean, when it, when it came down to really thinking about it, you know, Epitaph, you know, the Epitaph doing the CD, No Idea doing the vinyl, that, that's exactly what I want to be doing, you know, and I, I had a long, long, long, long, long talk with Brett, you know, and that's what we decided to do, you know, but we already have commitments to do more stuff together, so it was never like we were, it wasn't ever that we were going to leave, you know, like, we're, that's the kind of label and the kind of friends where, you know, you figure you'll probably always work together if it's possible, you know, they're just awesome people.
Cool. Now, I mean, technically, the draft is still a fairly young band, I mean, a year, year and a half, maybe? Yeah, something like that. How has it been doing that as opposed to starting, you know, basically, I mean, it's sort of from scratch, but at the same time, you guys have kind of a reputation and a following. How has it been compared to starting almost from scratch? Well, I mean, in some ways, it's like, I feel, you know, there's been a few days where it's like, man, we really are starting from scratch, you know, and, but I think a lot of those days were when we were on tour, you know, and like having the opportunity to even go on tour before you have a record out and, you know, stuff like that.
But, you know, obviously, most people wouldn't have that kind of opportunity. We got really lucky with that. I mean, this is our fourth tour. Yeah. So, and the record's been out a week. Yeah. It's pretty good. Yeah. So, I mean, it was really cool when, you know, we called up our friends, you know, and people who we've done shows with and tours with and to have them all still be supportive. And, you know, I mean, it meant a lot because you're like, shit, we're starting a new band for real, you know, people might not like this, you know, who knows, you know, for real. So, you know, to get that kind of support from our friends, it was just, we're so lucky, man. We are so lucky. Very cool. One of the first tours you guys actually did, I think even before you came to California was you guys went through Brazil, right?
Yeah, that was our first tour. Yeah. How the hell did, how does that become your first tour? Like, let's go to Brazil. Um, well, towards the end of Hot Water, I mean, we were, we were going everywhere. Yeah. You know, and we were just getting contacts for, and I guess it's probably because we had the reputation of people who would go anywhere. Yeah. So, we got a lot of contacts, you know, we got contacts in Puerto Rico and Mexico and Brazil for hot water. And we were originally, me and Jason were trying to do a tour where we were going to just link it all together and do like this, you know, South America, Mexico, you know, the islands kind of thing. Oh, wow. But, obviously, we stopped touring and, you know, so all this kind of fell short and so we dove into the warehouse and, you know, we spent, when we write, we write five days a week and it's Monday to Friday and it's just, that's what we do.
Yeah. And we just talk music and play music and jam and jam and jam and, and we did that for like eight months or something, you know, and besides going out and playing shows or whatever days you decide you just don't want to do it, but pretty much. And demoing and demoing and demoing and we started getting close to figuring out what the record was going to be and we kind of just needed to go somewhere because we just had to get out of that warehouse, you know, because it's just a little storage shed, you know, so we were just going stir crazy. So me and Jason were just talking and like, well, where can we go? You know, we don't have a record out. We have, we don't even have a seven inch out, you know, nobody has any idea what we've been doing in our warehouse, right?
So we just started calling all the, like everybody we knew, you know, just like, is there anything you got going on that we could come and do? Yeah. Like all over the world, just everybody we knew. And a couple people had some stuff going on, but our buddy in Brazil, Cesar, he called up and he said they had a, like a local punk rock festival going on in Sao Paulo on a Saturday night and he figured we could do like maybe five shows around that because there was definitely going to be people there, you know, and he just, he put it together and we just went down there and we went to Rio and Bella Horizonte and Curitiba and, you know, two shows in Sao Paulo and then me and my fiance stayed there, she came with us and we, the band went back and we stayed there for a vacation in Sao Paulo.
Not a bad way to do it. It was so cool, man. Those people are awesome. Oh, yeah. I hear. The food is awesome. It's killer. I hear shows outside of the U.S., people, the fans and everyone just seems more into it than here. Like, we get kind of spoiled around here. Yeah, but I mean. There's some food down there if you guys are hungry. Thanks, man. But that only counts, you know, like obviously London is oversaturated. Yeah. You know, that's the same. You know, big cities where bands play a lot. A lot of the time, yeah. It's the same everywhere, but you know, like, yeah, when you take the time to go down to Brazil, they're stoked because most people don't care, you know. And, you know, like parts of Canada, you know, just isolated parts.
Florida's kind of like that. Yeah. It's pretty isolated, you know. You go down to Australia, I mean, it's hard as hell getting down there. Oh, I know. So, yeah, the shows are pretty killer. Eastern Europe, you know, maybe Spain and Italy. It's really cool. Areas where it's not real easy to get to necessarily. Yeah, I mean, they're hungry for art and life and, you know, and all that. That's cool. Yeah, that's cool. All right, so we're going to take a quick little break here from the interview, bring you some more music from the draft off of their debut LP in a million pieces. We're going to play track four, which is alive or dead, because I like it. I personally support this track and would highly recommend it.
So, listen to that, and remember, stay tuned at the end for a contest where you can win free CD, free shirt, and all that other good shit. So, check it out.
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for the Alkaline Trio tour. Right, yeah. Was that like nerve-wracking? Because for a lot of the people on that tour, I mean, it was their first time probably hearing any of the stuff you guys had done as the draft. Was it kind of nerve-wracking? Yeah, you know, on that tour, it was strange. Like, more than, well, it's not that strange, but more than I thought, like, most of those people didn't know hot water, didn't know the draft, didn't know a single thing, and that was, you know, those were some moments where I was like, yeah, we're totally starting over. This is, you know, nobody's heard a single song or a note, you know, and, I mean, we were on tour with the Trio. Those were our brothers. You know, so it, I didn't think about it too much.
It was just like, this is a great tour. This is super fun. Like, I'm with my friends playing shows. I really wasn't thinking about it too much. Yeah. It's got to be kind of different, though, because, I mean, now when you go on with your friends and you play shows, you can play 800-person venues where, you know, 8 or 10 years ago you were playing maybe to 15 people. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Well, like, I don't know, what was it? Boise. A few days ago or last week or whatever, it was like 40 people at the show, you know? And then the last tour was Trio, and it's like, yeah, I mean, whatever. I mean, you just play for whoever's willing to come out, you know? It doesn't really matter the size of it. Is it weird kind of going from, because I know, I was thinking about it, two or three years ago Hot Water Music came through here, and the Lawrence Rums were the opening act.
Right. You know, it's kind of like spots have been reversed. Is it weird at all kind of? No, that's not weird at all. No, because, I mean, none of us really think about it. Is it less pressure kind of being one of the opener acts where maybe not as many people know? Well, yeah, I mean, I definitely don't want to do any headlining shows with this band right now. Not right now? You know, but, yeah, I mean, with the Lawrence Rums, like, when you're touring with your friends, it doesn't really matter what order you're in. Yeah, I mean, it probably matters to maybe some of the people coming, you know, as far as perception of whatever, but for us, we're just playing shows with our friends, you know? You know, it was never, yeah.
That's been, that's happened so many times. Yeah, we're switched spots at one time or another. Yeah, it happens all the time. It's not a big deal. Have you guys gotten any, like, has anyone, like, requested any hot water music stuff where you guys have been playing or anything like that? Uh, not in a while, not in a while, but I mean, as you can imagine, you know, once in a while, like, uh, the, well, the first few shows totally, you know, a couple of times in Brazil, but as soon as we told people we're not doing this, it seemed like everybody knew and it was like, we're just going to play our stuff, you know? I know. And if we play covers, it's going to be just some cover. It's not going to really be a hot water song.
Yeah. We've already done that. Yeah, you've played them before when, you know. Well, I figure what, what if we did play it? I don't think anybody actually does want us to play hot water. I mean, it's not going to be hot water. Yeah. You know, you don't really want to see that. Yeah. I think people maybe think they do, but. Yeah, but if we did, it would be like, oh, well, I wish they wouldn't have. Yeah. You can't please everyone. Someone's going to be upset about it. Yeah, whatever. I mean, that's just not even an option. Yeah. No way. Fair enough. If you got a song off of your album that you do enjoy playing live, like one that just, you feel that's probably the best one to play in a live setting. Oh, I don't know.
I mean, I'm having, I mean, these are all brand new songs. And that's, that's how it always is. You know, like any, you know, any band I've ever been in, like whatever's new is what you want to be playing. Yeah. You know, that, that's what's on your mind still, you know, those are the, you know, I don't know. So, I mean, I got a whole brand new record. So, like the whole thing, I'm still figuring stuff out and we're still messing around. Like, it's all brand new. So, yeah, there's not any one. Actually, I wish we could play some more of our other stuff that's not on the record. The B-side stuff? Well, not even B-side stuff. Even just, we got a ton of stuff. You guys plan on, like, I know this album just came out.
Do you guys plan on recording any of the other stuff that you guys have written? Yeah, we've recorded a lot of it already. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Yeah. We got a ton of stuff. But, yeah. And I got some new songs that we need to start working on. We're just going to keep going and going and going. You're not going to hear a lot of bands who, like, the week after their CD comes out, it's like, we got some stuff we're going to, a lot of bands tend to kind of lay back on that. I'm working on another record that's almost done. So, I'm just kind of continually, continuously just writing all the time. And right now, I got a couple of good ideas, I think, for this band. Cool. I don't know. I mean, these guys want to play every day.
So do I. Yeah. That's what we do, you know, like, coming up with this shit, that's the most fun part of the whole equation for me. Yeah, because. Just keep playing. If you want to do it every day, probably, you know, pretty high turnout on all that. Yeah. Probably helps out. All right. I think we're going to wrap it up. One last question I want to get to, and I don't know, it's just because someone posed it to me and I hadn't even thought about it. Your album title. Any relation? Oh, no, no, no. No. You know what's coming. I don't even know what that book is. I've never seen it. I have no idea. But, you know, that just is the album title. You know, that's the, like, we didn't really go through a long list of album titles.
You know, I had one that was the first one I said, and. And you still were. And we, no, we changed our mind about it, and that was the very next one. And, you know, and then we had the. And it all kind of fit with the, you know, talking to the Chris Norris, who did the art. You know, we kind of came up with this little thing. And, you know, before it was done, somebody told me, oh, everybody's going to think it's about this book. And I just kind of said, I don't give a fuck. Like, I don't really care. You know, I mean, it's also, like, the draft. Yeah. You know, we're not some, like, political band. Not a religion band or anything. No. So, I mean, I don't know. They're just titles. Yeah. Like, I'm only really worried about the music on it, you know.
The rest of it will take care of itself. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's fun working on the art. And what we came up with was really cool, I thought. And so, we just stuck with it, you know, even though, you know, probably a lot of people think it's, but whatever. That'll increase your searches on Google. You guys will come up a lot higher now. Right. So, that's always good. That was our whole thing. There it was. It was just a marketing ploy. It was a marketing ploy. Absolutely. Perfect. The label came up with it. Yeah. Really. You guys, you just record the music. The label does everything else. Totally. All right. Before we go, anything you want to plug? Website, shows. I know you got the album that just came out last Tuesday.
Not really anything I want to plug. No, I mean, there's, sure, there's two awesome Gainesville bands right now that people should check out. The Beat Buttons and Dear and Glorious Physician. So, I'll plug some local bands. Sure. This is your time. Anything you want to say? Yeah. Cool. Perfect. Well, I want to thank you so much for taking the time. Right on, man. Have a good show. Yeah, thanks, buddy. All right. So, that wraps up our interview for this week. We're going to play one more track off of In a Million Pieces. But, before we do so, we have a contest to bring you. This week's contest, if you have not yet purchased it because you're a cheap asshole, it is your chance to cash in and win a copy of the draft's debut album called In a Million Pieces on CD.
Give it to your girlfriend, give it to your girlfriend, if you're a chick, and you're a large, good for you. So, pretty much everybody wins on this one. There's a little something, something for everybody. So, how do you enter? Send us an email at soundseenrevolution at gmail.com. Put draft contest in the subject line. Give us all your information, name, address, bank account number, mother's maiden name, phone numbers, shit like that. And, uh, how do we know that you listen? Well, in the interview, uh, after the interview actually, Chris confides in us that he may not be able to go over all the paperwork we need him to sign for it because he's kind of high. We, we could kind of tell. So, I want you to listen to at least part of the interview and tell me, do you think Chris was just kind of high?
Or was Chris really high? Or was Chris not high? Or was Chris, like, fucking towel-y high where he had no idea what was going on? So, we want you to decide how high you think Chris from the draft was during the interview. And, uh, just put that, I mean, it's all, it's all opinion-based, so it doesn't matter who's right. But, uh, just let us know how high you think Chris was and, uh, send that in to soundseenrevolution at gmail.com and we will take care of that for you. Uh, last track we're going to play is called Wired, off of the draft's debut LP in a million pieces. Stay tuned next week, we will have a lot more stuff coming up and, uh, more free stuff to give away. So, enjoy!
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