Attack In Black

After playing a great set at the Edmonton Events Centre, Dan Romano of Attack In Black and I found a “quiet” spot in the venue amongst the mass amount of arcade games to talk a bit. We covered their rigorous touring schedule, their phenomenal debut, Marriage, and their quick follow-up, The Curve Of The Earth along with a few other things like tattoos and Dan’s side project Empire Air. Thanks a lot to Dan for doing it and to Cristina for setting it up.

Please Note: All live pictures were taken from TruthExplosion.

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Bobby: Okay, starting with the basics, you guys are three days into this tour with Thrice and Say Anything how’s that going so far?

Dan: It’s going really, really well. The driving is shitty because there’s a lot of snow in the mountains but now that we’re out of the mountains it’s mostly smooth sailing.

Bobby: In January before you started this tour, you guys posted on your MySpace page saying that you don’t want to just sit at home, that you wanted to go out and play shows. You listed eleven cities in Ontario where you wanted to go out and play. First off, were you able to set up any random shows from that?

Dan: They’re being set up now. Yeah, we haven’t played any of them yet but they are being set up. We’re going to do an extensive cross-Canada tour hitting all small cities and stuff in June, I think. Either June or July.

Bobby: So you’re obviously a band who wants to be out on the road, touring and hitting the streets as much as you can. Do you think a lot of bands now are too content to just sit back and wait for that one hit single to break them? Do you think some bands are missing that drive?

Dan: Some bands theses days are just spoiled I supposed. I mean, I like being at home and making music and writing music more than I like touring, I think. Well, I don’t know actually. I like them both for different reasons and different ways. But yeah, there are some bands that definitely just try and sound like whatever’s popular and just try and get money really fast and accumulate as much as they can in a short period of time while that thing is still popular and then just fade out. But there’s always been that and there will always be bands that just do whatever they want to do because they love doing it. Those are probably the bands that are going to stick around.

Bobby: You’ve also said before that you guys would never play Warped Tour; why is that?

Dan: Just because it’s just not our thing really. It’s not something that I want to be a part of.

Bobby: But not all festivals are bad, in March you guys are doing SXSW – are you excited for that?

Dan: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. That’s going to be awesome.

Bobby: I really want to travel down there and see that at one point.

Dan: Yeah, I’ve wanted to go for a couple years now but haven’t been able to.

Bobby: I’ve read in an interview where you guys said that you guys aren’t all that confident when you’re on stage and sometimes just want the music to speak for itself. I know Ian once said that he finds himself not even looking at the crowd but just playing to each other. Are you still that self conscious on stage and how do you overcome that?

Dan: I just think we can of ignore the situation at hand and more so just concentrate on playing the music and avoid… I am a little more content with performing and I like communicating with people and stuff so… I don’t know, it’s just really personal performing so I understand where he’s coming from. Trying to preserve what you made for yourself but at the same time realize that it’s not just yours anymore.

Bobby: You guys, as an opening band, have had some hard times. I read that one time you played an eight band hardcore show in Calgary and nobody watched you guys. But at the same time, you’ve had great adventures like your “Just A Couple Of Blokes” tattoos from England. So would you trade this touring lifestyle for anything else?

Dan: Um, yeah, just a steady job. *laughs* Nah, I don’t know, no, it’s great. It gets crazy sometimes, just the changing and sleep patterns and driving and malnourishment and stuff like that; but overall I wouldn’t want to do anything else either.

Bobby: One more question concerning touring, when your van broke down and was eating up all this oil you guys were stealing oil from gas stations. Were you ever caught?

Dan: No, we were never caught. There weren’t even any close calls that I can remember; we were pretty slick about it.

Bobby: When you guys released Marriage back in July, did you have any expectations for how well it would do? Like it ended in a bunch of top ten lists, did you ever expect that?

Dan: No, not at all. I still don’t really even acknowledge that it happened just because it’s so bizarre. It’s very flattering but I definitely did not expect that.

Bobby: When I was doing research for the interview I read that you guys actually had to go back and re-record the album because you guys weren’t happy with it and Dine Alone weren’t happy with it. Why did you go back and re-record it? Why weren’t you happy with it?

Dan: It was our first release and we just wanted it to be the best that we could make it in the circumstance that we were in – which ended up being a shitty circumstance. The outcome of the record is still alright I guess. We spent a lot of time on it the first time through and we were just not happy with the sound, like sonically. So before our tour, it was like a week before our tour and we met with this guy Dan Weston and we were like “we want to re-record the record.” Or no, we actually tried to get him to remix it and he was like “I can’t really do anything with this.” He didn’t want to put his name on it because he just wasn’t happy with it and he was like “we should re-record it in a week.” It was Saturday night that we made that decision, he booked the studio Sunday and from Monday to Friday we recorded the record over again before we went on tour on Saturday. So it was pretty hectic.

Bobby: Did you guys make any changes to the songs themselves or just the sound quality?

Dan: We didn’t really change the songs that I can remember.

Bobby: So we’ll probably never see the original recordings?

Dan: No, actually we’re planning on recording over the tapes just to save ourselves money.

Bobby: Makes sense, makes sense. Okay, I need to ask you this. I love the lyrics to your songs. The introspection, the hopefulness. How do you guys come up with the lyrics?

Dan: That’s mostly the bass player and I have no idea, I have no idea where that stuff comes from. He reads a lot of old poets and stuff and I’m sure it all comes from there. But he’s a smart alec, he’s a wise cracker so I don’t know.

Bobby: Marriage wasn’t the only full length you guys released last year as you also released the vinyl and digital release, The Curve of the Earth. It was originally only going to be digital, what made you decide to release it on vinyl?

Dan: It was actually only originally going to be vinyl and then the label said it would be cool if we also released it digitally so more people could have it. I don’t really know why, I think it’s because we always wanted to have a record, an LP, and we couldn’t put out the… There’s a certain time period that you’re allowed to release a record in and I think it’s too early to release another full length record so we kind of beat around the bush and decided to put out an LP because that’s still allowed I guess. We didn’t have plans to make the record, it just kind of happened.

Bobby: Yeah you guys recorded it in two days in Spencer’s sun room after you found a two input tape recorder in your house. So since you wrote and recorded it all in two days, how different was the writing process compared to Marriage?

Dan: It was less thought out, it was more spontaneous and just kind of like playing, coming up with something and putting things together quickly. It was basically just like the regular process of making a record, just sped up into two days.

Bobby: I haven’t heard the Curve of The Earth record yet but I’ve heard that you all wrote and sang on three or four different songs each, switching lead vocal duties. How did you guys come up with that idea? What made you decide to each take a certain amount of songs?

Dan: Well, when we started doing it, me and the bass player, Ian, had three songs written each and I think Spencer had a couple so we were like “well, we should all just write two or three songs and it will be a full length.” Because we were originally just going to make it a seven inch or something and then we were like “yeah, we should just go for it, do twelve songs.”

Bobby: What was Dine Alone’s reaction when you said “hey look, we have another full length ready?”

Dan: They are really supportive of anything we do; they pretty much let us do anything at this point. They were into it and I think they actually like it. I’m pretty sure they actually like it. So yeah, they were really cool about it.

Bobby: Still speaking about Dine Alone, is it true that you guys don’t actually have a contract with them? Just a handshake and good faith?

Dan: Oh, we do now, we do now.

Bobby: Let’s talk a bit about tattoos; it’s obvious you guys are no strangers to getting tattoos. You were supposed to be on a TV show called “Ink Pimp” which was talking about the correlation between bands and tattoos. So what do you think the correlation is between bands and tattoos are?

Dan: Stupid, reckless lifestyle and regret probably. I don’t know. Me and Spencer have this funny relationship where we hate our tattoos and always joke around about wishing that we didn’t have them and coming up with miracles that would make them go away. I think Ian likes his. But I don’t know, I wear long sleeves all the time.

Bobby: Despite Spencer still getting that tattoo of the old Attack In Black symbol, the show still never aired. Why?

Dan: Because it was terrible. It was awful. It was so poorly organized. It was the worst thing ever.

Bobby: At the same time, do you think tattoos are somehow losing their meanings? Now, it’s the popular thing to go and get tattoos and there are TV shows like LA Ink and Ink Pimp which are all….

Dan: It’s definitely cool; it’s the cool thing to do. It’s always been the cool thing to do. Whenever I got anything, I tried to stick to something super traditional to its art form. So I guess traditional like sailor tattoos and stuff like that, that don’t really mean anything but they’re tattoos.

Bobby: What was your first tattoo and what motivated you to get it?

Dan: I was actually a tattoo artist for a while, for about three years. So I was kind of like into the culture before I started doing that and my first tattoo was a Sailor Jerry hula girl with a couple of flowers in my inner arm.

Bobby: You guys also have matching tattoos that say “Just A Couple Of Blokes” which was an inside joke from a tour manager in England. Do you think you guys will ever get another set of matching tattoos?

Dan: Oh, probably, yeah.

Bobby: Lately a lot of bands from suburbs of Toronto have been becoming really big in Canada and North America. You guys from Welland, Alexisonfire from St. Catherines, Billy Talent and IllScarlett from Mississauga, Protest The Hero from Whitby, Bedouin Soundclash from Kingston, and so on. Why do you think there are so many bands from the suburbs of Toronto that are making it?

Dan: It’s boring there. There’s nothing to do at all, so I guess that’s probably the answer.

Bobby: You recently started a side project with Allie Torrance called Empire Air. What motivated you to do this side project?

Dan: I don’t know, we just got together and it just kind of came out of nowhere. We wrote a song and we were into it and then we were just like we should do four more or three more and record a record and see if anyone would put it out. Then I showed it to our manager/label owner and he was into it and wanted to put it out; so he’s going to be doing that. We’re also doing a split with a band called Fuck With Fire. So yeah, we also recorded another six minute song for the split seven inch with them.

Bobby: Right now you only have the two demos on MySpace, so you will actually have a full length or EP?

Dan: It’s going to be a seven inch.

Bobby: Are you excited for that?

Dan: Yeah, it will be fun.

Bobby: Now onto a bit more unusual questions just to end off the interview with. First off, when you were growing up, whose poster did you have on your wall?

Dan: I’m trying to think. Probably Kurt Cobain.

Bobby: If you guys, as a band, were stranded on a desert island with no food and nothing to eat, which one of the band members would you eat to survive and why?

Dan: That’s hard. I would probably eat myself because I would feel bad.

Bobby: Okay, if you could have one thing at this moment, anything at all, what would you have and why?

Dan: At this moment? I would have a smoothie and some sort of decongestant to drink and to decongest my sinuses.

Bobby: Okay, I guess that’s about it, thanks a lot. Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to add?

Dan: No, I can’t think of anything.

Bobby: Thank you.

Dan: Thank you.