Comeback Kid

Before he took the stage in front of four thousand fans during his Canadian tour with Rise Against, newly appointed Comeback Kid front man Andrew Neufeld took some time to answer some questions for me. Thanks a lot to Andrew for doing the interview and Amelia and Maygen for setting it up.

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Bobby: Starting with the basics, you guys have been on tour with Rise Against and Silverstein for a while now; how’s that going so far?

Andrew: Pretty good. Now it’s like the middle of July and we’ve been out for about a month on this tour, it’s been awesome. It’s probably one of the biggest tours Comeback Kid has ever been on before and thousands of kids every night. We’re pretty happy to be on this tour. Silverstein and Rise Against are both super awesome.

Bobby: Has there been any really memorable moments from the tour so far?

Andrew: There’s been a lot of pretty memorable moments I think. Standout shows for me… We just played Winnipeg, our hometown, and that was probably one of the funner shows of the tour for me, I think it was one of the biggest shows. We’ve been able to run into some friends, so it’s cool.

Bobby: You’ve been touring all over the world lately, earlier in the year you did UK and Germany and you also did one in Australia with Sick of It All. Is it weird thinking that this little band from Winnipeg, who two years ago played your biggest show here, is now one of the main attractions all over the world?

Andrew: I don’t know, I think like our whole thing since we started was that we wanted to go as many places as possible. I think a year into touring we were going to Europe and we were able to go to Australia a couple times and Japan a couple times. Australia we’ve done three times now. We’ve just been able to do a whole bunch of crazy things and I feel pretty lucky to be able to be one of the bands that are able to do that. I mean, we’ve worked really hard to be where we’re at so hopefully it’s paying off.

Bobby: In 2006, you guys did a tour with Gorilla Biscuits, how was that? Touring with such legends?

Andrew: It was like touring with one of the bands that helped form the hardcore scene and influence so many people, including us. It was a trip, it was crazy to be able to tour with them but they were really, really awesome to us and nice to us, no egos or anything. Actually, they asked us to do Europe with them right away, this fall; but we have our own tour going on then so we weren’t able to do that tour. But like Gorilla Biscuits, what can you say? There’s nothing but respect.

Bobby: The Australian tour was with Sick of It All who just had their 20th anniversary. To celebrate, Abacus did a tribute CD to them. I’ve read that Armand, their drummer, asked you guys to do the song “Step Down” how cool was that to be asked by the drummer to do the song?

Andrew: It was really, really cool. We originally got approached to do the tribute compilation and they were asking us what song we wanted to do and we wanted to do the song “Injustice System” but we heard that Terror was going to do it so we were all super bummed out. Then Armand from Sick of It All asked us if we would do “Step Down” cause no one was doing that yet and we were like “ah yeah, we’ll do that.” Yeah, it was super cool to be able to do that song. We went into the studio to record “Broadcasting…” and then we did that song at the same time that we were recording so it worked out perfect. We finally found out, after, that Terror weren’t even on the comp, so we could have done “Injustice System” – but “Step Down”’s a cool song too. The cool thing about that though was when we were touring in Australia I went up and was able to sing the song with Sick of It All. That was a pretty cool thing, the hardcore boy’s dream.

Bobby: You were just talking about “Broadcasting…” I read in an interview that the artwork for that was kind of a dig at the news programs, such as Fox, having such power to manipulate the news and send their versions of events to people’s TVs. Do you think that on “Broadcasting…” you guys went a bit more political?

Andrew: I think in previous albums we didn’t really touched so much on world issues – it was more like personal issues. I don’t know if I would call it political. I guess it’s political because we’re talking about issues that go on in the world, but if that’s what makes something political, that’s cool. I don’t have all the answers, I’m just a normal person like anyone else and I think anyone with half a brain should be able to comment on what’s going on in the world around them and in their country. Just being able to travel the world and kind of see the social climate, you get that different perspective on things. I just felt the urge to write a few songs that delt with more issues outside of my own personal dramas.

Bobby: What was it like working with Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore and the Blasting Room again?

Andrew: It was awesome. It was cool because we went in there the second time – we did “Wake The Dead” with them – and then it was cool to go back and do a second record with them because we knew them already and we knew how they worked and it was just such a comfortable working environment. They’re just geniuses. They know how to get the sounds. We kind of knew the sounds that we wanted and we were able to communicate pretty well with them and they gave us a product that we were really, really happy with.

Bobby: Going into the studio, one of the most talked about things was the fact that you were taking over vocal duties from Scott Wade. Of course, you’ve had experience singing with Figure Four; but changing the vocalist can sometimes tarnish the reputation of the band. So was there a lot of pressure for you going in to get the vocals perfect?

Andrew: Well, I think anyone anybody who’s recording a record want to make their vocals sound really fucking good. Like I don’t want to go in there and “ahhh whatever, I’ll just lay something down, who knows what it’s going to sound like.” But we really, really worked hard on it. At times I wanted it to sound like Comeback Kid, I wanted the vocals to be kind of in line with the last record we had before when Scott was singing but I didn’t want to mimic his kind of style. So I just tried to mix it up a little bit. Some of it was a little heavier kind of screaming, a little bit more melodic singing at times. We were just trying to expand and broaden our horizons for this record because we just didn’t want to do the same record that we did in the past.

Bobby: Comeback Kid kind of started as a side project for you guys when you were in Figure Four, but now Figure Four as kind of been put on the back burner. Will anything happy with Figure Four?

Andrew: Nah, it’s dead.

Bobby: It’s dead now?

Andrew: Pretty much. I won’t say for sure, for sure, for sure; but pretty much it’s dead. We never broke up, but we’re not going to do anything else again.

Bobby: I’m assuming you guys are rather large hockey fans considering lots of your logos are edited NHL logos and Winnipeg Jets symbols – so how mad were you when they pulled the Jets out of Winnipeg?

Andrew: I don’t know, I was a little kid so it wasn’t really the hugest thing. It kind of sucked at the time, I was more into hockey then than I am now. The other guys are into hockey, Kyle – our drummer – loves it; but I got out of hockey, I can’t really do it too good, can’t play it too good, I kind of get bored watching it sometimes. It’s fun though.

Bobby: On your MySpace page you guys have Lifetime listed as an influence, you also have them on Sights and Sounds’ MySpace. How psyched were you when they reunited for SXSW last year and then the new record?

Andrew: That was so awesome; but the thing is man, I haven’t even seen them yet since they got back together. Our old singer, Scott, we played a show actually with Rise Against around the Hellfest time when Hellfest got cancelled a couple of years ago – I don’t know if anyone who’s reading this is remembers that. But we did this cancellation show with Rise Against in Philly and Lifetime were playing like an hour away so our old singer, just life five minutes after our show, went to go see them play but I wasn’t able to go see them. So I haven’t been able to see them. I love them, but I haven’t been able to see them and their new material sounds pretty cool.

Bobby: Out of all the bands that have broken up, what is one of the bands that you would love to see reunited and actually be able to see?

Andrew: Out of all the bands… I don’t know, I think it would be great to see Chain of Strength. I don’t know, it would probably be pretty sloppy eh? I’d like to see Chain of Strength in a nice, small, six hundred capacity room or something like that. I don’t know; a lot of bands that broke up and I wanted to see got back together. Like Madball’s together still, Lifetime’s together. I want to see Propaghandi but they never broke up, I just never get to see them.

Bobby: Yeah, they almost never tour. You recently just did a new side project called Sights and Sounds and you released your debut EP a couple weeks ago on Smallman records. What made you decide to go and start this slightly more melodic side project?

Andrew: I want to play guitar and I’m not playing guitar in Comeback Kid anymore and I want to be able to keep on playing guitar and keep active doing that, to do some more melodic kind of music. And my brother plays drums in the band so it’s really cool for me to be able to play with my brother since we have this kind of psychic connection. But yeah, it’s just my brother and two other friends.

Bobby: I think next month you guys are doing a CD release tour, are you excited to be able to go out and play those songs and play the guitar live again?

Andrew: Yeah, yeah, super, super excited. We have a two week break on this tour. This Rise Against tour we’re on right now is a two month long tour and we have a two week break and I’m gonna fly home and do the Sights and Sounds tour and then meet up with this tour again.

Bobby: I love going to concerts and I try to go to as many as I can – but of course there’s always some that are a bit more memorable than others. So thinking back, what are some concerts that you played at or have been to that were really memorable for you?

Andrew: When I was younger and touring with Figure Four we played this kind of festival thing in Massachusetts called “Back to School Jam”. I remember that, I don’t think it was the first time I saw Sick of It All play but it was one of the first times I saw Sick of It All and I was sitting up in the balcony and they did this thing were they split the crowd in half and did this Braveheart thing. The crowd goes *smacks his hands together* runs into each other – back then, that was just incredible for me. We toured with Madball, Sick of It All and Terror in Europe last December and seeing Madball every night – they are like one of my favorite bands. That’s what I saying, like you were asking what bands I want to see, my favorite bands – as far as music goes – is like Madball, Propaghandi, Lifetime… Some of the bands I’ve been able to see were like my favorite bands, so it’s been really cool – especially just touring with Madball and stuff like that – awesome. I went to go see a band called Mew in London and they were really cool. I flew to London to go see them after a Europe tour we did one time. They’re not heavy in music; they’re not punk at all, but…

Bobby: Hey, if it’s a good show it’s a good show, it doesn’t necessarily have to be punk. Okay, I guess one last question, when you were growing up; whose poster did you have on your wall?

Andrew: I had a Warzone poster up on my wall; that was probably one of the more memorable posters I had on my wall.

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

Andrew: Cool, thanks for doing the interview. Check out dates, MySpace.com/comebackkid – MySpace.com/Sightsandsoundsmusic and yeah, I’m traveling around whoever’s reading this can probably see us somewhere.