MXPX

For me, this was a great night. I’d been a fan of MXPX for years, and to finally get to see them live was simply amazing, getting to do an interview was even better. And even though my questions weren’t the best, I still feel that it ended up being a good interview. I’d like to thank Tim for setting it up, and Yuri for taking the time to do it with me.

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Bobby: Starting with the basics, you guys have been touring with Hedley and Faber for a few days now, how’s that been going so far?

Yuri: It’s been good. Yeah, it’s real good. I mean we haven’t toured in Canada for a while, like a full on Canadian tour for a while. So this is a great opportunity for us to get up here and play in front of a lot of kids, Hedley’s pretty hot at the moment. We’re slowly getting to know everyone on the tour, everyone’s been really cool. Positive experience overall.

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

Yuri: For me, yes, a negative memorable moment. The other night I went to bed, felt fine, woke up about six AM the next morning throwing up, and that continued for a couple hours. I slept all day. Sound check, slept, played the show, had a puke bucket right next to the drum set just in case, and then I literally played the show and went to sleep. And that was it. I just felt so bad, I wanted to die.

Bobby: Ah, I hate that feeling.

Yuri: Yeah, that was probably the hardest show I’ve ever played in recent memory.

Bobby: I gotta ask you this, you guys are a pretty big band, and you’ve been around for a long time. You could easily come and sell out a Canadian tour by yourselves, why did you decide to come and open for Hedley?

Yuri: I think more than anything, it was a timing issue. Like we wanted to come up and do Canada, we knew we needed to do that, and this was really the only time slot we had to do it. So we were already planning on coming up here, and then this tour was presented to us, and well, it really fell in the right time frame and we knew we needed to do it. That’s really why we did it. I didn’t realize it would be this big, but, the only reason we’re doing it is because it worked out that way. For us, it was when we wanted to come up. It would be better to do this than compete with it.

Bobby: Throughout your entire career you guys have been on a bunch of different record labels. You started out on Tooth & Nail and then went up to A&M and Interscope before coming back down to SideOneDummy, so you’ve seen how the industry works on different levels. What do you think the major difference is between the independent labels and the major labels?

Yuri: Well, normally the major difference is that with independent labels, you get a lot more of that one-on-one feel. You really feel like you know the people that are putting out your record and you can ask them questions directly. You know, there’s not like five people you need to go through to get to the president of the label or whatever, whoever you need to talk to. Whereas with a major label, that’s really why it’s a problem, it can be a problem. If you’re not making them a lot of money, then it’s going to be hard to get a hold of somebody. But in the same sense, even on an independent label and you’re the smallest band, it depends on the label, but you can have a hard time getting a hold of somebody. There are similarities, but the big difference is the one-on-one, the personalities. There’s a personality with an independent label, and not so much with a major.

Bobby: What do you think you prefer? The independent or the major?

Yuri: I personally like the independent record labels just because of the points I was just brining up. It feels like more of a family atmosphere as oppose to more like a business. But when we chose to go up to the major label, it was to bring growth to the band, and we felt at that time, that was the right move. And instantly, when we signed to the major record label, we were being distributed elsewhere around the world. So that opened up the world to us, to tour, and to play shows and to meet fans and stuff. So, sometimes a major label is a good choice because it opens up a lot of opportunities for young bands. Be aware that it’s a machine and it’s not always friendly, but it can create a lot of opportunities.

Bobby: What was it like switching labels from T&N to A&M and then to SideOne, was there like ever a sense of insecurity while you were in between labels?

Yuri: Between Tooth & Nail and A&M, there wasn’t a lot of insecurity because we were still on Tooth & Nail, and we knew we wanted to leave the label. So we were very happy with pushing that aside, just getting rid of them all together. We felt like we had a good home, a new home with A&M. So that wasn’t such a big deal. A little bit from A&M to SideOne, because we initially weren’t sure exactly what we were gonna do, but the SideOne deal came about pretty quick so there wasn’t a lot of insecurity. It wasn’t too bad.

Bobby: Your first release with SideOne was the DVD/CD “B-Movie,” why did you decide to kick off that relationship with a DVD release?

Yuri: Well because we had a record that came out probably about a year before, and we didn’t have new songs. We didn’t have enough new songs. So we knew that putting out a record at that time wasn’t feasible, so we thought “let’s do a DVD, let’s get new fans kind of up to date with where we are, who we are, that whole thing.” And also, over the years, we’ve had people asking us to do an acoustic album, and the acoustic EP that comes with the DVD is just kind of our answer to those fans. It’s not an album, but it’s like enough songs to keep things going.

Bobby: Do you ever play those songs live or anything?

Yuri: Sometimes. Sometimes. On the Hedley tour… well so far we haven’t just because of time. When we’re headlining, we’ll usually throw in an acoustic section in the set.

Bobby: Considering you guys were around for over a decade when the DVD was released, many of your fans were disappointed that it was mostly just newer stuff. Like the new live show which was shot really well, but they were hoping for a bit more older footage, older live shows, older interviews. Why so much new?

Yuri: Well, we felt like we had put that out already with “It Came From Bremerton” – it was a VHS. It came out in ’99-2000. So we felt like there was that information already available. So that’s why the “B-Movie” is more recent, more like the past five years. So that’s why.

Bobby: After that you guys followed it up with you’re seventh studio album, “Panic”, which featured many guest appearances, most notably Mark Hoppus from Blink182. What was it like working with him?

Yuri: Well, Mark’s an old friend. We toured with Blink182 in ’98, but we had been friends with them since like, gosh, I wanna say like ’95. Just buddies, like we didn’t tour together, but we hung out and stuff like that when we were around each other. So, we just kind of kept in contact with him through the years and we were looking for other artists to collaborate with, and he’s kind of notable and an easy guy to work with. So that’s why we picked him.

Bobby: Have you heard his new project yet? Plus44?

Yuri: No, I haven’t yet. It will be interesting, isn’t it him and Travis?

Bobby: Yeah, him and Carol from Get The Girl.

Yuri: Oh, okay, cool.

Bobby: Do you guys have any plans to work on a new CD anytime soon?

Yuri: Yeah, yeah. We’ve been on tour for nearly a year at this point, so yeah. *Tom comes and asks Yuri a question quickly* But yeah, we’ve been on tour for a year in support of “Panic”, and this is part of it. I kind of see us getting back in the studio in the fall, the winter, early next year. We hope to have something out next year.

Bobby: What can we expect from it?

Yuri: I have no idea. I haven’t even heard a single song off of it yet, so I have no idea.

Bobby: You guys also have a side project called Arthur which released a CD back in 2001. Do you think you’ll ever release anything else with it?

Yuri: Yeah, that’s another one of our hopes, is to get that stuff done too. We do have material for another record mostly done already, it’s just finding the time to finish it up and get it out. So yeah, eventually.

Bobby: In a recent interview with Taped Magazine, Mike said that during interviews he likes to talk about how punk has changed and politics, American government, because those types of things interest him. What do you like to talk about during interviews?

Yuri: Well politics are interesting to me, but I haven’t formed a lot of strong opinions, so it’s kind of hard to talk about. I mean, I like talking about music and I like talking about life, just regular stuff I guess.

Bobby: Well, this is about music and just every day life. I just recently turned 18, I love going to concerts and just seeing bands live. I think over the next couple months I have dozen or so concerts that I’m planning on going to. So thinking back to when you were fifteen, still going by the name of “Magnified Plaid”, are there any concerts that you went to that still really stick out in your mind?

Yuri: Yeah, for sure. Obviously the first show I went to. It was like four or five local bands, and it was pretty cool. That was the first show I ever went to, it was really small and it was a lot of fun. The next one that I can remember going to that really affected me was All. Yeah, I saw All in ’97,and that was pretty cool. No actually, ’96. Then we saw the Descendents in ’97. Those two bands were, obviously they’re the same band kind of, really influential for us. So to see them live was really, really cool.

Bobby: Yeah, those would’ve been amazing bands to see.

Yuri: Yeah, the Descendents, both of them are really good.

Bobby: If you could pick any band, dead or alive, to tour with, who would you pick to tour with and why?

Yuri: I think as a band, it would be pretty safe to say to we would want to tour with the Clash. Just because, I don’t know, they’re a great band and we all love them and it would just be fun. There’s so much history right there with that band. We actually did play with Joe Strummer, which you know, was pretty close to what we wanted.

Bobby: Now onto a bit more unusual questions that I just like to ask to keep it interesting. If you guys 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?

Yuri: I don’t know, I think Tom; he’s got a little bit more meat on his bones. Just a little bit more. I mean, I’m obviously the fattest one, but if I had to choose it would be Tom.

Bobby: Okay, if you were a member of the opposite sex for a day, week, month, however long you want, what would you do and why?

Yuri: What would I do if I was a girl? Ah man, well I guess I’d… I don’t even know man. What would your answer be?

Bobby: I don’t know. I’ve heard some interesting answers. I’ve heard simple ones like just do the splits, but I’ve also heard things like they’d want to walk down a dark alleyway at night just to see what they feel like because men never feel that emotion whereas girls will be more scared and they don’t know what’s down there.

Yuri: Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. That’s interesting. Yeah, I guess I’d just do normal things and see how the world is different, because it obviously is.

Bobby: If you could have one thing at this moment, anything at all, either materialistic or just not as cold outside, what would you want and why?

Yuri: I think, if I could have anything, it would be a teleporter, like Star Trek where you stand in the thing and you can be anywhere. That would be sweet. Yeah, just like to hang out with the wife for a couple hours before the show *makes teleportation sound* go home for a couple hours and then come back to Red’s in Edmonton or wherever I am at the time. So that would be sweet.

Bobby: Okay, I guess that’s about it, do you have any final thoughts you would like to add?

Yuri: Um, let me think… I think that’s it you know, any information that anybody wants to know about us, MXPX.com, there’s a ton of information on there and it’s really updated quite frequently, so yeah.

Bobby: Okay, thanks a lot.