The Bouncing Souls

Editor’s Note: I had the opportunity to interview Bryan of The Bouncing Souls at the Punk-O-Rama tour, it was lots of fun. I’d like to thank Bryan for doing it and Keith for setting it up.

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Bobby: Ok, Starting with the basics can you please state your name and what you do in the band?

Bryan: I am Bryan and I play bass.

Bobby: Your new album, Anchors Aweigh, comes out in a couple days, you excited for it?

Bryan: O ya! It’s always like kinda my favorite time of the.. We have sort of a cycle. We put out a record and then we tour, tour and tour and tour and tour and then we write another record and put it out. Probably the most exciting part of the whole cycle is right before the record comes out. We’ve finished all the work on it, you know what it looks like, you’ve seen it. Like I do the artwork so I’m happy as soon as I see it and it’s not fucked up, it’s printed correctly, all that stuff. So ya, I love it. I love the new record, I’m excited for everyone to hear it.

Bobby: So you drew the entire cover and everything?

Bryan: Yep.

Bobby: Where did you get the name from? (The Bouncing Souls)

Bryan: Um, I’ll show ya…

*** Bryan lifted up his pants to show the tag on his shoes, they read: “Bouncing Soles”.***

Bryan: Doc Martins. The tag. It’s a play on that name.

Bobby: Awesome, where did you get the name for the CD, Anchors Aweigh?

Bryan: Well, we have a song called Anchors Aweigh. Lyrically, it kinda sums up, if there was a theme for this record at all, it kinda sums up the vibe of this record. So it was just the most obvious candidate for the title.

Bobby: What’s your favorite song off the record and why?

Bryan: I don’t think I have a favorite yet. I have a few favorites. I like the song “Anchors Aweigh”, I like the song “Simple Man”, I like “Born Free”. Those songs all kick ass.

Bobby: What would you say to convince someone to but the album?

Bryan: That’s a good question. I don’t know. It’s necessarily for everyone in the world, but then again, maybe it is. What would I tell them? I would tell them that it’s honest music. People expressing themselves from their heart. So you can’t go wrong, it’s pure… and it sounds great.

Bobby: Alright, why did you pick “Kids And Heroes” as your first single?

Bryan: It really wasn’t, I don’t think we decided or picked a single at all. We aren’t like trying to have a radio single out of this record. We look at it more as just a big collection of songs, a whole album for the kids that care, who follow us. You know? So we had to make a video, well we didn’t have to but we were still in the studio mixing the record and Dave from Epitaph is like “If you guys can make a video in two weeks, we can get it on the Punk-O-Rama DVD that we’re about to make.” So we were like “Alright, cool. We’ll pick a day and make a video”. We went to Kate’s house and just picked a song kinda at random. And it just turned out to be “Kids And Heroes”. We just figured we could do it really easy, just like us at Kate’s house, hanging out.

Bobby: A common theme in the album is like living life to the fullest while not forgetting old times, why did you steer the album in that direction?

Bryan: We don’t really consciously try to steer the record, we just write about what’s on our minds and that’s just what it ends up a record. It ends up being two years worth of songs sort-off. And you don’t really know what the record is gonna feel like or sound like in till after that.

Bobby: How do your normally write all your material?

Bryan: Me, Pete and Greg write lyrics all year round. Like on tour or wherever we are, we write songs. And then we get together. Brooklyn, we have jam room and plug in the equipment and just start jamming. And that’s usually me, Pete and McDermott. We just get together all the time and rock. And put together a bunch of songs that way, and then we’ll all get together and pull out our notebooks. And we’ll play a song, and everyone will pull out their notebook and someone will be like this song fits that music. Something like that. Sometimes you write whole songs, music and words all together, like one individual will write the whole song.

Bobby: Ok, you recorded your album in Longview Farm, why there?

Bryan: That place is amazing. It’s a 1800s farm house in the middle of nowhere that’s been converted into a recording studio. And so it’s like great to get out of the city and get out of our regular lives and have no influence, outside influence at all. We’re in the middle of nowhere, under like two feet of snow, a fireplace and food, and beer and weed and it’s just a great environment for writing and creating, recording.

Bobby: On the video on your album there is a golden retriever, lab, some kinda of gold dog, who shows up while you are recording. Who’s dog is that?

Bryan: You mean on the record?

Bobby: Yep.

Bryan: That’s John’s dog, the guy, John Seymour, the guy who we made the record with. That’s Blue.

Bobby: Your lyrical content has grown so much, and on this record it is really powerful, why do you think it has grown so much since nine years ago?

Bryan: I think writing songs forces you to find the lyrics inside yourself. And the longer that you do it you get better, you keep digging deeper and deeper and deeper. It forces you to dig deep inside. I think the lyrics on this record are definitely the deepest, maybe most intense lyrics. We also have a lot of things to write about this time. Me and my girlfriend broke up after 8 years and that happened right after we started writing the record. I had a really really rough winter, I was going completely insane, so I was writing about it. I got a lot of songs out of it. Writing all those songs definitely saved my life this year.

Bobby: Well you kinda just answered my question, but a lot of people write songs for certain reasons, tell stories, help themselves through hard times, stuff like that. Is that the only reason you wrote the songs, like your girlfriend or what?

Bryan: You just write about everything that’s on your mind and that was a lot of what I had to work out. I had to work out within myself, so writing those songs helped. Just sort of off write it all down and get it out and look at it. Get a overview of your life. Also, ya, we write to celebrate good times and celebrate our friends. Usually the things we write about are pretty personal or just about our lives. We also write about the world around us, like “Born Free”, songs like that are kinda about the state of affairs. You know?

Bobby: Alright, I recently read an article in Alternative Press about Rancid and one of the themes was “Through Music You Can Live Forever”. Do you think that’s true or what?

Bryan: “Through Music You Can Live Forever”, umm I don’t know. I don’t wanna live forever. That’s my answer. Music is my way of staying sane basically, so if I didn’t have it I don’t know what I’d do. I’d go crazy.

Bobby: Now-a-days you can download MP3s all over the place, Kazaa, Morpheus, stuff like that, how do you feel about that?

Bryan: I think it’s great! I think it’s great because music is available to everyone. It’s in the people’s hand, it’s in the hands of the people that really care about music. And people who are trying to get their songs out there can now, your not at the mercy of major labels and all that bull shit. It really flattens out the playing field, everyone has their chance. So good music just may prevail based on it being good, not on some corporation putting millions of dollars into stuffing it down people’s throats. It’s a real revolution I think.

Bobby: Good answer, why did you decide to become a musician?

Bryan: I never really remember making anyone decision. It was more playing my life day by day and doing exactly what I wanted. And what I always wanted to do was just hang out with my friends. It’s great together, so that’s what I do. It wasn’t a big life decision, there has been big decisions along the way. Like crossroads where you’re like fuck it, I’m not going to college. I’ll be poor, I wanna do the band. You have to make the decisions, you have to kinda re-affirm your vows. You have to be sure you want to do it, it’s not a comfortable or easy life, it never has been. But it’s not a decision that’s hard to make, just follow your heart. It just takes guts.

Bobby: Do you have any tips for young musicians?

Bryan: Do exactly what you want, if that’s what you want to do, then do it. Find that conviction within yourself. Once your confidence the people around you, all the haters and the parents and the teachers and everyone.. It’s bullshit that people try to bring you down and make you feel like you can’t do it. It’s total bullshit. I mean it’s not for everyone, I’m not saying it’s like the ideal life for everybody. But it is important to do if it’s what you should be doing, if it’s your calling. If you really feel music and music is a giant deal to you, then it might be natural that you want to live in a world of music you know. Those are the people who usually become musicians and start jamming, too many people lose the courage. To me, that’s selling out. Just don’t sell out, do what you want. Life is too short not too.

Bobby: Ya, that’s good advice. Ok, your nickname if Papillion, or Butterfly.

Bryan: Ya, Papillion.

Bobby: How’d you get that nickname?

Bryan: I kinda took it from the book “Papillion”. It’s by Henri Charriere. It’s an auto-biography of a guy. Basically “Live Free Or Die” was his motto of life. It’s really inspiring book.

Bobby: Ok, I guess that’s about it. Is there anything you want to say before we end?

Bryan: You can’t change the past but you can ruin a perfectly good present by worrying about the future.

Bobby: Very good, very good, thank you.

Bryan: Ya, thanks a lot.