The Menzingers

The Menzingers are slowly taking over the punk rock underground. Their breakout debut, A Lesson In The Abuse of Information Technology, started turning heads and getting people talking. It was raw, energetic, intelligent and fantastic punk rock. Over the years they tour constantly, played the Fest numerous times, made new friends and continually honed their craft. All that work left us with their sophomore album, and Red Scare debut, Chamberlain Waits; a record that once again got people talking.

As they toured through Canada with Gaslight Anthem and Fake Problems in support of the album, I sat down with Tom and Joe from The Menzingers to discuss the record, their evolution, movies and other random encounters from their travels.

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Bobby: Starting with the basics, you guys are just kicking off this tour with Gaslight Anthem and Fake Problems – are you guys excited and what took you so long to get up to Canada?

Tom: Shit yeah, we’re excited. Really excited.

Joe: Fuck yeah. It’s been awesome so far. We’ve been friends with these guys for a little bit now, both of the bands.

Tom: We played with them a long time ago and now, up here we’re playing such bigger clubs and it’s great. It’s a nice feeling.

Bobby: Kind of shows the progression of the bands, now that they’re so far away from the North East.

Tom: Yeah. What is this? The same latitude line as…. I forget, somewhere in England.

Joe: This probably the furthest north we’ve ever been. It’s pretty awesome.

Tom: It took us so long to get over here just because booking Canadian tours and dealing with customs and stuff is just something we hadn’t tackled yet.

Bobby: In October you guys are playing the Fest right?

Tom: Yes.

Bobby: Are you guys pumped for that?

Tom: Oh yeah. It’ll be our fourth year?

Joe: Fourth year.

Bobby: So like you just said, this will be your fourth year. This is going to be my first time travelling down – so do you have any tips or advice for first timer going down?

Tom: Oh man, drink water.

Joe: Yeah – drink lots of water.

Bobby: Not the Pabst Blue?

Tom: No – you drink that but you gotta drink water while you’re drinking that! I mean, that’s just given.

Joe: In between drinking pitchers, make sure you hydrate.

Tom: Or you’ll be taking people to the hospital.

Joe: We had to do that one year. Yeah, one of our friends drank too much.

Tom: And have fun.

Joe:  Yeah, it’s a blast.

Tom: Oh, and cancel everything you plan on doing for a week afterwards.

Bobby: Gotta hope there’s no midterms on the week afterwards then. What’s your favourite thing about playing festivals like The Fest?

Tom: Seeing everybody that you meet from around the country while you’re in those parts of the country, all at the same place at the same time.

Joe: It’s pretty overwhelming. I mean you see not only bands that you’ve played with but people you’ve stayed with from everywhere. Everybody just seems to be in the one city.

Tom: Everybody is really stoked.

Bobby: It’s like the entire community condensed into Gainesville.

Tom: Yeah, it’s pretty great.

Bobby: You guys just gave your new single, I Was Born, to the Solidarity Records benefit compilation. How did you guys get involved with that?

Tom: Greg actually set that up. I’m not positive how we got involved in it but we’re stoked. We wanted to do more things online – like releasing electronic music so this is good.

Bobby: It’s kind of sad now that compilations are a thing of the past now.

Tom: Yeah dude, yeah.

Bobby: Why do you think they’ve just kind of faded out into oblivion?

Tom: I don’t know; we talk about that sometimes though. Some of the things that got us – or at least me for sure – into punk bands was getting the Fat Wreck Chords compilations, the Epitaph compilations. I think just because the media’s changing, you can go online and just look up each band and hear them that way.

Bobby: Do you think kids now are kind of losing the joy of finding new bands through the compilations? Like I remember getting Uncontrollable Fatulence, I remember picking up the Punk-o-Rama comps, I remember picking up the Warped Compilation 2003 and that was the first time I heard Flogging Molly and now that’s just kind of gone.

Tom: I think yes and no. Yes because somebody else was kind of picking the bands for you, whoever was making the compilation. Now with the internet there’s a lot more bands. It’s better for bands who can get more exposure I guess. I don’t know. It’s weird. All we knew was that and now it’s changed.

Bobby: What were some of your guys’ favourite compilations growing up?

Joe: Mine was Another Year on The Streets. The Vagrant ones. Volumes one and two. Those two got me into so many bands. They were like my favourite compilations.

Tom: I had Punk-O-Rama 4, Punk-O-Rama 5, I think Life In The Fat Lane – whichever one had A Promise to Distinction by the Swingin’ Utters on it. And my favourite one of all time is definitely Short Music For Short People.

Bobby: Oh, I love that one!

Tom: It’s such a good compilation.

Bobby: And it’s such a good concept. It’s a compilation but its all new songs obviously. You don’t get ideas like that anymore. 101 thirty second songs, its genius.

Joe: The early Fearless ones. Like “Punk Goes….whatever.” I think they still do them but now….

Tom: They’re terrible.

Joe: But the early ones.

Bobby: Punk Goes Metal.

Joe: Yeah. There was Punk Goes Pop.

Tom: Didn’t Bigwig cover Reign in Blood or something?

Joe: Probably. So yeah, those first couple Punk Goes Whatever. They were pretty good I remember. They kind of went downhill.

Bobby: Yeah. They have a new one coming out in a couple months. Punk Goes Pop 3.

Tom: [Sarcastically] That should be good.

Joe: [Also sarcastically] That should be great…. Punk Goes Swoop [awkward silence] you know… because of the hair

Bobby:  [I do the drum beat that always follows a joke]

Joe: Thank you.

Bobby:  The song that you gave to the Solidarity Records compilation, I Was Born, was – of course – from your newest album Chamberlain Waits. When Red Scare released it, Toby made an off-hand comment on the message board saying he’d be content if Red Scare just closed their doors and Chamberlain Waits was the last CD they ever released. Pretty high praise from Toby Jeg. What was your reaction when you heard him say that?

Tom: We were real flattered man, I mean that’s awesome that he’d say that. He’s a great guy and he’s really is one of those dudes that believes in you but is totally not blowing smoke up your ass. He’s really genuine and he knows what he’s talking about. It’s really good to have somebody like that on our side.

Joe: It’s really flattering that he felt that way.

Bobby: The record was recorded with Matt Allision at Atlas right?

Joe: Oh yeah.

Bobby: What was it like working with him?

Joe: It’s amazing. He’s just the best dude. At first it was weird knowing some of the albums that he’s done in the past. Some of our favourite albums. It was just an honour to be able to record with him; and then after the first day in the studio it was just like hanging out with a friend of ours. It was just really comfortable.

Tom: It was so great. There was no bullshit involved. He got the sound out of us that he needed to get out of us. He’s totally a very relatable dude and he’s been there, he knows what he’s doing. It was really cool. It was a really good recording experience.

Bobby: Now, the first record – A Lesson In The Abuse of Information Technology – you guys wrote that when you were eighteen. Now having been in the industry for longer, with talking to people like Toby Jeg and Brendan Kelly, working with Matt Allison; how did all that impact and how did that influence the recording and writing process of Chamberlain Waits?

Tom: That’s a good question man. You do become more conscious of the songs that you’re writing. You’re not just dicking around. We weren’t dicking around before; we just wanted to write the songs that we wanted to write. We still did that with this record but there’s a little bit more pressure because somebody else is putting so much money into you. So you want to do well, you want to make it sound good, to do a good job.

As far as the writing process goes, we wrote it the way we wanted it to write.

Joe: And luckily everybody involved was happy with it.

Tom: Yeah, they liked it.

Joe: We didn’t completely fuck them.

Bobby: They didn’t say “No, this is crap – redo it” which is probably a good sign. I also read that you guys are working on an acoustic EP. Is that true?

Tom: That’s true.

Bobby: What’s happening with that? What are your plans for that?

Tom: We’re writing. We’ve got a bunch of songs written. We’re gonna polish them up, record them and put out an acoustic EP sometime this Fall or early next year.

Bobby: Is it going to be on Red Scare?

Tom: I would assume so, yeah.

Bobby: Is it going to be new songs or old songs?

Tom: I don’t know. We don’t know. It’ll be a surprise. We’ll see what sounds good. I think we might self record it. So we’ll see what sounds good at the end of it.

Bobby:  Kind of like what you guys did with Kentucky Gentlemen?

Tom: Yeah, exactly.

Bobby: Is it true that you guys recorded it at house party and sent everybody else to the basement?

Tom: Yeah. It was at a house party. We were all fucked up and we were like “let’s record!” Toby was like “you guys wanna do a b-side or something like that?” We were like “um, yeah!” so we went downstairs and we were all fucked up and we just recorded that song and it came out great.

Bobby: So you just didn’t feel like waiting until you were sober to get it done?

Joe: Well I think the thing was that we waited so long to do it that we were cutting to the deadline. We were like “all of our friends are here, fuck it – let’s go and do some gang vocals and stuff.” A lot our friends are on that recording.

Bobby: Lyrically, you guys are kind of different. Like you have a lot of literary references – like Shakespeare in Even For Eggshells and Edwin Arlington Robinson in Richard Coury.  Then you also have some musical lineage like Bad Religion in Time Tables. Why did you decide to go with these types of lyrics? I want to say more intellectual as opposed to just a generic love song?

Tom: There’s also references to 1984 in Victory Gin. Those were things that were important to us. They had an idea and put it forward, we were kind of – I guess- coping on that idea and just using that to better express ourselves.

Bobby: With so many literature references in your songs – what are some books or authors that you would recommend people to check out?

Joe: This is a question for him.

Tom: I know Greg’s been reading Dostoyevsky in the van. I’ve only ever read Notes From The Underground but I liked it a lot. I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction recently. I mean, Kurt Vonnegut is great. Actually, Greg and I just both read Cat’s Cradle at the same time which is cool.

Bobby: Now hitting on the musical references. In Time Tables you guys ask what Bad Religion CD is the best. So what Bad Religion CD is the best?

Tom: Well that’s Greg’s song man.

Joe: Yeah, Greg wrote that. He’s probably the biggest Bad Religion fan. I would probably embarrass myself if I tried to answer. I don’t really know enough.

Tom: I don’t know if it’s the best, but Process of Belief for me was the CD that really got me into Bad Religion. I had – what was it called – SoulSeek. I had all the hits and stuff like that and was like “Oh yeah, punk rock! Bad Religion!” I remember stealing that CD from Hot Topic and listening to that CD all the time. It was so good. I think that was right when they got their third guitarist. That would be my favourite one.

Bobby:  That was the CD that got me into them too. That came out in, what, 2003? So that was right when I was getting into the whole punk scene. So I can’t really say Stranger Than Fiction which came out in ’94 when I was seven. It doesn’t have the same impact as the first CD. Now I was reading an interview which one of you guys did with ReadJunk. You guys were saying how when you were in New Orleans you were talking to a random local there and they were talking about the oil spill. And basically what he said was “when you guys go back to Philly, it won’t matter what’s happening here. Out of sight, out of thought.” Kind of a sad thought; but my question isn’t about that. What it got me thinking about was that you guys do travel a lot and you must talk to locals in pretty much every town.

Tom: Everywhere. It’s one of the best parts about doing this.

Bobby: So what are some of your favourite random conversations like that that you’ve had in different cities?

Tom: I don’t know as much as locally specific political things like that; but one of my favourite conversations I had was with two people at a Motel Six outside of Chicago, Indiana. One entire section of the Motel Six was just people who lived there. There were all these little kids and shelves in all these rooms and everyone was impoverished. There was this kid that was all kinds of fucked up on drugs, he had like a stagger to him. Every time a car drove by, he would walk and hide behind the car. But the dude he was with was able to live at the Motel Six for free because he was painting the side of the building. He showed me this big scar on the side of his face because his wife, who is apparently a big lady, pistol whipped him the week beforehand. The stories that those guys were saying was ridiculous man. Like he was talking about being a hippie in the seventies, a biker in the eighties. It was ridiculous.

Bobby: It’s kind of interesting to just sit back and hear the stories.

Tom: That’s the thing. I don’t know. I think if you live such a random lifestyle, sometimes random ass people get attracted towards you and what you’re doing. You hear some ridiculous shit for sure.

Bobby: Before you guys started the Menzingers you guys were in a lot of different ska bands – like Bob and the Sagets and the Kos Mos. What made you guys decide to go from the ska to the Menzingers which is a pretty different style?

Joe: It was just what we started listening to. Ska for us, in high school especially, was a big thing. There was a really big ska scene in Scranton and the surrounding areas. Not only there by the tri-state area – New York, New Jersey and then even up in New England, Connecticut and Massachusetts and stuff. So it was a big scene for us and there were a lot of bands for us to play with all the time and it was just awesome. But I think we just slowly started listening to different things and it just slowly made its way out.

Tom: And we always played punk. We always played punk real fast. Ska was a different way to do it. You were allowed to do more with it. Put a little rhythm in it. We were all about having some fun. We were young in high school and just wanted to have a great time. I still love ska music. The Specials are one of my favourite bands. I don’t know; if you listen to our music you can definitely hear some dancy stuff in there.

Bobby: Yeah, you can. Especially on A Lesson in the Abuse. You can definitely hear the upstroke.

Joe: I don’t think it was a cut and dry thing. Like ska and then punk. It was a little ska punk at the beginning and then it went more punk with signs of ska. So I think it kind of flipped a little bit. But the rhythms and all that stuff is something that we always have in mind.

Bobby: Now, I read online somewhere that you (Joe) actually can quote Jurassic Park from front to back. [Tom laughs]

Joe: Yeah… I mean… yeah, I don’t know. One of my favourite things to do is just quote Jurassic Park at random times. In whatever situation we’re in, whatever quote I feel is most appropriate. I don’t know – it’s something I do.

Bobby: There’s always a good quote from Jurassic Park you can pull from for whatever situation you’re in.

Joe: Oh yeah, definitely. That’s what I love about it. And I’ve seen that movie since I was seven probably like three hundred times. So I definitely know it.

Bobby: So are you big into movies or just basically Jurassic Park?

Joe: No, that’s it… I mean, I am big into movies but I wouldn’t say I’m a buff or anything. Movies are a big thing for me. I’ve loved movies ever since I was younger. But I wouldn’t say a movie buff.

Bobby: What are some of your favourite ones recently?

Joe: Recently…? I haven’t seen a movie in a while.

Tom: Inception is the shit!

Joe: See, I didn’t see that. But man that’s tough. I haven’t been to the theatres since… actually, I saw Nightmare on Elm Street – the newest one. That was the last movie I saw in theatres in like May. And that was, you know….

Bobby: Nightmare on Elm Street.

Joe: Yeah; what you’d expect from a remake of that movie. But it was alright.

Bobby: I always find it funny that the original one has Johnny Depp as a fifteen year old kid. It’s like “wow, Johnny Depp in a slasher?”

Joe: It’s like Kevin Bacon in the original Friday The 13th. It’s just weird to see these big actors.

Tom: I forgot Kevin Bacon was in that!

Joe: You always assume that actors in those kinds of horror movies you’ll never see again, which normally you don’t.

Bobby: Although the main girl in the new Nightmare on Elm Street is now the main character in the Millennium Trilogy – that Swedish trilogy. The Girl Who Played With Fire, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornest’s Nest and the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Tom: I’ve heard of it, yeah.

Bobby: So she’s playing the lead role in that so that’s going to be a big break out role for her. Should be interesting. Just a few more questions. I just saw on Twitter – I don’t know if it was you guys or Toby who posted the photo of The Chicago Cubs welcoming you.  How cool was that?

Tom: That was awesome!

Joe: Actually, me and Tom weren’t at the game but Eric and Greg went to the game. But yeah, Toby put that up there. They didn’t know. They just saw it so Greg took a picture. It was pretty awesome. We were like walking around Chicago and I saw the picture on my phone through like Twitter or something and I’m like “holy shit, Tom look at this.” It was pretty amazing.

Bobby: Just one last question that I end quite a few interviews with – when you guys were growing up, who’s poster did you have on your wall?

Joe: As far as music posters, I just had show flyers. Tons of show flyers everywhere.

Tom: I had a Korn poster at one point for sure.

Joe: I had a Halloween movie poster – the first one. I remember that one. I had that for a while. A Godfather movie poster. And then yeah, tons of show flyers. That’s what took up my whole wall. Local shows and stuff.

Tom: I had a Green Day poster and that Spanish wanted Ramones poster.

Joe: Oh yeah, I remember that.

Tom: You know what’s funny? I actually had for a long time a huge Canadian flag on my wall.

Bobby: Oh really?

Tom: Yeah. Do you remember that?

Joe: [laughs] Yeah, I forgot about that. And then that cardboard cut out of Darth Vader that you stole.

Tom: Was it Darth Vader or Lord of the Rings?

Joe: Lord of the Rings.

Tom: Okay, okay But yeah, I had this big Canadian flag. For some reason I got this flag somewhere, I don’t know where; I was like “well, this will take up a lot of room. It’s a huge flag.” So I had that.

Joe: What happened to that?

Tom: I don’t know. I think I gave it to Curtis, one of our friends. Did you have the self-portrait hanging up? Had had this awesome charcoal self-portrait.

Joe: I did this charcoal self-portrait that I did in school for this project that we had to do for art class and for some reason it made it from my house to all my friend’s houses, and we used it for a show and hung it behind the drums for some reason. I don’t know. It was just always around.

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

Tom: Listen to Captain, We’re Sinking.

Joe: There you go.