Date of Interview: 08-02-2006 Interview By: Catyn Piver
Catyn: Can you please start off by telling me your name, and what band you are in?
Ben: My name is Ben, and I'm in the band Armor For Sleep.
Catyn: I picked up your album, What To Do When You Are Dead, when it first came out, but a friend of mine told me you recently added a “Guide To Your Afterlife” leaflet. Whose idea was it to add that in there, and what was your intent in doing so?
Ben: That was my idea. I mean, I guess the whole idea behind the record is that it is this big story of this guy's trip after he dies, and the goal of our band is to suck people into our story as much as possible, so it was a tool to kind of bring people in.
Catyn: Would you consider the album to be a concept record?
Ben: Yes, kind of.
Catyn: Armor For Sleep has been on the east coast and in Boston a lot since you've started. What's your favorite city to play in?
Ben: I like Boston a lot, I think pretty much for us the biggest markets are fun, like L.A., Chicago, Dallas, New York and Boston.
Catyn: You decided to jump on Warped Tour, what has it been like on Warped Tour and who have you enjoyed sharing the stage with?
Ben: For us, I know a lot of people are influenced by Joan Jett. For us, our biggest influences are like, Saves The Day and Thursday. You know, those bands actually inspired us to become a band, so sometimes we will play right before, or right after one of them and it’s really an honor for us.
Catyn: Now you’re playing at the same level as these bands that you grew up listening to. Which of these bands influenced your album the most?
Ben: I would say actually that the bands that have the most influence on us are the bands that are our friends, bands our age, because when I hear a friend’s demo or their new songs I get so pumped that I want to beat them, or have a little friendly rivalry. So I think those bands are the biggest influence on me.
Catyn: Do you have any pre-performance rituals here on Warped Tour?
Ben: Rituals? We have our group of friends. I mean, it’s kind of like there are a bunch of different band cliques, almost like being in high school. It’s kind of like band gangs ready to do battle!
Catyn: Do you wish you could have brought any of your friends’ bands that you mentioned previously to be in your ‘gang?’
Ben: Yeah, totally, but it’s really hard. It seems like such an easy concept that if you’re in a touring band to have your friend’s band open up for you, but there are so many politics that go along with it. I would love to tour with a band I met here called Meg And Dia. It’s two sisters playing rad pop songs. I want to help them out. I think that band could be successful. I’d love to take Gym Class Heroes out on tour, Say Anything, Emanuel.
Catyn: Do you keep yourselves amused on tour by watching a lot of TV?
Ben: We bring DVDs. I love Lost.
Catyn: You ever watch 24?
Ben: Um, not really. I think I could get into it though.
Catyn: My goal for the day was to ask every band I interviewed who would win in a fight: Jack Bauer or Captain Jack Sparrow?
Ben: Oh man, that’s a tough one... Well Jack Sparrow can’t really fuck with someone who has a gun right? But I don’t know. I mean, can Jack Bauer really fight? Isn’t he kind of like MacGyver? I can tell you this; I watch a lot of Entourage: Season 2. I really kind of got sucked into The Sopranos. It’s awesome.
Catyn: Sounds like you don’t mind relaxing, but who’s the most high-maintenance member of Armor?
Ben: (Laughs) Nash, our drummer. He’s just a complainer. He’s never comfortable anywhere. He’s always got to have his space, everything has to be nice and neat, but whatever, it’s cool.
Catyn: What can we expect from the new Armor? Similar or different?
Ben: I mean it’s still us, but I think the main difference is the last one was a story; this one is basically me being honest about the world around us, things that I have a problem with. It’s definitely going to be more of a real world album.
Catyn: Have you picked out a single yet? And can you give us any details?
Ben: We have like twenty songs, and we haven’t really decided what’s going where yet. I can let a few out though. There’s one song talking about how everyone thinks they are in their own reality TV show, you know, with the MySpace generation. We have a song about hipsters from New York City and how much they suck. It’s pretty much all over the place.
Catyn: I know I’m jumping a little off topic here, but I remember seeing you guys play last year at the Hatch Shell in Boston for free. Is there a big difference from playing a free show and playing a show like Warped Tour where people may have dropped forty bucks just to come see you?
Ben: Oh wow, I remember that show. Free shows are always kind of weird. I mean you can tell everyone’s really happy they didn’t pay like forty dollars to come see you. That one was weird because Finch was supposed to play and they cancelled.
Catyn: Didn’t the drummer break his hand or something?
Ben: Well, I know the real story. They just didn’t feel like getting on the flight and coming to Boston. We got really pissed at them for that because we wanted to play the show because Finch was playing. They were our friends, and then they cancelled and didn’t even call us. So that was kind of shady of them, but then they broke up right after that.
Catyn: Do bands often do that? Call and cancel shows and make up some excuse, but truly just don’t feel like playing?
Ben: Oh yeah. There’s so much stuff that goes on that would blow your mind. When something happens like “Oh, so-and-so left the band, but we fully support him,” it’s never such a nice story. But that’s just like when you hear a story on the news about a certain country, it’s all PR, you never get the full story. But we have seen a lot of our friends’ bands crash and burn because they didn’t care about their fans. We’re all fans of music and we know how important it is when bands we love take the time to hang out with us. So we try to give back to everyone.
