LOWELL: For the fans that don’t know, could you please give us a brief history of your band?

Brent: We started as a band because our friend’s band needed some openers just to play for their show in a construction company’s workshop, [laughs] and we just played three cover songs, and that was our first show ever. Our tour manager was on vocals, and our old vocalist was playing bass, and we just did it for fun. Then we just kept playing together, we started playing more and more, and we eventually started writing songs, and I guess we actually formed in March of 2003 and then recorded a demo in May and just released that by ourselves. We just took that to shows and sold it. That’s pretty much how we got our start, we just all met as friends and decided to play instruments together.

L: From there, as a band how do you guys define success?

JB: (Sarcastic tone) Rich and famous man! Rich and famous! [laughs]
GARRETT: MTV Cribs!
B: Yeah, exactly.
JB: Being able to do the band, as a job, is how I define success. This is my job and I want to be successful at it, and I’m out of school and stuff so I want to be able to finance a life, and do what I enjoy doing.

L: Anyone else want to share some thoughts on that?

B: Being able to just be in the band and pay bills and come home and be able to live, is I guess success as a band.

L: Besides today, what has been your favorite stop on the tour?

Jake: [laughs] Besides today?
L: Aside from Seattle…
J: Probably Corroto, and last night was really nice too.
L: Portland?
J: Yeah, Portland.
B: As a whole we are big fans of the Pacific Northwest, we really like it here.

L: Right on, its good to have you guys back. Which song lyrically or musically evokes the strongest memory for you guys? Not even one of your guys’ songs, but any song.

JB: Lyrically or musically… evokes the strongest what?
L: Memory
JB: [deep thought]
B: [laughs] That’s hard. Life In Your Way actually has really good lyrics on this tour. One of the saddest songs that I have ever heard, is the Bayside song about their drummer dying, I forget what it’s called but its just an acoustic song and it’s one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard in my life. I guess that one really…
JB: I can’t answer that…
J: I mean there are so many songs to me…
JB: There are songs that make me feel a certain way, but to bring up a past memory or something… I don’t really have a lot of music that…
Jake: Are you recording this?
L: Yeah…
J: Oh ok… Yeah I was kind of wondering…
All [laughs]
J: …where the device was!?
L: Our memory is so good!
B: Its like a restaurant when they cant take down your order!
Lowell: [Shows Jake laptop] its all going
J: Oh ok cool… good deal.
L: Should we move on? Sorry about that question.
All: [laughs]

L: What are your immediate music career goals? 1-3 Years

J: I would say as a whole: becoming better with our instruments, becoming better musicians in the future, and to keep writing music.
B: Increasing fan base.
L: Of course.
B: Rather than decreasing fan base… [laughs]
J: Obviously! [laughs] I think that goes for every band.
B: There are so many bands who just hang on, hang on, hang on forever, even though their fan base is just dwindling, and dwindling, and dwindling. [laughs]
L: Just keep the path and keep the faith?
J: Yeah, I would definitely say that.

L: What’s your outlook on the record industry today?

JB: It’s a sleazy biz.
J: Yeah, it’s cutthroat.
L: I couldn’t of said it better myself.
All: [laughs]
JB: It’s a business based on a false trust, even just playing shows, you got to trust the promoter isn’t lying about how many kids are there, or who came through the door, and just stuff like that, that’s just one example but that kind of thing is all over. There is so much from an artist’s perspective, there is so much going on that you can’t control and you just have to trust the people your working with, on all the different levels.
J: Sometimes you can’t even trust it, you just have to go by it, because it’s there and that’s what it is and there is not a way for you to change it. Somebody could be like, “Yeah there’s this.” And then you could be like, “Ok,” and you find out its not there or whatever or that there’s not that many kids, but how are you suppose to change that? You can’t.

L: What is something very little people know about you guys?

ABR: Hmmm…
G: I smoke rocks!
ABR: There’s something you don’t know about me Joe Rogan! [laughs]
D: I would say my age; nobody probably really guesses that I’m 18.
B: He’s young!
D: I’ll be 19 in two weeks.
B: We just stayed with a group of kids who were convinced that he was actually a Hollister model.
D: Oh, Oh yeah, and most kids think I’m a Hollister model. [laughs] But I’m not, let the rumor stop right there! [laughs]
L: This is where we draw the line.
ABR: [laughs]
B: A lot of people always ask me because of that picture we have with the bulldog. Whose bulldog it was, and its none of ours, we found it in a park and asked if we could use it in a picture. [laughs]
J: I love VW, I just got a new car.
Oh did you?
J: That’s something a lot of people don’t know about me…
L: Which one did you get?
J: It’s a 2001 GTI 1.8T; it’s sweet!

L: With that being said, what is one thing people often mistake about August Burns
Red?

G: I would say because of your music, and the fact that you guys don’t have hair down to your ankles.. its like these guys look like they are going play some Blink [182] covers or something.
B: That’s what we wish we were actually playing.
Jake: Yeah, I would say that everybody would expect us to look like these metal dudes.
L: They attach a certain genre to your guy’s image.
J: Yeah
JB: I think that’s also appropriate, because there is a common look for metal bands. But I’ve never dressed like that in my life, and why would I change my style of dress just because what I am doing musically? I don’t really put my fashion with my music.
L: Wise words…
B: Yeah [laughs]. Whatever is comfy! What you feel good in.
L: For example flip-flops.
JB: In the same respect I guess were all sort of dressing similar so I guess maybe there is some sort of style… Lancaster County, that’s how we dress, that’s how all our friends dress [laughs]. We wear flip-flops and regular clothes.
ABR: [laughs]
J: Regular clothes?
B: Everyone else is weird…
L: As oppose to Leftover Crack jackets…
B: Oh yeah, what the heck!
D: [laughs]

L: What has been the worst disaster either on stage, or on the road for you guys?

B: Well this tour [In Your Face], we forgot to lock the luggage compartment on our trailer so it flew open, then we backed up, and when we backed up, it got jammed some how between it and the backdoor and it shattered the window and put a huge dent in our van [laughs].
That would qualify!
J: My first tour with these guys I got horribly sick and our bassist at the time Jordan Tuskett got really sick at the same time, and it was the worst thing I have ever felt in my life because it was my first tour I was away from home, I had never been away from home like this, I just was really cold, I was shaking but I had like a huge fever, and I had to play a show and our bassist played sitting in a chair, and I almost threw up like twice on stage. That whole tour sucked for me, because I never got better, like once you get sick on tour it just seems like you never get better.
B: To add some icing on that cake, there was the Daytona 500 in FL at the same time, so there were no hotels open in the entire state of fl, so we pitched a tent and slept on the side of some back road off a highway, outside, then we also had two friends with us. They were girls and they were extremely upset about the fact that they had to sleep outside in a tent.
L: It builds character.
B: That was just a horrible time.
JB: Ironically Brent pitched a tent of his own inside the tent that night
ALL: [LAUGHS]
B: I was like sweet, girls! Pachoo! [Builds make believe tent]

L: What are your guys biggest pet peeves?

J: I hate when people burp, then blow it all over you. Dustin does that crap to me all the time and it really irritates me… THAT, and when people eat my food. I don’t like it when people eat my food.
G: That you bought for yourself.
J: Yeah, I don’t like that. Just ask me! All you got to do is ask me, you know?
JB: I don’t like a lot of clutter in the van.
J: He hates clutter and he hates..
D: Oh, I hate Jake’s big book bag!
ABR: [laughs]
J: Alright, everybody has laptops in the van, but my book bag is the only one that everyone hates!
B: That’s because it’s huge!
JB: Your book bag is easily twice as big as everyone elses!
B: Whenever he’s like, “Pass it up!” It’s like lifting an 80lb weight across a bunch of seats.
L: A small child?
J: Maybe…
L: [laughs]
B: Next question, this is going to get touching.

L: What have you guys been listening to lately?

JB: The Shins.
B: Explosions in the Sky.
D: Let me check my iTunes…
B: New Found Glory.
D: Oh, New Found Glory.
B: D’s been listening to a lot of NFG
D: The newest NFG, and As Cities Burn.
B: Not much metal right now.
D: No, not much metal right now. Oh, Paramore!
B: I can’t think of a metal band that I’m listening too.
J: I cant really listen to a lot of metal, I listen to metal. I just forget to, a lot of the times.
B: A lot of metal bands don’t have new cd’s right now.
JB: The metals bands that I care about are coming out with stuff this year though.

L: If you had to tour with one band for the rest of your life, what band would
it be, and why? For the rest of your natural born lives…

J: WOW, that’s a…
JB: I would say Between the Buried and Me, because I love them I love them as dudes, and they are my favorite metal band.
B: Them and I love touring with Destroy the Runner, we love those guys and they are awesome to hang out with. We’ve played like 70 shows with them since August…
ABR: [laughs]
J: Yeah, that was ridiculous. I guess it would be BTBAM, only because I know those guys and we have toured with them so I would say that that’s a safe bet. If it was like a band that I really like, and then I realized that they were jerks. That would suck. Like uh, I like Misery Signals you know, if I were to find out that they were jerks, I would hate myself to have to tour with them for the rest of my life. You know, but I know that BTBAM is a safe bet, I know that they are cool dudes.
JB: I would tour with In the Nude…
ABR: [laughs]
JB: That’s our tour manager’s acoustic act… Because we get along, and he writes awesome music…
B: [laughs]
JB: And that’s good enough for the rest of my life.

L: When a fan walks away from your merch table, what is the one that you would like them to take away from the experience that is August Burns Red?

JB: [sarcastically] Sick merch designs!
ABR: [laughs]
D: [mockingly] Cool merch designs!
J: [The Voice of Reason] I want them to think that we played good, to recognize us as a Christian band, and maybe try to take something from that, you know? Maybe go home and read the lyrics, of the cd that they just bought from our merch table. [laughs] I would hope! That’s what I would want.

L: In closing, any last words you have for the folks reading the interview?

B: Check out or new record…
ABR: [laughs]
G: “Read the lyrics!”
J: Yeah, read the lyrics!
G: “By our sweet merch!”
B: We took a lot of time on the lyrics in this one. So actually read them..
JB: And please ask questions… if you got them.
J: Yeah, any questions about the lyrics, please confront us because we would love to talk.
JB: And the lyrics are written in such a way, that they come from a lot of different angles. Sometimes the angle of “Bad Guy,” in the situation, maybe it’s written from his perspective. And I think that there might be some controversy if people cant interpret…
J: It’s pretty in your face! Kind of like this tour [In Your Face Tour], but
whatever!
ABR: [laughs]

L: Maybe do an In Your Face Tour II?

J: [laughs] Maybe, we’ll see.