Lowell: So let’s start off with, as cliché as it sounds, what sparked the band name “On the Last Day”?
Geoff: It came from a song we wrote very early in our careers called “The End of the World”. It’s on a couple of demos that are still circulating around out there. But it ended up on this list of names and everyone just kind of really liked it. It’s cool because it’s ambiguous. It’s not necessarily a specific thing; it means a lot of things to a lot of people, because there are a lot of last days, so it can mean many things.

Lowell: With your good friends Aiden being signed to Victory as well, how did that inspire you guys in your own music to see that hit so close to home?
Geoff: Well those guys are some of our best friends and kinda seeing that—
(Drew opens door of the van from outside)
Drew: You guys having a band meeting without me?!
Geoff: No we’re doing an interview…
Drew: Oh cool. SORRY!!! Bye guys.
(Drew leaves)
Geoff: Yeah, having those guys get signed… We were just so stoked for them, it was so awesome, like, from my perspective I never got like “Oh man I want that so bad!” I was just so stoked for them that I didn’t even think about what was going on with us. For us it really put things into perspective, like how anything really is possible and how we can kind of make it wherever we want. You know, seeing your best friends get that was like “Wow!” and the fact that we ended up on the same label as our best friends, dude that’s just perfect, you know? What more can we ask for?
Frank: It really makes you think you can achieve anything. Cause if you set a goal, and then you see somebody that’s like a really good friend of yours achieve that goal, you’re like “Man, if they can do it, anybody can.” (Laughter) Well not necessarily anybody—Anybody can do something they want.
Justin: The sky’s the limit, kids! (Laughter)

Garrett: Alright, so describe the writing process between Justin and Frank.
Frank: Well… That’s such a…
Justin: It’s very organic. Okay, so somebody will bring an ass-load of parts to a song in and we all mold that into an actual song.
Geoff: Well the typical song starts with Justin, who has a book, and he’ll just have tons of sections and parts and he’ll be like “Hey check this out!” and then we’ll all sit there and just tear it down and bring it back up and maybe even build stuff around it or grab stuff from his book. It’s like very… We’ve been told that we write very strangely, obviously, because people who have tried to play with us are just like “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” because normally someone in the band writes all of the songs, whereas with us, it’s always very random. You know, Justin comes up with the part, but all of us really come up with where the song goes.
Justin: Yeah, it’s definitely a group effort to make the song what it is.

Kelly: So obviously you guys have worked really hard to get where you are today. Was there ever a point where you were afraid that all the hard work wouldn’t pay off?
Frank: Well I mean, there’s always self-doubt in anything you do, whether you play sports or play music or you’re a lawyer or anything really, you’ll always have some sort of self-doubt.
Justin: I think we were all a little bit stressed out right before the offer came over.
Frank: Yeah.
Geoff: No... I’m gonna have to disagree with those guys. I’ve kinda always felt that we were going to be somewhere. From the moment, really, I kind of joined this band, I felt that I found the dudes, you know. These are the dudes—
Justin: The DUDES.
Geoff: --I’ve always felt that we were gonna end up somewhere. From the first time we wrote I was like “Man, this band… We have potential, we can make it somewhere, we can really do something.” You know like, there are moments where you’re afraid, or maybe somebody in the band maybe not being as committed or just worrying about something like that but you know that these other four guys are just like in it in the long run. No matter what, it’s all there. So I don’t think I ever really had any doubt that we were going to succeed.
Justin: Okay. Specifically, it was just that we weren’t going to do it right then.
Frank: That was kind of the thing; we really didn’t know how long it was going to take. We were just like “If it takes a week, then it takes a week. If it takes a year, then it takes a year. We were just going to keep doing what we’re doing. We’re going to keep touring, we’re going to keep putting out records, even if we have to do it independently.”
Geoff: It’s just the determination, you know. We rolled our van in November and we just kept going. We just thought that it wasn’t worth it to give up. We didn’t prove anything to any kids… No kids care if we finished out our tour or not. We weren’t drawing anybody at any shows. We had some awful shows after that. It was really proving to ourselves that it doesn’t matter. We can hit any wall and just keep going.
Kelly: Inspiring.
Justin: Yeah we pretty much don’t stop. Ever.
Lowell: Never stop!
Justin: That’s right.
Frank: What else have you got for us?

Garrett: As a band, what defines success for On the Last Day?
Justin: Uh... I don’t know if there’s a limit or a goal exactly...
Frank: We have goals within the band, but with us it’s kind of like as far as music will let us take it we’re gonna go there. As far as we can go with our writing, as far as we can go with our attendance… We’re just going to keep going. The sky is kind of the limit. There’s not going to be a point where we’ll be like “Alright, we have succeeded.” I don’t think you can ever really succeed.
Geoff: Yeah, I remember when one of our goals originally was to play el Corazon. We were like “Oh my God that’s the BEST venue in Seattle.” And that was like… We couldn’t even see beyond that. And then we played it and we were like “Alright, what’s next?” For a long time it was like “Let’s go on tour! We’re not signed, it doesn’t matter, let’s go on tour!” And then we did that and we was like “What’s next?” you know you reach those goals and everything feels like it’s going to be the end, and then it ends up being another stepping stone. It’s really weird, you know, we just got signed to the biggest independent label in the country and now it’s like “Okay, what’s next?” We don’t know necessarily what the next step is, but we know we want to make a great record and that’s kind of the next step for us.
Justin: Yeah, it’s just one thing after the other.

Lowell: So, what’s the significance to the title of your upcoming album, “Meaning in the Static”?
Geoff: The record is called Meaning in the Static. We came up with this concept kind of early on. The record isn’t necessarily a concept album, I wouldn’t say, but there are a lot of concepts that kind of show through in a lot of the songs. In one of them is this idea that there are two sides to everything, and there’s really two things that pull you in your life. There’s the idea that I want to find what I want to do and just do it and look for something in that and then just stay still. Then there’s the other side where there’s so much more to it where it’s like you gotta also remember that life is a journey and you have to experience things. You can’t get caught up in getting to this one place and living in stillness. Static has two meanings. One being an unmoving, and then white noise, basically. So there’s this idea where if you sit there looking for meaning in the static all the time; if you sit there looking for meaning in… not moving, then you’re not gonna find any joy out of life. In the end we’re all the same. If you haven’t experienced everything or lived your life, in the end you’ll end up with nothing.
Justin: Maybe the simple way to say that is that the meaning is the journey itself. It’s living life.
Frank: Or as Drew Deezy would say, “Live your life to the fullest.” Cause that’s what he does.
Justin: I just don’t give a fuck. (Laughter)
Geoff: It’s very complex, but it’s also very simple.
Justin: Yeah
Geoff: For us we’ve been through a lot of things where we could give up or we could keep going and… You gotta find that balance between finding what you love and doing it and just staying there and like, living in that place and looking for the end of that, or just going out and doing something crazy. And I don’t know… That’s basically the concept of the record.
Lowell: Is that similar to the band name On the Last Day? People can just take out of it what they want?
Geoff: Yeah, absolutely. We even went as far as to write a story around it, but that’s only important to us. For other people they can hear what they want and kind of take those things we say and say “Alright, well how does this apply to our life?”

Lowell: So, besides Seattle, where on the road thus far do you feel most at home?
Frank: A couple of places. We’ve played all over the country, but there’s a few places that we play and it’s awesome seeing the affect of going there independently and selling your CDs and your t-shirts and then coming back the next time and then coming back the next time and you see like… Almost this disease growing… Just seeing tons and tons of people coming out to shows…
Justin: We’ve gotta give a shout-out to Cheyenne.
Frank: Cheyenne, Wyoming is really cool. The first couple of tours we did we played a lot of places that people won’t play, that a lot of tourists don’t go through, and that’s where we had some of our best shows. You know, like in Utah, Wyoming…
Justin: Provo…
Frank: (Laughs) Yeah, in Utah. Provo, Utah is awesome. Geoff got shoved through a ceiling in Utah.
Geoff: And electrocuted.
Frank: But yeah, we’ve played some cool shows in Arizona, we’ve played some cool shows in northern California, NOT southern California. I don’t know, what do you guys think?
Geoff: That’s it.
Garrett: Where was it that you guys beat the shit out of those people? (Laughter)
Geoff: That never happened.
Justin: THAT’S A DIRTY LIE!

Kelly: Okay… So what has been your craziest tour experience so far?
Frank: The guy in the closet was one of the craziest.
Garrett: Tell your guy-in-the-closet story.
Aaron: Drew’s the best one at telling it, but since he’s not here… What was his name?
Geoff: Don’t say his name!
Frank: We don’t remember his name; he lived in Bakersfield, California. We stayed with him…
Aaron: He was fuckin’ creepy dude.
Frank: We went to his house; he had like onions and shit everywhere, pictures of Debbie Harry…
Aaron: Okay, he had a studio apartment. He had no bed; he had like a computer in the corner, a mattress on the living room floor. He had literally like 25 onions neatly arranged on his kitchen countertop.
Frank: And he slept in his closet.
Aaron: Little spice dishes or whatever. All he ate were fuckin’ onions and curry. His fridge wasn’t on. I don’t know how long he lived there, like 6 months or 3 months or something, and he hadn’t turned his fridge on at all.
Justin: I mean, you’d think he’d have groceries in the fridge, right?
Frank: I don’t think that’s necessarily the craziest tour story…
Aaron: That was the weirdest place I’ve ever stayed. Drew was the one who discovered his little closet sleeping fetish. But I came in and I was like… Drew was on Myspace, because that’s where he’s ALWAYS at, and I was like “Where is the dude?” and Drew’s like “He’s in there.” And the closet and the bathroom are in like right next to each other and he like points over there and I was like “This guy’s kinda weird...” and I start talking about how he’s just fuckin’ creepin’ me out and the dude’s like IN the fuckin’ closet the whole time and he pokes his little head out and he’s like “Eeee” like a vampire… He was creepy.
Geoff: That’s not really a crazy story though.
Aaron: Yeah I don’t know if that’s the craziest story.
Frank: We got in a fight!
Kelly: Didn’t you just say you didn’t get in a fight?
Justin: That’s a dirty lie!
Geoff: That never happened.
Aaron: I got in a fight with Frank and I wedged him under the seat. (Laughter)
Frank: Nooo that never happened!
Aaron: I think rolling the van…
Geoff: Yeah rolling the van…
Frank: The hotel fire…
Justin: We stayed with a creepy guy. OH WAIT we forgot about all that other stuff that happened to us. (Laughter)
Geoff: We were asleep in a hotel in Montana and I woke up and I looked up at the vent and I was like “Wow, that vent’s glowing. That’s cool, they finally turned on the heat!” Cause it was really cold, and flames started lapping out from there and I’m like “Wow! I didn’t know heaters did that! That’s cool, whatever.” And then smoke starts pouring out of the vent and I’m like “EVERYBODY GET OUTTA HERE!” Apparently that’s like the fifth time that hotel had burned in like 6 months or something like that.
Frank: And I was in my underwear.
Geoff: Yeah and Frank’s dad bought us the hotel room, too. It was the first time we had EVER stayed in a hotel. It was awesome too. Until then.
Frank: Okay, next question. That was pretty sweet. (Laughs)

Lowell: So in the grapevine we’ve heard some news about a possible video…
Geoff: What?! What is this “music video”?!
Justin: Nobody makes music videos!
Geoff: Well, to be honest we haven’t even picked a single off the record so we don’t know what’s gonna happen. There’s no real information.
Frank: We know there are going to be some pretty sweet performance shots. But we don’t know what the concept of the video is gonna be or even what song it’s going to be.
Geoff: Or who’s doing it.
Kelly: Kevin Maistros…
Justin: We legally have not decided anything.
Frank: We know that we’re going to shoot it in July!
Geoff: Yeah there’s really not much information on that.
Justin: It’s all hearsay!

Lowell: Right on. So the show tonight obviously covered a lot broad spectrum on the music scale. Does that keep you guys motivated? Does it keep things fresh to play in front of different crowds?
Geoff: Yeah, that’s why we took this show, really. We’re friends with the guys in Dating Delilah. John actually sang on our record a little bit, he did some backing vocals. And they asked us to play the show and at first it was like “I don’t know…” I mean the Scene Aesthetic is pretty much an acoustic band, but it was really weird to play that show. But then again, there’s always new kids, you know, there’s people that maybe wouldn’t give us a chance based on bands we play with. They’re just like “Oh that band’s heavy I don’t like that stuff.” But we’re also a rock band, so maybe they’ll dig it. It’s cool.
Frank: Some of the better show’s we’ve played… We’ll play with bands like Fall From Grace who are just like, a punk band, or a band like Dating Delilah who are like, an emo band. We play some really good shows with a lot of different kinds of genres. I think it keeps it fun, instead of just playing all hardcore shows, or all punk shows all the time.
Geoff: Well, not to say we’re changing genre, but there are not a ton of bands, especially in this area, they all keep breaking up… Boys Don’t Bleed… Well I guess not really Boys Don’t Bleed, but Up Falls Down, definitely.
Kelly: Or they get signed, like Aiden.
Geoff: Yeah, Aiden was like the best band we could play with.
Kelly: What about From Aphony?
Geoff: From Aphony is awesome! That’s actually a great new band.
Frank: Those kids are really, really talented. They’re really, really awesome. And every time we play with them, they’re really nice. And good.
Kelly: They’re “nice.”
Frank: Well I mean they’re just really nice guys. It’s a pleasure to be around them.
Geoff: We’re trying to get them to work with our producer Steve, but they’re being slow.
Garrett: They better hop on that.
Geoff: They gotta get on that, because Steve doesn’t have time in the winter…
Frank: Anyways…

Garrett: At what point in your life did you decide that music is what you wanted to do? What or when was your turning point?
Frank: Okay, I was 12 or 13 years old, and I played sports. When I was in middle school and when I was in elementary school, I played sports. I didn’t really listen to music too much. And my dad plays bass and guitar and stuff and he was always like “Hey you should learn how to play bass or play the guitar” and I was like “That’s stupid! That’s for rockers. That’s retarded.” Then a good friend of mine played the drums and he told me that I should play the bass or guitar so we could have a band. And I was like “What!? A band?! No no.” And eventually he talked me into it, and I was really really bad at guitar for a long time. I still am. But um, I don’t know, playing music is what I’m good at. That’s the only thing I know how to do, really. And it’s awesome. The first time I ever picked up a guitar and played with another person, even though it sounded horrible, I decided right there that that was what I wanted to do.
Lowell: Any of your guys’ experiences? The brothers?
Frank: Aaron and Justin have some for ya.
Aaron: I started playing bass in 7th or 8th grade. I got my first guitar and I started wanting to play guitar because my brother played guitar and my dad played guitar so I was like “I’ll just do that…” but I actually made the decision to quit everything else 17 or 18. I had left school early to be a mechanic and I was not stoked on that. After about 6 months I was like “Fuck this!” and I had just figured “I want to do it. I might as well.” So I was about 17 I think.
Justin: Um, I always knew that I wanted to do it, but I just never had the means to do it until this band formed. So I’m not sure whether to say that I wanted to do it from the moment I picked up a guitar or from the moment that this band formed and I saw what we could do. But at that point, when we formed, we all pretty much dropped everything to do it. And fuckin’ made it happen.
Geoff: For me, I played in a lot of bands when I was young. It was like “If I get signed, I’ll totally do it!” but it was never really what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a director. I wanted to work in film, so I graduated high school and went to film school. Then after two years of that I got kicked out. At that point I was completely distraught and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. My wife actually sat down with me and asked me what I wanted to do. She said that I should write down a list of things that I love to do, and then take whatever was at the top and make that my job. And the thing that ended up at the top of the list was playing music, and I think I was 20 when I made the decision that this was it. Nothing else in my life matters except getting a career in music. So I moved across the country, found a band, and went for it.

(Long pause)
Kelly: So now we’re just gonna go for it. What video games are you into right now?
Geoff: Me?!
Kelly: Yeah!
Geoff: I just got the expansion for Half-Life 2. I got a new laptop and I actually played that all last night, and finished it. But I’m going to keep playing it, I love Half-Life 2! It’s a great game. I like first-person shooters.
Justin: Grand Theft Auto!
Garrett: What’s your favorite of the series?
Justin: I think I like Grand Theft Auto 3. Vice City is actually what I’m playing right now.
Geoff: Aaron plays Adobe Photoshop.
Aaron: Hell yeah. (Looks at Frank) What’s that?
Frank: Bubbles!