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Cartel
by Myra Haq on 2006-12-06 |
Cartel Interview
(Will, Nic, Kevin, Joseph, Jeff)
October 20th, 2006
1. You finished the Warped Tour back in August. How did it go, and would you do it again?
Will: (laughs) No.
Kevin: It was hot, and I got a tan.
Jeff: I got sunburned.
Kevin: It was surprisingly not what we thought it was going to be. But an experience, to say the least.
Will: It was fun overall.
Kevin: It’s just a really ass backwards tour in the middle of summer. It’s just really ridiculous.
Joseph: We learned a lot.
Will: I think it’s an initiation, really. Because like every band who’s gone through it… you will never do anything like that. You get over so much shit on Warped Tour it doesn’t even matter. It’s kind of awesome, but then you never want to go back.
Jeff: We’re going to play Ozzfest next year.
Will: Lollapalooza
Kevin: Lollapolaaa
Jeff: Lollpalooyeah
2. Let’s say next summer you have to choose between headlining an arena show or playing main stage at Warped Tour, what would you do and why?
Will: Arena.
Jeff: Journey did arena shows, okay? They did not do Warped Tour. Journey was awesome.
Myra: I hate arena shows, but I would go for you guys.
Will: You don’t like arena shows? We would have a killer arena show.
Jeff: Skittles and fireworks.
Will: We’d definitely shoot Skittles at the crowd.
Jeff: The awesome throwers.
(lots of laughter and talk of arena plans)
Will: We’d have a lot of awesome throwers. (laughing)
Myra: Would you have a Panic! At The Disco type circus?
Will: Exac-haha! Oohhh.
Jeff: A lot of balloons.
Will: Will Pugh did not laugh about Panic! At The Disco! Will Pugh didn’t say anything about Panic! At The Disco!
Myra: What was up with the comments in Alternative Press? Were your words taken out of context?
Will: Ah, those were funny.
Jeff: They always do!
Will: I threw those mother fuckers under the bus in that interview, man (makes noise). Gotcha!
Kevin: For the record, we like that band. And we like those guys, they’re awesome.
Nic: Yeah, we’re friends with those guys.
Jeff: All that drama was people reading it and interpreting it the wrong way.
Myra: I didn’t read AP as much after that
Jeff: Yeah, nobody does (jokingly).
Myra: Have you noticed that a lot of their album reviews are the exact opposite of your own opinion? Like if an album gets a 1 or a 2 from them, I end up loving it.
Will: Exactly!
Jeff: If they give it a 5, they wear eyeliner.
Will: I’m always looking at the bands that get 5’s and I’m going “that band sucks.” I mean, I’m all for bands doing their thing, but “eh, that band sucks.”
Jeff: It depends on whose doing the review though.
Will: There’s three dudes where I’m like “you know what you’re doing”. Jason Pettigrew, all those guys. He’s not the head dude, the guy who runs it and owns it is Mike Shea. Jason Pettigrew is next to Aaron Burgess.
Myra: What about Norman Wonderly?
Will: Who is Norman Wonderly?
Myra: The editor.
Will: He’s the editor? Oh, we only met Jason, Aaron and Scott when we were there. They all just kind of… hermit. I’m just gonna chill in my office. I’m not coming out. The AP staff.
(Someone starts singing, everyone bursts into laughter)
Will: It’s like Kevin playing drums. When Kevin wore glasses we’d play fast and he’d (imitates Kevin playing drums and pushing his glasses up). It was clockwork, it was on beat.
Jeff: And if you made fun of him from the crowd, he’d throw his drumstick at you.
(Laughter)
Myra: How long did you wear glasses?
Kevin: Till yesterday (smiles).
Joseph: Fifteen years.
Will: Till yesterday (laughing).
3. Last time we talked, you told me that the next single off of Chroma would probably be “Say Anything Else” or “Runaway”. Has anything progressed with that? When will you shoot a video?
Jeff: It’s classified.
Will: It’s classified. Take a guess.
Myra: Say Anything (Else).
Will: Yeah, it’s “Say Anything (Else)”.
Joseph: Oooh, she’s heard the record!
Will: What?
Joseph: She’s heard the record.
Will: I hope she’s heard the record. (Laughing)
Joseph: That’s numero dos for the Spanish speaking girl.
Will: Is it numero or numairo?
Myra: Numairo.
(Everyone practices speaking Spanish and rolling their r’s)
Will: (laughing)
Myra: You don’t roll that R.
Kevin: You roll every R.
4. What does Cartel currently have in the works? Are you writing any new music, working on a new album or planning on touring?
Will: Everything! (Laughing) Children.
Kevin: A lot.
Jeff: It’s what we do.
Will: We’re headlining February-May- March. We’re just gonna block it off. I mean February to March. With Cobra Starship and Boys Like Girls, and we’re going to be splitting the opening spot with Permanent Me, Quietdrive and New Atlantic, like two weeks each.
Jeff: Driveshaft? The Lost band?
Will: That was the Lost band. Sorry. They’re communicating amongst themselves.
Jeff: You better bring Kate.
Will: We’re writing some new songs and can hopefully get into the studio in June or so, regardless of whatever Chroma’s doing. We want to get something out next year. Even if it’s like a digital EP or something. Something the old peeps can get into. Something new.
5. Chroma set the bar for pop rock really high. How do you plan to raise the bar once again with your next album?
Will: Cool.
Band: Wow. She likes our record.
Will: Push ups. Push ups on each others back. So that eventually we start raising the bar. So we’re going to lift each other.
Jeff: What is that called?
Will: Limbo.
Kevin: You want to limbo the bar?
Will: We’re going to opposite limbo.
Joseph: We’re going to limbo.
Will: I don’t know. I mean with Chroma, we didn’t really have a lot of time. It wasn’t as calculated as the next record will be. I mean, it will continue to be more and more, as we get more comfortable with our sound and knowing how we do things even better, it will become easier. We will write more songs going into the studio. It always, every studio venture – you learn so much more in between. I think just the time between Chroma and the next record will give us a lot of room to take it to the next step. And do a lot of this (hand gestures) in an interview where it’s taped. Audio, not video. You know, we’ll just do this.
(Random laughing).
Myra: This would have made a good video interview.
Will: Yeah (laughing)
Jeff: I’d be in my bunk right now.
6. You’re touring with Boys Like Girls and Cobra Starship next year, what will that tour be like?
Will: Probably something like this (The Roseland Theater in Portland). That’s what we’ve been looking at. We’ve been planning on doing a headlining tour for a couple of months. Our booking agent has been looking at getting holds and stuff so we’ve been able to see the general routing and look at clubs and stuff. Umm, yeah, probably thousand capacity venues on average across the country. Some smaller, some bigger. You know how that rolls.
7. Your DVD release was delayed from Christmas to Spring 2007. Are you delaying it to add features and can you tell us what will be on it? Will it include the video for “Honestly”?
Will: I don’t know, actually. I don’t know what the full cut is. But the whole idea was basically that they came and filmed one whole day on our headlining tour at The Masquerade and they came at like 9 in the morning and filmed the entire day with us and did interviews and talked about being in a band and that sort of thing. We went off with… Joseph went record shopping and Kevin went…. Where’d you go Kevin? Did you just drive around?
Kevin: Guitar Center. They wouldn’t let us bring cameras inside.
Will: Guitar Center.
Kevin: We couldn’t get any footage. Mine looks stupid.
Jeff: Mine looks amazing.
Will: Yours was awesome.
Joseph: I went to El Mir, the Mexican restaurant and had margaritas with the crew. Because of the people talking and the cars driving by, all the audio we caught in there, we couldn’t use.
Will: That sucks.
Joseph: Well, not really. That’s a lot of dumb shit in there.
Will: We’ve seen the final-ish cut and we had all the audio in there. It’s pretty cool. What is it, about an hour and a half?
Joseph: I think it’s an hour and a half.
Will: It doesn’t have every song from the set, but I think it has like ten songs on it.
Joseph: It’s got good cuts from it.
Will: It’s got good cuts from it, definitely. All the classics. I think it shows part of our bands which is just really down to earth dudes, which is what we are. We don’t give a shit about anything, man.
Kevin: It shows us in our element.
Will: Exactly.
Kevin: Being at home, chilling out. Knowing all the shit that we know. Going on tour turf.
Myra: Did you go to Taco Bell?
Will: Did we go to Taco Bell? No we didn’t go to Taco Bell.
Joseph: I went to the record store more.
Kevin: We should have gone to Waffle House, goddamnit.
Will: Next time, we’ll do that.
Myra: What’s Waffle House?
Will (yelling) WHAT?
Myra: (hiding behind a friend) We don’t have one here.
Will: Okay, that makes sense (laughing).
Jeff: We live across the street from the very first one.
Will: Have you ever heard of Huddle House? Or IHOP or Denny’s? Like that sort of 24 hour breakfast all the time, kind of thing.
Kevin: Only the best one.
Will: But this one’s like amazing. Like short cook, it actually comes out fast and it’s not overpriced like Denny’s.
Jeff: It’s the dirtiest waffle place you’ll ever see.
Band: Yeah.
Jeff: It’s awesome. It’s so fucking cool. It’s greasy.
Will: They’re everywhere. 24 hours a day, 365 days a week. They never close.
Jeff: And the jukebox always has (unintelligible.)
Will: It’s not a west coast thing, that’s why you’ve never heard of it. It’s more like if the country were in a… you know where Florida is. It’s more like right here.
Jeff: It’s Southern.
Will: But it’s awesome. Like, you can go in there and spend six bucks, stuff yourself and walk out.
Jeff: Hash browns. Smothered covered.
Will: Hash browns is their thing. You know what hash browns are, right? (smiles).
Myra: Yeah…
Will: Okay, good. Picture this. Hash browns scattered over a hibachi grill and liquid butter poured on to cover it- to cook it. It’s brilliant. Umm, then they scatter it and put cheese on top of it.
Joseph: Myra’s cupcakes win, they were delicious.
Will: Chili, onions, tomatoes, jalapenos.
Kevin: Jalapenos on that.
Will: The works is topped, which is chilli, diced, which is tomatoes.
Jeff: Capped with some mushrooms.
Will: Capped with some mushrooms. Cubed which is ham. Onions, which is smothered. Covered is cheese. Peppered is jalapenos.
Jeff: Jalapenos, yeah.
Will: And…. Is there anything else?
Kevin: Isn’t there one for peppers?
Will: Yeah, peppered.
Joseph: Peppers is jalapenos.
Will: You can do all of this stuff on your hash browns and then get food besides that.
Joseph: This is going to be an amazing interview.
Will: (yelling) PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WAFFLE HOUSE. PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WAFFLE HOUSE.
Jeff: The very first one….
Will: The very first Waffle House
Kevin: Is like a block from where everybody lives.
Will: A stones throw, if you will. A stoned walk if you will.
Jeff: A chip.
Joseph: A nine wedge.
(Everyone starts laughing)
Will: A nine wedge. A nine iron. It’s an iron dude.
Jeff: Dumbass.
Kevin: Pitching wedge.
Will: You know they used to call every club a different name? Like a seven iron was called a niblick. A fucking stick dude.
Joseph: It’s some Scottish bullshit. Is anybody Scottish? My bad.
Katie: I am.
Will: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. We’re being nuts.
8. Is there anything that you would like to change about the current music scene?
Will: Is there anything we want to change about the current music scene? No.
Kevin: As long as we’re in it.
Will: As long as we’re in it, it’s fine. As long things are going exactly how they are for our band, I don’t give a shit what else happens. I don’t care.
But you’re not interviewing me as a music fan.
Kevin: Yeah.
Joseph: All the other bands can keep doing their thing, that’s cool.
Will: Nothing we admit to.
Kevin: I can only control, and can barely control this.
Jeff: It’s all that we can do.
Joseph: We lead my example.
Kevin: I wish everyone was like “hey, chill the fuck out”.
Will: As a music fan, yeah. But you’re not interviewing me as a music fan (laughs).
Joseph: You can’t bring back The Beatles; you can’t bring back Led Zeppelin.
Will: So you might as well not record anything else. Just kidding.
9. Who do you think the Beatles of this generation will be?
Will: Ooh.
Joseph: Don’t answer that question.
Kevin: You’ll never know.
Joseph: You’ll never know until the band that is the next Beatles is done. So you can’t tell.
Myra: How do you feel about people calling Brand New the next Nirvana?
Joseph: I feel like… who said this?
Will: I feel like they should get back to work.
Joseph: Does anyone here feel that?
Nic: Are they from Seattle?
Joseph: Do people really think that Brand New is the next Nirvana? For real?
Myra: Yeah, I keep seeing kids saying that on absolutepunk.net.
Will: Brand New is Brand Done (jokingly).
Joseph: Nirvana, when they were around, they were actually around and Brand New was where?
Kevin: I don’t know, I have no idea. Where are they? I don’t know, but they had that one record. And then I don’t know what happened.
Joseph: Nirvana had a bunch of records, and they were really good.
Myra: Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love actually met for the first time at the Satyricon, which is across the street from where we are now.
Will: Really?
Joseph: Really? For the record, Nirvana’s awesome.
Nic: Where are we?
Joseph: We’re in Portland. For the record, Nirvana is awesome and Hole is not.
Will: (laughing) They are not. They’re not the next Nirvana.
Joseph: You didn’t know who Courtney Love was?
Myra: No, I know who she is. I just wonder who likes her.
Joseph: Yeah.
Will: Joseph does.
Joseph: (gasping) No.
Will: You used to?
Joseph: (gasping) No!
Will: You never did?
Joseph: Well, she killed Kurt Cobain.
Will: How did we get here? We were just talking about the Beatles.
Jeff: Cosign of the tangent.
Myra: Please don’t use math words.
Will: Ahh, I’m sorry. Cosign of tangent, isn’t that…
Myra: I wouldn’t know.
Jeff: I don’t know.
Katie: So Cah Toa.
Will: Fuck trigonometry, let’s go! We’re not building bridges, we’re writing songs.
10. Let’s say many years from now Cartel is playing their last show and coming to an end. What would be the last song on your set list?
Jeff: Eye of The Tiger
Will: You play it yourself.
Jeff: And I’ll sing it too. I’ll box the shit out of that song.
Kevin: That’s a hard question.
Will: I guess if we to give a good answer, probably “Q” and “A”. And we’d play it for 45 minutes.
Joseph: We would play it twice through.
Will: Actually, we would just keep playing till people started to leave. Until people are saying “I gotta – I gotta go, I got shit to do.” (Laughing) You know.
Jeff: Yeah, like fuck these guys. They look like they are ready to fall over anyways, I’m out of here.
10. Are you guys looking forward to Halloween? Are you going to dress up or pull pranks?
Joseph: Yes. Yes.
Jeff: We’re going to pull pranks.
Will: We haven’t really figured out exactly what we’re going to do.
Jeff: We’re going to dress up like New Found Glory. We’re going to play every one of their singles.
Will: We should really cover “Better Off Dead”. We never did it! We had a chance! We never did it!
Kevin: Exactly! Let’s just do it!
Jeff: We should cover “Catalyst”. That’s the first song they play, and we should do it last. So we’re loading out, and they get onstage and are like “What the shit? What the fuck do we open with?” They got us! They got us!
Nic: That would actually be really funny.
Kevin: That would be funny, wouldn’t it?
Will: What if we went out and just played their first song?
Joseph: (singing) My name is a disappointment. Let’s play a song that they don’t play live, that we want them to play live.
Myra: What song is that?
Joseph: It’s on “Nothing Gold Can Stay”. It’s probably track three or something like that.
Will: (singing in a high pitched voice) Please don’t change.
Joseph: (starts drumming and singing) I know I’ve made mistakes.
Will: (still singing) ….are getting old and so am I, please don’t change.
Joseph: Sorry.
Will: Sorry.
Jeff: (singing) Please don’t change
Will: So we kind of like that song.
(band continues to sing)
Myra: If you played a whole set as New Found Glory, then what would they do? Come out and play Cartel songs?
Will: We should. That’s the ultimate topper.
Joseph: They do at sound check. They played a Cartel song.
Jeff: They played a Cartel song the other night.
Kevin: Oh, what the hell, lets keep playing.
Jeff: They’re like; we’re cutting the power you fuck asses. I’m not finished.
Will: (laughing) I’ll play it twice.
Jeff: Yeah, why not? I’ll play “Catalyst” seven times!
Will: What if we played the same song seven times?
Jeff: “Catalyst”! (singing)
Will: Sorry (laughing).
Joseph: This interview is going to be awesome.
Will: You’re going to have a lot of shit to dig through. Its like: this is the five minute interlude where they talk about fucking Nirvana.
Joseph: My bad.
11. If you could make everyone in the world read a few books, what would they be, and why?
Will: Alright, everyone’s going to pick one book.
Joseph: Alright, everyone pick one book. I gotta think of a good book.
Myra: Last person I interviewed told me to read the Bible.
Will: The Bible? What a stock answer.
Joseph: Who said the Bible?
Will: Not us.
Joseph: That scared the hell out of me.
Jeff: Carl Sagan.
Kevin: Catcher In The Rye. That’s my choice.
Will: You got that?
Myra: Yeah.
Will: Now remember.
Kevin: I gotta pick a serious book? How about Harry Potter 3?
Myra: Is that the Prisoner of Azkaban?
Will: Yeah, that’s a good one.
Myra: I liked the Goblet of Fire.
Will: That’s a good one too.
Nic: That is a book of knowledge right there. No really, there is so much shit in there.
Will: I’m going to say Foucalt’s Pendulum by Humberto Eco. Only because – I don’t read a lot. Only because it’s the only book I’ve ever read where I seriously had to have a dictionary right next to me, like an encyclopedia and I had to look shit up like “what the fuck is that?” Like all the history stuff they go through? It’s crazy. Its fiction, but it’s cool.
Myra: Have you ever read The Hiram Key?
Will: Yeah, I read all that shit.
Myra: What is it about? I haven’t started it yet.
Will: You haven’t started it yet?
Jeff: Dr. Seuss is awesome.
Veronica: I called it.
Will: Wacky Wednesday is good. What’s that other one?
Jeff: You called Dr. Seuss?
Will: Oh The Places You Will Go.
Joseph: What was that one where they had the battle going and they kept throwing things over?
Will: South Park, Season 6, Disc 2, Episode 1. (starts talking in a South Park voice, a dead on impersonation of Stan)
Joseph: Dr. Seuss and Jim Henson are geniuses, just to let you guys know. Labyrinth.
Will: Labyrinth was the best movie.
12. If you could be anyone for a day, dead or alive, who would you be and why?
Joseph: John Lennon. No, I take that back.
Myra: Tiger Woods.
Will: (laughing) I’d be fucking Tiger Woods.
Jeff: Wait a minute. Did you say that or did someone say that for you?
Will: She did.
Jeff: Okay.
Will: I’d be Tiger Woods, I’d hit that ball a mile.
Myra: We’ve talked golf before.
Jeff: Oh okay, that makes sense.
Joseph: Dead or alive, you said right?
Myra: Yes. I’d want to be the President.
Will: (makes noise) Which one?
Kevin: Like yourself?
Myra: The current president.
Will: You’d want to be Bush for the day?
Myra: Just for a day, I want to know what goes on inside his head
Joseph: Just close your eyes. That’s what goes on inside his head.
Myra: I want to know if he’s as stupid as we think he is. I really want to know why we’re still in Iraq. What’s going on, what do we not know?
Jeff: Just ram your head into a wall, like five times. Really fucking hard. That’s what it’s like.
Will: (bursts into laughter)
Joseph: Yeah, I agree with you, but I don’t want to get into that.
Will: (laughing) Too long. You don’t want to get started with that. You don’t have enough tape to hear that. Dead or alive Nic?
Nic: Uhh.
Joseph: Alive.
Will: (laughing) Such a witty mother fucker.
Joseph: You’re an ass. The way you questioned it was like what would you rather pick, dead or alive.
Will: Dead or alive. Are you going to be Carl Sagan?
Jeff: No. What question are we on? Are we still on this question? I thought this was a separate question.
Kevin: What the hell? I knew this.
Myra: Do you want to be Harry Potter?
Kevin: Sure, why not? That would be cool.
Will: What about Dumbledore?
Joseph: I really want to learn how to levitate.
(random Harry Potter talk)
Nic: Can it be a dog or anything like that? I want to be the big ass flying dog in Never Ending Story.
Joseph: (imitates the dog)
Will: Atreyu!
Jeff: I’d be Dave Thomas. All the JBC’s I want!
Myra: Didn’t he die?
Will: He did die. He died of a goddamn heart attack. Square burgers, who would have though?
Joseph: Square burgers are cool.
Will: It’s cool to be square.
Myra: White Castle?
Will: Dude, White Castle is awesome. It’s disgusting though.
Kevin: I haven’t had White Castle in forever. Those tiny little squares. Cute little burgers.
Myra: Do they have White Castle on the West Coast?
Joseph: No, we have Hardy’s.
Nic: I don’t think they have it on the West Coast.
Joseph: Oh I though she was talking about the South. I don’t think they have them in the South either. They have Crystal’s.
Will: Crystal’s is better than White Castle.
Kevin: Yes it is.
Joseph: I agree. The last time I had Crystal’s, I was in preschool.
Kevin: I eat it because I’m completely baked.
Will: We are stupid.
Joseph: Yeah, I’m sorry.
13. If you met the genie from Aladdin and he offered to grant you three wishes, what would they be?
Will: Alright guys, we got to get one more person.
Joseph: Rated G, guys.
Kevin: I want to be able to fly, I want a Ferrari, I want to get… supermodel of some sort.
Will: I want to never hit a bad golf shot again, ever.
Myra: You want to be Tiger Woods.
Will: Yeah, but Tiger Woods hits a bad shot once in awhile.
Kevin: You want Tiger Woods skill, that’s all you gotta ask for.
Will: I want Tiger Woods skill.
Myra: Don’t you want more than Tiger Woods skill?
Will: No, no no.
Myra: Don’t you want to be better than him?
Will: No.
Joseph: That’s not possible.
Will: There’s no such thing. It’s like infinity; the human mind can’t fathom it.
Kevin: The human mind can’t fathom it.
(Everyone laughs)
Joseph: You guys tell me to shut up.
Kevin: Shut up, Will.
Will: I don’t know, I’d use all my three on that. I’d like to be Forrest Gump.
Nic: Yeah!
Joseph: I would like to reunite Led Zeppelin.
Will: Oooh. Raise them from the dead.
Joseph: I’d like to raise John Bonham from the dead, buy him a drink and have him play a show.
Will: I guess John Paul Jones is dead.
Joseph: He’s not dead.
Will: He’s not dead? I thought he died.
Joseph: No, he just hates you.
Will: I thought he died last year.
Jeff: No, he played bass on the last Foo Fighters record.
Joseph: Yeah.
Will: Seriously, I thought he was dead.
Joseph: He’s alive?
Will: Seriously? I thought he died last year.
Joseph: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant just don’t talk to him.
Will: I thought he died last year.
Jeff: Is he the bass player?
Joseph: He’s the bass player, but the other guys have all the rights to all the songs and they sold them to Chevrolet so I heard them in a commercial. They don’t give him credit for anything.
Will: Who cares, you were in Led FUCKING Zeppelin. If I was the bass player for Led Zeppelin, that’s all you’ve got to say. That’s all you have to say for the rest of your live.
Joseph: John Paul Jones…..
Jeff: Wait, who are you? What’s your name? You played what for who?
Will: Zeppelin. Are you kidding me? Ouch. I’m sorry.
14. Where do you want to take Cartel in the future?
Jeff: The moon.
Will: The moon! Space.
Joseph: Space.
Will: I think headlining arenas, that kind of stuff. Just as big as possible. I mean, as big as possible. U2 looking small, kind of big. That sound good?
Joseph: The Edge.
Will: The Edge, but done right. None of that political bullshit he does. No Nobel Peace Prizes in here. Just straight rock.
Joseph: Straight rock.
Myra: So we shouldn’t expect any of you guys to ever run for office?
Kevin: Nope.
Will: No way. We are not that motivated for anything but music. No way am I getting off my ass. Washington, Congress? Fuck Congress.
Thanks to Michael Moses at Sony BMG for setting this interview up, Chuck for making sure it happened and most of all to Cartel for the entertaining evening and their time.
Questions, comments and feedback to myra@mammothpress.com
[ VIEW ALL INTERVIEWS ]
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