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An Interview with Every Time I Die guitarist Jordan Buckley
by Brittany Smtih on 2006-02-09 |
So, how are you?
I’m good. I’m good but tired. Oooh. Your purse is blinking. Did you get a text?
um, it’s actually my photography professor wondering why I’m not in class at the moment..
You cut class to be here? That’s pretty rock and roll. What are you taking?
I’m a photography major.
Oh, that’s excellent!
it’s been a very long time since I last saw you guys. I think it was 2002…
With My Chemical Romance?
Yeah.
That was a fun tour. They’re really good guys.
…A lot of things have changed. Did you guys ever expect Hot Damn! to take off as much as it did and receive the acclaim that it did?
Uh…it did? Yeah, I guess. Back when we started touring on it, it seemed like it shouldn’t, you know? I mean, we dropped out of school and quit our jobs to tour full time so it kind of seemed like that every band that was touring hard was getting what they deserved. So I guess that we kind of knew that the formula would work, you know? I mean, it was an okay cd coupled with a shitload of touring equals a good amount of exposure and hopefully we’d be successful at it.. I mean, we worked hard on that record and we were ready for the pay off.
Were you surprised at the difference in reception between Burial Plot Bidding War and Hot Damn!?
Well, that cd is terrible, so we were kind of really glad that the better the cds got, the bigger the crowds got…another logical equation.
Did you guys feel any pressure from Ferret, or from anyone to try to repeat what you did on Hot Damn! with Gutter Phenomenon in terms of “If it’s not broken, don’t try to fix it”?
No. They didn’t pressure us at all because they kind of know that, you know, we’re paying their rent. [laughter> So they really back off and let us do our own thing and they let us do whatever we want to do and they just…buy us dinner or whatever.
I’ve heard that Carl is really amazing and really good with letting his bands have complete creative control during the writing process and when it comes to, well, everything.
Yeah. He is. He’s just really great to work with on a business level, on a creative level, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s a really nice guy, too.
A lot of people, from my understanding, misunderstood the lyrics from the last record. Did that have any effect on how you guys approached the writing for Gutter Phenomenon?
Keith does the lyrics and we do the music. It’s very…it’s a very separate process. We’ll write an entire song without him, without his opinion, without anything and then we’ll just give it to him. He’ll write all the lyrics and all the vocals without our input. You know what I mean? It’s definitely a two step process. It seems to be working, cos we haven’t had a problem with it yet! [laughs>
Has it ever happened the other way around?
It hasn’t. I mean, he never gives us lyrics, and go, like, “ok. Write me a song for these words.” It’s basically, here’s the song, put some vocals to it and some words and whatever else you want to do. I guess that’s just how it is. That’s just how we function. Everybody we’ve recorded with finds that really odd and unhealthy, you know, because, “Well, he needs this to go a little longer or he needs this to go a little shorter.” But that’s not really how we do things. I mean, we have a way that works for us, and that’s how we’re going to keep writing cos it seems to be working.
How has the response been toward the new material between the European crowds and the American shows that you’ve done so far?
it’s been not as [pauses> different, until you get to, like, Germany and, like, the mainland. England is very similar, I find, to America, maybe it’s because they speak the same language? Maybe that’s how we’re all united, I’m guessing. But Germany, Germany is just a bum out. It’s cold, it’s dark, and you wake up and the sun’s already down, and it’s like, you’re kind of over it before it even starts. I don’t know. Maybe we were just there on a bad day, or, um, three.
Funny that you mention that. it seems that everyone that I’ve spoken with thinks that Germany…
The mainland is kind of “you do it because you have to do it” kind of a thing. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s not. You kind of roll the dice and hope that you get lucky.
You guys have had a little bit of a line up change before the release of Gutter Phenomenon…
It seems like we go through bass players regularly. I don’t know why. One was around for two or three years. He was like, I don’t know why we kept him along for so long. I don’t know why we gave him so many chances. We should have kicked him out a lot sooner The guy after him, we kicked him out pretty soon after recording. He did like, a week of touring, and he recorded on the record. He only lasted, like, two months. I guess, by then, kicking out bass players had become so much fun that we kind of started doing it more quickly. I don’t know why that is, though. Maybe we’re just a tough bunch of dudes.
How has Chris contributed to the line-up and the live show in relation to the other guys you’ve had?
[laughter>
Oh dear!
I don’t know. He’s energetic. I guess he’s doing what he needs to do. I don’t really, I kind of get in a daze when I’m on stage. I don’t really notice anything and I don’t really remember what happens. I’m just kind of there when I go on and I’m there when I come off. What happens onstage, I honestly couldn’t tell you.
To me, the new record seems like your most fully realised and most fully you record that you’ve released so far. Was there a conscious shift in your creative process when you were writing the new record between writing riff based music versus writing a more structured, formal type song?
We just had been writing riffs for so long, you know, that it just came naturally. When we were 16 and writing the first EP, it’s like we had ADD and we were doing what we wanted to do. We didn’t really care if, say, a month later we would be sick of playing it. Now, I mean, now we’ve kind of got this plan for the future. Now, we’ve gotten to the point where if we have to play these songs every day for a couple of years, you might as well make it so that you don’t get sick of them. So, we’ll make the riffs good, and if they’re really good, then why not repeat them? [laughter> It’s not that hard to understand, rally. It’s like…it’s like Ac/Dc and Black Sabbath. They’ve been doing it for thirty years now and they’re still able to make heavy music that you hear today and it’s still as good as it was when they first started, as good as it as when you first heard it. It just, it’s just a natural thing to want to do, to write music. You want it to feel good in ten years. We kind of realised that with the spastic, uncontrolled nonsense, I guess you could say, that we were doing, you just kind of get sick of it after a while.. I mean, it just felt natural to us to want to move in that direction.
It seems like you stepped away and made a record that you, as a musician, would want to hear rather than writing for your fans.
Oh, yeah. Totally.
The whole scene you guy are in, whatever scene that might be, seems to have been pushed into the mainstream in a big way over the past couple of years. Do you think that that kind of growth and explosion in popularity is justified, and do you think that it’s going to last for much longer?
Um, yes. Going back to what I just said, bands have been making heavy music for decades and decades now. It’s not a fad. It’s not going to die out. It’s not something that is going to go away. It’s not something that’s going to stop being cool any time soon. So, why not, you know, embrace this whole scene. What else is there? There are just these terrible bands on the radio. That’s had it’s moment. So why not give it to other, to give it to these young bands who work hard and who actually are sincere as opposed to 30 year old dudes who just want to be on the radio and just make a hit. I know, that’s not what we’re into. That’s not what we’re here for.
Where do you see yourselves fitting into the whole grand scheme of things? In the whole “scene”?
I think we fit in by not really fitting in. we’re a nice little outlet, a nice little break in the day. take, for example…
[we are interrupted by a friend of mine>
Reena: Hey! What are you doing?
Jordan: [mock anger> AN INTERVIEW!!! [laughter>
Sorry…Ozzfest. When we were on Ozzfest, we were one of the least heavy bands of the day, but when we go out on Warped this summer, we’re going to be one of the heaviest bands on the day, you know? So, no matter where you put us, we’re not going to blend in at all. We’re going to be remembered when we play, whether it’s because you hated us or whether it’s because of our music or whether we’re “that band” that everyone’s all “what the fuck” over, you know? It’s just so easy to mosh to any band on Ozzfest, but when we got on people were all, “Hey. I don’t really get this, but it’s not like anything else that’s been played today.” No offence to anybody at all, but it’s the truth. It’s a nice thing for us. I like the fact that we can go out with Story of the Year this month and then turn around and do a tour with Bleeding Through next month or Hatebreed or Isis or Warped Tour. Basically, we’re going to be in the same spot on any bill. We’ll be the band that’s really fun to watch, and you know, it’s a good spot to be in.
Very “take us at face value”…
Exactly. You know, I would rather it be that way. I would rather us be a band that you have to get into and win over half the crowd than to be some easy, simple, dumbed down band that everybody loves watching and the next day everyone forgets about, which happens to a lot of bands.
I know you guys have been known as a touring band. Do you think that since you work so hard at touring, that has given you a little bit more freedom to get what you want in the studio?
it’s really two different things, you know, touring and writing. We don’t really mix them at all. It’s basically when we’re on tour, it’s like…TOUR. Then it’s time to write a record. I’ll write riffs myself, and Andy will write riffs himself, but we’ll never write a song on the road. We have a really different mindframe. When you’re on tour, you’re here to be on tour. When you’re writing a record, you’re there to write a record. It doesn’t bleed over at all for us..
A couple of people that I’ve spoken with recently say that they like to write on the road. Kind of…keep the creative momentum going that they seem to generate when they play live, you know?
That’s interesting. I don’t think that I’ve ever tried that.
how’d you end up with Daryl on the new record?
Oh, he’s just a friend of ours. We know him through, um, not music. My brother’s roommate grew up with him. it was totally not musical, totally just friends. He heard our band and he liked it. He was all, “Well, next record. Make sure you give me a call.” Kind of a deal.
Who haven’t you toured with over the years that you’d like to?
Turbonegro. That would be a great show, yeah. Just another we’re so…different. We take our having fun very seriously. We kind of look down on bands that take themselves too seriously. I think that they kind of miss out on what’s going on, and I think that it would be really nice to go out on a tour with that band, because they look like they’re having a lot of fun. A lot of bands, you look at them, and it doesn’t even look like they’re enjoying themselves. I mean, it’s like they’re taking themselves so seriously with their makeup and with this and with that, that it makes me wonder why they’re even doing it [music>. I mean, you get bands like Story of the Year, who are just a bunch of guys who go out there and have fun. I mean, they go out and play random covers because it’s fun and it’s something that they like to do. Basically, any band that’s about the music first and image or whatever second, I think I’d like to tour with.
Which ultimately will bleed over into the recording process, right?
Exactly. I mean, it’s like I said earlier, you’re going to be playing these songs every day, so you might as well enjoy yourself. I mean, we think about that a lot when we write. It’s like, “Ok. So we’re going to play this song for a few days in the studio, then what?” it’s just, not only are we just going to play it for a couple of days, but we’re going to be playing it onstage in this club or in that basement or whatever. It definitely makes a huge impact on our recording.
Favourite gig you’ve seen?
We played this really rad festival called Pukkelpop in Belgium over the summer, and I got to see The Hives live onstage. I mean, I got to stand on the side of the stage when they were playing. That’s another band that looks like they’re fucking having the most fun I have ever seen five dudes have in my entire life. It kind of gave me chills. I felt like I was fifteen watching Converge and going, “This is what I want to do.” And I felt that with those dudes.
Favourite gig that you’ve played?
That I’ve played? You know, they’re all getting really good. Some of these, these weird secondary markets, or whatever, just because, like, the places that you’ve never even heard of end up really surprising you. There was a San Francisco Ozzfest show, um, New Jersey, and what was it? OH! BUFFALO! We just played Buffalo for Christmas for this Toys for Tots gig. That was a great show. We haven’t played Buffalo in over a year, and it’s our home town, and I just remember getting off stage and thinking to myself, “That was fucking fun. That was just so fucking amazing.” It might have sounded like shit, and you know…but WOW. That was amazing.
[ VIEW ALL INTERVIEWS ]
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