popwreckoning

The Used is one rock group that always has a full surprises up their sleeves. Check out this interview with lead guitarist, Quinn Allman, where Bethany and Joshua try to uncover some news about the new album, Artwork.

Bethany Smith, PopWreckoning: You guys have a new album coming out soon, so let’s start there. What is the story behind Artwork?
Quinn Allman, The Used: Well, there is a lot to it. It is a product of a time period where we had come to truth with a lot of things that had happened. We got rid of our management and we wanted to start over. We had like 80% of the record written before we went into the studio. We knew what we wanted because we had the songs sort of dictate everything. We wanted a more rock record and just a more collaborative band record. Usually we go in with John [Feldmann] and go right into the studio and work on tinier ideas, so this is more so sort of our record. The timing is right.

BS: Is there sort or an overall lyrical theme behind?
QA: There is. I mean, it has a really, it really touches on like contemplating your hatred for yourself and wanting to die. It has a lot of suicide contemplations. It is pretty much the best lyrics, I feel like, we’ve done.
BS: Is there a light at the end where you find a peace?
QA: Definitely. There is. I think that is part of Bert [McCracken]’s magic. To see that light or silver lining.

BS: What is the significance of the title, Artwork?
QA: It spawned from conversations that we were having about art and work and works of art. Putting your passion and what you love into work, it makes it work. It is just kind of a lyric balance that we found it interesting. In another way, too, Bert had just written “artwork” on a folder that he had sent the artwork in for our last record.
BS: He wrote the lyrics or the word?
QA: The word. And we were like, “That looks fucking cool.” It was just a spontaneous thing, but it was everything.

BS: You’ve done a few songs live off the album, but is there a song in particular that you are excited for people to hear or that you relate to a lot?
QA: Yeah, “Blood on My Hands”, which is the first single, is just brutal. It has everything that the Used is known for, but it is definitely more edgier. It is a kick in the face and all rock. The whole record is just more rock.

BS: I did see you guys were doing a contest with “Blood on My Hands” where you are trying to get people to record it and upload it to YouTube and then I saw you guys do a lot of social media stuff. Do you have a favorite one?
QA: It is really cool because we can just do videos live like that. We use MySpace a lot and talk to kids everywhere. They constantly send us pictures and contact and whatever. Dan [Whitesides] is really the one who stays on top of it the most. He is always on there.

Joshua Hammond, PopWreckoning: Do you guys feel that with the shift in technology that it is way more important in this generation of bands to stay way more connected with your fans than it was previously?
QA: I guess there is an expectation now. I don’t think it, well, it depends on who you are aiming at. I tend to just let the evolution of the commerce, the accessibility, and the average, just the whole machine–I can’t stay caught up with other kids’ lives, let alone my own. I always have total respect for all our fans whenever I meet them or see them. If I don’t keep in contact with them, they’re going to know it isn’t realistic or at some point they’ll realize it isn’t realistic, but we’ll try as much as we can. It does help.
BS: I think it is noticeable that you guys put forth as much of an effort as any band out there to communicate with fans about your records.
QA: Totally. It is really cool because people ask us, people from all over the world, they ask us to play places that we’ve never even heard of and so we know now that there are so many fans out there that we don’t even know and it is really cool.

BS: What is your favorite place to play?
QA: I really like Australia and South America. They’re really interesting because they’re totally different. In Australia, everyone is calm. They’re really cool and nice and the weather is just pleasant. The fans really care about the music and it is like stepping back a decade.

BS: This is your 4th album. What have you learned since recording the other albums?
QA: What have I learned? About life, life has totally sideswiped me. I learned how to deal with a persona or an alter…There was just sort of a shift in my life, I don’t know if just musically, or what, but just my life. I learned that any person should try and learn is just to be honest. We are the tightest friends and we had to realize that we needed to talk rather than sit on our hands and communicate. We learned that any idea can blossom into huge ideas, just with some conversation and honesty. We’ve been very fortunate.

BS: Do you have a release date on the album yet?
QA: It keeps kind of altering. It will be in July, probably late July, maybe early August. Sorry, I don’t know for sure.
BS: That’s fine. So what are with those cuffs in your hands?
QA: Haha, it’s just like a patch. Somebody gave me this. Hand cuffs patch.

JH: Something I wanted to ask about, you guys did an amazing cover of “Under Pressure” by David Bowie in compilation with a few other bands.
QA: My Chemical [Romance].
JH: It was My Chemical; I couldn’t remember, do you know if there are any plans in the future for anything like that? I guess it is kind of like a gift to your fans.
QA: We just recently did cover a song for a Warner compilation.
BS: The Talking Heads.
QA: The Talking Heads.
JH: I missed that.
QA: It is cool you say that though, because we just did it and it turned out awesome.
JH: I’m going to check that out as soon as I get home.
QA: It was just something we put off, put off, and put off, but then we listened to the song once and Dan started playing over the actual track and we just started playing over Dan and started doing everything with Dan and didn’t give a fuck.

BS: This is actually Dan’s first studio album with you guys, right? How was that?
QA: Technically, well, I guess it is his first full studio, but he did play on the last record. It was awesome, amazing. He helped us so much. He co-wrote everything we did on the last record, too. I’ve been playing with him for a long time, just working through the songs. He is an amazing drummer and musician. He keeps it simple. We try to fire off ideas and get through them and find the rhythm that works and locate the parts and move on and work symbiotically. He is a great musician all around and he’ll tell me what to do on the guitar. It is great to have him around and he is just really cool and really rhythmic. He is pretty much 99% always on, even if he makes a mistake.

From here the interview digressed into sports chatter and the discovery of the manager’s Kansas City connection. Be sure to look out for the Used’s new album Artwork, due out late this summer.

The Used: website | myspace

Local Kansas City radio station, 96.5 the Buzz’s annual Buzz Under the Stars concert series promised to be bigger and better than ever for its kickoff performance. In the past, an average of three bands graced the outdoor stage, but this year started off with five bands: The Offspring, Taking Back Sunday, The Used, Alkaline Trio and Anberlin.

City Market is an outdoor venue that can hold nearly 10,000 people. Get there early enough before a show and one can catch it in its true state: not a concert venue, but an actual market complete with vegetables and a steamboat. Okay, so maybe a steamboat isn’t typical of an actual market, but in Kansas City that is one of the highlights of the City Market. It was inside the Steamboat Arabia’s museum that the day really began. In a tiny hallway covered in Buzz banners, a small gathering of radio station winners eagerly awaited two very special acoustic performances.

Three members of Anberlin joined the winners and played through three of their songs. Plugged in the guys are moving around so much, I think they sometimes get a little winded. Here, there was a clarity and a crispness brought to hits like “Feel Good Drag.” I would almost dare to say that they were better acoustic than plugged and hopefully they’ll release an acoustic album in the future.

Anberlin is comprised of some really chill guys and before they left the group, singer Stephen Christian gave the crowd a tip, “Make sure when Taking Back Sunday gets here, you ask Adam [Lazzara] if you can see his bad ass Harry Potter tattoo on his leg,” which of course prompted a chuckle. With that, Anberlin rushed off and Taking Back Sunday replaced them on the stools. TBS obliged a request with MakeDamnSure. While deciding the next song and getting sidetracked by some Vitamin Water, the truth of Lazzara’s tattoo came out. Before lifting his pant leg, Lazzara asked a crowd member to turn off their camera…apparently his love of Harry Potter isn’t quite up to a pride level where he can allow photographic evidence. His bandmates were just as shocked as the crowd. A rather large tattoo of Harry Potter facing some dementors canvassed his leg. After geeking out for a moment and citing the chapter that the tattoo was from, Lazzara quickly redirected the attention back to the music and the band played current single “Sink into Me” acoustic. The song sounded especially fantastic when they reached the latter half with the breathy and rapid “ah” bit. This was also my first and I assume many others’ first experience hearing new guitarist and backing vocalist Matt Fazzi and he sounded incredibly solid on both the old and new song.

From here, it was out to join the masses. Usually it seems like a lot of people wait to show up at a show in time for the headliners, but City Market already had a decent sized crowd in the thousands when Anberlin started the show. Given a short set time, the band ran through several of their songs and took just a few breaks to thank the crowd. Though the sun was still out and many were listening from beer lines, the band was visually entertaining even without the security blanket of a live show. Every member jumped and ran around the stage giving 110% both musically and energy-wise.

Set List:
The Resistance
A Whisper and a Clamor
Breaking
Paperthin Hymn
Godspeed
Feel Good Drag

I hadn’t heard anything from this band in awhile, but the seasoned musicians in Alkaline Trio were the next act and the last time I saw them, they killed it. Considering this was a radio show and they have had plenty of radio hits on the Buzz, I kind of expected them to play something that, oh, I don’t know, had been on the radio? Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that there are bands that shy away from the hits for a reason, but they couldn’t have thrown in at least one? Time to Waste was huge on KC radio. Nonetheless, they sounded fine, but they didn’t offer much in terms of visual entertainment. The live show did little to better what a CD could offer and this sadly ended up being the least memorable set of the evening.

Set List:
Calling All Skeletons
If We Never Go Inside
Burn
I Found Away
2 Lips
The Poison
All on Black
This Could Be Love

I am not going to be able to do The Used justice, since I was off interviewing Anberlin during part of their set, so I didn’t get to see much, but I could hear them. They pleased the crowd with many of their singles: “Take It Away,” “Taste of Ink,” “All That I’ve Got,” “Bird and the Worm,” and a few new songs like “Blood on My Hands.” The crowd started moshing and crowd surfing and all of this must have pleased the band because they decided to play an extra song after what they had announced to be their last song. Not pleased though were the people up front who suggested that a questionable substance was on lead singer Bert McCracken’s shirt.

Following the Used was the band I was most curious to see: Taking Back Sunday. Their new album, New Again, drops in two weeks and I was eager to hear the newest member, Fazzi, in a full band setting. Fazzi did not disappoint and Taking Back Sunday played very cohesively together. My only qualm with this band is that singer, Lazzara, can sometimes get a bit of a raspiness in his voice. Maybe he needs to drink more tea?

The older songs like “Cute Without the ‘E’” of course were crowd favorites and the band even dropped out to let the audience sing. With a toss of his mic high into the rafters and an impressive catch from behind his back, Lazzara jumped back into the song with more vivacity than before. The new songs stood up just as well to the old songs and “Sink into Me” sounded just as good plugged in as it did earlier that day. The climax of this set though was during “A Decade Under the Influence.” Toward the end of the song, Lazzara started to work in the lyrics, “Cause if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it,” and almost as a collective being the audience’s dumbstruck expressions went into a gasp of comprehension before some people started busting out some moves as Beyonce’s popular dance floor hit “Single Ladies” became a part of this Taking Back Sunday classic.

Set List:
Error Operator
Set Phasers to Stun
You’re So Last Summer
New Again
Liar
Cute Without the ‘E’
Sink into Me
Decade Under the Influence
What It Feels Like to Be a Ghost
MakeDamnSure

After Taking Back Sunday, the crowd was well-geared up for headliners The Offspring. While waiting on the band, a weird house mix played over the speakers and the antsy crowd burst into a sing-a-long of “Hey Yeah,” by Outkast. This vocal warm-up proved necessary for the audience because I think even the casual music fan quickly realized that the entire crowd knew far more Offspring songs than they realized. In fact, I don’t think the Offspring played a single song (well, unless you count “Chopsticks”) that hadn’t been played on KC radio at some point or other.

The Offspring’s set was a big dance party. If you couldn’t realize that by watching the audience, it was just as easy to see on stage where the band was joined by several of their friends on the stage. At one point during a sort of intermission, the band’s friends formed a conga line and danced around a juggler and a person on a pogo stick before the band returned for more songs.

Fun is probably the best adjective to describe their set. It was hard not to dance or sing an “uh huh uh huh” during “Pretty Fly for a White Guy.” The band had fun, too, and messed around with the crowd for a bit. “Yes, I am a serious musician,” said lead singer Dexter Holland after a piano was brought out on stage. “I am playing piano on this song. So, fuck you. I am playing piano goddammit,” and after all this convincing the crowd that he was a serious pianist and meant business, Holland began a rousing rendition of…”Chopsticks.” He soon chuckled and the band began the real song, “Gone Away,” a real highlight for the set.

Set List:
Gonna Go Far Kid
Bad Habit
Come Out and Play
Hammer Head
Staring at the Sun
Gone Away
Kristy
Intermission
Americana
All I Want
Pretty Fly
(Can’t Get My) Head Around You
The Kids Aren’t Alright
Want You Bad
Self Esteem

Before the show, I had been questioning the choice of the Offspring as headliners, but now I can see that they deserved the headlining spot and they owned it. In general, this line up was a killer way for a summer concert series to get its start.