Band: The Juliana Theory
Official Site: Click here
Date: March 27, 2004
Conducted by: Chad Malone

Chad Alan: I feel like I'm in a job interview cause I'm like really low.
TMF Chad: (laughs) wanna switch sides?
Chad Alan: nah, I was just jokin'.
TMF Chad: It's probably more comfortable over there anyway.
(we laugh) TMF Chad: Alright, I've done a lot of research on your previous interviews so I tried to come up with questions you haven't been asked before.
Chad Alan: I appreciate that. That's awesome. I like ya already.
TMF Chad: Let's start out with something simple.
Chad Alan: Sure.
TMF Chad: Today's the first day of this tour, right?
Chad Alan: It is!
TMF Chad: You're with Anberlin and Bayside?
Chad Alan: Anberlin, Bayside, and Number One Fan. Bayside's not on the first couple gigs, but they'll be joining us in I think in Chicago, pretty sure.
TMF Chad: Tell us a little bit about this tour. Are you promoting anything, or just hear to rock our socks off?
Chad Alan: Nah, we're just here to have fun. The last tour we did was in October which was a headlining gig, we did that and we got back from that and we really wanted to put out a new record, so we did a lot of writing and we're up to about 24 to 25 songs right now so really, we have an over abundance of songs and we're trying to cut those down to a magic 10 or 12 to put on a record. We're also in between record labels right now... so this tour is also a good opportunity to play to the labels we've been talking to and give us an opportunity to hang out with them and just have fun and play. Cause it's been awhile since we've toured, and you get out of that loop.

TMF Chad: I heard in other interviews that your band wasn't exactly happy with Tooth & Nail or the Epic contracts you guys had. What do you plan on doing with this next album, do you plan on scouting labels or any passion to do an independent release?
Chad Alan: Yeah actually... I think we got accustomed to doing things by ourselves, but as far as contracts go, that wasn't really what we were unhappy with with Epic, I think it was just like on other things and stuff. We had a lot of people on the label that we were working with initially that weren't there anymore, and more I think on that note than anything else. But yeah, that would be ideal if we could actually collaborate with another label and have an imprint and that would be great because when we rehearse we have some recording equipment and we would love to eventually maybe build a studio. Ya know, we have some friends that are engineers and maybe they'd come up and record at our place, in a perfect world that would be a musician's dream so I would like to say that would be awesome. In a perfect world we could have a fall release for our new album. That's what we're really really trying hard to shoot for and certain labels that we're talking to we're trying to get our music out to. We have so many songs, we're actually playing a couple new ones live.
TMF Chad: Yeah, you played a few in the sound check.
Chad Alan: Yeah!
TMF Chad: They sounded really great.
Chad Alan: Awe, thank you. Thank you very much.

TMF Chad: You mentioned that you've been writing things for the new album, and I've heard that you want to do things a little differently this time around.
Chad Alan: I think we always try to.
TMF Chad: What kind of new stuff can we look forward to on the new album?
Chad Alan: Definitely I think overall, just more of an upbeat vibe to this album. I think the last record had a lot of mid-tempo songs so as far as the song structure go, they're going to be a lot more upbeat, more swingin', lyrically a bit lighter, I wouldn't say that they are happy songs, but they are just a little more uplifting and just a bit fresh. I don't know how to explain it, but at least that's what it's been going towards. And ya know, we'll still have a couple sentimental bullshit love songs of course (laughs) but predominantly it's going to be a rockin' album, pretty fast for us at least. It's fun to come back and play those songs, ya know in the beginning we didn't have a lot of fast songs.
TMF Chad: That's cool.
Chad Alan: Yes.

TMF Chad: I know in the beginning you did the Dawson High split, and that you enjoy doing work with other bands. Do you have any plans on doing another split with a band anytime soon?
Chad Alan: Yeah, we were thinking about it. We always wanted to do, the only thing that comes to mind that we thought would be really fun that we talked about, is maybe doing something with Zao. We're really good friends with those guys. We always thought of doing an original song and then maybe covering one of their songs and then vice versa. So I think that would be just awesome. It would just be fun to see what they would do with one of our tunes, and what we would do with one of theirs. It would be fun.
TMF Chad: I heard Dashboard Confessional and REM are doing something like that.
Chad Alan: Yeah, I actually think there was a thing with Dashboard covering was it the... Automatic For The People or one of the albums by REM, and I believe that Michael Stipe was going to sing on one of them on maybe Nightswimming or a track like that I can't remember exactly what it was. That would be interesting to hear.
TMF Chad: Yeah, absolutely. Is there any band in particular that you would like to do a split with other than Zao?
Chad Alan: There's probably a bunch. (laughs) Off hand I can't really think. There are so many bands coming out that we have high hopes for. There's a band from Texas called Recover that we're like really super into and they are going to have some new stuff coming out soon, so I would love to work with them...

TMF Chad: This is kind of a longer question.
Chad Alan: That's okay, I'll give a longer winded answer.
TMF Chad: I recently went through this transition in my life where I shed, I don't want to say meaningless, but... manufactured music. I found myself listening to more bands like The Who and The Beatles and you guys. How do you feel about bands that are making manufactured music merely for the profit?
Chad Alan: I guess I'd need your opinion of manufactured music.
TMF Chad: Bands that don't write their own stuff...
Chad Alan: Like the Kelly Clarkston's of the world...?
TMF Chad: Right...
Chad Alan: Well I can't really say anything about icons ya know, I think that I appreciate them. Ya know, Elvis was an icon, but he was a really great performer and had something special, or Frank Sinatra, he didn't write those songs but they became his own.
(Joshua D. peeks around the corner)
Josh: Lies, he tells all lies.
Chad Alan: (laughs) I do, I'm full of shit. I mean, I think that if someone came along like Elvis or Sinatra, shit man that's awesome. American Idol, ya know... it's entertainment. I guess I don't classify it as a band, as I wouldn't classify Nsync as a band. It's more of entertainment, and for shear you just go to see something like that for fun. It is what it is. So I guess like any genre risks over exposure. Like what happened to Grunge and the stages of it. Everybody's like "Grunge is dead" and they make fun of it and and like how Grunge was in the 90's. Well the 90's are dead. That formula lives on through every fucking song on the radio to this day through Puddle of Mudd and all those bands that try to sound like Eddie Vedder. And even the funny thing is, if you wanna do genres and styles, what we do and have done, and these guys that we're on tour with, that's a style of music that is becoming really popular too, and could suffer the same fate. And it's weird because you are a part of that scene, ya know I grew up listening to The Smashing Pumpkins, but I wasn't on tour with them. So now if you look at it like that, it's really weird, ya know you turn on MTV2 or MTV and way to go, it's your friends on there, and everybody's trying to sound like them, which isn't bad, by any means. In the early days, if you bring it back to The Who, they tried to sound as much like The Beatles as they could, they just tried to one up them, and that's cool, it's influence... I don't know if that answers your question, but it was definitely long winded. (laughs)
TMF Chad: Yeah, I was just looking for the bands that don't put any heart and soul behind their music and just looking for the dollar signs. Chad Alan: Ah, yeah, well I guess my opinion of that would be low. We all do this for us and for fun, and we always try to make a living out of it... and if you can do that, then you win both ways. It's not our motive behind it I suppose or we would be, we wouldn't do it anymore, we would give up after a few years and say screw this.

TMF Chad: What's more important to you, the creative process of writing and recording new material or playing the live shows in front of your fans and watching their reactions?
Chad Alan: Well I can combine those and say my favorite is playing new songs we just recorded and playing them live for the first time. It's fun. I think we try to base... well a lot of times kids aren't going to react. They don't know, and it could be Stairway to Heaven part two and they're just not going to react cause they don't know the songs and... I think it's important to us to play new music live because it gives us a feel for what to put on the record and we've been trying to put up a couple tracks of some of the new songs on the site and we shot a video while we were doing some demos in Nashville, just like in a bar and it was really fun. That's my favorite thing I think, is playing those new songs, and recording I would have to say is really creative. It's tedious, but it's fun.

TMF Chad: Do you like to play smaller venues like this where you get more fan interaction?
Chad Alan: I can absolutely say that, yeah. I mean it's never fun to play in like... a box, I'm not gonna lie, but this kind of venue where there's ventilation and you can move around... if we could play in a venue like this every night, I think you'd have five happy little members of The Juliana Theory. This is perfect, you get four or five hundred kids a night, it's ideal man. It's all we could ever want. Cause like festivals, you get to play with a lot of cool bands, but that sound just gets lost somewhere out there in the air it sounds differently weird. And we've done that, you have to do that it's cool but...
TMF Chad: To get your name out a little more...
Chad Alan: Yeah sure, right on.
TMF Chad: Take the good with the bad... Chad Alan: Yeah, yeah.

TMF Chad: I read that you guys like to stay up on current issues.
Chad Alan: Try, try (laughs) we really try to.
TMF Chad: What current issue has sparked the most concern or interest in you lately?
Chad Alan: I guess since we're getting close to the election time for me personally, I don't want to speak for everybody, I honestly will just say either way, I'm not going to lean anybody to vote democratic or republican, but it's just really important for younger people to get out and vote. I'm not trying to sound like a square or anything, but I think it is... Ya know, I didn't really realize it until I was 19 or 20. When I was 16, I was like "who cares," then you start to realize that it does make a difference. Ya know, we were just talking about this today, like issues, and we were talking about the movie Bowling For Columbine, ya know Michael Moore, and it's a really good film and I think everybody should see it, and
TMF Chad: I agree
Chad Alan: It's definitely... and I'm bias towards films that get behind why our society is the way it is. And why it is so visibly different from everybody else's. It's not that it's right or wrong but it is very different, and why is it like that. I thought there were a lot of media points there, so those issues in particular with the election coming up is very important to the band, and there's some concern there.

TMF Chad: That kind of answers my next question, which is the upcoming election is a huge topic of conversation lately, and I was going to ask what your thoughts and comments were.
Chad Alan: I really... I'm a registered democrat... I'm pulling for Kerry. He seems to be alright so far. I've been trying to watch closely the speeches of all the candidates, and I do like the fact that he was in the war, and I didn't like the fact that Clinton dodged the draft even though he was a democrat. I think a lot is to be said at the time of the debates, thats when I try to watch really closely because it's kinda hard to prepare for questions that are fired at you, and those answers really help sway me in which direction. But right now, I am definitely pulling for Kerry. I don't think Bush is a bad guy, but I definitely think he is greed motivated, and I definitely think he's got bit of a power thirst, to say the least. I'm not one to bash anybody, and I don't wish death on the man or anything like that. I think he made a lot of good decisions, as far as supporting troops and everything, I have a lot of friends over there and I want them to come home. In my opinion of the war, I think that it just seems something like that could have been done so more subtle and it's kind of like making this effort production that could have been a small play. That's why there's special forces and things like that. If you gotta go in and do something like that, you go in and do it then you get hell out of there... you don't leave people... I mean the country is the size of Pennsylvania maybe smaller... and... well that's all I'm going to say about that.

TMF Chad: I know The Juliana Theory doesn't have a spiritual agenda when it comes to how your music affects fans, and there's a misconception of The Juliana Theory being a Christian band because of your time with Tooth & Nail.
Chad Alan: Sure.
TMF Chad: How do you feel about the segregation of bands being classified as "religious" bands or even on the other end of the spectrum of bands being referred to as "satanic" bands?
Chad Alan: (laughs)
TMF Chad: Shouldn't good music, just be considered good music?
Chad Alan: I agree, sure. I think it's easier, ultimately, to just classify a band in a category for people in general. Unless of course that band in particular, if their mission is to be angelical or whatever "We're Christians in a band and we wanna..." ya know that's cool. For me personally, I think it's a matter of like... I think any good band has a degree of spirituality, or should... no matter what it is, whatever drives the motion, some sort of driving force, and that'll come out, and I guess I would definitely subscribe to the theory of 'no genres' there, just it's a lot easier to classify when you break it down.
TMF Chad: Right, right. (coughs)
Chad Alan: Is my smoke bothering you? I'm sorry I'm a chain smoker... it's really bad.
TMF Chad: No, not at all, my friends smoke so it's cool.

TMF Chad: I know The Juliana Theory strives to go a place they haven't been before. Where do you think a place you would have no desire to go, with your music?
Chad Alan: (laughs) I know there's a place I want to go... when I get there I'll call you. (laughs) No, I don't know, we've been... everything we've done is way more than I thought we ever would. Straight up, and we're thankful for that. Ultimately I think we just want to keep making music, making us happy, making our fans happy, and hopefully we'll get together with a label in that too, and we'll just keep doing it. There's really not really a plateau... I still have that dream of playing on Conan O'Brien cause I love him.
TMF Chad: I do too (laughs)
Chad Alan: or Jimmy Kimmel or something, other than little things like that, we just wanna keep putting down cool records and writing cool songs and hopefully other people think they're cool.

TMF Chad: I heard that one of the best things of being in The Juliana Theory is when a fan approaches you and tells you how your music has touched and affected them.
Chad Alan: I think anybody in a band would say that's true. I mean it blows my mind every time.
TMF Chad: Are there any stories off the top of your head that come to mind?
Chad Alan: I think just seeing kids with like tattoos and have gone the length of tattooing their body, or naming a kid after a song or a dog, I think it's really funny. Not funny in a "haha" way, but it's very flattering and if you can touch anybody or help them out of a situation through a song, I mean thats why you start playing music anyway, because you're touched by a song that hit you a certain way, so you're like "I wanna write a song as good as this" or try to, and some kid somewhere some song affects them like the song affected you and I think that's really cool.

TMF Chad: What's the best concert you've been to as a spectator?
Chad Alan: That's a good question. One of my best recent memories a couple years ago at the Radiohead concert at Madison Square Garden of all places, ya know it was big, I was kind of skeptical, but it was one of the greatest shows I've ever saw, and me and Brett were actually there and it was on the Amnesiac tour, and it was an incredible incredible show. Um, I got to see Tommy James & The Shondells once, I really like them that was like oldies fest when I was like... I dunno, young, but that was fun. Always a fan of Tommy James and the psychedelic oldies and to hear Crimson and Clover live, that was badass.

TMF Chad: This is kind of off the topic here, but I know you guys like The Godfather.
Chad Alan: Yeah, yeah sure. Who doesn't?! One and two. (laughs)
TMF Chad: Who do you think would win in a mob war between Veto Corleone and Michael Corleone?
Chad Alan: Wow! What a question! I mean... we're gonna have to go with uh... are we going with young Veto Corleone Godfather II DeNiro Pacino head to head?
TMF Chad: Yup
Chad Alan: I dunno man, I'd have to go with DeNiro on that one. Just because the experience factor, ya know what he went through being exiled from his hometown and catching the boat to New York over, the story's incredible. It's the ultimate revenge when he comes back and takes the name of the town and kills the cop-o. It's unbelievable. I'd have to say DeNiro.
TMF Chad: What about The Corleones vs. The Soprano's?
Chad Alan: Ooo. Ya know I think it's two different kind of genres. I think the Soprano's thrive because of it's tongue and cheek factor, it makes fun of itself. And if you watch that show, you get... to me it's two different ends. It's completely different. I'd have to call it a draw. But I'm a huge fan of the show, most of us are.

(One of the bands starts tuning up their instruments in the background drowning out our voices.)

TMF Chad: If The Juliana Theory was a movie, give us your tagline.
Chad Alan: Excuse me, say that again?
TMF Chad: If The Juliana Theory was a movie, give us your tagline.
Chad Alan: Tagline... wow... that's a great question. That might be the best question anybody has ever asked in an interview, I just wanna say that.
TMF Chad: Why thank you.
Chad Alan: Um wow... on the spot like this... I would say... we're talking like a little trailer clip, just a one line thing? Like maybe a line from our movie if we were one... hmm... I'd say... I'd say... (loud guitar sounds in the background) I'd say "We try real hard to be the good guys, but people've already said good night to the bad."
TMF Chad: That's the best answer anyone has ever given to that question.
Chad Alan: Yeah it took me like 30 seconds to come up with it though (laughs)

TMF Chad: In the liner notes of Understand This Is A Dream, there's a suggestion for listeners to go out and read or swim in the ocean rather than surf the internet or sit in the computer chair all day.
Chad Alan: Yeah we have songs about that later... our song off of the Black Album as we like to call it, Music From Another Room EP, was a song called Breathing By Wires, which was basically about an addiction to the internet, how it's peoples lives are engrossed with that. It's something I've never really dove into really, some of us are completely addicted. I stick to cigarettes (laughs)
TMF Chad: Do you think that kids today are too lazy to enjoy the entertainment that isn't force fed to the like reading a book or enjoying a nice day, like today?
Chad Alan: Yeah, I think it's getting easier for the sun to come out. People would rather spend a day on the internet than go outside. Ya know I try to read a little bit, I'm not a huge scholar by any description of the definition, but I do try to bring a few books here and there, and I try to write a little bit, short stories and whatnot, but all I can say is Yes, I do. It's a case of too much of anything is bad for you. Too much fatty foods, to much this, too much of a good thing is bad. Obviously it can be used for good, and obviously it has been used for bad. It's such a young thing, they are still regulating the laws and figuring it all out... I mean... they'll get it right.

TMF Chad: I think you might have touched down on this in another question, but does The Juliana Theory have any desire to branch out to other areas of the industry like producing or scoring music for motion pictures.
Chad Alan: Oh man, personally I think that would be unbelievable. We've always wanted to do a movie soundtrack, we're all pretty fair movie buffs, we all enjoy good films. We've never really been on a soundtrack to a film, I suppose if it was the right one and we got asked, we'd jump on it. As far as doing a soundtrack for a film, I'd be in all the way, as we all would, as long as we had the time, that would be awesome, but it hasn't happened yet. Going back to that question, it's one of those plataues to move onto for sure.

TMF Chad: My last batch of questions here are word association, where I say a word and you say the first thing that pops into your head.
Chad Alan: Okay!
TMF Chad: I've got five words here, so...
Chad Alan: Sure, shoot.
TMF Chad: "Music"
Chad Alan: Fun.
TMF Chad: "Life"
Chad Alan: Fortunate.
TMF Chad: "Awesome"
Chad Alan: Stellar
TMF Chad: "Horrible"
Chad Alan: Grief
TMF Chad: "Pink Floyd"
Chad Alan: Piper at the Gates of Dawn

TMF Chad: That's all the questions I have here. That about wraps up the interview.
Chad Alan: That was a great interview man, I must say. It makes me happy to do an interview like that... not "How long have you been a band?" maybe if we came out like 6 months ago, but we've been doing this shit for 5 years now (laughs) gimme a break. Great interview, I appreciate it, thank you.