Band: Strung Out Member: Jake Kiley Label: Fat Wreck Chords Location: Red's - Edmonton, Alberta Date: Wesneday, September 21st 2005 Interviewer: Bobby Gorman

Editor's Note: As Strung Out passed through Edmonton with Comeback Kid, Bane and The Reason, Jake Kaley was nice enough to let me ask him a few questions about the band. Thanks a lot to Jake for doing it and to Rob for setting it all up.

Please note: All photos were taken, without permission, from the band's site and are copyright from their rightful owners.

Bobby: Starting with the basic stuff, you guys just started your Canadian tour two nights ago in Vancouver. Are you excited to see how it goes?

Jake: Yeah, yeah, I mean every time we come up here to Canada it’s been great shows, you know? It’s pretty much been one of our best runs consistently and so far its been awesome. Like Vancouver was awesome the other night and I don’t know, I mean, I’m definitely expecting tonight to be really good, and Calgary tomorrow. So yeah man, it’s gonna be really good times.

Bobby: You guys are on tour with Comeback Kid, Bane and The Reason, all slightly harder bands then you guys. Is it weird playing with such a different genre?

Jake: I think you have to play with different genres, I think it’s the only way you can really learn more about music and learn about playing and playing against other bands. Otherwise if you just go out with the same types of bands that sound exactly like you or like themselves, sound all the same, then you’re just like kind of boring the audience, I think. It’s more fun to challenge them with different groups and that’s what we’ve always done. We’ve taken Snapcase, Poison The Well, and Eighteen Visions up here, Straight Face. We’ve always toured with harder bands and its fun, we enjoy it.

Bobby: Is it weird seeing your fans reaction to them and their fans reaction to you guys?

Jake: It’s usually always positive. Sometimes there’s people just standing there just checking it out because it might be there first time seeing the band. But so far it’s always been really accepting and I think the kids up here are great about that. They’ve always been really open to whatever bands we’ve taken out.

Bobby: Strung Out was one of the very first bands ever signed to Fat Wreck Chords back in the day. Is it ever weird looking back at the label and seeing how much it's grown as a label?

Jake: Yeah, it’s cool to see how anything progresses and grows through time. We’ve been doing it for about twelve years now and everything in the whole music scene has changed and we’re different people than we were ten years ago. So yeah, it’s good to see that the label… Like you know, we’re still good friends with everyone there. We still have a good working relationship with them and its awesome, and to watch them grow and be a part of that is totally awesome and we’re proud of that.

Bobby: Out of all the releases that Fat Wreck Chords have released over the years, what would you say are some of your favourite ones? Ones that really stick out in your mind?

Tim: Early Lagwagon stuff is really influential on me. Propaghandi as well. The first Guns and Wankers record was a great one that came out like ten years ago. Face To Face, I know they re-released the original Face To Face. Yeah, there’s just all kinds of classic stuff. You know, so it’s really an honour to be a part of the label. And today, they just signed Strike Anywhere who are one of my favourite bands and they have a bunch of cool new stuff coming out. So it’s good you know, it’s good to see them still passionate about finding new music.

Bobby: Yeah, like they’re releasing a new Propaghandi in a few months, so I’m excited to see how that turns out.

Jake: Oh, for sure, that’ll be great.

Bobby: I don’t know if you’ll be able to help, but I’ve always wondered something about Fat Mike. Why is he called Fat Mike? Because he was called Fat Mike before he was actually fat.

Jake: Right, well, he’s never been fat from what I’ve seen. Just nicknames. He got that name way before I met him, so I can’t really answer

Bobby: In 2003, you guys released your Live In A Dive album and it was the fourth release in the Fat Wreck series, and since there’s not many albums in the series its pretty cool to be one of the few bands on it. Why do you think Fat Mike chose you guys to be in the series?

Jake: I think he’s offered that to every band to do it and some bands have been ready to do it and other bands are still waiting to do theirs. We felt we were ready to do ours when we did it and that’s why we were able to make ours a couple years back. We had enough albums at that point. You have to have about three or four full lengths to really put out a really good live record I think. To play a mixed up set and make it different and play the songs maybe a little bit differently than you recorded them. Things like that give people a little bit more incentive to want to hear the live record. We tried to make ours feel like you were really at the show. Not really overproduced or anything, just raw.

Bobby: Yeah, it turned out really well.

Jake: Yeah, thank you. I’m pretty happy with it too. But yeah, I think every band on Fat has that option to make a live record.

Bobby: You guys recorded it over two nights in Anaheim’s Chain Reaction. Why did you record it over two nights instead of just the one?

Jake: Well, you just have more to work with. It was actually four shows that we recorded in two days. So we had four shows worth of material to put together and shit to cut between. You know, we just wanted to have the most choices and options we could have. And we played a lot of songs. We didn’t know which songs we wanted to use, so we recorded almost completely different set lists each night. So you know, it was just good to have more options to choose from.

Bobby: Like you just said you had a whole bunch of songs to choose from, how did you pick which ones you wanted to put on it?

Jake: Partially just ones we felt turned out better. Partially requests from our fans through our web site. Partially just word of mouth, just songs we thought turned out and captured the live show the best and the songs we felt just needed to be on it. Its almost like a greatest hits in some ways you know? Like you can put all your best songs together on one CD and that was really cool, for us to be able to take our favourite songs and put it together

Bobby: You guys were also recently on the Fearless Records compilation Punk Goes Acoustic with “Velvet Alley”. Why did you decide to do that compilation?

Jake: We’ve worked with Fearless throughout our whole career. Basically, we put out our first record and then we put out a 7-inch on Fearless right after that. We’ve just always had a really good working relationship with them. We’ve done a few of their comps. The Punk Goes Metal comp, the Punk Goes New Wave comp, so the acoustic comp was another thing. It was different, it was fun, we had never done an acoustic song so it was the perfect opportunity for us to do that; and “Velvet Alley” was just one that seemed to translate pretty well into the acoustic format.

Bobby: Your singer, Jason, he designs all the artwork and all the band merchandise. What’s it like having him do the artwork instead of hiring out?

Jake: I think it’s ideal to have it all done within the band. To have the vision of the band and the art and all that to be consistent with the music and the lyrics and there’s no better way than to have the actual artist doing it all. So I feel really fortunate that we have someone with as much talent for it as Jason does. Even without him, we’d probably still try and do it ourselves. It just works best for us and it’s always been cool and I think our fans appreciate the fact that our art is very personal to us and it’s something that we really are a part of. Maybe that’s why they’ve become very attached to it and now we’re seeing some it becoming tattoos and things like that. It’s very inspiring to get that back from the fans.

Bobby: How do you think he comes up with the ideas? Like you have some logos that you see and you automatically think of Strung Out. How do you think he comes up with those ideas?

Jake: Well, he’s just a genius. He’s just always thinking of new things and always looking at art and getting new ideas. It’s something I’m not really talented at. I can appreciate it, but to actually come up with it myself, I don’t have near the capacity to come up with it as he does. So it’s really fortunate to have him just be there and always handle that. I never have to worry about the art, I know it’s always going to be as good as the music.

Bobby: He also had a tattoo shop that I think closed down a couple years ago. Does he ever still do tattoos for people?

Jake: I think here and there but more just as a hobby not really so much as a profession or anything. Just more of his art, you know?

Bobby: Jordan, your drummer was recently named one of the top five punk drummers for the third year in a row in Drummer Magazine. Is it ever weird like when you’re playing live and looking back thinking “wow, we have one of the top 5 best punk drummers?”

Jake: I think its very flattering. I don’t think any of those polls are actually correct. I don’t think their number ones are correct. I don’t think their number twos are correct and I don’t think their number threes are correct. And Jordan being in there is completely awesome, it’s great seeing him getting recognition and stuff. Is he the best punk drummer out there? I mean, I don’t know what ranking he gets,but he gets nominated in these things and it’s phenomenal and it’s cool, but honestly, there’s better musicians then every single of one us in Strung Out. Like we’re not even the best at what we do. There’s much better people out there doing it, we’re just fortunate that we were able to meet each other and that we are able to write the songs together in a way that works. But no way can I accept those honours for myself. I don’t know, I guess he can accept that. For me, it’s just amazingly flattering. But I don’t really think any of those things are actually true.

Bobby: With Jason’s tattoo shop, Jordan’s motocross company and Rob doing lighting on Ally McBeal and movies, how do you guys get free time as a band?

Jake: I don’t know, it just always works. The band’s always been the priority basically; those other things are just hobbies and day jobs. Luckily, we’re not people that depend completely on this band for everything, like we have other things in our lives that are important to us. So it’s always been a factor in that. It’s like any relationship. A lot of times bands have girlfriends that they need to balance everything in between. Fucking, that ends up destroying the band. Other times its like other jobs come up and they need to take that and that destroys the band. For us, we’ve always been able to balance it luckily. Rob, he hasn’t worked in the movie industry for a little while now because he’s been so committed to us in the last year. We’ve toured almost eight months out of the last ten. So it’s been really crazy the whole touring schedule. Jordan’s motocross company, that’s really only something he’s very limitedly involved in. He does some things for them, but the band is still all of our priorities as far as that. It always has been; it’s never been too hard to balance it.

Bobby: I know back in 2001 you guys were planning on going to South Africa to do a tour there. But after the Twin Towers got hit, you had to cancel that.

Jake: Yeah, that was too bad.

Bobby: I’m not sure, have you guys ever been able to reschedule it?

Jake: No, we haven’t gotten back; we haven’t been able to go there yet. That fell through and then timing just hasn’t really been right since. That, unfortunately, was one of the only times when we could have done it and made it work. Since then, when the time for them is right, we’re busy and when we have time, it’s not right for them. It’s something we will do. We’re definitely going to go there. It just needs to be worked out in good time it will be. We’re finally looking at going to South America this next year and things. So there’s still a few firsts for us out there. A few places we need to play for the first time, but we’ll get there eventually.

Bobby: That would be interesting to see their reaction to it.

Jake: Yeah, it’s going to be interesting. I know there’s a lot of kids down there that do like the music. The punk scene, the hardcore scene or whatever. So I think it would be a great opportunity to go down and play for them. It would be fun.

Bobby: If you could pick any person or band, still touring or broken up, who would you pick to tour with and why?

Jake: I don’t know, maybe like Ozzy or something. To go out with Ozzy Osbourne would be pretty crazy. Go out with Iron Maiden back in like ’85. Something like that would be sick. I mean, I’m so lucky that we’ve got to play with some of my favourite bands over the years. We’ve got to play with almost every punk band I’ve ever liked and half the metal bands I’ve liked so yeah, it’s been phenomenal. Yeah, we haven’t played with Maiden so that would be great. Haven’t played with Ozzy, so either of those would be good shows.

Bobby: Now onto some more unusual questions that I liked to ask at all interviews, if you guys were stranded on a desert island, with no food and nothing to eat. Which one of the band members would you eat to survive and why?

Jake: Well, Jordan probably has the most meat on him, so he’d probably be the first one to go.

Bobby: If you could be a member of the opposite sex for a day, week, month or however long you wanted. What would you do and why?

Jake: Be the biggest lesbian I could possibly be. Be an absolute whore lesbian. That would be me.

Bobby: Do you think you could possibly tell us something about the band or one of its members that not many people know about? Like a little quirck they do on the road or something like that?

Jake: Sometimes Chris wakes up screaming, having nightmares and starts punching the bunk above him. Or if we’re in a hotel room, he’ll get out of bed and start running around, attacking the TV and stuff like that, so that’s a bit quirky.

Bobby: If you could have one thing at this moment, anything at all, what would you have and why?

Jake: Well, I have most of everything I’ve wanted. Probably like one of my old girlfriends back. That’s about it. I don’t know… A helicopter. Fuck it, I’ll take a helicopter.

Bobby: I guess that’s about it, thanks a lot for doing it. Do you have any final thoughts you would like to add?

Jake: Nah, just thanks to all the fans for their continuous support and for always coming out for us. We love you guys and we’ll always be back.