Band: The Used Members: Branden Steineckert and Jeph Howard Label:Reprise Records Location: Northlands Agricom - Edmonton, Alberta Date: September 19th 2005 Interviewer: Bobby Gorman

Editor's Note: The sound quality on the recording was absolutely horrible. There was a soundcheck being performed just outside the door, which made it somewhat hard to decipher certain parts of Jeph and Branden’s answers, which means these may not be their exact wordings but are all as close as I could make out. There were some snippets cut out because there was no way I could make out what was being said. Also, the entire interview was filmed, so maybe you’ll see it later on in their DVD release (which we talk about in the interview). Thanks to Laura for setting it up and Jeph and Branden for doing it.

Please Note: All pictures were taken from their site and Wikipedia (here and here), without permission, and are copyright by their rightful owners.

Bobby: Starting with the basics right now, you guys have been on tour with Underoath and Alexisonfire for a couple weeks now, how’s that tour been going?

Jeph: Amazing. Those Alexisonfire dudes are some of the coolest dudes I’ve met in a long time. Really nice, all funny, all friendly. Their band’s really good, they’re really good live. Underoath, we just toured with those guys on Taste Of Chaos too, so we’re already friends with those guys.

Bobby: Has there been any really memorable moments from the tour so far?

Branden: The first day that Underoath was on the tour it was outdoors and really rainy. And it really kind of sucked. Everybody was… all the crew, all the bands, everybody was just kind of bummed out. But Underoath played and just fucking destroyed it. It was so good. Like I don’t know, they made the whole night worth everything. Their guitarist Tim was running, sliding on his knees across the entire stage. It was just wet everywhere and it was amazing.

Jeph: That entire show was just awesome.

Branden: That was one of the best shows of the tour. It was awesome. That’s the one I can think of.

Bobby: Did you guys end up playing in the rain? Or what?

Branden: Yeah yeah, we played. It actually stopped raining just a little bit before we went on the stage so we lucked out.

Bobby: After this tour you guys are going on the International Taste Of Chaos tour, hitting Australia, Japan and Europe, are you guys excited for that?

Jeph: Fuck yeah.

Branden: Yeah, it’s gonna be cool.

Jeph: That’s all I’m going to say. Fuck yeah!

Branden: Fuck yeah!

Jeph: No, those are like… Australia and Japan are definitely two of our favourite places to go, so we’re definitely looking forward to that.

Branden: Yeah, the UK’s cool, and we have to play in Germany.

Bobby: Why do you have to play in Germany?

Jeph: I love Germany!

Branden: Nah, I’m just playing. I was just making it sound like we didn’t want to go.

Bobby: When you guys originally started the Taste Of Chaos tour, did you ever think there would be an international version of it too?

Branden: I had no clue.

Jeph: Yeah, we didn’t really think much about it. We’ve never been on Warped Tour outside of the US. Well, I guess Canada, but not out of this continent. I don’t know, we didn’t expect that, but we don’t expect half the shit that happens with this band. We’re used to having things happen that we weren’t expecting.

Bobby: One of our readers wanted to know that since you guys are playing all around the world now, have you guys ever played in Brazil or do you have any plans on playing in Brazil any time soon?

Jeph: I would love to go to Brazil. We’ve had Brazilian fans come up to us at shows and come and talk to us.

Branden: We have not been there yet though, but I’m sure we will. There’s a lot of places that we would like to go that we haven’t played yet.

Bobby: Let’s talk about your recent album, In Love & Death, which is actually a year old now. One of my favourite song on it is “I’m A Fake” why did you guys decide to start that with Bert’s little minute long rant?

Jeph: Why did we start it off with that? Bert had that poem for a while actually and it fit the song, it fit the beginning of it. And I really don’t know, it was just a part of the song as we were writing it. There’ wasn’t like a definite reason. It fit the song; it fit the song lyrics, it fit the music. It was just the way it was done.

Bobby: Another one of my favourite songs on the album is “All That I’ve Got”, the single. I’ve heard that it was written about Bert’s dog. Is that true?

Branden: A lot of the stuff Bert writes may be specific in certain moments or instances but he writes them in a very general way so that people can identify with it, although they may not come to the same thing. It works out really well. I mean, in the past it’s always worked out really well. Songs that might mean substance abuse or something to him can mean something completely different to someone else that knows something about that. And “All That I’ve Got” is kind of that idea. I think the underlying theme and idea of the song is really just about love and lost and having something you really love and losing it. So that is what I really think the song is about.

Bobby: I absolutely love the video for the song. Everything from the cartoon, “used bookstore”, and the storyline. Who came up with that entire concept for that video?

Jeph: It was a mix between Quinn and I, he didn’t have shit to do with it. *laughs* Nah, Quinn and I actually, and the director and out A&R guy, Jeff, we were all sitting around talking about the video ideas that he had written and we didn’t really like it. And then Quinn had some really good ideas for things and animations and that inspired ideas and that just started it. We took the little ideas from everyone and got there and just kind of snowballed it. It all came together and then the director just kind of wrote it all down and sent it back to us. Speaking of snowballing, that’s pretty gross. Has anybody every snowballed you before?

Branden: Not on purpose.

Jeph: Diiiiirrrtttttyyy!

Bobby: Another thing I’ve always wondered about was the song “Lunacy Fringe”. On the back cover “fringe” is spelt with an “f” but in the booklet its spelt with a “ph”. Why did you guys do that?

Branden: The spell check was turned off that day. The check button was unchecked.

Jeph: Yeah. I actually never noticed that before. But somebody fucked up.

Bobby: Yeah, I saw that a while ago and just always wondered if it was on purpose or not and what it meant.

Branden: PH balance for a woman. Strong enough for a man though.

Jeph: Yeah, that’s just a typo.

Bobby: That CD came out a year ago next week.

Jeph: Wow, yeah, the twenty-seventh.

Bobby: When do you think we’ll see a follow up to it?

Jeph: The next twenty-seventh.

Branden: Yeah, a year from now.

Jeph: Every twenty-seventh we’re gonna put out a record.

Bobby: Wasn’t it the twenty-eighth though?

Branden: No, no, it was the twenty-seventh.

Jeph: Maybe it was the twenty-eight and the twenty-seventh was our CD release party. Remember, because that’s where I met Katie.

Branden: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeph: Yeah, that would make sense. It came out at midnight which would make it the twenty-eighth. You got it, you got it.

Branden: He knows more about our band then we do. We should interview you about our band. You know more about us than we do.

Bobby: Nah, not quite. *laughs*. Have you guys started writing anything down yet? Like have you started writing new songs?

Jeph: Well Quinn’s got a bunch of riffs at home, I know he does; a bunch of guitar lines and stuff. I’ve been working on bass stuff.

Branden: We haven’t collaborated on a song yet and that’s when the true writing takes place. But everyone’s just always fooling around with ideas.

Bobby: You guys were recently in a DVD called “Punk Rock Holocaust”, where Bert was making out with a whole bunch of women before getting slaughtered. Have you guys seen the DVD?

Branden: Yeah, we’ve seen it. It’s pretty fucking lame.

Jeph: It’s funny.

Branden: It’s funny, but by the end it’s like… I tried my best to make it through, but I swear its like two and a half hours long though and by the end it’s just like “alright, I’m over it.”

Jeph: *laughs* It was cool to see all the bands on it though.

Branden: Yeah, yeah.

Bobby: On your “Maybe Memories” DVD, you guys celebrated Bert’s birthday by getting him a slightly over-weight stripper. Have you guys done anything else like that to celebrate each other’s birthdays?

Jeph: Umm yeah. We trapped Branden in a potato bag. Beat him with bats and threw him into the back of a car. Drove him out to the river and chucked him in.

Branden: I didn’t know who it was…

Jeph: *laughing* It was great. He called the police…

Branden: Nah, we did some shit like that with Quinn for his birthday in Norway or something too. We got some gross stripper too, but I don’t think we meant for it to be gross. I think we planned to get him a good stripper but it didn’t work out.

Bobby: Speaking about DVDs, you guys are obviously filming one now. What’s going to be on it?

Jeph: Just us doing the interview – that’s going to be the entire DVD. They’re gonna play it forward, rewind it, play it backwards, rewind it, double time it so it’s really fast and then half time it so its really slow.

Brendan: Then with special effects, they are going to make it look like we’re interviewing each other *pointing at himself and Jeph*.

Jeph: Or we’re surfing too.

Branden: Yeah *starts to pretend to surf*

Jeph: With the white walls they can do all kinds of stuff. Its gonna have title waves and it’s gonna be cool; real interactive too, all in 3-D; it’s gonna be cool.

Bobby: A while ago you guys were on one of the many late night TV shows, I forget which one, and Bert was sporting a “I Tripped Billy Corgan” t-shirt. Do you know what that meant?

Jeph; Well, he tripped Billy Corgan.

Bobby: He’s actually tripped him?

Jeph: Yeah. Some kid made him that shirt.

Bobby: If you guys could pick one person or band, dead or alive to tour with, who would you pick to tour with and why?

Jeph: Dead or alive? He’d have to be alive for us to be able to tour with them.

Branden: Bring them back to life!

Jeph: I don’t know if that would be legal... You have Kurt up there *hangs limp over the chair pretending to be dead*, their performance would be kind of weak every night. Soundchecks would last forever. “Sing something!”

Branden: *hitting Jeph in the arm* “Play something! We need you to plays some guitar Kurt! Kurt!! This is not gonna work…”

*everyone laughs*

Jeph: His arm just falls off.

Branden: Well, that was pretty fucked up.

Jeph: So I guess I’d have to say Nirvana.

Branden: I would love to go on tour with Muse. They’re my favourite current band right now and they are fucking incredible.

Bobby: Oh, really? I was mad because they were here almost a year ago now, but I just got into them like a week after they were here and then I was so mad that I had missed them.

Branden: Yeah, they are one of the better live bands I’ve seen in a while.

Bobby: I would love to see how they make that sound live, because I think it’s just a trio but its such a big sound.

Branden: Yeah, but they definitely pull it off. It’s amazing.

Bobby: Yeah, that would be interesting to see. Now onto some more unusual questions I just like to ask at all my interviews to make it a bit more interesting. First off, 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?

Branden: No one’s really got any meat on their bones except for me, so I’d probably eat myself.

Jeph: I don’t know, I wouldn’t eat Bert, I wouldn’t eat Quinn. I wouldn’t want to eat any of you guys. That’s just kind of odd. Maybe we’d just go fishing and eat fish. That’s what I would do.

Branden: I guess we could do that.

Jeph: Yeah, we’d probably just go fishing actually.

Bobby: If you guys were a member of the opposite sex for a day, week month, or however long you wanted…

Branden: Fifteen years.

Bobby: What would you do and why?

Jeph: I’m not gonna talk about it.

Branden: Fuck myself blue.

Jeph: I would definitely go to strip clubs.

Branden: What?

Jeph: Girl strip clubs. Girl ones.

Branden: Oh! *laughs* I thought you meant like guy ones. Like “Woo! I’m getting a fucking huge dick slapped in my face!”

Jeph: Nah, I mean strip clubs would be so much better if you were a girl.

Bobby: Why would you say that?

Jeph: Why would I say that?

Bobby: Yeah, why would it be so much better if you were a girl?

Jeph: Every time I go with a girl, it always looks like they’re having more fun than the guys. Guys just looked bummed and their spending lots of money. *laughs* I’m just making this up right now.

Bobby: Could you tell us something about the band or one of its members that not many people know about. Like a little quirk they do on the road or something like that?

Branden: I don’t know; there’s not much that goes unmentioned.

Jeph: I drink a lot of tea.

Bobby: Do you have a favourite brand of tea or type?

Jeph: Green. *looking towards the camera man filming the DVD* You’ve seen that. What are we up to now? Seven? Seven or eight.

DVD Man: Seven.

Bobby: You keep count of it every day?

Jeph: Just today because they’re following me. Usually more if you count Starbuck ones which are about that big and I drink about six of those every day.

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

Branden: At this moment? A hot air balloon.

Bobby: Why’s that?

Branden: Because I’ve never had a hot air balloon.

Bobby: Have you ever ridden in one?

Branden: Nope.

Jeph: That’s a good question.

Bobby: Yeah, it would be interesting to ride up in a hot air balloon. I guess that’s about it, do you have any final thoughts you would like to add?

Jeph: Nah, I’m buying a new CD that comes out tomorrow but I’m going to the mall today and it won’t be there and I’ll be pissed off.

Branden: I’m gonna buy Mall Rats tomorrow on DVD, it’s coming out. And Clerks 2 is getting made.

Jeph: Oh really? I didn’t know that.

Branden: It’s gonna be weird, someone described it to me.

Jeph: I hope they don’t fuck it up.

Branden: Well, it was pretty much just a rip-off of the first well. But no, it doesn’t sound really cool. I don’t remember what they told me, but it doesn’t sound too good.

Jeph: They work at a grocery store instead.

Branden: I think it’s something weird, something like “wowwww.”

Bobby: Well, I guess that’s it, thanks a lot for doing it.

Jeph: Yeah, no problem at all.