All Time Low @ Southampton Guildhall, 02/02/12

Three courses of pure pop punk goodness are due to be served up at Southampton Guildhall this evening. Fans have been salivating at the doors of the venue since 10am, wrapped in duvets to protect themselves from sub-zero temperatures. As they pile inside, the hysteria mounts, with high pitched screams rippling through the building every time a roadie appears on stage.

Tonight’s starter comes in the form Poughkeepsie quintet  We Are The In Crowd. Their old school Fall Out Boy-esque sound , although lacking in much originality, perfectly whets the appetite of the eager crowd. It would be easy to compare leading lady Tay Jardine to a certain Paramore frontwoman, but truth is, the similarities are uncanny, with the two sharing an almost identical vocal style and image. However, something is missing. Tay lacks the stage presence and certain je ne sais quoi of Williams. At times she is almost inaudible as she squeaks into the microphone.

The Maine are unfortunately tonight’s main course. They  serve up a bland and over-cooked performance, choosing to mainly play their newer middle-of-the- road material. They drag on for a dull 45 minutes and, at times, it feels as if no one has told them they aren’t actually headlining this evening.

Eventually it’s time for everyone’s favourite course, dessert. All Time Low are met by a shower of bras as they take to the stage. They deliver their famous sugary sweet pop punk with a hard to ignore swagger, spooning on all their big hits such as ‘Timebomb’ and ‘I Feel Like Dancin’’. However, like most desserts, it’s all over too quickly, as frontman Alex Gaskarth announces that they will have to cut the set short. It was clear right from the start that Alex was struggling with his voice and his distress is heart breaking to watch. Jack Barakat, with a cheesy grin that could rival Elmo, does his best to boost moral, covering for his bandmate’s lack of stage banter. But Alex is determined not to disappoint and does his best to get through a solo performance of ‘Remember Sunday’, leaving the stage with fans adoringly chanting his name. Although 20 minutes early, their encore makes up for their short set, with a trio of classics; ‘Weightless’, ‘Lost In Stereo’ and ‘Dear Maria’. It may have only been a fleeting visit but All Time Low don’t depart without leaving a tip for the fans, as they announce they will be returning to the UK next summer. So get ready to book your table for what is sure to be a big festival appearance. 

Interview: Not Advised

You wouldn’t have thought Hanson would be listed among the influences of the hottest new pop punk band in the UK right now. But Southampton five-piece Not Advised, who are personal favourites of You Me At Six, are not afraid to admit their love of 90’s pop, as well as deep fried food, comfy chairs and their blossoming bromance.

You’ve been together for quite a while now, how did the band come about?

Andy (drums): The band came about when we were 14 years old, just jamming in school practice rooms. I didn’t know Jack before I started secondary school, that’s where we met.

Jack (guitar): Rock brought us together.

Andy: Then we started playing as the band Not Advised with different members. Then we stole Jim and Ash from other local bands to make a supergroup and decided to go out on the road and start playing music.

Which bands influenced you to become musicians in the beginning?

Andy: Blink 182 got me into music.

Jim (vocals): There are two for me. A band called New Found Glory and a band called Goldfinger, both got me into the rock circuit.

Ash (guitar): Hanson was the first CD I ever got. I listened to that a lot and I always wanted to play drums, but I wasn’t allowed.

Did you have the long hair to go with it?

Ash: Well, not straight away.

Greg (bass): Anyway, yea I think Blink 182, New Found Glory and, when we got a bit older, Fall Out Boy got us motivated.

Jack: Yea and I was big on my Oasis when we were first starting out.

You guys are from Southampton, just up the road. How is the music scene over there these days?

Andy: It’s alright. When we first started touring and playing properly, Southampton was a really cool place to play. Really great local bands and Joiners is a great venue. But I couldn’t really tell you now. We tour quite a lot so Southampton is just like playing any other town now. We obviously enjoy it because we get to see friends and stuff. We have friends in bands there. A band called Lost On Landing are really good. There have always been good bands in Southampton and I’m sure there still are.

Gary: People are doing well, you never hear of people not turning out to shows.

Jack: It was definitely a cool place when we were starting out. It definitely helped us as a great place to build from.

Where is your favourite venue to play in Southampton?

Andy: We’ve only ever played one!

Jack: Yea, Joiners has been great because we played out first show there and then we built up over the years and now it’s a case of Joiners being the smallest venue on our tour, which was a nice place to end it. It’s always been a cool place for us, it’s where we started.

Which UK bands are you guys excited about at the moment?

Gary: The guys we just took out on tour, Pegasus Bridge.

Jim: Canterbury as well, they’re really good.

Andy: Deaf Havana, Futures.

Jack: Out Of Sight, rest in peace! The You Me At Six guys have helped us out a lot too.

You’re quite good friend with You Me At Six and have supported them in the past, will you be bribing them for backstage passes for the Blink 182 tour this summer?

Andy: Yes.

Ash: That was the first thing we confirmed last time we saw them.

Andy: Nah, we tried in January but it didn’t work. The amount of people that will be calling them, pretty much everyone they know, plus a few others.

If you could support any band, who would it be?

All: Blink 182

Jack: They are the kings of pop punk. It’s the dream.

Andy: They came back at Reading and it was insane

Greg: I’d say Iron Maiden.

Jack: All those pop rock bands that can break out onto the radio really. Like Blink 182, Paramore, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy. Those sorts of bands are the ones we look up to. That’s where we want to be so any of those bands would be cool to play with.

Pop punk is quite a saturated genre, how do you guys keep your sound fresh and different from the competition?

Andy: We stop worrying about everyone else and just do what we want.

Jack: People call us a pop punk band but we never set out to write pop punk songs. I think if you just listen to our band without looking at us or the bands we play with, you’d probably just think we’re a rock band or an alternative band. We don’t have a problem with people labelling us but we never really care. We just write songs that we want to write and if people like them then that’s cool.

You’ve done a hell of a lot of touring, where is your favourite place to play?

Greg: Mine would be Newcastle.

Jim: Scotland is always good.

Jack: Scotland was really supportive early on. Now, we’re lucky that we have a good fan base so we have lots of nice fans everywhere. But when we first started touring, Scotland was one of the first places that caught on and really helped us out. I remember when we turned up and played our first show in Edinburgh, there was a big queue of people to see us even in the morning. And that had never happened for us before. So it’s always been really cool to go back there to see new faces as well as the people who helped us out from the start. It’s a special place for us.

Did you try any deep fried Mars Bars while you were up there?

Jim: Jack did!

Jack: Yep, I like everything deep fried, even haggis. No straight haggis.

What is your favourite track to play live?

Jack: The new ones I guess. Because we toured the EP ‘After The Fight’ quite a lot, we play those songs time and time again. So now that we’re writing the album we get to test run the new songs and that’s exciting not only for us playing them but also to see people reactions.

Andy: I still like playing ‘Right Now’ though.

Gary: I like ‘The World’s Not Ready’ as well because it always gets a good reaction.

Ash: Mine would be The A.R.K.

Andy: So to answer your question, all of them.

Jack: Anything that gets a reaction from the room. That’s the most important thing. So any time when people are jumping or singing, that’s the coolest part of the set.

Have you ever had any crazy fan experiences on tour?

Andy: We got a lot of gifts in Scotland. Jack, tell your story.

Jack: Well I was sat upstairs in Glasgow, minding my own business and Ash text me saying I’ve got to come outside the venue. So I go downstairs, not really knowing what to expect, and this lovely girl had made her own Jack hoodie. She got it printed with ‘I <3 Jack Fairbrother’ on the front and a picture of me on the back. That was the most ‘out there’ thing that I’ve ever had. It was really quite sweet.

Jim: There are actually two girls coming here tonight who have come all the way from Edinburgh, which is insane.

Jack: I sound like a fatty, but food! We get a lot of food. We get baked goods like cookies and cupcakes and Danishes and sweets.

Ash: We’ve also got some scrapbooks of every time people have seen us play and what we mean to them.

Jack: And globes as well. We shot a video which involved a globe and so people make globes and bring them to the show. That’s really nice.

What could you not live without on the tour bus?

Jack: We drink lots of vitamin water, play Tiger Woods, and watch films.

Andy: Ash smokes quite a lot out the window.

Jack: We’re not really fussed about the travelling; it’s all about the gigs.

Andy: On the last tour we just did, the travelling wasn’t that long because the dates were planned quite well. So I think we mostly just watched Pineapple Express.

Jack: And some Star Wars. I think it’s gone from not what features the van has but to how comfy the seats are. If you get a nice leather recliner like we had on the last tour them I’m set.

Andy: We talk quite a lot too I think.

Jack: We just amuse ourselves with stupid in-jokes. We’re all good friends. It’s a bit of a bromance.

I understand that Ash had to take over vocal duties when Jim got ill on tour last year, are you all quite multi-talented in the band?

Ash: Definitely. If Greg can’t make a practice or something then Jim steps in on the bass

Jack: As well as playing drums, Andy writes loads of the initial guitar parts, which is quite unusual for a band I suppose.

Andy: Yea, we’re all really multi-talented.

Jack: We’re actually the best musicians, times about five.

Greg: I play every instrument. Even the oboe.

Andy: Nah seriously, when I first started in the band, I couldn’t play guitar or anything like that. I think it’s just the fact that you’re around these instruments so much that even if you just pick it up and mess around on it for five minutes a day, you end up playing those five minutes so many times that you’ve probably played guitar for about three days straight.

Jack: I think I’m the exception to the rule. I can’t play drums. But I think it helps with writing as well because when people pick up an instrument that they’re not used to, they’ve got a new perspective and come up with ideas that perhaps we wouldn’t normally think of.

Talking of writing music, how is the new album coming along?

Jim: It’s going really well actually. It’s in full flow now.

What can we expect from the new record?

Jim: Tunes. Absolute tunes.

Andy: Chugging riffs. More of the same feel and emotion that we put in to our songs but maybe in a slightly different way.

Jack: It’s cheesy I know, but it is a natural progression really. There’s more depth and more going on. But we’re not trying to be anything else, we just thought, lets write some songs and see how it comes out.

Andy: We still always go with the songs that when we’re jamming and we get that funny tingling feeling inside and we start smiling. And we all stand there smiling at each other, again it’s a bromance. We tell each other “You’re the best! That riff is the best!”

Greg: We’ve got some monster riffs on this record.

What are your plans for the rest of the year?

Jack: We’re on a tight schedule to get this album done. So we’ve postponed summer and we’ve just been sat in our practice room trying to get the songs written and ready for the studio. Then we’re going to record in early summer and hopefully tour. But the focus is the album so next year we’ll be doing all the stuff we’ve missed out this year.

Andy: I think we’ll be doing a few support tours in the summer and do an even bigger headline tour in October/November time when the album comes out.

Jack: But for now we just want to get the CD right. We’ve got a strict deadline that we’re working towards.

Andy: We’re about a third of the way through with enough time left.

 

Fall Out Boy: Where Are They Now?

After going on an ‘indefinate hiatus’ last year, what have the members of Fall Out Boy been up to?

Some call them emo, some call them pop-punk, some call them plain old rock. But what does it matter? Fall Out Boy are on an ‘indefinite hiatus’ as of their announcement in November 2009. But like a phoenix from the ashes, we can now expect some exciting side projects from the four boys from Chicago. Here is what they have in store…

Patrick Stump

Position in Fall Out Boy: lead vocals & guitar

Where is he now?

The now, much slimmer, Patrick is working on a solo album which is due to be released in February 2011. Earlier this year he posted a video on YouTube of himself playing an impressive range of instruments to promote his solo project. Stump has now revealed the record will be called ‘Soul Punk’ and that he will be writing, producing and performing the whole thing himself. It has been revealed that we will get to hear new track ‘Spotlight’ very soon, the lyrics of which have been posted on Patrick’s website.

Joe Trohman & Andy Hurley

Position in Fall Out Boy: Joe - lead guitar, Andy – drums

Where are they now?

The two arguably less ‘high profile’ members of the band have now joined a supergroup. The Damned Things also features Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano of Anthrax and Keith Buckley of Every Time I Die. After playing a selection of shows earlier this year - including a set at Download Festival – the band are ready to release their debut album. The record, ‘Ironiclast’, is due to hit real and virtual stores on December 14^th but in the meantime, you can buy debut single ‘We’ve Got A Situation Hear’ now.

Pete Wentz

Position in Fall Out Boy: bass & lyrics

Where is he now?

After taking a year out to spend time with his son - named Bronx Mowgli in true rock star fashion – and wife Ashlee Simpson, Pete has now formed an experimental electropop band, which is heavily influenced by reggae, called Black Cards. With Pete on bass and backup vocals, Spencer Peterson on drums, Nate Patterson on lead guitar and amateur singer Bebe Rexha on lead vocals, the group completed a short European tour in October. Debut single ‘Club Called Heaven’, featuring hip hop group Chiddy Bang, has been released online but there is no news of an album just yet. Pete also likes to keep his dedicated fans up to date via his blog ‘A Homeboy’s Life’.