Madison
Ouellette: We’re here at your holiday show tonight. This is one of three shows,
correct?
Anthony
Raneri: Mhm
MO:
And this is the middle one? You’re in Boston tomorrow and you were in Long
Island last night, right?
AR:
Yes, yes.
MO:
So how are performing at these venues specifically for holiday shows different
then when you go on tour for the big stuff?
AR:
We get to plan things. I mean- these are some of our bigger markets, you know?
And Long Island is very much a hometown show but Jersey sort of bleeds into
that hometown feel and Jack is from Boston.
Boston is a place we’ve been going to since the beginning of the band so
they’re all sort of like hometown feels.
Planning a show specifically for your hometown is definitely a pretty
unique thing compared to a tour where you’re trying to please like tons and
tons of people from all over the country, you know?
MO:
Right. So you just announced two big tours; you have your headlining tour just
announced for the Spring and it’s The Great American Cult Tour, is that
correct?
AR:
Yes.
MO:
With Four Years Strong and Daylight, right?
AR:
Yup and Mixtapes
MO:
So when you’re going on that, how are you choosing your set list? Is anything
going to be different, besides obviously playing stuff from Cult, which you’ll be promoting.
AR:
Yeah, we always try to mix it up as much as we can. At this point, we’ve been a band for so long,
we have so many records now with singles on them, with videos that we’ve made
for songs, and then there’s the fan favorites so every record, there’s new
songs that we have to play every night, you know what I mean? So we’re running out of spots that we can
rotate on tours.
MO:
That’s one of the best problems you can have though.
AR:
It’s true, yeah, it’s true. It’s funny,
like Warped Tour is always the best example of that because you only get like a
half hour so that’s like seven songs and that’s like, we just play our singles,
you know what I mean? And that’s all you
really have time for.
MO: I
mean, I saw you guys on Warped Tour, I think it was two years ago and being
from NJ, it was at PNC and you guys just packed the amphitheater and it was
really cool to see. But so, going off a
little bit, you’re also going to Europe soon. . .
AR:
Yup, yup in the Spring.
MO:
With Alkaline Trio.
AR:
Yeah
MO:
So how is playing in Europe? Is that different than playing the states? Do you find the fan bases any different?
AR:
Yes, it’s very very different. Our fan
base is very different. For us, Europe,
in a lot of ways, is a work in progress still, where we do shows here and it’s
very much you’re performing, you’re putting on a show, you’re entertaining
people who are fans, you know what I mean?
So it’s a little easier to get into their minds, you know what I
mean? Because I always say I’m the
biggest Bayside fan, you know what I mean? So when it comes to entertaining and
making our fans happy, I just do what I would be excited about, you know?
MO:
Right
AR:
Europe, especially supporting in Europe, it’s a lot more- we’re going to
countries for the first time on that tour
MO:
Oh, wow. Okay.
AR: So
it’s a whole other mindset going into a show with ‘how do you entertain people
who don’t know who you are?’ You know
what I mean? How do you just be generally entertaining?
MO:
Right.
AR:
So it is, it’s a totally different mindset.
And the fans- the fans there are very different.
MO:
Really?
AR:
Yeah, they’re very very different. In
some places, they’re much more rabid than they are here.
MO:
Haha really?!
AR:
Yeah, well they’re just so excited you came, you know what I mean?
MO:
That’s really cool, though.
AR:
Yeah, we’re a little spoiled here. There, they’re just so excited you came. And
in some places, they could just- they could care less, you know what I mean?
Not that they actually couldn’t care less but they- they’re a lot more subdued,
they don’t get as excited, you know? Like Scandinavians, you know, they’re
weird.
MO:
hahah they’re weird? Switching gears a
little bit, you guys just announced that you guys are coming out with a sixth
album Cult. So
something that was interesting with that way you announced this album
was much different than what we really see- it was a whole bunch of hints and
clues here and there. What inspired
that?
AR:
You know what’s funny is that was just an idea that Nick came up with like last
minute. We put all the symbols and stuff
like that that are a part of the record cover was because we felt like the
record, Cult- our new record, is
really a really good example of our sound from where it started to where it is
now, you know? So we wanted to sort of
pay a tribute to all of our past records on that album cover. And then Nick had
the idea of, you know, kind of throwing up something on the Facebook and to us,
it was just like ‘oh, let’s just do it. . . Oh yeah, cool, yeah throw something
on the Facebook’ and then it- then, people got really kind of excited like
‘what the hell’s going on?’ you know? So yeah, it was cool. I’m glad that it worked.
MO: I
was gonna say that it picked up a lot of steam and created a lot of buzz.
AR:
Yeah, it really did.
MO:
You released the first single off of it called “Pigsty” and from what I found,
it was little bit darker and little more cynical than what we found in Killing Time, which is especially
interesting because a lot of you guys are now married and you and your wife
just had your first kid-
AR:
Yeah
MO:
So why did it take a darker turn when all of you are reaching a really happy
point in your lives?
AR: You
know I think the whole record- I wouldn’t say the whole record takes that turn
but there’s definitely like- like I said just listening back on this record,
it’s like sort of the anger and the cynicism that has always been there but
it’s also- there’s songs that have the hope and all the places that we’ve been
kind of progressing towards.
MO:
Right, well we are all really excited to hear it! And you guys just. . . released is some way
to put it- the second single?
AR:
Sort of, yeah.
MO:
But, so it’s, for any listeners that haven’t heard about it yet, you released
the lyrics and the guitar tabs, correct?
AR:
Yes.
MO:
So again, what inspired that? So it’s
kind of for the fans to take their own take on the song but why release a song
like that? Or I guess release should be in quotes
AR:
We really wanted to see- I mean- we were really interested to see what people
would sort of imagine given the chords and the lyrics and I think there’s also
the, like the melody of the vocals are in there too that you could read. We just wanted to see what people would do
with it. It’s really for our own
enjoyment. We wanted hear people just
sort of like kind of come up with whatever they could, you know? And the only way to truly do that is by
having them do it without ever hearing the song they’re covering, you know?
Because it could go anywhere.
MO:
I’ve heard very different renditions of it so we are really excited to see
where people take it and everything.
AR:
Yeah, me too!
MO:
So that pretty much wraps it up on my end.
Is there anything else you want to say?
AR:
That’s about it. The record comes out
February 18th. It’s called Cult and The Great American Cult Tour
starts March 5th and January 9th- the tickets go on sale.
