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UNDEROATH

Stephanie: Out of all of your albums, which one is your personal favourite?
Aaron: Umm… I don't know. You have different emotions about records depending on if it's a live situation… you don't really listen to your own music, so everything kind of translates to what has the best moments to you live. So for me, each record has some of my favourite moments live. So it's hard to put my finger on it.
Stephanie: Each one for different reasons.
Aaron: Yeaaah. It's a hard question to answer because I don't sit around and listen to Underoath's records. Before this tour I listened to it a lot, right when you finish recording it and it comes out you have to re-figure out how to play all the songs live. But you never really listen to it. I haven't listened to Chasing Safety since '04 so I don't really know what it sounds like. I have no idea [laughs].
Stephanie: Do you still play songs off that album?
Aaron: Yeah, all the time, like 3 or 4 songs a night. You get accustomed to the way you do it ---- and I HATE that thing! [talking about an air-freshener on their bus] It's an automatic air freshener and it just SPITS out.
Stephanie: Is it on a 30 minute time?
Aaron: It's on a 15 or 20 minute time and there's 3 of them periodically through this bus. The worst is when you're sitting in the bathroom and the bathroom is a room about the size of…
Stephanie: A closet.
Aaron: And it goes off when you're in the bathroom and it just maces you. So different reasons for different ones, but I don't know. I think that we progress, I hope that we progress musically, and spiritually & lyrically and I think that that's an extremely important for any artist, musician, painter.

Tim: It seems like your vocals become less & less prominent as the albums go on. Is that a gradual thing that's going to continue or did it just happen that way?
Aaron: Well, it just happened that way so far. We don't really plan that, I don't think. It just comes to a point where like, this record was just so cohesive towards being heavy that we didn't want to force it in. I think that a lot of people force things in music to make everyone happy and it just didn't feel right. I think it's weird to say a band should sound a certain way.
Tim: It must be really tiring for you too - playing drums & singing.
Aaron: Oh, no. I've gotten used to it. It's tiring, but I've gotten used to it.

Stephanie: Is it easier or more fun for you to play live with The Almost or with Underoath?
Aaron: It's easier to play live with The Almost, but I don't know if it's as fun.

Stephanie: So your band's been around for close to 10 years, how do you keep going strong & do you have any plans to stop anytime soon?
Aaron: We didn't really start touring heavy until like the last four years. So, we've been a band for 10 years but we played like one show every six months. We were all in high school so when we all graduated high school we started touring. We toured a bunch in 2003 for a record called The Changing Of Times. We recorded Chasing Safety in '04 and it's been really busy since '04. I've been tired since '04. It doesn't feel like a 10 year thing.

Stephanie: A lot of you are married, correct?
Aaron: We're all married except for Spencer & Grant.
Stephanie: So how do you juggle family life with band life?
Aaron: Well, our wives fly out. It's hard. The thing is, all of us have wives that have been with us in this situation since... we were in this situation. Like, if you were married to a dude and he lived in Worcester with you and you lived your life and were together 24 hours a day and he was gone for 6 months, it would never work. I mean, that's not the only reason, but it's such a big reason as far as tangible things go. Prayer and stuff like that goes into it too, but as far as the earthly life goes… yeah.

Tim: It seems like you guys really found your footing with the lineup. Before it was really jumbled but since They're Only Chasing Safety it's been very cohesive. Do you want to comment on that?
Aaron: Before we were trying to figure out where we were going, ya know, before Chasing Safety. So it was a weird time because we didn't really know what kind of music we wanted to play. It was like a revolving door because one minute we wanted to be in a metal band and in 2003 I think we kind of figured out what we wanted to do and that's how we got the lineup. Tim's actually not here tonight. It's weird. We've never ever played a show without Tim. His brother is getting married tonight and he's in the wedding so we have a fill-in guitar player and it's SO weird.
Stephanie: Is this the first time ever?
Aaron: First & only time. He'll be back tomorrow morning. He only missed one show. He was here last night and he flies back tomorrow morning.
Stephanie: Have you done a sound check with him [the fill-in] yet? Is it weird?
Aaron: Yeah, so weird. He's really good. He plays in Saosin. He's really good. His name is Justin. He's one of those dudes that like, we did a world tour with Taking Back Sunday and Saosin. And Taking Back Sunday's Fred had to go home and he's the one who played all of Taking Back Sunday's songs and it's crazy. He's like the best fill-in guy ever.
Tim: Did he do Fred's vocals too?
Aaron: No, me and Spencer and Cove did.

Tim: What's a typical day in the life of your band when you're on tour or off tour?
Aaron: Oh, off tour is TOTALLY different. Which one?
Stephanie: You could do both.
Aaron: On tour is… we typically go to bed at 5:30 or 6AM and wake up at about 1 o'clock. Then we ride a bike or run. A lot of bike riding so we've got like a little bike gang on this tour . Some sort of physical exercise. Grab lunch at like 3. Sound check at like 4:30. Sit around for hours & hours. Like I'm doing now until around 10 o'clock. Pray, play, shower. Eat dinner. Sit around. It's a non-glamorous lifestyle.
Stephanie: No parties, no cake. No balloons.
Aaron: Cake, sometimes. Parties, sometimes. Depends on…
Stephanie: Not every night though.
Aaron: Nooo. I mean, you have days off in NYC which is great and there's intermittent things like press and interviews and stuff like that. There's a point with every new record where it's just like A;SLDJF;ALSDF non-stop and that's kind of ending now and that's the best place to be because you can just tour. Before that you're flying all over the place to shoot videos and flying back. We just did a tour where we had like 23 hour flights. It was bad. There was a span of a week where we only slept like 4 or 5 hours a night. Sometimes 2 or 3 hours a night. We did a bunch of different countries. We went to Africa. It was really awesome to travel that much
Stephanie: Were there a lot of kids that went out to the show?
Aaron: Yeah, it was crazy. We played 5 shows actually.

Stephanie: What's the craziest place you've ever played, like country-wise?
Aaron: Africa was insane. We held baby lions. It was awesome.
Stephanie: Have you been to Australia?
Aaron: Yeah, 3 times, actually.
Stephanie: Did you get to play with koalas & kangaroos?
Aaron: Yeah! They have these big koala parks and you go and they're actually all loose, so they don't have cages. And the kangaroos…
Stephanie: Don't you get to just walk up & feed them?
Aaron: Yeah! They won't eat though. They're really, really, really fat & lazy creatures. New Zealand is amazing to play. Japan is bizarre. I love Japanese food & the culture and once you get there you can't figure out anything or where to go and they people travel so fast. They never stop.
Stephanie: New York x5.
Aaron: Oh, it makes New York look like Worcester! You have no idea. When you put it in perspective like New York has 13 million and Tokyo has 37 million people or something like that. Mexico City is even bigger and Mexico City is the second biggest city in the world and we were just there.

Stephanie: What's the difference between the crowds in other countries compared to the crowds in the states?
Aaron: I mean, there's a different where the kids don't look the same.
Stephanie: But they know all the words in English.
Aaron: Yeah. The thing is, it's really flattering and it's such a blessing to know that you can go somewhere and God has entrusted you with such an important thing, like they actually understand. Because you see tons of videos of American bands over there, like pick any band, and they'll know every word, but you can ask them where the bathroom is and they have no idea what you're saying.

Tim: What's your favourite city to play?
Aaron: Ummmmm. Lawrence, Kansas. Not because of the crowds or anything. You get stuff that's weird like you associate cities with venues and things around the venue.
Stephanie: So are you a fan of the NorVa?
Aaron: There's a new place now. It's INSANE. We just played there on this tour like 5 or 6 nights ago at this place called The National and it's like a 200 year old theater that they made nice and the people from the NorVa own it. It's sooo unreal. They have the best venues .This place had a sauna in it.
Stephanie: Well the NorVa has a hot tub, right?
Aaron: This one had a hot POOL. It was like the size of this room, I'm not kidding. Bigger. It was huge. It was the biggest tub I've ever seen. They had a steam shower which I've never been in before. It was NUTS. I turned it on as hot as it would go and it produced so much steam that I couldn't see to get out. Like, I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face.

Stephanie: Out of all the places you've been on tour, what's one of the most random places or objects you've come across?
Aaron: I don't know about weird. You see all kinds of stuff. We had a day off the other day in Baltimore and I was walking down the street in this like, hipster part of town with all the restaurants and bars. I'm walking down the street and I'm at a crosswalk and these yellow men were everywhere. These creatures. It was made out of the stuff they paint the lines on the road with and it was stuck randomly on a crosswalk. There was one of them on the crosswalk and then a few blocks later there was another one. I've seen some crazy stuff… Stonehenge. I woke up one morning like about a month ago and Brent, he's our tour manager, he says "Get up!" and I'm like "What??" and he's like "We're at STONEHENGE." And I'm like "Really?? I didn't even know we were close." And he's like "Yeah, it's on the way. Get out!" I was walking around and it was cool. It's super bizarre to see stuff like that, like larger than life images. It doesn't feel real. We've been blessed with so many great opportunities. I saw the Mona Lisa last year and like all the Michelangelo paintings and it was just bizarre because you can't look at it and think "I'm really seeing this" At the time you don't get it or you don't understand what you just saw. Literally, like a thousand people standing in a room looking at a painting, it's so weird. There's like policemen with guns. It's crazy.

Stephanie: To your knowledge, what's the longest a fan has travelled to see you? Are there any "regulars"?
Aaron: I don't know about regulars but I talk to kids all the time that fly from Argentina & Mexico, crazy places.
Stephanie: It must be kind of flattering.
Aaron: Oh, flattering isn't even the word. It makes you feel really small. You can act one of two ways, whether you're in a band or you're an artist you can either act like your poop doesn't stink or you can let God show you that you've been humble and you've been given an opportunity and you feel real small.

Stephanie: What's a band or musician you've been listening to a lot lately that you think your fans should check out?
Aaron: There's this guy, his name is Joshua Moore. He used to play in a band called Beloved. A lot of people don't remember them. He is the best singer that I know. He writes kind of like Americana/country-ish tunes. Myspace.com/JoshuaMoore

Stephanie: At TragicEndings we support a lot of causes like Skate 4 Cancer & 11:11AM. Are there any causes you support or think people should be made more aware of?
Aaron: There's just so many. To Write Love On Her Arms. BigCatRescue.com. Big Cat Rescue is this place in my home town where they have like hundreds of tigers and servals and lions. People illegally breed and it's pretty sad, I mean, you see all these images of white tigers and they're so gorgeous and only one out of a hundred is that way. They're usually deformed or inbred with their brothers and sisters to make them look that way. They force them to do things. They have real ones there and it's just awful. Their eyes are in the wrong spot. I mean, if you and your brother slept together and had a child, it would end up REAL scary. I mean, that's the way it works. That's the way that God made the world. There's very few of the tigers that actually come out correct. I mean, it is a real gene that happens every once in awhile, like there will be a white lion. It just happens. I have red hair, or a friend of mine has a white streak down the middle of his head. He was born that way. But yeah they try to reproduce it. Anyways, it's this huge farm and they take these animals that people try to have circuses with and they support these animals and people give donations and it keeps the place open. It's really cool.
[The air-freshener goes off again]
I really can't stand that smell. It irritates my throat and my nose. So anyways, yeah, it's a pretty amazing cause and you can go online and read about it.

Stephanie: If you were a piñata, what shape would you be & what would you be filled with?
Aaron: I would be in the shape of a pig and I would be filled with the barbecued meat in a pork sandwich, but not raw, already cooked.

Stephanie: What are your plans going to be for 2009?
Aaron: This tour ends about Thanksgiving and then we have 2 weeks off. Then we go to South America… Argentina & Rio De Janiero & Bogota, Colombia and a few other cities. And then we come home for 2 and a half months in the winter. We've had 8 days off since June. So there's this tour, then we go home for 2 and a half months. Then we go back overseas for awhile. A B-market tour at some point. Something I can't say next summer. It's pretty non-stop. We have 2 and a half months off… we try not to tour too much in the winter time. We hate it.

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