Interview – Trad from The Amity Affliction
on May 29th, 2011Having just wrapped up their massive Destroy Music tour alongside I Killed The Prom Queen, Of Mice & Men and Deez Nuts, Brisbane’s The Amity Affliction now have their sites firmly set on continuing their attack on the overseas market. Just prior to taking to the country on the recent tour, Deborah Konopnicki caught up with Trad from the band to chat about all things Amity recently, now, and the future. Click below to expand this post and take a read.
Hey, Trad! How’s it going?
Good thanks, Deb!
Well lets get stuck right into it! Earlier this year you guys played at the Soundwave Festival to an amazing reception from your fans. How was that for you guys?
It was fucking insane! To even be on a tour with bands of that caliber, we were totally blown away.
Did you have any highlights from the tour?
I don’t know, maybe just hanging out with most of our idols. Everyone seemed to treat us really well, which wasn’t a surprise but it was just good to be honest. Being in the lift with Millencollin then they make you come to the bar to do shots with the and shit like that was pretty cool.
I checked out a bit of your set in Sydney and Melbourne and you seemed to have one of the biggest responses from that stage. Was that something that you were expecting?
Well I guess that the record has been selling well, and prior to our headlining tour we’d always done really good numbers like, we’d sold out the Roundhouse and a couple of Hi-Fi shows in Melbourne. We knew that our fan base was growing but we’re always blown away when shit like that happens. It’s really overwhelming to be honest. You don’t know how to take it sometimes. I was too scared to look at the crowd most of the time! I just totally looked at the ground!
How was it being the only Aussie band on the bill?
It was good. Everyone was really respectful of it. We thought that maybe we’d get treated like local dickheads but everyone was really into it. I guess having good friends on tour as well helped. Our friends in Bring Me The Horizon were on the tour and other bands like we’d toured with Silverstein in the UK before. We have a lot of mutual friends and it was just like a really long party to be honest.
If you had to pick just one city that really stood out for you, what would it be?
It probably would have been Brisbane but my whole setup collapsed so I was in a bit of turmoil. It’s always the hometown crowds that are the best. The kids up here are crazy and we love them for it.
“Youngbloods” is slowly creeping up to its one year mark. How are you feeling about that record at the moment?
It’s good! It’s something that we all believed in when we wrote it so it was a record that we were really proud to play and still really happy to play. It’s only just being released overseas now so we’re pretty much starting form scratch like we were five years ago with sleeping on floors and in vans and dragging our asses to America and Europe and stuff. It’s a process and we have to start again! We love it though. We sing about things that we’re passionate about and we all put a lot of work into the record.
Have you been getting much feedback from people overseas about your material even though it hasn’t been out there for very long at all?
Well, because of the label there’s been a bit of bureaucracy with putting the record out, just with percentages and things like that. Certainly for us, just playing to those crowds we definitely developed a pretty good following and especially for a first tour. We were selling a good amount of merch and getting a good response every night. I guess it did help that pretty much all of the tours that we’ve been on have been sold out! Not because of the fact that we were on them, but because of the bands that were on them.
Where did you find the best response to Amity overseas?
Probably London, New York and LA. All of the little cities are always amazing, but when you’re in New York City and you’re playing at these places that all of your favorites bands have played at before and there’s hundred of people singing your songs to you its overwhelming. How do you deal with it? I feel like buying them a beer!
Do you have any particular songs that you really enjoy playing live or songs that you feel the audience best responds to?
Yes and no. I think it’s just one of those things. If you start thinking about it you’re going to start hating things that you’re doing so I tend not to think about it! Some songs are good and some songs are bad!
And what about the crowds?
Yeah. A lot of songs that have strange meaning like “Fire Or Knife” which is very anti-religion. Kids are really, really psyched about that which makes me really psyched about it! I don’t want to see these poor kids mislead! I feel like a lot of bands in our genre try and do that; try and use this music to sell things and spread their word of Jesus. We’re just letting kids know that you don’t have to listen to any of that bullshit. You can make your own mind up.
Do you feel like “Youngbloods” is reaching the end of it’s touring cycle or now that it’s pretty much brand new overseas does that mean you’ll be still playing in support of it for a while?
Yeah, there’s still a lot of overseas to do. Once we get our overseas territories covered we are going to be writing a new record really soon! There’s definitely a few ideas that are not writen on paper but they’re getting there. I think that once we’ve got that shit nutted out once we’ve toured overseas and we have a bit of down time that we’ll get out a new record and there’ll be some more international stuff.
Do you think that you’d like to take a bit of a break after the crazy that’s been the past year or would you like to get stuck right into it again?
Personally, I don’t know what else I could do with my life! I’d run around in circles and head butt the wall! When you tour so hectically it becomes a lifestyle. I’ll get home from this last tour and it was fully like coming out of prison. I was sneaking people soap in the shower and thinking that I’d been in the shower too long and stuff like that. Touring turns into this weird mental bi-polar state that you’re just stuck in…
..that you secretly love?
Yeah. You secretly love it! (laughs)
You guys headed over to the states to record “Youngbloods”. Is that something that you’ll considering doing again to get out of that bubble that Australia can sometimes be?
Fucking oath! Australia has so may amazing studios and producers but not as many that understand our music. When you get to work with people of that caliber and they get to work with other bands in that genre who are doing well, they kind of know all of the bells and whistles. We had that record written when we went in there. It wasn’t like Machine changed shit, but he defiantly helped enhance the record.
Do you think that you’ll be contacting Machine again for your next release?
We’ll see! I’d love to work with him again. He’s a really crazy-amazing human. We have a couple of options on the table though so we’ll see what happens.
Well your tour with Deez Nuts, Of Mice and Men and I Killed The Prom Queen is happening in mere moments. How are you feeling on the eve of that tour?
Fucking awesome! They’re some of our best friends in the whole world on the same tour. I think it’s going to be a bit of a Soundwave where it’s going to be a lot of fun and then occasionally you play a show (laughs).
How did your recent tour with Deez Nuts, Of Mice and Men and I Killed The Prom Queen all come together? Was it that Prom Queen were thinking about coming back and playing shows or has it been in the works for while?
We had a tour booked with Asking Alexandria but they had to pull out to do this reality TV tour or some shit. It was kind of like a blessing in disguise. We were definitely stoked on that tour but when the Prom Queen offer came up – I don’t know why or how – we were stoked.
Most shows sold out so damn fast, which is such an awesome sign. Was that something that at you were expecting at all?
Fuck no! I never would have. Anyone who does think that is an idiot. It’s something that you’re giving back to the kids. If we do make any money on tour, then we just put in straight back into touring anyway or we just do something better for the band so we can reach more people and do more things. It’s so good to have that support. Australia does have a bit of tall poppy syndrome I feel where a lot of bands just talk shit on other bands, but they should just be fucking stoked that dudes are getting Australian music overseas and building a rep. There’s definitely a lot of interest internationally in Australian bands because of what Parkway and Prom Queen have done.
Do you have a favorite place to play in Australia?
Well, personally I love playing in Brisbane but Soundwave in Adelaide was insane. I didn’t think that we had that many fans over there. To see a really big circle pit in a town where you haven’t really done really well before, that was pretty amazing. I’m looking forward to going there again. Everywhere is really good in Australia! It’s the best place to play in the world!
Just finally, are there any places that you haven’t toured before that you’re going to try and get to this year or are you going to focus on the States and Europe for the moment?
Yeah, we’re going to focus on the states and Europe. The label that we just signed to has certain territories that they focus on. We’ll have good label support so we may as well make the most of that and maybe try and get to South-East Asia and play those kinds of places. We’ll see.
———————————–
The Amity Affliction – Youngbloods – Instores Now – Click cover to purchase online for $17.99 w/ free postage
———————————–
