(This interview took place on December 16, 2001 outside of the El-N-Gee Club in New London, CT)

Josh Nacho: Ok. Let's start now. Only I don't know where to start. Actually, I do know where to start. There are a lot of bands out there that you like and that you tour with and all of that, and most of those bands are on labels like Drive Thru Records, Tooth & Nail and the like. So how did you end up on Victory Records, which is primarily known as a hardcore label?

Jason: Basically, we shopped our demo around- we worked really, really hard just trying to get any label we could interested and Victory showed a lot of interest in our band and we knew we'd get a lot of push from them because no one on their label sounds like us. I mean, not that the other labels would not have pushed us, but there's tons of other great bands on like, Drive Thru and Tooth and Nail. I think there's tons of great bands on Victory. But this way we just…

J.N.: Don't get grouped together.

Jason: Yeah. Lost in the shuffle.

J.N.: This is kind of like the same question, but in reverse. I would ask you this even if you didn't play with Catch 22 tonight. I remember years and years ago when Catch 22 was first signed to Victory, ska was really big. And a lot of people didn't look at Catch 22 as a real ska band. They saw them as being kind of a joke, and just like, Victory's excuse for a ska band-- to jump on the trend. Well, now that pop punk is the "trend", do you think people will hold you in that sense of not being a real kind of band because you're not on Vagrant or Jade Tree, but rather just like, Victory's token band for the "trend"?

Jason: It's funny that you ask this question because we were just talking about this the other day. I don't think that's going to happen, but I'm not the person to judge. I don't want it to happen. This industry works in funny ways and I hope that's not the reason Victory signed us. But, we're just gonna take our toll and fuckin' work as hard as we can. We're gonna keep moving forward in every aspect and be held down by the music industry. Our next record is going to be twice as good as our record now. We're going to keep topping it from here on out. We're going to be touring non-stop. We just wanna be known as more of a rock band any way. And it's like the quote, "rock never dies". You can't really lose if you're just a rock band. That's why we don't want to be pop punk or emo or ska or hardcore. That's the aspect we're looking at- the whole situation of the band.

J.N.: On the plus side, ska kind of faded away and Catch 22's still here.

Jason: Right. Because Catch 22 is strong. Very, very strong. They're a hard working band. They tour a lot. I've heard some of their new stuff... I think they're a lot like us and we're a lot like them-- keep putting out better and better stuff and never letting down. I give them mad props for not ending the whole thing after the lead singer left. Twice.

J.N.: It's like I was telling them earlier- when I heard Jeff was leaving, this was their second singer to leave, and all I could think was "Man, please don't call it quits". This is going to be my token stupid question of the night. What is your favorite soundtrack? (Because the CD is called "Soundtrack for a Generation" ha ha)

Jason: Did you ever see that movie "the Basketball Diaries"?

J.N.: Yeah.

Jason: I think that soundtrack's fucking awesome. I think it's a really good soundtrack. It's got a bunch of just no name bands, and some popular bands. But I like that soundtrack for that movie you know what I'm saying?

J.N.: So there have been a lot of Student Rick contests on Victory and I was wondering what you heard of them for the most outrageous or just something that stood out to you the most.

Jason: The one that was really cool was the one that was on MakeoutClub.com when they got to send in their love stories and we had to read them and pick 'em out. We had to pick a winner, which was very, very hard to do. It was very cool though and we thank MakeoutClub.com for doing it. I thought that was the most creative. Far out... Weird... I don't know if there really was any. Most of them were just kind of radio contests.

J.N.: There's a show on NBC on Saturday mornings called "Skate", and last week they played "Please Forgive Me" on it. Were you aware of this?

Jason: We heard about it. We weren't even aware it was going to be on there. We heard about it probably a week or so ago. Zakk's girlfriend was just in the kitchen messing around, helping her mom cook or whatever the hell and it was on in the other room.

J.N.: This week they had Waterdown on. They were playing a Waterdown song.

Jason: That's awesome.

J.N.: The one thing that I really wanna talk about because it's really cool isn't really a question, but it's more of an idea. You have a song called "October Skies" that has the chorus "know my pain". Did you ever think- that to fit in with Victory and seem like a hardcore band- just to make shirts that have your name on them and then on the back say like, "x know my pain x" or something?

Jason: Not really.

J.N.: You could have like, the skull and cross bones and like, "x know my pain x".

Jason: We were thinking about doing a hardcore shirt, but I don't think it will ever happen.

J.N.: Let's talk about the Bill Stevenson and Stephen Egerton connection. They are of course from the infamous Descendents and All, and they did a lot of work on "Soundtrack for a Generation".

Jason: Yeah. They helped produce and mix it. Don't forget Jason Livermore. They were amazing. It was awesome. It was an honor to work with them. I really like to think that Bill Stevenson has a lot to do with where the scene went and how it's grown.

J.N.: Let's talk about South Bend. What's South Bend like for a scene?

Jason: Just a little bit of everything. It's a small scene. Very few places to play. There's bands of all genres there. I think a lot of bands want to get out, it's just a matter of them cracking down and focusing on what they want to do and making sure it's what they want to do. That's what we did. And there are some bands that are pissed off at us because we left. We're just fortunate that there's more people there that love us. It's a decent scene and they helped us out tremendously. Our single's been number one for three weeks straight on commercial radio.

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