An interview with James and Ariel taken from buddyhead.com What are your names? Ariel: Ariel …. Rock. James: My names is James barian. Ariel: rockers don't have last names! James: yeah my names james. Tell me an embarrassing story about james? Ariel: ok there was this one time. We were at universal studio together and we went and ate lunch. James never eats cheese, so I said "James, you gotta eat this cassadia." So he ate it and a little later he said he wasn't feeling so good and he went to the bathroom to take a dump… and it was real dia.. I dunno what happened really so I just waited outside. And he came back out and said he felt better and we were walking away and he walked in front of me and he had diarherria all over the ass of his pants. Something happened in there, I'm don't know what, somehow it got on the outside of him. He had shitty stains everywhere. And it was really funny and everyone was laughing at him and he was really embarrassed. James: my turn. Ariel: no… no…. no… that's the story… [laughs] James: that was a good story, but I've never heard that story. It didn't happen to me. Maybe it happened to him, he did tell it so well. Ariel: he made me swear to keep it a secret, but it was so long ago I thought it was ok… Tell me about the new record, and hows it's different from the first record? Ariel: it called "heads are gonna roll". It comes out August 24th. The song writing has changed, but that's not all your gonna hear. I mean, when I wrote the songs for the first record we were like sixteen roughly. Now we are a little bit older and I think we're getting a little bit better at it. But that's not the main difference. It's that when we recorded our first record we recorded it live almost. Like, bass, guitar, and drums all the way through, vocals all the way through, and horns all the way through. So it was really the same style through out the whole record. Where as this record we really got a chance to fuck with different things. Different amps, different keyboards, rich started playing keyboards. Keyboards almost made it on our last record, we did have a few tracks with keyboards from a different guy we know, but it wasn't like we had a chance to really fuck around with it a lot. And now we have more toys basically. More toys and more sounds. It was finally like we started showing more of our influences. The first record you wont hear them. The first record we did our thing, we were sixteen, the ska thing was going on in our neighborhood and it snowballed into something we never would have expected it to. And now we are on a major label and we're making a record that more people are gonna hear it, and we thought what records have we been listening to…. What records have you been listening to? I can speak for a lot of us by saying the beatles, they might be giants, police, 60's records, tom petty…. But we all listen to a lot of shit. But definitely much props to tom petty and the heartbreakers. The heartbreakers, that is the coolest name for a band ever. It's so underrated. No one listens to that. The heartbreakers… "we are gonna break your mother fucking heart with our love songs. Then we're gonna rock you…. Then break your heart. So anyways, that is kind of what has changed. The subject matter, hasn't evolved that much. We're still kinda in the same era of our lives, or at least my life. I've grown up a little bit, but basically still in my teens when I wrote those songs. So they have that feel to it. James: what he means is that most of the songs are about chicks. Ariel: ok… yea. But also the songs are about the struggle. The trials and tribulations. How people try to bring us down. But we're gonna show them. That's why it's called "heads are gonna roll." Cuz heads are gonna roll. Because one of these days we're gonna start knocking peoples heads off. James: we're a bunch of tough guys. Do you guys ever fight? Ariel: I can't speak for everyone else. But I fight. I'm pretty strong. I mean, as a band. Do you ever fight as a band, together? Ariel: we're pretty much a gang. We gotta keep it unified between the six of us, so when other people step to us they get dealt with. I won't mention other names, but let's just say we've served a couple bands up in our time. I'll say that the black eye peas challenged us to a water fight and when Orlando Florida comes around, they are gonna get dealt with. James: my mom at this moment is at toys r us buying super soakers… Ariel: cuz the black eye peas are gonna pay. James: so watch out black eye peas. Ariel: that's a shout out to our label mates. How was recording Ariel: Record was a huge learning experience for us. It had its highs and it had its stressed out moments. I wouldn't say lows. But stressed moments. We did our last record for pretty much nothing, almost free. This record we had a substantially higher budget, we thought. We thought we had all this money, but it turns out it's peanuts compared to what is normally on a major label record. When people hear that you are on a major label they are gonna nickel and dime your ass. Your there for five minutes overtime, you're gonna pay. Every minute of the day was lots of money. Just because you're on a major label, not because you are spending any more time… as far as being prepared, we were whipped into shape. We realized we didn't have all the time and luxury, we would have hoped being on a major label. So all those people who think we're rich cuz we're on interscope records and we're rockstars and we have lots of money to record a record… James: your wrong! Ariel: you gotta check yourselves, cuz none of that is true. We are still the hippos with a little baby step up. We've got a nice van now that has air conditioning. We're totally happy with what we got, and we're psyched that we're taking steps up… I will say we've experimented a lot. And Mark turmbino, our producer encouraged us to do that too. The scary thing about that, with the budget we had, if you screw up and it doesn't turn out good that's what you get. Because you don't have the time or money to go back and redo it. That was the stress part. But everything came out. Once again the man trying to bring us down, so the heads are gonna roll, and the record came out good, and you guys will hear the record august 24th. buddyhead