-Ian: About 2 years ago... Andy and I have been playing together for almost 4 years now, but Brian (our bassist) and the music we started writing didn't come into play immediately.
-Andy: Technically, me and our drummer Ian, have been playing together for almost four years. I had a small band w/ 3 friends, w/ me playing drums, and I wanted to move to guitar, which is my main instrument. We met at a show. He played w/ me and my friends until they went away to college. It was at this time that I met Brian (the bassist) through a really weird friend connection at school. While us 3 played together (with another friend singing) for a while, we never were really a constant thing, only playing together about once or twice every month if even. Then, eventually about two years ago we decided that we should either get going and do our own thing or just break up (if we even considered ourselves a band). We started writing our own material, which led up to our first show last March. So I guess the band has been real for about two years.

-WCWZ: How would you describe your sound? What bands have people compared you too?

-Ian: Our sound is most frequently called "post-cereal". I dunno... we are influenced from everything... we all listen to what we listen to and there are obviously overlapping areas in our tastes, but we really just write stuff that makes sense to us. We don't sit around like "hey, why don't we rip this band off" or "why don't we try and sound like this".
-Andy: My main little recipe for the LDE sound is the noise of Jawbox with the melodic bliss of hte posies, some crazy Managra parts and a dash of Joan of Arc esque pretty guitar parts. But we've been compared to early Braid, Rites of Spring, and then the earlier more poppy songs have gotten Alkaline Trio and Getup Kids references. Our newer stuff is definitely moving away from that sound.

-WCWZ: This is the on going interview question for this issue: It seems that some people have been criticizing the Fireside lately because it has to many shows and takes the fun out of punk rock. What is your take on this?

-Ian: I think it's cool that they’re giving bands a place to play in the city. Honestly, aside from lofts that put on shows, there aren't a whole lot of venues bands like us could play at. Adding ATM's and shit is kinda iffy... I think they also need to incorporate the bowling into the shows more.
-Andy: I think anybody that criticizes the fireside is a jackass. They complain about the condition of the place and stuff, but don’t recognize how lucky Chicago is to have a place that has good shows every night. Sure not every night is a well-known band, but those shows are probably more fun than a really packed Promise Ring or Alkaline Trio show. I think the problem is that smaller bands are definitely not getting any support by most people. You go to a Thursday show with 3 local bands and maybe one slightly bigger band and the only people there are friends of the bands, and of course, members of other bands that are coming to support their friends. It’s time for people to start recognizing that there are more than 2 good bands from Chicago.

-WCWZ: Describe Eorl in three words.

-Ian: Rock and Roll hoochy-koo. (or is that 4 words? if it's four you can cut the "and")
-Andy: Cuddly, bodacious, masculine.

-WCWZ: Explain to the readers why some people that go to see you live make strange buzzing noises.

-Ian: Cause Andy's an idiot. (hahaha)
-Andy: At our first show I had to borrow Mel’s, from The Apathetics, amp. For some reason, wherever I moved, this loud, high-pitched "oooooooh" noise came from the amp. At first it wasn’t that loud, but eventually the whole crowd, egged on by Eorl and various drunken members of American Heritage and Chauncy, decided to hum the noise loudly. Eventually it was hilariously loud. So whenever people who were at the first show see us, Eorl tries to get the people to do it.

-WCWZ: What are the main differences between playing in the suburbs and playing in Chicago for Last Ditch Effort?

-Ian: Well... I think that when we play in the suburbs the kids seem genuinely interested. We're also generally one of the acts that play later, not the first or second band. When we play the Fireside we're going earlier and aside from our friends people generally come to see the headliners. One cool thing is that the other bands we play with generally get into us... they'll come up after we're done playing and compliment us on part of a song or something. That's really rad.
-Andy: Hmmm. Most of our suburb shows have been bad. We played bad and there wasn’t much of a crowd. However, the Chicago shows, like at The Community Showers Loft and Casa De Johanns, may have had the same amount of people, but were much more fun cuz of the atmosphere, with kids acting stupid (in a good way), basically with a fun time being had. However, the one exception (if that) was a show we played a few days ago in Valparaiso, IN. Those kids knew how to have a good time. While there were once again only maybe 30 people there, they had a blast slamming, break dancing, and pogoing throughout our set.

-WCWZ: What was the first concert that you ever went too?

-Ian: Soccer Rocks the World. It was when the World Cup was here. It was like The Scorpions, Gary Glitter, and James. My Uncle got free tickets.
-Andy: I saw The Ramones w/ Frank Black at the Riv. when I was in 8th grade. It was not very fun. Bad sound, The Ramones were terrible. But it was my first exposure to Frank Black, who is a great influence now.

-WCWZ: Any future releases coming soon?

-Andy: We just released a new 5-song tape, a split w/ a local band called 23,000 Little Girls Crying, funny grindcore stuff. Also, for the last few months we've been planning a split 7" w/ local band Stillwell. They're going to record in a few weeks I think, so that should be out hopefully in February. Also, some compilation tracks may appear. One thing mentionable is that we just added a second guitarist, my friend Ben, who really completes the sound of the band, giving us a lot more leverage with our sound. So we hope to record with him very soon. Possibly to redo the songs we recorded for the split 7”.

-Contact Last Ditch Effort at jkosins@idt.net-