Artifact from our page in May/June
Angels and Airwaves
By Erin Broadley
Suicide Girls http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/Angels+and+Airwaves/
Jan 18, 2008
Ten seconds. We have a go for main engine start… 3… 2… 1.
A camera pans in as the space shuttle prepares for launch, and then, flash, thrusts itself into orbit leaving a fiery explosion of atomic proportions in its wake. Time elapses. A camera pans through the dark and desolate stillness of the shuttle's inner chamber, seemingly abandoned except for one man, his head in his hands. A faraway voice comes hesitant over a message machine, "Hello Lee. Sorry I'm sending you this message as a recording but, I'll be honest, it would have been a lot harder to say this directly to you. Even if I wanted to bring you out of orbit, I don't have the people to do it right now. I'm sorry… I'm sorry"
This trailer for the upcoming feature film from rock band Angels & Airwaves follows with the question, "Have you ever felt like you're alone? What if… you truly were?" Though slightly sappy -- and discussed ad nauseam on countless therapists' couches -- this question remains the ultimate fear kept buried in our hearts. This question is just one of many that the Southern California-based rockers hope to raise through their music, films, and myriad other creative endeavors to inspire others.
Angels & Airwaves initially came together in 2005 as the brainchild of former Blink 182 guitarist and singer Tom DeLonge, soon after internal conflict placed Blink on indefinite hiatus. I know what you're thinking, so let's get one thing straight: Angels & Airwaves is no Blink 182 spin-off. A Blink 182 spin-off would be the equivalent of a boy band beauty pageant where the crown goes to the prankster with the best fart joke. I Empire, the sophomore release from Angels & Airwaves, is nothing of the sort. Completed by guitarist David Kennedy (Hazen Street, Box Car Racer), drummer Atom Willard (Offspring) and bassist Matt Wachter (30 Seconds to Mars), the band's music is an atmospheric, socially conscious and often anthemic call to arms for rock and roll dreamers everywhere. The band has replaced one-upping the audience with toilet humor for something even more appealing -- upping the ante on the value of human connection.
Tom's vocals are near unrecognizable as the man who once nasalized his way through "What's My Age Again?" His style now is that of a man who no longer caters to his inner-child, allowing the stifled maturity and personal growth held captive by major label wardens and image-makers to break away and run free. Lyrically on I Empire, Tom still holds back and often verges on the hyperbolic -- but hey, give the guy a break -- he has over a decade of emotional and spiritual false imprisonment to shake off. In Tom's words, "If you could escape from your past, would you be ready for the next adventure?" As proven with Angels & Airwaves, yes, it would seem Tom is more than ready.
SuicideGirls tracked down Angels & Airwaves guitarist and Tom's longtime friend, David Kennedy, to chat about the rock revolution, UFOs, the band's ever-expanding creative pursuits and, of course, how David earned the nickname the "James Dean of Punk Rock."
Following that delicious lead in, is a very enjoyable interview with David. I hope you will check it out if you haven't already!
I Empire is in stores now and the band is currently on tour. Check out the band's website here, the music video for the hit single "Everything is Magic" here, and making the video footage here.
Erin Broadley: So, I Empire came out November 6 of last year. How has the reception been since its release?
David Kennedy: Well, I believe that the reception has been really good from the people who have received it [laughs]. We haven't totally made our full push yet. It came out close to the holidays so we did [a bunch of] radio shows, and then got into the whole Christmas and New Years. We won't really start getting out there until the end of this month. Then we'll be able to tell how it's really going. It seems fun and exciting. With the people that do have the record, the response has been cool. They really get it.
EB:
This album is more than just 12 songs on a disc; it's very much a multi-faceted project because you guys incorporate a lot of other elements like video and other artistic elements alongside the music. It seems like Angels and Airwaves [AVA] is more than just a band.
DK:
[Laughs] I should have you do my interviews.
DK:
No, but that's very true. We're trying to figure out a new way to make [more than just] music; music has to become more than a marketing tool, but also an idea and an experience. It seems sort of empty just to do the record. For some reason people don't put any value in music, even though I think it's the thing that defines culture as a whole. It's fine, whatever. But there's no value to it. It's become this ambient thing that people listen to while…
EB:
…While they're busy doing other things. People just cherry pick songs from their iPods.
DK:
Yeah. So we're just trying to figure out [a way to] make it deeper with the more things to go with it. That way it's not just putting out music to put out music. And that's the way I feel it gets people's attention. iPods are the coolest thing ever but they've taken away so much of the experience of what you used to do when you'd buy record or a CD and you'd go home and just focus and just pay attention to that one record. Now with kids, it's just a thing that pops up on their iPod. [It may be] a cool song but then it just goes to the next one. So for us, for people to listen to AVA, we need to offer these different things. Like, they can't get away from us. They're bobbing and weaving trying to dodge us.
DK:
We're like, "No wait, now were going to try and do films or we're going to try and do this because there's no way we're just going to let you get away with just having a song on your iPod." The wrath of Angels & Airwaves. I'm so excited about everything we're doing. I think we all are. I feel like we're still trying to get people to understand. I feel like it would be easier or more excepted if we just put a record out and said, "Hey, we think it's cool… check us out." We always have a lot to say about what we want to do with music and all the different stuff we do with short films and films in general. It seems like it's more of a difficult thing in general to grasp, at least initially.
EB:
I think it's good to encourage your audience to step it up and become seekers of music and art again.
DK:
Right. Well, to lead anybody you've got to start first. Even if people don't necessarily agree with you, you have to convince people that it is the right thing, that it is the best thing. Anything that is easy doesn't usually have much staying power and doesn't really work for that long.
EB:
Well, what I found really appealing about the actual album cover was…
DK:
…My cleft chin? [Laughs]
EB:
[Laughs] Yeah. Besides your cleft chin, what I love is that it's an actual painting on the cover. It's art. It seems that whole idea has been lost since vinyl stopped being an in-demand commodity, over the past 20 or 30 years, at least in the mainstream. The '70s had some of the most creative record covers of all time. The drawings or paintings or art on the cover used to be one of the best parts about buying the record. I Empire definitely has a grand, cinematic, almost film poster aspect to its design. Didn't you involve an artist who worked with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas?
DK:
Yeah. Well, first of all, I love that you said that because it was such a big debate about that album cover – like, how much we loved it as opposed to some other people. There was so much convincing, like everyone thought it was going to be pretentious or it was too '70s or too this or that, you know? But I just knew that it was going to be really exciting. When you look at iTunes and all the new records, it was like this record cover was going to fucking stand out. You were going to notice it. Whether you liked it or not, no matter what message it was sending, it still seemed really exciting.
EB:
Before I even knew about your band, I was driving down Sunset Boulevard and saw a billboard of the album cover on the wall of the Roxy or the Rainbow Room here in LA.
DK:
We had a billboard? Shut up man!
EB:
Yeah [laughs]. Anyway, before I knew it was for a band, I thought it was some concept for a new film.
DK:
Yeah, the idea of it is like a journey. But to answer your question, this guy Drew Struzan [who did AVA's album cover] is also the one that did all the Star Wars films, he did Blade Runner, 2000 Space Odyssey, Indiana Jones. So, his whole deal is to tell a story in a poster; To do for people what he did for you, where you look at it and you see this thing like, what the fuck is that? There are four dudes and there's a road and a fucking motorcycle.
EB:
It's like create your own narrative.
DK:
That's what he does. Yeah, how could that be wrong? How could this dude that's done this for so long and so well, like how can he be fuckin' wrong. He's worked on the greatest movies in the world.
EB:
I think the only reason people say things like that and would criticize, "Oh that's so '70s" is because people simply stopped making covers like that because this understated sense of cool that has taken over and the whole idea of making a grand statement has been forgotten. It doesn't have to be outdated. Great album art can be of any era, if the artist so chooses.
DK:
That's perfect. God, where were you when we were having that debate the other day?! [Laughs] That's brilliant.
EB:
[Laughs] Well, feel free to use it in your next argument on the tour bus.
DK:
I'll send you residuals.
EB:
Sounds good. One thing you have written on your website is, "It is our intent for this website to be our "fan club" per-se…The fan club we had in the past wasn't in our control and didn't give us instant access to include all of you in our life…Now, we also have a great belief…we truly expect and want ours, and all music to be FREE… so if a few of you like it, come back and experience the rest of our art." Can you explain that more?
DK:
Whether we want it or not, music has become free and will continue to become more and more available to anyone. Right now the modern rock community has been hit the hardest. I think with it being more available like that, even though it's a difficult time, trying to figure out how to create revenue or create an income with music, it's still bigger than it's ever been because of how available it is online. There's no way to know where it's going. We're just trying to figure out a new way, an actual answer, and create a more interactive environment. If music [on a CD] is like a business card, we can put it out there and people can learn and love it and [hopefully] they want to come back and hang out. This model and this idea, anybody can use it, from the smallest band to the biggest band. We're trying to create an operating system with an actual infrastructure where you can plug in all the details and bands can sell what they want to sell -- they can do fan subscriptions, they can do whatever they want to do [in order to] ultimately invest in themselves. Now major labels are having such difficult times… tour support is nonexistent. The only thing they can do is make you a record, like, "There you go… I don't know what it's going to do but here's a record."
DK:
Yeah, good luck. So, if a band itself can create its own revenue stream and create its own personal business, then they can invest back in themselves. If they need to get to Lawrence, Kansas for a gig, but they don't have the money yet they feel like it's going to benefit them, then they can figure out how to route it and they can get their own tour support and they can create their own revenue, create their own short films, their own videos and figure out how they would do it. If somebody told you, "Here's a bunch of money, how would you spend it?" You might do it differently than other people. So you have to have a system in place that can create that money for you. I think this is actually a really incredible way to do that. It's a real answer. For us, the business of selling records is not what we're really concerned about. We're just trying to get our music and ourselves out there as much as possible and then hopefully a small percentage of [fans] are interested in what we have going on online and want to be involved in that. That's the way we can start controlling things ourselves and investing back into our own thing. If we could have money to just do free tours, we could do whatever we wanted to… That's what ultimately is going to re-excite people. Right now there's no money, even for shows. Bands are playing but they're not creating environments where people are just getting lost in.
EB:
Yeah, they're stopping short of creating an atmosphere. You want to be in a situation where, even people who aren't particularly familiar with your music can come to one of your shows and have an experience to remember, potentially bringing in new fans. You have to give new people incentive to come see you live because there should be more to a show than just the chords you're playing.
DK:
I think the more that you can do that, the more that other people will be able to do it too. And that'll just re-excite everyone about rock music in general and allow more success. The way it is right now, it just seems fucking disconnected.
EB:
It seems really defeatist. Rock seems very self-loathing right now.
DK:
Yeah, I know. It does. What the fuck? It shouldn't be. I feel like no one has faith in it and the radio stations are all dying.
EB:
Let's talk more about the cinematic influence on the band and these films you guys have been doing.
DK:
Well, when we started the band, everything we talked about was very visual, like how to take something visual and then create a soundscape out of that. So we talked a lot about stuff like riding motorcycles super fast, or flying through the air, or –this sounds gay – but waking up in the morning in a meadow as the sun rises.
EB:
[laughs] With a Unicorn next to you.
DK:
Ah, God. [Laughs] Yeah, I didn't want to actually say that out loud… but all the songs started being very cinematic in that sense. When we first started to get people into the band and put out some music, we thought it would be cool for the first time they heard the music to have some sort of visual to go along with it. I thought it'd be cool to [do something different]. That's how we filmed our first one. [People's] interest is still there but you just have to hit 'em from another place to get people to learn about you. So we thought we'd start trying to hit 'em with all these different things. It was just another fun and creative way to be a part of the music. Sometimes I say shit and I think I sound fuckin' crazy. [Laughs]
EB:
I have those moments every time I talk to somebody. Don't worry [laughs]. Another thing, in response to the pressures of maintaining a particular band image over the course of one's career, Tom wrote on AVA's website, "I think as you get older you shed the burden of who is cooler, and the question is who is honest, because that's what in the end is truly cool." What are your thoughts on the so-called "industry of cool"?
DK:
I think he's full of shit man…
DK:
[Laughs] No man, I think it's more about… actually I don't even understand what he said.
EB:
Maybe he had another UFO sighting?
DK:
You have no idea how many UFO sightings he might have. No, I know what he was saying and I wholeheartedly agree. I think, as we've gotten older… I don't like admitting it but I have. And so has Tom, believe it or not, he is older, just so you can write that. Tom's older than David [laughs]. But anyway, it took me a long time -- and I think with Tom too -- to become okay with who you are and realize you're not in competition with all these other people. You should just embrace the things that you are good at and the things that you like. It took me awhile to finally realize and be okay with me. And that was when we started the band. Tom and I sat and we talked a lot. I just want to do things, more or less, to get back into music for why I started because I really wanted to affect people the way bands affected me when I was a kid. I totally think it's a good place to be, and it's taken us a long time to get here. So, I think it's awesome that Tom said that.
EB:
Well, good. You wouldn't want to disagree with your lead singer in the press [laughs].
DK:
I've never disagreed with Tom DeLonge in my life.
EB:
Except maybe about the UFOs. Have you ever seen a UFO?
DK:
I've never seen any UFOs but I believe they exist. But when he talks to me about them constantly, I can only take so much of it.
EB:
Another thing Tom said about I Empire is that, "It reflects an idea that the world is yours for the taking, and all that exists, exists inside you. It can be something as trivial as a personal struggle, or as grand as the inescapable idea of world peace…" If this is how he feels, then what kind of ideas does the album bring up in you?
DK:
A lot of things like world peace… we were like fuck it, I know for a fact that when Queen started they weren't like, "Hey let's just go be this cool band and go around and tour clubs." They were like, "We're going to be the biggest fucking rock band in the world." And whether or not we can do it, let's start a band and try and touch as many people as we can.
EB:
I heard you're nicknamed the "James Dean of Punk Rock." Care to explain?
DK:
No… Well, I don't own a car or anything. I have a motorcycle and that's the way I get around. So I'm assuming it's something about that. I think Tom said that. If I had to tell you why I would tell you it's because I'm super fucking cool. I look great in leather.
[Both Laugh]
EB:
Last thing, I know in addition to a documentary involving your music titled Start The Machine, there is also a feature film titled I Empire after the album. What's the status with that?
DK:
The documentary is done. We were trying to submit it to SXSW and Tribeca so we can't release it in any form, unless we did just a bunch of free showings, because it needs to go untouched into a film festival. We can't create any sort of income or revenue until it goes to the film festivals. So, until it either gets accepted or rejected, it's just a waiting game until we can put it out. With the feature film, we are trying to have it done for fall but we really don't know the lead-time of how everything gets done. It's kind of like a song; we don't totally know what we're doing but there's tons of work done and the stuff is shot. We don't know if we need to put a live performance in there or some more dialog, because right now it's all these vignettes that intertwine kind of like Pink Floyd's The Wall meets Crash, where everything is interwoven and it tells a complete story but characters come in and out and it's kind of overwhelming. People can check out the trailer on our site. You don't have to know what it is; you just have to know that we're doing something that no one else is doing. It's fucking cool and nobody talks about it but maybe you can talk about it.
EB:
Maybe I will…Magazine Artifact from April 2008
Angels & Airwaves – 03.12.08 by Jonathan Bautts on 2008-03-27
This is an interview conducted with Angels & Airwaves frontman Tom DeLonge before their show at the House Of Blues in Anaheim, CA.So you've been playing music for a long time in the L.A. area. What are your favorite venues to play around here?I don't know, you know? Let me think. House Of Blues venues are always really nice. Arenas are always nice. Some of my favorite shows have been at clubs and at giant places. I think, to be honest, some of my favorite places to play aren't necessarily in Southern California. A lot of times it's in places that don't get a lot of shows and people are really passionate, you know? Maybe it's in the Midwest or in various places on Mars and in Europe. But here in Southern California specifically, I think the shows have always been good anywhere, really. That's not a good answer, but it's a lot of words.
This is your first full U.S. tour since the Taking Back Sunday one, right?Yeah, and that wasn't even really a proper tour for us because we only played like an hour. This show is like an hour 30, an hour 40 minutes, and it's much more involved and very thought out. We worked quite a long time on it. So this is pretty much our first real U.S. tour, I think.
You guys are going to be playing Warped Tour this summer. How does it feel to be going back down that route again?Isn't that weird? I know I haven't been on Warped Tour in like a decade or something, maybe longer. I'm kind of interested to see how it is now. I hear it's a lot different, you know? I hear the crowd's kind of different. I mean when we did it, it was a very punk rock crowd. We would play and depending on what day it was, you would have bands like The Saints or The Exploited – crazy, old punk rock bands, as well as the staples that are still around. Now it's such a diverse, eclectic mix, I'm excited to see how the crowd's changed. It's a lot bigger now too, I think, than it was when we were on it a long time ago.
I-Empire came out back in November and you've described it as the sequel to We Don't Need To Whisper. What do you mean by that?Well, they were meant to go together. The first record,
Whisper, was about a philosophical idea that to overcome a war within yourself, you have to believe in infinite possibility, kind of a science fiction take on what the universe is all about.
I-Empire was about the inaction of that idea within your own life. So when you put the records together, it's about the change in an individual, and a change in the way that individual sees the world. Lyrically, it's an autobiographical story from the breakup of my last band into the inaction of that change in my life. So the two records go together and were very personal.
What did you want to do differently with the second record that you weren't able to do on the first record?I think the second record, because it's about the personification of an idea, wasn't meant to be as ethereal. It was meant to be epic and feel grandiose, but it was meant to be a little stripped down and be more earthly. Even the artwork suggested that of a guy traveling on these highways, planting flags and making the world his own. So in context, I think the music wasn't meant to be as dreamlike.
Is there going to be a third installment to the story?No, but I think I just came up with what my next album is going to be all about last night. I was up until six in the morning planning it out. I can't tell you though.
When initially did the idea for Angels & Airwaves come to you?Within a couple weeks after the breakup of the band, I had to plan out the next part of my life. I think in putting together all the elements of what I wanted to be surrounded by, we came up with this great kind of idea for the beginnings of a movement of the way we think and the way we play and who comes to be a part of the play. That's what someone said last night: "The people that come to the shows – it's like they're coming to a play that they're a part of." That's what's really cool about it. That is what Angels & Airwaves is, and that took quite a while for that to take shape. That took about a year while we were making the record.
With the band, do you have any specific mission or goal that you're trying to accomplish?The biggest band in the world. Or one of the biggest bands. (
Laughs.) We're going to try and take this as far as it can possibly go, and in our minds it's stadiums.
On the last record, I-Empire, one of my favorite songs is "Rite Of Spring," which seems to be one of your more personal songs. Where did that come from?I was listening to a song where somebody was writing about the passing of his father, and I thought that was like the most personal thing that someone could put in a song. I was like maybe that's the next step I need to do is to become very truthful and personal. The song itself is nostalgic. It's recorded like an old Joy Division or New Order song. Lyrically, it was meant to have a rhyme schedule in the wording as though I was 16 years old writing my first song. Oddly enough, I wasn't that jazzed on it, but it seems to be everyone's favorite song because it has that kind of folk element, like storytelling, and I think people just connect to it.
I've read where you've said that in the past you've battled an addiction to painkillers and stuff. How were you able to overcome that and what does it feel like to be sober now?I think at least for me when I was in the middle of all that, I wanted out of it so bad I just needed a reason. I needed for someone to push me off the edge to get off it. It's interesting because now that I look back, I feel the same as I did, I just communicate differently now. I'm not on this euphoric roller coaster ride where I can't express my thoughts to the best of my ability. I think I'm a little bit more tame with what I say sometimes but the passion's still there. You feel invincible when you're on drugs, which is one of the great things about them (
Laughs), but the bad thing is that it's all kind of fake. One of the big reasons why I needed to switch things around was I needed to practice the message that I was putting there. That was always tearing away at me – that I was saying that people can do all these things if they really believe, but then I couldn't conquer my own.
I'm a huge sci-fi fan, so I love how you interweave those elements into the band. Even on your first video for "The Adventure," it was kind of a spin-off of THX-1138, and then on the new record, you got the guy who did the artwork for Star Wars. What's your philosophy behind incorporating those elements into the band?The reality that if space is truly infinite – like if you were to leave earth and just head out into the blackness – if it truly just goes on forever with no beginning and no end, then that means that there's infinite possibility. That means that you cannot define what is happening because there's no end. If there's no end that means it incorporates any possibility that you can possibly dream up. It's happening somewhere, somehow. To me, that's pretty exciting – that you're wildest dreams are happening somewhere and you just got to see them. That's why the band is centered around that kind of philosophy.
Now you're also working on a documentary and feature-length film. What are those about?The documentary we just finished. We'd been filming for two years and submitted it to some film festivals. It's all shot on film. It's got these CGI war scenes and epic performances. It's really good. It's a very wealthy documentary. It's not just a hand-held thing. It's really beautifully produced. And the movie is done filming. We're in the editing process right now.
Is the movie CG or live-action?The movie is live-action but there are CG elements in it. It's largely got science-fiction elements to it, but it's comprised mostly of human experience. We were just watching parts of it last night on this bus because the director's up in L.A., and it's going to be really good. It's really exciting and extremely ambitious and for people who are fans of the band, I think they're really going to love it.
Do you have any idea on when those are going to come out?The documentary's done, so we're just waiting to see what happens with some of these film festivals. We hope to have them both out by fall, I think, is the idea.
For the first album, you had made some comments about how this was going to be the best band ever and the best album in the last twenty years.I was on drugs.
Right. Were you surprised how that seemed to get completely blown out of proportion?Well yeah, I couldn't believe people were like… I mean, I spent 10 years saying I fucked dogs and then all of a sudden I say one thing and everyone… It really blew my mind how much people listen to me. (
Laughs.) I couldn't believe that that many people really care about what I say. That's what blew my mind the most because I feel just like a normal dude. I got the same friends I've always had for the most part, so when people take something I say and really print it and go after it, it just trips me out.
You have a family now and that's obviously a huge part of your life. How are you able to combine that with doing the band and running your companies like Macbeth?Well, we don't tour anywhere near as much as we used to. My family will come on the road. With the companies and stuff, my wife's office is in the same building, so we just kind of hang out. I don't really work there, I just kind of hang out. I'm involved but it's more or less my friends that are there and I just kind of cruise. So it all kind of works out in a harmonious way because we all do it together.
There seems to be, like especially with Angels & Airwaves, some religious elements to some of the songs. I'm curious as to where that comes from and if as you've grown older that stuff has become more important to you.Not religion but spirituality. I'm a very spiritual person, but I think religion is a medieval way of defining something that's much bigger than the name religion. So there are religious undertones to what we do, but I think people like to take them and define them in their own categories. A lot people come up to me and go, "Are you Christian?" I was raised a Christian but I'm not, you know? I think I'm a little more educated and traveled to define myself that way. The band is really about a "one world, one love" kind of thing, and I think religion is coming to an end. I think people are going to realize that whatever it is, it's much bigger and grander and more beautiful than the way they define it in their own country.
I also remember you saying that the song "Lifeline" kind of addresses God and whatnot.Yeah, when I was a kid there was a little poem called "Footsteps In The Sand." I think a lot of people know it, at least here in the States. It was the first song I sang when I got off all the narcotics. The idea that someone was going through a troubled time and that there was someone following behind you to take care of you was inspiring to me. It doesn't have to be God. It could just be someone who loves you – someone taking care of the woman they love or visa versa. It's up to the listener to make up the second half of the story.
I imagine that in pretty much every interview you do, you get asked about Blink. Does that ever get old at all?No, it's alright. I mean, I started that band.
Is there anything you wanted to carry over from Blink into Angels & Airwaves?Spontaneity and the adrenaline and the rebellion are something that'll always be a part of me. Those are qualities that I think will never be shed.
Is there anything you wanted to do differently that you had learned coming from that whole experience?Everything you see with Angels & Airwaves is what I wanted to do differently. I think that's one of the reasons that this band is moving a lot faster. I mean Blink took years to catch on, but with Angels & Airwaves it's like within these past 12 months we've really become a band that's going to be around for a long time.
If Blink had hypothetically kept going, where do you think it would have gone?It would have sounded like this. But, I mean, it's hard to say that because in this band Atom's a totally different drummer than Travis. Matt is trained to play piano and he worships Radiohead, so he can do all that electronic stuff. Those are qualities and elements that you didn't have in Blink. David loves hardcore. He grew in hardcore bands and stuff, and no one in Blink was into that kind of music. We were into punk rock but not that specific sect of it, you know? So the ingredients of Angels & Airwaves are mad different than Blink, but I think that where I wanted to take just the sonic landscapes of music is this direction anyways. So it would have been somewhere near here.
Do you think Blink will, maybe not get back together, but will at least get back on friendly terms at some point?I hope so. I mean, I hope we can get on friendly terms. As far as getting back together, no, I don't see that happening.
In the middle of Blink, you did that Box Car Racer record. Do you ever wish you had made another one of those?These are those. There's a lot of Box Car Racer in Angels & Airwaves, for sure.
You just released that whole Modlife thing online a little while ago. What's the story behind that and how has it been going so far?Modlife is amazing. It's blown my mind. It's an idea I had that took a lot to come to fruition, and we're going to launch it to the world this summer. It's an operating system to help kind of revolutionize the music industry at first, but at best it's for anybody. Any kid, any band, any business or housewife to use a bunch of digital tools in any way, shape or form they choose to use them. For a band, they can do broadcasts, films and podcasts, deliver their records digitally – everything they want to do on a computer. For a housewife, maybe they just want to put up photos of their kids and they don't have any records and maybe it's free. I don't know, but it's probably the most futuristic, ingenious thing I've seen on the Internet since its inception, I think. I'm really excited about it.
The trend now is kind of leaning less towards labels and more towards other avenues.Yeah, label's are kind of a thing of the past.
Do you think this is going to team up with that?Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that are going to happen, but our goal is to be self-sufficient. To not need labels, not need other people, or be able to hire labels for specific duties, like marketing and promotion. But I think with Modlife, we'll be able to do it all ourselves.
You've dropped hints about working with NASA on an upcoming tour or something. Can you shed any light on that?I can't talk about that too much. It has to do with Modlife, it has to do with a giant tour and it has to do with NASA being the first people to sign on.
Is that going to happen this fall?We were planning for it this fall but with the rumblings I'm hearing, it might not be this fall because I don't know if there's enough time to pull it all off.
What do you think the future is going to hold for AVA and what do you see as the next steps for the band?I think our next record is going to be incredible, and I think that it will hopefully put this band in specific venues to where we're able to present the show that interacts with every sense of the human body, almost like science fiction. The idea to take people on a journey and to feel wonderful. That's the idea.
http://www.mammothpress.com/index.php?area=readinterview&pid=168Magazine Artifact from March 2008
Angels & Airwaves drummer dishes about life, laundry, the weather and mustard By Bill Locey
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Perhaps the most popular musical Angels since that girl group from the '60s (famous for their hit "My Boyfriend's Back"), Angels & Airwaves will probably pack the the Majestic Ventura Theatre on Tuesday night.
Often referred to as a supergroup, San Diego's A&A; is clearly on the upward spiral. The frontman is singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge, once upon a time a member of those pop-punk kingpins blink-182 and, before that, Box Car Racer. The lead guitarist is David Kennedy, of Hazen Street and also a former Box Car.
Yes, they do play a few Blink and Box Car songs but, most likely, tunes from the pair of A&A; albums. Matt Wachter thumps the bass and Adam "Atom" Willard gets the view from the back as the drummer.
"The Adventure" was the first single from the band's debut album, in 2006, and turned out to be the ticket, propelling "We Don't Need to Whisper" to a metal beloved by corporate suits: gold. Another song, "Start the Machine," is thought to be about the untimely demise of blink-182.
A&A;'s latest album, "I-Empire," has been selling like free pizza. Released Nov. 6, it reached No. 9 on the Billboard 200. The CD's first single, "Everything's Magic," lit up the switchboard at L.A. radio station KROQ, and the video was filmed at Birmingham High School in the San Fernando Valley. So we get the band without all that traffic hell.
When the new album came out, according to fans, the band's Web site had a video of a biker and a voiceover by Ike — not Ike Turner, but President Eisenhower, golfing his way to a secure America in the '50s and also a very prescient voice when it came to military-industrial shenanigans. The video ended with lyrics from "Secret Crowds," a track on "I-Empire:" "If I had my own world, I'd build you an empire."
Perhaps not as deep is a discovery DeLonge made about the band's name. He was fiddling with the band acronym and discovered that by inverting the middle "A," the group's name looked like "AVA," not coincidentally his daughter's name, Ava. Who knew? Drummer Willard did — well, not about Ike, but everything else as he responded to an easy e-mail grilling.
What's new in the Angels & Airwaves circus?
Just being on tour in the dead of winter whose idea was this anyway? Don't they know it's FREEZING?!?!?!
How do you handle the ongoing media frenzy?
One question at a time.
How does the new album fit in with the first one?
It's really just a continuation. There are new messages and new moods on this one, stuff we didn't get to last time around.
Rock, pop-punk