If it were really all about the music, then I would tip my hat to Saosin. Unfortunately, their music doesn’t reflect their personality. Especially when they are looking all around while you’re trying to ask them questions. As eloquent as you may sound, it doesn’t count if you pause every time a bus stops near by. Or stop to have 10 minute conversations with the nearest person. I spoke to Chris, who obviously had better things to do than talk to me.

Suburban Horror: I know you guys are going to hate this question. You guys have a new lead singer?

Chris Sorenson: No. We don’t. (awkward pause) We’ve had the same singer longer than we’ve had our previous singer so technically he’s not the new singer. He’s been in the band longer.

SH: I know people are also saying it’s his first time singing on the CD, and that’s not true because he’s sang on a previous release.

CS: Yeah we’ve had a previous release. This is our first full length with him, (angrily) but we’ve never had a full length with anyone else.

SH: Okay. Just wondering, what was your guy’s biggest inspiration for this record?

CS: Um. Just getting it done and making sure it was good. We didn’t want to put out a CD that sucked, I don’t think any band does, but we really concentrated on making sure that we fine tuned everything, and we’re in a spot we could make the record we wanted to make. I think a lot of band’s rush into that next record, and I think in this day and age, luckily for us, our music lasted longer than a lot of bands do. Just really, we didn’t want to put out some shitty record because we had to. We don’t feel that “every year and a half, you have to put out a record” type thing, like a lot of band’s do. So yeah, we wanted to make sure we put out the record we just put out; I think it’s good.

SH: Why did you choose L.A. for your release date?

CS: Nothing specifically. It was more… our label is located in L.A., our management, our lawyer, our team, our business manager, our buddies are located in L.A. But, it was really just a scheduling thing, that we had to play SoCal. Nothing specific, we just wanted to make sure we were playing a show on the day of the release.

SH: I’ve talked to a lot of your big fans, and I know that you guys are really dedicated to your fan base. You make a point to say hi to a lot of your fans. Why do you find it so important to stay loyal to your fans?

CS: (angrily) Because they keep us alive as a band, because the only reason we’re alive as a band is to playing shows and hopefully putting out CDs. I know this is our first CD. All of us, we’re fairly young. I’m only 23, and our singer Cove just turned 21. We’re still music fans. A lot of the fans in our band are the same people as us. We’re trying to destroy the line between that rock stardom and the fan.

SH: I’ve heard so many good things about you guys from your fans.

CS: Yeah, we stay in touch. We’re on the websites. We’re ALWAYS on the message boards; it’s not like the label’s answering our message boards.

SH: It’s hard to find a band that does that today.

CS: Well yeah. I don’t understand what bands do other than that. We treat is as a job almost. It’s like something we HAVE to do, but obviously we WANT to do it. We don’t want to take this for granted that we get to do this everyday.

SH: We’re did you guys find the inspiration for your latest album? Like what bands?

CS: I don’t think there was any specific… We just drew on all of them. It’s our first record. Everyone’s first record: they’ve been writing for the last 10 years. There’s nobody specific. But the bands I listened to growing up, I definitely know that their influence shined on the record.

SH: Like?

CS: I grew up listening to a lot of bands like Pearl Jam, a lot of grunge and metal bands like Pantera, Lately, I’ve listened to more vocal driven bands, like Third Eye Blind. All of us have different musical influences, and none of us tried to deny that. We didn’t try to fit into any niche or this bands doing this, so we must too. Or, this song needs a breakdown, or something stupid like that. But, I think it’s really easy to make that mistake.

SH: I’ve listened to some of your earlier stuff and your release today. The sounds different, but I think the lyrics are more mature. Was it the process of time that it took you to make CD?

CS: Well a lot of them we’re just demos. A lot of the songs we put out on the Black EP, the first things that we delivered, when we got Cove in the band over two years ago, it was really just as, it was a try out. It was more of us trying to figure out a system of how this was going to work. Our system is a lot different, our guitar players don’t write. It’s not like most bands where the singer writes the lyrics and the melody, and the lead guitar player write all the music. I’m the bass player, and I write music as well as lyrics and vocal melodies. Some of the guitar players write some of the vocal melodies as well too. And, Cove wrote some of the music too.

SH: What’s your favorite song on the record?

CS: I don’t know, “Voices.” I wrote most of the music, and I wrote a lot of lead vocal melody for the lyrics. It was one of the first songs that we started to play live.

SH: Do you like touring more or recording more?

CS: I like recording more. Touring and recording are totally different ends of the spectrum. It definitely takes a different type of a person to make it through tours. It sounds like all fun and games, but I work my ass off on tours. When I get home I sleep for three days because I’m so tour.

SH: What do you guys do to keep sane on tour?

CS: The last three tours we were on. Well, one was Warped Tour. It’s not even a real tour. It’s like summer camp type thing. And, you wake up at 7AM and you’re not done until 12AM. Your day is really long. The next tour we did was our first headlining tour, and it was cool because we got to play our new songs. And the next tour was on AFI, and that was huge; we played in front of 11,000. With all that said, I don’t think it’s that hard to stay sane. Each of us have our vices, but each of us know what to expect. We’re pretty seasoned tour veterans now. We know how to get through it; we know how to deal.

SH: Is this your first time playing the Troubadour?

CS: No, this is our 3rd or 4th time.

SH: Do you like playing the Troubadour?

CS: Yeah A) It sounds good B) There’s no barricade. The production team is awesome. Mike at the door is like really cool and accommodating. I just think it’s like out of the smaller L.A. clubs, I think that this one is the most friendly. The Whiskeys and the Roxy are just littered with… they hang on to their history that they have there, they think they are due some sort of respect. And, like when you go there, you’re not treated the same, like some washup. They just don’t like bands.

(It was at this point and time that Chris digressed into a 10-minute conversation with a member of one of their opening bands, while I sat there and waited. And waited).

SH: They we’re pretty good.

CS: Yeah they’re in a weird spot. We we’re in the same spot. We were without a lead singer for eight months. I was living on someone’s floor.

SH: Was it worth it?

CS: Yeah I think so now that we have our record in stores. We have a van with our pictures on the front. And, most importantly, we get to play sold out shows hammered.

SH: I can go if you want.

CS: No it’s okay I can answer any more questions you have.

SH: What was it like going from the bottom up and making this way?

CS: Tough at first, you know. Like, the way I joined the band was kinda weird. The dudes had this sampler thing on the website. And I heard about this band through a buddy of mind - “You got to check out this band. It’s like this type of music genre, this band. Like totally different.” So, I got this sample clip, it was like a minute and a half, and there was five songs looped in and out. And then a week later, they were supposed to play this show at the Roxy with the Bled and this band Engine Bound, and their bass player quit that night. And, they didn’t know, but I showed up to that with my band at the time because we were talking to this record label “For the Records,” which is not now. And, I met Justin out front. And, I was like, ‘Hey man, blah blah blah.” And we were just rapping, I played guitar in this band, and when I quit the band, he ended up playing guitar in the band. He was like, “Yeah our bass player quit.” And basically I told him, “I’ll play bass for you guys.” And he was like, “Okay, cool.” I joined the band. I talked to the rest of the band. I met Bo once before. “Hey man, I’m playing bass for you guys now.” He was like, “Oh really! Cool!” Went to pick up the CD a few days later and learned the songs from that. Like a week, later we just started jamming. And one month later, we left for tour for two and a half months. It was like my life changed overnight. Like I was working jobs and college, and then I was in a band.

SH: Where did you go to college?

CS: Golden west College in Huntington Beach. It’s like JC, junior college. And then started taking off really quickly, lost a singer as you said, picked up a new singer. And then picked up the momentum where we were. And now we’re here.

- Magic Stick Mish