Suburban Horror: How long have you guys been a band?

Chris Connelly: 10 Years now

SH: What is your favorite song to play live?

CC: I’d say “Shattered”. It’s one of the new songs.

SH: Why?

CC: I like to sing that one.

SH: Why the pink hair?

CC:For fun.

SH:Have you ever dyed it a different color?

CC: Back in the day. When I was in high school I did. I went through the full spectrum of the rainbow. I’ve never done this color before.

SH: What’s it like playing an acoustic set and then going back to the regular?

CC:It’s fun. It keeps us busy, and we get to play music. It’s another opportunity to play in front of a bunch of kids so we’re excited that we get to do that every day, and we’ve had great audiences come to the acoustic show. It seems that the dedicated fans will come to the acoustic show so it’s a much more intimate setting. We take requests and stuff so it’s a lot of fun.

SH: What do you do to stay sane on tour?

CC:I don’t think it’s possible to stay sane. You just go with the flow. Usually halfway though a tour you start to lose it a little bit and you might get a little more strange and seem a little more like a zombie. Let’s see what do we do on the bus? We like to watch movies. We like to watch shitty movies because they’re a little more fun. The other day we had crappy movie day and we watched... I can’t remember. D.E.B.S. was one. I was in and out of the bus at that point. Other than that I play a lot of guitar on the bus, and we read. On Warped Tour its different because you are outside all day long; there’s tons of bands, it’s nice to walk around and see who’s playing on what stage during the day.

SH: Who’s your favorite band to see live on this tour and in general?

CC: My favorite band to see live in general is Green Day. They put on a great show. On this tour, I like watching Moneen. They’re from Canada.

SH: If you could tour with anyone alive or dead, who would it be?

CC: Well, we did a tour with the Firetheft, and that’s members of Sunny Day Real Estate. They were really, really inspirational for me when I was a kid. They were my heroes. If we could ever do a tour with the Firetheft again, I would be really happy. And another band. The band that got me obsessed with music was Aerosmith, believe it or not. I love their albums from the 1970s. I would just be star-struck being around them.

SH:What is a fact that no one knows about you that you are willing to share?

CC:I like Rick James a lot. I really like Rick James.

SH:Who are your biggest influences?

CC:When I was first starting, my biggest influences were Smashing Pumpkins, Sunny Day Real Estate and a band called Archers of Loaf.

SH:What else do you like besides bad movies?

CC: It’s not a shitty movie, but a big budget movie that wasn’t that great. I like National Treasure; I just had a lot of fun watching. I have to say that my favorite shitty movie is Bring It On Again, the sequel to Bring It On. It just went straight to video. It’s hilarious.

I like comic books. Right now, I just started catching up on comics because I hadn’t read them for a long time, and the last year I’ve just been catching up on stuff that I had missed since I was a kid. My favorite one was Identity Crisis. It’s really amazing, I’d recommend them to anybody; it’s so good. My favorite character though is Wonder Woman because she fights for truth and peace.

I like playing guitar a lot. I’ve never tried horn/brass instruments, but I play anything else. My favorite thing to play is drums. I wanted to be a drummer when I was a kid, but my parents thought they were too loud so I got an acoustic guitar instead. I played cello for 7 years as a kid. When I was 13, I decided I didn’t want to play anymore so I decided to play acoustic guitar instead.

- Magic Stick Mish