Interview with The Lawrence Arms

Interview with Chris McCaughan and Neil Hennessy . interviewer: Sabine . Munich . 2005 . label: Fatwreck . free MP3's [here]

The Lawrence Arms - Porno and Snuff Films

Punk76: Can you please introduce yourself to the readers?

Sean: Yeah hi, my name is John and I play drums in the band Life In Your Way and this is Dave, he plays the guitar.

Punk76: May you introduce yourselves?

Chris: My name is Chris and I am in this stupid band called The Lawrence Arms. I play guitar not very well and I sing even worse.

Neil: I am Neil. I am the drummer.

Chris: He is also the backbone of this band. Without Neil we would be nothing.

Neil: That’s true.

Punk76: You guys are from Chicago, right?

Chris: Yes.

Punk76: Are you friends with Alkaline Trio?

Chris: Oh, yes! Brendan was in a band with Danny a long time ago. We have also been playing in the same scene for many years. At this point I really don’t see these guys that much because we both tour a lot. Matt lives in California. But yeah, we are friends with those guys cause we grew up in the same scene in Chicago.

Punk76: Do you think there is something like a Chicago-punk-scene?

Chris: Oh yeah, definitely!

Neil: I think it’s one of the strongest scenes in America.

Punk76: And what is it like? Is it more melodic punkrock or maybe hardcore?

Neil: I think it’s good that there are no real classifications to it. There is every kind of style in the Chicago scene. It is punkrock but it is a little more organic.

Chris: I think a lot of bands that come from Chicago are organic.

Neil: They don’t try to sound like New Found Glory. They try to be original.

Chris: I think that a lot of bands that come from Chicago don’t try to sound like a certain type of music. What I like about bands and what I like about music is that there is a sort of organic process to the sound. We have never tried to be punkrock band. We just grew up listening to punkrock and stuff that was sort of independent. That’s why we formed the way we formed. And I think ultimately that’s why we sound the way we sound. And I think that our newest record doesn’t necessarily sound likea punkrock record or like a Fat record especially.What I’m trying to say is that Chicago has a really unique thing going on.

Punk76: This is your second release on Fat. Why did you change from Asian Man to Fat?

Neil: Basically what happened was we had been on tour for a year and a half on Asian Man and we racked up an incredible amount of debts. We were sort of on our way down. And the only way we could keep going was to find another label that could get us a little more support.

Chris: We needed a label that could get us a little more opportunities in terms of touring.

Neil: We were not looking for that much more. We were just looking for something that could offer us a little more. We were talking with a bunch of labels that we didn’t necessarily agree with. Just when we were about to sign with one of them FatWreck called us out of the blue and they were like: ‘We like your band we want to put out your next record.’ And we said ‘Ok.’ And that was how it happened. We didn’t call Fat Mike or sent in demos. It was so surreal.

Chris: It was a lucky moment. It was a little timing and luck together. That’s what we have been doing from the beginning. We’re trying to jump on opportunities when we have them. We kind of do what we do and it’s paid off. Now we’re on a great label with a lot of great people working for it.

Punk76: Fat has signed a lot of different bands recently.

Chris: Yeah, I think that Dillinger Four is one of the greatest bands ever. None More Black are awesome, too. A lot of really cool bands that don’t sound FatWreck typical, you know?

Punk76: Let’s talk about the new record. Whose idea was the circus thing? And what’s the meaning of it?

Neil: After all the songs were written all the lyrical contents started popping out of us. The themes kind of ran through all the songs. One day when we were practicing I think Brendan or Chris said ‘ Have you noticed that there are lot of references to travelling and circuses?’ Then we kept talking about it.

Chris: We kind of tried to exploit that idea.

Neil: We just took the little ideas that were in there and brought them out.

Chris: There are some references on this record, certainly, but I don’t know how many actually you would find.

Neil: You say the word circus.

Chris: The whole idea of being a travelling band. But in terms of the artwork we had the idea of a carnival sort of circus thing. We called our friend David who laid everything out. We told him all about it and he did some research and put it together. I think he totally surpassed all of our expectations of what it would look like.

Punk76: Has David got a website or something?

Chris: His name is David Holtz.

Neil: He had a company called Liberation Media. I think the website is liberationmedia.net or liberationmedia.com. But I don’t know if that company is still going.

Chris: I think when he’s got something new he puts it up on that.

Neil: He does the NOFX website, he does the punkvoter website. He’s a webdesigner as well.

Punk76: Who are the three guys on the cover?

Neil: The actual pictures are just stock photos.

Chris: Actually I think that Kaiser Wilhelm is one of them. The one on top is, at least I have heard that it’s Thomas Edison. And the one with the eyepatch, someone had told me who he is but I forgot his name. I am not sure about the other two guys but I am very sure that Kaiser Wilhelm is the one on the right bottom. I think the picture of Thomas Edison also looks a bit like Walt Whitman.

Neil: The names underneath are different than the people.

Chris: The names on the record are Gordon Shumway that’s Alf’s real name on Melmac, Ivan Nikolayevich is one of the characters out of a book that we were possessed with and the other name Ferdinand Magellan is, of course, the first one to navigate the globe.

Punk76: Ok, and where’s the connection between them?

Neil: They are all travelers and we are travelers.

Punk76: Alf?

Neil: Alf is a big traveler! He came all the way from Melmac!

Punk76: So you have this circus topic. Do you like concept records?

Chris: No, it is not a concept record. I would probably call it a thematic record. Because the idea of circus and carnival came after all the songs were written. We found all the stuff in the songs.

Punk76: So you’re doing some clown show on stage tonight?

Chris: In the States we actually come on stage with some sort of demented polka music.

Neil: It is our entrance music, you know.

Chris: I mean, our life is circus enough. We don’t need to dress up like clowns to be clowns.

Punk76: So Sean, who are you?

Sean:I do merchandise for these guys.

Chris: He s also spiritual adviser.

Neil: My life manager.

Sean: I’m Neil’s life manager. And I’m Doctor Happy. Grim smile coordinator. I travel with these guys, I sell the shirts and in the States I roadmanage them. They are my homies and I love these guys.

Punk76: Ok, so how has the tour been going so far?

Chris: Really really good. This is our 4th time in Europe and our 3rd time since we been on Fat. The first time we went here was in 2000.

Neil: We don’t remember it actually. That was a heavy drinking tour. That was the most drunk Chris has ever been in his whole life. In Paderborn.

Punk76: OH NO! In Paderborn! Every band we meet has a story to tell about this city?

Neil: At Limericks? [note: name of the venue]

Punk76: Yes.

Neil: I had some shots where they light the glass on fire and put it on their nipples.

Chris: Way too much Sambuca and Absinth. But the tour has been going really good--the best shows we ever headlined in Europe.

Punk76: What are your plans for the near future?

Chris: We’ll finish this tour then we’ll go home for a couple of months and we won’t play any shows cause we have been playing since September really hard. Maybe we’ll do a small tour in the States this summer. I’m not really sure. Write some new songs, vote against Bush in the election in the fall.

Punk76: Are you a political band?

Chris: I would not consider us to be a political band but right now is an important time to be into politics. Especially in America. I think we are not so overtly political but I think our values come across in our music anyway. So, go out and vote in November against George Bush!

Punk76: Are you involved with Punkvoter?

Chris: Oh yeah, Brendan has a column on the website and we played the Punkvoter show in Texas. We’re on the Rock against Bush comp. On the 2nd volume. It’s a new song.

Punk76: What does it sound like?

Neil: It’s very interesting you ask. We recorded the song and Brendan wrote it. We had never heard it. But the night before we heard it on a cassette tape.

Chris: I wrote all my guitar parts the night before.

Neil: We got to the studio and I did my drums, Brendan did his bass and vocals and Chris did his guitar. And we had never heard the song. We had never played it together. It has sort of this weird feeling that it’s 10 songs smashed into one minute. It’s only about a minute and a half.

The Lawrence Arms - The Devil's Takin' Names

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