Interview with Mike Golla of The Starting Line

Interview made via Email . interviewer: Oliver Marx . 2007

The Starting Line - Island

Punk76: The Starting Line has gained a huge fan base in the last few years, but I was curious about your beginnings. How did The Starting Line became such a sucsessful band?
Mike Golla : My name is Joe Ballaro I play bass in the band

Punk76: The Starting Line has gained a huge fan base in the last few years, but I was curious about your beginnings. How did The Starting Line became such a sucsessful band?
Mike Golla : The Starting Line begun around the late summer of 1999, me and Matt the other guitarist were friends and had been playing together for a little bit. He was looking for a singer, and so he did an AOL member profile search – looked up his favorite bands, to see who liked them, and sent out a couple emails. The only person who responded was this kid named Kenny, he said he was in a band, but he was interested, he said that he was playing a show with his band, the Skate Parks. Me and Matt came out and watched him play, watched him sing. He was awesome. We kind of stole him and started writing songs. It kind of clicked. We felt it. Everybody wanted to do this more than anything else. We just stuck to it and here we are, eight years later.

Punk76: Your career began on Drive Thru records. How did DriveThru once found out about you?
Mike Golla : We actually recorded a record for a smaller label called We the People Records, which was basically just this kid named Charley who wanted to start a record label. It turns out that he used to work for Drive Thru. We did a record with him, and then after we did it he showed it to Drive Thru, and Drive Thru basically bought it off him. It was a lot of luck and a twist of faith.

Punk76: Where comes the name “The Starting Line” from?
Mike Golla : We used to actually be called Sunday Drive, but before we released a record on Drive Thru they told us we should change it because there were a couple other bands called Sunday Drive, and they were worried about potential lawsuits. It was just better to change it. There’s no elaborate story: we all thought of names and that was the only one we all didn't hate.

Punk76: How would you describe your sound to readers who may not have heard you before?
Mike Golla : I guess I would say we are sort of Poppy-rock. We rock, but we definitely have Pop sensibilities, with vocal hooks and great melodies.

Punk76: I read that you´re from Philadelphia. Does Philadelphia have a strong music scene?
Mike Golla : Honestly, no, not really. It does so more now than it used to. When we first started we couldn’t even get a show in Philly. A lot of people think we are from New Jersey, because we always played there in halls and youth centers every weekend. Eventually we got a couple big shows with New Found Glory in Philly, and after that we were able to start playing more. It’s gotten a lot better, with bands like Circa Survive, us, The Roots, a lot of other stuff popping up.

Punk76: was hoping you could talk a bit about your band’s career trajectory. You guys started out on Drive, then got signed to Island and now are on Virgin. What has it been like over the years, moving from one record company to another?
Mike Golla : When we got signed to Drive Thru, it was great. Everybody there was great, and they just let us do what we wanted to do. They signed up as their band, we made records. The deal with Drive Thru is that they are owned by a major label, so the major label can pick the bands up whenever they want. MCA had picked us up, and right when they picked us up they got bought out by Geffen Record. Everyone on MCA that wanted us got fired. We were in this kind of limbo at our label, and nobody really knew what to do with us or really gave a shit. That was around the time we were making the Based On A True Story record. They didn’t really do anything with it. They didn’t care. We felt like we weren’t getting the love we wanted: nobody respected us, and they didn’t even seem to care to even want to work with us. After we put that out, we had a long conference call with the owner of Geffen Records. He agreed to let us out. Right after he did that, we got signed by Virgin. Virgin is the closest thing to being back on Drive Thru. Everyone there authentically likes our band. There’s not a ton of pressure to do something we don’t want to do, and everything feels real natural and comfortable again. Everybody’s a lot happier these days.

Punk76: If you were to compare the albums you guys have put out, how would you view them in terms of The Starting Line’s development and direction as a band (music, lyrics, etc.)?
Mike Golla : Say It Like You Mean It came out when we were all pretty young, Blink 182 was, I think, all of our favourite bands, they were kind of like all the songs we had written in our lives up to then, it was a lot easier to make that record. When we had to make the second one on Geffen. It was kind of a bad deal: nobody wanted to work with us, or if they did, they wanted us to sound like something like we didn’t want to sound. It kind of pushed us into a corner making that record, trying to figure out who we are. We knew who we didn’t want to be, and that’s kind of what we were fighting with Geffen about. That’s probably our most far-out record to date, probably because of all the pressures from the major label. We just wanted to do what we wanted to do. They just kept backing us into a corner. And then we came out with that. I feel a lot of negativity when I listen to that record, because of that. Direction is a marriage between the first two records, we figure out our sound, we figured out what we wanted to sound like, and we executed it better. We’re all better musicians, and we’re all grown up. I think I’ve said this with every record, but I think Direction is the best one to date.

Punk76: Why is the new album, for that matter, called Direction?
Mike Golla : It’s about finding your own way in life, in music, and sticking to it. I think it was a good album title for where we were in our career. We just got signed. I kinda feel like we figured it out, we found our place in music. We Found people who really wanted to work with us, and we haven’t had that in a long time. It’s one of the better songs, in my opinion, on that record. We all felt that it suited where we were the best.

Punk76: I am really into your new song and video for “Island”. What is that song about?
Mike Golla :I’m going to speak for Kenny, who wrote the lyrics. From what I’ve heard him say, it’s about getting away from everything that isn’t important, and trying to get back to the basics with your girl or man, whoever you are. There’s a lot of bullshit in life, and that song’s about getting away from all of it and focusing on what’s important. And that’s what Island represents. It’s not necessarily an island, it’s just a place you can go to escape from everything.

Punk76: Do you guys have a second single or video coming out?
Mike Golla :We don’t have another video yet, but I believe the second single’s going to be “21.”

Punk76: I know that you guys love doing live shows. What are some of your fondest and/or craziest memories of touring?
Mike Golla :On the road, nothing too crazy ever happens to us. We’re not that crazy. We’ve all had our fair share of spills on the stage. We were over in Europe a while ago, and I busted my front tooth out. I was bleeding everywhere That was the first song in the set, I just had to go through the rest. There’s not too much crazy shit that goes down. We’re just a bunch of dudes who like to watch movies, hang out, go to restaurants.

Punk76: How does the road life treat you guys? Do any of you have families that you have to juggle while being on tour?
Mike Golla : I’m the only one with a family. I’m married, and I have two daughters. It’s kind of rough at times, but I have a really stable wife at home who helps me keep my head straight. Matt has been managing a band, so I know he’s always busy. Kenny has his side project. We’re all pretty busy. But we all come together at the end of the day because this is what we live for.

Punk76: I know you’ve been performing on the WARPED tour. Do you like playing at festivals or do you prefer playing in smaller venues?
Mike Golla : I would love to do a tour with Jimmy Eat World, if they’d ever take us. They were always our biggest driving influence since the beginning of this. We’ve never played a show with them or met them, and I think we’ve met just about everybody else in the industry.

Punk76: Have you guys ever been to Europe? What did you think? Are there any plans to play in Europe?
Mike Golla : We’ve been to the UK six times. The bulk of Europe – France and all that – we’ve only been once. We came through with Reel Big Fish, years ago. I’m sure we’ll be back soon...

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