OK, I'm back. Always remember, good things come to those who wait. That being said, here is a classic interview as the Sponge sits down with Tim Barry and the boys when they came through Phoenix/Tempe back in the day. Perhaps my all time favorite band to see live. This show at Boston's will forever be one of the greatest performances I have ever had the pleasure to experience.
MOISST: I didn’t really prepare to heavily for this interview so lets just see how it goes.
AVAIL: OK their are a few questions you can’t ask. Don’t ask if we’re vegan or straight edge, don’t ask us what our influences are, don’t ask us our favorite place to play, and don’t ask us for any wild touring stories cause their are too many to even think of. I’ll tell you one crazy tour story though. Last night in Gainesville Fl. Bo peed inside of a Tropicana orange juice bottle and filled it almost all the way up and Caroline put it on the merchandising table with this sign that said drink Bo’s pee and get all this merchandising form all these bands that signed up on this list. Anyway, Bo had been eating all these kinds of vitamins and the shit was toxic yellow. This honkey walks up and chugged the whole thing with video cameras and regular cameras taking it all down. So we got a full documentary out of it. That was fucking disgusting taking down a full bottle of urine. I mean he got so much merchandising out of it. In fact thinking about that whole thing makes me want to throw up.
MOISST: So lets talk about the new album. I know you didn’t record it at uncle punches.
AVAIL: Yeah, well we were in tour a whole lot and when we got home we started writing a bunch of material. We got hooked up with Montana studios and it just felt like home so we booked a bunch of time in the studio and went to work on it. It was great it was so close that we would hop on our bikes and just ride out to it and put the material down. I think being at home felt extremely comfortable. We recorded the Fall Of Richmond 7” with the young pioneers their. We just got a real good feel for the studio. I think it really show on the record, I mean it’s more together.
MOISST: Are you going to record with them again?
AVAIL: Oh yeah, definitely.
MOISST: The sound seems a little more mellow on that release.
AVAIL: Actually we have had a few people ask us why our music has strayed from the normal Avail style. We didn’t intentionally change our music style. We have always been influenced by rock music. I mean we all grew up in the white suburbs of Western Virginia in the mid eighties. All the bands that we would go see would be Marginal Man, Dag Nasty, and King face. That’s what we grew up on. A lot of the D.C.bands had a lot of integrity but they were basically rock bands. It still rubs off on us. It does show on the new record.
MOISST: I thought of Avail and Dag Nasty as the same type of soulful music.
AVAIL: I used to love to go see Dag Nasty play. Actually I got kicked out of a Dag Nasty show once for stage diving. I did this stage dive and this mad security guy was dragging me out by my feet. At that point I looked up and my girlfriend was their, all of five feet two, and she was beating the shit out of the motherfucker. It was funny as hell. Lets talk about something else.
MOISST: OK we were talking about major labels earlier.
AVAIL: 5 Million. We read on the Internet that we were offered five million dollars to do a record on a major label. So during some interview these people were saying that it was great that you turned down that kind of money from the major labels. At that point I was thinking if someone actually offered us that kind of money, think of all the positive things that could come out of the good of that kind of money. Even if the band was never together again. You could buy land and live communally, you could open a free breakfast program in the poorer areas of town. Like the black panthers did in the sixties. Their would be so many cool things you could do. I think I would do it in a second if some one actually offered five million dollars to us. In the same breath though we have been offered a lot of money with major labels.
MOISST: Are you talkin multiple album deals or what?
AVAIL: Their are two major reasons that we turned down the contracts that were offered. The first one. Well here is a hypothetical situation of what we were offered. A four record contract plus the option of six more. That means that we would have to record at least for records with that label and become nameless rock stars and that’s total bullshit. That is bullshit. It’s scary being held out for that long. I mean with Lookout we put out a record, it comes out and we tour. The other thing that was really scary was that one of the majors that approached us. We sat down with the vice president of this label and he starts mocking us from the beginning. He says “come on in we’ve been trying to get you with us for the last four years. You want to play ball? You already play fucking ball. If you want to play the world stadium than you can work with us.” The second reason that scared us is that. One of the bands that is on this label was a punk band that is sort of metal now approached the label and asked “What if we record an album and put it on your desk and you don’t like it.” He said that if he didn’t like it he would give it back and tell them to write another one. The way that we work is that we write really slowly. We are really anal about what we write about. It takes a year to a year and a half to put out a record. Now if we spent that kind of time working on a record with our complete heart that is coming from us. If we gave that to a major label and this major label honkey tells us that it wasn’t good enough that would break my heart. So, those are the two reasons we have decided to wait on that. We did spend a week debating if this would be good for us. We did decide the best thing for us at this point is to stay with Lookout.
MOISST: Do you write a lot of music on the road?
AVAIL: I write a lot of lyrics on the road and we try to bring along acoustic guitars to work out the rest. We write almost everything on the acoustic guitar.
MOISST: How long have you known Bobo?
AVAIL: Shit, he’s been around since I have been in kindergarten. You know how every band always has some guy that’s always around. Well he’s that person.
MOISST: Did he get a job with the band?
AVAIL: We never gave him a job he just started doing what he does.
MOISST: Has he been on any of the previous albums?
AVAIL: He’s done some backing vocals here and there.
MOISST: Whatever made you want to start to sing? I know you were in another band playing drums.
AVAIL: It wasn’t like a conscious decision. It’s hard to explain really what AVAIL is. When we were in high school. I was in a band called LDK and Joe started a band AVAIL. I went to rehab for a while and when I got out Joe asked me if I wanted to play drums for AVAIL. Well, at the time we lived in Northern Virginia. The band moved to Richmond and everyone except the singer moved with us and we were in a position where we needed one and I stepped up to give it a try. It was scary shit going from playing drums my whole life to singing. I mean when your playing drums all your limbs are accounted for. The first time I started singing I kind of stood their thinking what do I do. (Everyone starts bustin up). Their was a video of the first time I sang and It was ridiculous. I sang in this other band when I was a kid. I was in eighth grade. The name of the band was Militia. The logo for the band was an upside down cross. I taught myself how to play the drums and sing at the same time, but the singing wasn’t too complicated. I had the indecipherable vocals in the beautiful death metal form. It was all about Satan.(Laughing erupts again) Seriously every single word was about Satan. They were all lines ripped off by Venom. I mean that was what I was into. That and drinking a twelve of Bush beer smoking some joints and huffin glue in the woods. I thought I was a Satanist. You can still see on my arms slight scars of upside down crosses.
MOISST: What made you stop?
AVAIL: JESUS CHRIST!!(Laughter once again) I was never really a Satanist. I was a young kid who was born and raised Irish catholic and hated every bit of it and did everything I could do to piss my parents off. I was just rebelling against my parents who are two of the loveliest people in the world. But you know I’d wear my Venom shirts to church. It had a goat head with an upside down cross and 666 on it. I wore it every time I went to church. I finally got kicked out for calling my Sunday school teacher a bitch.
MOISST: So, what made you turn from the dark side?
AVAIL: It only lasted a year.
MOISST: Where to after this show
AVAIL: Two more months in America, then to Europe. We go home for two more weeks and then back out to Australia and New Zealand.
MOISST: Have you toured with any other large punk bands.
AVAIL: We are really not a pretentious band. We don’t want to get big touring on the coat tails for other bands. We have played some shows with some really great bands and haven’t been paid that well. That’s one lesson we’ve learned the hard way. The first time we went on the road we didn’t make anything. It was hard to make it to the next gig at times. That’s why when we play with smaller bands that are on the road we kick down at least a couple hundred dollars. We learned the hard way. A lot of times when you play with larger bands they aren’t going to give you shit. We just want to put back in the scene what we have gotten out of it.
At this point the conversation went on to more personal topics. So, that’s about it………………
MOISST: So lets talk about the new album. I know you didn’t record it at uncle punches.
AVAIL: Yeah, well we were in tour a whole lot and when we got home we started writing a bunch of material. We got hooked up with Montana studios and it just felt like home so we booked a bunch of time in the studio and went to work on it. It was great it was so close that we would hop on our bikes and just ride out to it and put the material down. I think being at home felt extremely comfortable. We recorded the Fall Of Richmond 7” with the young pioneers their. We just got a real good feel for the studio. I think it really show on the record, I mean it’s more together.
MOISST: Are you going to record with them again?
AVAIL: Oh yeah, definitely.
MOISST: The sound seems a little more mellow on that release.
AVAIL: Actually we have had a few people ask us why our music has strayed from the normal Avail style. We didn’t intentionally change our music style. We have always been influenced by rock music. I mean we all grew up in the white suburbs of Western Virginia in the mid eighties. All the bands that we would go see would be Marginal Man, Dag Nasty, and King face. That’s what we grew up on. A lot of the D.C.bands had a lot of integrity but they were basically rock bands. It still rubs off on us. It does show on the new record.
MOISST: I thought of Avail and Dag Nasty as the same type of soulful music.
AVAIL: I used to love to go see Dag Nasty play. Actually I got kicked out of a Dag Nasty show once for stage diving. I did this stage dive and this mad security guy was dragging me out by my feet. At that point I looked up and my girlfriend was their, all of five feet two, and she was beating the shit out of the motherfucker. It was funny as hell. Lets talk about something else.
MOISST: OK we were talking about major labels earlier.
AVAIL: 5 Million. We read on the Internet that we were offered five million dollars to do a record on a major label. So during some interview these people were saying that it was great that you turned down that kind of money from the major labels. At that point I was thinking if someone actually offered us that kind of money, think of all the positive things that could come out of the good of that kind of money. Even if the band was never together again. You could buy land and live communally, you could open a free breakfast program in the poorer areas of town. Like the black panthers did in the sixties. Their would be so many cool things you could do. I think I would do it in a second if some one actually offered five million dollars to us. In the same breath though we have been offered a lot of money with major labels.
MOISST: Are you talkin multiple album deals or what?
AVAIL: Their are two major reasons that we turned down the contracts that were offered. The first one. Well here is a hypothetical situation of what we were offered. A four record contract plus the option of six more. That means that we would have to record at least for records with that label and become nameless rock stars and that’s total bullshit. That is bullshit. It’s scary being held out for that long. I mean with Lookout we put out a record, it comes out and we tour. The other thing that was really scary was that one of the majors that approached us. We sat down with the vice president of this label and he starts mocking us from the beginning. He says “come on in we’ve been trying to get you with us for the last four years. You want to play ball? You already play fucking ball. If you want to play the world stadium than you can work with us.” The second reason that scared us is that. One of the bands that is on this label was a punk band that is sort of metal now approached the label and asked “What if we record an album and put it on your desk and you don’t like it.” He said that if he didn’t like it he would give it back and tell them to write another one. The way that we work is that we write really slowly. We are really anal about what we write about. It takes a year to a year and a half to put out a record. Now if we spent that kind of time working on a record with our complete heart that is coming from us. If we gave that to a major label and this major label honkey tells us that it wasn’t good enough that would break my heart. So, those are the two reasons we have decided to wait on that. We did spend a week debating if this would be good for us. We did decide the best thing for us at this point is to stay with Lookout.
MOISST: Do you write a lot of music on the road?
AVAIL: I write a lot of lyrics on the road and we try to bring along acoustic guitars to work out the rest. We write almost everything on the acoustic guitar.
MOISST: How long have you known Bobo?
AVAIL: Shit, he’s been around since I have been in kindergarten. You know how every band always has some guy that’s always around. Well he’s that person.
MOISST: Did he get a job with the band?
AVAIL: We never gave him a job he just started doing what he does.
MOISST: Has he been on any of the previous albums?
AVAIL: He’s done some backing vocals here and there.
MOISST: Whatever made you want to start to sing? I know you were in another band playing drums.
AVAIL: It wasn’t like a conscious decision. It’s hard to explain really what AVAIL is. When we were in high school. I was in a band called LDK and Joe started a band AVAIL. I went to rehab for a while and when I got out Joe asked me if I wanted to play drums for AVAIL. Well, at the time we lived in Northern Virginia. The band moved to Richmond and everyone except the singer moved with us and we were in a position where we needed one and I stepped up to give it a try. It was scary shit going from playing drums my whole life to singing. I mean when your playing drums all your limbs are accounted for. The first time I started singing I kind of stood their thinking what do I do. (Everyone starts bustin up). Their was a video of the first time I sang and It was ridiculous. I sang in this other band when I was a kid. I was in eighth grade. The name of the band was Militia. The logo for the band was an upside down cross. I taught myself how to play the drums and sing at the same time, but the singing wasn’t too complicated. I had the indecipherable vocals in the beautiful death metal form. It was all about Satan.(Laughing erupts again) Seriously every single word was about Satan. They were all lines ripped off by Venom. I mean that was what I was into. That and drinking a twelve of Bush beer smoking some joints and huffin glue in the woods. I thought I was a Satanist. You can still see on my arms slight scars of upside down crosses.
MOISST: What made you stop?
AVAIL: JESUS CHRIST!!(Laughter once again) I was never really a Satanist. I was a young kid who was born and raised Irish catholic and hated every bit of it and did everything I could do to piss my parents off. I was just rebelling against my parents who are two of the loveliest people in the world. But you know I’d wear my Venom shirts to church. It had a goat head with an upside down cross and 666 on it. I wore it every time I went to church. I finally got kicked out for calling my Sunday school teacher a bitch.
MOISST: So, what made you turn from the dark side?
AVAIL: It only lasted a year.
MOISST: Where to after this show
AVAIL: Two more months in America, then to Europe. We go home for two more weeks and then back out to Australia and New Zealand.
MOISST: Have you toured with any other large punk bands.
AVAIL: We are really not a pretentious band. We don’t want to get big touring on the coat tails for other bands. We have played some shows with some really great bands and haven’t been paid that well. That’s one lesson we’ve learned the hard way. The first time we went on the road we didn’t make anything. It was hard to make it to the next gig at times. That’s why when we play with smaller bands that are on the road we kick down at least a couple hundred dollars. We learned the hard way. A lot of times when you play with larger bands they aren’t going to give you shit. We just want to put back in the scene what we have gotten out of it.
At this point the conversation went on to more personal topics. So, that’s about it………………
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