On the first date of the Once It Hits Your Lips Tour, we caught up with Anarbor, who have finally made it back to the East Coast! Learn about the new album, their opinions on the music industry, and the boys’ crazy high school stories!
Introduce yourselves and what you do in the band.
Mike: I’m Mike, I play guitar.
Greg: I’m Greg and I play the drums.
Adam: I’m Adam and I play guitar.
Slade: I’m Slade and I sing and play bass.
Tell us a secret about each of your band members.
Slade: My first name is Rudolf. That’s a good one. Most people don’t know that.
Mike: Adam has a huge dick!
Slade: But everyone knows that, so it’s not a secret.
Adam: Mike has three nipples!
Mike: Greg actually has 3 kids….that’s a pretty big secret!
Greg: Yeah…
Mike: That’s a pretty big secret. Other than we’re pretty open guys!
This is the first day of tour, what should fans coming to this tour expect?
Slade: We’re playing a new song off our new record. So they should expect a new song and a cover song!
You guys recorded a full length already?
Adam: Yeah we just finished.
When does it come out?
Adam: It comes out this spring!
Do you have any funny stories from high school experiences?
Slade: My first day of freshman year in high school, I went to like a private high school, I was waiting in line for lunch and this half pizza thing got thrown at me… and all these people started laughing, it really sucked.
Mike: I dropped my food on the first day after getting it! There was stairs leading down after you bought your food, and I tripped and dropped a pizza and a cheeseburger and my drink on the ground! Everyone in the courtyard saw me drop it…it was embarrassing. It was an all guys school so everyone just made fun of you.
Adam: Well my freshman year I caught throwing stuff. Every day at lunch me and my brother [Taylor] and one of my friends we would go to the condiment line and get all the pickles and we’d go up to the second story and throw them at people in the cafeteria. Then we got caught for it…we had to do community service hours.
Slade: You’re the type of kid I wanted to beat up…and that’s why you got shit thrown at you.
Greg: Me and Mike sat in the same group and the seniors were like two stories above us and one of our friends Matt got hit with a full thing of Yoplait yogurt right in the chest.
What are the best tour pranks you’ve played on other bands and what are the best that have been played on you guys?
Greg: One time we had one of our friends shit on someone’s windshield and we saran wrapped the whole thing.
Mike: Nobodie has ever pranked us ‘cause they don’t have the balls.
Greg: One time David Blaise from This Providence came on the last day of the tour, he was in one of those uni-suits and it was green and he had our booty shorts on. He was like dancing on all of us while we were playing our last song.
Who are your biggest musical influences and how do you incorporate them into your own music?
Mike: We have a bunch, we all listen to like pretty much everything. We like anything from like Top Eddy type stuff to new age like…
Greg: Jimmy Eat World, Red Hot Chile Peppers, Envy on the Coast…
Mike: They’re a sick new band!
Adam: Ever Clear.
Mike: Old school 90’s too.
What are some problems you think are in the music industry today?
Slade: [People] focusing more on what they are wearing rather than the music that you’re playing, which is big right now. A lot of people will dress up but they’re just there to look hot when really their music sucks.
Adam: You sound like shit, but you’re hot. So fuck it.
Mike: A lot of the times it seems like bands today are more in a band to just be in a band rather than play music. Its kinda weird ‘cause it’s not about signing autographs or taking pictures, it’s about the songs you write. All the songs we write mean so much to each of us because we’re all like putting our lives into them. We like writing about real shit rather than dance parties.
Where do you see yourselves in five years musically?
Greg: Hopefully playing arenas! And writing records.
Slade: Still doing what we’re doing.
How do you think Twitter has influenced the music industry since it became popular?
Mike: Well John Mayer fuckin’ loves it!
Slade: You can always talk to your fans, tell them what you’re doing so it makes them feel really personal to you too, so it’s just a good way.
Greg: It’s easier to use than like Myspace, Facebook and stuff cause you can just do it on your phone and reply people rather than checking your messages, your friend requests, anyone can follow you and say anything…
Slade: And you can retweet it, so it spreads.
Mike: And especially things like Haiti, how much money was raised…I’m sure everyone saw those Twitter messages “text blahblahblah to 901 to donate $10” or whatever. You can use it for like positive things like that, which is cool.
What are your plans for 2010?
Mike: Touring! Off our new records.
Adam: Putting out our first full length record, just a lot of touring! Doing Warped Tour finally! Full Warped Tour.
Mike: Hopefully going overseas too..getting out of the US.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Slade: Buy our CD when it comes out!
Adam: Yeah, pick it up when it comes out in April.
Mike: Come see us on this tour with Friday Night Boys! We’re going to be on tour til February 13th! Warped Tour baby, 2010!
