The Union Underground (John&Josh) Interview

2/14/2001
Philadelphia
SnoCore 2001
interview conducted and all copyrights reserved by [email protected]

Laura: How do you guys like Philly so far?

Josh: Ugh, I love Philly. We�fve been here three or four times. Every time we play here, the crowds are great. It�fs always interesting and we always have a great time. Ya know, we always go to South Street and hang out and then we play a great gig every time we play here so...

I tell the guys how I wanted to stay home from school and hang on South Street because I figured they along with the other bands would go and shop there.

John: There was definitely some shopping done today!

Laura: Where did you guys get the idea for the cover of your CD?

John: That was a collaboration of Bryan, our lead singer, and Dean Carr who was the photographer. Dean Carr, if you are familiar with him, did the Marilyn Mason �gAntiChrist�h cover as well as tons of other great bands. He does videos as well as photo shoots. Well, during our photo shoot, they were talking about getting a girl for the cover and so they went through....we were in New York and we went through like a book of young models and we found this girl (holding up CD cover). Her name is Anabel Lease (sp?) and
this picture (pointing to the Union Underground CD cover) was the last of a three hour long photo shoot in the middle of December. She is dressed, as you can see, in practically nothing and see how she�fs all blue? That has nothing to do with make-up or. She was freezing cold and this was the last look of defiance before she was like, �eThis is over. I�fm ready to go into the trailer, I�fm cold. Dad make it stop.�f So, a little bit of torture, but it worked out real well and it came out a real good CD cover.

Laura: Yeah, it was worth it though!

Josh: That was the last shot of the day. As you can tell, she�fs not very happy and it was about 20 degrees, it was three days before Christmas in New York City and probably about 30 m.p.h. winds, so she was not happy with this one bit.

Laura: Is there a message behind the picture, because I know on the back of the CD, there is her on the board with the chalk..

 

(note: What I was trying to say was if there was a reason behind the CD cover and back photos; if there was a purpose or story as why they choose to have the little girl at the chalkboard. I guess that is how you can word my question. My nerves overcame me during this! lol)

John: Yes, absolutely. The album from the Union Underground is called �gEducation in Rebellion�h and of course when you think of education, you think of young kids, school, and so on and so forth. We did shots of her with the chalkboard pointing at the title �gEducation in Rebellion�h and actually I don�ft know if it�fs in here, but on the jewel case the font for �gEducation in Rebellion�h was actually written by her (the young girl pictured on the album�fs cover) on a chalk board. Which not only makes for a good story, but it�fs actually real. So there�fs a couple of connections there. First of all, the title of the record and secondly the fact that she wrote the title herself and the fact that she just looks like an evil school mistress that�fs only 8 years old! Go figure.

Laura: What was it like to tour with Marilyn Mason?

Josh: It was actually a great experience. We�fre all big, big fans of Marilyn and it was a great experience to be able to witness how he does things. He�fs a real down to earth guy, a great business man, an excellent musician, great songwriter, everything. He�fs just all inclusive and so it was all very inspirational to work with him. We hung out a lot and he loved our band. He actually choose us out of like 100-150 bands that were vying? for the opening slot. He actually heard �gTurn me on Mr. Deadman�h in a club one night and he was like, �gI gotta find out who this band is.�h and once he found out he was like, �gDo you want to open up the tour?�h. That�fs pretty much how it went down.

John: We have Ozzfest coming up during the summer time and Marilyn Manson�fs going to be on there too so we�fre looking forward to a little reunion with them.

Laura: You just answered more of my questions, but that�fs alright! (laughing)

John: Well, there ya go. We�fre ahead of the game.

Note: (Laughing) Actually no, you�fre not John!! I saw you cheating while I was talking to Josh! While I would talk to Josh, John would look at my paper. While I talked to John, Josh would look at my paper. Even before the interview, I saw Josh�fs eyeballs roaming on my paper, but I caught him! (laughing)

Laura: Here�fs a two part question. What was the craziest thing that ever happened to you while on tour and what was the craziest thing that you ever saw on tour?

Josh: Craziest thing that ever happened to us on tour....we were in Chicago about two weeks ago and three fans, out of the blue, showed up with the Union Underground tattoos.

John: They just weren�ft Union Underground tattoos, which is actually kind of common there are a lot of kids with Union Underground tattoos. I don�ft want to say kids, but fans with Union Underground tattoos. What made these tattoos special was it was actually our writing. We had actually signed on their backs or arms the logo, the Union Underground, and they went straight to the tattoo artist before the ink washed off and got it permanently put on. That was...I didn�ft know what to think of it. I was really taken back..

Laura: Pure dedication.

John: Yes.

Laura: Here�fs another question from one of your fans. Well, this is probably more for Bryan, but you guys can answer this. What�fs your inspiration behind writing your songs?

Josh: Lyrically or just the whole song?

Laura: Well, everything. (Again, I meant to say �gLyrically and musically!�h)

Josh goes to answer the question and John takes over!

John: I know what it is honestly. It�fs about personal experiences. It�fs about what you feel, it�fs about what effects you, ya know. I mean, a lot of people like to write about books, they write about movies, and that�fs cool to get inspiration from those things, but some of the more truer songs come out, especially with us, are the ones that come from honest experiences. And I know Bryan, the way he writes his lyrics are definitely from that point from what he feels and what he�fs actually done.

Josh: And, ya know, with Bryan, he�fs said this in interviews before and he�fll tell ya that he centers the lyrics around the feel of the song. Usually the music comes first. It�fs not like he has a huge notebook of lyrics, I�fm sure he has some stashed away somewhere. He usually lets the song dictate what the lyrics are going to be for that particular song and so usually the music comes first.

Laura: That�fs different!

Laura: What do you like to do to relax from touring?

Josh: Ugh, video games, sleep (laughing).

John: I�fm kind of an explorer. I like to just get away from everybody. I�fll take, like maybe one of the guys in the band or one of the crew guys with me and we�fll, like if we�f have a day off in New York, I�fll just go and walk around New York. Ya know, walk from the east village to the west village. Or if I�fm in Colorado, I�fll go hike a mountain. I just like to
get to explore and soak in whatever area I�fm in. Not everybody gets opportunity to travel like we do and unfortunately we�fre always working. Like, today in Philadelphia I didn�ft get a chance to go out and enjoy the city, but if we had a day off you know I would and when we do get days off in cities, a lot of us try to take advantage of it and go out and just soak in the vibe wherever we�fre at.

Laura: Another question from one of your fans is what do you like to listen to while on the road besides your music?

Josh: We never listen to ourselves on the road because we play it 5,6 nights a week. Everything. Disturbed, Linkin Park, Marilyn Mason, like I said, we�fre huge fans. Pantera, Fiona Apple.....

note: (now there�fs an apple, no pun intended, in that orange bin!)

Josh:...Rage Against the Machine, you name it. Almost everything.

John: Sometimes, we�fre all into heavy music and obviously we play heavy music, but sometimes it�fs nice for us to put in CD�fs that are real opposite of what we�fre doing, like he said Fiona Apple...

Laura: A change of pace.

John: Right, a change of pace. Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Dr. Dre, Eminein, stuff that just kind of opens our ears up, cause to get away from that grungy guitar ya know, it�fs kinda nice to get away from sometimes.

Josh: Plus it helps influencing your songwriting too. When you branch out and listen to different types of music, different types of bands, it eventually kind of shows up in your songwriting because you�fre not just playing rock and roll. You have elements of different things happening.

Laura: You don�ft want to limit yourself.

Josh: Right.

John: There�fs four guys in the band we all have different tastes and fortunately none of us are real close minded so I kind of have different tastes then some of the other guys. They make fun of me (Josh and I both laugh), but the truth still is, they still listen. They�fll still give me the benefit of the doubt when I take over the CD player, they go, �gOh no!�h
, but they never say, �gTurn that off.�h cause they know they�fre getting influence and it goes the other way around too. They�fll play stuff I never even heard of and I�fll go, �gOh, cool.�h

Josh: It kind of works both ways. John will throw in Radiohead or something and then we�fll give him a hard time about it, but I�fll throw in some James Brown and Bryan will throw in some Portishead or something like that. Well all kind of fun each other about it, but we all appreciate each other�fs musical opinions. It�fs all jokes! Just jokes!

Laura: How does this tour differ from the Mason tour? Aside from the fact that your touring with different bands.

Josh: This is a very, very metal tour. All the bands are real hard, brutal and although I think we come across pretty heavy live we�fre definitely not as heavy.....

Laura: I was feeling that bass.

Josh: We�fll there ya go (pointing to John). We�fre not as quite as brutal as the rest of these bands here. Sometimes heavy doesn�ft necessarily mean you have go out there and go, �gUggghhh�h (making a deep sound. Think of how Napalm Death sings during �gTwist the Knife (Slowly)�h and you�fll hear the sound Josh makes!) ya know, all night. I think Radiohead is heavy just because they are so deep and so lyrical and stuff like that.

John: I think another big difference is there�fs 5 bands and so all of the bands had to, I�fm not going to compare it to an Ozzfest which has 30 bands, but there�fs 5 bands on one stage and we only have a short amount of time to perform the whole show, so there�fs a level of compromise that I think everybody�fs had to do. When we were on tour with Mason, there was only 3 bands and Mason to his credit allowed us full rein(?) of doing our full set and doing our full production and everything we bring out with us. But, one
of the biggest differences is on the SnoCore tour, we had to scale down a little bit and it�fs been a little punk rock for us. Which is fine because it�fs more about the show and the energy and I don�ft mind that at all.

Laura: Do you guys get a chance to go on the internet a lot and look at your different fan sites?

Josh: Ugh...

John: Not as much as we want to!!!

Josh: Not was much as we want. We�fre working on getting laptops right now, but whenever we�fre home or whenever we can borrow a computer from somebody, we always on the site because we control everything on our site. We try to have all of that in our grasps. We check out the fan sites, we�fll read the bulletin boards, and on our web site, theunionunderground.com, you can personally e-mail us. All of our personal e-mail addresses are on there.

John: I mean, that�fs our real e-mail addresses. No one has my code. I have my code. Josh has his code. So when we check them, people ask me, they�fre like, �gOh, you pay someone to do that.�h Hell no! I go on and I check it myself and if you don�ft get e-mailed back, it�fs not because I didn�ft read it. It�fs because I didn�ft get to it and also it�fs not because I hired someone to do it for me. But still, we try to get on there and we try to e-mail people back and stay up with it as much as possible. Our goals for this next year are to open a new web site called �gUnionUnderground.com�h not �gtheUnionUnderground.com�h. There�fs a difference. So we�fll have two. If you�fve been to the first site, it�fs called �gtheunionunderground.com�h and it�fs more like a vision of what we are on stage and then the new one will web site will be a backstage pass and we�fre gonna have more behind the scenes stuff on it and hopefully make it a bit more personal for everybody. That�fs one of our goals for next year and obviously I�fm getting a couple laptops for the band as well as a fan club that we�fre starting up this year, finally. People have been bugging us about that right and left and we�fre gonna do that through the internet as well. So we�fre looking to expose our internet..... exposure?...(laughing) Or whatever you want to call it. Make the most of it because it�fs important. It�fs the easiest way for us to interact with fans and the quickest and most direct. We totally want to take advantage of that.

Laura: How does it feel to be on this years Ozzfest tour?

Josh: Well, I�fll begin by saying we are 95% sure we gonna be on this tour. Anything can happen in this business, but it feels great to know we�fre definitely being considered and like John was saying earlier, all the bands that we heard are gonna be there so far we�fve either toured with, hung out with, partied with or just plain know from where ever, so it�fs gonna be a big family reunion basically. So, we�fre looking forward to it. Night in and night out, it�fs just gonna be kicks and giggles.

Laura: What are you most looking forward to while on..well, if you�fre going to be on (I wanted to say Ozzfest, but couldn�ft spit it out!)

John: What? Well on Ozzfest? (Laura nods). The thing I�fm looking forward to most? I guess I�fm gonna get a chance to see a lot of bands that I don�ft get to see. Everyone on this planet has seen bands like Slipknot, except me..

Laura: I haven�ft. This is like my first real concert (meaning the SnoCore tour).

John: Well, ok then. There ya go! When you�fre in a band and touring a lot of the time, you�fre so stuck, you only see the people you�fre tour with. Only, you see them 30 times. We were out with Disturbed, we saw them a bunch of times. We were out with Mason, we saw them a whole lot. So I�fm looking forward to having an opportunity to see bands like Slipknot and bands like Linkin Park, friends of ours so I can get to see how they�fve progressed and a lot of other bands I don�ft get to see. There�fs like 30 bands on Ozzfest
and I know me and Josh and the rest of the band, we�fre just fans. I mean, we�fre not only players, we are fans and if you go to Ozzfest, you�fre gonna see us walking around the crowd checking out other bands cause we just can�ft help it.

Josh: Plus, anyone who plays rock or heavy metal and says they don�ft want to play with Ozzy or Black Sabbath is crazy! So, to meet him will be an honor.

John: If we get to.

Laura: I�fm sure you will!

John: Maybe so. Also, that brings up another point. Seeing Black Sabbath is gonna be real cool for me.

Josh: You�fd be surprised sometimes ya know. Who knows, Ozzy might come on the side stage and check it out one night. We didn�ft think we were going to meet Marilyn until the two weeks into the tour. First night, five minutes after we came off the stage he�fs coming out of the dressing room saying, �gHey guys. Glad to have you on the tour. Nice to meet you. I�fm Marilyn.�h Twiggy (Manson�fs bassist) came in and they were just introducing themselves. We were (makes gesture as if in awe) like, this is cool. First night, five minutes after the show and for at least half the shows after that, he was side staged, checking us out. So that right there is one of the coolest things about what we do. Being admired by your peers and your audience.

Laura: Alright. I�fm gonna say that tonight while during their set, some �gfan�h , if you want to call him that, was harassing Bryan, but mostly Patrick. Do you want to fill them in on that?

John: You know what? It�fs really no big deal. It�fs nothing even concerning your to much about.

Laura: Don�ft waste your time on it.

John: Yeah, sometimes, you play shows and there�fs someone who doesn�ft like you, that�fs fine. If you don�ft like us, go get a beer...

Laura: Go do something else.

John: Go get a drink of water, ignore us. That�fs fine, don�ft mind that. The way we feel is we work real hard at what we do and anyone who commits their life to going from town to town, like leaving all their family and whatever else behind, to pursue art and music, just honestly doesn�ft have time to put up with someone giving them the finger. Or, you know, spitting on them or what have you. You have no tolerance for that. And I�fm sure any band you talk to would feel the same way. (Kittie get that every night from what I read and saw at the show. The crowd will cheer something sexist and the lead singer, Morgan, will say something to them and shut them up.) Any one person pursuing something they love is gonna feel that same way. If you don�ft like my art, don�ft spit on it. Just don�ft like it. He (the guy bothering the band) was antagonizing.

Josh: Unfortunately, it�fs the nature of what we�fre doing because we�fre entertainer�fs, but if I were to go to your job and go �gHAHAHA. You suck at doing that and you�fre not doing that right! I don�ft like the way you�fre doing that.�h You wouldn�ft like that very much. This is our job and so it�f s just not a cool thing to do.

John: Yeah, he was just looking for attention and he got it! In the worst way.

Josh: And we�fll leave it at that.

Laura: A part from that, they were good. I don�ft know why the guy had a problem.

Josh: Some people just don�ft get it and that�fs fine.

Laura: He was a little punk.

Josh: You can�ft please them all.

John: No. He just wanted attention. That�fs usually the case.

Laura: Well, he got it. I saw that guard have him by his throat.

John laughs.

Laura: Well, that�fs it! Thank you guys for doing this interview.

Josh: Thank you.

John: And you all have a good day at school (sticking tongue out)!

 

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