Teddy of Mayflower interviews Dave of Banquets:

State your name, and place in the band please.
Dave: Dave. I play guitar and sometimes sing backup vocals.

If you were to boil your musical inspiration down to two bands what would they be?
I’d have to say my two biggest influences, specifically for the way I play/write in Banquets would have to be Hot Rod Circuit and The Promise Ring.

Give me a basic day of what it was like tracking at the Machine Shop with Will Putney.
First and foremost, we’d buy snacks. Snacks are really important. There was also a lot of ping-pong, and pranks. Will LOVES pranks. Once all that stuff was out of the way, he would yell at us until we played our parts right. Seriously though, recording at The Machine Shop is awesome. They just moved into a new space in Belleville so I got to shit in a bathroom with no lights. We had a strobe light dance party in hallway that looked like something out of Saw.

Recording sounds like it's way more fun for you guys. We have our moments, Scotty and I had a no-shower contest going for the whole week we were at MoreSound. And our new bassist Mikey kept flashing his junk at me when I was in the vocal room. I just watched "Nothing But Trouble" for the first time. Are there really parts of NJ that are like Valkenvania?
I love that movie. I wish more parts of Jersey were like that. There are definitely areas of southern NJ that aren’t far off. Unfortunately, I don’t think the Bonecrusher is legal in any parts of Jersey.

A lot of the times when I'm driving through New Jersey it smells like Bonecrusher is legal.
Low blow, dude.

What's with the sexy ghost chorus thing? Or is this something you're gonna leave up to interpretation?
That whole thing started as a magical moment while we were recording our 7". Chris, Travis, and I were standing around Will while we played scratch tracks for Pete to track his drums too. There was a minute where Will didn’t need us to play, and for some reason we all did this ridiculous spirit finger teepee over his head and went "oooooooooooooooooo" in our sexiest ghost voices. It made absolutely no sense, and I still have no idea why it happened. But anway, we starting making all these jokes about Sexy Ghosts. We had a bunch of our friends come in to do gang vocals on the record, and rather than list names in the liner notes, we just decided to call ourselves the Sexy Ghost Choir. And now you know…

Being a web developer do you have any predictions where this whole internet/being in a band/donation based download/getting unlimited distribution and no one's attention thing is going?
I think it’s pretty interesting that at the same time as all this new digital stuff is coming out and "revolutionizing" the music industry, we’re simultaneously seeing a huge resurgence in the pressing/listening to of vinyl records. Ultimately I think that’s a pretty good representation of how it’s all going to play out. At the end of the of day, the music is going to be what matters and how it’s delivered will only affect it so much.

Agreed. Sometimes though I feel like investing in recording and pressing records is something that you're never going to make back unless all you do is tour.
Totally. We try not to think of it on a strictly money in/money out thing. That’s a good way to get yourself really bummed out. We just try to put out the best songs and releases we can and hope we can have a good time while we do it. So far we’ve been having a blast.

What are your plans for the next year or so as a band?
Well, we’ve got this tape with you guys coming out. Our full length should be out in June. So the way I see it, we’ll probably be rich and famous by the 4th of July. We can all retire poolside and wait for the world to end in 2012. Really though, we’re playing a bunch of cool shows coming up, including Pouzza Fest in Montreal, Fest 10 in Gainesville and we hope to do some weekend tours to round out the Summer. Next year we’re hoping to make it over to Europe at some point.

Dave of Banquets interviews Teddy of Mayflower :

So, Teddy Casper (guitar/vocals), tell me in 15-17 words (I'll be counting) what being in Mayflower means to you.
Frustrating, yet rewarding. Boner inducing, yet laid back. Hilarious and argumentative. Compromising and contentious. Fart.

What made you choose to cover "Travellin' Band" for our split?
We are all big Creedence fans, (except for our drummer steve) and we actually covered that song at our first show ever. We brought it back out for our little stint down to Fest 9, and i blackmailed steve into recording it. I think he likes that song now, even though he'd never admit it.

Sounds like Steve and I need to have a nice long chat about how awesome Creedence is. I was really stoked when you told me that was the song you guys were doing You mentioned to me previously that Mayflower plans to go to Europe in the near future. What country are you most looking forward to seeing and why?
Steve and Scott always have great stories from when they go over to Europe with Another Breath, I really just look forward to playing music for people who are appreciative of it. But specifically I'm looking forward to seeing Germany and going to the Ramones Museum.

Europe is awesome. I can’t wait to get Banquets over there. I did a 3-week tour playing guitar in Static Radio and was blown away by how awesome bands are treated over there. Can’t say I caught the Ramones Museum though, bummer. Have you always been in bands where lead vocal duty was split the way it is in Mayflower? How does that affect the songwriting process? Do you and Scott generally sing the songs you each respectively write, or do you decide who will be singing them later?
This is my first band I've ever done the singing in. Scott does sing the songs he writes, and vice versa, we both write our own songs, bring them to practice after demoing them, and we'll arrange them, and figure out ways of spicing them up. We both want to work collaboratively more on stuff it's just hard with everyone living in different cities and states.

I know you guys recorded a bunch of other songs while you did the songs for our split. Any awesome plans for those you can talk about just yet?
We have one song coming out on a 4-way that's being released by our pal Craig in the UK. He runs a sweet label called Not Shy of the D.I.Y. Then we have two songs recorded for a split with a yet-to-be-announced solo artist on Kiss of Death. We can't say who it is yet but he's a close friend and we're very excited about that.

Definitely looking forward to those. This brings me to my last question. Travis would be really upset if I didn't ask you…What's your favorite dinosaur?
Without any hesitation, Pterodactyl.