What were you guys going for with this new record?

It didn’t really have a particular vision, it was more just going into it we just wanted to explore every option we were individually influenced by, and the different things we wanted to write, and we weren’t really totally sure where we were going to end up direction-wise.

So we really just started practicing one day to start writing for the record and what came out is what you got. Some of it came easy; some of it came hard, but in the end I think we’re all super happy with what we got.

When we started the band it wasn’t really that serious of a thing. It was a bunch of teenagers who wanted to make some racket.

I’m hearing a bit of the side projects in the record, both the Headwound City and the Neon Blonde stuff seemed to be bleeding in a little. Do you think that’s the case, or do you think it’s the other way around?

I feel like it’s probably more of the other way around. I think just because of the nature in which we write. You know, as individuals it kind of comes through a bit, and any sort of band that is remotely similar that we do. With Headwound City it was essentially just a thrash band, and by nature Blood Brothers have always had thrashiness to it.

So I think that anything that Jordan and I would have done in Headwound City, some of it could have been done in Blood Brothers maybe. Vice versa for Neon Blonde because there’s a lot more piano-driven stuff coming into play in our writing and a lot of that was what Neon Blonde was doing so, I feel like, because of the way we write, it kind of could translate.

Yeah. And your guitar style has changed pretty dramatically since Piano Island. At least it seems that way to me. I’m just wondering, is this a conscious thing or are you just moving in a different direction?

I mean, I feel like it’s been pretty natural. I sort of feel like I’ve tended to simplify it a little bit more, than say like on Burn. I don’t feel like there’s as much complicated technicality to it. But I don’t really know, it’s never a contrived thing for me when it comes the guitar, I just kind of play what feels right and what sounds right at the time. So I feel that any progression I’ve had has been a natural one rather than a really well thought out one.

I don’t know its exciting too, I always feel like there’s lots of ground that I haven’t covered, that I’m not capable yet to play, so it’s always exciting going into a new record and feeling like I have a fresh plate on my hands to sort of work with as far as the guitar goes on the record.

What was it like working with Guy Picciotto (Fugazi)?

Guy was totally rad. He - it was definitely a bit intimidating at first - even the idea was a bit intimidating. But when you meet him he’s totally humble and kind of what you would want someone that was in Fugazi to be like.

Like if you think about it in your head, someone from this band that you looked up to and respected, and you meet them and they’re even cooler than what you had imagined.

So, it was really cool in that respect. He just always had a good attitude and a strong presence; his ideas obviously were always really good. He didn’t do any of the engineering, John did all the engineering and mixing, but he definitely was there discussing the tones of everything we were getting, and I feel it was very important to have him there.

As far as like a vibe and an energy thing goes. He was just totally rad.

How has it been being on V2, cause you haven’t stuck with the same label for quite a while. This is the first you’ve done two in a row.

Well, with the label prior to these two, it was a weird situation because they kind of stopped being a label and then it was hard to find another label, and V2 was definitely the best one to go with.

I feel like they did a pretty good job with Crimes and they seemed to be excited about this record too, so, I don’t know, it’s hard to say.

For the last one you did a pretty cool single with the Love Rhymes With Hideous Car Wreck EP. I’m just wondering if you’re going to do anything like that again?

I know that we were doing a single for our UK single, a little EP thing. I don’t know if there are any plans for a US EP single or anything like that, but I guess we’ll see. We have a video for the song "Laser Life."

How did that video come about? For some reason makes me think of Superman 3, but that might be just weird.

(laughs) I don’t know, you know, it was Patrick Daughters who submitted his treatment and it was essentially that. We got a few treatments in and that was our favorite one. We had seen some videos he had done that were cool and we had a conference call and talked to him about it. We just sort of worked together on the different ideas that we had for it. It was totally rad because it was the first time someone had come to us with a treatment for one of our songs that wasn’t sort of completely literal but was also just artistically cool and congruent with the things that we like to do and, I don’t know it was really cool.

And the whole process was totally awesome and easy-going and I think that he’s a really great director.

How did the tour with Trail of Dead come together?

We haven’t ever played shows together before or anything. I think we’ve met some of the guys when we played in Texas once or twice before, but I don’t really quite remember how the idea came up. We’re all really excited; I’ve never seen them play but I they put on a pretty kickass live show.

I’m looking forward to it. Also, there’s another band called Brothers and Sisters that I believe is people that play with them, like on the stage, so they’re coming on the tour. I haven’t heard them yet but this band Celebration is also doing the tour that’s totally amazing, so I’m really excited about them as well.

One other thing that was quite interesting is that your former band Waxwing officially broke up last year, even though you’d been on hiatus for a long time. I’m just wondering why you decided to put that to bed for good the way you did?

It was just kind of like, my brother Rocky, it was his and my band, and it was just like he has his solo thing going, and I’m doing this, the trying to do a show once a year thing and maybe write a record, which is kind of like, it seemed to a little bit mundane.

We just sort of felt like we wanted to have the closure with the band rather than have it just be like this thing hanging over us all the time - whether or not we’re going to do it or not. So we talked about it for a long time and just sort of decided that it was time to finish the book on that one.

We had these two really amazing last shows and it was really cool. It’s totally a bummer that we had to stop it because I really enjoyed playing music with everyone in that band, and I really enjoyed the songs. But I think that for my and Rocky’s peace of mind, it was best to have the closure with the band and call it a day. Rather than waiting two or three years to play a show or write a song.

Punknews.org did an interview with Jordan in 2003 and he talked about the kind of crap you were getting when you were playing with more conventional bands like Glassjaw; homophobia and stuff like that. I’m just wondering if that kind of stuff is still kind of affecting you?

Not at our own shows of course, they’re not - It kind of depends on who you’re playing with but I think that sort of stuff comes with the bigger audience that you play to that haven’t heard you, I think there’s more chance for that just because of the way our culture is, in mainstream culture.

I don’t know, we haven’t been on tour in a while, our last tour was a year ago and it was Coheed and Cambria and we definitely got a lot of shit on that tour.

I just figured that a band like Coheed would have more kind of arty open-minded kids?

No, I feel like those exist or whatever, but for the most part I felt like their audience was pretty mainstream, and you know "bro-ey"

Our last tour was a year ago [was with] Coheed and Cambria and we definitely got a lot of shit on that tour.

Any other plans you have coming up? Obviously you’ve got the tour to round out the year, but next year?

I think we’re planning on going to Europe sometime early January.

And I imagine we’ll be out there for a couple months, and then I think we’ll come home and probably do another US tour but as far as who with, that kind of has yet to be determined.

You know I’m excited to come back and hopefully do our own headlining tour in the States that will be cool.

One thing that I was actually thinking about this year is that the Warped Tour is kind of broadened a lot, where you could probably play there as opposed to a couple years ago. Would you be into it?

No it’s not really something that we’re interested in. I mean, sitting in a parking lot all day, every day, like I don’t know. It doesn’t really sound that fun, and too, I don’t really know if we feel like we totally - I feel that we could fit in, but I don’t know, it’s hard. I feel like we would get a lot of shit on that tour.

But yeah, it’s just never been something - there was one year where they had advertised us as playing but we’d never been asked. I think that somewhere down the line someone had told them that we would do it and we never would have. I’ll never say never but I think we probably might not ever play Warped tour. I’m not opposed to festivals, but it just sounds like it’s pretty typical on the whole not to do something like that.

You are about to hit your tenth year together. I remember hearing that you were being billed as a Waxwing side project and stuff like that, and I’m just wondering, how does it feel to be hitting ten years as a band and kind of proving that wrong?

It’s pretty crazy man, I have to say, because I’m only 24 now, and when we started I was 15 so about a third of my life has been in this band. It’s also really crazy to think about too, the fact that we - I don’t know - when we started the band it wasn’t really that serious of a thing. It was a bunch of teenagers who wanted to make some racket.

We never had any ambition to turn our band into a career, and from year to year different things started, it just became like, the flow of the way things were and I just kind of happened. So it’s always kind of crazy to me that we’re still a band and its totally awesome as well because I love being in this band and I love everyone in the band, so it’s really exciting to say and I’m really proud to say that we’ve been a band for ten years and we started when we were 15.