Letter Kills

Letter Kills 6/18/04 -- Bottleneck-- Lawrence, KS ironictheory Tuesday 03 May 2005

6/18/04

Ashley: Introduce yourselves.
Matt: I'm Matt.
Kyle: I'm Kyle.

Ashley: Give me the history of the band in the form of a faerie tale.

Matt: Once upon a time there was a prince named Tim. Tim was traveling across the country on tour, looking for a beautiful princess. So he was traveling and he came to the wonderful land of Texas and he met this knight named Matt and he's lik,e "Hey, Sir Matt. Would you like to help me find this princess?" The knight was like, "Sure, I guess." So the knight and Prince Tim went back to the land of California, where the prince had already been looking with the court jester, Paul. They had already been looking for the princess in California, so the knight and the prince and the jester were all still looking for this princess. They came across the local blacksmith in California, which was Dustin. He made them this...
Kyle: Wrench!
Matt: ... This wrench that was going to take them to the princess. They finally made it to where the princess was, but in order to get to the princess they had to go through the king. The king was Kyle. Once they met the king, the king was like, "You wanted a princess. Ok, no big deal." So they all got together and they found the princess. They lived happily ever after.
Kyle: Her name was Letter Kills.

Ashley: How's the tour going?
Kyle: This tour is fun. The F-ups are really nice guys, pretty good band. It's been a lot of fun. Humbling, I guess you could say. We've been very fortune with past tours. There've been awesome tours with big draws and it's cool to play clubs that would normally hold like thirty kids sometimes.
Matt: It's been a lot of hanging out, this tour. Since it's smaller, we get to hang out with a lot more kids and just hang out with each other with a lot of off time. It's been really cool.

Ashley: What's the best tour you've been on?
Both: Motion City Soundtrack and Story of the Year.

Ashley: Who'd be on your ideal tour?
Kyle: I'd have to say Story of the Year. As far as people I'd like to tour with, I'd have to say Velvet Revolver. Those guys, individually are awesome. Shoot man, this is tough! You know, I'll take Guns and Roses instead of Velvet Revolver.
Ashley: I'll give you four bands.
Kyle: Four! Story of the Year, Guns and Roses, Black Crows, and Frank Sinatra. He'll bring the house down!

Ashley: What about Warped last year? You were on the full thing without even a release.
Matt: Yes! I don't know why, but we did. I guess they liked us or something.
Kyle: Management had a lot to do with it.

Ashley: How long have you been with Island?
Matt: We've been with Island since...
Kyle: A year and a half.
Matt: Yeah, about a year and a half. It'll be two years in November.
Ashley: Are they your first major label?
Matt: Yes it is. It's our first label ever.
Ashley: How's working with them?
Matt: Awesome! They're very good with as far as when we first got started, we were a new band when we first got signed, and they understood that. They're very understanding as far as letting us tour and kind of develop what we can with a fanbase and kind of just make ourselves into what we are now. Kind of find out who we're going to be. Since a lot of new bands, it takes a while to find out who you really are as a band and find out what you're doing. It kind of gave us time to do that. When it came time to make the record, they kind of jumped in and did their job.

Ashley: Talk about your writing style.
Matt: We kind of just let everyone do thier own thing. There's a certain amount of musical respect with each other. We trust each other to write their own parts. There's no predominant songwriter in the band. We all write together. We let everyone do their own thing and it works.

Ashley: Who are some of your favourites/ musical inspirations?
Kyle: I'd have to say as a band, glancing on everyone, the Beatles, Tom Petty, Motley Crew, Guns and Roses, Black Crows, Dixie Chicks, Frank Sinatra and some folk stuff.
Matt: I like a lot of folk.
Kyle: Singer/songwriter stuff. We're all into different things.

Ashley: What about outside of music?
Matt: I like baseball and fishing and horses. Things like that. Little boy stuff.
Kyle: I don't know what I do! I don't really have time to do anything. I play video games and read a little bit.
Matt: We have our own video games right now that we're into.

Ashley: What did you listen to as a kid?
Kyle: I still am a kid. I'm not too happy with what I listened to in high school. I listened to a lot of Get Up Kids and Jimmy Eat World.
Matt: It's all good stuff.
Kyle: It's all good stuff, just not what I'm really into.
Matt: I didn't really listen to music growing up. I played baseball.

Ashley: What's the one place you'd like to go?
Matt: Personally, I want to go to Austrailia and catch snakes.
Kyle: As a band, I want to go to Japan and tour over there.

Ashley: What's you favourite place you've been?
Matt: Good places to play as far as the kids and everything are like St. Louis and Hartford, CT. Those shows are always really high energy.
Kyle: San Diego, also.
Ashley: Have you played Lawrence before?
Kyle: I think Warped Tour in Kansas City.

Ashley: Where do you want to go with the band?
Matt: To the top.
Kyle: We want to play to as many people as possible. We don't want to close any hardcore scene or any of that out.
Matt: We want to try to bring back people listening to good bands because they're good bands, not because they're hardcore or emo.
Kyle: With our album, we want to bridge the gap between everything.

Ashley: When does the album come out?
Matt: July 27th.

Ashley: Do you have any closing comments?
Matt: Thank you.
Kyle: Closing comments are hard.
Matt: We like to leave things open.