Tsunami Bomb

Tsunami Bomb 9/21-/03 the Bottleneck--Lawrence, KS Justin Tuesday 05 April 2005

9/21/03

Ashley: Will you introduce yourself?
Agent M: My name's Agent M and I sing for Tsunami Bomb.

Ashley: Give me the history of your band in the form of a brief faerie tale.
Agent M: Once upon a time there were many bands all haling from the same area of northern California. They decided to form a crew to go on a mission to make great music. Unfortunately, many of them were unable to make it. They found people to replace them and now, they're as strong as ever and they're happy and living happily ever after.
Agent M: that's a horrible faerie tale

Ashley: What would you consider the best tour you've been on?
Agent M: That's hard. I think my favourite thing about a tour is meeting all the other bands on that tour and just getting to hang out with them all the time. I would have to say that my favourite tour in general is warped tour because there's like so many other bands on it and it turns into like this punk rock community. We've been on a lot of awesome one on one tours with other bands, too.

Ashley: Do you remember touring with ATM?
Agent M: Of course.
Ashley: How was that?
Agent M: It was awesome. Those guys are really funny.
Ashley: How long was that tour?
Agent M: With them? I think it was only for like a week that we toured with them. We toured with them on our way out to Canada. They didn't come with us to Canada.
Ashley: They're really good guys.
Agent M: Yeah.

Ashley: What would your ideal tour be if you could tour with anybody?
Agent M: Hmm... I think it would be Morrissey headlining, Green Day, a Smoking Popes reunion, and alkaline trio.

Ashley: You're still with Kung fu Records?
Agent M: Yes.
Ashley: How's that?
Agent M: It's working out great. We still have 2 albums left to do on the label.
Ashley: Is there anything coming out soon?
Agent M: We're working on the next album now. We're hoping it'll be out sometime in the early part of next year.

Ashley: Some people tend to write about the same subjects... describe your method/style of writing.
Agent M: I try and write about things that I feel everyone can relate to in some way, and they are things that are real personal to me. I try not to write about love relationships very much because everyone does that. Like every single band writes about that, so I try and write about things more like friendship relationship and things about the business that we're in. I try and spin it so that everyone can listen to it and be like "yeah, this is really true".

Ashley: What do you think about negative critics?
Agent M: I think everyone has their right to be critical. the thing that makes me laugh is when people say that every song sounds the same, because I've read that a number of times and I don't really understand it, because if they listen to our cd, they would know that like we have a couple different styles going on. at least on the cd, you know. maybe in the live show we tend to play more of the faster, like more of the same style, but on the CD we actually have like a slow love ballad, and a couple songs that are harder, and like more screaming and stuff. So it just really doesn't make sense to me.

Ashley: Do you have an opinion of the pop-punk explosion?
Agent M: I think that... I don't know. I'm not really so into any of those bands, so it kind of makes it hard for me to see it as a bad thing, I guess. because the way that I feel about that is that those bands... the same thing happened almost 10 years ago with Green Day when Green Day exploded, except they had already been around. They had like an underground following and stuff and they were more like a real punk band, whereas... well I guess I can't really say that because I don't exactly know the history of Good Charlotte and of Simple Plan, but I feel like I've been in the punk community for about 8 years or so and I had never heard of them until they blew up. It�s just kind of weird.

Ashley: What's the first/last album you've purchased?
Agent M: I think the first album I purchased was probably Green Day. Before that, I was really confused about what music I liked. The last album I think was... I bought 2 at the same time. I bought rancid and I bought the Postal Service.

Ashley: Who do you look up to musically?
Agent M: All of the vocalists that I mentioned in my ideal show, also... I totally left a bunch of people out on that. Defiantly Hot Water Music, The Start, Bouncing Souls, RX Bandits. Have you heard them?
Ashley: Yeah.
Agent M: Their singer's amazing. hmm... that's all for now.

Ashley: What about outside of music?
Agent M: I think the people I look up to, since I'm so involved in music that's pretty much all I do, the only people I really have outside of music are my family. I do really look up to them. They are all talented people and everyone in our family is like trying to be creative in their own way, so I kind of try and contribute to that family tradition.

Ashley: what did you listen to as a kid?
Agent M: As a kid, when I was in my confused stage, I went through everything. I started out with like R&B with like radio hip hop type stuff, and then for a brief period of time I went to country which I totally am not proud of. After that, I started listening to like alternative rock, like whatever was on the radio. I came from a really small town. It was however the radio was, was all I could listen to, until Green Day was on the radio and I just totally fell in love with that style of music. So I went out and I bought their CD and I read all their thank yous in their liner notes and I bought Rancid and Operation Ivy and NOFX. I just like did all kinds of research.
Ashley: So it started with Green Day?
Agent M: Yeah.

Ashley: Where are you from?
Agent M: I'm from the central valley in California. It's a really small town that's in the middle of nowhere.

Ashley: Do you have an opinion of current politics?
Agent M: I don't, really. I feel like I don't make a big enough effort to actually find out exactly what's going on, so I don't really feel like I have a right to express any opinions. I'd need to study up more on it.before I did that.

Ashley: What's one place that you haven't been that you'd like to go with/out the band, metaphorically or physically?
Agent M: I'd like to go to Greece. physically. because I studied, as probably everyone did, in school I studied Athena and all the ancient ruins and mythology and stuff and it'd be fascinating to go and see all the temples. But I don't think the band's going to end up going there... I don't think there's very much of a punk rock market in Greece. So hopefully, someday I'll get to go there.
Ashley: What about with the band?
Agent M: With the band? I'd love to go there with the band, but still don't think that'd work out. With the band, I think the only place that we haven't been that we really wanna go is Australia. We've been to Japan. I totally want to go back to so many of these places because we went to Japan and to Europe, but we haven't been to Australia yet.

Ashley: Do you have any closing comments or words to your fans?
Agent M: I would like to say to the fans, thank you so much for the support because we've been going through some tough times with some member changes, but so far everyone's been really nice to us. Everyone's been sticking by us. Thanks to everyone.