Brandon Carlisle (Teenage Bottlerocket) Interview (September 2008)

This is another case of me thinking I posted this interview a long time ago but in reality, I didn't. Brandon was coming off working an all nighter so he was a bit groggy at first but eventually loosened up and it was a good chat. In fact after I turned the tape recorder off we ended up bullshitting for another hour or so just because. Super nice guy in a fantastic band.

Bill Molloy: How exactly does it feel to be so huge, at least in pop-punk terms? You guys were in Spin a couple months ago and the shows have gotten a lot bigger lately. There’s been a revival the last couple years, how do you feel about it?

Brandon Carlisle: (stammering) Wow, ha, I’m a deer in headlights. I think it’s great, it’s awesome. I wasn’t expecting it at all. It was pretty crazy, when we started the band in 2001, Ray and I were having conversations about what we’re doing now and it’s just amazing that it worked out. We weren’t expecting it. We feel pretty lucky about it. You have to be happy with what you’ve got and we definitely are. As far as pop punk, you can only go so far with that; I like to think of us as a good punk rock band, not just a pop punk band. We do play that specific genre but other people get into us that might not be into some of those other bands.

Bill: Earlier in the year, back in the Spring around March or so you played a pretty gigantic tour. How many shows in how many days was it? Do you know?

Brandon: Yeah I think it was 39 shows in 36 days.

Bill: How’d it end up working out, did everyone get through it alright?

Brandon: Yeah it was the best tour we’ve ever done and it was amazing. We played with a lot of cool bands, especially in Austin. We supported Dead To Me for the first five or six shows and it was great and then we headlined the rest. It was really good, better than we expected. Really fucking killer.

Bill: I was checking out your tour dates and it looks like you have some more stuff set up, and you just got back from Canada too. Is it feasible enough to make Teenage Bottlerocket your full-time thing now?

Brandon: Nope. I’m in Alaska working right now, working the graveyard shift. That’s why I missed your call earlier.

Bill: Oh, sorry about that.

Brandon: Yeah, it’s not a full time thing; we’re not getting rich off of this music or anything like that. We’re breaking even and that’s good enough for any band I think. For the first five years we were around we were dumping money into it because that’s what you do to keep it going; being in a band’s not free. We’ve just been lucky the last couple years to break even. We do better than breaking even sometimes but for the most part it’s not a thing that’s great financially. We don’t do it full time; if we wanted to it wouldn’t pay the bills.

Bill: You just put out a split 7” with Broadway Calls pretty recently and it came out on Adeline. How did you end up hooking up with Adeline Records?

Brandon: Adeline sent us an email that said “Toby from Red Scare is lucky to have us” and it blew us away because we’re big fans of the label and we’re always been big fans of Green Day. I’ve always wanted to hook up with those guys, maybe play a show or go get ice cream or something. When we got the email it was kind of sweet. “Green Day! Awesome!” It turns out that we didn’t get to meet Green Day or anything like that at all! (chuckle). It was cool to do though. When they emailed us saying that Toby was lucky to have us it was flattering so wrote them back and told them that we had a couple extra songs if you guys have anything in mind, and that’s where the 7” developed. It’s cool to put it out on Adeline because of the Green Day affiliation even though we didn’t get to meet them, it was the reason we did it. We’ve always loved those guys and just to have our little footprint on Planet Green Day was great. Also Broadway Calls are an amazing band; we really like them.

Bill: Were the extra songs recorded during the Warning Device sessions?

Brandon: Yeah, that’s what it was, just two songs that were from the Warning Device sessions. When we sat down to discuss what songs should go on the record and which ones shouldn’t, those were the two that got left off. It wasn’t unanimous with everyone saying “these two songs suck!” because they’re really good songs but after a lot of interchanging and hammering out, trying to make Warning Device it’s own thing and having those two songs be on their own is the way it panned out. We’re happy with the way those songs came out, for sure. And with a cover song it’s easier to put it out in a small quantity, you know. When you press a limited amount of 7”s it’s easier to pay the royalties to the original artist as opposed to when you put out large quantities like we did with Warning Device.

Bill: There’s a split 7” coming out with The Ergs! pretty soon too, right? Is there any more info or details you can give on that?

Brandon: Yeah, we recorded a Green Day song, haha!

Bill: Oh cool!

Brandon: I guess if you can’t tell yet, we like them. We did “Having A Blast” off of… well wait, back up, rewind the tape. It’s a split 7” on Suburban Home Records and it’s called Under The Influence and you’re supposed to do a cover song. When he told us about it we thought it was great and we do Ramones “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue” pretty well so we were going to do that. Then we were on that big tour, the one we just talked about, someone mentioned that Green Day might make more sense because with the Ramones, we’ve established that we like the Ramones, it’s known. If we were to do that it would be more expected. So when someone mentioned Green Day we went “Fuck yeah, Green Day is just as big an influence on us as the Ramones ever were” so we did “Having A Blast” off of Dookie. It turned out really cool; Kody sings it. So that’s what that split 7” is about. I don’t know what song The Ergs! are doing. I just read that they broke up, or they’re breaking up?

Bill: Yeah they’re stopping in mid-November, which is a huge bummer.

Brandon: Yeah those guys are the best. Hopefully they’ll finish the 7”. Maybe I should call ‘em up. “Hey guys, I heard you’re breaking up, that’s really sad man, Um, well what about that split 7” stuff?” (chuckle). I don’t know what to do at this point so I guess we’ll just wait and see. Maybe we’ll do it with someone else, maybe Nothington or something.

Bill: That’d be a cool combination too. Do you know what Joel and Zach are up to, the former members?

Brandon: Joel we stay in touch with for sure. When Zach split that was in 2001 or 2002; he was only in the band for a few months so it was a real brief thing. He was sort of a stranger. He lived in Laramie while going to a trade school that was just a short nine month school; we met him right at the tail end of that. He was into punk rock and at that point in Laramie there weren’t many people listening to punk rock, or at least the kind of stuff we were digging on. We hooked up with him and he was into the Ramones, the US Bombs and a few other bands we liked so we started to play with him. Then he was like “ok, school is done, see ya guys later!” When he left we figured we wouldn’t stay in touch and we haven’t heard from him since. I guess it’s kind of weird but he just split. After that we got Joel, and Joel we had known for a long time. He’d played with The Fantastic Sams and we’d played with them and Kody’s old band The Lillingtons had played with them. Our old band The Homeless Wonders had played with The Fantastic Sams too. So when Zach moved out we said “let’s start jamming” and really got Teenage Bottlerocket rolling at that point. We got him a leather jacket and started playing more! He graduated school and moved to California; that’s the reason he left the band. We always talk to Joel and when we play in California he comes out and we have a good time.

Bill: How did Miguel end up joining?

Brandon: Well Miguel’s one of our oldest buddies. He’s a little bit younger than us but we’ve been running around with him as long as I can remember putting on shows in Laramie. (pause). We’d been doing shows in Laramie for a long time and he’d been coming out since somewhere in the 90s. He’s a kid that as he grew older was liking to the same stuff that Ray (Carlisle, guitar/vocals) and I were listening to so when we started Teenage Bottlerocket he was digging it. At that point he was still too young as far as considering him being in the band. By the time things started rolling with Toby, and getting Total out, I think Miguel was 20 and he had a van and we didn’t. We were going to go on tour and asked “hey, can we borrow your van?” and he was like “if I can go along!” So he came along and he was the merch guy selling our shirts, and he was playing in bands by that point too so we knew he played bass and guitar. So he was kind of a member of the band before he joined via being the merch guy and driving us around in his van. When Joel said he couldn’t do it Miguel was a natural choice.

Bill: When you’re coming back for Riot Fest, this will be the third time you’re playing Chicago in less than a year, right?

Brandon: Yup, that’s true? Is that bad?

Bill: No no no! It’s definitely not bad at all. Each time I see you guys here it’s been exponential growth from the time before. I remember seeing you in 2005 and there were only a few people paying attention and now the last two times you’ve sold out the shows. It’s almost like you’re a local band here.

Brandon: Yeah, we should move there! It’s the best city in the world; the shows there are always the best. All around Chicago rules and we always do great there, I can’t believe how well they go. It’s great, everyone’s singing along and they think the world of us. What more can I say, I love Chicago. We all do.

Bill: I was looking up some older tour dates, and you played with All a couple years back in Laramie?

Brandon: Yeah that was one of our first shows, that was in 2001. So that was way back what, seven years ago?

Bill: Oh wow. So you’ve worked with Bill Stevenson, recording a couple times with him. How do you feel about playing with All again?

Brandon: It’ll be awesome to play with All again. I kind of wish Chad Price was singing! (laugh) I shouldn’t be saying that, maybe we should erase that from the tape, back up back up!

Bill: (hearty chuckle)

Brandon: No, it’ll be great. Maybe they’ll watch us but probably not.

Bill: Have you started working on any follow up material to Warning Device yet?

Brandon: Yeah we’ve been writing as best we could lately. Right now we have… one song? (chuckle)

Bill: Still progress!

Brandon: So don’t worry the record should be out any day here!

Bill: Limited, one sided LP with the grooves spaced three inches apart!

Brandon: Yup. Maybe we’ll put the same song on 14 times and no one will notice. But yeah, Warning Device came out in January and we’re always writing songs and doing our best. Every time I try I fail miserably so it’s mostly up to Ray and Kody. We just let it happen naturally and not push it. It’s kind of weird, it’ll go “no songs, no songs, no songs” and then a month will come around where Ray will write two and Kody will write three. It’ll be “wow, we went three months with no new songs and then a ton pop up.” It’s interesting how that happens, no one knows.

Bill: Do they come in with fully formed songs?

Brandon: When Kody writes songs he writes a title first and then a lot of times he’ll do the lyrics and put the music to that. When Ray and I write songs we get together with a guitar and drums, we’ll write some chords and he’ll sing “blah blah blah,” some melodies with no words, melodies with just gibberish. Then the next time we jam we’ll bring it back and try it again and try it again until the melody becomes more defined. We do it a little different than Kody.

Bill: That’s interesting, I’ve never heard of people doing the melodies first and then trying to write the words around them. That’s pretty interesting.

Brandon: Yeah, that’s the way we’ve always done it. It’s just one of those things I guess.

Bill: Sort of a secret twin language.

Brandon: (laughter) Maybe! Yeah!

Bill: That’s really about it, that’s all that I’ve got. Do you have any last words or thoughts?

Brandon: (pause) Nope! (laughter)

Bill: Alright thanks for you time.

BONUS CONTENT!!!!
Check out this video from the Warning Device record release show last January. It's kind of nuts. Look for the asshole with the Dee Dee Ramone haircut and leather jacket diving around the 56 second mark. Give you two guesses as to who it is. Punk rock.