Featured Artist

Kid: Little bitta' pop punk, little bitta' blues, little bitta' good old-fashioned Johnny Cash/Roy Orbison country, and a little bitta' everything we don't hate...
The thing I love most about our band is our diversity.  I truly believe that, punk rock or not, anyone who likes any sort of anything will find a Wish You Weres song that they can enjoy.  It's kinda' like a buffet.  You can take the whole family to a buffet.  You can kinda' take the whole family to a Wish You Weres show... as long as you don't mind your kids hearin' the word fuck.  ...and bitch.  Sometimes ass.  Also, sometimes we talk about balls.
So, maybe not the whole family, but definitely like, part of the family.  Or maybe just yourself.  Or..  I don't know, whatever.  Just come to the shows.
 

Kid:  I run errands for the C.I.A.  You know, your basic seizure of personal property and raping of civil liberties.  I'm the bug planter/phone tapper/coffee not-spitter-inner.  Or...  I DON'T work for the C.I.A. and your life won't be terminated for having read this.  Whichever you prefer.

3.) I had the opportunity to listen to the Charity Christmas release you're putting out "Wreck the Hall". Please tell the readers the thoughts behind it and how it got started.

Kid:  Most of us grew up on the poor side, so we're fortunate enough to have the gift of empathy.  We've slept in our share of cars and had our share of Salvation Army holidays.  So, as people with brains and hearts, we try to pull together things like this every chance we get to save people from some of the shit we've personally endured.  Most little kids don't deserve to sit in class after Christmas break and listen to all their little classmates boast about all their wonderful Christmas gifts while they're left with nothin' but modesty to brag about.
We have some recording software and a few bucks to spare, as well as a handful of holiday songs that couldn't possibly find a better use.  Every single dollar is going directly to one family.  Big fat Christmas dinner, and a couple of wishlists with a buncha' check marks on 'em.  We wanna help people figure out that if you have the resources to help someone who needs it, you have no excuse not to.

Bryan:  With the release of “Left 4 Dead” earlier this year it’s given us the freedom to play around with things we’ve had in the back of our minds.  We’ve toyed with the idea of a holiday album for a while now, and figured what better way to help out during this time of year than to make “Wreck The Halls” a benefit album for needy families.

Joey:  Wow…Umm, if you mean of the songs that we’ve released…..I’d say Love Of The Living Dead, or On My Back.  Maybe, I don’t know.  It changes constantly.  The cool thing is everyone has their own favorite songs. That’s when you feel like your doing something right.  Most people love Sick Friend, but I’m pretty sure Bryan is kinda sick of it by now. He wrote it 10 years ago. And it just got released this year.  But as far as my actual favorite WYW song, I can’t answer that. We really have hundreds, if not a thousand songs or more.  That’s why we try to put out albums as often as possible, cause our minds are like our songs; always changing.  I don’t see us running out of material and having to slop out some half hearted, half ass thrown together album any time soon.

Bryan:  To me it’s always the next one in line.  A song can bounce around in your head for weeks, months, sometimes years.  When it’s finally recorded and released it’s like a letting go experience. It’s truly “released”, set free from your mind to venture off unto the world on its own.

Kid:  My mind changes every 20 minutes.  I think our songwriting skills have progressed an unbelievable amount since we recorded our debut full-length.  So, that being said, most of my favorite Wish You Weres songs are some that aren't even recorded (We Don't Know, Mexico, Nothing Has To Last Forever, Taco Tuesday, etc.).  My favorite track on 'Left 4 Dead' is definitely Apologies.  Bryan just has a writing style that every human being, and probably even dolphins, can understand, and I think that track is a perfect example.

Josey:  Whichever one attracts the most girls.

5.) Describe the worst promoter/venue experience you've had so far.

Kid:  We had a terrible experience at the Bridge Hotel in Sydney on the Australian tour.  The promoters didn't promote, much as you'd think their title would suggest, and they bailed with our money before the show was even over.  We were on stage when they packed up and left.  The venue claimed that they had never even spoken to the dick-offs puttin' on the show.  They all had excuses, none of which lined up with the bullass stories of any of the other culprits.  On top of that they were rude and just straight uncooperative.  We were left broke and hungry and with a bad impression of Sydney.  DON'T EVER PLAY FOR THE BRIDGE HOTEL IN SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES.  Just don't fuckin' do it.

Joey:  I think we all agree with Kid.  We’ve had a few bad experiences here and there, but that was just terrible.  These people were nice to us all night and the next thing you know they run off with all the door money.  We never got a dime.  Which is sad, when you fund your own International tour when your as broke as we are, and then someone pulls shit like that, as if they figure “Oh, this is an American touring band, they don’t need this money or anything.” Fuck that. Fuck that like Hugh Hefner fucks his 216 girlfriends.

Bryan:  It’s the freedom, the power, the attitude, and the fun (not the style), that has to over-all drive the music to make it PUNK!

Kid:  I personally get fairly annoyed with all the debate surrounding the term.  I think the most ignorant and obnoxious stance is the, "I'm not into labels." one.  You know, that I'm-too-cool-and-agreeable-to-have-an-opinion-when-it-comes-to-anything-relevant thing.  In close second is the, "Punk rock is a feeling" crowd.  Punk rock is a fucking type of music.  A good one.  I can't remember ever coming across a punk rock checklist.  There are no distinct guidelines.  Just a general lack off suckiness.  That's not to say that all punk rock is good, because some of it is just plain shit.  A lot of it is, in fact, but this is the case with anything in any situation.
I think a lot people wanna romance this punk rock image.  They have this generic fantasy which consists of a bunch of angry, drunk kids runnin' around ignoring the concept of reality and burning out young defending their ideals of anarchy and rebellion.  I'm not sure music is the best way to change any course of social or political action.  It's certainly a perfect medium with which to express our opinions on such matters, but not writing songs about the demise of the government doesn't make you unpunk.
The only "punk rock" ideal that I think is relevant is the DIY initiative.  I wouldn't even call that "punk rock" so much as I would a maintenance of integrity. 
Everyone wants somewhere to belong and puttin' name tags on everything makes it that much easier to believe your involved.  You're not punk rock because you're an anarchist or because you own a pair of mismatched Chuck Taylors.  
Our band is punk rock.  We play punk rock music for punk rock kids, because that's what we love and that's who we are.

Josey:  Fun.

Joey: You know, it is what it is.  It’s just something I know I enjoy being a part of.  I try not to even worry about it.  I guess life’s too short for me to care.  But let it be known that if the supposed “punk rock” is dead, the resurrection is in progress!

7.) Tell us all about the Australian Tour…. (Don't be afraid of writing too much, good stories can go on for ever)

Kid:  The Australian tour was a blur of strange alcohol and breasts.  Being the only non-drinker on Earth would be a better advantage for my stories if my memory wasn't lame and buggy.  I remember playing some of our songs.  That definitely happened.  I remember seeing a lighthouse on a gorgeous overcast day on the eastern-most point of Australia's mainland.  I remember the guys from the Pints feeding us kangaroo sausage and Joey completely enjoying it because he was too drunk to realize that it tasted just like a pair of rotten aardvark titties.  I remember really liking the Colytons' set.    Ummm...  I remember paying 12 dollars for a meal at Subway.  I remember that Topnovil are great fucking guys, great fucking band.  I can distinctly remember Doz singing to her MP3 player as if no one else was in the van.  I definitely remember driving through a town called Yass and spending an entire day telling jokes similar to and including, "I once road a train through Yass."  ...I remember playing some of our songs.

Josey:  I wasn't in the band yet, but I could tell you about the fun things I did at home!

Joey:  Oh wow, where to begin?  Definitely one of the greatest times of my life.  Amphetish was the best band we could have toured with.  Those guys did so much for us.  The first day we were there we were all strangers, and had trouble understanding each other.  They may speak English, but just their mannerisms and their way about things is different than ours. It’s hard to explain.  But by the end of the tour we felt like family.  While I don’t miss Mik’s smelly feet (Oh yes I did!), I definitely miss being on that tour.  We drank enough to fill the Grand Canyon.  The craziest thing is going somewhere you’ve never been in your life, that far from home, on the complete other side of the planet, and to meet fans.  People that came to the shows and already owned our CD and said it hasn’t been out of their CD player since they got it.  People that requested songs.  People in the crowd singing along to your songs.  That’s a weird thing to get used to.  People came to the shows and said “I came across you guys on the internet and really liked what I heard.  When I found out you guys were coming over here I couldn’t believe it! No one comes over here!”. That was cool to me.  That tour was great.  We had so many inside joke.  It was just three weeks of being drunk, doing whatever we fucking wanted, and making fun of the smelly bastard beside you in the bus.  We’ll definitely be back.

Bryan:  We got to play a couple shows with the Runaway Boys and met Dee before his recent passing away.  An excellent rock-a-billy band.  If you get a chance, check ‘em out.
R.I.P. Dee!

8.) Tell us about the problems with customs you had..

Joey:  Geez, you had to remind us. Haha. Well, since we do everything DIY, everything is a learning experience.  As was this.  When we started planning the tour, I looked into the differences in costs of getting things printed over there or getting them printed over here and shipping some and taking the rest with us on the plane.  Since we already had a big merchandise line we decided on the later.  Fast forward a few months, and we stuff every bit of merch we can into boxes and take ‘em with us.  Each person is allowed so much.  Anyway, we had no problems till we landed in Australia.  We were waiting at baggage claim for everything, and things just worked out wrong.  On the last particular flight I had my bass as a carry-on. They had to take it somewhere else once we were on the plane cause it wouldn’t fit in the overhead compartment.  That fucked things up cause as we got all our shit at baggage claim (which was a lot of stuff in big, heavy, duct-taped cardboard boxes). But my bass was no where in sight.  So I went to the opposite side of the room looking for it.  This went on for about 15 minutes.  During which time a woman sees Bryan, (with his non noticeable self, covered in tattoos and a Mohawk), along with Casey (Bryan’s wife & WYW merch girl) and Kid just standing by a bunch of big boxes for a long period of time.  I guess they got suspicious and asked to see their customs goods card.  These things are basically cards you fill out on your luggage in very little detail so customs has an idea of what your bringing in the country.  Well, all of ours said promotional merchandise or some shit.  The woman made everyone change their card, which made us get in a different line where they really look at your luggage in detail with x-rays and question you a lot.  They ended up confiscating damn near everything and said we had to pay a shitload of fees and taxes on it.  If we would have been in the other line it wouldn’t have happened.  Oh, and come to find out by bass had been sitting in a different area of baggage claim for 30 minutes.  It’s was shitty.  And then, we couldn’t just pay the money and get the stuff and go, cause we had another plane to catch.  And it left in 5 mins.  Yeah.  In fact, we got split up and Bryan had to take a later flight by himself.  We eventually got all the merch back, but didn’t have a lot of it for a while.  Although, a funny thing did happen with this later on. At the Punk-A-Billy festival, a fan brought us each our own personal Australia Customs waterbottle. He said he was reading about what happened on our website and his parents worked at customs or something.  I laughed about this for along time. THAT was pretty cool, and pretty funny. Anyway, I’ll never tell that story again cause it’s way to long.

9.) Tell the readers about the shitty hotel in Newcastle, New South Wales.

Bryan:  Sticky floors, group bathrooms down dark hallways, spooky closets, and no TV, what more can you say?

Kid:  We slept with the lights on.

Joey:  Well, Bryan and Kid slept in a different room than I did.  Needless to say their room was no where as bad as the one Graeme, Shakir, and I was in.  There was fucking tiny little bugs on my bed and I slept in my leather jacket on top of the covers, and could barely sleep.  The water that ran out of the sink was very brown.  It was just disgusting and creepy.  It did have a kick ass balcony though!

10.) Please highlight the best parts of the Australian Tour..

Kid:  The best part of the entire tour was knowing that we had the balls to hop on a plane and fly to the other side of the world chasing our dreams.  We didn't work for three weeks, and we got to hang out with our best friends and play the songs we loved every night.