Angels and Airwaves
by Erin Broadley for SuicideGirls (http://suicidegirls.com/)

Ten seconds. We have a go for main engine start… 3… 2… 1.

A camera pans in as the space shuttle prepares for launch, and then, flash, thrusts itself into orbit leaving a fiery explosion of atomic proportions in its wake. Time elapses. A camera pans through the dark and desolate stillness of the shuttle’s inner chamber, seemingly abandoned except for one man, his head in his hands. A faraway voice comes hesitant over a message machine, “Hello Lee. Sorry I’m sending you this message as a recording but, I’ll be honest, it would have been a lot harder to say this directly to you. Even if I wanted to bring you out of orbit, I don’t have the people to do it right now. I’m sorry… I’m sorry”

This trailer for the upcoming feature film from rock band Angels & Airwaves follows with the question, “Have you ever felt like you’re alone? What if… you truly were?” Though slightly sappy -- and discussed ad nauseam on countless therapists’ couches -- this question remains the ultimate fear kept buried in our hearts. This question is just one of many that the Southern California-based rockers hope to raise through their music, films, and myriad other creative endeavors to inspire others.

Angels & Airwaves initially came together in 2005 as the brainchild of former Blink 182 guitarist and singer Tom DeLonge, soon after internal conflict placed Blink on indefinite hiatus. I know what you’re thinking, so let’s get one thing straight: Angels & Airwaves is no Blink 182 spin-off. A Blink 182 spin-off would be the equivalent of a boy band beauty pageant where the crown goes to the prankster with the best fart joke. I Empire, the sophomore release from Angels & Airwaves, is nothing of the sort. Completed by guitarist David Kennedy (Hazen Street, Box Car Racer), drummer Atom Willard (Offspring) and bassist Matt Wachter (30 Seconds to Mars), the band’s music is an atmospheric, socially conscious and often anthemic call to arms for rock and roll dreamers everywhere. The band has replaced one-upping the audience with toilet humor for something even more appealing -- upping the ante on the value of human connection.

Tom’s vocals are near unrecognizable as the man who once nasalized his way through “What’s My Age Again?” His style now is that of a man who no longer caters to his inner-child, allowing the stifled maturity and personal growth held captive by major label wardens and image-makers to break away and run free. Lyrically on I Empire, Tom still holds back and often verges on the hyperbolic -- but hey, give the guy a break -- he has over a decade of emotional and spiritual false imprisonment to shake off. In Tom’s words, “If you could escape from your past, would you be ready for the next adventure?” As proven with Angels & Airwaves, yes, it would seem Tom is more than ready.

SuicideGirls tracked down Angels & Airwaves guitarist and Tom’s longtime friend, David Kennedy, to chat about the rock revolution, UFOs, the band’s ever-expanding creative pursuits and, of course, how David earned the nickname the “James Dean of Punk Rock.”

I Empire is in stores now and the band is currently on tour. Check out the band’s website here, the music video for the hit single “Everything is Magic” here, and making the video footage here.


Erin Broadley: So, I Empire came out November 6 of last year. How has the reception been since its release?

David Kennedy: Well, I believe that the reception has been really good from the people who have received it [laughs]. We haven’t totally made our full push yet. It came out close to the holidays so we did [a bunch of] radio shows, and then got into the whole Christmas and New Years. We won’t really start getting out there until the end of this month. Then we’ll be able to tell how it’s really going. It seems fun and exciting. With the people that do have the record, the response has been cool. They really get it.

EB: This album is more than just 12 songs on a disc; it’s very much a multi-faceted project because you guys incorporate a lot of other elements like video and other artistic elements alongside the music. It seems like Angels and Airwaves [AVA] is more than just a band.

DK: [Laughs] I should have you do my interviews.

EB: [Laughs]

DK: No, but that’s very true. We’re trying to figure out a new way to make [more than just] music; music has to become more than a marketing tool, but also an idea and an experience. It seems sort of empty just to do the record. For some reason people don’t put any value in music, even though I think it’s the thing that defines culture as a whole. It’s fine, whatever. But there’s no value to it. It’s become this ambient thing that people listen to while…

EB: …While they’re busy doing other things. People just cherry pick songs from their iPods.

DK: Yeah. So we’re just trying to figure out [a way to] make it deeper with the more things to go with it. That way it’s not just putting out music to put out music. And that’s the way I feel it gets people’s attention. iPods are the coolest thing ever but they’ve taken away so much of the experience of what you used to do when you’d buy record or a CD and you’d go home and just focus and just pay attention to that one record. Now with kids, it’s just a thing that pops up on their iPod. [It may be] a cool song but then it just goes to the next one. So for us, for people to listen to AVA, we need to offer these different things. Like, they can’t get away from us. They’re bobbing and weaving trying to dodge us.

EB: [Laughs]

DK: We’re like, “No wait, now were going to try and do films or we’re going to try and do this because there’s no way we’re just going to let you get away with just having a song on your iPod.” The wrath of Angels & Airwaves. I’m so excited about everything we’re doing. I think we all are. I feel like we’re still trying to get people to understand. I feel like it would be easier or more excepted if we just put a record out and said, “Hey, we think it’s cool… check us out.” We always have a lot to say about what we want to do with music and all the different stuff we do with short films and films in general. It seems like it’s more of a difficult thing in general to grasp, at least initially.

EB: I think it’s good to encourage your audience to step it up and become seekers of music and art again.

DK: Right. Well, to lead anybody you’ve got to start first. Even if people don’t necessarily agree with you, you have to convince people that it is the right thing, that it is the best thing. Anything that is easy doesn’t usually have much staying power and doesn’t really work for that long.

EB: Well, what I found really appealing about the actual album cover was…

DK: …My cleft chin? [Laughs]

EB: [Laughs] Yeah. Besides your cleft chin, what I love is that it’s an actual painting on the cover. It’s art. It seems that whole idea has been lost since vinyl stopped being an in-demand commodity, over the past 20 or 30 years, at least in the mainstream. The ‘70s had some of the most creative record covers of all time. The drawings or paintings or art on the cover used to be one of the best parts about buying the record. I Empire definitely has a grand, cinematic, almost film poster aspect to its design. Didn’t you involve an artist who worked with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas?

DK: Yeah. Well, first of all, I love that you said that because it was such a big debate about that album cover – like, how much we loved it as opposed to some other people. There was so much convincing, like everyone thought it was going to be pretentious or it was too ‘70s or too this or that, you know? But I just knew that it was going to be really exciting. When you look at iTunes and all the new records, it was like this record cover was going to fucking stand out. You were going to notice it. Whether you liked it or not, no matter what message it was sending, it still seemed really exciting.

EB: Before I even knew about your band, I was driving down Sunset Boulevard and saw a billboard of the album cover on the wall of the Roxy or the Rainbow Room here in LA.

DK: We had a billboard? Shut up man!

EB: Yeah [laughs]. Anyway, before I knew it was for a band, I thought it was some concept for a new film.

DK: Yeah, the idea of it is like a journey. But to answer your question, this guy Drew Struzan [who did AVA’s album cover] is also the one that did all the Star Wars films, he did Blade Runner, 2000 Space Odyssey, Indiana Jones. So, his whole deal is to tell a story in a poster; To do for people what he did for you, where you look at it and you see this thing like, what the fuck is that? There are four dudes and there’s a road and a fucking motorcycle.

EB: It’s like create your own narrative.

DK: That’s what he does. Yeah, how could that be wrong? How could this dude that’s done this for so long and so well, like how can he be fuckin’ wrong. He’s worked on the greatest movies in the world.

EB: I think the only reason people say things like that and would criticize, “Oh that’s so ‘70s” is because people simply stopped making covers like that because this understated sense of cool that has taken over and the whole idea of making a grand statement has been forgotten. It doesn’t have to be outdated. Great album art can be of any era, if the artist so chooses.

DK: That’s perfect. God, where were you when we were having that debate the other day?! [Laughs] That’s brilliant.

EB: [Laughs] Well, feel free to use it in your next argument on the tour bus.

DK: I’ll send you residuals.

EB: Sounds good. One thing you have written on your website is, “It is our intent for this website to be our “fan club” per-se…The fan club we had in the past wasn’t in our control and didn’t give us instant access to include all of you in our life…Now, we also have a great belief…we truly expect and want ours, and all music to be FREE… so if a few of you like it, come back and experience the rest of our art.” Can you explain that more?

DK: Whether we want it or not, music has become free and will continue to become more and more available to anyone. Right now the modern rock community has been hit the hardest. I think with it being more available like that, even though it’s a difficult time, trying to figure out how to create revenue or create an income with music, it’s still bigger than it’s ever been because of how available it is online. There’s no way to know where it’s going. We’re just trying to figure out a new way, an actual answer, and create a more interactive environment. If music [on a CD] is like a business card, we can put it out there and people can learn and love it and [hopefully] they want to come back and hang out. This model and this idea, anybody can use it, from the smallest band to the biggest band. We’re trying to create an operating system with an actual infrastructure where you can plug in all the details and bands can sell what they want to sell -- they can do fan subscriptions, they can do whatever they want to do [in order to] ultimately invest in themselves. Now major labels are having such difficult times… tour support is nonexistent. The only thing they can do is make you a record, like, “There you go… I don’t know what it’s going to do but here’s a record.”

EB: And good luck.

DK: Yeah, good luck. So, if a band itself can create its own revenue stream and create its own personal business, then they can invest back in themselves. If they need to get to Lawrence, Kansas for a gig, but they don’t have the money yet they feel like it’s going to benefit them, then they can figure out how to route it and they can get their own tour support and they can create their own revenue, create their own short films, their own videos and figure out how they would do it. If somebody told you, “Here’s a bunch of money, how would you spend it?” You might do it differently than other people. So you have to have a system in place that can create that money for you. I think this is actually a really incredible way to do that. It’s a real answer. For us, the business of selling records is not what we’re really concerned about. We’re just trying to get our music and ourselves out there as much as possible and then hopefully a small percentage of [fans] are interested in what we have going on online and want to be involved in that. That’s the way we can start controlling things ourselves and investing back into our own thing. If we could have money to just do free tours, we could do whatever we wanted to… That’s what ultimately is going to re-excite people. Right now there’s no money, even for shows. Bands are playing but they’re not creating environments where people are just getting lost in.

EB: Yeah, they’re stopping short of creating an atmosphere. You want to be in a situation where, even people who aren’t particularly familiar with your music can come to one of your shows and have an experience to remember, potentially bringing in new fans. You have to give new people incentive to come see you live because there should be more to a show than just the chords you’re playing.

DK: I think the more that you can do that, the more that other people will be able to do it too. And that’ll just re-excite everyone about rock music in general and allow more success. The way it is right now, it just seems fucking disconnected.

EB: It seems really defeatist. Rock seems very self-loathing right now.

DK: Yeah, I know. It does. What the fuck? It shouldn’t be. I feel like no one has faith in it and the radio stations are all dying.

EB: Let’s talk more about the cinematic influence on the band and these films you guys have been doing.

DK: Well, when we started the band, everything we talked about was very visual, like how to take something visual and then create a soundscape out of that. So we talked a lot about stuff like riding motorcycles super fast, or flying through the air, or –this sounds gay – but waking up in the morning in a meadow as the sun rises.

EB: [laughs] With a Unicorn next to you.

DK: Ah, God. [Laughs] Yeah, I didn’t want to actually say that out loud… but all the songs started being very cinematic in that sense. When we first started to get people into the band and put out some music, we thought it would be cool for the first time they heard the music to have some sort of visual to go along with it. I thought it’d be cool to [do something different]. That’s how we filmed our first one. [People’s] interest is still there but you just have to hit ‘em from another place to get people to learn about you. So we thought we’d start trying to hit ‘em with all these different things. It was just another fun and creative way to be a part of the music. Sometimes I say shit and I think I sound fuckin’ crazy. [Laughs]

EB: I have those moments every time I talk to somebody. Don’t worry [laughs]. Another thing, in response to the pressures of maintaining a particular band image over the course of one’s career, Tom wrote on AVA’s website, “I think as you get older you shed the burden of who is cooler, and the question is who is honest, because that’s what in the end is truly cool.” What are your thoughts on the so-called “industry of cool”?

DK: I think he’s full of shit man…

EB: [Laughs]

DK: [Laughs] No man, I think it’s more about… actually I don’t even understand what he said.

EB: Maybe he had another UFO sighting?

DK: You have no idea how many UFO sightings he might have. No, I know what he was saying and I wholeheartedly agree. I think, as we’ve gotten older… I don’t like admitting it but I have. And so has Tom, believe it or not, he is older, just so you can write that. Tom’s older than David [laughs]. But anyway, it took me a long time -- and I think with Tom too -- to become okay with who you are and realize you’re not in competition with all these other people. You should just embrace the things that you are good at and the things that you like. It took me awhile to finally realize and be okay with me. And that was when we started the band. Tom and I sat and we talked a lot. I just want to do things, more or less, to get back into music for why I started because I really wanted to affect people the way bands affected me when I was a kid. I totally think it’s a good place to be, and it’s taken us a long time to get here. So, I think it’s awesome that Tom said that.

EB: Well, good. You wouldn’t want to disagree with your lead singer in the press [laughs].

DK: I’ve never disagreed with Tom DeLonge in my life.

EB: Except maybe about the UFOs. Have you ever seen a UFO?

DK: I’ve never seen any UFOs but I believe they exist. But when he talks to me about them constantly, I can only take so much of it.

EB: Another thing Tom said about I Empire is that, “It reflects an idea that the world is yours for the taking, and all that exists, exists inside you. It can be something as trivial as a personal struggle, or as grand as the inescapable idea of world peace…” If this is how he feels, then what kind of ideas does the album bring up in you?

DK: A lot of things like world peace… we were like fuck it, I know for a fact that when Queen started they weren’t like, “Hey let’s just go be this cool band and go around and tour clubs.” They were like, “We’re going to be the biggest fucking rock band in the world.” And whether or not we can do it, let’s start a band and try and touch as many people as we can.

EB: I heard you’re nicknamed the “James Dean of Punk Rock.” Care to explain?

DK: No… Well, I don’t own a car or anything. I have a motorcycle and that’s the way I get around. So I’m assuming it’s something about that. I think Tom said that. If I had to tell you why I would tell you it’s because I’m super fucking cool. I look great in leather.

[Both Laugh]

EB: Last thing, I know in addition to a documentary involving your music titled Start The Machine, there is also a feature film titled I Empire after the album. What’s the status with that?

DK: The documentary is done. We were trying to submit it to SXSW and Tribeca so we can’t release it in any form, unless we did just a bunch of free showings, because it needs to go untouched into a film festival. We can’t create any sort of income or revenue until it goes to the film festivals. So, until it either gets accepted or rejected, it’s just a waiting game until we can put it out. With the feature film, we are trying to have it done for fall but we really don’t know the lead-time of how everything gets done. It’s kind of like a song; we don’t totally know what we’re doing but there’s tons of work done and the stuff is shot. We don’t know if we need to put a live performance in there or some more dialog, because right now it’s all these vignettes that intertwine kind of like Pink Floyd’s The Wall meets Crash, where everything is interwoven and it tells a complete story but characters come in and out and it’s kind of overwhelming. People can check out the trailer on our site. You don’t have to know what it is; you just have to know that we’re doing something that no one else is doing. It’s fucking cool and nobody talks about it but maybe you can talk about it.

EB: Maybe I will…



Angels & Airwaves is currently on tour. For more information and tour dates check out angelsandairwaves.com

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/Angels+and+Airwaves/