A lot of people look at Story of the Year and see a band with a hugely successful debut album -- Page Avenue -- and a follow-up record that somehow didn't get the same attention. If you're looking at the band that way, you might imagine they have something to prove with their latest release, The Black Swan. If you ask Story of the Year personally, though, you'll hear a different -- no pun intended -- story altogether. When they made their second album, In the Wake of Determination, they were well aware of the risks of messing with a proven formula. Guess what? They didn't care. On The Black Swan, you'll hear a band that worries about their music before their chart position.
SuicideGirls had the privilege of chatting with guitarist Ryan Phillips, who talked about the ups and downs of the record industry, the challenges of suddenly making it big after years of hard work, and something that even the most hardcore fans might not know about him.
Jay Hathaway: You guys started out in St. Louis. What about being from the Midwest, instead of New York or L.A., has shaped your career?
Ryan Phillips: Coming from the Midwest, we learned a more intense work ethic. We basically learned how to be a bit more self-sufficient. These days, with MySpace and the Internet, I don't think location is as important as it was 10 years ago. A band could be in Alaska, and if the band's great, you can put a song on the Internet and two minutes later anyone in the world can hear it. Still, growing up with our band, it's not like we were in Southern California where every record label was 10 minutes up the 405. We had to work really hard to break free of St. Louis and eventually the Midwest. We just saved up enough money over time to move to California, and that's when we got signed.
JH: You had been together as a band for years before it seemed like you blew up overnight. What was it like to suddenly be famous? Do you think of yourselves that way?
RP: I don't really feel famous. We always pride ourselves on the fact that we're no better than our fans. We're just dudes who skateboard and love music. I've been playing with Dan and Josh since we played our first show together in 1996, so I've been playing with these dudes for over 10 years. It's been a long road, but at the same time it seems like it all happened pretty fast. I still don't feel like a famous guy.
JH: Once you get big, get signed, go out on tour, there are all kinds of new opportunities to get into trouble. How did you react to having all of that thrown at you?
RP: Like you said, [laughs] there's definitely some opportunities thrown at you when you're driving around in a tour bus versus selling life insurance or something. But we're all pretty down to earth, rooted people. We like to party and have a good time, but we don't go overboard with it. None of us do any hard drugs or anything, so we don't have to worry about that.
JH: You signed to a new label for The Black Swan, and you've said really positive things about that. How did you find your way to Epitaph?
RP: It's honestly the best thing that's ever happened to us, to be on this label. These people just love our band and let us do our thing. It's a close, tight-knit family. It's a crazy time right now: the major labels are losing money, everyone's so scared to lose their jobs, and no one wants to take chances. It's just a scary time to be on a label, so we all feel better about being on Epitaph instead of a big conglomerate. It affects the music in the most positive way possible, because you don't have somebody looking over your shoulder. They say, "Do your thing, cool. Show us when you're done."
JH: It seems like you took that freedom and ran with it, and took this album in a different direction. The sounds are a lot heavier, and there are a lot of political, universal themes in the lyrics. Did being on a new label affect that?
RP: On this record, [lead singer] Dan [Marsala] basically just said, "Fuck it, I really want to speak my mind. I believe in some shit, and I want to use this music as an outlet to express myself." Creatively, and along political lines. On the last album, there were five or six songs that were politically driven, but in a more obscure way. This album took that even further. At the same time, there are some lyrics that extremely personal, and not political in any way. A handful of songs are more deep and personal than I've ever heard Dan get before.
JH: But it's not like you guys are U2 and he's Bono, and you're going, "When's he going to get that out of his system so we can make some music?"
RP: Totally. It's an exciting time with this election and everything that's going on, it's hard for someone like Dan who's involved in that stuff all the time. I'm just really glad that he got to open up with some of what he believes about what's going on.
JH: How do you think your fans are responding to that?
RP: We've tried to do it in a creative way. I don't ever want to be in the kind of band that says, "You have to believe this because we do. You have to do this because we do." We'll put out there, and people can take it how they want.
JH: I've read a lot of positive reviews so far, but there's something that comes up a lot. Many will say great things about the album, and then they'll say this band is a "guilty pleasure". How do you feel about that label?
RP: I am a realistic person, and you even said it before -- to 99.9% of people that know about our band, we just came out of nowhere. Probably 1% of the population knows that we've been playing and working for shit since 1995. Any time a band comes from nowhere and is pretty big, a lot of people are automatically going to be turned off by that. A lot of scenester people, the cred police, it's a natural thing that happens. To tell you the truth, there was a time in 2004 or 2005 when it bothered us. That's why our second record is kind of pissed off and a lot heavier. Dude, I could give two fucking shits about that kind of stuff. If someone wants to say we're a guilty pleasure, cool. If someone wants to say we sound like church music, cool. If someone wants to say that my name is Darryl, cool. I just care about playing music.
JH: Something else you've said about this album is that you didn't care anyone thought of it. That implies that you cared before. Who were you talking about trying to impress or make music for, other than yourselves?
RP: Well, I'm the main songwriter as far as the music, and on the last record I definitely just said, "Fuck it, I'm going to do this my way. As a collective, we're going to do this our way." But the first record did really well, so there was still a little bit of "How are people going to react to this? What are other bands sounding like?" I'm just being completely honest. But on this record we just said, "Fuck it." We don't really care what other people are doing, or which bands are big right now. We're just going to do this ourselves; we're the people that have to go play it every night. If people like it, that's awesome, but if they don't, we're still going to be stoked because we didn't sacrifice anything for anybody.
JH: How do you get yourself up every night to play songs you wrote five or 10 years ago, that you could probably play in your sleep by now?
RP: Just playing the songs most nights isn't the most exciting thing, but seeing the fans' reactions to it is the best drug ever. I'm a pretty appreciative dude. When I write a song and it's 3:30 in the morning, and I'm on my roof with a fuckin' beer and a Pop-Tart, and years later people halfway across the world are singing every word to it, I acknowledge that and think about it every night on stage. But one thing that we've always done since the beginning is that an hour before we go on stage, we don't do any interviews or press, all we do is the five of us get into a room together and listen to heavy music or put on Pantera DVDs. [Laughs] Almost all of us drink. We just put on loud, obnoxious music and treat the show like a fucking party. We walk out of the bus laughing, pumped up.
JH: Have you guys met any really crazy or obsessive fans?
RP: A lot of these people aren't creepy or crazy or anything, they just really love our band. There's a kid that was at the show, not even a week ago, in Buffalo, who's seen us 27 times. There's people that follow us and drive thousands of miles, from Canada all the way to the states, and follow us the whole way. These people live for our band; they know every detail of our lives. It's crazy, but how awesome is it that you can create something that affects someone to that magnitude? A lot of people would see it as obsessive or creepy, but I just see it as flattering that I could affect someone's life like that with my hands and my guitar.
JH: There's a story about how the Beatles said they really liked jelly beans, and they ended up getting jelly beans thrown at them on stage for a year or something afterward. Has anything like that happened to you?
RP: That happens a lot in Japan; it's part of their culture. They go on the Internet and see what you like, and they bring you all these presents. We put out a DVD about a year ago, and these kids quote the whole thing from start to finish, they know every word of it. We get our DVD quoted to us every night. I'll write something on a blog and people who read it like a year ago will quote it to me. It's crazy how some people hang on every word you say. There's one thing that makes me uncomfortable, and it happens every single night. After a show we'll meet someone who says, "Do you guys remember me? I saw you two years ago at the mall, you guys bumped past me. We were by the hats." That happens every single night, and it's the most uncomfortable thing.
JH: There are rock stars who don't want anything to do with their fans: they don't talk to anyone, don't do interviews, dont play shows for 10 years. It doesn't sound like you guys are ever going to be that band.
RP: I just think we're on a completely different level than Axl Rose that dude is just in a completely other realm of reality. But for people on our plane of existence, I can't stand that mentality that you're too good for your fans; that you're too good for the people that go out and buy your record and support you. I fucking hate that. The whole rock star thing, the egos, I can't stand that. Realistically, it really bugs me, but I can understand that a dude like Axl Rose or Scott Weiland can't exactly just go out in the crowd and talk to the fans. It would be insane. Those people are on a way different level, so I can understand how somebody like that would be pretty private.
JH: You said you listen to a ton of Pantera, but do you listen to any of the bands that people might think of as your contemporaries?
RP: Dan is pretty up on all the hardcore bands and the punk bands. At the risk of sounding like a complete asshole, no disrespect, but I have no clue what's going on right now. I listen to the stuff I grew up on. I listen to Pantera and Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Tool and Rage and Van Halen. I don't know what's going on like the other dudes in my band do. I pretty much don't listen to anything after 2000.
JH: Is there something you can tell me that even the really hardcore fans probably don't know?
RP: I was an insomniac for six months on this last record. I had been prescribed sleeping pills [that] didn't work. I didn't sleep for six months. I don't think a lot of people know that.
JH: What were you doing while you couldn't sleep?
RP: Working on the record. This record was a lot of stress, the most stressful year I've ever had in my life. I couldn't turn my brain off. There was a lot going on internally this year, a lot of stress, a lot of uncertainty. I definitely knocked off a year of my life. I don't think anyone knows that.
JH: Would you ever think about leaving the country if the election didn't go well and things went to hell politically?
RP: I'm staying here, dude. If I had to leave, though, I'd go to Australia. I don't know if you've ever been there, it's fucking amazing.
The Black Swan is in stores now. For more on Story of the Year or to catch the guys on tour this summer, check out www.storyoftheyear.net and www.myspace.com/storyoftheyear.
SuicideGirls had the privilege of chatting with guitarist Ryan Phillips, who talked about the ups and downs of the record industry, the challenges of suddenly making it big after years of hard work, and something that even the most hardcore fans might not know about him.
Jay Hathaway: You guys started out in St. Louis. What about being from the Midwest, instead of New York or L.A., has shaped your career?
Ryan Phillips: Coming from the Midwest, we learned a more intense work ethic. We basically learned how to be a bit more self-sufficient. These days, with MySpace and the Internet, I don't think location is as important as it was 10 years ago. A band could be in Alaska, and if the band's great, you can put a song on the Internet and two minutes later anyone in the world can hear it. Still, growing up with our band, it's not like we were in Southern California where every record label was 10 minutes up the 405. We had to work really hard to break free of St. Louis and eventually the Midwest. We just saved up enough money over time to move to California, and that's when we got signed.
JH: You had been together as a band for years before it seemed like you blew up overnight. What was it like to suddenly be famous? Do you think of yourselves that way?
RP: I don't really feel famous. We always pride ourselves on the fact that we're no better than our fans. We're just dudes who skateboard and love music. I've been playing with Dan and Josh since we played our first show together in 1996, so I've been playing with these dudes for over 10 years. It's been a long road, but at the same time it seems like it all happened pretty fast. I still don't feel like a famous guy.
JH: Once you get big, get signed, go out on tour, there are all kinds of new opportunities to get into trouble. How did you react to having all of that thrown at you?
RP: Like you said, [laughs] there's definitely some opportunities thrown at you when you're driving around in a tour bus versus selling life insurance or something. But we're all pretty down to earth, rooted people. We like to party and have a good time, but we don't go overboard with it. None of us do any hard drugs or anything, so we don't have to worry about that.
JH: You signed to a new label for The Black Swan, and you've said really positive things about that. How did you find your way to Epitaph?
RP: It's honestly the best thing that's ever happened to us, to be on this label. These people just love our band and let us do our thing. It's a close, tight-knit family. It's a crazy time right now: the major labels are losing money, everyone's so scared to lose their jobs, and no one wants to take chances. It's just a scary time to be on a label, so we all feel better about being on Epitaph instead of a big conglomerate. It affects the music in the most positive way possible, because you don't have somebody looking over your shoulder. They say, "Do your thing, cool. Show us when you're done."
JH: It seems like you took that freedom and ran with it, and took this album in a different direction. The sounds are a lot heavier, and there are a lot of political, universal themes in the lyrics. Did being on a new label affect that?
RP: On this record, [lead singer] Dan [Marsala] basically just said, "Fuck it, I really want to speak my mind. I believe in some shit, and I want to use this music as an outlet to express myself." Creatively, and along political lines. On the last album, there were five or six songs that were politically driven, but in a more obscure way. This album took that even further. At the same time, there are some lyrics that extremely personal, and not political in any way. A handful of songs are more deep and personal than I've ever heard Dan get before.
JH: But it's not like you guys are U2 and he's Bono, and you're going, "When's he going to get that out of his system so we can make some music?"
RP: Totally. It's an exciting time with this election and everything that's going on, it's hard for someone like Dan who's involved in that stuff all the time. I'm just really glad that he got to open up with some of what he believes about what's going on.
JH: How do you think your fans are responding to that?
RP: We've tried to do it in a creative way. I don't ever want to be in the kind of band that says, "You have to believe this because we do. You have to do this because we do." We'll put out there, and people can take it how they want.
JH: I've read a lot of positive reviews so far, but there's something that comes up a lot. Many will say great things about the album, and then they'll say this band is a "guilty pleasure". How do you feel about that label?
RP: I am a realistic person, and you even said it before -- to 99.9% of people that know about our band, we just came out of nowhere. Probably 1% of the population knows that we've been playing and working for shit since 1995. Any time a band comes from nowhere and is pretty big, a lot of people are automatically going to be turned off by that. A lot of scenester people, the cred police, it's a natural thing that happens. To tell you the truth, there was a time in 2004 or 2005 when it bothered us. That's why our second record is kind of pissed off and a lot heavier. Dude, I could give two fucking shits about that kind of stuff. If someone wants to say we're a guilty pleasure, cool. If someone wants to say we sound like church music, cool. If someone wants to say that my name is Darryl, cool. I just care about playing music.
JH: Something else you've said about this album is that you didn't care anyone thought of it. That implies that you cared before. Who were you talking about trying to impress or make music for, other than yourselves?
RP: Well, I'm the main songwriter as far as the music, and on the last record I definitely just said, "Fuck it, I'm going to do this my way. As a collective, we're going to do this our way." But the first record did really well, so there was still a little bit of "How are people going to react to this? What are other bands sounding like?" I'm just being completely honest. But on this record we just said, "Fuck it." We don't really care what other people are doing, or which bands are big right now. We're just going to do this ourselves; we're the people that have to go play it every night. If people like it, that's awesome, but if they don't, we're still going to be stoked because we didn't sacrifice anything for anybody.
JH: How do you get yourself up every night to play songs you wrote five or 10 years ago, that you could probably play in your sleep by now?
RP: Just playing the songs most nights isn't the most exciting thing, but seeing the fans' reactions to it is the best drug ever. I'm a pretty appreciative dude. When I write a song and it's 3:30 in the morning, and I'm on my roof with a fuckin' beer and a Pop-Tart, and years later people halfway across the world are singing every word to it, I acknowledge that and think about it every night on stage. But one thing that we've always done since the beginning is that an hour before we go on stage, we don't do any interviews or press, all we do is the five of us get into a room together and listen to heavy music or put on Pantera DVDs. [Laughs] Almost all of us drink. We just put on loud, obnoxious music and treat the show like a fucking party. We walk out of the bus laughing, pumped up.
JH: Have you guys met any really crazy or obsessive fans?
RP: A lot of these people aren't creepy or crazy or anything, they just really love our band. There's a kid that was at the show, not even a week ago, in Buffalo, who's seen us 27 times. There's people that follow us and drive thousands of miles, from Canada all the way to the states, and follow us the whole way. These people live for our band; they know every detail of our lives. It's crazy, but how awesome is it that you can create something that affects someone to that magnitude? A lot of people would see it as obsessive or creepy, but I just see it as flattering that I could affect someone's life like that with my hands and my guitar.
JH: There's a story about how the Beatles said they really liked jelly beans, and they ended up getting jelly beans thrown at them on stage for a year or something afterward. Has anything like that happened to you?
RP: That happens a lot in Japan; it's part of their culture. They go on the Internet and see what you like, and they bring you all these presents. We put out a DVD about a year ago, and these kids quote the whole thing from start to finish, they know every word of it. We get our DVD quoted to us every night. I'll write something on a blog and people who read it like a year ago will quote it to me. It's crazy how some people hang on every word you say. There's one thing that makes me uncomfortable, and it happens every single night. After a show we'll meet someone who says, "Do you guys remember me? I saw you two years ago at the mall, you guys bumped past me. We were by the hats." That happens every single night, and it's the most uncomfortable thing.
JH: There are rock stars who don't want anything to do with their fans: they don't talk to anyone, don't do interviews, dont play shows for 10 years. It doesn't sound like you guys are ever going to be that band.
RP: I just think we're on a completely different level than Axl Rose that dude is just in a completely other realm of reality. But for people on our plane of existence, I can't stand that mentality that you're too good for your fans; that you're too good for the people that go out and buy your record and support you. I fucking hate that. The whole rock star thing, the egos, I can't stand that. Realistically, it really bugs me, but I can understand that a dude like Axl Rose or Scott Weiland can't exactly just go out in the crowd and talk to the fans. It would be insane. Those people are on a way different level, so I can understand how somebody like that would be pretty private.
JH: You said you listen to a ton of Pantera, but do you listen to any of the bands that people might think of as your contemporaries?
RP: Dan is pretty up on all the hardcore bands and the punk bands. At the risk of sounding like a complete asshole, no disrespect, but I have no clue what's going on right now. I listen to the stuff I grew up on. I listen to Pantera and Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Tool and Rage and Van Halen. I don't know what's going on like the other dudes in my band do. I pretty much don't listen to anything after 2000.
JH: Is there something you can tell me that even the really hardcore fans probably don't know?
RP: I was an insomniac for six months on this last record. I had been prescribed sleeping pills [that] didn't work. I didn't sleep for six months. I don't think a lot of people know that.
JH: What were you doing while you couldn't sleep?
RP: Working on the record. This record was a lot of stress, the most stressful year I've ever had in my life. I couldn't turn my brain off. There was a lot going on internally this year, a lot of stress, a lot of uncertainty. I definitely knocked off a year of my life. I don't think anyone knows that.
JH: Would you ever think about leaving the country if the election didn't go well and things went to hell politically?
RP: I'm staying here, dude. If I had to leave, though, I'd go to Australia. I don't know if you've ever been there, it's fucking amazing.
The Black Swan is in stores now. For more on Story of the Year or to catch the guys on tour this summer, check out www.storyoftheyear.net and www.myspace.com/storyoftheyear.
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
Page Avenue is still my favorite album (I bought it the DAY it was released!) but I have NEVER been disappointed by any of their work. I love that they bring politics into the music, especially with The Black Swan but also in In the Wake of Determination. They are in such a great position to impact the people around them and it is refreshing to see that they care about making a difference in the world and speaking the truth.
Keep it up boys...