Chad Bowar: You’ve played Warped a lot. How does 2009 compare to your previous experiences?
Chris Dudley: It’s definitely a lot different. We started in 2003, and we’ve been on it every year except 2008 when we did the Mayhem festival. I don’t know if it’s because it’s the first year we’ve come back without being on the year before, but it seems there are a lot of very new bands that are doing really well. There’s a whole explosion of rap with the screaming and dance. It’s weird. I’ve never seen anything like it.
As far as hanging out goes, there’s been a ton. There’s a lot of old friends on the tour that we’re able to hang out with, which is awesome. Bayside, Thrice, Flogging Molly, Bad Religion are friends that are here.
What makes a good package tour?
For the bands what makes a good tour is first and foremost cool dudes in the bands. Not so much the quality of the music. Having awesome bands to go on tour with is great, but for the bands on the tour you’re hanging out with the dudes in the bands for 23 hours a day. If the music’s not good, you just don’t have to watch them. It’s great to have good dudes to hang out with. It’s also great to have awesome bands to watch every day. There are bands on this tour that I watch every day because they are great bands.
What are your tour plans once Warped is finished?
We’re taking three months after this tour because both of our guitar players are having babies in October. We’re doing a headlining tour in November and December, then next year we’re doing a ton of international stuff.
How did the reception of Lost In The Sound Of Separation compare to your expectations going in?
It did a lot better than we thought it would. The one before it did really well, but with the obvious decline of the music industry we didn’t know if we’d sell records anymore. The reaction to the songs has been really good. The kids seem to dig it.
It debuted in the top 10, showing that in this era smaller labels like yours can also sell CDs.
The cool thing about our label is that it’s a subsidiary of EMI, so they have all the money in the world, but it’s also an indie label so they don’t have any sort of creative control. It comes down to them asking us who we want to record the album, how much money we need, and then give us the record when you’re done. You should never have an A&R guy saying anything about the songs. You take care of the business side of stuff, we’ll make the music the way we think it should be. That’s not the way it works at most labels, which I think is insane. But that’s the way it works with our label, which is awesome.
What are the plans for the next Underoath studio album>
We’re in the early stages of writing it. We’re actually playing some of it today. Not playing a song, but doing an interlude which is some stuff we’re working on for the next record. We’re probably going to record around the end of next summer. It’s going to be a while, but it takes a long time for us to write.
Are you able to write on the road, or do you wait until you’re home?
We write in the road. It’s not as easy, because you have to do it at soundchecks, which we don’t get on a tour like this. When we’re on headlining tours it’s a lot easier to write, because we’ll have an hour long soundcheck and we’ll be jamming the whole time.
Do you plan on working with producer Adam D (Killswitch Engage) again?
I’m not sure. We haven’t really gotten that far. We’re kind of on the fence about it right now. It’s not that we’re unhappy with anything we’ve done before, we’re just wondering if it might be time to do something different.
You’ve had some turmoil in the band from time to time. How’s everybody getting along these days?
Really, really good. I always say that being in a band is a lot like being married, except you’re married to five opinionated dudes. You’ve got to work on stuff.
What are your essentials for the road?
I’ve gotta bring along my iPod, my computer and lots of underwear. Those are my main ones.
What’s the biggest crowd you’ve ever played in front of?
We headlined Cornerstone in Illinois one time, and there were about 30,000 people. We’ve played a lot of big festivals in Europe.
Tell me about the first show you played with Underoath.
We played a show at this place called the Blood Fire Warehouse in Atlanta, Georgia. It was us, Luti-Kriss (who is now Norma Jean), Zao and World Against World. We were on our way up there, and Zao was headlining. We were opening the show. We blew a tire, and told them we’d be an hour late, and to put us on later. We blew another tire and didn’t have another spare. Two hours went by and we finally got on the road. We got there and everybody had already played and were packing up. There was probably 50 people left. We were used to playing shows for five people, so we were still stoked.
