What are your top five favourite pop punk albums?
Take This To Your Grave - Fall Out Boy
Stay What You Are - Saves The Day
The Greatest Generation - The Wonder Years
New Found Glory - New Found Glory
Dookie - Green Day
I’d have said Brand New, Taking Back Sunday or The Early November but they aren’t really all that pop punk.
Who are your musical influences?
I think collectively New Found Glory brought us all together in the beginning and definitely influenced us at the start. In regards to what we wrote for This Mind of Mine, I’d say Jimmy Eat World, Taking Back Sunday and Brand New have been massive influences.
If you could have As It Is play with any band who would you pick?
We’ve all discussed this one again come to the conclusion as a band of New Found Glory because of the connection we all have with that band. I’d love to play alongside Brand New one day though.
How did As it Is form?
Patty and Andy had known each other from a previous project that never worked out and Patty met me on the same course at uni. He had patches of bands I loved on his backpack so I knew we’d get on musically. We auditioned our drummer Foley and we all quickly became best friends with a real love for the music we wrote. We’re technically just a 4-piece at the moment but we have a bassist live.
If you could play at a UK festival this year what one would you pick?
Foley really wants to play Slam Dunk. He actually once said that he’d get my face tattooed on his penis if we didn’t play it in 2013. We didn’t in the end but I can confirm that he (sadly) hasn’t got that tattooed.
Since you often get described as a transatlantic band who would you rather have dinner with, the Queen or Barack Obama?
Having dinner with Obama would be way more of a laugh! Although I’d probably end up getting kicked out for laughing at the fact he had a Zune, remember them?
Do you get the pop punk pizza thing? What does it mean? Please help us understand this concept?
I don’t get it like a load of other people do, don’t get me wrong I love pizza, but I feel it’s stereotyping. I feel like the connection is just a parody of itself now. I blame Tumblr.
If you could play anywhere in the universe where would it be?
In the universe? Still probably Japan. Or Mexico, I hear shows are great there on almost every tour documentary I watch.
How did you approach the writing process for your new E.P This Mind of Mine?
We wrote together rather than writing ones alone and bringing them to practice. We all swapped instruments and tried to be as creative as possible. I think we managed to find a way of writing songs that all of us loved and felt involved in.
How did you pick the artwork for This Mind of Mine?
The artwork derives from lyrics on the EP. The book, the heart and the coffin all relate to the last three lyrics on the last song. Once we had the concept we knew we wanted it drawn and me and Patty both have a few tattoos from a girl called Dolly Plunkett in Brighton who we asked to draw the concept in her style. We also wanted to contrast the dark lyrics with bright colours on the front, because that’s kinda what we’re like; seemingly colourful and boldly confident on the outside, but miserable on the inside.
How would you say This Mind of Mine is different to Blenheim Place?
More coherent. We’re still proud of those songs but I feel we tried to represent a wide variety of pop punk on Blenheim Place. With This Mind of Mine we had figured out how we write best and I think definitely found our own sound. We wrote songs that we would want to listen to rather than trying to fit in aspects of pop punk we thought ‘had’ to be there.
What’s your favourite track from This Mind of Mine?
Relive The Story. It’s the most different to anything we’ve done. It’s a bit slower. It’s the quietest and loudest song and I’m super proud of the lyrics that both Patty and I wrote for that one. Shit gets dark. Trivia - it almost didn’t make the cut but we definitely made the right decision keeping it.
You recently released a video for Cant’s Save Myself was that fun to film?
It was hot. We were all pretty sweaty by the end. But it was fun, I think we were all a bit sick of the song by the end. The director Ian is a good friend of ours so it was really easy to be ourselves. I think there might be a behind the scenes video soon so everyone can see what it was like for themselves.
Is the boy in the video a family member/friend?
Haha no - actually he’s a regular customer in the coffee shop I work in. He had the right hair, was always well behaved and confident so I asked his mum and that was that sorted.
With a Youtuber in the band and As it Is going on tour soon, does this make it easier to record all of your tour memories and shows?
I guess so, We all want to film everything we do as much as possible anyway. What it does mean is that we are better at the way we use YouTube and do our social media. He’s taught us a lot about the way the internet works.
Where do you see yourselves by the end of this year? Do you have any specific goals?
Being tired. We just want to tour and play as many shows as possible this year. We have some exciting things in the works that we can’t talk about yet. I think our main goal is to still be friends. That’s what’s most important to us.
Who are your favourite UK bands at the minute?
Gnarwolves, ROAM and obviously Neck Deep are slaying it at the moment.
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