The Punk Archive: Hey Joel, are you excited to be heading out on tour again? Surely there's no better start to a new year, right?
Joel: It's exciting and kind of scary. I haven't been on a proper punk tour in a long time. Plow United strung a few dates together last year but this is 10 shows in 10 days, in a van.
The Punk Archive: What has the reaction been like to Rules for Making Up Words?
Joel: I've noticed four different ways people react to a record: they get it but they don't like it, they don't get it and they don't like it, they get it and they like it or, weirdly, they like it but don't get it. So far I feel really lucky that people seem to like the record but also to kind of get what the songs are about and what we're going for here.
The Punk Archive: Were you nervous before releasing the album, or more excited?
Joel: Mostly just excited. The nervousness came at a much earlier stage, when we were arranging the songs and figuring out who was going to put them out and then, of course, recording them. Recording never gets any less terrifying. Once it gets to the point where the record is mastered and there's a release date scheduled, at that point we're just like, "Yay, we made a record!"
The Punk Archive: How would you describe Ex Friends' sound?
Joel: We work really hard to strike the right balance between catchy and aggressive, and I'd like to think we do okay at that. I'm not gonna be coy about influences: older bands like Leatherface and Conflict provide us with really good examples of how to walk that line. I write all the songs, but at the end of the day, I very rarely tell anyone else what to play. So I guess we sound like the sum of our parts: a drummer who loves pop punk, a bassist who plays crazy complicated parts on a fretless, a guitarist who loves My Bloody Valentine and, well, me.
Oh, now's probably as good a time as any to mention that we are now a five-piece. Leta Gray from Retreevers is playing guitar and it's awesome. I'm just singing now, for the most part, which gives me a lot more room to jump around and scream and bleed on stuff.
The Punk Archive: You told us in our 2013 Review feature (http://thepunkarchive.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/feature-2013-review.html) that you were excited about going into the studio to record another Ex Friends record in 2014. Have you got any ideas as to what that record is going to shape up like? Any big surprises?
Joel: Oh man, my favourite topic. I'm so excited about this next record I could puke. It's about 75% written. Right now the titles being thrown around are Imperialismo!, Ghosts in the Graveyard and A Small Town Where Nothing is Quite What it Seems. That last one is currently the frontrunner but who knows? A lot of the songs on Rules... took place in and/or were about cities, in particular Philadelphia. Small towns and suburbs get more love on this next record, and there's more overt storytelling, more rendering of characters, etc. Musically we're gonna go a little bigger. That's really the only way I can describe it right now. JP is at home practicing with a click as we speak.
The Punk Archive: Is it easy to balance being in two bands at the same time?
Joel: Last year it was hard. Plow United played a ton of shows to support Marching Band, which meant a bunch of cross-country flights and a bunch of van time. Plow is going to be a lot more laid back this year. Everybody's got other stuff - both musical and non-musical - on their plates. Barring catastrophe, 2014 is gonna be the year Ex Friends plays a ton of shows and makes another record.
Ex Friends start their East Coast tour on 3rd January in Baltimore.
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