Get To Know Mayday Parade
azTeen: Introduce yourself and your favorite word.
Jake Bundrick, drums: My name is Jake, I play the drums, and my favorite word of all time is probably “rad”.
Brooks Betts, guitar: I’m Brooks, I play guitar in the band, and mine is scrumptious—it’s the first thing that came into my head.
Jeremy Lenzo, bass: I’m Jeremy and I play the bass and my favorite word is “baby”--like, “what up baby.” [Laughs]
azTeen: How does the new album (Anywhere But Here) differ from the others?
Brooks: Well there has definitely been some time in between. This new record is on Atlantic Records and there are some obvious differences that come with that—like the professionalism and the budget, and the production value keeps growing, which is really cool. Through spare time we’ve become a better band. It’s been three years since the last record and we’ve had more time writing this record and we’ve had more time recording this record as well. It wasn’t so rushed; there was a lot of thought about it. I think these songs, to me, come across as more developed with having more time and a larger budget. Also, we’ve had more time to really work on a song as opposed to our last album.
azTeen: Did you follow love in this last album (A Lesson In Romantics)?
Brooks: Yeah, definitely. Again, it has a lot to do with relationships and you can hear for the most part what we’re trying to put across in the songs. It’s definitely not as dark and I think a lot of people will agree on that.
Jeremy: When we wrote our last album we were not in the best places whereas now we’re touring on a bus, we’re somewhat successful, and we’re living pretty happily. Before, we were struggling with girlfriends, we weren’t really making a lot of money with touring, and we were just in a bad situation.
azTeen: Like Miserable at Best?
Jeremy: Yes, like Miserable At Best where we were on the road and just struggling a lot.
azTeen: What is your typical In-N-Out order?
Brooks: Number two animal style. For me, I don’t do the animal style on the fries but we do animal style spread and we ask for two packets of spread cause we’re sauce people.
Jake: I like mine with diet coke, but sometimes I do it with the In-N-Out lemonade.
azTeen: What is your favorite movie of all time?
Jake: Mine is probably Interview with a Vampire.
Brooks: Forrest Gump might be there on my list. There are a lot of good one-liners in that movie.
azTeen: What is your favorite Harry Potter/Star Wars/Lord of the Rings character?
Jake: Luke Skywalker or Han Solo
Brooks: I’m not a very big Harry Potter fan, but I like Princess Leia in Star Wars—she’s hot.
But Hermione from Harry Potter, she’s gorgeous, and she got accepted into an Ivy League school; she probably cast a spell on them.
azTeen: What is the most epic death?
Jake: A blazing gun battle in the midst of all the people.
Jeremy: Where you’re saving the life of a girl and you’re taking a bullet
Jake: No, I’d be shooting the bullet.
Brooks: Oh, you’re the bad guy, okay.
Brooks: Mine would be the opposite, like I’m protecting someone and I took a bullet for them after all of the explosions have gone off.
Jeremy: Well, I’d be the bad guy too, I’d be the bad guy where I’m also protecting someone.
azTeen: Like Public Enemies?
Jeremy: Exactly.
azTeen: What is the “girliest” TV show or movie that you watch?
Brooks: Maybe like Will & Grace, Friends, Sex and the City, basically any show on the CW—Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, 90210.
Jeremy: What’s that one show with douche bag boyfriends?
Brooks: It’s a show?
Jeremy: Oh, Tool Academy.
Brooks: Yeah, I don’t really watch these shows.
Jeremy: …Well it seems like you do. [Laughs]
Brooks: Well my mom watches The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, which are total girl shows. I feel like with almost any reality show girls really get into the gossip thing or the drama thing and they watch it a lot.
Jake: Oh, the redneck wedding shows. It’s on Country Music Television and it’s just about rednecks and it shows their weddings and they have the most white trash things you’ve ever seen. It’s hilarious. The weddings are really trashy and you can’t believe it’s an actual wedding. [Laughs]
azTeen: How are you still a child?
Jake: I’m not, I’m a man now. [Laughs]
Brooks: I’m still a child because I can’t come into the room because I can’t go in a room without turning the lights on first. It’s not like I’m afraid of the dark, I’m just worried that there’s something in there.
Jake: I like trains a lot. But mostly fake trains.
Brooks: I still pee my bed. …No just kidding. [Laughs]
azTeen: What is the craziest fan experience?
Jake: We met a girl the other day who had some nice tattoos and was like, “Sign my arm” and we were like, “Well what are you going to do with them?” and she said that she was going to tattoo it on her. I was like, “No, you have nice tattoos, don’t do that to yourself” and she said, “No, it’s a part of life and it’s who I am and I don’t regret my tattoos.” We were all really weary about signing, which is fine, we just need to give a little disclaimer so that we’re like, “Told you!” [Laughs]
Brooks: One fan was so star struck to meet us so I was just like, “Come here…” and I comforted her with a hug but she screamed “Rape!” when I hugged her.
Jake: (In a girl voice) “Oh my God, you weren’t supposed to touch me!” [Laughs]
azTeen: What is your favorite song to sing along to?
Jake: That new “Party in the U.S.A. song; we all know it somehow. Like we’d be having a party in the bus and someone would turn that song up and everyone’s just like, “Hands up, playing my song, the butterflies flying away!”
Jeremy: (singing) “All my single ladies, all my single ladies, all my single ladies, so put your hands up!”
Jake: Have you’ve seen the YouTube video of the girl wearing a clown mask doing the dance for it?
azTeen: No, I don’t thinks so.
Jake: Well there’s this girl with a creepy, creepy clown mask on doing the dance for it and there’s part of the move of the dance where she takes her hand and she swings her head down to put her hands in the air. But she had the mask on so she couldn’t see so when she was swinging her head back up the top of her head hit right on top of the TV, it is so funny.
azTeen: What is your favorite lyric?
Brooks: There’s a couple for me. One is by Guns N Roses where it’s like, “I don’t worry ‘bout nothin’ ‘cause worrying is a waste of my effing time.” or “I’ve got a rattlesnake suitcase under my arm, said I’m a mean machine, been drinkin’ gasoline” and it’s so good and it’s specific to that one line where you have to hear the whole content. I think it’s just truly rock ‘n roll.
Jeremy: I like this one lyric by Pink Floyd where it goes, “We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl.”
azTeen: What is the best prank that you’ve pulled?
Jake: The best prank I think we’ve pulled was on our old tour manager and he was a crazy dude that did crazy things--we didn’t know what he was on. But one night he came on our bus out of his mind and he crashed on a couch with his glasses on and he always had this little top hat and he pretty much looked like a little Irish guy. He was laying down sleeping, and we wanted to mess with him, so we had a strobe light and we unraveled a condom and threw it on his leg and we were doing all of these crazy things to him. We had death metal cranked up on the radio and we had the strobe light to his face so when he woke up he was freaking out and he had no idea what was going on. We got a picture of his reaction while we’re all behind the strobe light laughing while he was freaking out. …I think that was the night he started biting everyone, too. [Laughs]
Check ‘em out at www.myspace.com/maydayparade
This article has been viewed 2102 times.
