INTERVIEW

Four years ago, pop-punk band The FridayNights Boys was just the name of these fourcollege guys’ bowling team. Now, they’ve leftthe lanes, the rental shoes and their hometownof Fairfax, Va., behind for spots on MTV andtheir first nationwide headlining tour. Lead singer/guitarist Andrew Goldstein remembers thosedays spent in his dorm room, loading his songsonto iTunes and playing basement shows withhis friend Alex Gaskarth of the then up-and-coming band All Time Low. Goldstein hadn’tstarted The Friday Night Boys with bassistRobby Dallas Reider, guitarist/vocalist MikeToohey, and drummer/vocalist Chris Barrett justyet. Each played in different bands from aroundthe Virginia, Wash. D.C., and Maryland musicscene. But one summer the four grew closerwhen Goldstein suggested that, just for fun,they join a weekly bowling league. Deciding tostick together as bandmates, they self-releasedtheir first EP, 2007’s So Friday Night, So FridayTight, less than a year later, with their secondEP, The Sketch Process following in 2008. Theythen sent Gaskarth some of their songs, andwanting to help, he made them the first band onhis Fueled By Ramen record label imprint, TheParty Scene, putting out their next EP, That’sWhat She Said later that same year. With labelbacking, and a spot on the Warped Tour, TheFriday Night Boys released their first full-lengthalbum, Off The Deep End, lasts u m m e r . Last month Re-coil got Goldstein ont h e phone early

one Fri-d a y

night, and talked quickly about the Boys’ fastrise to fame, their new music video, and theirlove of The Office.

Recoil: The ‘When It Hits Your Lips Tour’coming up is your first full-scale headlin-ing tour, right?Andrew Goldstein: Yes, exactly. There’s al-ways some nerves about hitting your first head-lining tour, but I’m super confident, extremelyconfident about how it’s going to go. I’m alsoexcited to be going out with our friends the Big-ger Lights, who we’ve toured with before, andseeing new bands like Anarbor and The ReadySet who are the other bands that will be on tourwith us.

R: What does it mean to you guys to beheading out on a major tour like this onyour own?AG: It’s just an amazing feeling, when you go tothe show and you know that your band is theband that most people are there to see. Andyou get to play a longer set. It’ll be cool. I’m justanxious to see, like, it’s one of those thingswhere we had been touring all of 2009 and wecan see some of the positive results of how allthe touring and being support on those varioustours (opening for All Time Low, Cobra Starship,and others) has paid off in these certain mar-kets and I think it’s going to be a great experi-ence.

R: What’s been the mostsurprising thing

about touring as much as you have now?How different is it from what you mighthave expected touring would be like?AG: Umm, just that it’s very hard work. As muchas it seems or you think that a two-month tourwould be like being on vacation, it really… Imean, we all have fun. It’s not like a standardjob, but it’s a lot of hard work. It’s a lot of driving.You get no sleep, like you get barely any sleep.You can’t shower as often as you’d like to. Andit’s a mentally challenging experience as wellas physically, because you’re not around yourfamily or friends. You’renot up during the regularpart of the day; you’re upfrom like 11 a.m. to 4 or 5a.m., especially if youhave to drive, and some-times you can’t evensleep at all because youhave to drive through thenight to the next place.But on the upside of it,you get to see new people every day, like freshfaces, and one of the most rewarding experi-ences is that you play somewhere and then onthe next time around you see some familiarfaces that have come to your show before, andthey’re like, ‘Oh, I saw you guys and I wanted tocome see you again.’ And the kids know thewords and stuff, so it’s also a very rewardingfeeling.

R: Speaking of rewarding experiences,what was it like recording your first full-length album, Off The Deep End? How dif-ferent was that from the recording you haddone before?AG: That was great because it was a lot differ-ent than I expected. I went into it with all sorts ofsongs, like all kinds of songs, and I ended upgoing out there and ended up co-writing withsome people and was writing some other songson my own, and the songs I came up with outthere I just loved so much more than what I hadbeen previously been working on, and I feel likeit was much more cohesive because we were

in L.A. writing and record-ing. This CD I feel cap-

tures that experiencethat I had when I wasout there for amonth recordingthe CD. I’m very

proud of it and I’mvery happy

with how

it came out.

R: What was it like making your first musicvideo for your song “Stuttering”?AG: It was really cool. It was very shocking tosee yourself in a video, especially because wehadn’t done any real music videos before. Sothat one came out great and we also just shotanother one for our song ‘Stupid Love Letter’which is premiering on MTVU, and it’s also fea-tured in this movie coming out called When InRome which has Kristen Bell, Danny DeVito,

and Josh Duhamel in it.

R: Is there anythingyou can tell peopleabout the new video?AG: It’s a very funnyvideo. It looks amazing.The guy who directed itis Steve-O [Jocz] fromSum 41, and it came outawesome. It came out

awesome and it takes place at a movie theater,and that’s all I’m going to say. [Laughs.]

R: I’m guessing you guys are big fans ofThe Office since you titled your last EP,That’s What She Said.AG: Yes. [Laughs] At the time that that hap-pened, The Office had been out for a little bit, soit was almost a joke in itself that that joke hadgotten so played out, that we decided to namethe whole EP that.

R: If you were to compare each of you guysin the band to characters on The Office whowould you say you are?AG: Ummm, of course, I’m Jim, but I don’t thinkmy band would agree with me on that one. Iwould say Mike would kind of be like Dwight.Robbie probably thinks he’s Jim, but he’s prob-ably Michael Scott. I don’t know who Chris wouldbe. There aren’t that many more guy charac-ters on the show. [Laughs.]

R: What advice would you give to otherkids starting out putting up their musiconline or whatever?AG: The main advice I would give is use all thesocial networking sites. You know, like Facebook,MySpace… MySpace is probably the best for,like, an artist profile. And Twitter. And all the art-ist blogging sites. Whatever you can do. Thereare other sites where you can put your songson iTunes for super cheap. You don’t have tohave a label, you go through like a site that Iused was called tunecore.com, and you can

put songs up and then once you can makea little bit of money and you’re not starv-ing… [laughs] the mentality back in theday was just like tour, tour, tour, but nowa lot of that stuff can be done online.You can look at bands like NeverShout Never who develop thesemassive fan bases online so oncehe tours he’s playing these showsfor hundreds of kids, rather thantouring for a year, losing money,playing for fifteen kids unsigned. Ifyou really want to tour, it’s fun. I’vedone that before with previousbands; we did national tours, andnobody came, like there’d be like tenkids there… which it can still be fun

[laughs], but there’s way more energyif there’s more people there excited to

be at the show. So the Internet is defi-nitely one of the main ways to expose

yourself initially until you can get a smallfan base and start touring, because theywant to hear your music and they want toknow who you are, and they want to see a

good live band.

The Friday Night Boys will playthe Mixtape Feb. 3. Off The DeepEnd is in stores and online now.For more, check outm y s p a c e . c o m /thefridaynightboys.

Recoil: If you were tocompare each of you guysin the band to characterson The Office who would

you say you are?

interview by eric mitts

recoilmag.com volume 10 issue 2 february 22