With the temperature a skin-roasting 108 degrees in the shade, Every Time I Die's Keith Buckley acting as some sort of demented ringmaster leading today's Southern Californian crowd into moshpit carnage, lost luggage, Japanese ska bands wander around looking mightily bemused as the backstage catering kills hundreds of burritos. Welcome to the first day of Warped 2008.
While much of the mayhem is happening out on the main grounds, the bands have their own personal drama happening behind the scenes. Every one of the 120 bands that participate on each of the shows has their own routines that they are responsible for. Big Cheese followed Norma Jean, who are participating on the entire tour for the first time. Aside from promoting their forthcoming release The Anti-Mother, they let us into their daily routines, their past Warped Tour experiences, how they keep themselves entertained, and their forthcoming record.THE DAILY ROUTINE
Cory Brandan (vocals): Wake up…who knows when…
Chris Raines (drums):…wake up when someone comes and wakes us up yelling! It depends because we have a new record coming out, The Anti Mother, which comes out August 5th. We’re promoting that record. That’s what this tour is for. That’s the most important thing. We have tons of interviews like this, so we’ll get up and do that. And take naps. That’s the thing about touring…especially a tour like this. We only get 30 minute slots. We play for 30 minutes and then it is 23 1/2 hours of doing nothing.
Jake Schultz (bass): It’s a lot of us sitting around.
Scottie Henry (guitars): We got good at doing nothing! I don’t get bored easily at all. I can do nothing and be fine with it.
Chris Day (guitars): Air drum competitions…we have a grab bag, if you say something awesome…you get to reach your hand in and get a prize…
Scottie.:…like an army man.
Cory: Or a friendship ring.
Cory: We need to get some different prizes.
Chris Raines (drums):…wake up when someone comes and wakes us up yelling! It depends because we have a new record coming out, The Anti Mother, which comes out August 5th. We’re promoting that record. That’s what this tour is for. That’s the most important thing. We have tons of interviews like this, so we’ll get up and do that. And take naps. That’s the thing about touring…especially a tour like this. We only get 30 minute slots. We play for 30 minutes and then it is 23 1/2 hours of doing nothing.
Jake Schultz (bass): It’s a lot of us sitting around.
Scottie Henry (guitars): We got good at doing nothing! I don’t get bored easily at all. I can do nothing and be fine with it.
Chris Day (guitars): Air drum competitions…we have a grab bag, if you say something awesome…you get to reach your hand in and get a prize…
Scottie.:…like an army man.
Cory: Or a friendship ring.
Cory: We need to get some different prizes.
PRE-SHOW RITUALS
Scottie: I usually drink a Monster Energy drink before just to get wired. We were playing in New Jersey one time I accidentally took some of those bumblebee pills. I didn’t think it did anything. I forgot something and I ran upstairs and back down, and for some reason I’m coming back down the stairs, it kicked in. I was bouncing off the walls. I felt like I should have been drunk. It was the weirdest feeling. I was saying stupid stuff into the microphone.
Cory: I like to smoke a cigarette before we play.
Chris R: I just listen to music in my IPod and pace around.
Chris R: I just listen to music in my IPod and pace around.
BC: What’s your song of choice?
Chris R: I’ll listen to something crazy. Depends on what I’m into at the time. I’ll be a lot of En Vogue…older TLC, original Debbie Gibson lately.
Cory: Deborah…
Chris R: She’s Deborah now.
Cory: We like Debbie, OK.
Chris R: I like her Out Of The Blue record. My mind goes nuts before we play. So whatever goes with that is what I listen to.
BC: So you should add Tiffany to that list.
Chris R: My wife’s claim to fame is that the first concert she saw was Tiffany.
Cory: She saw Tiffany’s first concert?
Chris R: No, her first concert was Tiffany. That was her claim to fame (laughs)!
Cory: That’s going to be trivia!
Chris R: You wanna know what my first show was? It was Biohazard and Stompbox, at the Insect Club when I was 13 years old. It was the coolest thing ever. One of my older friends took me and I remember I had big pants on and I had this extra large Focus tee on, which was this old Christian hardcore band. I was right in front like this…it was me and the ‘Hazard!
Chris D: You know who was the opener of that show? Unsane.
Cory: Why would you not mention that?
Chris R: Because I was there to see Biohazard!
Cory: Mine was Warrant, Trixter and Firehouse, and some other band. It was during the Cherry Pie record. Firehouse during that big record they had.
BC: Is Debbie Gibson, Warrant and Trixter what inspired Norma Jean?
Cory: Warrant and Trixter…
Chris D: And Silverchair with Spacehog.
Cory: Warrant and Trixter…
Chris D: And Silverchair with Spacehog.
WARPED TOUR MEMORY LANE
Cory: We did five dates last year and we’ve never done anything else.
Chris D: I’ve never been to a Warped Tour.
Cory: That was my first time going to a Warped Tour as well.
Jake: Last year when we played? I went once…to see AFI. That was it. That was awesome. Did you go to Warped Tour a lot, Chris Raines?
Chris R: I went to one in high school.
Jake: Who did you see?
Chris R: Who was playing? Sick Of It All played. Rancid, Lagwagon, Downset, Jimmie’s Chicken Shack…Limp Bizkit was supposed to but they didn’t.
Chris D: You said Limp Bizkit and I heard biscuit. That reminded me that I’m hungry. I would eat a biscuit right now. I haven’t eaten all day.
Jake: That’s something we like to do on tour, also is eat.
Chris D: We’re good at that. Watch a lot of baseball games.
Jake: I like to watch Warped Tour actually. I like to people watch. I’ll just walk around and look at the people.
Chris R: I think on cooler days, it’s totally different. If it’s cool, then we’ll go out and do stuff. When it’s like this, you don’t want to get off the bus.
Chris D: I’ve never been to a Warped Tour.
Cory: That was my first time going to a Warped Tour as well.
Jake: Last year when we played? I went once…to see AFI. That was it. That was awesome. Did you go to Warped Tour a lot, Chris Raines?
Chris R: I went to one in high school.
Jake: Who did you see?
Chris R: Who was playing? Sick Of It All played. Rancid, Lagwagon, Downset, Jimmie’s Chicken Shack…Limp Bizkit was supposed to but they didn’t.
Chris D: You said Limp Bizkit and I heard biscuit. That reminded me that I’m hungry. I would eat a biscuit right now. I haven’t eaten all day.
Jake: That’s something we like to do on tour, also is eat.
Chris D: We’re good at that. Watch a lot of baseball games.
Jake: I like to watch Warped Tour actually. I like to people watch. I’ll just walk around and look at the people.
Chris R: I think on cooler days, it’s totally different. If it’s cool, then we’ll go out and do stuff. When it’s like this, you don’t want to get off the bus.
BC: Besides the heat, what’s the best part about the Warped Tour?
Chris D: Playing for a bunch of people that we don’t ever play for.
Scottie: The shows are really fun, at least the five we’ve done last year. It was a lot of energy. I’m excited to start playing today.
Jake: We have our friends on this tour too. Friends are nice.
Chris D: Playing for a bunch of people that we don’t ever play for.
Scottie: The shows are really fun, at least the five we’ve done last year. It was a lot of energy. I’m excited to start playing today.
Jake: We have our friends on this tour too. Friends are nice.
BC: Do you find the kids in the crowd to be metal kids, punk kids or hardcore kids? Chris R: It’s a pretty good mix of all that. There are a lot of different kinds of music on this tour. You have heavy bands and some punk bands and rock bands and some dance bands even this year. They mixed it up and you’ll see fans of all of these bands. I know if I were going to a festival show, there had to be some bands I’d want to see. It’s cool though.
'THE ANTI-MOTHER'
Jake: We all got cabin fever a lot because we were recording the same place we were staying. This record took the longest to make than any other record. There was a struggle in the air to make this record for us. We were trying to make this the best thing it could possibly be.
Cory: It was a pretty frustrating record to make. We barely finished it.
Jake: It’s probably finished today.
Cory: It was a pretty frustrating record to make. We barely finished it.
Jake: It’s probably finished today.
BC: Ross Robinson is notorious for going to extremes to get performances out of people. Did anyone get hit in the head with plants this time?
Chris R: He did it with my drum sticks a few times. Not threw them at me. He did it to aggravate me.
Scottie: We clicked really well with Ross, since it was our second record with him too. I feel that we have the same energy that he has and wants for the record. It moves in a different direction as far as not having stuff thrown at us, but all of us getting to the same place that we need to be to record the song.
Chris D: When we did Redeemer, he pushed me down and you could hear me fall down on the record. It’s track two at the very end (‘Blueprints For Broken Homes’). He pushed me and I fell over a chair with my guitar on. I was playing the riff and the song was almost over. All of a sudden he pushes me and I fell down the step and over a chair. He was like ‘dude…that was bad ass! We’re keeping that!’
Chris R: He made me run a lot. But they would run with me.
Jake: He made us run in the sand and back. It sucked.
Chris R: He did it with my drum sticks a few times. Not threw them at me. He did it to aggravate me.
Scottie: We clicked really well with Ross, since it was our second record with him too. I feel that we have the same energy that he has and wants for the record. It moves in a different direction as far as not having stuff thrown at us, but all of us getting to the same place that we need to be to record the song.
Chris D: When we did Redeemer, he pushed me down and you could hear me fall down on the record. It’s track two at the very end (‘Blueprints For Broken Homes’). He pushed me and I fell over a chair with my guitar on. I was playing the riff and the song was almost over. All of a sudden he pushes me and I fell down the step and over a chair. He was like ‘dude…that was bad ass! We’re keeping that!’
Chris R: He made me run a lot. But they would run with me.
Jake: He made us run in the sand and back. It sucked.
BC: What did he do to you to inspire you?
Cory: The thing about being the singer is that my voice is the instrument. My health comes into play and my sleeping habits, which both of those are terrible. He had to push me really hard. We would talk about what the song’s about to get the best performance out of you. The best way is to know what the song is about and mean it when you sing it. You’re going to put passion into it, where as you are trying to sing well.
BC: What was it like working with Page Hamilton?
Scottie: We actually played ‘Tic’ with Page at our practice space. That was one of the best things ever. He was singing and we were all playing guitar. That was really cool. He’s an awesome dude.
BC: Does he blast his rig?
Scottie: I think we play really loud too. It matched. We were in a pretty small practice space and had four guitars going and bass and drums and singing really loud. He came in for one day and we decided to play ‘Tic.’ The first hour he was there was him sitting down on a stool showing us chords.
Cory: We nerded out on guitar for a while. Then we talked about guitar stuff and wrote a song with him [‘Opposite of Left and Wrong’].
Scottie: We actually played ‘Tic’ with Page at our practice space. That was one of the best things ever. He was singing and we were all playing guitar. That was really cool. He’s an awesome dude.
BC: Does he blast his rig?
Scottie: I think we play really loud too. It matched. We were in a pretty small practice space and had four guitars going and bass and drums and singing really loud. He came in for one day and we decided to play ‘Tic.’ The first hour he was there was him sitting down on a stool showing us chords.
Cory: We nerded out on guitar for a while. Then we talked about guitar stuff and wrote a song with him [‘Opposite of Left and Wrong’].
BC: What about Chino Moreno?
Scottie: Page came to Atlanta to write with us. He came to the studio to do guitar parts and then came back and sang on it. Chino came in and wrote a song with us. It was a lot more spontaneous, plus we had Ross there too. He had on a guitar and we were in there about to talk about whatever. He tuned up and started playing this riff. Cory had a couple of riffs that happened to fit perfectly with it.
Chris D: We wrote two songs with Chino but we only ended up using one of them. He was there for two days. The Deftones were recording so he sang on our record from their studio. It’s called ‘Surrender Your Sons.’
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