Pep-Rock: Hi there, what’s your name and what do you do in the band?

Ben: I’m Ben and I play guitar and I sing in the band.

Pep-Rock: How’s the tour going so far?

Ben: It’s been awesome, it’s our first time in the UK so it’s kind of like half a tour and half a vacation. It’s really cool getting to see new cities.

Pep-Rock: What’s been the best gig for you so far on the tour?

Ben: Well, I’ve loved supporting Fightstar, they’re awesome guys and we’ve had a lot of fans coming out to those shows, but the best and craziest thing was our first headlining show in Oxford. It was by ourselves and it was sold out so there were like 300 kids there…it was crazy. It was so cool to see these British kids going crazy and singing the words, it was surreal I guess.

Pep-Rock: The Fightstar guys always seem to be pictured wearing your merchandise, does it seem odd supporting a band who obviously really admire you as a band?

Ben: Yeah, they chose us as support, they called us up and got us over here which was really flattering. It was so cool, they wore our merch every night.

Pep-Rock: Your second and newest release, album ‘What To Do When You Are Dead’ has been very well received in the UK – did you make a conscious decision to write a concept album? Or did you decide you wanted to write about death and then found it turning into a concept album?

Ben: I guess I was looking for a way to describe how I was feeling at the time. I was going through a lot of stuff, the band was crazy, we were on tour so much and it was the first time any of us had been away from our families, all this weird stuff was going on, stuff which I just couldn’t put my finger on. I just decided to write a song pretending I was dead and somehow it just all kind of made sense. It seemed like a good way to explain how I felt without really being too specific about anything and it worked for me. I didn’t sit down and think, “Oh wow, we have to make this crazy concept album!” it just ended up working for me.

Pep-Rock: Were the ideas drawn from anything? Did you have a near-death experience which started the thought process?

Ben: Not really, although I’ve had many near-death experiences in my life! I mean, everyone had their own experiences, everyone knows someone who has passed away, it’s just a part of being human. Everyone has their own way of dealing with the inevitable I guess.

Pep-Rock: In ‘What To Do When You Are Dead’ you get a free booklet explaining what you should and shouldn’t do when you die – who wrote and designed that?

Ben: A guy called Rob designed it and I actually wrote all the little instructions. We wrote and designed that all from scratch. People are always like “What book did you take these pictures out of?” but he designed them himself.

Pep-Rock: On your first album, ‘Dream To Make Believe’ you have songs like ‘Slip Like Space’ which discuss the idea of being in another state, being alive within yourself yet not alive on Earth, ideas which you have carried into your second album. Why has this idea fascinated you so much?

Ben: I tend to view myself as an outsider, I’m very observational. If I’m sitting with a group of my friends I’m always observing rather than taking part. I’ve been like that since I was really young. I’ve always felt like I’m on the outside looking in at everything going on around me so I guess that carries on into my writing.

Pep-Rock: Why did you decide to call yourselves ‘Armor For Sleep’?

Ben: I think it has to do with wanting to escape normal life. Music has always been an escape and we wanted to be an escape for people through our music. We wanted to write stuff people could sing along to.

Pep-Rock: What’s your favourite song you’ve written?

Ben: I don’t know, I have this thing…I’m never 100% proud of anything I’ve written. It’s this frustrating thing where I’ve always wanted to play music and be in a band but when you start writing your own songs you know what went into it and you remember all the changes you’ve made when you play it. When you write a song it’s hard for you to see it as a real song, it’s surreal.

Pep-Rock: Is there maybe then a song that you particularly like to play live? Maybe because you always get a certain buzz from it or because the audience respond well to it?

Ben: I remember in New Jersey we played ‘The End of A Fraud’, this slow, spacey song and we’ve only played it once but I had a really good time playing it. It’s a very moody song, I hope we’ll start playing that again soon.

Pep-Rock: What’s the worst gig you’ve ever played?

Ben: One time we played a show in Kansas, home for the band The Anniversary. It was our first time ever playing in Kansas and The Anniversary were playing a show down the road, I think it was one of their last ever shows so everyone went there and there were like two people at out show. We played on the floor and there were all these people drinking beers at the bar and ignoring us, it was a disaster.

Pep-Rock: If you could tour with any band, dead or alive, who would it be?

Ben: Nirvana, I just want to see what they were like as people. The thing is, when you tour with a band, after a couple of days you begin to see them as people and I wish I knew what Nirvana were like.

Pep-Rock: If Armor For Sleep could be famous for one thing, what would you like it to be?

Ben: I guess our good looks. (laughs).

Pep-Rock: If you were stuck on a desert island and could only take one album and one book, what would you take?

Ben: I’d take ‘OK Computer’ by Radiohead for the CD and for the book I’d take ‘It’ by Stephen King because I’ve always wanted to read that.

Pep-Rock: What current bands are you listening to and would recommend to readers?

Ben: Boys Night Out, Emanuel and I heard the new Coldplay album for the first time yesterday which sounded really cool.

Pep-Rock: Thanks for your time Ben, any closing words?

Ben: Umm, no apart from thank you very much, some good questions there.

Pep-Rock: Cheers