Pep-Rock: Could you please tell us your name and what you do in the band?

Pep-Rock: Where did you come up with the name of the band?

Chris: Just by chance and how everyone else does, we needed a name for a flyer because we had a show with some friends of ours and we had all our song but we didn’t have a name. So we were picking up the books we were reading and looking through there and looking at records and one of the books that I was reading was called Hot Water Music I was holding it up and then Jason our drummer saw it and he said about it being our name and I was like well its fine with me I guess because we thought we’d change it after the first show but then the more we thought about, the more it felt right for us. We didn’t really want a name like The Saints or The Exploited or something that led you to think something about us, we wanted something that meant nothing so that if you wanted to know the band then you had to come check us out. So the fact that it meant nothing to us and the fact that it wasn’t an especially good book or anything meant it were ideal and it just fits.

Pep-Rock: How’s everything been for you guys since the release of your new album ‘The New What Next’?

Chris: Well everything’s been great, it’s not been a real big change from how it’s been the past few years but its been consistent for us for a long time. We just tour a lot which is cool because we are such a touring band. In the last tour in the states we did there weren’t a lot of shows that were any bigger than what we’d done before but normally when touring in the states there are always two or three shows that you know before you even get there are gonna suck, you know. We made it through that whole tour without any bad shows, there were all good turnouts, people having loads of fun and it was just great. Then we went over to Germany and that was great and now we are over here and we are on a great run. We are playing really well, we are playing a lot of old stuff and playing a lot of new stuff so its interesting for us and if we decide that we don’t wanna play a particular song for a while then we just put some new stuff in.

Pep-Rock: How would you describe the album to someone who hasn’t heard it yet?

Chris: To somebody that had never heard us at all I’d probably say, I don’t know what I’d say, I’d probably say a mix of everything, we are loud, I’d say we are a rock band, I guess I’d have to find some reference points to other bands but I don’t even know how I’d do that. Maybe to someone who had heard the band but not the new record then I would say that it is definitely to everything else we’ve done but there’s definitely part from the other Epitaph records in there but it’s a really different record. On this record we wanted to go back to the original ideas of all four people writing together and jamming and everyone contributing whereas on our earlier Epitaph records where more like singer and songwriter records where someone would have a whole song already and you’d end up with not as much variation in the grooves and stuff because some people would be more active in the writing than others. However with the new record we went back to the original idea of who’s what it ends up sounding like, let’s just do the record that we are really excited about and really happy with and where everyone is contributing, where everybody is putting in their two cents and everybody’s position is as valuable as anybody else.

Pep-Rock: So how’s the European Tour going so far with New Found Glory?

Chris: Well the tours only really just got under way and we’ve done a few headliners but we join up with them for the main part tomorrow. Some of those guys we’ve know for ever, we’ve known Chad since he was 15 because they’re from Florida and some we know better than others but that’s the reason why we are doing this tour because we know these guys and some people point out that we are such different bands but when you from Florida, it’s a really isolated part of the country and it doesn’t really matter what style of music your playing, we are all trying to become better musicians and better bands and people have different ideas about music and songs they wanna write. You’ll have Death Metal bands playing with Pop-Punk bands playing with straight up rock bands and that’s just the way it is and to us its just like out friends have invited to come over and play in England with them so yeah if we can do it we’ll do it They are some big shows though and they will be probably some of the biggest shows we’ll ever play in England. We played the Manchester Academy and I think there were 2000 people, it was sold out. We are playing London in a few days.

Pep-Rock: That’s at the Hammersmith Apollo isn’t it?

Chris: Yeah

Pep-Rock: That’s an 8000 people capacity venue I think.

Chris: Oh my god, yeah it’s definitely a very different setting from where we are used to.

Pep-Rock: What’s the best and worst thing about coming to the UK?

Chris: It’s fucking expensive to do anything, if I wanna go to a bar with my friends it costs me twice as much as it would back home, that’s the worst to me because I’m just fucking broke the whole fucking time. The best thing is that I have a chance to come over and hang out with my friends who live here. That’s the best part of touring to be able travel on your own ideas and your own way because when I was growing up, I’m from a big military family and they always said that the only way that you’ll be able to see the world is if you join the military, you have to join the military, you have to see the world, you have to go see other things. I grew up playing music and I just wanted to see the world doing my thing not carrying a gun, I wanted to do it carrying a guitar. I wanna be able to hang out with my friends, meet new people and experiencing the culture, not storming in on it you know what I mean. So that’s my favourite part of it is playing the shows, meeting new people, catching with old friends everyday and it’s the 13 th time I’ve been to Europe now and in a lot of these different cities I have friends and that’s the best part. For ten months of the year you’ll be e-mailing each other and then you have one night to meet up and you just make the best of it you know, it’s great.

Pep-Rock: Is English food as bad as everyone says it is?

Chris: It’s just not what I eat man, I eat a lot of Mexican food, Italian food, a lot of vegetarian food. I don’t fried food very often so I come over here and there’s fish and chips and I just can’t do that everyday. My girlfriend is vegetarian and I’m pretty much vegetarian so we come over here and in Germany everybody eats sausage and I come here and everybody’s eating fish and chips. So when your moving about everyone has different ideas about food so you have to change everyday but it’s good when you know people or start meeting people because then they can tell you the good places to go eat but if you come to a new town, you end up looking around for a place to eat and you always end up finding the worst place, some crappy place, and that doesn’t even apply to just places in Europe, if you go to the wrong place anywhere then your gonna end up eating crap, you’ll end up eating in a gas station. It’s nice when you know people or you get to talk to people and you can say where do you go to eat and then you can go there.

Pep-Rock: So what does the rest of 2005 hold in store for HWM?

Chris: A lot of stuff man, we got a tour that starts next week in the states that goes on for a month with Flogging Molly and that’s a big tour for month. On that tour we are going to keep recording things and working on side projects and all kind of stuff. After that we have like 3 months off or something like that with maybe like a few shows but no big tours so some of us will be spending a lot of time in the studio working on new records. I have another band called The Crows that are doing recordings, we might be putting out some new Hot Water Music stuff, in the summer we are hoping to go to Australia, do another states tour, a lot of stuff going on. Even if your not working on an album, most the people you know when your touring like this are other musicians so you make a plan for a vacation and you just take your guitar, go hang out with a bunch of other people and write music and some times you end up putting some stuff out and some times you just end up jamming and experimenting, making demo’s. We are now about half way done touring in support of ‘The New What Next’ so its time to get back working on new stuff and see where it takes us.

Pep-Rock: Do you guys having last comments or closing statements?

Chris: None whatsoever man.