I got an opporunity to come aboard Tempe's The Maine's ultra swanky tourbus and chat John and Garrett. In my usual fashion, I entered ready to criticize and torture the "rockstars." Instead, what I found was two down to earth musicians enjoying the fruits of their labors. Who knew that I could be wrong?
Derrick: Who is the most effeminate member of your band?
John and Garrett (without hesitation): Patrick.
Derrick: How would you describe the progression from your debut EP to the Black and White album?
John: Time.
Garret: Yeah.
John: Maturing is always a sensitive word but I think, aging and figuring out what we want to sound like. I don't think we'll ever figure it out. We'll always be searching for something new. That's where we were four years ago, we were just very young.
Derrick: You talk about trying to find the sound that you want to sound like, is there a definite direction in mind?
Garret: I think a lot of it has to do with influence. I just think time is a really huge factor, cuz at first I don't think we necessarily knew that it was all right to do your own thing. I think we kind of felt there was a structure because of how other people did things. I think we're slowly veering from that slowly. Hopefully we can get to the point where we're doing our own thing completely.
Derrick: (Talking about the tour bus.) So you say your A/C is out, but this is pretty nice...
John and Garret: Oh yeah it is.
Derrick: Do you feel like you've achieved the rockstar status? Do you want the rockstar status? Do you still feel that you're the same band playing in Tempe?
Garret: I definitely think we're the same band. As for status goes, people can see us however they want, that doesn't mean that's who we are. It's kind of fun to see what people come up with their own ideas of who we are.
John: I think it's all a fascade anyway. No one really knows who we are as individuals anyway.
Garret: Yeah.
John: Unless you're hanging out with us everyday, sitting with us on the bus, you're not going to know who we are, much like we won't know all the people we meet inside.
Garret: There's a connection between the music.
John: Yeah.
Garret: That kind of transcends the gap.
John: I think as far as rockstars...we're too level headed. We come from too sane of a background to let shit like that get into our heads.
Derrick: Is there a club, pre-tourbus, that you guys miss playing. Something dirty?
Garret: Well, there's still dirty venues to play.
Derrick: Yeah, you're about to walk into one.
John and Garret: Yeah.
Garret: The only difference is we have a place to sleep.
John: Yeah.
Garret: We don't have to sleep on the floor of the van. The vibe from the shows from we first started out has gotten to the point where the energy is matching itself every night, and that's awesome. We use to play that church...
John: Yeah.
Garret: That was cool.
John: Yeah.
Derrick: You use to play a church?
Garret: When we first started we use to put together the shows ourselves.
John: Yeah. We were like the promoters of the shows.
Garret: There's something to be said for that. Tim, our manager, was always booking us shows, small local shows.
John: We kind of always did it ourselves.
Garret: Now it's just on a bigger scale.
Derrick: Now I had a chance to talk with one of your fans - Rebecca.
John and Garret: Hi Rebecca. Cool.
Derrick: She wants to know who is your favorite superhero?
John: I'm going to have to say Batman just cause I'm a fan of the Dark Night.
Garret: Yeah, Batman's cool. I'm also going to have to say Spiderman, just cuz he's this nerdy dude with how he grew up and now he just beats ass.
Derrick: You mentioned not caring what people think about you as people. I ran into difficulty trying to describe your music to others, do you have that quick answer description of what genre you fall into?
Garret: I like the primitive.
John: I really don't like the specifics...post-pop...it's rock and roll. It's got guitars, it's got drums, it's got bass, it's got vocals. We're playing instruments ourselves. It always gets frustrating. I think it's just rock music. I think it's music in general. It's just noises.
Garret: Yeah.
Derrick: Is there anything you would want people to know?
Garret: We're going to be testing the waters in the upcoming months. We're going to be testing ourselves as far as writing goes. I think that's where longevity will stem from if we hopefully get to play music for a really long time. Where our heads are at now, it's all about the song writing.
John: So we're going to try to take it to the extremes...as far as we can go, that's where we're going to take it. Hopefully people will enjoy it.
Derrick: Is there a band, national or local that you would like to punch in the face?
Garret: Punch in the face? No.
Derrick: Awww, you guys are going to play nice?
Garret: If anyone has a problem with us, we probably don't know them. And even if I did know them, I probably wouldn't care.
Derrick: Do you think that you could take them?
John: No (everyone laughs)...I know what I like and I'm not going to worry about the shit I don't care for either.
The Maine will return to Tempe October 28th @ The Marquee Theater.
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