Exclusive: With The Punches Interview

With The Punches are a Pop Punk/Hardcore band out of New York, paving their own way as they go, but hopefully you already knew that. Here's an interview with the band's guitarist, and good friend of ours, Dustin. Check and support them out as best as you can.

Let's start off by introducing yourself and your role in the band.

Dustin: My name is Dustin and I play guitar in With The Punches and I wrote a shit ton for this interview and rambled a bit. Now you have been warned, if you think I'm an asshole after reading it… you're probably right, but at least I told you beforehand.

It's great to see that the new EP's finally out and I'm super glad that you guys never gave up. How does it feel coming this far? Was there ever any doubt?

Dustin: It feels really great to be where we are now, and have people getting in to the new songs, we had wanted to release something a year ago but things just didn't come together like we needed them to. I think at some point everyone doubted if we were making the right moves staying with this or if we should move on, but I'm so glad we stuck it out, everything is fun again and it fucking rules.

What was the CD release show like? Had you guys been touring much before the EP came out?

Dustin: The CD release show was amazing, we decided we were gonna put the CD out for sale that night but not announce it till that day. The show sold out so early that they moved it from The Loft which hold like 350 down to The Chance and I think was somewhere around 600. It was nice to put out a record on such a cool night playing with Far From Proper, Handguns, Man Overboard, and The Wonder Years, all our friends from home came out and a lot of our friends from touring bands were on the show, which makes it so much cooler.

Going into the writing process for the EP, did you guys have any ideas or goals prepared that you wanted to fulfil, or did you just take it as it came?

Dustin: We knew we wanted to write a faster, more Punk Rock record. We're all really proud of Keep It Going, but we made that record after being a band for like 3 months. No one really had room to stretch out musically. On this record, we were writing for the last two years, really figuring out everyone's particular strengths. Shane, helped me write parts, Sam and Jesse worked on lyrics for hours in the parking lot of Barnes and Noble in Newburgh, and Sam wrote a lot of the song structures, it was much more of a group effort this time around.

What's the story or meaning behind the title for the EP? Did you guys design the artwork for it yourselves?

Dustin: There was a lot going on internally while we were writing and recording the EP and at a lot of points it seemed like everything was falling apart and this record was never coming out. At one point, Jesse, Sam, and I were sitting in a basement and it was just like fuck it, we're not giving this up. For the last few years this band has been our world, one day the three of us were talking about the title at Wendy's in Newburgh (the town Jesse and I live in) and I had actually planned on getting It's Not The End Of The World tattooed across my collarbone, it's a line from a song by our friends My Only Escape, and it just seemed oddly fitting… but now I can't get that tattoo, which sucks. As for the artwork, yeah, Sam did it, he designed Keep It Going and all of our merch, dude is fucking gifted, so stoked on it.

I remember the EP being indefinitely delayed a few times late last year - how was it dealing with the line-up changes? How much did this affect how soon you could release new material?

Dustin: It sucked. Shane and Joe are each brilliant musicians, luckily we had friends fill in during that time so we could play shows, but it wasn't the same, Shane is now back full time, and we have a new guitar player named Vinny who is awesome and fits personality-wise with us, but it definitely took a long time figuring shit out. As for the record release, there were a lot of factors that slowed it down, we had to wait to get into the studio, then after we recorded Mike Kalajian who we recorded with got really sick and had to be hospitalized, so he wasn't able to mix or master during that time. Even with all that, I couldn't be happier with how things have gone as far as the release, but yeah… sorry we took so long, we're gonna try to not do that again.

In general, what's the biggest difference between the band now and when you put out [your previous EP] Keep It Going?

Dustin: I feel like over the last two years of touring we figured out who we wanted to be as a band, we want to play fast songs that mean something to each of us personally, and we want to play our instruments to the best of our abilities. I feel like everyone has such a better grip now of who they are musically, it's the same band but much faster.

You guys recently partnered up with Hang Tight Records to exclusively release the EP in the UK along with a t-shirt design - how did this come about?

Dustin: Joe from Hang Tight hit us up about possibly working together, and as per usual we were kinda skeptical about working with someone we don't know personally, but he's a really good dude and I think things are working out really well. Expect to see more collaboration in the coming year.

For an unsigned band with only 2 releases under your belts, you have an extremely vast and loyal following - what would you say has been the key in achieving this?

Dustin: No bullshit, I have no idea, I think everyone in our band is really strong at what they do, and they love what they do. Jesse is really personable, Sam always brings the party, and is really happy to talk music with people, to the point of writing out tabs for songs for kids when they ask him, which I think is really cool. People tend to flock to Shane, he's just really easy to get along with and I think kids make friends easily with him. So maybe our greatest strength is that we are fans of pop-punk, I wish I could have asked Dan Yemin about his guitar rig when I was growing up, or emailed Milo Aukerman, but since that wasn't an option, when we started With The Punches, we wanted to make sure we were always accessible to people who thought enough of us to want to talk to us.

Have you guys intentionally remained unsigned or has the right offer just not come along?

Dustin: I guess it's more that the right offer hasn't come along, I think we would all love to be able to just focus on playing and writing songs while someone else worried about booking studio time and tours, but for now we are content taking care of everything ourselves.

The band's lyrics are very heartfelt, delving into subjects such as relationships, friendship, and everyday struggles; do a lot of the lyrics come from personal experiences? What're the band's main inspirations or influences when writing the music?

Dustin: Absolutely, our lyrics are rarely about one specific event or individual, but for the most part they are all about people we know, kids we grew up with, and the towns we live in. I think that's why people can relate to what we're singing about (at least I hope they can) everyone comes from a town where a good amount of kids they came up with will never leave and will toss out whatever hopes and dreams they had for the comfort of a steady paycheck.

Presumably you guys are still living in the moment, but what does the future hold for With The Punches?

Dustin: More tours, more songs, more fun, we are planning on getting back into the studio sooner rather than later, maybe doing a split or two before we tackle a full length, but there definitely won't be anymore two year gaps between releases.

Over the past few years, mixing Pop Punk with Hardcore has become more and more popular and easier to come across in different shapes and sizes - what's your take on this epidemic?

Dustin: Just like any other trend, there are good aspects and bad, bands like Such Gold are a shining example of how mixing Pop Punk and Hardcore can be something great, they aren't taking the cheap way out of anything, there isn't a gimmick musically, they are great musicians who write really great songs. I love Hardcore, and I love Pop Punk, when they are combined really well, it's great.

If a listener were to take anything from With The Punches, what would you hope for it to be?

Dustin: Just that life is as fun or as miserable as you let it be. If you want to be happy, you are going to have to do it for yourself, no one is going to hand it to you.

Thanks for your time, we all love you for what you're doing - you make our moments of hardship and drives to work that much easier.

Dustin: Thank you for being the first people to give a shit about us and for your continued support, I hope everyone is into the new record, and I hope we get to see everyone in person soon on tour.

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