Exclusive: Fireworks Interview

This year has been an unquestionably stellar period for new releases. Among these highly-anticipated releases, was Fireworks' sophomore record, Gospel. Since its May release, the band has been constantly touring with an even brighter future. Pre-orders are also now up for the Australian edition of the record, featuring 6 bonus tracks. Below is my interview with the band's bassist, Kyle O'Neil, enjoy!

Firstly, can you state your name and role in the band?

Kyle: I'm Kyle and I play bass.

Your new record, Gospel, has been out for a few months now and the overall response has been tremendous. Can you describe how you feel about the band right now?

Kyle: We are all extremely pleased with how the record came out and the response to it. So as a band I'd say that we are very excited to play these songs and tour off the album. We've had a little bit of off time and it's been nice but we are very eager to be back out on tour playing Gospel.

Recently you finished up an Eastern US tour with Hostage Calm and Mixtapes - how did you enjoy that? Did any particular shows stand out?

Kyle: That was short and sweet. Those bands are great as well as the people in them. The Philly show stood out because it was also The Wonder Years record release show and the show was huge and it was overall a very fun night.

The band also has an upcoming tour with Polar Bear Club, Balance And Composure, Make Do And Mend, and Such Gold - what're you looking forward to the most on this tour?

Kyle: The hang outs! The tour is going to be great. The bands are awesome but it's a tour comprised of bands that we are all friends with already so it's going to be just a giant hang out from day one.

Gospel was somewhat of a departure from your previous album, which initially caused minor hesitation among some fans. For you, what differences were the most apparent during the writing and recording processes?

Kyle: Well for starters we had more time to write, more time to record, we had a different producer and we had matured as a band so all of those are going to make a difference in some capacity. Overall though it's hard to pinpoint certain things that made the difference in the record. We love all our previous releases and we weren't trying to depart from them or anything like that but we grew as a band and as people a lot between the last two releases and of course that's going to be apparent when you listen to it.

Lyrically, what are the most common themes across the record? Specifically for Gospel, what were the band's main musical influences?

Kyle: Lyrically, we take influence from personal experiences as people and as band. There are themes there but you'll have to listen and figure out what they are and what you can take from them. As far a musically goes, we have very broad tastes in music and it would be really hard to nail down even a few influences so I'm going to say that we are just influenced by music in general as a whole and all aspects about it.



It seems as though the band hasn't really had a chance to fully promote the new record to its full potential - do you have any plans to do so in the future?

Kyle: Yes! Starting with this PBC tour, it's on! We have always worked extremely hard to promote our band and have no plans to stop anytime soon.

The record features 2 iTunes exclusive bonus tracks, and will also be released in Australia with 6 b-sides from Gospel and Bonfires - was there a particular reason why these were not included with the rest? Did you feel they didn't flow as well?

Kyle: There were 2 songs that we felt didn't flow with the record and so we made them b-sides. Those are the iTunes bonus tracks as well as 2 of the bonus tracks for the Australia release and then add Bonfires to that and makes a total of 6 tracks. So it's not as crazy as it seems but still pretty cool that all of that stuff will be on one physical release. We're very excited for this Australian release of Gospel. We love it there.

Back in April, the band was forced to pull out of the Manscout Jamboree tour, co-headlined with with The Wonder Years - how difficult was it deciding to re-join under the circumstances?

Kyle: Well the decision wasn't up to the band, it was up to Dave. He was obviously going through a tremendous loss and it was up to him how he was going to cope with it and we needed to be supportive and a friend to him. The band didn't matter at that point. Fortunately, he wanted to be back out as soon as he could and as soon as he told us we prepared to come back.

You guys also made it down here to Australia last year in April, are there any plans of coming back in the future?

Kyle: Yes, very soon. We can't wait to make it back and now that we actually have a proper release there it's even more vital that we come now than it was before.

Do you have any personal recommendations you'd like to make to those reading? Perhaps something you've been into lately?

Kyle: Sure, I've been really into a band from Detroit called City Yards. They only have a 7 inch out but it's really great. I've also been listening to the new Balance And Composure. They're a great band and a fantastic group of gentlemen.

If a listener were to take one thing away from Fireworks, what would you hope for it to be?

Kyle: The honesty in our music.

Thanks again for your time, do you have any last words?

Kyle: Read something from Kurt Vonnegut. He was fantastic.

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