[Despite the band's confident appearance and their strict belief in their fun philosophy, Romans admits the guys had real doubts about setting their sights on music careers.] When we started out, we were like, 'Are we out of our minds? Are we foolish? Are we completely mad?' But, no, I think at this point we're ready to do it. But it is kind of scary. ... It's definitely very unreal. Like today -- we're gonna do Conan O'Brien ; times like that you're like, what ? |
[This summer, they're taking that party out on the road for their first big tour with the Backstreet Boys, where they're being introduced to pyrotechnics (in the Backstreet show), and – what they're most excited about – their first tour bus.] We just came from a minivan. It's pretty amazing to suddenly be sleeping and back here writing songs and up there watching TV, ... It's awesome. |
A business man on Wall Street is going to wear a suit, Johnny Damon is going to put on his Red Sox jersey, and when we play we do the suit thing. The only thing we have to argue over is what color shirt we're going to wear today. |
And Elliot Easton of The Cars (who plays a guitar solo on the album) — we're all huge Cars fans, and we asked, |
I think it helped my creativity to be in a town that didn't have that influence. It helped the productivity to be in a place where there wasn't much structure. You had to make it happen for yourself. |
I think the most important education you can get for writing, music, and creativity is live. You can learn the book, but at some point you have to put the book on the shelf and realize that imagination comes before logic. |
It's an exciting time, ... I think at this point [getting the record out] is more relieving than anything. We finished it around Christmas, so a lot of people have been asking, 'Are you nervous?' and 'Is there pressure?' I'm thinking right now it's just going to be a relief, because from here on all we can do is just keep doing what we're doing and let it unfold. |
Kiss changed my life, ... Paul Stanley came to our show last summer; then we went to their show. Somehow I ended up going to L.A., to Paul Stanley's house, to write 'Angel to You, Devil to Me,' which is a track on our album. |
There are only a few things like music, entertainment, sports, politics that can stir emotions. It's a psychology. And I think [the young fans] just want to invest in something that has changed them somehow or in some way. At that age things are very exciting. And if there's something that helps them stay positive, they're going to want to invest their time and energy in whatever it is that guides that emotion. In this case, it's expressed in signs and t-shirts and a lot of enthusiasm. |
There's loud guitars, there's harmony, but even more importantly, this is a really positive album. I don't think we're afraid to put a really happy album out there. It's a party in a package. |
We can be honest. We weren't necessarily having the greatest time playing some of these places because they weren't having the greatest time watching us play. But we were always thinking way bigger than where we were. We'd be on this tiny stage thinking we were playing an arena rock show. |
We just want to inspire girls to have pillow fights and then drive to the beach and break up with their boyfriends! |
What we were trying to do is make a really positive album with lots of different elements from different decades and do lots of different things. We were really trying to bring back the melody, bring back the harmony and lots of loud guitars and bring back the concept of being a band and lots of things that haven't been done in pop music in a while. |