"Every Time I Die: Interview"

Every Time I Die

During the Toronto stop of the Vans Warped Tour, I had the opportunity of chatting with Every Time I Die’s lead vocalist, Keith Buckley. Being a relatively calm dude to talk to, I was blown away by his energy during the band’s performance later on that day - the best set of the afternoon.

www.myspace.com/everytimeidie

Keith Buckley: Vocals
Andy Williams: Guitar
Jordon Buckley: Guitar
Michael Novak: Drums

WGTS: This is Mark from WGTS Magazine, and I’m chilling here with Keith from Every Time I Die. How are you doing?

Keith: Excellent, man.

WGTS: So you guys did Warped Tour two years ago, how is this year’s Warped Tour going for you?

Keith: Wonderful, everybody is super nice and since we did it before I don’t feel as intimidated by everybody.

WGTS: So, what are the major differences of this year’s Warped Tour opposed to the last one you were on?

Keith: This year I’m top dog (laughs). But no, main stage is a whole different thing and a tad less stressful it seems, and I get to meet a lot of people I normally wouldn’t have met simply because now we are on that same stage. I’ve also been a fan of Say Anything forever, and I now finally have the opportunity to see them, which is awesome.

WGTS: I didn’t realize you were not on the main stage in 2006, I remember seeing you on the main stage in Barrie.

Keith: Oh, sometimes we would get bumped up to bigger stages depending how close we were to home.

WGTS: Who are your favorite bands on the tour this year?

Keith: Umm, The Bronx, Norma Jean, Against Me!, Say Anything, Gym Class Heroes, and yeah (laughs).

WGTS: So, in your opinion, is Warped Tour better or worse than a regular tour?

Keith: It is so much better. There is so much out there for people to ingest. I think the people who attend Warped Tour are excited to hear and experience new bands, unlike people who are super jaded and only attend club shows.

WGTS: In terms of your set list, you guys have a wide array of tunes to choose from. Do you switch your set every day or do you have only one that you guys are really tight with?

Keith: Yeah, we have three different set lists to choose from to keep things different. I don’t remember which one it is today, but it will be good, I promise (laughs).

WGTS: What are your plans after Warped Tour?

Keith: We are going to the West Coast for a bit, I think it’s only a week, play Alaska. Then we are doing some East Coast dates; we’ll hit up Toronto and some other cities around here. Then we are going to start writing again.

WGTS: Your latest record, “The Big Dirty”, is certainly a fun, yet dirty record. Where did the name come from?

Keith: Trailer Park Boys. The guy that filmed our DVD got us into that show, and now we just watch it religiously. If you have seen the movie, they go on a heist and they call it “The Big Dirty”. Their plan was to rob a huge gumball machine at the movie theatre because it has all this change in it.

WGTS: What was the motivation behind the record?

Keith: We wanted to take it back before “Gutter Phenomenon”, and approach it like we did “Hot Damn!” We wanted to have a live sounding record with songs we actually liked to play live.

WGTS: Do you have a favorite song from the record?

Keith: My favorite to play live is “Rendez-Voodoo,” but we really don’t play it live as much as I would like. It unfortunately doesn’t seem to be a big crowd pleaser.

WGTS: Dallas Green does guest vocals on the track “INRIhab”, how did that come to be?

Keith: I came across City & Colour when we were in Europe, and it just blew me away. We eventually toured with Alexisonfire and became pretty good friends. That’s basically how it got hooked up, and considering Dallas’ voice is untouchable it was an honour, to have him on the record. An honour spelled H-O-N-O-U-R (laughs).

WGTS: Is there any personal item you cannot go on tour without?

Keith: I just got this thing called a smart-pen. If I’m reading something and I don’t know a word, it scans it and tells me what the word means.

WGTS: Simpsons or Family Guy?

Keith: Simpsons all the way. Simpsons actually tries to be smart while Family Guy just tries to be random and weird.

WGTS: Backstreet Boys or *NSync?

Keith: *NSync all the way. Believe it or not I was always a bigger fan of JC (laughs). Plus in Orlando we got to hang out with Chris Kirkpatrick, he took us to his house and stuff (laughs).

WGTS: Would you rather live through a Zombie apocalypse or an alien invasion?

Keith: Probably invasion. Zombies would be like my family and relatives, just more dead. As for aliens, who the fuck knows what an alien looks like, I wanna see one (laughs).

WGTS: So, any last comments?

Keith: In November we will be back, so check us out then.