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Interview with Bryan Nelson of The Ataris
So, you have a new album coming out later this
year?
Yeah, hopefully it's going to be out by late August. We're still finishing up parts of it;
we've got to finish up the vocals on it. When we get back from doing the tour that we're doing now, which is
like four days or so from now... Kris is going to go back to Phoenix and finish the vocals.
Is it similar
to anything else you guys have done at all?
It's got the writing content a little bit like So Long,
Astoria... lyrically and stuff, very storytelling. It's more of a progression, a rock progression from So
Long, Astoria as opposed to Welcome The Night was a little bit like an Indie Rock style... so it's a lot
like So Long, Astoria, but there's definitely a progression.
What's the writing process like for
you guys? Do you all incorporate something into it?
Yeah, Kris had a lot of the stuff written already,
but he's more than willing to listen to our ideas. Chris, the lead guitarist, used some of his own riffs and stuff
that he had written on the album. We'd all contribute some stuff, he's very open to anything as far as writing
goes... so it's really cool, it's fun.
I saw on MySpace that you guys aren't signed to a label
anymore, are you currently looking for a label or will you try it on your own like a lot of bands are doing?
No,
we're going to look for a label, but right now we're just waiting to get the album done. So we're going
to get the album finished and then shop around, that way they won't try to change the direction of the album... we wouldn't
want to go with a label that would want to change the album. We've been talking with some bigger independent labels;
there's definitely some interest.
Do you plan on getting another official website; or do you just want
to continue using MySpace as the official site?
I think that we'll actually get a website. We were
talking about it not too long ago, but we'll probably wait until the album is more ready to go and probably do a website
based around the album. But as of right now, we'll just keep using MySpace. With the way things are going
now, MySpace is way more relevant than a website is... so it's almost completely unnecessary to have a website... we may
just have someone do a MySpace page that's linked to Ataris.com.
What have you guys been doing lately
besides working on the new album and on this tour?
We've just been touring, we just got back from South
Africa, it was really awesome... it was the first time for the band to go to South Africa. We went down there and played
four shows; a company called Authentic Ideas brought us down there, they brought us down and they treated us like we were
family. And as far as this tour is going, it's been a lot of fun; we had a band from Pennsylvania out with us called
Pull The Pin for like a week of this tour. They're a punk band, they were great. So we've had a good time
on this tour; there's only about four shows left right now. We're ready to get back home so we can get the album
finished... but that's about the only reason I'm ready to go home. (laughs)
What do you guys
do when you get any down time while on tour?
Well, I just got out of the shower... that means I just woke up
about a half an hour ago. (laughs) We really do a lot of nothing; spend a lot of time on the internet... we're kind of
geeks. We watch TV, we're boring... everyone's like; "Do you guys want to go out drinking?" ... "Nah,
we're going to go asleep". Mostly, we're not really that exciting; we spend a lot of time in our hotel
rooms on the internet or watching TV... read books, or whatever else. And most of the time after the show we'll
drive to the next show, so we'd already be in that city... that way we'll get a hotel and sleep. When we're
at home, Chris, the guitarist, and I have a recording studio that we run back home. We also have a summer camp, we get
kids from eleven to eighteen... put them into bands and show them what it's like to be in a band... we have a concert
at the end of it. We try to give them as much information about being in a band and touring... and putting out a CD.
This is our fourth year doing it. Kris has been doing a lot of acoustic tours, and our drummer, Jake, is still in high
school... (laughs) He's actually graduating about two days after we get back from this tour. That's our lives
in a nutshell. (laughs)
How long have you guys been on tour so far?
I think this is our fifth
week, I don't really keep track. We did a two or three week tour earlier in the year. We haven't done
a whole lot of touring; it's been a lot of writing and recording. We're doing Warped Tour when we get back,
we're doing the first two weeks of Warped Tour then after that we're playing a festival with Metallica in the UK...
we're pretty stoked about it, we all like Metallica quite a bit. Right now, we're really trying to hit markets
that this band hasn't hit before... the obscure market... we want to hit like Malaysia... we're hoping to splay some
shows in China, we've got a promoter that wants to do some shows up there and also South Korea. We're really
wanting to hit anything that hasn't been hit before.
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