From the years 2000 to 2002 I ran an online zine, Actionattackhelicopter, along with my friends, Brian and Josh. I was fortunate to interview many musicians whose work I enjoyed. I’m posting some of those interviews here for anyone who may have missed them the first time. They have been edited for length, relevance, and to correct for my poor editing skills at the time of original publication. Keep in mind that these were done over a dozen years ago, thus individuals’ opinions, thoughts, and ideas may no longer be relevant, but they are still interesting as a snapshot of a particular time and place.
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The Appleseed Cast just came out with their latest album, Mare Vitalis, on Deep Elm Records. Their latest offering is a departure from the very popular The End of the Ring Wars album that came out in 1998. Spacey, mystical, and surreal are just three words that I would use to describe it. Listening to it conjures up memories and scenes associated with the sea, hence the name of the album, which is Latin for “sea of living.” Appleseed Cast’s live show is definitely a good sight and sound extravaganza as well. Before I saw them play on December 1, 1999, I sat down outside of the Backdoor in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, to talk with one of the guitarists/singers, Aaron.
What do you play in Appleseed Cast?
I play guitar and scream a little bit here and there. I try to sing. It’s not quite singing yet. I’m working on it.
How was the European tour?
For me personally it was a big experience to see that, to know not how the other half lives, but how the rest of the world works. It gave me something to base an opinion on for some political things. Just views, you know? You can say a lot of stuff but to go over there and see how things really are you can say, “Oh, that’s how it really is.” The shows were really good. It was nice as far as being a band, it’s not a business but financially it was cool because we didn’t have to worry about anything. It wasn’t stressful. Everything was paying for itself and it wasn’t a problem. We had a really great driver; this guy from Germany. He had his own little distro and label thing so it was totally cool to have somebody who spoke good English and totally knew what was going on. We got tattoos in Croatia, which was really awesome because they were really cheap. But as far as being in Croatia—that was one of the highlights, just to be in the old Eastern bloc.
Is it stable over there?
Actually it’s a democracy now but the person who runs the country is an ex-Communist. The people there spoke some of the best English. And most of the people I talked to had never spoken English before. They learned it because the TVs there show the Dukes of Hazard and stuff like that in English with Croatian subtitles. So they figured it out, you know? As far as the whole European Community Trade thing—they’re trying to bring them in. I think that would be a hugely beneficial thing for that country, because they’ve got resources but the country’s just ass backwards as far as how they run things. The people suffer from it. You know they make like—the average person makes like $250 a month. So basically people have to go down to Italy to work to make enough money to have a place and stuff like that. It was definitely a big experience and the best part is it looks like we might be able to go back this summer again. And kids came out and we played a lot of our new stuff and we didn’t have the new record so I think there will be a demand for that. Hopefully we’ll even have something new.
That was my next question: in reference to the new album, all I know is it’s called Mare Vitalis. Tell me a little bit about it.
It’s Latin. We were gonna call it “the Sea” or “the Sea of” something. “Mare Vitalis” means “sea of life” or “sea of living.” We had a concept in the beginning of making the sea a reference in a lot of the song. Water makes things grow and the whole idea of that. The sea is the bringer of life and it can be a destructive force. My friend back in LA painted the cover for us and it worked with the title we wanted to use. We used the Latin verb because it sounded cooler and a lot of the lyrics started to become about things related to the ocean but also about home for us. We’re in Lawrence, Kansas, now—we have a place there and that’s totally where we’re from. Originally most of us were from LA and San Diego. Well, me and Chris at least and I think some of that kinda got in there like, “It’d be nice to be back home a little bit doing this.” So there’s a little bit of stability but it’s a fragile stability as far as paying bills and trying to tour a lot and trying not to burn ourselves out and trying to be creative and then trying to be performers and just trying to figure out the whole band thing. And that’s where the album comes in and musically we have a new drummer, which is this guy Josh, you can call him Cobra. That’s his old nickname. He’s changed all the dynamics of the band. He’s like a field, experimental sort of drummer whereas Louie was an incredible drummer and I don’t mean to knock him or anything but some of the stuff we had…it just took us in a new direction. It was weird because I thought it wouldn’t sound like us but it does sound like us. It’s definitely a little spaceier. We recorded in a way better environment so the quality of the record for me is beyond comparison. It sounds really good. It was done at the Red House which has done a lot of Coalesce records and stuff like that so I was worried it would come out sounding really rock. I just didn’t want to get the rock drum sound. But we got a really jazzy drum sound. It’s a real warm sounding record and that’s what we wanted. This whole Jane’s Addiction/Fugazi sound going on.
So how old are you now? How old are most of the guys in the band?
Jason, the bass player, is 24, Cobra just turned 22 in Europe, Chris is 27 and I’m 28 so I’m the old man.
How long have you guys been doing this then?
January of ‘97 was the actual practicing twice a week and then we started touring that summer. So since the summer of ‘97 we’ve been an off and on touring/playing band.
Is it really true you guys just sold everything and bought the van and went like that?
At first we basically got some parents to help out to do some of the initial things but we got tax returns at the same time and getting rid of rent and we just kind of coaxed it around. We stayed in Lawrence, Kansas, a bit at Jason’s parents’ house so whenever we had time off I’d go back home and stay at my mom or a friend’s house and stuff like that. I’ve managed to keep my car, which is back in LA, the whole time. It was almost paid off so I haven’t had to get rid of that. But as far as health insurance, those sorts of things—
You just don’t have it?
We just don’t have those sorts of things right now. Hopefully that’ll change someday.
You don’t have to explain if you don’t want to but what happened with Louie and why did he leave? And I noticed that Deep Elm doesn’t like him very much so I was just curious about that.
Well there were some financial things that go both ways. Louie had his own feelings towards the money that went to do things and then he ended up quitting. He basically bought some new drums and stuff like that. In a way I see Louie’s point. We did a lot of touring, more so than any other band on the label at the time, but not being in the band anymore the label’s still like, “Hey, it’s still four hundred bucks and four hundred bucks is four hundred bucks.” It would come to us but we don’t have any hard feelings that way. He got a scholarship to a drum school in LA and there was a girl involved. He’s getting married this summer. I guess he just needs that stability and driving around it’s tough. I have it every month where I’m like, “I’m 28 years old, what am I doing? I’m supposed to be this, I’m supposed to be that.” I don’t think he sold out but he did what he had to do especially when he let Chris know he was getting married I felt glad for him as far as that. And I’m happy now because I think we have a band line-up that would be the last band line-up we’ll ever have and if it changes then this band would no longer be a band anymore. I don’t think I could go through that again. Having to be like, “What songs are we gonna re-learn?” Because we basically wrote all new songs and don’t know any of the old stuff. We know like one or two.
Do you play the old stuff though?
We play the “Marigold” song.
Is it like, “That one song that we all hate”? [laughing]
It’s kinda like our “Teen Spirit.” It’s cool; it’s a good song. It’s just hard because we play it a lot.
I like “Max.” You gotta play “Max.”
What sucks about “Max” is that we re-learned it but it’s just a matter of we know a couple of them but the only one that sounds good and that we’re happy with playing is “Marigold.” I’m pushing for one or two more, “Max” being one of them because it’s hard and I feel bad because if a kid really wants to hear a song I’m like, “Geez, that’s kind of like our job in a way.” There’s that give and take that we’re performers and we’re also musicians, too. We want to do our own thing.
Speaking of Louie going to school, did any of you guys go to college? I should say graduate from college because there’s a difference.
Me, Chris, and Jason all put in a little bit of time but never finished, and Cobra’s taking some time off from KU (University of Kansas). He’s majoring in something crazy, it’s kinda like a pre-med thing. I won’t let him mess up because he’s too young and he’s put too much time into it so far. I’m playing a little bit of a father role in that scenario. He’s taking off next semester which he wasn’t going to do so now he’s like “I want to tour some more,” and I was like okay, it makes sense but we can also take six months off, it’s cool. We can wait until summer if you want to but he was like, “No, let’s do it now and I’ll go back next semester.” And I said, “That’s fine.” Me, I might go back. I don’t know yet.
Where’d you go to school at?
A community college in LA. Thirteenth grade basically. I flipped up back then. I was doing a lot of partying back then so I kinda faded out and did my own thing for a while. Finished up my skateboarding career with a bunch of injuries and ended up buying a guitar so college was good for me to make me see that I should play music for a while.
A lot of people have said that there’s a spiritual side to Appleseed Cast or that some of you guys are Christians. Do you care to comment on that?
We’re actually doing a big interview in HM (a Christian music magazine) about that. The reason we decided to do that was to clarify some of those things. Yeah, for me I try to have a spiritual existence a little bit. I’m not a Christian, our drummer’s not a Christian, the other two are but we never were a Christian band. We have friends in that scene that we did play shows with. I think that was a good thing, it was fun, and we had a good time. But the whole idea of “Christian rock” as opposed to just “rock” is not anything we believe in. They are people in a band who happen to be Christians as opposed to Christian people playing “rock.” I had this really big drug thing for a couple of years that really took me into some bad places. I thought I could rock and roll like Kurt Cobain and find out what shooting heroin was all about which I’m happy to say I haven’t done in three years but through that I found out—I could use the word “god” to make it simpler, but I don’t see it as something traditional—something out there helped me stay out of that because the person I used to run with (and we both did drugs together), he died about three weeks ago and he overdosed in the shower and they found his body five days later. In a way it’s my own personal trip but there’s stuff that goes bad. I know when I’m in something terrible I’m just like, “Get me out of this jam.” Maybe that’s my thing. More like faith, karma, and those sorts of things. It’s hard to explain but it makes it easier for me at least as far as seeing the world sometimes that makes things okay.
What have you guys been listening to in the van?
Well starting with Europe we abused the hell out of the new Get Up Kids record and the new Flaming Lips record. Like just completely abused them. Like three times a day with each record. We drove all day so we just listened to those two. I’ve been listening to Low’s new Christmas album they just put out.
Is it Christmas songs?
Yeah, I’ve seen ‘em like four times and every time—it’s amazing to go to a show where the band is quieter than the audience. To me I’m really into that sort of sparse thing that still sounds like there’s so much there. Flaming Lips a lot. The new one is just an amazing record. A lot of At The Drive-In lately.
I got Vaya the other day.
I just drove up to Chicago for that show with a friend of mine and got to pretend I was cool and hung out back stage the whole time. They played in front of twelve hundred people and they’re just one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen. It’s like a close second with a Fugazi show. Fugazi’s up there. I listen to that a lot. We’re listening to a lot of older stuff too. Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and a bunch of Beatles. We’re just kinda mixing it up. I haven’t got a lot of time to listen to stuff. I got the new Coalesce, which is really good.
Is that the one on Relapse Records?
Yeah. I forget the title. It’s really weird and really long. We’re trying to stay up with what’s going on but I have a hard time trying to buy records and we haven’t been home too much and my friend has a CD burner and so I’m gonna go home and make a bunch of copies of stuff I should probably check out.
