Splendid: Is it any different than playing in Chicago?

Shawn: It's totally different. Playing in Chicago is different than playing anywhere on tour, although some cities are becoming similar to Chicago. We've never done anything on the west coast so every day was a new mystery.

Angela: Yeah.

Shawn: In Chicago we've played more, so we have more of a following and get to play with bigger bands. We also get to bathe regularly.

Splendid: What's your local scene like?

Shawn: It's competitive. Everyone's trying for the same thing so there isn't much camaraderie.

Splendid: The opening lyrics to "Blame It On Baseball" are "You are me father / you quit smokin' on the day I was born." What's that song about?

Angela: It's just a true story, I usually don't write autobiographical things. It was just a true story that I felt compelled to write. My dad did quit smoking on the day I was born and it's about that whole idea... Like the line in the song, "It's always between what you love and the ones that you love." Like, my dad loves smoking fags but he wanted to see me get married, which is probably never going to happen because I love smoking fags too much and I love being on the road and rockin' out. That's hard for boys a lot of the time. The baseball part was his version of me being in a rock band. I don't think I can give it up to have babies.

Splendid: Really.

Angela: Maybe.

Shawn: If I can interject, I didn't have anything to do with the lyrics, but to play along with what she's saying lyrically in that song, like when she says that "It's always between what you love and the ones that you love," there's such a flood of emotion for me when I play that. It's such a great line. I have given up a lot; I have given up loved ones in order to do what I love, which is playing in a band. It really works on stage for me. Every time I play that song, if it's 58 days in a row, there's no way you can take the magic out of it, you can't. It's always going to have weight when I stand up there and play it.

Splendid: Angela, do you write all the lyrics?

Angela: Yes.

Splendid: Is it usually real life that inspires you, or do you take a different approach?

Angela: It's real life, but it's real life more in the sense that we live "real life". More hypothetical kinds of situations is what it's about, like what would happen if I did have a baby? And also, I don't like to use the word "I" -- I don't like to make the songs about myself. Me, you, you're so crazy, I love you, I hate you. I try to keep it varied yet meaningful to myself and other people. And a lot of the times it's abstract.

Splendid: "Blame it on Baseball" is from your EP, A Time for Hollerin', right? It's an older song?

Shawn: Yeah, it's the oldest one we play now.

Splendid: Are there any songs on your debut album that show what direction the band's sound is going in the future?

Angela: "The Best Day In History Ever", the first song on the record, hints at where we're going.

Shawn: Yeah.

Splendid: Right after the intro?

Shawn: Definitely everything that we do you can dance to, you can thrash to, you can chill.

Angela: Yeah, it hints at where we've been going a lot more, but there's definitely going to be a series of lullaby-esque songs on the next record. I can feel it. Real wilting. I really don't know how to explain it.

Splendid: Your debut has been compared to My Bloody Valentine, the Pixies, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Shawn: My Bloody Valentine were great. No one has ever done anything like that before -- that whole shoegazer movement and "hey, let's just be brooding and shoegaze and look down at the floor" thing. The whole point of what we're trying to do is to take punk rock and rock 'n' roll and the elements... Kevin Shields is fucking genius to make those sounds, but he only made those sounds. They're not the catchiest songs in the world.

Angela: They're beautiful.

Shawn: They're gorgeous, they're great to drive or fuck somebody to. (Laughter) I'll never disrespect My Bloody Valentine, but they aren't sitting in the pop gems. If you could take the concept of what Kevin Shields did, and all those bands like Slowdive and stuff like that, and compress it into a catchy pop song... All four of us come from experimental backgrounds. I just like making an album what it is -- jarring a little bit, soothing at times, but always keeping people on their toes. That's what we do. We don't want to be too puss or too heavy.

Angela: We're also very attention deficit. We will have a song that's three and a half minutes long and by the time it's done being written and finalized, it's only two minutes and forty seconds.

Shawn: Right now, my favorite bands include Red Sparowes and Godspeed You Black Emperor, and they have, like, nine minute songs. What they do in those songs, it's really quiet and then they turn it up real loud. We just try to do that in our bridges; what they do in their whole song, we try to do in our bridge.

Splendid: I haven't heard of Red Sparowes. Where are they from?

Shawn: Los Angeles, they're amazing.

Splendid: I'll have to check them out.

Shawn: What if the Promise Ring mixed up with Godspeed You Black Emperor? Promise Ring is so infectiously catchy and Godspeed is so awesomely epic. Put the infectiously catchy and the awesomely epic together.

Splendid: One big difference between Sybris and My Bloody Valentine is that you have a singer-first, band-second sensibility. The vocals don't get buried in the sonic haze like most of My Bloody Valentine's songs.

Angela: As far as comparisons go, it's probably just the reverb and chick vocals. Karen O is much sassier than I could ever be.

Splendid: The Pixies influence didn't jump out at me until I heard "Neon".

Angela: We've had debates over that song because it does sound so much like them. (To Shawn) You don't think so; Eric (the drummer) and I think so. It's so much like "Where Is My Mind", with the guitar line (she mimics the guitar line).

Shawn: I was like, "They're not Pixies fans. I'm the Pixies fan."

Angela: What are you talking about? I'm a huge Pixies fan.

Shawn: As for the whole Yeah Yeah Yeahs thing, we're not really Yeah Yeah Yeahs at all, but it has to do with the way the song is mixed. The line "wipe our mouths" is delivered the way the guy mixed it. She says "wipe our mouths" and it sounds like what Karen O does, therefore we sound like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. We don't sound anything like them. We're not sassy.

Splendid: You mentioned that the direction you see your sound taking in the future is exemplified by "The Best Day In History Ever". How is it song different/progressive from the rest of the tracks on the record? How did the band come up with the new sound direction? Was it experience? Personal tastes?

Angela: "Best Day..." to me is the most similar to the new stuff we're coming up with -- I don't think it's a conscious new sound direction; it's solely experience and becoming tighter songwriters.

Splendid: You've played with some really good bands, including Stars, Trail of Dead, Har Mar Superstar and The Thrills. Do you have any stories from the shows?

Shawn: All of them were great.

Angela: All great.

Angela: The Trail of Dead and Har Mar shows happened within a week of each other. We didn't even know, so we didn't have a month to get excited about them.

Shawn: I've run into people again, and it's all laughs and chats, the whole "laugh and chat".

Angela: It's nice to see bands. They're telling their tour stories while we tell ours; we're like, "The other night we were at 7-11 and Phil ate this hot dog," and they're like, "When we were in Australia I ate ostrich, and you know, in Japan you can get these great snake heads." It's cool to see normality in a world where you can't really be normal or settle. It's nice to know that success doesn't change people too much.

Splendid: What's this I hear about spitting during shows? I didn't see any spitting tonight.

Angela: I don't know. I get real phlegmy.

Splendid: I heard some burps.

Angela: Yeah.

Shawn: When you see an artist perform, you are a part of it, because we can't play without the crowd. Whether it's three people or three hundred, we want to feel it, so we tell inside jokes and we want you to be in on these things.

Splendid: What was the joke about tonight? I remember laughing at it.

Angela: Was it the Liv Tyler thing?

Angela: I laughed at that -- it was funny -- but I thought there was another one.

Shawn: It's things like that. Like, okay, here I am at the Mercury Lounge, we have a little downtime, so I'm going to throw out this quick story. I'm not trying to brag that I ran into Liv Tyler or anything like that; it's just part of what we do as a band.

Angela: One of the best compliments we get as a band, and it usually comes from other bands or whoever is there, is "it's like hanging out with you guys in the practice space."

Shawn: Or in your living room.

Angela: So here we are hanging out with you guys, whether you hate us or not. We're here and kickin' it, and unfortunately, we have the microphones. That's the best kind of compliment you can get -- we got to hang out with these people and we also just got to play some songs in between there. All of the awkward silences were taken care of with songs. We just try to bring people into our sphere for a while -- make everyone comfortable, loosen up, etcetera. We are the same people on stage as we are in the van or practice space; all bands are. Why act like something else and alienate the crowd?

Splendid: How is your live show different from the record?

Phil: I have no complaints about the record, but it definitely doesn't convey the energy and volume of a live show.

Splendid: Do you do things on the record that you can't do live?

Phil: Except for the introduction, everything on the record is the same as how we play live. The introduction was crafted by Congleton from us screwing around to give John some material to work with. That's why it's called "A Gentleman, An Automobile". Angela thought that best described John -- he is a gentleman and works with the precision of a machine.

Splendid: You've toured a great deal since the album was released. Does it seem like touring has helped you grow more as a band? Has the tour helped with the band's popularity? How has it been on the road -- has the tour taken its toll on you?

Angela: Touring is the most a band can do as far as getting the music out there and knowing if it's going to work out for the long haul. If you can stand one another in a van for weeks at a time, playing not the best shows, and you're still having a blast playing the tunes, you're pretty well set for anything that may come in the future. Of course it takes a toll -- money wise, health wise, van wise -- but the growth that happens and the fans and friends we make far exceed that toll.

Angela: Tonight there was this couple standing by the t-shirt stand for a while and before we even played and they ask if they could buy a shirt. They said that they didn't even know any of the other bands and that they were there just to see us. You get that in different towns.

Splendid: So are you guys happy touring?

Angela: I love touring. If we could do this all the time... We're really lucky we all love one another a lot.

Shawn: I kind of get panicky when I am away from these guys.

Angela: When we're in Chicago, I talk to Shawn, Eric and Phil everyday. We have this kind of fraternal thing.