Vin Peters and Billie Beckett on Darkness, Carnival of Sounds, and more

The "Manufactured radio guys" are back! And if you thought that their ability to make deep meaningful songs was limited to angsty songs about them hating "major labels" and being an "indie" band then you were wrong. Infact you should have known you were wrong since January when their song "Crumbling" made it to #1 on the airplay chart. Another single "Being Man" also hit #1. Now after four months of delays they are back. Their latest single "2001" was released on July 4th and their fifth studio album, "Darkness" was released yesterday. They're also one of the headliners for Carnival of Sounds this summer. I caught up with frontman and main lyricist Billie Beckett as well as guitarist, producer, and the man who will take credit for most of the melodies, Vin Peters, for a short interview.

So your album is a concept album that basically makes an allusion from an ordinary man struggling with his problems to the entire world, mainly America struggling with it's problems. My question is why? What inspired this album? Why not write something a little bit simpler?

Vin: The short answer to that is that for the past three albums we've made we've always said once we go to make another album "how can we top that?". Everything on this album is just bigger, more well done, and more dynamic than our past work. I think Billie will give you the long answer

Billie: Longer at least. The concept basically comes from things I had been dealing with for years. I was in a relationship for awhile and it resulted in a son. Shortly after my son was born his mother lost it and I never saw either of them. So really this album is the story is somewhat autobiographical. It's about someone who grows up with an absent father, finds himself to be a father, and then struggles with that plus the loss of family around him. The only difference is that I certainly never want to be too personal to myself. I couldn't write some emo album about how my life has been unfortunate. I would just hate it. And a lot of things in my life have been closely related to things that have happened in America well since and on 9/11 so the allusion to America just came as the obvious plot choice.

So I guess it never really even went through your heads to just write 12 good catchy punk songs and call it an album? You always have to have a deeper concept?

Vin: Absolutely. The last album we made that was basically 12 catchy songs was our first one and our first album is basically about how unfortunate our lives had been.

With that said do you think you'll ever make an album again without some sort of concept?

Billie: Hmmm... Well all our albums wont be like Darkness is. It would just get boring. It would be like "Hey look Reported Failure released another rock opera about some guy stuck in the middle of unfortunate events in the world". We had a grand rock opera with Disarm, and we have another one with Darkness, but I think if we did another one then it would have to have a wildly original concept.

Vin: I can say we wont put out an album that isn't concise. I have a feeling that whatever we do next it will be more like Post-Grunge Catastrophe in that although there is no concept or story, many of the songs have similar themes and are about certain events.

So on this album you say in the last song called New America. Well you must know the lyric but you basically say that a new america should be built around Peace. and Peace for those who dont know is the name of the protagonist's son in the album. But is there a more literal meaning to that or is it only meant in the context of the album?

Billie: It's definitely meant to mean something outside of the album. This whole album is set up in a way that it is supposed to apply to peaople's lives. It sounds like such a hippy thing but after having more than ten years pass since 9/11 and our wars finally ending we need to rethink how our society in America functions. I think we should focus on having it center around peace. I dont think getting into two wars was a productive way to spend the last decade. It is absolutely meant to be literal.

Not a lot of band's are as socially aware as you seem to be with your music. Do you think that it is just because you have been around longer as a band or is there something lacking in the music scene?

Billie: I guess our age or experience could have something to do with it. Maybe it's less our experience but other artists's lack of it. Some artists are so young they aren't really voting or paying taxes yet because they are underage or they've just been caught up in their own fame the entire time of their adulthood.

Vin: I think part of it age definitely. Most of us in this band are pushing thirty. We aren't old but everyone else is so young. Artists who are sixteen now aren't going to really be able to see that things have changed since the turn of the century simply because before that they were barely entering the first grade. But that doesn't mean they cant be socially aware as you put it. Most artists just aren't or at least aren't with their music. There isn't anything wrong with that but it does seem like there should be more socially relevant music than there is. And certainly we aren't the only ones making music about stuff like this, but it would be cool to see more artists take an interest in sharing with us their ideas of a utopian society through music.

Now your fanbase is mostly punk and pop-punk fans. The new album is much more of a mix between classical, metal, and the result is a very dark, moody and heavy on drums and guitar sound. It is not pop-punk in any way at all. It is more theatrical and dramatic and heavy. How do you think your fans will react? Did it occur to you that you are going to alienate some fans?

Vin: We're going to piss some people off no matter what we do. Like I said we always just say "how can we top the last one" when we make an album. Our sound was going to grow. We knew that. With KC and Robert in the lineup it was going to get heavier. I arranged a bunch of melodies that were dark and dramatic. They weren't chipper pop punk. They sounded best with violins. We didn't set out to alienate our fanbase but we will. I know that. I know that people who have been with us from the beginning might want to throw this record out a window but we dont think about the fans when we write songs. I know that sounds like such an asshole thing to say but we just try to write great songs. If I wrote a song that sounded like fucking Frank Sinatra but it was the best song I'd ever written I'd put it on an album because it was the best song I'd ever written. Everyone has their own taste and we just try to ignore that and if a song turns out to be a pop-punk song great, and if it turns out to sound like Frank Sinatra I dont care as long as its a great song.

Billie: I agree completely. I think we will dissapoint some fans, but this is the album we wanted to make. I think it's the best album we've ever made. I like to think though that most of our fans are growing with us out of listening to pop-punk as we grow out of writing pop-punk. I think that's evident in the fact that both the singles we've released from this record have hit #1. I think some people will react negatively, but I think a majority of our fans will grow to love this record just like we have.

You recorded this album mostly while on the No Venues Tour. Do you think that that can be heard on the record?
Vin: A great question. Hmmm.... I hadn't thought about it.

Billie: I think it's evident for us because we recorded it and played all of those shows, but for everyone else I dont think there is anything obvious.

Vin: Yeah. The only thing I can think of is I do this kind of echoy delayed ambient guitar tone for a lot of songs. I started doing that on the no venues tour because it was our first big tour with KC so now he could play a lot of guitar parts I used to play on older songs and I could try overlaying them with strange things like that. We found it didnt sound great with the punk stuff but with some violins and pianos it sounds great.

Billie: And also having James Urie on that tour with us made one less scheduling headache. We could literally walk over to his bus and ask if he could record vocals. We remember lots of things but there's nothing you can hear that makes it evident that we recorded while on tour.

I want to talk about touring now. You did the No Venues Tour which was your big tour. People got to name the price of their tickets from it being free to several hundred dollars. Then you did select dates in support of Lily and a few random headlining shows. In that chunk of touring is there anything you really learned? Anything that just dawned on you about yourselves or this scene?

Billie: Man... The No Venues Tour was the greatest experience of my life. It was like therapy. Playing everyday, and making this new record. I feel nostalgic missing it all the time. I think I'm a better more stable person because of that tour.

Vin: Yeah... I agree completely. I improved as a musician so much on that tour too. Just the fact that all these people were driving forever to fields in unpopulated valleys that we somehow got permission to play at just to hear us play was great. The other tours were fun. We love Lily and Riot! who were on that tour but the No Venues Tour was an almost spiritual experience.

So could there be a No Venues Tour 2012 or something like that is the future?

Billie: Haha. We haven't talked about it. It's possible. After September we're taking some time off but maybe by the time we are done it would probably have been about a year since the first no venues tour.

Now you're doing Carnival of Sounds. You're headlining the guitar legacy stage. Any expectations for this tour?
Vin: It's going to be a very fun experience I think. There are a lot of new artists on the tour. I want to say were probably the oldest act on the tour. So it'll be interesting. We're excited to meet some of the new guys in this circus of a music industry.

Billie: Yeah. We get to tour with Misery Loves Company again. They were on the No Venues Tour. We get to meet a lot of new artists. It'll be nice to truly tour America again. During the No Venues Tour, then the tour with Lily we only did a few dates in America. Nothing in depth just major cities like LA, New York, San Fran, Chicago. We get to go to Shakopee, Minnesota.

One final question. In about a week or a week and a half Darkness will have charted somewhere in the top albums. What are your expectations?

Billie: Oh man. Dont make me answer that. You know as long as it sells as many as the EP did I'll be happy. Otherwise it's like everyone who bought Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince just stopped there and never read Deathly Hallows.

Vin: I dont know. We make money if the record sells extremely well, but we make most of our money off of merch and touring. At least now with this record not being released on Nomad I have less of an investment in how well it sells. We're at a point in our career where our fanbase is strong enough that we aren't worried about having to go to breadlines. We all own houses and eat well and can buy some nice things. Although it would be cool to have "debuted at #1" in our wiki.