June 21, 2008
The Color Fred – Fred Mascherino

Cathy: Warped Tour just started yesterday. What do you look most forward to this summer on the tour?
Fred: I’m just looking to get out and meet as many people as possible. I’ve already made friends with some young, new bands that I haven’t heard of on the tour, and a couple older ones. That’s the experience of it, just sort of spreading the word of your band, but in this amazing environment.

C: What are your plans for after Warped Tour is through?
F: Well, Bend To Break came out earlier this year… I am planning to go home and write for a bit because I want to keep coming out with new music all the time, but we also are planning a tour for the fall. We’ll do one more tour and then finish writing the new record and then eventually - hopefully early spring - have a new record.
C: Do you have any idea of what bands will go with you on your fall tour?
F: No, actually that’s a hard question. There are two different bands that we want to go on tour with and we just haven’t decided. We’re not sure who it’s going to be.

C: I know you’re a big supporter of the Go Green movement. Besides using a bio-diesel bus for the tour, what other ways are you contributing to the cause?
F: Did you hear about my car? I have a car that runs on vegetable oil. I get the oil from Chinese restaurants, it’s used from their deep fryer. I take it home and I filter it, and that’s what I run my car on. The biggest thing that we can do right now is to get the word out and get people educated on it, because I think a lot of people want to help but they’re not sure what to do. Although it is catching on, I think the more that everyone talks about it and shares what they know, the better. We could be doing a lot but we need to focus it in on the most important things. Spreading the word is the biggest thing you can do… I mean, I do all the little things like recycling – we recycle on our bus and we’ve got bags of bottles under our bus.
They did a study recently where the bands were trying to cut down pollution at concerts. They were looking at the lighting and the sound and trying to use low energy things and they figured out that 97% of the pollution was actually from the people driving all of their cars to the show. If people could carpool or even take a bus down to the shows it’ll be a lot better. This is kind of a good place because there isn’t much parking here, is there?
C: No. I actually took a train in.
F: Yea! That’s what I mean! If we can do as much of that as possible, that makes the concert so much more green.

C: Was it a difficult decision to leave Taking Back Sunday in order to put all of your focus on The Color Fred?
F: Yea, it was a very difficult decision. I had been working on this record and it was songs that I loved and songs that I had partially written for Taking Back Sunday that weren’t used. I intended on coming out with this record and then continuing to do Taking Back Sunday, but as it went on… We were on our last tour with Projekt Revolution and things were not going well with writing Taking Back Sunday’s next record and the decision was made – not necessarily by my choice, but at a certain point, it was the only way I was going to be happy. It was a decision I had to make, but it definitely wasn’t easy.

C: I was reading online that you are coming out with a documentary soon and I was wondering what the inspiration behind it was.
F: I have some friends who are filmmakers and they made the video for “If I Surrender” – my first video. They wanted to come out on the road with me for a week and film everything that we did to get an idea of how different what I’m doing now is from what I did before. It’s back to a much simpler way of touring for me, where we’re in a van most of the time and I don’t have a twelve person crew – it’s just me, a merch guy, and my band. So, we wanted a contrast of that. But it was really their idea, they are working on a few cuts of it and I’ve seen some edits but… It’ll be out by the end of the summer, for sure.

C: Do you have any funny or interesting tour stories you could share?
F: Of course! Well, on our last tour we were out with Chiodos, and I was helping with the merch table and we had to cut this rope. I was cutting it with a knife, a very sharp butterfly knife, and I couldn’t get the right angle on the cut so I turned the knife around… This is a warning to anyone not to face the knife toward you. When the rope broke, the knife went into my leg about an inch and a half and I had to pull it back out. The first thing I thought was, “Whoa! Now I know what that feels like” –laughs- You know? You hear about people getting stabbed and sometimes you wonder how much that would hurt… It hurts a lot! There was no time, so the medic that was there taped it up and I played the show. After that I went to the hospital, and I was in really bad shape. I don’t know how I got through that show. Actually I just noticed that these were the pants I was wearing! The knife went in right there –points and laughs-. It doesn’t hurt, it healed alright, but… It was a really bad day in my life.
C: I’m impressed that you still played the show though. That’s dedication!
F: I know! It was pretty rough.

C: What’s one thing not many people know about you?
F: Most people don’t know that… well, there’s a lot of things. I guess one thing is that I’m left-handed and I’ve never drank a beer in my life. I don’t think anyone knows that.

C: What’s your favorite thing about being a musician? Least favorite?
F: My least favorite is that I’m always going to be a slave to doing this, for better or for worse. I’m not good at anything else and I can’t convince myself to do anything else. It’s sort of a curse. But the good part of it and the best part of it is that I actually do get to do it. I’m here today in San Francisco, on Warped Tour, and I’m getting to play. I’m the luckiest dude in the world for getting to do that.

C: If you were stranded on a deserted island and could only bring 3 things with you, what would they be and why?
F: I would bring… I’m trying to think if I could live without Internet access at this point. I think I could. I think I could sleep well. I would bring a surf board, because I’ve always wanted to learn how to be a good surfer. I’m not that good, I’ve tried it, I suck. But I would bring a surf board, because there are waves there, and I would bring a really comfortable pillow, and some type of off-road buggy - something to scoot around in, so that I won’t have to walk on my bad leg that I stabbed.

C: Closing Statements?
F: The best thing anyone can do if they want to know more about us is to go to our Myspace. I check it myself and I will write back to you. Or come out to a show and hang out, I’m not that hard to find.