July 2, 2005
Hidden in Plain View – Spencer Peterson, Mike Saffert, Chris Amato, Rob Freeman, Joe Reo

Cath = Cath, S = Spencer, M = Mike, C = Chris, R = Rob, J = Joe, E = Eva (from FATA Booking)

Cath: For the record, state your name and what you do in the band.
S: I’m Spencer and I play drums and eat dinner.
M: I’m Mike and I play guitar and buy SoCo.
C: I’m Chris and I play… hmm… Bass.

Cath: What made you want to be in a band?
M: Part of it was always being in love with music for my whole life, and then I started going to concerts and -
S: It’s like when you start liking a band so much you know? You want to be like them, so I’m like well…
M: Yea, and then going to concerts and seeing just what I felt for them. Like, seeing live music just made me want to create it.
S: I think after going to my first show and realizing that like the next day was just not as fun as the previous night.

Cath: How have things changed for you guys since ‘Life in Dreaming’ was released?
S: We’re so rich right now.
M: Yea. So rich.
C: We have thousands and thousands of millions of dollars.
S: Uhm… yea. Yes and no.
M: It’s changed for us as a band.
C: Things have definitely changed.
S: Our fan base has just been growing steadily since it’s been released and…
C: We play more than 5 songs at a show.
S: There’s that. *laughs* We’ve got more press. It’s like, you know, we released a full-length album…
M: People pay more attention to a full-length than they do to EPs really.

Cath: If you could choose any animal to be Hidden In Plain View’s mascot, what would it be and why?
S: A werewolf. That’s what I’d pick. Just because they’re really cool.
M: Yea, I would have to say wolves.
S: I mean there’s times where we’re like, pretty normal guys, and I guess maybe when we get on stage we kinda turn into a-
M: or when you get alcohol.
C: I say a deer because we like to hunt deer back in Jersey
M: Well, we hunt bottles and trees mostly.
C: We do hunt deer.
M: We hunt deer if we need to. When times are tough.

Cath: How has this year’s Warped differed from last years for you, as a band?
M: Uh, our bus broke down much sooner.
S: *laughs* Well we got to play a bigger stage this year. Veterans. I mean, we kinda know how things roll…
C: Things they’ll do and-
M: A little more of the tricks of the trade.
S: And we know a little more people, which is really cool. We made new friends and a lot of bands we’ve been friends with for a long time are on this tour now.

Cath: What are you planning on doing after your done with Warped Tour?
S: We’re just going to hang out.
M: Yea, we’re going to go write a little bit and then we’re going out on a headlining tour after that, at the end of the summer.
Cath: Yea, you guys are coming back here in like September aren’t you?
M: Yep, we’re back with The Academy Is, Spitalfield, and Over It.

Cath: If you could punch any celebrity in the face, who would it be and why?
S: That’s cool man.
C: David Hasselhoff because he’s him. David Hasselhoff’s a weirdo. I’d punch him just because he was born.
M: That’s a good question. There’s so many.
S: I wouldn’t punch anyone.
Cath: Would you kick anyone? Slap?
S: Oh, now if you can kick someone…
M: Oh I know who. Gilbert Godfrey.
C: Oh god.
M: Just so he wouldn’t speak anymore.
S: Where would you punch him?
M: I would punch him right in the mouth so that it– I would be so filled with rage that I would just hit him so hard that his teeth would get locked together and he’d be like “*incoherent mumble*” for the rest of his life and I would -
C: That’s an amazing one. Dude, you win.
M: I would do this *shakes hands as if winning something*.
S: Gilbert Godfrey, that’s a good one.
M: Yea that guy sucks.
S: I’d probably say… I know we talk about this.
C: We talk about this all the time.
M: I talk about this all the time. That’s because I hate everything.
S: Oh my gosh, I don’t even know. Let me sit on it, I’ll come back.

Cath: What is your favorite thing to do, outside of the band?
S: Chop down trees.
M: Yea, chopping down trees actually is pretty fun.
S: And we’re serious.
M: No, we’re actually dead serious. Chris has actually got like, a wound on his hand from not wearing gloves when he was chopping down the trees with the ax. But yea uh, we chop down trees.
*Eva from FATA booking walks in*
E: Where’s my sweatshirt?
M: I sold it. To a small boy.
*Rob walks in*
S: Hey Rob, we’re doing the interview that you missed.
R: It’s not my fault! Talk to Marcos about it. We scheduled our meeting last minute, and we couldn’t do anything. I’m sorry, I had no idea… I had no number to call…
Cath: It’s ok.
S: I’m sorry, what was the question?
Cath: Uh, favorite thing to do outside of the band…
S: Honestly, it’s really chopping down trees. Like, I’m not kidding.
R: Can I answer questions too?
Cath: Sure, if you want.
R: Can I pee first?
Cath: Sure, do you want me to wait?
R: Yea. Wait. And you can print that!

Cath: What was it like recording ‘I Ran’ for the Punk Goes 80’s CD? Why did you choose that song?
R: We chose that song because Chris and Spencer decided. They saw a list of songs, right?
S: Yea, we saw a list of songs that they would prefer the bands to do. And we thought it’d be cool. Recording it was super fun.
M: We just had to make it as 80’s as possible.
R: We were on tour with uhm … was it Less Than Jake we were on tour with?
S: No, before that.
M: It was in between the headliner and Less Than Jake I think.
R: Alright, it was basically on our headlining tour. We got back home at like 5 in the morning or something like that and we met at my house the next day at like noon? 2 o’clock the next day? And we really hadn’t practiced the song together ever. We just kinda showed up and we were like…
S: Listened to it, figured out how it works…
R: We’re like… We’d been on tour for like a month there, so we were kinda delirious you know, like you’ll lose your mind. So the ending of the song gets ridiculous, if you hear it, it gets all like metal-y and like… galloping. The real song doesn’t have like half the stuff we do. We put a ballad metal solo… Like an 80s ballad solo, like guitar solo mid-song because we were out of our minds and then …
M: Yea we seriously… By the end of the day, we were just like “lets make this, lets put a metal part in this”. And to get the full metal affect I recorded it the guitar swinging it like this *pretends to swing a guitar back and forth* We had to.
R: We recorded it in my home studio. Like, we did it all ourselves so… It’s funny because like-
S: We just went and jammed and were like “Oh that sounds cool! Record it!”.
M: Yea, we just had fun with it.
R: Yea and that’s the way covers should be, you know? It’s not your song, so don’t take it so seriously.
S: We didn’t write it.
M: Actually I did write that song, thank you.

Cath: Who are some of your musical influences?
R: I guess its all kinda like… When you say “influences” it’s kinda all personal, you know?
S: Personally it differs. As a whole, I guess there’s a pretty standard-
R: We rock out to a lot of bands. I mean, I think lately our friends influence – like the bands we’re on tour with influence us a lot you know? Like, I mean we all listen to Jimmy Eat World and At The Drive In and Refused and we tour with Underoath and Mae and some of those guys influence us and …
*Joe walks into the bus with 2 people*
R: Shh! Interview!

Cath: If you could tour with anyone, who would you want to tour with?
M: Can it be a band that’s -
R: Mae and Copeland and The Fall?
S: Warped Tour. I’d do Warped Tour.
E: It’s next week! The offer’s coming next week!
M: Uhm yea. Metallica. We’d need a therapist though.
R: Yea, I think we would just to fit in.
S: A sweet bill would be us, Thursday, Jimmy Eat World…
C: Thrice. Thrice would be fun.
S: And Thrice would be awesome. And we’d have… Jimmy Eat World would open.
M: And Led Zeppelin.
R: I think we should have Jimmy Eat World open, and then do At The Drive In, and then have, uh *names off some NJ bands*.
M: We’re just spittin’ out old Jersey bands. Check out those bands though. You’ll find them online. They’re good.

*Rob opens salad and pulls out a strand of plastic that looks like a hair*
R: Oh god…
*Everyone goes “Ewww”*
M: That’s the price! That’s the price you have to pay!
R: It’s plastic, it’s plastic.
*Everyone laughs*
R: It really was, it wasn’t hair.
M: I thought a lady with blue hair made your food.

Cath: If you weren’t in Hidden In Plain View, what would you be doing instead?
S: Working for Hidden In Plain View.
R: Boxing. I would be a boxer.
M: I’d be a used car salesman.
R: I’d be an ultimate fighter. I’d do karate chops.
S: I think I’d try out for Ultimate Gladiators.
C: You would get your ass fucked.
R: Have you seen me fight?
C: Yea I have, it’s sad.
R: You’ve never seen me fight.
C: You would get thrown around.
M: Dude, he does mad karate on me.
S: Oh I mean American Gladiators, I’m sorry.
C: He does karate that he learned from the Karate Kid DVD set. You’re gonna get your ass kicked if you follow that shit.
M: I think I would paint soda cans.
Cath: You would paint soda cans?
M: And I’d sell them on the street.
R: Kelly bought me the Karate Kid Box Set for Christmas.
E: Oh man, that’s amazing.

Cath: What is your favorite song to play live?
R: ‘Best Of Me’… Or ‘Leaving’.
S: Uhm…
M: ‘All My Best Friends Are Metal Heads’?
S: Yea *laughs* What’s that Taking Back Sunday song? That first hit… ‘A decade Under The Influence’. That’s my favorite song.
J: My favorite one’s ‘The Garden Statement’.
M: That’s got karate chops in it, that’s cool.
R: I like playing ‘Ashes Ashes’ a lot.
S: Yea, that song’s cool.

Cath: If you were stranded on a deserted island with only your band members, who would you eat first and why?
M: Definitely not Spencer, because he’s got no meat on his bones.
R: Spencer has a low carb diet.
E: I would say you guys should go with Chris because he eats so much Kentucky Fried Chicken.
M: Lots of protein with that boy. S: It’s basically like eating a chicken. M: Yea, I’d put some barbeque sauce on Chris and just bite into his leg or something. *Everyone laughs* S: …Assuming we have barbeque sauce.
M: Dude, there will be barbeque sauce.
S: It’s a deserted island man!
Cath: You’ll smuggle some onto the island.
M: We would bring it with us!
S: You’re like, “Chris it’s just suntan lotion, trust me”.
M: “No, that’s not a rock I’m about to hit you in the head with”
*Everyone laughs*
M: “No, that’s not a rotisserie we’re setting up there, we’re just going to dry our towels on it”
*Everyone laughs*
M: … I wouldn’t rotisserie him, I’d fry him.
S: I would say, “Screw it”, and go to Denny’s.
Cath: On the deserted island?
M: Yea, I’d probably go to the diner.
R: I’d call up Dave Thomas on my cell phone … “Quarter pounder, no burger, all cheese”

Cath: Justin Timberlake walks up to you one day and tells you he wants to be in your band. What do you do?
M: Spit in his face.
S: Ok… Funny story…
C: Actually you know something that’s really really funny? Listen. Let Bob tell his story.
R: Actually I’ve talked to Justin Timberlake. I actually know him.
Cath: Really?
R: Yea. I swear to God. He wanted to work –
C: He’s serious.
R: Yea I’ve seen him. Well, not him but, pop singers like, I’m not gonna say the name of the band, wanted rock songs because they’re going “rock” now. And they wanted to talk to me about writing songs with them.
Cath: What did you say to that?
R: That’s fucking gay!… But give me 4 million dollars and I’ll do it.
S: Uhm ok. If he said he wanted to be in our band, I would tell him he could load my shit on stage… and then dance.
M: Yea, I would ask him if he knows how to re-string guitars… No I’m serious.
R: I would just… kindly ask Joe to quit the band.
J: I understand… I understand, I know.

Cath: That was my last question so… Anything else you would like to share with the online world?
R: Balls.
M: Sugar tits.
S: Yea, balls. Uhm…
R: Karate chop? Microphone?
S: Uhm.. thanks.