UNSUNG ZEROS

Nate: Alrighty the Unsung Zeros, state who you are and what you do in the band

Josh: I'm josh, I play bass and sing

Jason: I'm Jason, I play the drums

Zach: I'm Zach and I play guitar

Jerry: I'm Jerry and I play guitar

Nate: The Unsung Zero fan base how is it, besides Florida

Josh: The east coast and west coast are good. The middle United states are kinda crazy but were still working on it, we're trying to build up some interest there.

Nate: Anything in Canada or Mexico? (people Laugh)

Josh: Ha, we play in this place called Edinburgh which is near like .... two miles from Mexico and all these kids come and see us when we play there every time. Those are big shows so we have fans in Mexico. We've been to Canada so I guess we have some fans there. We had an incident at the Canadian Border, so next time we go on tour to Canada it is going to be on a large tour supposed to a small one - haha.

Nate: Alrighty how about the House of blues hard rock live show where you guys broke the attendance record how was that?

Jason: It was overwhelming, it was awesome

Josh: It was definitely awesome

Nate: Did you headline that show?

Josh: No, I think we played second

All the guys at different times: No, we played first

Josh: But they are all Orlando bands so,

Nate: Who else was on the...

Josh: Spit valve, us and supervillans

Nate: Cool, how about your favorite Venue to play?

Zach: The Social, (everyone agrees) It is where we are having our CD release party in Orlando.

Josh: It is this place in Orlando, yeah it is pretty small it holds like 5 or 600 people and just a real good place real good sound.

(Phone ring)

Nate: Dam nit the phone (Josh laughs) Hello? Hey dad I gotta go I am interviewing the Unsung Zeros right now. I'm interviewing the Unsung Zeros right now, I gotta go ok - we're taping. We're doing good, they got fed and everything. Love you to bye. I gotta go bye.

Nate: You favorite place to tour?

Jerry: I like the west coast a lot, California - it is a very pretty state.

Josh: And New Jersey, we just have lots of kids come see in New Jersey.

Nate: Do you guys play with Don't Look down a lot?

Josh: Yeah we play with those guys a lot, we're really good friends with them. We've been on tour with them once and we're going on tour with them again.

Ante: And then you will be comin back to Michigan, Alright. Is Therapy Records still affiliated with Unsung Zeros?

Everyone grunts a no and Josh is Undecided

Josh: They have the "People Mover" but other than that. (Looks at Zach) is that Fast Music now?

Zach: Yeah Fast Music has that now I don't think Therapy is a Label at all.

Josh: It was kind of just a part of Fast Music that they released it, so Fast Music owns the "People Mover" now

Nate: How about your best show?

Jerry: My favorite show actually was in South Jersey with Don't Look Down. June Spirit and Starting Line played that. It had about 600 kids

Josh - It was sold out

Jerry: It was probably our biggest out of state show ever. I had a lot of fun there

Josh: I liked the first time we played there that was the first really good show we had out of state ever. it was in New Jersey, in fact we got done playing and all these kids started screaming. It was like aw dude this is crazy.

Nate: Ok, how about way back in the beginning, how did you guys get started out with music and find each other for a band?

Josh: My parents were music teachers so I started playing from a young age, and they, I really don't know how they got started.

Jason: My dad played the drums it was how I started and I started playing when I was young and in my first band when I was 12. I met these guys through other bands years later.

Josh: We all lived in the same area so we kind of just..we were the only kids who kept playing music. Everybody else just quit and got a job or got a girlfriend or whatever (chuckles) and we were still playing in a band.

Zach: Now they all complain at us

Josh: Were like we have been doing this for six years to be able to go on tour and you guys want it to happen over night. Its not going to happen - and its not like we haven't worked for it at all.

Nate: How about any previous bands you have been in?

Josh: Any what?

Nate: Previous band you guys were

Jerry: None worth mentioning (everyone laughs) Garage bands

Nate: Cover bands?

Jerry: Nah, well actually I had to have been in 8th or 9th grade and I played in a greenday/weezer cover band. (Mike laughs)

Josh: My very first band was called "Y" and it had two girls in it (I laugh) me and a kid who couldn't play the drums.

Nate: How about your shows on tour VS. your shows at home?

Zach: Home shows are always better for the people but touring show are better cuz they aren't in Orlando kinda like....

Josh: Well in Orlando it is pretty much a sure thing we're gonna do good, we really don't have to worry about kids showing up at our shows. But at the same time those are kids who have definitely seen us play before. When we are on tour and a lot of kids show up and buy stuff its like these kids have probably never heard of us and we are getting to play in front of a new audience so which is really cool.

Nate: Kind of refreshing

Josh: Yeah definitely

Nate: Difference and changes in UZ over the years?

Jerry: We have matured a lot and as far as writing a lot of things have changed

Josh: We like different kinds of Music now than we used to back in the day and you can tell that when you listen to our songs, you know. If you listen to our first record, our very first demo and all that stuff to now all of our songs have gotten more mellow....

Nate: More rock

Josh: More rock as supposed to Punk Rock.

Zach: Not mellow just not as fast

Josh: Yeah, not as fast.

Nate: How are your parents with the band, supportive?

Zach: Yeah all of our parents are really supportive

Josh: It isn't so much of a big deal now cuz we are all older and we can pretty much do what we want but back in the day they were pretty supportive. When we first started going on tour they were kinda skeptical

Jason: They still come out to our shows and watch us

Josh: It is pretty cool

Nate: Alright this is for you (pointing to Zach) what are your parents going to do when they find out your quitting college?

Zach: What are they going to do?

Nate: Yeah...

Josh: Wait, when is this interview going to be posted haha

Zach: I have no Idea that's what kind of worries me, it is scary I don't know how they will react. I know it is going to be bad, just how bad and what are they going to do and how they are going to feel. The thing is they put me through college with their money and they supported me all the way up as long school went first, so now i am just putting it in their face. It is kind of a selfish thing that is why I feel bad doing it but at the same time......

Josh: Hey man big 2-1

Zach: Its not a question big boy (everyone laughs) and at the same time I gotta do what I want to go at the same time. it sucks cuz I have to do it but I don't want to ignore what I want to do.

Nate: What were you guys going to school for?

Jason: I didn't have a major I just went for my AA

Josh: I got a degree in political science

Zach: I am an organizational communication pending major I guess

Jerry: I went for computer science, its just useless

Josh: Don't let any computer science's read this please

Nate: Alrighty how about your new Album moments to mourning (a little side note - dam nit right when I said it I knew I was wrong. The album is really called "Moments *from* mourning" sorry about that) how is it compared to your other albums and any really big hopes for it?

Josh: Yeah I hope it is going to sell 50,000 copies. But yeah we had a lot more time to record this then we did anything else.

Jerry: It sounds a lot better than our other records did

Zach: The songs were written over a very short period of time. We had a couple songs for this record for a long time about a year or two..year and a half maybe. But from January to march, April we just wrote all the songs

Josh: Which I think was definitely good. This record is more cohesive and the songs seem to lead somewhere as apposed to before (someone corrects josh) Cohesive, Coherent whatever. The songs seem to lead somewhere as apposed to our other records where we wrote the songs over a period of a year and a half. And it is like the first song is "Yepp we were doing this at this time and by the end of the record we were on to something completely different" So we don't have any real central theme

Nate: How were the producers and the guys who mastered it.

Josh: We produced it actually with a guy at the studio basically, he's real cool.

Jerry: Yeah we worked with one engineer his name is Jeremy Staska

Zach: He does a lot of the metal records from down south

Josh: He did the new "Posin the Well" record, he did the "New Found Glory" "Screen to the Stereo" EP. So yeah we worked with him on it and it was really cool. The last night we were in there we ended up spending all night, we didn't spend all night we were all sleeping and he was in there mixing stuff and getting it fixed up for us and everything. He is a cool guy he bought us food cuz we ran out of money, we didn't bring enough down with us we were like "We aren't going to be there many days so we don't need to bring anymore cash" It turned out alright.

Jerry: He is really laid back (Josh agrees)

Nate: Anything special in the future you are looking forward to or any special plans?

Zach: Keep touring

(They all start talking about that they don't have any special plans just wanting to make music a career - it was hard to tell who was saying what so listen to the recording to hear it all)

Jerry: It is what we like to do so why do anything else basically.

Nate: How did you guys get hooked up with Eulogy and are you guys pretty cool and happy with them?

(They point to Zach for the story)

Zach: Eulogy umm, I was actually at a party with this guy one time and he said to send some stuff to eulogy and I never thought of it before because they were a hardcore label and I was like "Couldn't hurt" and so we sent something to them and I think he said something to the guy, the head of Eulogy so it made his eye look for the CD that was coming. He got it and came out to our show. We talked to him and we pretty much signed a couple weeks later. And they re-released the "Fading Out" EP which had been out for almost a year already. So that was re-released and now this is our first full length record with them and everything so far has been great.

Josh: Yeah and they have been promoting it a lot which is cool cuz we never really had a label that promoted our records at all. So that's interesting cuz we're like yeah dude there is like an ad or a banner that we're all awestruck over it.

Nate: How about any band you want to tour with or maybe your perfect tour?

Josh: The Police and Rush, no (we laugh) umm, I don't know. We like to tour with anybody who pulls kids pretty much I mean we like a lot of bands but we want to get out there and play in front of kids mainly because that is the hardest part, ya know. And if we just picked bands we wanted to tour with we played with New Found Glory before and would love to tour with those guys and would love to tour with, I don't know. You guys got any?

Jerry: Jimmy Eat World

Josh: Yeah I'd love to tour with Jimmy Eat world

Zach: Further Seems forever

Nate: Ok, Further Seems Forever with or without Dashboard?

Josh: I think they are a good band and the records they put out "The moon is down" is a good record. So whether they have Chris carabbas singing it or not what difference does it make (laughs).

Nate: How are you guys in the local scene, do you guys help out the smaller bands?

Josh: We do, it depends like lots of time we get people who expect favors and it is like we don't even know you. But we help out a lot of people and we are having more trouble doing that now because we are hardly in Orlando anymore.

Zach: A lot of kids just resent us for the fact that we do pull kids. But we help bands out who are nice to us and if we can. A lot of time we get asked to play shows so we can't really, but if we book our own show which is very rare we'll put bands on it.

Jerry: We put this band called "5 Second Rule" and we like them a lot and they've been around going to our shows and they've only been around I'm sure less than a year I don't really know

Zach: They promote our shows without us ever asking and they do a lot of stuff for us

Josh: And it's like people who are nice to us we help out cuz we only get a chance to help out a certain amount of people especially in Orlando.

Zach: And Ryan from "Don't Look Down" has always helped us out

Josh: We give Ryan from "Don't Look Down" a thumbs up (gives two thumbs ups and everyone acknowledges how much Ryan has done helped out the band)

Nate: Yeah, he is a cool guy but he is the only one from Don't look down who actually says a word.

Josh: Oh really? The other guys are cool you got to get to know them though

Jerry: Matt is the quietest guy on earth

Josh: Yeah. He talks to me now

Nate: He wakes up and doesn't talk to anyone. Ryan was like "He won't talk to ya don't worry" (everyone laughs)

Josh: They're so funny man, they're so funny

Nate: Jesse is real funny

Mike: Jesse is more business like, he's more like "Do this, this, and this"

Josh: His dad is the governor of Pennsylvania right now or running for the governor of Pennsylvania. Yeah he was the head of the Democratic National Committee last year when the election was going on

Mike: I see where it comes from

Josh: Yeah Jesse is definitely on the business tip

Nate: Yeah Jesse said something and it was just funny

Josh: Yeah he is a funny guy

Nate: He said good one liners. How about the weirdest, best, or just the funniest story on the road or at a show?

Zach: We got strip searched at the Canadian border

Mike: The trailer story is pretty funny

Josh: Yeah, we definitely got strip searched going into Canada. We also were driving down the road coming back from Miami one time and in the middle of the night and in the middle of the swamps all of sudden there is this guy in a wheel chair in the middle of the road out in the middle of nowhere, and were you awake?

Jerry: Yeah I was awake

Josh: And we were driving and we were like "Dude was that a guy in a wheel chair?" (everyone laughs) and really it was weird.

Zach: We had to swerve to miss him

Josh: Yeah and also remember when we were driving back from Tampa coming back kind of on the same road but on the other side of the state we were going down the the road in the middle of nowhere and all of sudden we're diving by and this guy just turns around and moons us.

Zach: Yeah, I was driving. We also got in a reck and that was one of the worst stories

Josh: We were stopped in the road and this crazy woman wasn't looking
and we were stopped and she going 50 or 55 mph, hit us and totaled our van and broke a bunch of our equipment

Zach: And on the same tour we lost a trailer earlier

Jerry: We were driving down the road and the tire of our trailer fell off while we were going 70. I was driving and I looked back and all of a sudden the mirror got real bright and was like "what is going on?"
and as I turned my head to look back all of a sudden the tire rolls by the van going like 70 mph and was like "oh that is a serious malfunction" so we had to pull over

Jerry: We got our tired slashed in Idaho by the percolators

Zach: No real reason why they just slashed us and sloppy meat eaters tires.

Josh: Yeah ask the Sloppy Meat eaters about that when you see them. Those guys hold some major vengeance for the percolators as do we. Some of the best stories I am trying to think we name all bad stories we've had on tour. There are lots of good stories we run into kids like you guys all the time who put us up so basically we have had lots of good stuff happen on tour.

Nate: Any weirdoes that you have stayed the night at their house?

Zach: First tour we went on this dude, I don't know what was his name? He had this big....We were in Virginia right and he has this big Miami hurricanes parka on with no shirt underneath it, red hair

Josh: Are you taking about TJ?

Zach: Was his name TJ? Yeah

Josh: The guy who was living in the Hotel or Motel?

Zach: Yeah, he brings up to this place called the "Cavalier Motel" it is the seediest motel in Richmond, right and we go in and it just reeks of stale piss and beer and smoke. so then he takes us to this dude's house and he says "I don't know where it is hold on it is right here" And he doesn't know where he was going and he use these turn...I don't know I guess you had to be there. It was just a major uncomfortable situation.

Josh: And we asked him what kind of band we were playing with and just out of nowhere he was like yeah " Two piece hard" and were like "what?" and everybody used that term. It was two guys a drummer and a guitarist and they played music like "Korn". And was like yeah dude "Two piece hard"

Zach: There have been others but not at the extent....

Jerry: The lady that collected everybody's I.D.'s.

Josh: Yeah a lady that collected all our I.D.'s cuz she thought we were going to steal stuff from her house and then she turned the alarm on and locked us in the guesthouse at her house and weren't aloud to leave till the next morning, so she could make sure we didn't steal anything.

Nate: People are weird,

Josh: Yeah definitely

Nate: Who parties the most?

Josh: (starts to laugh) Who parties the most, (someone says his name) Me?! and Jerry.

Zach: Jerry just likes to sleep after he has had a couple of beers. I don't think any of us like to party in the social sense

Josh: Yeah we like to hang out

Zach: We like to keep to ourselves a lot and people think we are kind of, they will say we are Jerks and we just like to keep to ourselves.

Josh: We don't know how to talk to people, I think that is our problem

Zach: I'm not the best social person I just kind of keep to myself and don't have the best stuff to say, not mean in sense but I'll just say stupid things

Mike: Yeah Nate does a lot that's ok.

Josh: We're like "ya if we open up this mouth we know it is going to be dumb so lets just keep it closed" We're sitting over in the corner at we're all at the merch table (whispers)"Hey dude should we go over to those people? No dude we will say something dumb?" (laughing) Not really like that.

Nate: How about any bands that people should check out?

Josh: "Don't Look down" if you haven't heard of them, "Punch Line" "My hotel Year" definitely "My Hotel Year" those guys are good

Nate: Almost say them last night

Josh: "Sloppy meat eaters" Yeah I am sure a lot of people have heard of them.

Jerry: Blue Lite Special

Josh: Oh Yeah!

Mike: Ewww

Nate: Oh I have heard of them

Josh: "Larger Than Life" those guys are good

Nate: They are coming with sloppy too.

Josh: Yeah they are good too

Jerry: Bottom Line

Mike: Bottom Line, wasn't that suppose to be last night?

Jerry: Knockout

Josh: Yeah, Knockout

Nate: They're coming in August, we are going to Play with them in August.

(Mike Laughs, side note: kind of weird all of these bands they are naming off we are playing with or was supposed to)

Josh: I am trying to think, who else do we know from Florida? Asia Feel it

Zach: Standstill

Josh: Spit valve

Jerry: Worse now I heard

Mike: Are they a ska band?

Josh: Yeah, they are good they are really good.

Zach and Jason: One Minute Revolution

Nate: What was that?

Zach: One Minute Revolution

Josh: We could go on forever naming bands that we really like

Nate: How about Blink 182, everyone should check them out

Josh: If you haven't heard of them check out the police

Jason: Check out Aero smith

Josh: Check out "Pink" "Misunderstood" great Album (someone says Patsy Clein) Pasty Clein.

Nate: Dolly Parton, Farrell likes Dolly Parton - How about your influences?

Zach: We have to go one by one on this one

Josh: Yeah because we all hate the music each other listen to, not hate it but you know

Zach: Some universals I guess for the most part are "Rush", "Pantera", "The Police". We all don't like those at the same degree as each other but all kind of appreciate what they do. "Further seems Forever" is always a sure thing in the van, "Jimmy Eat World",

Josh: "Pearl Jam" "Pearl Jam Vs." we like to listen to that

Nate: Good album

Josh: Great album, umm what else can we pop in?

Jerry: Foo Fighters

Josh: We can pop in Junction 18

Nate: I like them

Josh: Yeah those guys are good. If you want to go one by one I like progressive math rock so I like "Dream Theater" and I like "Refused"

Burnsie: I love Dream Theater

Zach: I like a lot of mellower stuff like "Page of the Lion" and "Elliot Smith" and I also like "Poison the Well" so it is kind of like the dichotomy of old to hardcore.

Jason: Poison the well if definitely my favorite band right now. I love to listen to Stuart Cocoa play the drums. He is the drummer of "The Police" and "Pantera" is always great.

Jerry: I have been listening to a lot of "Piebald"

Josh: Ahh, "Piebald"

Jerry: "Something Corporate" lately

Josh: We all love "Piebald", I forgot about them

Zach: Yeahh that is definitely universal Music.

Josh: "We're the only friends we have" is a great record by "Piebald"

Nate: How about any advice for younger bands starting out who are looking for some help?

Josh: You are going to want to do it for the music first

Zach: It is really hard

Josh: Yeah it is definitely hard and you'll know if you really want to play music just by going out and playing shows

Zach: Especially if there is not a place to play, in Orlando there is this place called "DIY" and it is fairly easy to get into so we got kind of lucky in that sense and we got some good shows out there with "The Ataris" and "Elliot" so a lot of kids were exposed to us, not a lot but a good more than the usual. And after that we just started hanging out there a lot more and it is easier to get your name out. Me and Josh, all of us stayed at my apartment or our apartment at night time and we would go to UCF on bikes and skateboards and hang up flyers and everything like that. Its hard and you got to play as much as you can and the internet is definitely a great thing to use now a days.

Josh: Talk to everybody you can and whenever you play with someone bigger than you give out free stuff

Zach: Buy shirts and sell them for cheaper and don't make any money on them

Josh: Yeah you definitely have to give before you can get

Nate: How about girls, are you guys......

Josh: We, I have a girlfriend and Jerry has a girl friend and Jason has a girlfriend. Zach is Mr. Single - any ladies out there.

Mike: That is the way to be

Josh: We have player #1

Nate: (talking to Josh) Is she an influence to your music?

Josh: Yeah, I mean it always is relationships are always an influence because its....

Zach: Anytime you get a girlfriend you whole outlook on the way your life changes

Josh: Yeah definitely changes as apposed to how it is

Zach: And then when you break up with her or she cheats on you, your whole outlook on life changes. It is a whole suspicious cycle that keeps on going and going but it is always there for influences

Jerry: That only happens to Zach

Josh: That is why you usually hear every band you listen to one album is all happy and the next album is all pissed off and the next album is all happy again and you know it's just like a big stock market sort of, you know that was not a good analogy

Mike: Up and down hey that's.....(Josh Laughs)

Josh: This is why I don't talk to people and I say things like that and they're like "What?"

Jerry: Bowling Bear Market

Josh: "Bowling Bear Life Style" that's what we should call our next record, not really

Nate: How about your manager?

Josh: Don?

Zach: We don't really have a Manager

Josh: Yeah, Don helps us out he's not really like our Manager but he definitely helps us out in getting shows. We are trying to get a manager, a manager/management team now we're just trying to work on it and same way as getting a booking agent we have some leads but we really don't have one yet. It would just make stuff easier for us and for Jerry especially (Jerry nods his head signaling "Hell yes")

Zach: We have people helping us out like Don that make things easier

Josh: Jake the guy who runs the street team helps us out so we definitely have people helping us out. We're all very thankful for them though cuz they all do it for free right now cuz we don't have any money to pay them

Nate: Where do you guys work at?

Jerry: I don't have a job

Zach: Either do I

Josh: (pointing back and forth between him and Jason) We both work at a grocery store same grocery store but different number

Nate: You guys ever play Hockey at the grocery store?

Jason: We probably would though

Josh: Definitely have broken a lot of things

Burnsie: We got fired last week (side note: Funny story so IM "SocialUnrest2" and ask him how he got fired for playing hockey in the break room)

Mike: Yeah they had a little game going in the back

Josh: I got into work at 5 and cut fruit all the time, that's my job. What can ya do man? It pays.

Nate: Cool, anything else that you want to say to people..I guess?

Jerry: Check out our new record "Moments from mourning" and check out unsungzeros.com

Josh: If you want to buy it at a store and they tell you they can't get it they can it's distro'ed by Lumber Jack. So tell them to order it or your going to fight them - Thank you


Mike: Alright thank you

Nate: Thank you very much (a big cough) We will just let the time run out

(Background noises and Josh says something about how somebody is good)

Nate: This concludes the Unsung Zero's Interview - Thank you