INTERVIEW: Atlantic Avenue

posted in: Exclusive InterviewsFeaturesMusic NewsPopRock

Capping off a year that found them performing daily on Van’s Warped Tour, releasing their label debut, and traveling cross-country more than anyone could image, Atlantic Avenue recently took a break from road life to discuss their progress with OurStage. If you’re looking for a great pop rock show to help cure those Winter blue, click here and find out when they’ll be coming to a town near you!

Hey guys, thank you for taking the time to talk to me. What are you up to today?
Hey man, we’ve actually just gotten back a few days ago from a week long North East Run with Love Robot and now we’re just catching up on rest.

Let’s backtrack for a second. You spent your Summer traveling on the OurStage.com stage as part of Van’s Warped Tour. How was your experience on the world’s largest traveling festival?
This was actually our second summer on the Warped Tour, we did 17 dates total last year and this year we did the whole month of July.  Warped Tour is one of the most surreal experiences I think any of us have experienced as a band.  It was the best and worst tour all at the same time.  The days are long and hot and the drives are never ending from state to state but every day was just awesome.  You never knew what to expect every single day and its just really crazy to be on the same tour as some of the bands that we grew up listening to that inspired us.  When I was younger going to warped tour was a highlight of my summer and I never imagined I’d be spending a month on it performing.  But even though there were days where you were just too tired and hot to do anything as soon as we got home I would’ve done anything to be back on it for another month.
As a pop rock band on the rise, do you view major festivals and events like Warped as a golden opportunity, or do you find it hard to get your name out there at such events?
I think Warped tour is a great opportunity for up and coming bands to be a part of.  It is rather difficult though to get your name out there because everyday was practically an audition to the people who have never heard you.  There are so many bands on that tour who are striving for the same goals as you are and some serious competition, but I think that one of the coolest parts of it was that there are so many kids just interested in finding there “new favorite band” and warped tour is there opportunity to sample music from bands they’ve never heard of.

Before you were a signed band, you actually won a contest through OurStage. Could you tell me a bit more about the competition and your prize?
Its funny how it all came about actually.  We just had started Atlantic Avenue and recorded 2 demo songs as a 3 piece and really weren’t even a band yet at the time and we submitted the songs to an ourstage.com contest to win a chance to play at the mtv vma tour as part of the  “breakout artist of Philadelphia” contest.  We got a call saying us and 2 other groups had been chosen and we were gonna play at six flags great adventure in New Jersey opening for All Time Low and Justin Beiber.  We were freaking out because we had never played a show as a band before and had to scramble to put a band together.  Looking back on the videos of the performance its no wonder we didn’t win but it was one of the craziest moments I’ve ever had playing in a band and it gave our band an instant push which without the contest I don’t think we would have recieved as much attention and credit as we did and might not be where we are today.

You are currently touring parts of the US throughout Winter. How long is the tour and what parts of the country will have a chance to see you this time around?
This tour was a short one for us because we’ve been busy with other things back home but we did a 5 day run through the North East from Jersey-Boston .

I know you released a new album this year, but do you think there is any chance you’ll hit the studio again in the new year?
We actually are in the process of working on some new material along with a few acoustic remixes to a few songs off of our album, We plan to release a few new songs in the early parts of 2013 along with a new music video.

Speaking of 2013, what do you hope to accomplish in the coming months that you have not been able to achieve up to this point in your careers?
I think in the next couple months we would like to continue to do some more touring and promoting of the album since its still new and hasn’t been pushed very hard beyond our live shows and I think realistically we just want to keep writing and playing and giving people new music to look forward to.
Thank you again for taking a moment to speak with us. Before I let you go though, would you please offer some advice to others hoping to make their mark in music?
I think the best advice to offer any band is to just keep writing and writing, all it takes is one song to get peoples attention and take off, and lastly just keep having fun with it.  If music is something you want to make a career out of then treat it like that and take it seriously but if you’re not having fun with it thats when it’s no longer worth doing.  Afterall isn’t that why everyone picks up an instrument in the first place? to have fun?
cheers!

Written & conducted by: James Shotwell