MindEqualsBlown Interviews The Wonder Years
posted in: Music News
Hopeless Records’ act The Wonder Years are currently gearing up to release their new album, The Greatest Generation, this May. Recently, the Philadelphia based pop punk group took some time from their busy schedule while in Grand Rapids, MI to discuss their upcoming release with MindEqualsBlown. You can read a portion of the interview below and, if you feel like reading more, click here for the full feature. If you’d like to support The Wonder Years, click here to preorder The Greatest Generation.
MEB: Right now you’re currently on tour with Fireworks, Hostage Calm and Misser. How’s the tour going so far?
Soupy: Fantastic. We are at show number six. Four of six have sold out well in advance, while the other two have gotten close. I think Albany was pretty close and Minneapolis, I don’t want to say it was close to selling out because it was a huge, huge room, but it was a really great, really full crowd.
You also just got back from Soundwave in Australia. What were some of the highlights of that?
Personal highlights or professional highlights? Eh, personal highlights it is! One: I held a koala bear! Thatwas cool. We were walking around Lone Pine Animal Sanctuary in Brisbane, where you can pet kangaroos, hold koala bears and see all this shit. B-Real from Cypress Hill was hanging out, I have to assume high because, I mean, he’s in Cypress Hill. That’s their whole thing, right?
[Laughs]
Not to unfairly judge the members of Cypress Hill, but I kind of think that’s kind of like the vibe they want to go for, regardless of just looking at like a giant fucking colorful bird, just staring at it. That alone time was kind of cool. I went to see Chris Jericho of the World Wrestling Entertaiment company, who also sings in a metal band called Fozzy. Well¦let me back it up. Soundwave is over the course of two weeks, and there’s only five shows, so you’re there a lot of the time when you’re there and you’re not playing festivals, and they do these things called Sidewaves. They basically say, Hey, every band on the Soundwave festival is in Sydney today, so instead of doing a festival, we’re going to have them all break down into three band bills and have them play small clubs around the city. One of the Sidewaves was Scott Ian from Anthraxand Chris Jericho doing spoken word, and they literally just sit there and tell stories for an hour each. And I’m a huge, huge wrestling mark, so I went to that. Everyone else went to do other cool stuff and I walked there for 25 minutes by myself through Sydney, and it was fucking killer, man. That was a huge highlight for me, Jericho’s spoken word. I met Jericho, which was also incredible; I got a picture with him, so that was really cool for me. I also got to stay on side stage and watch Blink [182] play.
Oh yeah, that’s awesome!
And that was phenomenal. I got to meet Mark Hoppus. I was so nervous that I forgot to tell him that I was in a band. I was just like, Hey, great set, man! and he said, Oh, thank you!. I was like, it was really cool you got to let me stay on side stage and he was like Oh, dude, no problem! And then I said, Okay, cool, see ya! And then I just said, FUCK! I knew I needed to do something, fuck! But that was still cool. Us,Polar Bear Club and Sharks took a train to the middle of Perth, which is, to those who are unfamiliar, Perth is the most secluded major city in the world; it’s in Western Australia. And we took a train from there to Cottesloe, which is a beach town suburb of Perth, and we were swimming in the Indian Ocean, and that was cool¦.[but] my mouth really itches. I must’ve been allergic to something. [Pauses] Ahh, that feels so good. You ever do that? Scratch the roof of your mouth with your tongue?
Oh yeah, haha.
That was cool, but me and the guys from Sharks were walking back and just, by himself, alone in this beach town on this bench with a hat on looking real sad on this beach with an ice cream cone, just sitting there¦James Hetfield from Metallica. Just him¦by himself¦eating ice cream. We were like, Does he need a friend? Does he want to hang out with us? But we just kept on walking, because he probably just didn’t want to talk to me.
I don’t know. It’s just, like, by his music, you think he’d be so angry and would want to be alone?
Yeah, I didn’t just want to be like, Yo, Hetfield! Let me eat ice cream with you! He’d probably say, Did you really just yell that? Fuck you! Now everyone’s going to come over here. So we just kept on walking.
Yeah, that was probably a good idea.
It was a sight to see though. So, those are some highlights. There were a ton of highlights though. It was probably the most fun thing we’ve ever done.
Yeah, for sure. Now, it’s common knowledge that you guys do tour a lot. I think it was at the Pyramid Scheme last year that you said you’d be on the road for 235 days alone in 2013. And I was just going to ask, what are some of the personal necessities that you like to bring when going on tour?
You know what, they get smaller and smaller every tour. Because usually, we’ll just say Fuck it, it’s already in the bag; I’ll just take that, but I’m trying to think of what I personally bring. There’s obvious things, like my laptop and phone charger. I have to have a couple pairs of shoes because I can only play in Nikes, or else my legs will get really bad shin splints. I’ve found that they’re the only things that absorb the shock of me stomping around like an asshole for an hour every night. And even then, they’re starting to wear thin; I’m going to have to get a new pair soon. I also used to bring this cool little squirrel toy that I used to keep in my pocket, so when I’d get anxious, I’d just twirl with it in my pocket, but I lost it. And that was a big blow for me on a personal and emotional level. During football season last year I brought my Arian Foster jersey, and then this year my dad bought me a Jerome Brown jersey, who was my favorite football player when I was a kid. He played for the Eagles and then in 1991, they had the most dominant defense in years. It was Jerome Brown and Reggie White, who were just this unstoppable pass-rush combination. Reggie White was the long-standing hero, but when I was a kid I fucking loved Jerome Brown. And then he died in the summer of ’92, he didn’t play that season, and that was heartbreaking for the entire city of Philadelphia. But now I have this cool Jerome Brown jersey that I’m going to wear during football season.