Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Every Time I Die

Whether it’s Cadbury Eggs, fights with security guards or dreaming about shooting mutated animals in Russia, life is always interesting in the world of Every Time I Die. Since the release of their latest album, The Big Dirty, last September, the band has performed live on national television, toured with Killswitch Engage and headlined the latest edition of the Take Action Tour, also featuring From First to Last, The Bled, August Burns Red and The Human Abstract. Now their sights are set on a spring headlining run across Europe and, looking ahead to the summer, their second stint on the Warped Tour. When the Take Action Tour stopped at Baltimore’s Rams Head Live, guitarist Jordan Buckley sat down with Live-Metal.net’s Greg Maki to discuss all things ETID. He wants you to know he was high on PCP.¹

Live-Metal.net: How did you get hooked up with this Take Action Tour? Did they just ask you to do it?

Jordan Buckley: It was a simple phone call. Yeah. They called us up. We hadn’t headlined in about three or four years. It was perfect timing, good cause, good bands. All that boring stuff. So we said, “Of course.”

It’s great. We’ve got one week left. This is the fastest six weeks of my life, pretty much. I cannot believe it’s almost over. The shows have been incredible, though. I’m really humbled by just the amount of kids that come and the amount of fun that everyone seems to be having.

Yeah. We get about five days off, celebrate [drummer] Mike [Novak]’s birthday over there, and then we go to Europe and we headline over there. That should be a lot of fun, too, because I think the first time we’ve ever said no to a tour was in December when we were supposed to go to Europe and we had the month off and we hadn’t been to Europe in a while and we really wanted to go. Then we were just like, “You know what? Let’s just stay home.” And for absolutely no reason at all. So in the back of our minds we’re like, alright, we’ve gotta get back there because we should’ve been there by now. We haven’t been there in a couple years, so we’re excited to make up the two or so years that England and Europe has been ETID-less.

So do you have a pretty good following over there?

Last time we were there it was great, so I’m expecting it to be just as good. We get a couple Interweb electronic mails every once in a while from Europe saying, “Come over here.” So hopefully everyone who sends those electronic mails will show up and make it worth our while.

Is there a big difference in the fans and how they react at shows over there?

Germany, they’re a little weird, but Germans are weird. It’s a weird language. I took it for two and a half years. But the U.K. is very similar to America, except they don’t have ice and … let’s see … That’s about all I can remember. I just remember them not having ice. But, yeah, the shows are great. The shows are wild. We went over there with My Chemical Romance. I probably shouldn’t be saying that on Metal.net, but we went over there with them and it was just bonkers. And then we did a little headlining thing a couple months later and yeah, I can’t believe that was already like two years ago.

Yeah. Sept. 4, 2006. Pick up The Big Dirty. Wait, 2007? 2007.²

Well, I like to say that it’s like a best-of with all new songs. You know what I mean? We kind of took everything that we’ve done and just made it better. It’s been 10 years since we’ve been making music, so we kind of know what we’re good at. So we just kind of expanded on that. Nobody likes when a band changes, but at the same time nobody likes it when a band puts out the same CD twice. We’ve already written about 50 songs in our lifetime, so might as well take what’s the best—you know, more of what we did best, less of what we did bad. All that cliché. The faster songs are faster and the heavy songs are heavier! No. It’s just really good. I’m really proud of it.

Is it hard to find that balance between doing something a little new but not too new?

It was really, really natural to write. It was really natural. It didn’t seem forced at all. We’d sit down, we’d be like, “Let’s write a faster song” or “Let’s write a heavier song.” Then before you know it, it’s just like we didn’t even have to say it. We were just kind of all in the same vibe when a riff would get brought up. So it was cool. Very, very natural.

Yeah, that was wild. That was a lot of fun. It was terrifying, but it was really, really fun and it went well. It was the kind of thing where when it was done I wished I could’ve went back and did it again and not been so nervous about it. But I can’t wait to do it again, hopefully, and do other shows. It’s definitely a new area of being in a band, playing on television. That’s something we hadn’t tackled yet. So now that we got that on our checklist, hopefully we can do more of it.

Geez … Um … Well, this tour I got to check off punching a 300-pound security guard.

No, it’s a really crappy story. Yeah and it was a really bad idea. As soon as I did it, I was like, “Oh my god.” Security was just manhandling kids and manhandled me and manhandled my guitar. But I don’t know. We’re coming up on a 10-year anniversary, so we’re gonna do something. Lamb of God went skydiving when they had their 10-year band anniversary. So I don’t know. [Guitarist] Andy [Williams]’s always got crazy ideas. He was talking about going to Russia ‘cause there’s some farm there where they put you in hazmat suits and they let you walk around the farm with guns and kill mutated animals. So Andy wants to go to Russia and do that. [laughs] But that’s like one of the 100 ideas that Andy has a day. Probably won’t happen, but we’ll do something. Maybe some old-fashioned whitewater rafting [laughs] or a canoe trip that goes horribly yet humorously wrong.

Well, right now I’m drawing a metal-ass skull eating worms. [shows his drawing] I actually dropped out of college. I used to draw and I went to college for illustration, and I couldn’t do the drawing and band thing at the same time because we were just getting offered a lot of tours. So I had to drop out and ever since I did I kind of felt bad that I gave up on it. So I’m just trying to go back to that now ‘cause when you’re on a bus tour, there’s a lot of free time and there’s a lot of bad ways to fill that free time, and I’m trying to be as productive as possible. I just walked to a gym where I hopped on a treadmill and then they turned off all the lights and told me it was closed and I had to leave. So yeah, 2008’s my year. I’m trying to fuckin’ grow up and be a productive human being. I’m trying to go to gyms and fuckin’ get back into drawing and writing music. Then occasionally you’ll have an adult beverage or two. That’s my concern. I’m just trying to cut down on that and trying to increase all the other things that don’t make your band force you to go to bed ‘cause you’re annoying them in the front lounge.

Yeah, well this, I think we’re gonna try to turn it into a skateboard deck. I’m gonna toss fuckin’—hold on, dude, I’ll show you—toss some fuckin’ wings on it and just fuckin’ make it into an old-school skateboard deck. Me and this guy, our tour manager, we go to the gym. I like to draw. Like I said, I just like to do some video gaming. Then after we play, that’s when I get into the heavy duty drugs, the E and the X. [laughs] I’ve never done E. It’s probably awesome. It’s called ecstasy, so how could it not be awesome? I’m way too paranoid. If I took acid or shrooms, I’d be the guy that’s clawing his skin off because there’s bugs all over him. I’m way too paranoid for fuckin’ headtrips. So sorry. Well, you could lie. It is for Metal.net, so I guess you could just lie and tell ‘em I’m fucked up right now. Tell ‘em I’m on PCP right now.

Actually, we had a straight edge sound guy and he turned into such a drinker that I feel like the ratio of drinking has gone up so drastically that I can just chill out. Now I can just sit back and watch him do his thing. He’s pretty funny-slash-annoying. And the guys that don’t drink, they just hide Cadbury Eggs on each other around the bus and it’s pretty entertaining, too. [laughs] I don’t know. Now that I think about it, there’s a lot of funny stuff that comes out on our bus. The Cadbury Egg thing is pretty funny. One time I was eating with him [Biggie, the band’s tour manager] and he opened up this little box and there was a Cadbury Egg, ‘cause they just try to hide them on each other. It sounds so gay, but it’s hilarious when you’re with someone and they’re just like, “Oh, great, a Cadbury Egg in my shoe.”

Biggie: Three miles away from the venue at the gym and I go to put my shoe on, a Cadbury Egg falls out of my shoe.

Jordan: Four or five years ago, on Easter we had a show and we just hid those stupid plastic Easter eggs around the venue, and we told the kids, “Look for these.” But they were filled with like mayonnaise and pubes. So we’re gonna try to do that again.

You have a show, but do you have any other plans for St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow?

Oh, I thought today is.

Oh, is it? No, no plans. Our last day of tour is on Easter. And Mike Novak turns the big 2-6 the day after that. That’s what sucks. I hate being on tour for holidays, but being one day away from home. It would’ve been nice, but oh well.

I’m a Call of Duty 4 for PS3 man, myself. I was heavily addicted to that before I left. But I can’t really play online now. I could try ‘cause we kind of have some Internet on the bus, but I just have to get back to playing the normal game. I got a lot of friends in California that play it, too, so I’d be in Buffalo and I’d get a text. It’d be like, “Call of Duty in 10 minutes.” I’d be there for like six hours playing against them. It’s crazy. Fuckin’ technology these days! I can play against people across the fuckin’ country in a video game. Our sound guy and our singer, they play this game called Army of Two that just came out ‘cause it’s like a duel, best friend killing game. So they’re addicted to that. [bassist] Josh [ Newton ] plays Saints Row, unfortunately. Every time I walked by it, it’s like, “Oh god.” It’s the worst Grand Theft Auto rip-off ever. And then our merch guy, he claims to be the greatest ever at NHL 08, so they play that a lot. I’ll do Madden, too, when it’s football season.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were way into Guitar Hero and are way into Guitar Hero, but for some reason everyone just kind of thought everyone else was bringing out the guitar. Like, “Oh, did you bring it?” “No, I thought you were bringing it.” And our bus driver won’t let us have Rock Band because it’s just so fucking annoying to hear the drums being played all the time. So no Guitar Hero this tour, which I’m surprised at because 3 is fuckin’ awesome and I have it and I play it all the time when I’m home.

Absolutely. Oh my god. Yeah, for sure. I don’t really know for us specifically, but there’s been tests, especially 3, like sales of songs on iTunes that are on Guitar Hero 3 went up like five million percent since the game came out and stuff. It’s crazy. I hope they ask us to be on the next one. I mean, there’s bands that have been on two or three times already, so I don’t see why we can’t be again. Plus, there’s a lot of bad bands on 3, so it’s not like you have to be good … or popular.

You’re doing the Warped Tour again this summer. Did you have a good time the first time?

Yeah, that was my favorite tour, I think, we’ve ever done just ‘cause of the reception and the kids. I was a paying Warped Tour customer for like the first six years of Warped Tour, so the fact that I get to go for free every day is pretty awesome. I have a love for pop-punk that people know about, so I’m not as ashamed. So yeah, there’s a lot of really good bands that I really want to watch every day. I’m really excited to see The Bronx. We toured with them fuckin’ ages ago and we’ve been good friends with them since, but we’ve never toured with them since. So I’m excited about that. Against Me is fuckin’ one of my favorite bands right now, so I’ll be watching them every day. There’s a band, Four Year Strong, that I really like right now and they’re doing half of it, so I’m excited about that. And then we get to play it, too, which is fuckin’ awesome because I’m pretty convinced we’ve done every single fuckin’ kind of tour there is. So the fact that there is one that is the best and that we get to do it again is totally fine.

You’ve also done the other big festival tours, like Sounds of the Underground and Ozzfest.

Yeah, we did Sounds twice, we did Ozzfest once. I think both of those are taking a back seat to that Mayhem tour this year, which is cool. And then hopefully—I don’t know what to confirm or deny, but we also have never done Taste of Chaos, so we’re in the works of trying to solve that problem. Kevin Lyman is great, so anything that he does I’ll be into.

No, man. Just like I said, there’s only a week left of shows, but keep coming. It’s been a fun tour.