It’s Summer! Time for Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and The Warped Tour! Everlasting memories of the Punk Rock Summer Camp are once again in full swing with a lineup as diverse and cutting edge as any in the tour’s last 14 years. Bands who stepped up to the plate this year and crushed it out of the park include Story Of The Year, who hit the stage with enough ferocious energy that if tapped into could power the rest of the tour sans generators .Gym Class Heroes proved they belonged on the Main Stage as they had the crowd cheering and singing from the first notes, while As I Lay Dying melted more faces than the mid days sun with their scorching set. Ventura’s Seaside Park was a perfect setting to kick off the Summer Concert season, with the hot sun being complimented by the cool ocean breeze.

 

 Since the tour started in 1995, fans have flocked to the Warped Tour in droves, looking forward to a bargain priced day of entertainment from today’s most influential and entertaining bands. “Bring your Mom and dad and go down to the Warped Tour and run around. You can bring a whole family of four for the price of one Hannah Montana ticket”, tour founder Kevin Lyman told us mid day.

 

 It’s a given that each Summer’s Warped Tour includes not only the established groups who so expertly rock the Main Stages, but also the acts that are set to explode onto the scene in a big way. This year’s must see was Katy Perry, the darling from the 805 who’s performance was as sexy as it was fun and tongue in cheek. Her songs “I Kissed A Girl” and “Ur So Gay” whipped the crowd into a frenzy while displaying her superstar charisma. Other bands the Warped Tour is set to launch into the next level this year are Alesana, The Devil Wears Prada and Mayday Parade, all of which gave outstanding performances. This year’s curiosity was Jeffree Star, the self proclaimed “Queen of Warped Tour” and internet celebrity. Other notables included Norma Jean, The Devil Wears Prada and The Dollyrots.

 

The Vans Warped Tour is well established as America’s longest-running touring festival, breaking up-and-coming indie talent as well as showcasing established artists for the past 14 years.  It has cemented its place in history by playing a major role in bringing punk-rock/skate/action sports culture from the underground to the forefront of American youth culture, while at the same time creating awareness and taking action towards environmental causes and helping those in need.

 

VANS WARPED TOUR kicked off June 20 in Pomona, CA and wraps August 17 in Los Angeles, CA.  For current tour dates and a listing of bands confirmed for the 46-date tour that Alternative Press readers voted the “Best Tour/Festival” of 2006 and Rolling Stone called “America’s most successful festival” (2005) go to: www.warpedtour.com. 

 

Please Visit: www.WarpedTour.com 

 

Very Special Thanks: Libby Henry, Kristine Ashton-Magnuson,

Bethany Watson & Kevin Lyman

 

Tim Lambesis of As I Lay Dying

 

CentralCoastRocks.com: We’re in Ventura, third day in, how does it feel to be on Warped Tour?

Tim Lambesis: It’s great, I think by now we’re hopefully in the groove. The first couple days are always a little bit of a mess, trying to get everything working right.

 

CCRocks: Did you attend Warped Tour growing up and did you aspire to play the festival one day?

Tim: I was always a fan of all the bands on the tour growing up. When I was old enough I never had the money, when I was young my parents would never let me go, so here I am now playing it.

 

CCRocks: Tell us about your current CD “An Ocean Between Us”

Tim: It came out just after last year’s Warped Tour. I think it circulated enough that we get enough fans coming to our shows here on Warped Tour that know the songs, but we’re reaching a lot of new fans as well. It’s a pretty diverse album, doing a half hour time slot its hard to pick three songs from the new album that best represent it but I think it’s pretty diverse. It has some faster thrashier and darker sounds but then some melodic sounds also, it’s a good balance.

 

CCRocks: When can we expect some new music?

Tim: I think after we get home from the summer we’re gonna start writing. Typically in the past we write pretty quickly, it takes us 2-3 months to write a record, I think we’re gonna try and take a little more time this time around and be even more diverse with the next CD.

 

CCRocks: Describe your live show

Tim: Very energetic. We’re very passionate about what we do. We get up stage and let it all out, go crazy and hopefully the crowd goes crazy too.

 

CCRocks: Of all the shows you have played over the years, what one or two stand out for you personally?

Tim: Yeah, we played a festival in Germany last year called “With Full Force”, that was probably one of my favorite shows that we played. A lot of the times you play festivals and they have the big crowds but they don’t have the intimacy of a smaller club, so every once in a while you get that intimate crowd reaction at a big festival and that’s a great combination, so that would be one that stands out. But then there’s some small club shows we’ve played too. We played in Knoxville, Tennessee this last year, I forget the name of the club but it was probably one of my favorite shows we’ve played and that was just like 1200 crammed in a room sweating together.

 

CCRocks: You guys have a lot of fans, describe your relationship with them

Tim: We try to remain as down to earth as possible. As bands get bigger I think a lot of times they get overwhelmed and try to keep to themselves. On Warped Tour this year we’re doing a Signing or Meet n Greet every time after we play, it’s a chance for anybody that has a story or connection that the band has made in their lives or helped them through a difficult time or whatever it may be, a chance for them to get to meet us and tell us, and that really keeps us going, keeps us encouraged knowing that we’re doing more than just rocking out.

 

CCRocks: Craziest thing you’ve been asked to Autograph?

Tim: We once signed a baby (laughs), on the bottom, there was one of those baby onesies on, we weren’t signing the actual baby

 

CCRocks: Any advice for young bands?

Tim: If your just a tiny bit better than the local bands and the local scene, then maybe you’ll have to do local shows but if things are obviously better, then that’s when bands start to move out of their hometown and develop a national and worldwide following. Because so many bands are doing the same thing, it’s that whole element of being obvious about what you’re doing. Don’t be similar to a band, add a little bit of your own twist, something totally exciting.

 

CCRocks: Final words for your fans?

Tim: We appreciate everybody supporting us, we have some very, very diehard fans and I think that we know how diehard our fans are is really obvious to us when we play before 2:00 in the afternoon and we have a huge crowd out there, that’s when we know we have die hard fans.

 

Please Visit: www.AsILayDying.com   www.MySpace.com/AsILayDying 

 

Interview with Kevin Lyman founder of Warped Tour

 

CentralCoastRocks.com: Here we are starting the third day of the 14^th year of Warped Tour. What are your emotions before each tour?

Kevin Lyman: Well you know, did I put a show together that’s going to connect with the audience. The Warped Tour seems to ebb and flow each year. I book it really early, so I book a lot of bands in September and October and kind of banking that you’re going to have some breakout bands on Warped Tour, it’s always been know as a breakout tour. And you used to have to be in sync with the Record Labels and people but the whole Music business isn’t in coordination anymore, people are being laid off, bands are being dropped. Putting the package together this year, all of a sudden the first day you realize kids this year are excited about We The Kings, The Devil Wears Prada, Pierce The Vail. Katy Perry, the last three weeks America’s realized who she is. It’s going to be exciting seeing 3Oh3, Oreskaband, a Japanese Ska band. Apprehension is the weather, I start looking at the floods in the Midwest and other weather patterns starting to change. We’ve had some pretty hard storms the last few years, those tents can get twisted up in a matter of minutes. We had a crazy storm in Cleveland last year, five and a half inches of rain in 90 minutes. 45 minutes later we were up and running. Keep the show going as long as you possibly can without endangering anyone. Know when to stop the show, know where to put people. The kids were really comfortable because we said keep your ticket stubs and they could come to any other show. You have to make very quick decisions and you gotta go on your gut.

 

CCRocks: Warped Tour was an early adapter of Bio-Fuels, and this summer proves to be critical for bands and fans alike just getting to the tour. What are some of the ways everyone is adapting?

Kevin Lyman: We’re going back to the early touring where people are sharing crew, sharing busses, you see two bands on a bus again, you see more of that going on. How are you going to survive? If you have an empty bunk spot, it’s not for your free shoes that you got from Vans, its how do I put another person in there. There’s more people going back to the van.

 

CCRocks: What are some of the ways the tour is going Green?

Kevin Lyman: It’s hard, because I wish we could do more. We’re scratching the surface. The new Solar Stage, the Kevin Says Stage, that things running amazing. People are blown away at how good it sounds, we haven’t lost any voltage in the batteries. If I could I would have two or three solar stages out here next year.

 

CCRocks: We’ve been coming to Warped Tour for a while now and some of the things I notice are the camaraderie not only between the bands but the fans, I’ve never seen a fight at Warped Tour.

Kevin Lyman: You know very small, very few to the proportion of people. This is just so hard to understand till you come here and I don’t think people come here to fight. There’s no pretense. Trouble used to start in clubs under the cover of darkness. Ninety percent of the problems are started by five percent of the people. Warped Tour mixes people, no ones leaning on you all day.

 

CCtRocks: With three major tours a year, Taste Of Chaos, Rockstar Mayhem and Warped, is there any other projects you have yet to see come to light?

Kevin Lyman: I’ve been turning them down. A lot of people have been coming by with ideas today, I’m really saying no right now. I want to focus on what we’re doing and what we’ve done. I’ve still got to get the movie out “Endless Bummer” that was shot here in Ventura, I have to get that out next year.

 

CCRocks: Of all the performances you have seen on Warped Tour, is it possible to pick some favorites?

Kevin Lyman: Performances for me that always stand out are the ones in awesome beautiful places. We had a great one with Bad Religion here once in Ventura, all of a sudden it was surreal with this wind and seagulls were flying around (Everyone Laughs). The Gorge up in Seattle is always beautiful so I always put on what I call the Kevin Lyman Summer Cruise Show, where I put someone like The Aggrolites or Flogging Molly on the show and everyone’s out on the stage having a drink and having a good time and all the bands come together and it’s this great sunset going out over the gorge. You remember the storms, the heat. Yesterday getting off the bus in San Francisco you get chills. I still do and that’s when I know if I’m still gonna do this. The first minute the doors open I get the goose bumps and it’s cool. Once that goes away then maybe I’ll have to stop doing shows.

 

CCRocks: What would you say to someone who hasn’t yet been out to Warped Tour?

Kevin Lyman: You have to come with an open mind. If you like music the Warped Tour can be for anyone. It’s the one show where you can go anywhere and see something you’ve never seen before. I still think it’s the best place for a 12-14 year old, theres not a lot of music options out there for that age group. They’ve got Hannah (Montana), they’ve got a few things like that. Bring your Mom and dad and go down to the Warped Tour and run around. You can bring a whole family of four for the price of one Hannah Montana ticket.

 

Special Thanks to Kevin Lyman

 

Please Visit: www.WarpedTour.com  www.EndlessBummerTheMovie.com 

 

The Dollyrots

 

CCRocks: How’s Warped Tour going so far?

Chris Black: Warm (Laughs)

Kelly Ogden: Actually today was really, really nice, so we were quite grateful

Luis Cabezas: We’re by the beach so we feel really good about the whole situation.

Chris: It’s exciting, it’s exciting. It’s like Summer Camp is starting again and you get to see old friends you haven’t seen in a while.

Luis: We just ran into people we haven’t seen in exactly a year (Laughs)

 

CCRocks: Did you attend Warped Tour growing up and did you aspire to play the festival one day?

Luis: Our first Warped Tour, actually me and Kelly went to it together. It was The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Pennywise was on that Warped Tour. We were like little kids right, it was like the 1990 something Warped Tour, it was held in like a barn in Jacksonville, Florida.

Kelly: I got on stage with the Mighty Mighty Bosstones in my little tye-dyed tank top…

Luis: Dicky (Barrett) brought her up and it was like one of the most magnificent moments of her life, even still now.

Kelly: It was before I was in a band

Chris: The first year I went was the year that Green Days’s “Dookie” came out. It was Green Day, The Circle Jerks, and Tilt was on the tour, it was amazing. My big brothers took me (Laughs)

Luis: They kicked the shit out of you, made you get drunk and made you go to Warped Tour, and then you saw the light (Everyone Laughs)

 

CCRocks: Tell us about your current CD

Kelly: “Because I’m Awesome” came out on Blackheart Records, thanks to Warped Tour. We met Joan Jett on Warped Tour, we’d been recording for a while and we were looking for a new label. Our first release was on Lookout Records and so we had planned on releasing the second one but things kind of petered out with Lookout so we knew Joan Jett had a record label and she loved it and we put it out on Blackheart.

Chris: The first single was called “Because I’m Awesome” which is the title of the album and now they’re working on the next single called “My Best friend’s Hot” which is picking up across the country, so we’ve been bouncing around playing some radio shows here and there having a good time

 

CCRocks: We caught your live set earlier which was great, describe your live show

Luis: Totally haphazard, no plans…

Chris: Did you say Half-Ass-ard? (Laughs)

Luis: Saph-Ass-ard. No, we don’t really like plan any sort of prop things, or like stage things or anything like that. We just do our thing spontaneously and it’s a lot of fun because it always feels like it’s really honest.

Chris: Well today we didn’t have time to blow up our inflatable Santa Claus for the stage…

Luis: We have like an inflatable snow man and a Santa Claus, but we couldn’t inflate them because it was too windy, so everything was cool after that.

Chris: (Laughs)

Kelly: Our live shows exciting, our recordings are a little more pop and polished but our live show is definitely more Punk Rock

 

CCRocks: Any live shows stand out for you guys over the years?

Luis: The one where Kelly broke Chris’s nose in Albuquerque New Mexico

Chris: That was cool

Luis: She jumped over the drum set, we tend to do like every other show or whatever, we have this philosophy, if the shows really good we’ll destroy our instruments, and if the shows really bad we’ll also destroy our instruments (Everyone Laughs), but we had like a really good show and Kelly jumped over the drum kit and happened to lose her balance, not on purpose at all but, I was knocked to the floor at this point and Chris’s nose took the front end of Kelly’s Bass.

Chris: She went to do something and the Bass end of her Bass just smacked me squire in the nose and immediately I’m like “Broken Nose, Broken Nose!”

Luis: It was great because it turned out to be a really good Blog entry (Everyone Laughs)

Kelly: It was the first day of that tour (Laughs)

Chris: And it cleared up my sinuses and I’ve been breathing better ever since!

Kelly: I gave you a nose job!

 

CCRocks: Was there a certain event or personality that inspired you guys to pursue music?

Kelly: For me it goes as far back as listening to my parent’s records, I used to sing along to the Four Seasons a lot, Frankie Valli, hit the notes that I could hit as a child, I’ve always been inspired by music (group breaks into singing “Sherry”) I cant even sing them now, but yeah as a five year old, that was the coolest thing to sing to. We learned about music at a time when it was very spirited and pure.

Luis: We learned about music in relation to like bands that like other bands. So we only like band’s virtue of like recommendations basically, that’s kind of like that way we evaluate bands. Like if our friends like bands, like they’re cool. If Alternative Press likes bands, they probably can suck our balls (Everyone Laughs)

Chris: My big brother who I worshiped was a drummer so that’s how I started playing drums, and then in High School I got into a band and my band mates introduced me to all kinds of old East Bay Punk and all that good stuff, like Lookout Records stuff like Green Day and Mr. T Experience.

 

CCRocks: Final words for your fans?

Chris: Rock and Roll!!

Luis: It’s not easy being green (Everyone Laughs)

Kelly: My sentiments exactly

Chris: How bout just do it. Actually start a band…

Luis: Just do it, put a giant Nike symbol on your chest (Laughs)

Chris: Yeah, get corporate sponsorship (Laughs) Pick up an instrument if you haven’t yet and want to, drive your friends and try to play and if you suck keep doing it.

Luis: Especially if you suck, because you’re probably going to be the most inventive band (Everyone Laughs), by the way we can’t even like play more than four chords.

Chris: I can’t play any chords, I’m on the drums

Luis: That’s basically the key to Rock n Roll, you don’t really think that much, you just kinda like do, do it.

 

Please Visit: www.MySpace.com/TheDollyrots  www.TheDollyrots.com  

www.BlackheartRecords.com 

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