The Movielife

The Movielife is one of my favorite bands. While on stage at Graceland, Vinnie gave the small crowd a piece of his mind. "We're not a fuckin' Drive Thru band, we're not a fuckin' Revelation band, we're the fuckin' Movielife!" After their amazing set, which included a healthy mix of old and new material, I snagged Vinnie, the lead singer, for this interview.

If you could just give a background of the band, that would be awesome.
Background...we've been around since 1997, summer of '97, played our first show the summer of '97 with Glassjaw, and a bunch of other Long Island bands probably nobody in Seattle has ever heard of. We started out as a...with kinda some different members. Actually, Ed who now plays in Taking Back Sunday was the guy who asked me to join The Movielife, and sing, and I was like "No, I don't wanna. I'm not a singer, I fuckin' don't know what I'm doin'. " And he convinced me to do it. He left the band shortly after that, like before we ever really started touring. And now he's in Taking Back Sunday, and now we're Movielife and that's a little bit of history that some people might not know. I don't know...we've been doing it for a while now, put out a few records. Most importantly we have a new record coming out in February, the 25th, so we're really excited about that.

That's my next topic actually, what is it called again?
It's called "A 40 Hour Train Back to Penn." It's probably gonna be a little while before people memorize that, but...

What's the signifigance with that?
It's about a time when we tried to come to Seattle and we flipped our van over, and we realized that "whoa, this van...is our life." Ya know what I mean? Like, playing...touring is our life, and without a van or something to get there in, you're nowhere. We realized pretty much there, that it's either stop now, or keep going. Because it did kind of...it destroyed our van, destroyed all of our equiptment, destroyed everything. And we were able to get back on our feet, and basically it's about getting through the rough patches in life, it's about getting through the obstacles that we face pretty much everyday out here on the road, and the obstacles that everyone faces. And hopefully everyone is strong enough to get through them.

How would you compare the new record to some of your older stuff?
Well the new record is definately more aggressive music than we've ever made. Some people ask if it's more like "This Time Next Year," which is our older full length, and I say "Yeah, in a way it's more aggressive, but not in that way at all." It's definately a lot heavier than the EP that we just made for Drive Thru last year. It's kind of a mix of everything. I think that people who like our old music will definately be into it. We're just really excited, we just put our heart and soul into it, and we just hope that people check it out. I'm sure they will, people have been really supportive of us for the past few years and it just makes us really happy. We just can't wait for everyone to hear it.

Yeah, I'm really excited! So there is a lot of negativity portrayed by fans towards Drive Thru Records, do you guys see that at all, and what is your relationship like with Drive Thru?
We have a really good relationship with Drive Thru. Um...I don't know, there's people that...as far as kids go, every record label's evil ya know what I mean? Drive Thru are good people, and they've done a lot for our band, and for the kids that go and see us 3, 4, 5 times a year, Drive Thru is one of the reasons why we're still able to come and do that, and they make it possible for us to do that. They have a lot of amazing bands on the label that we're really supportive of, and I don't think kids should be concerned of who's on what label. I never did when I was a kid, like when I was going to shows when I was really young. Nobody should care. Pick up the record, if you like it, you like it. If you don't like it, you don't like it, you know what I mean? Don't pick up a record and be like "Oh, this record's on fuckin' ya know...whatever record label it might be, so it's probably this kind of music." Ya know what I mean? Just listen to it, or go to the show and see 'em play. If you don't like it, don't buy the record.

Exactly. What do you guys in the band do besides play music? Do you have other jobs?
No, we all quit out jobs a few years ago. Jesus...we toured about 9 1/2 months this year, so...there's not a lot of down time, so we spent a lot of it with our families, with our friends, some of us have girlfriends, some of us have wives. You try to embrace all the people that you never get to see. So it's basically like when we go home from tour, we try to relax, and live a normal life for a little while. Wake up in the morning, go to sleep at a reasonable time, and eat good food, spend time with the people that you love, ya know?

What's the best part about being on tour, and what's the worst part about being on tour?
The worst part is all the shit we've been going through the past few days trying to get here. It is extremely dangerous to drive around in a van when you're towing a trailor. And unfortunately for all of us, like every band that you see tows a trailor, 'cause that's where all the equiptment goes. Then when you try to stop in a slick condition, the trailor just pushes on the van, and you slide all over the place. The worst part about tour is the fact that it's inevidable that you're gonna get into an accident. Knock on wood, but every single band that I know has gotten into an accident. That's the worst part about touring. The best part about tour is just coming to a place, like this is as far away from home as we could possibly be in our country, unless we were in fuckin' Alaska or Hawaii. And it's just like for kids to come out and be supportive of what we're doing, and take a message from what we're doing, and just to have fun. And for kids that could have been anywhere in the world, and they were here tonight, hanging out with us, and having fun. It's really all about that, it's about having fun, it's all about...it just makes it all worth it. The bullshit about tour? It makes you forget it all of it ya know? Coming and meeting kids and just making people happy.

Where is your favorite place to play besides New York?
In the United States, Seattle is most definitely up there, Philidelphia, Chicago, LA, stuff like that. London, England is an amazing, amazing place to play. Germany, Switzerland, France, it's just incredible that we've been able to see all these places, and it's just every new place we get to go, every new country we get to see, it's just like our new favorite place ya know?

What's the funniest or craziest thing that's ever happened on tour? Got some funny stories?
Definitely have some funny stories, I'm just trying to think of ones that we can tell. This tour has been kind of one funny story. Us and Brand New are just old friends. I went to high school with Brian the drummer, Brandon, our guitar player, was in a band with everyone in their band before he was in our band. It's just like full circle, what's come around. And now, it's just like mayhem...The Movielife and Brand New, just a bunch of kids from the same area, all came up together, all have been friends for a long time, now we're finally on tour together. And it just feels like high school, as soon as the bell gets out, everyone's like "ahh...this is what we're gonna do! Let's hang out! Let's fuckin'..." So we're having a really good time. It just feels good to be able to get to a point where we can be like "Ya know what? Let's go out and headline, and Brand New will come with us!" Insead of being like "Ok, we're gonna go open for this band, and whatever they say goes." Ya know what I mean? So it's really awesome because us and Brand New were just like "Lets go on tour together," and we made it happen. So it's really awesome that it worked out.

What would you do if you won the lottery, and you had 1 million dollars?
If I had a million dollars, I would buy a house. Because the main objective is my friends and my family. All me and my friends need is a place to be. We don't need to like go out...we don't need to get drunk or do drugs, we don't need to....we just need a place to be, and then just let...just let whatever happens happens. So, I just want a house. And my next objective is I want dogs. So I need a yard to have dogs, 'cause I'm gonna have like 20 dogs.

What kind of dogs?
I'm gonna have a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, a yellow lab, a chocolate lab, a black lab, a golden retriever, and then a bunch of little dogs. Ya know, just little dogs to hang out. But those will be my main dogs.

Awesome...If you were on death row, what would your last meal be?
My last meal would be fried chicken with mashed potatoes, strawberries and cream, a vanilla milkshake, and ranch dressing poured all over everything, and probably ice cream or something for dessert.

If you could be anyone for one day, who would you be?
I would be...hmm. Probably....I'd be Daryl from Glassjaw.

Really?
I always wondered what the hell...the reason me and him are such good friends is because we're both kind of insane in totally different types of ways. And the reason we get along so much is we understand that there's something wrong...and I like it. And it's just like...I would like to undertand his madness. And I would like him to get into my head and understand...I guess I do understand it, but I would just like to experience it. Because he is fucking insane person. And he is also a musical genius, and a genius in a lot of other ways.

Yeah...I'm seeing them next week, I'm stoked!
Yo...best band ever.

Ok, if this new house of yours was burning down, and you could only grab 3 CDs and 3 other things, what would you grab?
I would grab Seaweed - "Spanaway." I'm not gonna grab my favorite records of all time, I'm just gonna grab records I'm psyched on listening to now. I bought the new Hot Water Music CD...so fucking good! So good. I would definitely bring that, and the Phantom Planet CD, "The Guest." Then I would bring my dog...what else is in my house? My bed, I would definitely bring my bed. And then I would bring my...I have this awesome electric heated blanket, but that will already be on my bed. And then I would bring my family, my momma, I need somebody to cook for me and stuff.

If you could get rid of one band, who would you get rid of?
I'm gonna name a bunch of bands, but they all just count as one, because they're all part of the overall problem. The overall problem is as follows: Adema, fucking Nickelback, Disturbed, Crazytown, bands like that. Bands like that are part of the overall problem. There's lots of problems in the world, but that is the problem that plagues us all, because we can't escape it. There's just an insincerity, and a disgusting explotation of music that takes place, and it's fuckin' gross. It's is against everything that took place here tonight at Graceland. Like a real, musical, personal experience. All those bands are fuckin' disgusting...vomit.

I couldn't agree more! What do you think about MP3s, and people sharing your music on the internet?
I think it's awesome. I mean...I've totally burned like half the CDs I get. I try to support, like if it's an independent band, like independent bands that like we tour with and shit like that, no matter what, like if they're my best friends, we will go and buy the CD. Glassjaw's record came out in Hollywood, and I was out there with them. We all got in a car, everyone in Glassjaw, me and a few other friends, we all went and bought the record. Ya know what I mean? It's not like, totally not like that. I totally support my friends bands and stuff. As far as kids getting ahold of our music, the more the merrier! Like, if a kid is like "well, what the hell does Movielife sound like? Because I see that they're in this local paper, and that they're coming." They can go and download free music or burn it from their friends, and they can be psyched! All I care about is that kids come to the shows and hang out and have fun. That seems to be happening. If it means that people are gonna burn CDs, it means that it's gonna expand the ammount of kids that are gonna come hang out and see the show and have fun, then that's fine.

Ok, just one last thing...do you have any props or shoutouts, and if you could name some Long Island bands that are smaller, or bands that you've played with on tour that are smaller, that would be awesome too.
Ok, a few bands that we've played with that are definately comin' up right now are...Salem, Fairweather, this band Little League from Philly. Who else is the shit? We just played with this band called Damone, fuckin' amazing...I think everyone will know about them really soon. Shoutouts to all the Long Island bands, Glassjaw, Autumn to Ashes, Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, Reunion Show, all awesome bands from Long Island that are comin' up right now. It's just amazing to see all these kids that we fuckin' used to go to shows with, comin' up and touring the world, it's amazing. Shoutout to fuckin' Dashboard Confessional, Alkaline Trio, H2O, Midtown, Hot Rod Circuit, I'm trying to think what else...there's a few other bands. Further Seems Forever! I think there's a good chance that us and Further Seems Forever will be coming through here next year together. If anyone who's reading this has never heard Further Seems Forever, check them out!

Hey, thanks a lot!
Alright man, definitely.

BW