Andy Spoke to Ty Vaughn, vocalist from Broadway Calls after their set at Reading Festival ‘09
PT: Your first time at Reading, Ty – how’s the weekend been so far?
Ty: It was cool, man. It was completely different to anything else we’ve played – the crowd were great and I had a really good time. Yesterday at Leeds was a lot of fun as well. We got to Leeds early on Friday and watched Polar bear Club, Chuck Reagan, A Wilhelm Scream. Yesterday I saw AFI, Brand New, The Living End, Radiohead. There have been some awesome bands playing this weekend!.
PT: You’ve got a new album out, ‘Good Views, Bad News’. How does it compare to your debut? What was the writing and recording process like this time around?
Ty: Well we did a tour with Polar Bear Club and Crime In Stereo last fall. As soon as we got home from that we had like a month and a half, two months to write as many songs as we could before coming over here with Alkaline Trio at the beginning of the year. We did as much as we could, then we came over here and we sent the demos over to Bill Stevenson the producer and he said to us that he didn’t think we were done writing. We were supposed to go into the studio on March 10th, and we got back from that Alkaline Trio tour at the end of February, so we got home and decided to write some more and see what happens. We wrote like four more songs in the end and they all went on the record.
PT: What are the standout songs of the record for you?
Ty: I really like ‘Tonight is Alive’. That and ‘Basement Royalty’ are two of the ones we wrote right before going into the studio, and those are two of my favourites. They’re just fun to play, lyrically I’m happiest with them.
PT: How does the lyrical content on this album differ from your first release?
Ty: The last album, was a lot more about tour stories and tour feelings, it was the first record we wrote after getting on the road. This one’s more about being at home – I was sitting at home, snowed in, the power was out, I was writing some pretty dark songs, lyrically – angry, sad songs. Some of the songs aren’t personal to me at all though – some of them I thought, OK I’m going to make up a character in my head and write from their point of view. Some of them I just tried to write about good nights with friends.
PT: You’ve just wrapped up a few dates with The Offspring as well. How were they?
TY: It was crazy! We played at the Briton Academy and it was just massive. The only thing we’ve played in the States that’s close to that size was when we opened for Rancid one time. This was the same sort of size – it was huge and the crowd was amazing – they were really nice to us, they were really loud and really cool – there were no awkward silences! Sometimes when you’re the opening band and nobody knows who you are, you’re just playing to blank stares. There were people singing along. I’m excited because tomorrow we go to Switzerland and play with Polar Bear Club, then the next two days are more Offspring shows in Germany and Italy.
PT: There internet reports of you guys coming back over here with Set Your Goals at the end of the year…
Ty: Oh has there? (laughs). Yeah it’s most likely happening. We will be back in December.
PT: So that means you’re pretty much solidly touring up until Christmas now. Are you guys taking some time off over the festival period?
Ty: Yeah, we have two weeks off. We do a Bouncing Souls tour before coming back over here, so that’ll be nice. Other than that, we’re booked solid until December – almost right up until Christmas. It’s fun though – this is the first time we’ve ever had our whole rest of the year planned out, from July onwards. I’m excited!