Last week we interviewed The Story So Far at the beginning of their UK stint with A Day To Remember. We went down to Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena (before the show was cancelled a mere hour later) to have a quick chat with bassist Kelen Capener about when to expect a third album, the resurgence of pop punk and how TSSF intend to be around for a long time.
SO, YOU’RE BACK IN THE UK…
I would call the UK our home away from home. Everyone speaks our language and everyone is the same at our shows as they are at home, so we love it. We have a lot of friends over here so we love coming here.
THERE SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN A RESURGENCE OF POP PUNK OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS THAT YOU’VE BEEN A BIG PART OF.
That’s the way of the world, with music anyway. It’s cyclical, which is good for us. I mean, it’s just like anything. If you look at all the huge ‘pop punk’ bands that were around in the early 2000s, where are they now? A lot of them are still around but that’s because of this resurgence. It’s given a lot of bands a second opportunity I guess, but I dunno, you look at a band who are pegged as being at the front of it all, say Blink 182 or Green Day or whatever, and those bands are still around, but they’re big on a whole other level.
I THINKÂ YOU DO APPEAL TO MORE PEOPLE THAN JUST POP PUNK FANS.
Yeah, we hope so. That’s really the goal. You look at the bands that survive the coming and going and they’re the ones that appeal to more people than just that niche group of listeners. I mean, it wasn’t so long ago that it was screamo: you had From First To Last, A Static Lullaby and those other haircut bands, and it’s like, who survived them? A couple did but those are the bands that stood out from that and had a bigger sound than that ultimately.
PEOPLE ALWAYS SAY THE SECOND ALBUM IS THE TRICKY ONE. IS THAT TRUE?
It really is. It’s been about a year now since we released it. It’ll be a year in March. Especially when you live on a tour and album cycle – I mean, it’s been years now since we released ‘Under Soil And Dirt’, which is crazy, but this one (‘What You Don’t See’) was definitely different to write because by the time we were writing it there was pretty much demand for it, and not just that but people obviously had expectations or whatever. We tried to put it in the back of our heads, but you know, we write the music we write because it’s the music we’re good at writing. We were in a weird place when we were starting a band where we weren’t trying to be any particular kind of band, it was just a matter of timing where we were lucky enough to be writing the music that comes naturally to us and have it fit the wave that was coming. I dunno, by the third album – I guess the second album is the relief album and it’s kind of a weight off your shoulders, so by the third one, we feel good about going into it. We’ve been writing a lot.
WHEN CAN PEOPLE EXPECT THE THIRD ALBUM?
It’s not gonna be soon but we’re starting to write it. We’ve already put aside time to write it so we’ll do one more tour and then we’ll probably quieten down for a bit. So maybe just under a year’s time? We’ll set aside the time and then there’ll be a bit of turnaround between recording it and releasing it.
SO WHAT’S THE PLAN FOR THE REST OF 2014?
We’ve toured a lot this past year. We’ve gone pretty much the whole year just touring so it’s about that time where we need to get our heads down. We don’t like to be busy when we’re writing a record. We like to just focus on the music, so we’ll quieten down for a few months and write, record and then we’ll have it released, I don’t know, around this time next year maybe.
YOUR LAST RECORD CAME OUT LAST YEAR AND IT FEELS SO RECENT THAT IT SEEMS CRAZY TO BE ASKING ABOUT THE NEXT ONE. THERE MUST BE A LOT OF PRESSURE ON YOU.
I feel like two years is a pretty comfortable break between albums. By that point, you gotta think, with two years between each album, that’s about six years’ growth since this band started collecting music when we first started. So you gotta hope you’re six years advanced to their listening tastes.
HOW DO YOU FIND THE TOURING LIFESTYLE?
It’s very unified around the globe. I mean, it’s a totally different market now. With the internet, it’s almost like being next door. Someone in Britain listens to music the same as someone in the US. It’s cool to come over here. When we have all these kids at our shows so far from home, I mean, the first time it’s a little weird. In a good way. But this is probably the sixth or seventh time we’ve been over here, so it almost doesn’t feel like we’re far away from home now.
LAIS MW