This interview was done with lead singer, Matt, at Warped Tour 2007 in Camden, NJ.

1. Right after Warped Tour ends you’ll be heading back out on tour. Are you more nervous or excited about this quick transition?
Uh, we are definitely excited about the quick transition. We enjoy being out on the road as much as possible so we are excited about the fact that we have about a week at home, enough time to kind of get everything in order. You know, check up on the dogs and all those kind of things. Say hi to the fam and then head back out on the road. If we could do that continuously for the next year that would be great ideally.

2. You guys recently recorded for AOL Sessions. What was that experience like?
That was pretty cool. Everybody there was really nice and I haven’t actually had the opportunity to see everything completely. I’ve seen bits and pieces of the videos online just because we haven’t had a solid internet connection in a long time to the point where we can just watch the videos. But it certainly was lots of fun and from what I’ve heard it seemed like it turned out okay and it seemed like people liked it. Yesterday there was a basically there was a tornado going through Cleveland so we had to do an acoustic set cause our stage kind of got closed down and we did an acoustic set. We did a Hilary Duff cover that we did and everybody seemed to like that. So who knows maybe I’ll have to put that in our set or something.

3. You’ve played both Bamboozle and Warped Tour, what major differences between them affected you the most as a band? Which one do you enjoy playing more?
That’s a tough one. Well I certainly enjoy playing Warped Tour more because of the fact that it’s an entire tour. It’s 40 to 50 days a year and you go to all the major cities opposed to just one large show in New Jersey. However, Bamboozle is always a great experience. Typically the Bamboozle crowds tend to be a little bit bigger. And it’s not quite as you know chaotic because everyone’s been like ready and it’s kind of the same set up. Everybody who goes knows where everything is at. So that’s one advantage to Bamboozle. It’s a larger number of kids.

4. A lot of channels, websites, publications etc such as MTV and AOL tend to call bands that have been around awhile a “new artist” simply because they are new to them. Now they’re doing it to you, does it drive you insane?
A little bit but at the same time like you have to be excited about the fact that people are covering you and larger publications such as MTV are actually taking the time to notice your band and regardless of whether we’re new or not you know we don’t really have a problem with that. We know like deep down that we’ve been a band for four years and that we’ve struggled for the first three and we worked really really hard and now we’re able to actually enjoy being out on the road. So we don’t mind. We certainly enjoy all the extra attention and it ends up being a good thing in the end. And anybody who really follows Amber Pacific and looks deep into our band and does any kind of research would know that we’ve been doing it forever.

5. What brought about the main concept of your new album?
The main concept of the new album was about staying true to ourselves and staying true to the people who bought our previous record. That’s why it’s called “Truth in Sincerity.” We didn’t want to change anything. We’re Amber Pacific and we’re pop punk, pop rock whether you love it, like it, or hate it. And we didn’t want to do anything different to just uh maybe make some more fans who may not be around. We wanted to make sure that the people who already believed in us you know were going to continue to believe in us and hopefully you know we’re able to grow as musicians. And I know that I’ve certainly gotten better as a singer. And everybody else got better at their parts and all the pieces together. And we kind of thinks it’s a more complete record form beginning to end and all the production pieces that we added. So hopefully we grew as a band but the main idea was we wanted to make the record for everybody who picked up “The Possibility and the Promise” and “Fading Days”.

6. What was it like recording your song, “Runaway,” with Mike of MXPX? How did the collaboration come about?
Uh, well when Will wrote the song he had it in his mind that you know “hey maybe it would be really cool if Mike could do it.” And obviously he’s from Bremerton, Washington which isn’t very far from where we live and where the recording studio was. And uh we certainly developed a friendship with them over the last few years on the Warped Tour. It was a good experience. I mean obviously I didn’t like sing directly with him but I we were all in the studio when he did it and it’s always cool to see somebody you looked up to growing up. Like I was playing their CDs in 9th grade over the announcements at my school in junior high. So like to have him standing there singing one of our songs on a record and having it being released is pretty cool.

8. A lot of your songs have a very strong drum track that most bands don’t have. What is your main reason for having this?
That is all our drummer, Dango. He graduated from the University of Belmont in Nashville, Tennessee. His degree is in drumming and his teacher was Chester Thompson who is a drummer for Phil Collins. So he is a very good drummer. He doesn’t just do punk rock. He can do everything. He’s a studio drummer. He can be a drummer for hire. He’s played for lots of big name artists and in front of a lot more people than we’ve ever played in front of. And he just wasn’t happy with doing that. He wanted to be a part of something. He wanted to be part of the band. Music is his passion. So he certainly wants to make sure that he puts is signature staple on it. He definitely wants to be someone who you know breaks the mold and breaks the trend. I believe, I don’t play the drums, but I believe anybody who does have any kind of background in drumming or knows anything knows that what he’s doing is really hard to duplicate and people have told us that. So that’s good that people notice.

9. You’ve had a lot of band member changes in the past. In which areas has this affected the band the most?
I’d say first and foremost, I mean the fact that we’ve had changed a lot of members but it’s been just one guitar spot. So what that means that the four other guys, Dango, Greg, Will, and myself have actually grown a lot stronger as the four of us. And maybe that might have been kind of the reason we keep rotating through people and we can’t find a fit is we’re close net. And we’ve been through so much together. We know how everything operates. And sometimes it’s hard for somebody to walk into a situation where we’ve had a little bit of success and they’re able to reap the rewards of our success despite the fact that they didn’t do all the hard work that we put in. And sometimes that’s kind of where the tension is. But for us, the four core group of guys we’re definitely really tight and really strong. Our new guitarist Rick, actually, laid some guitar tracks on our new record. And this is his third tour with us. And he’s going to be doing a fourth and fifth as far as I know so I think we might have found a guitarist so that would be great.

10. What’s the craziest thing that’s happened on Warped Tour so far?
Um, simply hanging out with all the people I looked up to. I mean we’ve been on the Warped Tour with New Found Glory before and The Starting Line before and Hawthorne Heights before but like we never hung out with them because we’re always busy and we’re a small baby band. And they are kind of intimidating and they’re where we want to be. But like this year it’s just totally weird to have people like Cyrus asking me for my number and wanting to hang out and play poker. And hanging out with all these people it’s like wow you know, “you’re the reason I’m in a band and here I am and you want to hang out with me and want me to come have Margaritas on your bus and stuff.” So that’s certainly been the wildest and crazy thing. We’ve made lots of good friends like Hawthorne Heights and Red Jumpsuit, too. So that’s always fun.

11. Think Fast Questions

Coke or Pepsi: Coke for sure. 100%. Our entire band believes in that. We think Pepsi is garbage. And we actually sometimes go to fast food restaurants that serve coke and that’s the decision opposed to, “oh well they serve pepsi so we probably shouldn’t go there.”
Pink or Purple: I’m gonna say purple now. Pink was hot for like the last three years and every time we put out a pink t-shirt it was always our best seller. But right now pink is like not selling and purple is selling for everybody else. We may have to jump on the purple bandwagon. So definitely purple.
Warped Tour or Regular Tour: Oo. That’s a good one. Uhh Warped Tour once a year. Regular tour’s the rest of the year. I guess that’s the best way to put it. I wouldn’t want to do this for the entire year.
Rap or Country: Country for sure. 100%. Better hooks.
Planes or Cars: Umm, I don’t own a car and I obviously don’t own a plane. I don’t really like flying in planes. Let’s say car. I’d rather have a car.
East Coast or West Coast: I like living on the West Coast but all the kids are better on the East Coast.
Smile or Laugh: Laugh
TV or Movies: Movies

12. Who in the band is the messiest?
That would definitely be Greg. He’s probably the messiest and least organized. Probably the overall would be my man Scott, our merch guy. He tends to leave his goat? shoes hanging around and things like that.
cleanest? I would say Dango is the cleanest when it comes to his body. But Will is usually the cleanest and most organized. He’s just completely anal about where everything goes.
quietest? Greg. For sure. 100%
loudest? Me. No doubt.
craziest? That’s probably me, too.
most calm? Most calm. Oh jeez. We’re definitely not all crazy. I’m probably the only one who gets a little rowdy. So I’d say everybody else in my band is relatively calm and they certainly like hang out being chill more than going crazy.