InnerPartySystem Interview

innerpartysystem are creating a huge fuss in the UK right now with their debut self titled album and upcoming single ‘Don’t Stop’. We at Daily Dischord managed to ask drummer Jared a few questions before they embark on another headlining UK tour this week. Be sure to catch these guys on stage, starting in Cambridge on the 26th January!

DD: Hello! Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions for us. Who am I talking to here and what do you do in the band?

Jared: I’m Jared, I play drums.

DD: An extension to that ice breaker question, tell us something really cool about yourself that no one knows about (yet!)

Jared: When I was 16, I pierced my own penis on a dare. I kept it for about 6 months and then took it out. I was rather uncomfortable at times.

DD: So InnerPartySystem just released their first album. How has the response been to this back at home, and in the UK?

Jared: It’s been good, I think. It’s hard to tell, not many people get back to you with comments when they think your album is shitty. Ya know? I mean, rarely will someone go out of their way to be like, “Yo guys, just got the album, and holy hell, it really sucks! Have a great day!” So being in the band it’s really hard to tell sometimes. You usually only hear from fans that really like it.

DD: One of your songs ‘Don’t Stop’ has created quite a buzz in the UK. The lyrics are very powerful in this song, tell us a bit more about what inspired this song and what does it mean to you personally?

Jared: Sometimes pop culture can get overwhelming, and it’s fascinating to see some people get totally obsessed with celebrities private lives. It doesn’t mean much more than that to me personally. It’s not like any of us have some deep seeded hate for pop culture. We were just sitting around one day complaining about reality television, and the world’s obsession with it, and decided to write a song about it. Well, it was that, and after month 5 of hearing about Anna Nicole Smith’s death, it got kind of hard to take. I mean, it’s awful, god rest her soul. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but America was OBSESSED.

DD: You made a chocolate vinyl. That’s really fucking cool! What on earth made you want to do this?

Jared: Why not? No one has ever done it before. It’s awesome that you can actually play it on a record player. It’s different. Really. When I heard about it, I couldn’t think of a reason why we SHOULDN’T do it.

DD: InnerPartySystem has recently done a small UK tour. How was the turnout for these shows?

Jared: Awesome. We were ecstatic about the turnouts on this last tour. We sold out 3 of the shows. Hopefully it keeps moving in this direction and we can continue to turn more and more heads.

DD: How would you describe the experience of playing Milton Keynes Bowl with the likes of Linkin Park and Jay-Z?

Jared: We are obviously not used to playing front of that many people. We were all a bit nervous. But after the first hit of the first song, that all passes. All you are thinking about then is playing your heart out. All I was really thinking about was trying to get past Jay-Z’s entourage and shake his hand. There’s not many people I’d get star struck in front of. But, come on, its fucking JAY-Z. I usually have a hard time shutting up. But when he came over to shake our hands, I couldn’t think of anything to say, I just stared at him. You could tell he was creeped out. As he was talking he was walking backwards away from me, like “get away from me peon”. Ha.

DD: You guys are returning to our fine land in the early months of 2009. What made you return so soon?

Jared: It doesn’t really feel that soon to us. We’d like to keep coming back every three or four months. As long as there are people there that want to see us play, we will try and find a way to get there.

DD: At the time of writing, you are on a US tour with 3oh!3. How has the tour went so far?

Jared: Amazing. Every night has been sold out. Whether it’s 300 cap rooms or 1200 cap rooms. We are all sharing a bus, and it’s our first time on a bus, so not having to drive is a huge plus. All the guys on this tour are super friendly. I have definitely made some life long friends on this tour. Definitely the best tour we’ve done to date.

DD: You guys depend a lot on how you influence the audience visually as well as with the music. Why is the visual experience so important to you and what band member really controls this?

Jared: I think the visual experience is important to every band. Whether it be a light show, or just how you play or whatever. People are, after all, watching you. I’m actually a pretty big fan of seeing bands that totally flip out when they play. But that’s just me. I was really into hardcore for a long time, and that’s a big part of most hardcore bands’ stage shows. It seems pretty popular to jump around a lot onstage and do axe chops right now. Maybe even a back flip or some shit like that. No one can really do back flips in this band, so we had to buy lasers instead to pick up the slack. The unique thing about our light show is that it’s controlled by a computer. We designed, built, and programmed the lights ourselves, and they run to a computer that I play too. So all the lights always move on beat with the music. It makes for a much tighter light show than most bands at our size can achieve. We are a very D.I.Y. band at heart. We feel we’d rather do it ourselves than pay someone else to do it for us. We like that we have something specific to us. Most of it is made of wood we saved up and bought ourselves. It’s beat up, the boxes look like shit when you get close to them. The LED’s break a lot because we bought really cheap ones bulk on ebay. They’ve all been thru the ringer this past year. But they are ours. We’ve spent countless hours building and programming them. And we are extremely proud of them.

DD: Well that’s it from us. Thanks a lot for your time, and I’m sure our readers look forward to you returning to the UK. Any last words?

Jared: Get ready. We’ve got some more songs for this run. A bunch of newer ones that we haven’t played yet off of the album, and even another older one or two to add as well.