(laughter)
Mike - Well, 1136 is the cultural hub of the Fargo-Moorhead area. No really, I would say it's become a gathering for bands- that we know. It's also the halfway home for bands from Bismarck. A lot of the kids from Bismarck would see this place as a welcoming point when they move here.
The album sounds like it was done in a professional studio for 10 grand. How were you able to achieve its amazing quality?
Jerik - (with) Ten grand! (laughter) That's a question for Sean...he recorded us.
Sean - Well, the drums were done in Bismarck at Makochi Studios (with Jeff Deslauriers), and we couldn't have done that here (1136). We borrowed a lot of gear. We did it all on pro tools. We have preamps and borrowed good mics.
Does the Diversion Scene have a targeted audience?
Mike - 17-18 yr old well endowed females!
Jerik - I've had a lot of total metal dudes come up and say that they really like us, which is surprising. And then people who listen to pop punk or hardcore have told us they really liked us.
Mike - Even look at some of the flyers. We've been called everything from punishing indie rock to pop-punk at its finest. I don't think anyone knows where we fit in
Jason - I heard that we sound like Iron Maiden if they were on some drug to make them really happy. (laughter)
Iron Maiden on Prozac, I like that!
Mike ' I would say the way it is, is that our more hardcore fans are people that are pretty much into bands like Fallout Boy (nervous stares). I'm not going to say that that's our core audience. But there's just a lot of people that are into those type of bands. And generally, people aren't into all that much hardcore. The people that are into hardcore give us respect, but it's more of the other type of kids that buy a lot of our merch.
For people who have never seen you play live, what should they expect?
Jason - Brian's feet to go really fast. Mike in short shorts.
Mike - I wouldn't say that our live show isn't all that action packed, but our music is definitely more--
Sean - I would hope that people would think it's tight.
Mike - Speaking of tight, the stage is usually so small that it's hard to fit all 6 of us on it.
Jerik - Lots of dudes.
Sean - Less theatrics and more rock.
Jerik - We're not screaming and falling on the floor or swatting flies.
Sean - Swatting flies!
Mike - There's always a lot of awkward silences at our shows.
Is the Diversion scene a hobby band (for fun)? Would you do the band full time if you had the opportunity?
Mike - It's a little bit of both. Obviously we wouldn't be doing this if we weren?t having fun, but it?s getting to the point now that we've all been in bands for so long that it is feasible to see something bigger happen and we're all willing to take it as far as it can go. It's not like we're expecting anything though.
Jason - It's like a hobby, but we would like to make it more permanent.
Mike - Obviously we aren't willing to sacrifice any creativity- if we could do exactly what we're doing now and get paid for it, fuck yeah!
Just recently you guys attempted to book your own 10 day tour through the Rockies and Plains states. However, you were only able to secure half of those dates. What went wrong?
Jerik - Basically our contacts, well for the most part I used BYOFL.com and generally people either had shows going on that night and couldn't get us our own, or we just flat out couldn't get a response from people. And the ones that we ended up getting shows with were people we already knew.
Mike - I guess the thing that goes along with the internet-- yeah, the internet is a great thing where you can get your music out there and you can make all of these contacts. But these people that do shows get dozens of emails everyday from bands they've never heard of. I get them everyday and I'm not even a promoter.
How does being a band from North Dakota affect the goals and aspirations of the band?
Sean - I guess I've always been of the mind that-- I guess it matters a little bit. But now that there's the internet, anyone is able to get their music out to anybody, anywhere. If you want to badly enough, you can tour out regardless of where you're from. On the other hand, we've had people from other areas tell us that if we were a band from California, we'd be doing really well.
Jason - I wouldn't really see it a disadvantage either, 'cause I think if you would move to a bigger city with more bands, you end up like a number. I just think you have to work a little harder to get your music out there from here, but you stand out more than if you are from a city.
Do you write songs about girls? Are you in this for the chicks?
(laughter) Mike - We are definitely not in it for the chicks, but I would say that one or two of our songs are about girls, and usually its not even about a girl in particular, but more about a boy/girl situation. I would even say that the songs I write are predominantly about choices and situations. I have one song about a specific person, and the rest of the songs are about fucked up situations.
Jason - Considering how poppy we are, I would say that our song to chick ratio is pretty low. (laughter).
Do you guys get a lot of love from the ladies?
Jerik - Mike does.
Mike - I don't hear about these things.
Jerik - Girls think Mike's a "hottie". But as far as actually quote-on-quote, getting chicks or groupies'I swear it's a myth. You see guys like Kid Rock on MTV saying (in his best Kid Rock impersonation) "when you say you got into it for the money or fame, nah, I say you got into it for the chicks." (laughter)
Mike - He actually got into it for the hepatitis.
Jerik - If any of us had gotten into it for the chicks...
All (in unison) - we would've quit a long time ago! (laughter)
What is the next step for the Diversion Scene? And where do you see the band in 5 years?
Mike - I'll start it off here fellows... I would just say keep up what we're doing, pushing our album more, sending it out to labels, play as many shows as we can. Jerik - There's steps we can take toward being more of an independent band; getting a van, getting a trailer-- that would be wonderful.
Mike - We were offered help in releasing the album and getting it pressed, but we found out we could spend one night pumping out 150 CD's doing it ourselves, and we're going to have a product that might not be as polished, but its cost is so minimal that we can sell it for $5 and still make a 200% profit.
Jason - Don't print that!
Mike - I would like to see us touring a couple months out of the year, and us having some sort of touring support and doing well for ourselves. It would be awesome to be able to do this full time, but each of us has been able to except that we might have to work full time jobs.
You can see the Diversion Scene live on October 5 with Bear vs. Shark (Equal Vision Records) and Battle at Sea (venue TBD) All ages $5. You can contact the Diversion scene at: Email: [email protected] or [email protected] Web/mp3: www.myspace.com/thediversionscene or www.purevolume.com/thediversionscene