What was the catalyst for the band getting together?
Nate: I started recording stuff...Mikey was still in Weezer, and I came to visit when Weezer played in Providence. I played him some of the early stuff. I wasn't originally gonna have a band. I was just gonna record. But then it was so fun playing with Mikey and Joe (Sirois) and Johnny...
Mikey: There was a lot of magical timing involved.
Nate: Yeah. It's really bizarre.
Mikey: Nate, Joe and I have been friends for years and years...like 10 years. So, he came to the show and went on my bus and played me some stuff. We used to jam when we were younger. It's probably me just bugging Nate all the time 'we should make a real band out of it' and we did.
Nate: That's kinda true. And I resent it.
Mikey: He'll resent it for the rest of his life now.
Nate: There was originally no intention of having a real band out of it. Maybe that's why it's kind of fun and fast; there's no pressure.
Mikey: Now we have pressure.
Nate: It's weird. Because of the bands we're coming from, because we sold so many records, there's kind of a weird...
How do you feel about coming out of that and having to recreate that?
Nate: I don't think any of us have that desire, necessarily. It�s really trying to do a band in the same realm that you did when you started.
Mikey: We're kind of split down the middle on it, because I think the fact that we both have had so much success and sold so many records (means) that we're not gonna get crazy about getting right back there again. We're just trying to have fun with what we're doing and playing the kind of music we love. As long as we love it first and people like it after that, then I think that's just all well and good. But we are overachievers at the same time.
Nate: That's the problem.
Mike: We're like, 'Yeah, we're mellow about it. We're just going to do the record.' And then we're like 'blah-blah, tour-tour, merch!' Which is okay. We won't ever get pressured into doing things we don't wanna do because we've already been through that. We wanna keep it fun and mellow.
How did you guys hook up with Fenway Recordings?
Nate: (to Mikey) I don't know if you knew Mark (Kates, the head of Fenway Recordings) before...
Mikey: I did, yeah. He was at Geffen.
Nate: He was at Ace of Hearts, doing (Mission of) Burma when I was younger. Then he moved on and was an A&R guy at Geffen and he signed Beck and Elastica and Sonic Youth. He used to come to our shows in LA.
Mikey: He was a big guy from Geffen, which was where Weezer was, so I knew him too.
Nate: Then he ended up the president of Grand Royal. He was running the label for a while and I had sent a demo out to my friend Alison in California who used to work at Polygram. She always helped out with the Bosstones. I just wanted her opinion, and she gave it to Mark. Which was funny - I didn't give it to Mark because I thought that Grand Royal (wasn�t) really the right label. But he was leaving - this was another crazy timing thing. He was like, 'I'm starting my own label and I want to sign you.' And I was like, 'I should get a band.' So Mikey had left Weezer, Mark had left Grand Royal and I had just graduated school all at the same time.
Mikey: Stars aligning...(makes laser beam sound)
Nate: Then when Mark came back to Boston he did all the Burma reunions. The label's really cool; it's very exciting.
You originally had a different name.
Nate: Yeah. We were the Plastics first. But there's a Japanese new-wave band from like 1980 called the Plastics. Then it was the Brakes...
Mikey: This is so Spinal Tap.
Nate: (laughing)...then we were the New Originals...it was the Brakes, but there was this band from New Jersey that had started three months earlier called the Break, and they were like, �You can't use it. It's too confusing.�
Damn those Jersey bands...
Nate: We had a week of brainstorming...
Mikey: It was down to The Kickovers and The Abstratics.
Nate: Then there was a band called the Abstracts!
Mikey: And we couldn't use that either, even though we made up the word. But I like the Kickovers.