Popzineonline.com interviews The Bouncing Souls

Side note: There were many loud noises and people talking in the background, so bear with it.

PZO: What's your favorite line from one of your songs?
Greg: Umm, trying to remember the whole thing . "It was darkness all my own, a song came on the radio, it went straight to my heart, till that darkness was gone."
PZO: What's the craziest thing you've done on stage?
Greg: Umm let's see.
PZO Friend: I read about when you cut your ponytail off, was that you?
Greg: Yeah I did that. I've done a few things. I dressed up, I made a suit out of tasty cakes boxes once, an entire suit of armor of tasty cake boxes.
PZO: Any paste?
Greg: Yeah. I've jumped off an insane amount of things like things like this.
PZO: anything this high?
Greg: - People, PA stacks higher than that. A lot of stuff like that. Dumb shit I don't recommend.
PZO: Unless you're in a band.
Greg: Not even that.
PZO: Daredevil slash musician?
Greg: Yeah I'm someone like Evil Knievel.
PZO: You go skydiving and stuff like that?
Greg: Umm no, I snowboard. I'm into stuff like that.
PZO: No jumping out of planes? Not yet?
Greg: I'd like to do it someday, but I think it would be fun.
PZO: Yeah, I want to do it too.
(PZO Friend and Greg start talking about snowboarding)
PZO: Name a song that is out right now that annoys you the most.
Greg: Annoys me?
PZO: Yeah.
Greg: You know what? Any song can annoy you if it sticks in your head it starts to become annoying. So I think now I'm trying to start to tune things out. Like making a conscience effort if it's something that's sticking in there to tune it out. But there's plenty of things on the radio I just can't think of at the moment. But if I tune it out it then doesn't annoy me.
PZO: What has been your biggest achievement so far?
Greg: Being in a band and making it a job.
PZO: That's definitely a good achievement.
Greg: Sticking together with all the people that I started that I'm doing this with
PZO: It's been a long time.
Greg: And still enjoying it. It's a great achievement.
PZO: What is your biggest pet peeve?
Greg: Ignorance man, people who don't think for themselves.
PZO: What is one CD you can't go on the road without?
Greg: As a matter of fact I haven't brought any CDs out on the road with me this time.
PZO Friend: Just all radio?
Greg: Well it's probably because we're writing songs and stuff and I have ideas in my head sometimes and to be honest a lot of times listening to music kind of interferes with this music that's going on in my head. So I don't listen to music sometimes.
PZO: You don't want to be influenced by other artists.
Greg: But then other times I do, other times I do like and at the moment I'm not in the head when I'm relying on listening to music. Sometimes I do you know.
PZO: Coming out with a new album soon?
Greg: Yeah we're going to record in January and coming out in springtime.
PZO: On BYO?
Greg: It's coming out on Epitaph.
PZO: What is the weirdest combination of food you have eaten?
Greg: Off the top of my head I can't think of anything.
PZO: Nothing from out of this country, maybe overseas?
Greg: Chips dipped in yogurt; I tried that the other day.
PZO: That's not weird.
Greg: Kind of a strange combination right?
PZO: They do that in the Middle East a lot.
Greg: Yeah it's not that weird actually. But I tried it because whatever, I think it spilled on my chip so I just ate it.
PZO: If you weren't in a band right now, what would you be doing?
Greg: I have no idea. I would make sure that I was enjoying myself properly.
PZO: Any occupation you wanted to take when you were younger?
Greg: I thought about all the things, I saw a lot of things I didn't want to do, couldn't think of a lot of things that I did want to do but really compelled me to do it. But knowing what you don't want to do is really really important.
PZO: Is that the majority of stuff?
Greg: What?
PZO: The majority of stuff you don't want to do. Like most things, act job-wise; I know I'm there.
Greg: Yeah it's a process of figuring out what makes you happy.
PZO: Yeah, true.
Greg: By saying this is the things I don't want to do you know.
PZO: You know any bad jokes you want to share?
Greg: I'm not good at jokes, man. I don't really know any.
PZO: Are there any fairly unknown bands you want to tell the people about?
Greg: The Curse is playing tonight, and they're great. They're actually on a compilation with four other bands from Philadelphia, and they've played with us last night in Boston and they're playing tonight and they're great.
PZO: They have a website we can check out?
Greg: I'm not sure. But you might want to plug it in.
PZO: I'll do some research on that.
Greg: Yeah, they're great. Actually their record, one song on a compilation is for sale tonight. [ I found their website with ease, check it out at www.thecurse.net]
PZO: Do you have any guilty pleasures, as far as musical tastes go?
Greg: I love all kinds of music, all kinds of music interests me. So yeah the bad stuff, whatever you want to call it. Even pop radio is sometimes, its like you listen to it and you see what you don't like you know what I mean. And what's, I mean most of the time it's total shit they're turning out, like some machine created music playing over. But all music is there for a reason. hold on one sec.
PZO: What's the best lesson you have ever learned?
Greg: Best lesson?
PZO: Yeah, or never learned.
Greg: To realize that everyday you learn a new lesson.
PZO: Indeed, that's a lot to think about right
there.
Greg: To be open to it, that everyday is a new lesson. Instead of thinking or saying that nothing new or different happens, there's always something.
PZO: That'd make a good song.
Greg: Yeah. Here we go, let's see if I can get him a sec.
PZO: What is one thing you would never do no matter how much money you were offered?
Greg: Compromise what I feel in my heart, is right. Cause the money is never worth it, cause money goes away and you always have to live with yourself.
PZO: True.
PZO: If you can see any band perform any song live, what would it be?
Greg: Jimi Hendrix, any Jimi Hendrix song to see him live.
PZO: Definitely.
PZO: What's the craziest thing that you've seen happen in the audience?
Greg: I've seen lots of fights, I've seen floors break, I've seen broken limbs, blood, how's that?
PZO: That's every show?
Greg: No no, that's stuff I've seen, some stuff.
PZO: What's one invention that you wish you could claim to be your own?
Greg: The guitar.
PZO: That's a good one.
PZO: You did the split with Anti-Flag right. So was there anything that you wanted to do that BYO didn't let you do?
Greg: No, we just went for it, and they just let us do what we wanted.
PZO: You covered one of each other's songs right?
Greg: Yeah.
PZO: And you had other covers on there?
Greg: What do you mean? Yeah we did a Sticks and Stones song, a band from New Jersey, from when we were in High School. And a band called Cock Sparrer; the "We're Coming Back" song.
PZO: Back from when?
Greg: Yeah, they're an English Oi band from like yesteryear, the early eighties.
PZO: Cool.
PZO: What is True Believers, I know a lot of people have the tattoos, what does that mean to you?
Greg: Umm, it just means to be believe in yourself really, and trust in your own, what feels right for you. What's it like, what it means to me.
PZO: Okay that's it.

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