BAND: Bayside
INTERVIEWER: Chris Hazel (chrish@bandvibe.com)
INTERVIEWEE: Anthony Raneri of Bayside
DATE OF INTERVIEW: 11.15.07

BAND MEMBERS:
Anthony Raneri- Vocals/Guitar
Chris Guglielmo- Drums
Jack O'shea- Guitar
Nick Ghanbarian- Bass

Chris: Who am I talking to and what is your role in the band?
Anthony: I’m Anthony and I sing in the band Bayside.

Chris: What does it feel like to be back on the road?
Anthony: Being on the road is like home to me now. I’m almost getting to the point where I’ve been on tour as long as I wasn’t on tour. I’ve been on tour for ten years, and I started touring when I was sixteen years old. So in six more years, I will have been on tour half my life. It’s great man, the tour has been really good, and playing music every day is never going to get old.

Chris: Has any thing crazy of interesting worth mentioning so far on tour?
Anthony: Bayside isn’t a very crazy and interesting band I think. We’re very mellow dudes and all we really do is watch sports, we read, we play music, we listen to music, and we talk about music. We’re geeky and not party dudes.

Chris: How was your show the other day in San Diego?
Anthony: It was awesome and we play in San Diego two days ago. It was pretty cool and it was a blast. Yesterday, we had the day off and we went to LA to go see Paramore.

Chris: How has the tour been, how are the fans taking it, and any really good venues you’ve play at yet?
Anthony: House of Blues is always great. The staff is very efficient and nice to us, all the stage crew know what they are doing, and House of Blues is so clean. We played the Nokia Theater in New York, which is our home town show. It’s just this massive place that holds like two thousand people in the middle of Time Square. Our faces we all lit in Time Square! The tour has been great and it’s cool to be on tour with other Victory Record bands. Victory is kind of turning into a brand and I think all the audience members are fans of all the bands in the label.

Chris: How does Victory Records treat you? Do they treat you differently or do they treat all the bands as equals?
Anthony: I think every body is equal and it is really a team effort. All the staff at Victory, every body in our band, and every body in all the other bands are all friends and every body works together as one big family.

Chris: How important are the fans to Bayside?
Anthony: The fans are very important to us. We live in an extremely dedicated fans base compared to a lot of other bands, and that keeps us honest because we want to keep that fan base. We’re never going to change any thing we do to try and make new fans because our fans are the best.

Chris: The Walking Wounded was released early in 2007, how is the fan’s response to your latest album?
Anthony: It’s been awesome and one cool thing about our fan base is that they mature with us as a band, especially lyrically. Musically for sure but lyrically I think our records have gone from very pessimistic to optimistic. Our fans never got to the point of asking why are we not depress any more, why aren’t these lyrics about hating life and people any more? So the response has been great.

Chris: How has the death of John Holohan affected your writing?
Anthony: After his death, I believe I have truly become a stronger writer, more honest in my writing, and more personal in my writing.

Chris: I was talking to a few fans before the show and they feel that you’ve changed and gotten better vocally. Do you feel that you have reached your full potential, or is there room for improvement?
Anthony: I feel like that there is always room for improvement. I mean some of my favorite singers are Marcy, Frank Sinatra, and people like that. I’m no where near that so until I get to their level, then there is always room for improvement. I never took vocal lessons and I never learned to sing. It’s always been a trial and error for me and I figure out what works for me and what doesn’t. I learned what I should stop doing and what I should do more of and since that’s the way I go about singing, hopefully I will always be getting better.

Chris: Who is your new drummer and what does he add to the band?
Anthony: His name is Chris and he adds a beard to the band because before he joined no one in the band had a beard. (laughs all around) He fits the profile of Bayside because he’s less than five foot five. He’s a superb drummer, a good guy, and he’s a little more experimental in his playing than any of us are use to playing and I think it helps us explore new things.

Chris: Do you feel it help push the band in a new direction?
Anthony: Oh yeah absolutely, not in a different direction like we’re a different band now, but Chris thinks out side of the box when it come to his drumming and it help us push the boundaries musically.

Chris: What are your plans for after this tour?
Anthony: Right after the New Year I’m going to be doing a short solo tour in January on the east coast. Then after that Bayside is going to Europe with Paramore and New Found Glory and then when we come back we are going to hang out at home for a little bit. In the spring we are going to do a US tour with Starting Line and then in the summer we are going to record the new album.

Chris: If you can give a band one piece of advice, what would you tell them?
Anthony: Just pay attention to music because a lot of band when they are starting out are trying to figure out how to get a manager and an agent and how to go on tour and how to meet the right people. They get ahead of them selves and forget that if you write a bunch of really incredible songs then all those people are going to come to you and make your like a hole lot easier.

Chris: Is there any thing you want to tell the reader of Bandvibe?
Anthony: I just want to thank all the fans who have been following us all these years.

For more official information on Bayside, please log onto:
http://baysideisacult.com
http://www.myspace.com/bayside

Check out Bandvibe's photo coverage of Bayside: