Music Features

Aaron: You're kind of renowned for being these rock pranksters or never take anything serious, are you ever serious?

WAS: You know, we can be serious. I'd say about 50% of the time we are serious, but we're really more known as being rock gangsters as opposed to pranksters.

Aaron: What has been the plan since Michael's departure, have you managed to find a full time drummer yet?

WAS: Well, it had been a very long hard relationship. We haven't really found anyone yet, we're gonna spend some time getting the right drummer, there's so many good drummers. We'll do some serious shopping for a drummer.

Aaron: You all met through university, implying you all have degrees, do your family ask you when you're going to stop this rock band business and get a real job?

The Portland 05. Copyright Mike Thornton

WAS: No. What it is, is we would earn like 10% of what we're earning now. And our parents would never say that as we're providing for them, I don't think they'd like to be taken out of that lifestyle that we built for them and are now accustomed to. They'd have to get normal 9 - 5 jobs again to pay their way.

Aaron: The name, where does it actually come from? Is it from when you guys were working for U-Haul?

WAS: Well, we wasn't working for U-Haul, more that we were working together I'd say. But yeah, the guy thought we looked like scientists.

Aaron: Are you going to do any 'Brain Thrust Mastery' seminars to coincide with the album release?

WAS: Mmmm. Not really to coincide with the album release but we may definitely go back and head in that direction at a later date.

Aaron: This isn't your first time in Cambridge, you've been a few times and played a few shows around the city, have you ever had the chance to wander about and explore the city?

WAS: Not really, only in the small vicinity of around where we have been playing, the walk to a Starbucks, Costa or Nero and back to the venue to sit around all day.Cambridge seems to have a pretty good nightlife though, what's the name of that place not far from here, like a few floors, always full of kids, something tree.

Aaron: The Soul Tree.

WAS: Yeah, that place has always got tons of kids there.

Aaron: You've been a band now for a few years, what are some of the highlights and the lowlights in the band's history?

WAS: From touring with the Kaiser Chiefs and Arctic Monkeys, those were real highlights and good times all the way from absolute complete equipment failures on stage infront of 50,000 people.

Aaron: After this acoustic tour, are you looking forward to playing with electric again and having your full setup and show back?

WAS: I'd say I'm getting really used to being an acoustic band, I'm dangerously fond of playing as an acoustic band, but I think once we go inside a venue that's filled with 2,000 people who want to hear an electric set we'll get over it pretty quickly.

Aaron: On your website it mentions you're New York's handsomest bachelors who also operate a fine rock outfit, surely now...?

WAS: We've got interest, it really depends on when and where you catch us.

Aaron: What music and films have you been listening and watching over this tour?

WAS: This tour has been exclusively devoted to Steven Segal films. We've got the Steven Segal collection. One film in the collection is Executive Decision, I don't wanna ruin anything for you but it can hardly be called a Steven Segal film. He dies about 15 minutes into it, It's a Kurt Russel film. So right now we are devoted to the films of Segal, although I haven't stayed awake through a single one yet. I'm devoted to 'tasting' the films.

Aaron: Will you be playing the Nickleback cover that was played for Jo Whiley on Radio 1?

WAS: Never again. We performed that as an exorcism. As far as I know that song hasn't been played in the world since we did, so our work here is done. We sent it to Hell, it'll never return.

Aaron: Why don't you like any of the pre-With Love and Squalor material?

WAS: [Answer edited out here, folks!]... I guess we feel it's a little unpolished, early unscaled efforts at songwriting. There's only so much time in a set, if someone said to us 'I'll pay you a million dollars to play a 3-hour set' we'd play them songs, to be honest if they said 'I'll give you 3 million dollars to play a 15-minute set and it had to be all pre-Love and Squalor' I would do that, so it's just cause the price isn't right yet.

Aaron: What would win in a fight, a lion or a tiger?

WAS: That would never happen, Lions and tigers are brothers. They'll fight together, they'd beat anything together if they put their minds to it. They could kill a ****'g rhino.

Aaron: If you had to sell Brain Thrust Mastery to the country with a tag line, what would you use?

WAS: Have we not developed tag lines for this album already? We come up with one only an hour ago which is 'Does for the mind, what Red Bull does for the nerves'.