I met with Josh, the vocalist, and Johnny, the bassist and singer, of Lions Lions. Only, when asked to introduce themselves, Josh said “I’m Josh, and I’m the singer, I guess, for Lions Lions.” The little giggles that ensued after that only continued on during the conversation.“All the bands on this tour are good friends of ours, so it’s just a bunch of good friends hangin’ out,” says Josh. “It’s all near home, it’s easy, it’s fun.”
Upon hearing that the band has been compared to Four Year Strong and likened to them, they seemed a bit taken aback, but positively so. FYS helped produce From What We Believe, so LL and FYS have collaborated before.
The band conveys such a positive message; they have merch that says “HATE-FREE” on it and write empowering lyrics. Where did that come from? “It’s not so much a conscious effort, it’s just who we are,” says Josh. “There is so much hate and negativity,” said Johnny.
Josh: “You can only sing about a girl breaking up with you and how much you hate your life so many times. It gets stale. We offer something different; it stands out…if we tried to do the ‘tough guy’ thing, it’d be really out of character.”
“The whole idea is based on how we live our lives,” explains Johnny. “We aren’t trying to be a positive band to be a positive band, we’re just positive people and that’s how we live our lives.”
“My mom brought me up, and I listened to like, Led Zeppelin and stuff like that and from there the list goes and goes,” says Johnny. “Story of the Year had a lot of songs that were like the anthem-type songs. They’ve been one of our biggest influences as a whole,” Josh says.
“The first band I ever listened to and knew I wanted to play music was Green Day,” Johnny goes on to explain. “When the Dookie album came out, I was like ‘I wanna play in a band! I wanna play music, that’s what I wanna do.”
Josh then countered with, “It started with Dookie, and now you just make dookie.”
“Sleeping With Sirens [have been a big influence on the band as a whole out of all the artists they’ve toured with]. They’ve helped us out a lot. We’ve been friends with them for a few years now,” enthusiastically explains Josh. “They’ve done a lot for our band to help us and they’ve blown up recently.”
On the road, nothing keeps them sane. “We’re not sane at all,” said Josh with a smile. “Keeping sane is by not acting sane, whatsoever. When you break it down, you only perform for twenty to thirty minutes a night. 12 hours of driving. A couple of hours walking around trying to find a convenience store to buy a soda because there is nothing around. Hours of sitting in the van, and looking at each other, and laughing and saying stupid stuff.”
Is it worth it?
Immediately, and positively, they respond. “Oh yeah. Absolutely.”
Josh: “You have to love it, because if you don’t love it, there is absolutely no reason to do it. Sometimes we’re just like ‘ughk gotta get through this one.’ We don’t care about the crowd, if it’s just one of those [bad] days. We always perform the exact same way, whether we’re playing for two people…or three people.”
Johnny responded with, “We get on stage to do what we love. We don’t care if it’s two or three people.”
“We wrote music that we love, and we love performing it, so that’s what we do. It’s rough, it’s really rough. It’s not for everyone, which explains why we’ve had a ton of member changes. It’s hard. You’re cramped up with six dudes in a sweaty, gross smelling van,” says Josh.
Johnny then went on to explain that, “We’re also at the point where three of us live together.” “We see each other every day; I see him [in reference to Johnny] every day,” Josh goes on. “And we have a practice space right down the street, and that’s become a thing, that we practice. Even our drummer and one of our guitarists, they live separately, but they live close, so we practice so we still see ‘em [off tour],” Johnny says.
In their music videos, there’s always a ton of concert footage. What made them want to incorporate their live shows so heavily into their vids?
Josh said, “Honestly, we feel like our live show is important to our band. That’s one thing that may set us apart from similar bands in our genre. We want to showcase that. And honestly, they’re the cheapest music videos to do because you just bring a camera and throw a show and that’s that. Our ‘Killing Your Grace’ video, which was our first real music video, we threw a free show and our friends Longshot (RIP) played, A Loss For Words did an acoustic set, so we just threw a free show for anyone who supported us before and everyone came out and we played. We played that same song, like…nine times in a row. And then we played a regular set afterwards, with that song again. And for ‘Milestones’, we were lucky enough to play the local stage at Warped Tour.”
“We’d love to [be on Warped],” says Johnny, “but it’s one of those things where it’s like ‘yes I can’t wait to do it’, but after all the stories we’ve heard we’re like ‘hooooly crap’. “
Their logo is a victory wreath, or a laurel wreath. This symbol is everywhere. What does it mean to the band?
“To us, it is being the victory thing,” explains Josh. “I mean, essentially, that’s the goal. That’s what it represents to us. Like, ‘Hey, we’re tryin’’. And again, it keeps with the positivity. It’s not a crazy dark logo with the scribble font. We thought about it, it would be kinda funny.”
“The main thing we put out is that band guys aren’t cool,”Josh said. “There’s nothing cool about it. If you think about it, it’s like, you’re poor, you’re traveling around chasing a childhood dream, and you’re sleeping in a van with a bunch of dudes all the time, not showering. How is that cool? None of that’s cool. To me, it’s like, none of it’s cool, I’ll talk to anyone all day. There’s no weird like ‘oh can I talk to you, maybe go backstage, get an autograph?’ like no, I wanna hang out, right now! Let me get your autograph. No amount of success or anything would make me cool. We just kinda hang out and the people who come see us are friends. Most of the people that come to our shows we know on a first name basis.”
When asked to describe themselves individually in three words, first they wanted to do it for the whole band, then for each other, and it was finally settled.
Josh described himself as “goofy, average height. Hold on, wait. Average, goofy, and nerd.”
Johnny was “coffee, bacon, beard.”
Josh went into detail. “I feel like I’m average, that’s one of my inside jokes with myself. It’s like, when you play a video game, and like, create a character, there’s always just the default character that’s just an average looking white person. That’s what I feel like I look like. I’m not tall, I’m not short. I look like a million white guys. I’m like White Guy 001. John, you’re shorter and have the beard and have distinguishable features. And I don’t, I’m just default.”
Johnny said, “Yeah, but if I shave…” Josh: “Then you just look weird. Then it’s not default, it’s just weird.”
Johnny: “I’ve had a beard probably since I was thirteen or fourteen. Well, I started off with a goatee ‘cause I couldn’t grow the sides yet. But when the sides started growing in, I had a beard and had one ever since. I shave every once and a while, clean, and let my skin breathe.”
Josh said, “My mom got really mad at him for shaving.”Johnny: “She like, called him and freaked out.” Josh: “She was like, ‘You tell Johnny he will never do that again.’”
Josh went on to say how he doesn’t have a trademark (like the beard), and he wants one. “I would have a beard if I could, I just don’t have the genes in me. My dad couldn’t grow a beard until he was in his 50s. So I have 30 more years until I might be able to grow a beard.”
Johnny spoke up. “The funny thing is when we met Josh, he had a beard. But it wasn’t a beard. It was patches. He let it grow and it was a few patches on the sides, chin, and a little bit of this [mustache].”
In a turn for the even more humourous, Josh said, “Make sure you put all of that in there. People are going to be like ‘this is the longest, most boring interview. All they’re talking about is patchy facial hair. This is the third paragraph about patchy facial hair.’”
John countered with, “I actually wanted to talk to you about your inside jokes with yourself. I’ve never had one of those.”
Josh: “That’s who I hang out with. You just hear me laughing hysterically by myself.”
What’s a song on their iTunes that’s surprising or embarrassing?
Johnny said, “I did have and I did listen to… 1000 Hits from the 80s.”
Josh one-upped him with, “There’s a song by Blood On The Dance Floor called ‘Bewitched’. And it is amazing. It is such a good song. And we played Unsilent Night, a music festival in Dallas, a couple weeks ago, and we got to see them perform that song. ‘Bewitched’ by Blood On The Dance Floor is an amazing song. And I’m not being sarcastic. Legitimately, I know every single word to it, and I will sing it every day.”
And with that, we snapped a pic, shook hands, and shook hands. The two insanely humble guys were witty and charming- two qualities that seem to be lost amongst today’s musicians. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed harder in an interview. They were so genuine and kind, and are most certainly talented. Lions Lions sure know how to have a good time.