Brian Dales, The Summer Set
When preparing for Warped interviews, The Summer Set was not offered, but luckily day of show were available. I grabbed the chance, and I’m glad I did.
My first interview of the day was with the lead singer of one of my all time favourite bands, Brian Dales, and I was excited as can be, even if it was last minute.
I was in the middle of my first question, when I was telling him that I had been a fan of TSS for a long time, when he interrupted to say
“I really support your little pin over there”. It was a “GO VEGAN” pin, on my shirt, and I thanked him then continued on saying that TSS really inspired me, and I asked Brian who inspired him.
Brian: “I mean, me personally, my biggest musical inspiration is, like, Bruce Springstein, and then, I don’t know, as a band, we grew up on bands like Third Eye Blind, and Jimmy Eat World, and Matchbox Twenty and stuff like that”
I asked him why he decided to become a musician.
“Cuz I stopped being good at anything else. No, I don’t know. It kind of happened by accident. Our whole band has always been playing music. Like, John, Steven, and Jess have been playing together since they were like twelve, eleven years old. They played their instruments together and I don’t know. I was an athlete in high school and started singing kind of by accident and it stuck.”
I asked him how life on the road was.
“I love it. We’ve been touring, like, two and a half years straight and now being in one place too long kind of freaks me out so I’m actually way more comfortable being on tour.”
When asking him how Warped was compared to the other tours they’ve been doing, he said:
“Totally different tour. It’s kinda like being back in high school almost. It’s like an all day thing, you eat lunch with all the bands, it’s cool, cuz it literally is a rock n’ roll high school. And I love it. It’s dirty, but it’s probably the most fun tour I’ve ever done.”
I planned to ask each band I interviewed for the one performer on Warped they had not heard before but have since become fans of, he said:
“I really like this band Fake Problems. And I really like watching Mike Posner, who I heard before, cuz he has, like, one of the biggest songs in the country right now, but I didn’t know anything else about him, he’s really cool to watch. Another fun band to watch is Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band. It’s the craziest thing I’ve seen in my entire life. There are a lot of crazy bands on Warped Tour.”
The question I always ask every band: the iPod confession. An embarassing or never expected song on their iPod or iTunes.
“I probably have every Disney song ever written. I have no shame, I love pop music and I have all of it. You name it, I have it. I’m not ashamed.”
An awesome first interview!
John and Josh of The Summer Set