SET YOUR GOALS
INTERVIEW WITH SET YOUR GOALS
Interview by Carlo Gironi |
carlo@staff.truepunk.com | with Matt Wilson of Set Your Goals.
Hello! How are things going with you and Set Your Goals in 2006?
Things are going great! We've got our debut full-length, entitled
"Mutiny!", coming out july 11th through Eulogy Recordings.
We also just shot a video for the title track, which you can check
out online at
www.altpress.com/media.
Making that was a lot of fun for us.
I read you're currently on tour with Crime in Stereo: how is it going? Funny stories to tell?
We actually finished that tour already but it was a lot of fun. Those
guys are good friends of ours and towards the end of tour we took
a day off to shoot the video and Kristian and Alex both had roles
in the video. Right now we're finishing up our u.s. tour with Ignite
and then we head over to Europe for a couple of weeks so we're pretty
stoked about that.
I don't know
if you feel it, but surfing on the internet, I think you can feel
the buzz about your band. I don't think it's just hype. So, can you
feel it and what do you expect from your upcoming album "Mutiny"?
I'd be lying if I said I didn't notice a little bit of buzz about
us on the web. I check the Bridge 9 Records board frequently and I
can't help but notice the threads about us on there. As far as the
record goes, I am very proud of it and I feel that it blows the demo
EP away. Hopefully our listeners will feel the same way.
You are a very
young band: you formed in 2004 and released a demo, an EP in April
2006 and this LP that is going to come out on Eulogy is your first
full album. How do you feel about it? Would you describe it to the
people who do not know you?
We actually originally released the demo EP in 2004 and have been
touring off of that alone for almost 2 years now. It was only recently
re-released through Eulogy, but it will be nice to get out there and
play some new songs for people. Whenever people ask to hear our music
I always play them the new songs because I am the most proud of those.
As far as describing our sound, I try to leave that up to the listener.
I feel that to classify us in a genre would be limiting, and I wouldn't
know how to do it anyway, so I just don't. I feel that we exist in
a grey area somewhere inside the realm of hardcore punk and rock,
with a pop influence.
I suppose you
take your name from a CIV's album (is it right?); you will soon support
Gorilla Biscuits on their tour. How important are the old school hardcore
roots for your band? I mean, you are very young and I might think
you heard more to The Movielife and Lifetime that 80's bands, so,
what are your main influences?
That's correct, we did originally take our name from CIV's first record,
but our name has taken on a deeper meaning for the band since its
inception. Our roots are the most important thing to me and it means
the world to me to be playing these shows. Without GB this band would
not exist. I've been into punk and hardcore since I was 11 or 12 and
I am 23 now and they have been my favorite hardcore band since the
first time I heard them so obviously they are a huge influence to
me.
On the reissue of your EP, you put a Jawbreaker cover, "Do You Still Hate Me?".
Do you have an Emo side? Do you know your favourite bands all broke
up? Those are my favourite bands too and that made me sad.
Hahaha I guess you could say that everyone has an Emo side whether
they like to admit it or not. I do know that many of my favourite
bands have broken up but I've seen what happens when good bands overstay
their welcome in the music world and it isn't pretty. I think that
maybe the reason some bands remain legendary is because they broke
up before passing their prime. So in that respect, maybe it was for
the better in some cases.
Musically,
you play melodic punk rock, and on your site it says fans of New Found
Glory, Lifetime, Kid Dynamite, The Movielife will possibly like your
band. Do you fuse pop with hardcore? What's your goal?
I guess you could say that we fuse pop with hardcore. We play music
that we enjoy listening to and our goal is just to have fun and hopefully
someday we will be able to survive doing it. To make something I love
(like doing this band) my job would be a dream come true.
From the point
of view of the production, whom did you work with? And how long did
it take to write, record and everything?
We recorded with Barrett Jones for 3 weeks in Seattle in February
of this year. We'd been writing and re-writing the songs for about
a year.We are, however, a very lazy band and though I probably shouldn't
be saying this, we were very unprepared and wrote more of the material
in the studio than we should have hahaha
Will you have
any b-sides or bonus tracks for the new disc? On the Eulogy site I
saw you will also have a picture disc on another record label.
We recorded a Gorilla Biscuits song for a Revelation compilation that
we hope to release with the Japanese import version of the record.
We will be releasing the vinyl through our friends at Double or Nothing
records.
Speaking of Eulogy,
how did you get in touch with the guys at the label? Do you think
you will work with them for many albums?
We are good friends with the Warriors and they brought us out on some
of our first tours. Once a bit of buzz began to circulate about the
EP, we were approached by a number of labels. Eulogy told the Warriors
that they were interested and although we were offered more money
from some of the other labels, we felt the most secure with Eulogy
because we trusted them the most. We're happy with eulogy and we hope
to continue to work with them as long as possible.
Lately I saw
a lot of "melodic hardcore" band turned their music off
and started playing pop punk or so called "nu emo" or that
kind of goth stuff put out by Victory Records and such. Do you think
you will be able to bring the fury and the sweat of a positive hardcore
show to the kids out there?
I hope so! Our focus is to just have fun when we play and to get the
crowd into it and having fun as well. We don't need make-up or screamy-singy
parts about "broken hearts" to do that. We hope to leave
kids with a good feeling after they see us live, not angry or suicidal
haha
Is Set Your
Goals a special band in any sense? Like, are you straight edge or
do you follow some youth positive beliefs as it was in the 80's with
bands as Gorilla Biscuits, Youth Of Today, Shelter, etc?
Most of us are edge but we are not a straight edge band by any means.Half
of us are also vegetarian so yes we do follow some of the same belief
structures as early youth crew bands such as YOT and GB. As far as
being positive, I have learned in life that there is nothing to gain
from being a negative person so to do so is counterproductive.
What are your
future projects? Will you be on the whole Warped Tour? Will you tour
elsewhere and with whom? Any plans to come to Europe?
We hope to get on warped tour maybe next summer as we were too busy
to do it this year. Like I said we will be in Europe in less than
a week, we'll be doing some dates out there with the Steal.
Any final comment?
Things I should have asked? Things you want to say?
Yes, please check out our friends in Alcatraz and Gunsmoke, two awesome
bands from the SF bay area. Don't smoke.
