PropertyOfZack had the chance to speak with Mindy White from States a few weeks ago for a great interview. Mindy and I discussed how the band has grown over the past year, them finding their sound, touring with Circa Survive, and much more. Read up and enjoy!

For the record, could you state your name and role in States?
My name is Mindy White and I sing.

States was announced in the spring of 2010. From there you guys released an EP last fall and did a mini-tour, but since then things have been quiet. Has it been odd just kind of jumping in knee deep only to take a step back from fans for about half a year?
It was really weird. I’ve been playing for like five years now, and the guys have been playing longer than that. It’s really, really hard when you go that long and you’re so excited about something and you have to wait. We recorded the album in February and were sitting on it, and it was the hardest thing in the world. Even before that, we had to wait a long time to announce the band and to get everything in place. Everything needed to make sense first. It’s been a really hard waiting game, but that’s the industry I guess. We’re just so excited. Tomorrow we leave to go on tour, and it’s like, “Is this for real?” We’re super stoked.

You guys obviously were hard at work, but did you refocus the objective of States after the first EP and tour? In terms of how you guys wanted to go about pushing forward?
A little bit. We got together and decided to form the band, but we didn’t have a sound. We had the sound we played in our previous bands, which we enjoy, but that’s not the music that we wanted to ultimately play. We wanted to bring our ideas together and make this distinct sound. The EP was a great start for us. I don’t think the songs on that are very different from this record, but you can see that we’ve found our sound on this record. We were finding out all these things about our sound in the studio. It was cool to be able to step a little bit this way and a little bit that way and to still have the same sound in the center of it all. If we had an actual producer on the EP, it probably would have sounded a lot more like this. We did the EP ourselves sand it was the first songs we wrote. We were so excited though to test the waters.

Are you guys happy with how the EP was received?
We were nervous about what people would think. Most of the responses were phenomenal. Any time a band ends, kids get upset. If my favorite band ended, I would be devastated. It’s hard to accept that new band without wanting the old band back. I was fearful that a lot of people wouldn’t accept us at all. People have been so amazing and supportive. They’ve been very supportive.

You’ve obviously been involved in music before States whether it be Lydia or something else, but how was it writing for a full-length for the first time?
I wasn’t really able to write that much in Lydia. I had my thing on the side, which was crappy Garageband stuff that’s embarrassing to me now. It was great to have my ideas accepted as well and to have their input. We collectively wrote together as a band. The writing process is really cool.
POZ: Was it hard to open up lyrically for that many songs?
Mindy: Not really. I’ve always been writing. Sharing those are definitely a little different because I haven’t had four other guys to comment on them. It was great to have that. Their input has helped. Any writer doesn’t want to open their notebook and have it judged, so it’s a vulnerable thing. But when they believe in you, it makes it pretty easy.

Do you think fans will be able to adjust to the development of sound?
I think so. We put out our first single, and I don’t really read the feedback because one bad comment out of a thousand will bum me out. I check the Twitter and whatever, but most of the comments have been amazing. We put out another new song, and the feedback has been phenomenal. We make music because we love it and it’s music that we’ve always wanted to make. We’ve never tried to make a song sound a certain way, and we won’t do that. I would never want to be flown out to write with writers to make a super catchy song. We write the songs that we enjoy and hope our fans like it. I don’t think anyone should expect a certain sound, it’s all new.

The band was in the studio with Aaron Sprinkle, who needs no introduction. Can you discuss your time in there with him?
Aaron Sprinkle is the man. Recording with him was amazing. The guys had done an album with him before in the past, so they knew him. He was the first guy they suggested. I checked him out and looked at his roster of bands, and the second that I saw that he worked with Eisley and Acceptance, I was sold. He’s worked with some of my favorite bands. He turned out so be so amazing and such a rad guy. He’s a cool dude.

You guys recorded the album in February I believe, and it’s now coming out in October. Were there multiple delays?
It took its course. We did everything ourselves, and we haven’t signed to a label. Pretty much everything we’re doing right now has been really slow. You have to sit and wait to have the money in order to move forward. We want to do this on our own way. We weren’t closed to the idea of signing, but we never saw anything that made us want to. It takes money to put an album back. We were waiting and getting ready for it. We wanted to plan out the right moves too.

A lot of people expected major label interest in the band from the start, but this is a self-release. Do you think it’s worth it at this point?
Definitely. I don’t think we could have done it a different way. It’s not that labels are bad at all. I know many people who are very happy with their label. We wanted this to be as organic as possible. We have full control of it. A lot of labels search for a few bands that they make into whatever they want to make money. We are not and will never be that band. We’ve been making music for a long time, and this is finally our thing. It’s amazing to be so hands on. Most of the promotion as well has literally been just us. Kyle Burns and I personally designed all the merch on this tour. Stacy Fahey did one t-shirt design as well. If I found out that Jesse Lacey was that hands on, I’d buy every shirt.

It looks like the band has been rounded out too in terms of additional members. Can you talk about the new members and how they came to be?
Jon is the drummer and Dean is the bass player. They both live in Florida. They played in Copeland with Stephen and Bryan. When Copeland ended, I knew they wanted to play music, but they didn’t know what to do. Bryan and Stephen had music together, but all the guys wanted to keep playing music. They were hoping for a situation like States, and it just happened.

States will be doing its first official big tour with Circa Survive shortly. How stoked are you for that?
Super stoked. I’m a super fan of Circa and I love Anthony Green’s voice. He’s probably my favorite male singer. Regardless, we’re just stoked to get on tour. It’s been such a long process. We did a two week run when the EP came out, and that was literally a year ago. I start going a little stir-crazy.

Will we be seeing even more dates in the near future following the run?
Definitely. We have a show on November 12^th in Orlando with The Killers and The Roots. We’re playing that on a Saturday. We’re working on doing a headliner after the Circa tour ends. Our album comes out after that tour so we drop off and do a lot of press stuff. We may do some shows in New York. We may do a headliner after that though.

It’s interesting, all of you guys have been in this sort of scene, but the music behind States doesn’t necessarily restrict touring with these bands. Will we see a mix of touring in this scene and more indie routes?
I think so. Like you said, we always think about whom we could tour with. There’s a wide-range of areas that we could go in. We did the Bamboozle Roadshow with Saves The Day, Set Your Goals, Lydia, and Armor For Sleep and it was such a weird little group. It was such an eclectic group of fans though. It was my favorite kind of tour. You got to experience this different type of sound. We wouldn’t be opposed to doing tours like that.  

The album features ten tracks. Will we be seeing any extra b-sides released at any time?
I could see us doing some in the future in between albums. We did a Christmas song recently. Maybe we’ll do some acoustic tracks too. We were rushed to get the album done in that timeframe though.

Is the album being pressed as well physically, or will it just be out digitally for now?
It is! It’s only going to be digital for kids who don’t go to the tour. But all the kids who come to the Circa tour will be able to get a physical copy before it’s even out. You can get our EP as well on the tour. We’re not selling copies online because it’s a lot more money. Hopefully kids come out to the shows though.