PropertyOfZack was recently given the chance to interview Greg Attonito of The Bouncing Souls. Greg and I discussed the band’s 20th year anniversary releases, past and upcoming tours, as well as the band’s future releases. Greg was absolutely great, so read up!

For the record, could you state your name and role in The Bouncing Souls?
I am Greg and I sing in The Bouncing Souls.
 
So you guys just finished up a bunch of tour dates in New York and DC. How’d they go?
They went great actually. It was a lot of fun.  DC was great and the boat around Manhattan was a total blast.
POZ: Was playing on the boat and everything an interesting experience?
Greg: Yeah, we’ve actually done it a couple times before and it is pretty weird because the boats moving, everyone’s moving, the show gets going so everyone’s dancing and stuff then suddenly everyone swerves to the same direction in the boat and hits a whatever. It’s pretty funny. That mostly was happening when we were docked. The boat was rocking.
 
The Bouncing Souls also played select dates on this year’s Warped Tour. How was your time our on that?
The Warped Tour shows were great. They went really well. We had vehicle troubles, which were not so much fun. We got a trailer stolen and that was not so much fun, but in the end it didn’t end up being like a big fuss or anything and everything ended up being relatively okay as far as getting things back. In the end it wasn’t bad, but it was a little stressful there for a while. As far as the tour and the shows, it was a good tour.
 
You’ve obviously seen your fare share of Warped Tours. Is it kind of mind-blowing to see how it’s changed over the past few years, especially this year in particular?
It’s really mind-blowing on various levels. The generation of this Warped Tour is interesting. I’ve gone through different experiences of being on it since I’ve been on nine of them. I’ve felt real disconnected from the Warped Tour and felt that it wasn’t what it used to be, but this time out I was like, “I am actually old enough to be some of these kid’s dads,” like bands on the Warped Tour. So I was feeling really disconnected, but then I kind of was at peace with it in my mind, because I was like, “I’m just a different generation.” It doesn’t mean I’m old and washed up, I just don’t connect with all these kids because my dad doesn’t connect necessarily when he comes out to see my show, but he has fun in his generation. When you’re from a different generation you can relate, but on some levels there’s sort of a disconnect and I had to realize that and didn’t make it anything different than what it was. It’s a strange world out there. When we started out on Warped Tour we were all the same generation.
 
Way back in January the band released Ghosts On The Boardwalk, which was of course the collection of singles released for the 20^th anniversary series. How was the reception to it as a total package when it came out?
It was great. The once a month digital downloads was a lot of fun for us and it was a lot of fun for everybody. We toured and people who had discovered the songs throughout the year and it was a complete success and the CD coming out was great because all the people who were asking for a CD were happy. It’s been good.
 
A lot of people have described the release as kind of an homage to all the band’s previous albums. Would you kind of agree with that statement?
I’d say that was sort of loosely conscious thought during the writing process. So yes, but not real regimented. We thought about that, but we didn’t get real strict with it.
 
In just a few weeks The Bouncing Souls will be heading out on tour with Bad Religion through mid-November. Are you expecting that to be a crazy tour?
I’m looking forward to it. it’s going to be fun to do those places with a band like Bad Religion and to see that crowd and the different cities and open up. Usually during those club tours we’re the headlining act, so that’s gonna be kind of fun to just open up for their crowd.
 
Is there always a certain comfort being able to still tour with bands like Bad Religion, Lifetime, and NOFX, especially when you just talked about having that disconnect with younger bands?
Yeah, I’d say so. A lot of those people are our friends too. We all relate because we have history together. No matter what, if you have a relationship with someone you’re going to relate to them more easily than someone you’re just meeting new. It’s fun. It’s good to commiserate and see what’s going on in their world and their band. It’s a cool thing to talk about whatever amongst those bands. Some are friends more than others, but yeah.
 
After the Bad Religion tour you guys will be heading to Australia with Hot Water Music and in the beginning of 2011 you’ll be heading out with NOFX. Will you guys be taking a break from touring after that?
Yes, we will be. We don’t have much scheduled for the beginning half of 2011. Maybe something in the summer, but we’ll see. It’s not gonna be a whole lot.
 
Does it ever get mentally or physically tiring after touring for pretty much six months straight all over the country and even the world at this point in your career?
Yeah, that’s why after touring as much as we have we made a loose rule to try to go out for two to three weeks, but not more than three weeks at a time and then have at least a week or a couple weeks in between so we can stay fresh and enjoy it. It’s about the joy. It’s about fun. It’s about bringing some fun to someone’s night and life and if we can’t do that, if we can’t be happy, it’s sort of like why would we be doing it. It’s the same for life. If you’re not happy you have to figure out why and it’s not always easy, but that’s what life’s about. We have the find the happiness everyday in the best way we can.
 
Will the band work on new music in the New Year?
We’ve talked about it. We don’t have a rough schedule, but we are gonna finally start playing around and start recording some stuff.
 
Obviously the release cycle was a little bit different for the last go around, but will the next album be in a more traditional fashion, release wise?
We don’t have any plans yet for how it’ll be released for whatever we record. Just a couple random conversations, that’s about it.
 
Would you like to have some sort of release out by the end of 2011?
We are actually going to be releasing a 7” that we’re bringing to Australia. It’s going to be like an Australian 7” in December and that’s going to have one song that we’re recording that’s a Hot Water Music song and Hot Water Music is recording one of our songs. So we are going to be releasing that. That’s going to be something new. You never really know, but at the moment I don’t think that would happen unless we release like a single or something like that. A 7” could be possible, but no plan at the moment.
POZ: What song?
Greg: It’s “Wayfarer.” It came out really good. It sounds good.
POZ: So we should definitely look for that during sometime in December?
Greg: Yes. Jason of Hot Water Music came up with the brilliant idea.
 
Thanks so much for your time, is there anything else you’d like to add?
That’s it!