PropertyOfZack sat down and interviewed Brian and John from The Summer Set just a week ago in New York City to discuss their first headline tour, their next album, and a big spring tour! Read up and enjoy!

For the record, could you state your name and role in The Summer Set?
John: I’m John and I play guitar.
Brian: I’m Brian and I sing and we are The Summer Set.

You guys are currently out on The Travelin’ Show, which happens to be your first headline tour. You’re just about halfway into it. How’s the first time being the last one out on stage gone so far?
Brian: It’s been sweet. It’s been cool. I’m really stoked for this portion. I feel like these are some of our strongest markets that we’ve got coming up. It’s been cool. It was interesting at first going from playing six songs in thirty minutes to playing like twelve songs and a full hour’s work of material. So, I get to talk about a lot more stuff.
John: And everyone on the tour has just been tight after day one. It’s nice being surrounded by a bunch of good people.

Were you feeling nervous at all before heading out on the road for this?
John: I think I wouldn’t be a real person if I wasn’t a little bit nervous.
Brian: Normally I really never get nervous. I just get overly excited so it kind of seems like I’m nervous because I get all shaky, but I would say I was definitely a little bit nervous for that first show just because we’ve never really run through our whole set as a whole. We just have kind of played pieces. By the time

Stereo Skyline, Mod Sun, Austin Gibbs, The Downtown Fiction…
Brian: Yeah, The Downtown Fiction start today and in fact us and Stereo decided to slowly kind of prank them. We’re pretending, to The Downtown Fiction guys, that our band and the Stereo Skyline guys completely hate each other, but to each other’s faces we’re really, really nice. It’s funny because the Stereo guys are some of our best friends. I’m going to say this because if they actually find this I would laugh. We’re gonna see how long we can play it out.

Love Like This was released just over a year ago. How has the reception been all in all by now?
Brian: It’s great. I love it. I love seeing reception on this tour specifically because we’re playing more songs off the record.
John: And they’re our fans.
Brian: Yeah, it’s like these kids are there at the end of the night and they’re actually there to see us because we’re not opening or playing for someone else’s crowd. It’s cool to see them singing all the words. One of the songs off the record called “Passenger Seat” we play in our encore and we turn off the lights and we go sit on the front of the stage or go sit in the crowd and we just play it sing-a-long style. It’s cool to see people sing that loud for a song that’s just totally an album track on the record.
POZ: Is it just great to be able to have that kind of freedom as a headliner?
Brian: Yeah, it’s great. I’m afraid The Summer Set is slowly being given too much freedom [Laughs].

The Summer Set released a deluxe version with a Love Like Swift CD this summer from your Hoodwink covers back in May. Was that fun to change it up a little and do that?
Brian: That was cool. We played those songs for Hoodwink. It’s a breath of fresh air to just play songs that were by someone else and really well structured. We love her songs, we love country music, and it was just fun to play something that was so easily crowd responsive. Then the recordings turned out great, so we were like, “Hey, bonus material.”

The band recently signed to LAB Records in the UK and Europe and announced another exclusive bonus edition of Love Like This. What can we expect to come out on that release?
Brian: I don’t know. Maybe we’ll put some acoustic versions or b-sides.
John: B-sides.
Brian: They’re just kind of distributing the record in the UK, so that those people over there…the losers in the Revolutionary War can have our record too.

After this tour finishes up you guys don’t have anything on the books. Is this all for the remainder of the year?
Brian: This is it for the remainder of the year. Hopefully we’re gonna go back to working and write a bunch of new songs and maybe make a new record during this winter. Any excuse to not tour in the winter I’ll take.

Have you guys started writing?
John: Yes.
Are you ready to get into the studio?
John: I want to take the next couple months off and write and hop in the studio.
Brian: With Love Like This we wrote half the songs in the studio because we didn’t know how to finish songs on our own and were really, really ill-prepared. This time I want to go in with like 30 songs and have too much to work with. Then cry when I have to cut songs [Laughs]. I’d rather have that feeling than not have enough.

When would you guys like to hit the studio by?
Brian: February I think is when we’re trying to get in there. Take like four or five weeks and make a good record. It’d be nice to get it out by next summer. We are The Summer Set. It’d be nice to get it out mid-summer, early July, or something like that.

How has the writing process been for this in comparison to Love Like This?
John: This one’s a lot more methodical. A lot more clear. Before we start writing a song we’ll know what it’s about and keep it really true and focusing it. On our first record a lot of it is sporadic.
Brian: The train of thought isn’t always there on our first record.
John: It wasn’t there in terms of some of the lyrics and stuff and this one I want to make sure every lyric makes sense and gives the right picture.
Brian: Yeah.
John: It’s been really good.
Brian: We really like the country music song writing method where it’s like a story through and through adapted to our style of pop-rock. We’re trying to make that bridge. We just want it to be a little bit more honest and a little bit more believable and just make a little bit more sense.

Is some spring touring a possibility?
Brian: We’re going to be doing a spring tour. I can’t wait to announce it. We’ve got something in the works.
POZ: Looking to headline or support?
Brian: We’re going to be supporting.

Would you guys like to get out of the country next year as well?
Brian: I hope so. It’d be really nice to get out of the country and play some songs. There’s only so many times I think I can imagine playing “Chelsea” for people in the United States and have them still enjoy hearing it. It’d be nice to get overseas. Those songs would be fresh and new to a lot of people over there.

Thanks so much for your time, is there anything else you’d like to add?
John: Come to The Travelin’ Show.
Brian: The Travelin’ Show is the best kind of show.