PropertyOfZack was lucky enough to have a chance to speak to Kennedy Brock from The Maine just about a week ago. Kennedy and I discussed the response to their new album, the Harmony Tour, and future plans to release a b-sides album. Read up and enjoy!

For the record, could you state your name and role in The Maine?
I’m Kennedy Brock and I play guitar.
 
It’s been somewhere around four months since Black & White was released. All in all, how has the response been at this point?
It’s been great. We recently just did a headlining tour in the summer and we had really, really big shows and we’ve been on tour for about a month and a half now and we’ve just been seeing more and more people coming out. They’ve really responded well to the new songs and they pretty much new them instantly. It’s been really seamless since the last album.
 
There certainly isn’t a significant sound change from the two albums, but there definitely is a new sense of maturity. Was there any nervousness regarding how fans would respond to the shift?
I think we were just more confident in the style of songs we wanted to write and we kind of felt that our fans would respond positively in whichever way we wanted to go. I think we’re just going to continue to mature as musicians and try to push song boundaries and make our songs go in a lot of different directions. We’re not really too worried that people will not respond well to it.
 
What kind of feeling did you guys get when you woke up and saw that you debuted at 16 on the charts?
It was awesome. Actually, we had been up all day and all night before we found that out. We did a promotion thing of 24 hours of Black & White and us promoting the album and basically filmed all day a live stream of us and all the press we did on the release of the album. We were just totally excited all day about it.
 
Like you mentioned, you guys are currently out on tour with NeverShoutNever! and Ace Enders. How has your time out on it been?
It’s been great. We’ve really gotten along well with NeverShoutNever!.; we have a lot of mutual friends and this tours just kind of been bound to happen for a while now. We really get along well with them and I think there’s a few people in our group that definitely were inspired by Ace in some of his band’s, including I Can Make A Mess, so that’s been really fun as well. Then, the opening band, Carter Hulsey, they’ve been just great, great guys and we’ve really been lucky to be on this tour.
 
Obviously it’s not totally your crowd, like your summer headliner, but is it nice to do some support periodically?
Yeah, it is. I think it gives us a chance to potentially find new fans and with the position we have on this tour we get to play a good set. So we’ve really been happy with his tour. We do like headlining a lot though, it’s very nice being in control of the show and letting things be a little more relaxed and we made our tour a very family oriented vibe. We brought out a lot of friends from home and basically we like to headline and play good long sets and do whatever we like.
 
Have you guys been playing a pretty even mix of Can’t Stop and Black & White on this tour?
Yeah, we’ve actually been playing a lot more new songs and when time permits, we’ve been opening the set with a new song that we haven’t released and we’ve been throwing in another new song that we haven’t released midway through the set. We’ve just been kind of letting it be spontaneous. We’re trying to be able to eventually choose the set on the spot.
POZ: Are those songs leftover from the Black & White sessions or completely new songs?
Kennedy: Those are completely new ones. We have a lot of songs that we’ve been playing from Black & White and not necessarily any b-sides or anything. We have a few songs and a few things that we’re going to be releasing, probably soon, but not sure when that’s going on.
POZ: Will that be for a bigger b-sides release or a few random songs?
Kennedy: It’s going to be a big release. We’re still working on some things right now. We’re still deciding.
 
After this tour finishes up, you guys have some downtime before Soundwave. Will you just be relaxing or will some demoing be going on as well?
We’re going to just be kind of relaxing and demoing at the same time. We’re going to be living in a place together and just kind of be writing as we please, not really with a deadline involved.

Is it a possibility for you guys to hit the studio in the late summer of 2011 or this time next year?
Yeah, we haven’t really discussed when we’ll be thinking about studio time, but we definitely want to have plenty of songs ready when we want to go into the studio. We’re going to continue just writing during our time off.
 
How stoked are you guys for Soundwave?
Oh my gosh, really, really excited. We’ve all been looking forward to it for a while. Then we’re going back to the UK in March after that. We’re very excited to be going around the world.
 
Are there any plans to do some kind of summer or Warped tour?
I think we’d love to do a summer tour, not sure what we’re doing yet. We’re talking about doing different things, but with nothing really for sure in mind.
 
You guys are releasing the music video for “Right Girl” tomorrow. Was it a fun time shooting that one?
It was really, really fun. We basically just hung out with our friend Loren. He shot the whole thing and helped us with the concept of it. It was just really fun. We did a lot of hiking through the desert and different parts of Arizona. It was just a real fun time. I think the videos real easy going and fun to watch.
 
Thanks so much for your time, is there anything else you’d like to add?
Thank you for your time!