PropertyOfZack had the chance to sit down with Toby and Nate from Sparks The Rescue just last weekend on the second day of their holiday headlining tour! Toby, Nate, and I discussed their current tour, the completion of their brand new album, and what we should expect in 2011. Read up and enjoy!

For the record, could you state your names and roles in Sparks The Rescue?
Nate: I’m Nate and I play drums.
Toby: I’m Toby, I play guitar.

The “Christmas Brings Me Down” tour started yesterday in New Hampshire. You guys have Amely and You, Me & Everyone We Know with you and will be out on the road until the 19^th. How was yesterday and how stoked are you guys for the remaining dates?
Toby: Yesterday was pretty sweet. It was like day one, working out all the kinks. We had a great time. A decent amount of kids came out, which was pretty awesome.
Nate: The meet and greet, that’s always fun. We’ve never played with these guys before, so we’re looking forward to making some new friends.
Toby: Yeah, the other two bands are awesome. We can already tell we’re going to get along quite well.

The name of the tour comes from the Christmas song the band recorded for Fearless’s ‘Tis The Season release. How was it doing that?
Nate: Yeah, it was a blast. This was our friend official and original Christmas song. We had to choose whether to do an original or a cover and we were like, “Everyone sings about a happy Christmas, so let’s sing about a sad one.”
Tony: It was fun, we just banged it out in one day. It came together pretty quickly

Is it kind of an added perk to get to be on Fearless just because of the fact they do all these cover and seasonal CD’? It is nice to switch it up?
Toby: Yeah, it is cool.

What’s your set like on this tour?
Nate: High energy. That’s how we like it. I like to feel like I’m dying when I get off stage. We play hard and fast.
Toby: We’re playing a couple old, old songs, a lot of stuff from Eyes To The Sun, the Pop Goes Punk cover we did, and then the Christmas song. We’re rotating a different new song in every night because we just got off recording our CD. So we want to play a new song every night.
POZ: Did they respond well to the new song last night?
Toby: Yeah, I guess. It’s always a little difficult playing new songs ‘cause everyone’s waiting to hear something they know. We’re just pumped about the new release.

The band hit the studio to start working on the new album not too long ago. Is the writing process complete?
Nate: Yep?
POZ: What about your time in the studio?
Nate: We’re done. The new CD is done.
Toby: Five months out of our lives and this baby came out. It’s our new record.

How would you compare the sound and writing process to Eyes To The Sun?
Toby: It’s in the same vein. Maybe a little darker. I don’t think it’s necessarily heavier, I just think we tried to step up our game a little bit. We wrote some songs we’re really proud of.

How many tracks should we expect?
Nate: Eh, I don’t know. Probably eleve or twelve.
Toby: We recorded fourteen, but we’ll just pick three to maybe use as b-sides or iTunes bonuses.

Would you say a March release date looks good?
Toby: Yeah, I’d say probably March.
Nate: That’s the plan.

There obviously aren’t any tour dates because of the work on the new record, but might we see any scattered dates before it’s out?
Toby: It’s up in the air right now.
Nate: We’re tying to think of something creative to do in our off time. I don’t just want to sit around at home.
Toby: We have a lot of preparing to do for the CD as well though. We’re in that stage of the game now where it is probably going to be coming out in the next few months, so we have to take care of all the BS you have to do. We’re pretty excited about it.

Should we expect heavy, heavy touring after?
Tony: Hopefully, that’s the plan.

Is Warped Tour 2011 a possibility? You guys were on it this past year.
Toby: We’ve got our fingers crossed.
Nate: That’s still up in the air for us. We’re coming up on the end of the year, so we have to hit the reset button.

Would Sparks The Rescue like to head out overseas next year as well?
Toby: That would be sick. We got to go over there once and it rocked, so we can’t wait to go back. We sold a bunch of CDs there, so I get we could draw out a couple kids.
Nate: It’s a whole different world over there, so it’s nice. The kids are a lot different here.

This is obviously a headline tour, which brings on more pressure, but is that always a great experience to have under your belts?
Toby: It’s alright. We’re just doing it for fun. We wanted to go out and play some shows before the holiday season. The other two bands are awesome and we have The Morning Of opening today and tomorrow for us too. We’re just trying to get a bunch of sweet bands together and play some shows. If kids want to come hang out, we’ll be stoked.

Thanks so much for your time, is there anything else we should be on the lookout for?
Toby: Just get pumped for this new CD because we’re getting real pumped.
Nate: Search the web, we’ll have some treats here and there.