PropertyOfZack had the chance to interview all the guys from The Life I Lead just a few weeks ago before they opened up for Hawthorne Heights in New York City. The band and I discussed their successful year in 2010, touring plans for 2011, possible new material, and more. Read up and enjoy!

For the record, could you state your name and role in The Life I Lead?
Steve: I’m Steve and I play guitar.
Stan: I’m Stan and I play drums.
Puff: I’m Puff and I play guitar.
Jay: I’m Jaw and I just do vocals.
 
Today is just a one-off date with Hawthorne Heights, but are you guys stoked to play for a home crowd?
Steve: It’s been a while since we’ve played New York City, so it’s cool to be back. We’ve done a few tours and haven’t had a big show.
Puff: We like to play home as much as any other place so we can get everyone to show up and flip out for one show. 
 
2010 has been quite a successful year for the band with an EP release and multiple tours including a stop on Warped Tour. Can you talk about how the EP has been received and how it was doing it all by yourselves?
Steve: Who wants to take this one?
Stan: I’ve seen a lot of good response from the EP. There was a nice big push when it came out and we promoted on Warped Tour for a while and we did a summer tour and we saw a lot of good response from it. Even though we’ve been playing these songs every day or week for almost two years now we go to new cities and they’ll be hearing it for the first time and they’re extremely excited about it. That’s why we really feel that we can push this a little longer before releasing new material.
 
Was it tough doing it all by yourselves?
Stan: I think we were kind of expecting it to be. I think it was fun either way just going out and doing it.
Steve: The tough parts were travel because we recorded it at one place, mixed somewhere else. We recorded it in Poughkeepsie and we’re from New York City, so we recorded it on long weekends. The driving part and logistics of it were hard, but writing and recording was fun.
Puff: getting to get everything exactly how we wanted it to sound was a good introduction for us to the world.
 
How was that date on Warped?
Puff: Tons of fun.
Stan: I remember when we found out we were going to play. We were in Hartford, Connecticut and that was like the best day in my life.
Jay: There were a few days where we knew that they were going to announce who was playing and who won the Battle Of The Bands and every morning I’d wake up and check. When we heard about it, it was really exciting. Playing it was like an out of body experience.
Steve: The last Warped Tour I went to before that was two years ago, and I get really sick because it’s so hot, so I was like, “I’m not going to be back until I’m playing Warped Tour,” and that’s what happened.
POZ: That date at Warped was one of the hottest days of the summer.
Jay: It was terrible.
 
Could a date or two be possible for 2011?
Puff: We’re going to push for it.
Steve: Hey Warped Tour, if you’re listening…
Jay: We’d love to. We want to be wanted to play. When they’re ready, we’re ready [Laughs].
 
There’s been talk about a music video for “Confide.” When should we be on the lookout for that?
Steve: Yeah, that’s probably not happening. We would love to do it, but we can’t afford it because we’re really starting to tour more. We have like three tours lined up right now, so we would love to, but it’s not really working out for right not. We would love to in the future for a newer song.
Stan: Yeah, in the late winter or spring when we start working on ideas for new songs, maybe we’ll just do a video for one of those tracks.
 
Recording some acoustic tracks of the material on Me Against You has also been said to be a possibility. Is this any more or less concrete now?
Steve: That’s another one that’s not happening.
Puff: [Laughs] Way to deliver The Life I Lead.
Steve: We took the winter kind of slow. Now we have all these touring plans, but I’d love to do both the video as well as the acoustic EP whenever there’s time.
Stan: Time and money is always an issue. 
 
The Life I Lead will be heading out with The Sophomore Beat and My Arcadia on two different tours in the upcoming weeks. All eastern, but how excited are you to head south for a bit and feel a little bit of warmth?
Full band: Definitely excited for that.
Stan: It’s funny, with The Sophomore Beat tour we were like, cool we’ll tour south in the winter and now we’re playing way up north in December.
Jay: The worst month every to do that.
Steve: I want to line the van with Christmas lights to be in a good mood at all times in the day.
 
Will you guys more or less be putting an end to touring in support of the EP and working on new material or do you see a lot of life left in the EP?
Steve: We’re all really eager to get new material out and write new stuff. We all have our own ideas and we’re all jamming to some new songs, but the reality is that we’re playing all these new markets where people are going to hear us playing the songs for the first or second time and they’re still going to want to enjoy that and take the EP. I think we can say for sure that we’re going to start introducing a new song or two into the set in the New Year. The EP still has a nice lifeline.
Puff: People haven’t gotten super bored of it yet.
Jay: A ton of people obviously haven’t even heard it yet.
 
Will we be seeing any more tours be announced as well after the ones you guys have coming up?
Steve: There’s one more tour in the second part of February that we haven’t really announced yet, but it’s being booked right now.
POZ: Will that be along the east coast?
Steve: Yeah, more northern dates as well.
Stan: It should be maybe a little warmer, or colder.
Puff: Plans are not working out like we thought, but we’ll be on tour and it’s good enough for us.
Jay: We’ll play anywhere.
 
Would you guys like to hit the studio at some point in 2011?
Stan: Maybe in the spring time for a single or two.
Jay: We’re all itching to write new songs. It’s going to happen soon. It’s just that we’re trying to be responsible as a band with our money.
Puff: We’re really trying to drill in the fact that we have an EP out right now. It’s still new to the rest of the world
 
How would you compare the newer material that’s been written to the EP?
Steve: We hope it’s more mature because we’re different people. It’s been two years and everyone is listening to more and different music.
Jay: When we wrote it, we were kind of fairly new as friends. We didn’t know each other in and out, so now we’re much closer.
Steve: In terms of sound and genre, I think it’s still hard to say. We’d love to see what just happens when we continue to write.
Stan: It’s good that we can sit on this material and still push the EP and take what we like from the EP and build off of that.
 
The band is obviously unsigned, but has there been any label chatter since the EP release?
Stan: We’ve had some managers hit us up and we’ve been reaching out to certain industry people and stuff. We try to make sure that we’re constantly in the right people’s eyes. We try to use Twitter and Facebook and all that stuff to promote, but we’re not trying to sign any time soon. We want to do our own thing and do the hustle for a while.
Jay: We’re not ready to do that yet. We still have to put in the work.
Steve: There’s plenty of stuff that we still have to do on our own and can do on our own. We have our plans and we’re going to do them regardless of a label. We’re fine doing everything on our own. If something better comes up, great. If not, we’re fine.
Stan: We have the next year kind of planned out, give or take. We’re going to go for it, and if something happens, something happens.
Steve: We’re not a band that’s waiting to get signed because that’s stupid. This is The Life I Lead [laughs].
 
Thanks so much for your time, is there anything else you’d like to add?
Steve: Check us out on Facebook.com/TheLifeILead and we have a really funny YouTube channel that we work hard to be funny on. It’s YouTube.com/TheLifeILeadTV.