PropertyOfZack got the change to speak with Max and Keith of Washington Square Park just last week before their show at Maxwell’s with The Front Bottoms. Max, Keith, and I discussed the band’s new songs, debut album, future material, summer touring, and more. Read up and enjoy!

For the record, could you state your name and role in Washington Square Park?
Max: I’m Max. I play guitar and sing.
Keith: I’m Keith, and I play guitar and I sing in the back.
 
The band is playing a one-off with The Front Bottom’s tonight at Maxwell’s. How stoked are you for the show?
Max: We’re really excited because we get to play with a really awesome band called The Front Bottoms. They’re from a little bit north of us in New Jersey, but they’re really good. We’ve played with them before and we really like the dudes. It’s really cool because The NJ Underground picked us and them as number five and number four bands for 2011 to conquer, so that’s really awesome.
Keith: Check out their video for “Maps.”
Max: They’re a really great band. It’s going to be a great show. We’re really excited. We love this place.
 
Should we expect some of the newer songs the band has released in the set?
Max: We’ll probably play one or two. We’re gonna try to focus on the older stuff that people already know. We’ve got a lot of friends and fans coming out.
 
You guys have released two new songs. How has the reception been?
Max: It’s been pretty good, especially for “Open-Ended,” which we released on your site. I thought the reception was pretty good. Kids have really liked it.
Keith: We did that song with Jesse Cannon and Mike Ottinger.
Max: Those dudes are awesome too. They helped us get the best out of those songs. We’re just really proud of them. We hope that it can help us open some doors and more people can hear about us. The production is better than it’s ever been on any of our other recordings. That definitely helps a lot. It makes it more listenable for people. It’s awesome. We’re really proud of it.
 
The band has been releasing some new songs, but less than a year ago your debut full-length was released. How has it been received?
Max: We’re actually rereleasing that on vinyl. We’re going to be rereleasing it on Animal Style Records come March. Probably in the first or second week of March. Any time you put out your own album and people are listening to it and like it…I mean, how high were our expectations anyway? The fact of the matter is that we self-released that album and certain kids really liked it a lot and took to it. That in itself is an accomplishment. We’re not trying to take over the world right away with our first record. Any progress we made with spreading the word about the album and getting it out there has been good. We could have used the help from a label, but we couldn’t. We worked with what we could and we got the album out there. It’s been pretty positive.
Keith: We had a lot of off time and had tours planned that didn’t pan out how we wanted to, so we’re trying to get back to a good place and learn from lessons.
 
 
How many songs did you do with Jesse? I heard an Alkaline Trio cover was made as well.
Max: We did three original songs, and a cover of the song “Cop” by Alkaline Trio. I think that’s coming out on a tribute album. I don’t when, but it’s going to be on Pacific Ridge Records. I don’t know exactly when it’s coming out.
POZ: What about the third original song?
Max: Probably in February song time. That song is called “Material Hell.” I like that one a lot.
 
How was the writing process for those tracks compared to the LP?
Max: It was a little different because the full-length had a bunch of songs that I had written over the years, and it was like, “Okay, we don’t have much time. Let’s just get in there.” I sped through it a little bit. It wasn’t like we really collaborated, but we practiced these songs a lot as a band before we went in and recorded them. Keith and Brian had an idea of what they wanted to play, and we all knew how to go about recording. It was less rushed and it was more of a collaborative effort opposed to it being me getting in and getting out.
Keith: This is like the first time we’re writing together. It’s good because we’ve really bonded. We had these tours that didn’t pan out, so it was literally me, Max, and Brian in a Nissan.
Max: Yeah, we did a week of touring out to the Mid-West in my car. That was because our drummer quit two days before the tour, and we said to ourselves, “Are we going to drop off the tour and throw in the towel, or are we going to get in my car and do it?” So we got in my car and we didn’t sleep in one motel. We toughed it out every night and slept in the car. We’re willing to sacrifice our lives back home.
 
Have you guys written a lot more material that has yet to be recorded?
Max: That’s the great thing about this band; me and Keith are always writing. Our styles are a little different, but a lot of the time he can take a song that I wrote and add parts to it to make it better and vice versa. We really have a good chemistry, and it’s only gotten better. It has always kind of clicked, but over the year of playing and touring together it’s gotten to the point where I don’t have to say, “try that,” he already knows what needs to be there. It’s an awesome thing to see that chemistry grow.
 
Is another full-length in the works to be recorded sometime later this year?
Max: We’re throwing around a lot of different ideas. We still have this rerelease coming out, and there are actually two new ones on the rerelease. There are two bonus tracks separate from the old album.
POZ: When were those recorded?
Max: That was recorded in late summer. We got in, we did them, and now we’re putting them on the rerelease. I like those two songs a lot. We’re looking forward to that. As far as putting out another EP, I think we’re going to go with the idea of releasing singles and building off of that. We’re writing right now for a full-length. I’d say there are probably 15-20 songs in the works that are ready to be demoed. We’re not ready to release or record them, but they’re definitely in the demo process.
Keith: It just feels better because the first album we had 10 songs and maybe one or two extras. When we get around to recording the next album we’ll be able to pick and choose.
Max: We’ll take 20 songs and shorten it to 12 and get the best of everything we’ve written.
 
Has there been any label chatter for it?
Max: Definitely. We’ve played the whole DIY game for a long time and we love it and still believe in all of those ethics and ideas of making it for yourself, but when it comes to the next record we’ll be hitting our two year point, and we want to take it really seriously and try to get signed. It’s a must-needed thing for the growth of the band. We’re looking. There was a lot of chatter back in the summer with a few certain major labels, but we didn’t really fit the role of what they wanted, and they were straight up about that and really didn’t pursue us any further. We don’t care because we kind of want a lot of control over what we do, but we want a label to understand that and let us be who we are without putting too many restrictions on what we sound or look like. It’s more about the music to me then it is about how we look. We don’t have an image or gimmick.
Keith: Just four of the ugliest fucking dudes you’ll ever see.
 
What about touring? When can we expect to see you guys back out on the road?
Max: Nothing is set, but we can tell you that we’re going to be everywhere this summer. That’s set. We don’t have any concrete tours, but we will be out there. You can expect to see us in most of the United States this summer. We’ve been talking to a few friends. We’ll probably do some dates with Late Night Wars and Maker. We did dates with them last summer. Who knows, maybe we’ll do some dates with The Front Bottoms. We will be on the road a lot this summer. That’s for sure.
 
Thanks so much for your time, is there anything else you’d like to add?
Keith: There is a poll currently going at icantbelieveimissedthatshow.yolasite.com. It’s between a bunch of really good bands. Check them out. Don’t even just vote for us, vote for whom you think should win.