PropertyOfZack is glad to finally be revealing our new interview with Justin Collier of Man Overboard. The band and management are always great to us over here, but we wanted to do a formal interview to spread the word about Man Overboard’s future. Justin and I discussed recent touring with Senses Fail, their last 7” and upcoming compilation releases, and plans to hit the studio for a new LP in June. Read up and enjoy!

The band is currently wrapping up their US tour with Senses Fail and Transit in the US. How have the dates been?
They’ve been awesome. We started out in PA and we’re in DC right now and tomorrow we go and play a different show in PA. Just two more shows left after that and it’s all done. It’s been great. We played all over California and all over the Southwest, which we hadn’t really been to since the Fireworks tour in the late summer. It was cool to get back and see some people. We’d been out of the country a lot since then. It’s been great.
POZ: These have been your biggest stages too, right?
Justin: Yeah. The place we played last night had a 1,500 cap. It was pretty big. That was one of the biggest shows we’ve ever played actually.
 
You went out with Senses in the UK back in February as well. Was that a success?
Yeah, that was awesome. We went with Transit and All Or Nothing in December headlining in small rooms and bars. It was cool to go back and do a support tour in bigger venues. That was a great tour.
 
You’ve always cited Senses Fail as a big help for the band. How did you guys set all of that up?
Zac is one of our principle songwriters and he’s always been a big fan of them. Pretty early on in our career Buddy hit us up and offered to help us with some stuff. He put us on a random show with them back in October of ’09 to come get people to see us play. He’s really been helping us out.
 
I believe the band played a less than normal set over in the UK with songs that fans might not usually hear. Was that a cool experience?
The thing was that we planned on doing a pretty different set and were going to adding in a ton of old rare songs. We ended up only putting in one or two because the others didn’t come out that cool. We tried to do an electric version of “Arlington Drive” that didn’t end up coming out cool. We ended up playing “They Don’t Make Them Like They Used To,” “Basics 101,” “Behemoth,” and a couple other ones. There were a few that we just scrapped all together.
 
And before this tour Man Overboard did a short run with The Wonder Years and Handguns. Were those dates a fun start to your US touring?
They were awesome. The first three shows like Philly, Poughkeepsie, which you were at, and Worcester were sold out and were crazy insane shows. We were supposed to go to Canada for a few days, but because of some stuff with our singer Zac, we didn’t get in. So we took a day off and ended up playing a last minute house show thing. We met up with them for another two days too.
 
Man Overboard released its new EP, The Absolute Worst, about a month and a half ago now. How has the reception to the new track and the reworked one been so far?
It’s been great. We just put that out there. We signed to Rise in October, but it got announced in December. Our new LP on Rise isn’t going to come out until September, so there was almost going to be a year between releases, so we thought that it would be cool to do a 7” early on to get something out there. It’s kind of something to reinforce to our fans that just because we signed to Rise we weren’t turning into some crabcore band or something like that. There’s an old song and a new song.
POZ: I was really hoping for some Devil Wears Prada stuff on it.
Justin: I think some people were naive enough to think that.
 
How has your relationship with Rise been so far?
It’s been great. We were talking to them since February, so a year and two months ago. We ended up signing them in the fall and announced it in December. Everything’s been great. They’re super cool dudes and are really easy to work with.
 
The announcement that you as well as Transit had signed to Rise came in early December and it threw many into confusion and a loss for words. Have fans seemed to come around to the signing at this point?
Yeah, I think initially we were worried that or fans were going to be pissed off that we signed to that label, but the biggest thing that we saw when we announced it was that kids that were fans of Attack! Attack! And stuff being like, “What the fuck?! Why is Rise signing this pussy shit.” It was kind of like the opposite. It ended up being pretty okay. Anyone that is naïve enough to think that we signed to a label and are going to turn into some shitty metal band is pretty idiotic. We signed to that label because we thought that the label would be able to work with us in a positive way.
 
We’ve heard that you’ll still be releasing future records with Run For Cover. How is that going to work out?
The Human Highlight Reel comes out May 10^th, but apart from that, I can’t promise anything. I’m not excluding it though.
 
“Driveway,” the first track off of your compilation, The Human Highlight Reel, was released yesterday through us. Have fans been into that so far?
It’s been great. I feel like every time we put up a song there has been an overwhelming amount of reception.
 
Are you pretty pleased with how that and the other new song as well as the cover turned out?
There’s another song called “Fear Of Flying” and there’s a Promise Ring cover song. I think they all came out pretty cool. All the old stuff on there too. Some b-sides, rarities, some old EPs.
 
I believe Man Overboard are doing some pre-production for the new record next week. Can you just discuss how the writing process as been so far?
It’s been kind of weird. We’ve been on tour. The only time we were really home in the past forever was January, but we all had a lot of other shit going on because we had been on tour for so long. Nik has his own studio to do demos in, but we didn’t really have the chance to do that. We’ve been recording random stuff here and there. We’ll be home for a month and a half to demo and rerecord stuff and try different ideas. It’ll be a much needed break from touring to write this new record.
 
The release will definitely be for September?
Yeah, we’re going to record it in all of June and it’ll be out in September.

How would you compare the initial sound to Real Talk?
It’s a progression. There’s going to be a couple different things that I can’t say yet from the producer and a couple of other things. I think people will be into it.
 
The Absolute Worst was a much more light-hearted release compared to the record. Will the next LP be more serious?
I think it will. I think people like a fast song, so there will be some fast songs. That was the thing about Absolute Worst, one song was quick and easy to listen to. There might be some more in-depth emotional stuff on this one.
 
Will we be seeing any more touring besides Bamboozle before you hit the studio?
No, we’ll be playing one other random show in Pennsylvania, but other than that no. When we finish the LP we’re going to Europe with Polar Bear Club. We might do some other light touring at the end of the summer. We’ll be doing a big tour in the fall after the album comes out.
 
Are there any plans to hit Australia?
We’re going to try to go in September. That’s not 100% yet.
 
Thanks so much for your time, is there anything else that you’d like to add or that we should be on the lookout for?
Basement are recording a new LP for Run For Cover. That’ll be out in the summer.