We’re pleased here at PropertyOfZack to finally be releasing our brand new interview with Trever Keith of Face To Face! Trevor and I discussed the band’s new record, Laugh Now, Laugh Later, how it was creating Face To Face’s first record in ten years, touring, and the future. Read up and enjoy!

Face To Face has been back in terms of touring for around three years now, but Laugh Now, Laugh Later is your first record in 10 years. Was it difficult to get back into the process of creating an album with Chad, Scott, and Danny?
No, not really. During the time the band was on hiatus we were making lots of different kinds of records and staying active in music and recording, so not really too hard. Just a matter of trying to figure out what kind of songs we wanted to make this time around, but that’s sort of why we made the record, because we were already coming up with all kinds of punk rock song ideas and what not so it was pretty easy actually.

Obviously you always want to change up what you do on each record you make, but after so many years away from Face To Face, how was it different for you this time?
For starters, we worked with someone who we hadn’t worked with before, our friend Joby Ford who plays guitar in The Bronx but he’s also been recording and producing a lot of records over the last 3, 4, or 5 years. Our longtime collaborator Chad Blinman moved back east to Boston and started asking around and hung out with Joby a little bit and his studio was super cool. We had a good time working with him in a totally different environment, different circumstances. We didn’t record the tape this time, but we used a lot of really nice vintage gear. It was kind of a back to basics recording for us in a lot of ways. We didn’t spend a whole lot of time over thinking anything. We tried to keep everything real urgent and positive and tried to keep the spirit of everything in The Face.

I believe you began writing the album halfway through 2009. Did it take you longer than you expected to make, or was everything done with ease?
Everything went pretty easy recording the album. We did it in phases because we had touring and whatnot that was also set up in between. We recorded the record then jumped on Warped Tour last summer and then while we were looking for the right person to mix it we had a short list of mixers that we wanted to work with and that took a little more time to organize than we thought but it was worth the wait because we were able to get Joe Barresi who was someone we really were hoping would work on the record. We sorted out the schedule and he did an awesome job on it. The rest of it was figuring out a good marketing and distribution because the record is on my own label Antagonist Records and we needed to work with the company who had bigger distribution and more assets and a better system for marketing. That’s when we found Century Media.

How would you say your writing has sort of grown since the last album? All of the techniques and methods have obviously changed in terms of digital recording now, was it interesting to do a Face To Face record that way?
Not really. It was not really any different then, I guess when we did our last record How to Ruin Everything we did do bass, drums, and guitar to tape, but we’ve been using digital recording since Big Choice. The first record we used more Pro Tools and stuff like that a lot was probably Ignorance is Bliss, which we recorded more than 10 years ago. So, not a whole lot has really changed with it. I think we’ve gotten more experience as players, and certainly a lot more experience as a producer for other bands. So, I think all that has kind of helped.

You put out the record on your own label. Was that a stressful process for you?
No, no. The whole point of doing it on my own label was so that we could really just do things the way we want, and we could keep the process moving quickly and not have to have too many people involved with too many opinions. It kind of just cut the bullshit so we could go and go to work and do what we do and not have to complicate the process.

Laugh Now, Laugh Later was released just a few days ago. How has the early reception from fans been to it so far?
It’s been awesome. We’ve been playing maybe three or so songs a night and I tease the audience a little each night because I know people want to hear the new material, so I’ll always hit them with a little joke or kindness. I give them a new song just to kind of take the wind out of their sails, but they have been responding really well to the new stuff. I think the way we wrote the record it’s immediate enough that you can hear the songs on the first listen or two and already hum along the melody or know where you are in the song. People have been responding super well to it, it’s been good.

Face To Face are out on a pretty massive headlining tour with Strung Out and The Darlings. How have the dates been?
It’s been great. We’ve had a lot of fun with these guys. Cool people to hang out with. Cool bands. Some shows have been massive, and some shows have been on the smaller side, but I would say just on an average all the shows have been great. There haven’t been any bum out shows at all so far and I’m hoping that there won’t be.

Is the set pretty much just a large mixture of everything?
Yeah, I mean, I said we’re doing 2 or 3 new songs, but it’s mostly the older stuff. It’s a little taste from each of the records. We don’t really do any material from Ignorance is Bliss because it’s kind of hardcore style and it’s so different that it doesn’t fit well in a punk rock set, but you get a slathering of songs from all of the other records.

The tour ends the first day of July; will you guys be taking some deserved time off after that?
Yeah, we have a little bit of time off in July but we’re back out on the road in August playing festivals across Europe. In September we’ll be in Australia, then we’ll be back in Europe for a while and it looks like we’ll do some dates in South America before the end of the year, so it’s going to be a super busy year.

Were there any tracks off of the record that weren’t released that could maybe be released at a later point or any other writing that’s taking place?
We did end up with two or three bonus tracks but I think they’ve been released as bonus tracks either on the European version of the record or a deluxe version on iTunes.