PropertyOfZack was given the chance to do an in-depth interview with George from Valencia! George talks about the band’s Japanese tour as well as I Surrender Records and their new album, which will be released in the fall. Check it out, it’s a great read!

For the record, could you state your name and role in Valencia
My name is George and I play bass in the band.

You guys are over in Japan right now for the Beyond The Blue tour. Unfortunately, Anarbor had to drop off, but how is it going?
Aside from the unfortunate circumstance surrounding Anarbor having to drop the tour, the tour has been a blast.  Being in Japan has also been a great experience in general, so all in all I’d say it’s been going really well.

This is your second time as a band in Japan, is it kind of crazy to have such a good fan base that you can headline over there?
Actually, this was our third time there.  Every time we go there, we’re blown away.  The first time we went, we were invited to play the Fuji Rock festival, which was, at the time, the biggest crowd we had ever played in front of.  This was our first full headlining tour in Japan, though, and I have to say, it was definitely one of the best tours we’ve ever done.  The kids in Japan are so excited to see bands play, I think it’s because it’s been tough for most bands to make it over there unless it’s for a big festival.  It seems like the club show scene isn’t too over saturated with shows, and because of that, the kids going to the shows are just really excited to get to see bands play in such an intimate setting.

In late June the band has three scheduled US dates. Did you schedule them just to play some shows back in the states for the first time in a while?
Yeah.  We had so much fun playing these first few shows with Dan on the drums, and playing new songs live for the first time ever, we felt like we owed it to ourselves to come back and play some shows closer to home.  It’s been a little while since we’ve played in the states and these shows are in pretty small clubs so the atmosphere should be a lot of fun; I really can’t wait.

You guys just finished the tracking of your brand new album and now it’s off to be mixed and mastered. How would you compare it to We All Need A Reason To Believe?
Comparatively speaking, I think it’s a big step forward from our last record.  The sound of the last record was a little more rough around the edges because we wanted to show the people that were listening that we’re a real band that can actually play together.  This time around, we leaned towards a sound that was a little bit more polished, because it felt like that fit a little better with the songs we had written.  That’s not to say we used more studio magic, or whatever, this time, though, because the performance is definitely there, and Carlos de la Garza, who engineered the recording, definitely made sure he got the best performances out of all of us.  Thematically, the last record was a pretty personal one for us, especially Shane, and even though a lot of people took something very positive away from it, we feel like this time around, we’ve written something that is accessible to everyone because we’ve put ourselves in a position to touch on themes that everyone thinks about or has to deal with, and we wrote a lot about the outcome of those experiences.   
 
Would you say as a whole that this is the band’s best work? What were some of the influences you had while writing and recording?
I do think it’s our best work, and I’m not saying that because I think I’m supposed to.  I really do think that’s true, and I think everyone else will agree with me.  Musically, our influences are so far across the board that I think it’d be impossible to point out exactly where our influences are there.  The real influence behind the writing and recording was imagining ourselves in situations we never though we’d be in, or drawing from situations that forced us to look deeply into who we were as people, and showing how those things helped us realize things about ourselves we never thought were there.  We wanted to show how these situations could help push someone to become a better person.  For instance, you feel guilty because you let a friendship or relationship slip through the cracks because that person feels less significant than something else in your life, but it’s important to realize that even though you may have acted selfishly, dealing with that change the right way will no doubt help you in the right direction.

And you guys went through a drummer replacement. How was recording with Dan for the first time and what do you think he adds to Valencia?
Recording with Dan was awesome.  He’s a really talented drummer, and he also contributed some backing vocals on the record.  There are also a couple of songs on the record that definitely wouldn’t be songs at all without Dan.  His joining the band has really been a refresher to us.  Writing with him reminded me a lot of when we were writing our first record, because it felt so fresh and exciting.  We were only thinking about writing music for ourselves and because it was fun.  There weren’t any other distractions except for that, and that’s very much like what writing this new record was like for us.

In recent interviews it’s been said that the band is looking for an early fall release. Has a more exact timeframe been set yet? Has the album been given a name?
Not yet.  Mark actually just started mixing the record a few days ago, so once we’ve made a dent in that, we’ll have some more concrete info regarding a release date.  It’s definitely looking like early fall still, though.  There are also a few titles for the record being thrown around, but we haven’t settled on anything yet.

Your deal expired with Columbia Records so you guys made the switch back to I Surrender. How was your time with Columbia? Do you think it definitely helped to further Valencia’s range in listeners?
It was OK.  I’m not going to say it was amazing and I won’t say it was terrible either.  I’ve said it before, there are a lot of people that are or were there while we were that we all consider friends and family now.  We still talk to our A&R there all the time; we actually lived next door to him while were just recording the new record.  Having said that, I think we’re a band that works best when we’re as self-sufficient as possible, and having the number of people working on our album at the label made it tough to do that sometimes because there were so many people involved and sometimes that made certain things feel like they were getting lost in the shuffle.  I do think that we reached more listeners and it was great having the resources that we did while we were there, but I’m excited to see what will happen now that we’re back with our original family.

How is it being back with I Surrender?
It’s great.  Everyone at I Surrender are close friends by now, so we’re glad to be back with them.

After your Japanese tour and 3 US dates the band has nothing booked. Should we expect to see summer tour dates being announced in the near future?
Not for the summer, no.  We’ll be back on tour in full force once the record comes out.  That doesn’t mean we’ll be quiet this summer, though.

What do you guys hope to accomplish this year with the release of the new record?
It’d be good to be able to keep traveling the world to play these for songs for more and more people and continue to use our voices in a positive way.  We’re a band so we can bring people together through music and I’d like to see that continue to happen.

Thank you so much for your time, is there anything else you’d like to add?
Thank you.  New Valencia record this fall.  Sergei Avdeyev once traveled into the future, so why can’t we?