I’d like to thank Drew and Mike from I Call Fives for doing a great, in-depth, interview with PropertyOfZack this past weekend at their show with Thieves And Villains. I Call Fives recently released their brand new EP, Bad Advice, it’s something you guys don’t want to miss! 

For the record could you state your name and role in I Call Fives?
I am Drew and I play bass and sing and yell in I Call Fives. Guys, this is on the record here.

You guys finished up the NJ Pop Punk Revival Tour here last week, how was it?
It was awesome. Wee didn’t really get to meet Washington Square Park before the tour and we knew Bright And Early pretty well because J.B., the singer, was actually in a band called The High Court. But just getting to hang out with those guys everyday for like two weeks was awesome. Washington Square Park is a little more of a punk version and Bright And Early is a little poppier and I feel that we were kind of the in between of the tour. It was great, they were awesome guys.
Mike: We got to know Washington Square Park the first night we got to see them play and halfway through their set the guitarist is throwing his guitar at the drummer.
Drew: They were awesome guys. It was a great tour. It was thrown together kind of last minute, which was the cool thing though. We played some houses; we played a college, Ohio U. It was really cool though. We were really happy with the outcome. They were all great guys and awesome bands. So if anybody checks us out please check those bands out too.

How was touring with Washington Square Park and Bright And Early?
Bad Advice was released on May 25^th. How has the feedback been on the EP so far?
Drew: It’s going pretty well. It’s funny though cause we put out our first EP called First Things First December of ’08. At first we had just started to leave our own town…it was our first EP, so it was all really new to us. So any feedback we really got we we’re just like, “What the fuck? How is this happening? This is amazing.” But for this one, we had heard some reaction to First Things First and it was all about like, let’s try to make the best record we can following up our first one. I always say, this is kind of weird, but if you think about it, it kind of makes sense, it was out first EP, so in a way, I know it sounds strange…
Mike: We had years to write our first EP. Like believe it or not, those were all songs we wrote in my basement years before we actually got to record and jam on.
Drew: In a way we had a good literally 5 years to write that EP even though we weren’t a band for 5 years.
Mike: Each one of us had our own songs.
Drew: So with this one we were like, “We have to outdo it”. But we had a time limit and had to start writing songs and had to get into the studio. So it was definitely different, but the reaction has been great so far. It’s only been out like 3 weeks, but people have been really, really cool about it. AbsolutePunk especially. They’ve been really cool about it. We’re happy to be at the point where someone actually wants to rip your CD off of like Limewire or any download site. For anybody to be bummed about that shit, that’s just crazy. We’re so stoked that somebody wants to steal our CD. That’s the best kind of shit.

The band also released an acoustic EP to go along with Bad Advice. Were the acoustic tracks in the mix to be on the normal EP or did you want to separate them from the start?
Mike: No, it was really meant to just be split. We all had different acoustic songs that we had been working on and fooling around with and didn’t know what we were going to do with them, if anything. And then when it came to do Gives Bad Advice we kind of threw it together.
Drew: Our friend Soupy from The Wonder Years actually had an idea Actually, I have to give him credit right now because I haven’t really given the credit where it’s due. We played with them in Buffalo in November of 2009 and Soupy was like, “Yo, you guys need to do a new EP.” We knew we needed a new EP, but we wanted to put some kind of concept to it. Obviously we’re a pop-punk band, we’re not going to like write a U2 record, but we’re going to do something with a fun meaning to it like a pop-punk summary thing. Soupy was like, “Yo, hear me out right now. We’re going to call it Bad Advice. It’s going to just be an EP of you guys. You guys have done some stupid shit. You guys have made some mistakes. It’s going to be funny because what we’re also going to do is do some acoustic songs where listeners write in and say, ‘Hey, my girlfriend just dumped me, how do I cope with it?’ Those are going to be the acoustic songs.” So we were like, “Soupy, that’s a great idea. We’re going to name it Bad Advice and we’re going to do an acoustic EP” and that was it. So we set up a blog on ICallFives.com and we had like 45 submissions and people just wrote those kinds of questions. Like, “I want to follow my dream, but also I don’t want to leave behind my family and my beautiful girlfriend. What do I do?” Actually, that’s how we wrote one of the songs, “This Town”. We sifted through the questions and we applied them to the songs we wrote. Or we just wrote up some brand new songs. That was it. That was the whole concept behind it. Soupy really helped us out there.

Did you guys get set up with No Sleep through him?
Drew: Man, you know, this fucking guy, our hat goes off to him. We met Chris Hanson; I met that fucking guy three years ago at a parking lot of a radio station. I can’t even remember. It’s an online radio station. The Wonder Years did a set and I was just hanging out with them…I might have driven up there with them. Oh, Chris was there, and our friend Ian was there. We went up to this radio station, and there’s this guy there, Chris, and we see The Wonder Years and it was just like the six of us. So Chris is selling CD’s out of his car, which was actually Get Stoked On It!, The Wonder Years’ first full-length. And I’m just like, “This guy’s got CD’s in the back of his truck. This guy gives a fuck.” And that was Chris Hanson. That was one of the first 10 No Sleep releases for sure. So that was about three years ago. He was in Jersey, he moved to California and we played for him then and since then we had been in pretty close contact. He’s a great guy and Soupy had told him we had some new songs and were looking to do a new record. The rest is kind of history, we made it work. He’s a great guy and we’re stoked to be a part of the family. I hate using the word family, but there are some great bands on there and we’re just stoked to be there. It’s cool.

You guys are out on tour with Thieves And Villains now. How’s it been so far?
Drew: Oh, it sucks, we hate those guys.
Mike: No, it’s been good. They just put out a new record, it’s really awesome.
Drew: It’s coming out in like three weeks or a month or so.
Mike: They play all the new songs live now, so we’ve gotten to hear the majority of it. It’s called South America. From what we’ve heard so far it’s gonna do really well. It’s a good CD. And The High Life, they’re an awesome band. Apparently they’ve only been together for a month, which makes it even better.
Drew: Thieves And Villains…funny story. About a year, a year ago, we were supposed to do a full US with them and literally the dude that booked it…all of the dates fell through and the tour just went to complete shit. So when this one came around I remember the dude hit me up. His names Nick. I was like, “Nick, we’ll tour with Thieves And Villains, but this tour better fucking happen.” It’s awesome, we’re happy. We’ve got like a month and a half to go. It should be fun.

The band has dates set up through mid-August, but have you been planning for the fall yet, or it is too soon?
Drew: It’s weird because we’ve never really gotten to tour straight before. Whether it’s been a singer trouble or we were in college or something. We were never able to just go on tour and stay on tour. So this May we were really able to start that. We’re staying on tour. We were on tour with With The Punches for a week. Now we’re on the Thieves And Villains until July 31^st. Because we’re touring so often we were hitting the same spots over and over again. So we wanted to do something different. So for two weeks we’re actually following the Warped Tour out west and we’re just going to try and hit on girls and do stupid stuff in the parking lot and be fat.
Mike: It can go both ways. It can go well or bad, but we’re gonna do it.
Drew: We’ve heard really good success stories. It’s not so much about the money. Yeah, fuck money, I love being poor! We’re already touring a lot, so we figured we’re going to be out west and before we go out west try and promote. We’re playing all the spots that we’re promoting. So we’re doing the Warped Tour thing, our booking agents hooked it up. Black Iris, they do a great job. They’re booking the off dates of Warped Tour. We have shows in between. We’re doing that in August. Taking September off, because we’re broke motherfuckers. We’re gonna work till mid-October then we’re going out again on a full US. We might actually be going to the UK in November, which could be very cool. We’re just gonna stay on tour man. We got the new EP. Me and J.B. from Bright And Early talk about it…We’re kind of like weekend warriors, we toured in the summer and the weekends, but that was only because we weren’t capable of touring and now we’re ready to tour all the time and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do, as hard as it might be. It’s where we are.

Bad Advice is obviously an EP, but is it too early, maybe by the New Year, for a full-length?
Drew: It’s weird.
Mike: Either way it’s coming. We’re already in the process of writing a full-length right now.
Drew: Either way we know we’re going to do one. If it comes under No Sleep we’re gonna be the most stoked guys in the world. If it comes out on Capitol we’ll be the most stoked dudes in the world. Either way if our buddy Chris puts it out out of his basement we’re gonna be stoked. We’re gonna do one, but right now we’re taking September off to write and to work  and then we’re going to take like a month off in the winter to write and to work. Hopefully we’re gonna have some awesome demos and turn that into a 10, 11, 12 song full-length. So it’s going to happen, it’s just a matter of time. Hopefully people are into it. It’ll be all new stuff maybe with the exception of one or two songs.

Being from New Jersey there’s obviously a certain standard about pop-punk and punk in general. What are your thoughts on the current scene today?
Drew: Well, if this was 2003 that’d be such a great question. I’ll let you go first.
Mike: I mean, it seems like the whole influence with the whole scene is the whole breakdown kind of thing. We try to stay away from that. The music we listen to never had that kind of thing. It’s kind of taken over now as far as kids listening to music and bands reenacting it. It seems like every band at some point has that going on, which is kind of overdrawn. I’m not knocking any band for doing it. But if you’re good at it and it’s your thing, go for it. The old school pop-punk is our favorite kind of music. So we’re going to try to do our best and make our own of that kind of style.
Drew: Yeah, it’s weird. I remember especially when we had our first EP out people would be like, “Yo, New Found Glory.” There was always a comparison to New Found Glory and we love them, but we didn’t sit down and say “Let’s play “Better Off Dead” over the PA and let’s try to emulate this.”
Mike: Believe it or not, that’s just what comes out.
Drew: So as far as New Jersey goes, some of the best bands ever came out of New Jersey. Unfortunately no more, not so much. But even Saves The Day, Midtown, Lifetime, Thursday, The Early November, which I know is straying from what we sound like, but we listen to those guys, even Senses Fail. Those are great New Jersey bands and I can’t think of too many states, besides maybe California. Midtown, those are the reasons why we love music. Midtown’s Living Well and AFI’s Art Of Drowning…I’m not saying this to be cliché, but those are the first two CD’s I ever bought. It’s kind of natural. We all just like this kind of music. There’s great bands from where we live. If I was 15 and from Wisconsin something tells me that I never would have heard about Saves The Day or Midtown. Congrats though, they’re doing the cheese thing. So we’re stoked to be from New Jersey. There’s such a cliché with New Jersey though. Jersey boys, Jersey Shore.
Mike: Jersey Shore fucked us up.
Drew: Like if somebody were to ever sit down and be like, “What are some awesome New Jersey bands?” If somebody ever said, “I Call Fives”, we’d be like, “Yo, you’re fucking up. You should listen to better bands.” It’s a great area to be from.
Thanks so much for your time, is there anything else you’d like to?
Bad Advice just came out. We have a free acoustic EP and we’re going to be out on tour a lot. Just take a look around and actually listen to music. Where were from, if you play a breakdown, you’re cool. Just like what you like. Just do your thing.
Mike: Just fucking do what you want. You only live once. We all fucking dropped out of school and nobody’s going to tell us different.
Drew: That’s probably the weirdest ending note of anything, but we’ve got a Myspace and Tumblr and Facebook. I say dumb shit on Twitter all day long.