PropertyOfZack interviewed Barely Blind at the final date of the FriendsOrEnemies Tour! The band talks about the current tour, time in the studio recording their latest EP, as well as future album plans. Definitely give it a read and support the band!

For the record, could you state your names and roles in Barely Blind?
Brad: I’m Brad, I play bass and I sing.
Reid: I’m Reid, I play guitar.
Steven: I am Steven and I play guitar also.
Will: I’m Will and I play drums.
 
How was the FriendsOrEnemies Tour given you a chance to get out there and play in front of different bands?
Will: Not only has it helped us out in the aspect that we’ve gotten to gain more fans, but we also got to form a connection with the other bands. So it’s going to open up the future for all of us to tour together again, but when it comes to the aspect of kids coming out it’s been great. Every bands been well received the whole time and the shows have been completely consistent, so we’ve just had a blast.
 
How did you guys get hooked up with FriendsOrEnemies?
Will: We were the first Unsigned VIP band. Then Set It Off was second and I believe With The Punches is this (June) months.
 
Were you surprised when they wanted to put the whole tour together? It’s a pretty cool idea.
Will: Yeah, definitely.
Reid: I’m sure that every band and the people at the website had the idea. We thought it would be really awesome to be sponsored by FriendsOrEnemies and they had already been cooking up the idea so it worked out really well.
 
You guys are playing a one off date at Warped. Is that just to do a home state show or what?
Will: Yeah, we’ve never had the opportunity to play Houston so we’re just kind of blessed by it. It’s gonna be really good for us because we haven’t played in Texas since the tour went through and it’ll be a good chance to play in our home state.
 
You guys don’t really have anything else set in stone…
Will: Warped Tour and then there’s something else. It’s in the works for the Houston area. It’s gonna be pretty big, but I guess we’re gonna have to wait to announce was it is. And we’re gonna write in July…continue writing music for our full-length in the future.
 
When do you guys want to hit the studio for that?
Will: I think the EP has life.
Brad: The New Year.
Steven: At the earliest, the winter.
Will: I don’t see that happening.
Reid: I foresee it being in the summer and the fall after that.
Will: Our EP, in our opinion, still has a lot of life in it and we want to get it out to everybody before we give them anything else.
 
How has the reception to the EP been? You guys just put out a new music video for it.
Will: Yeah, the video was awesome. It was the first one we’ve ever done so we were all fucking nervous as hell, but once it started going and the more comfortable we felt, which was almost immediate, the better it just took off. We had a blast doing it. We did a two-day shoot, awesome.
Brad: It came together really well.
 
How long did the writing process for the EP take?
Reid: It was pretty unorganized. One of the guys from our band quit so we took like about ten days in the studio and wrote a bunch of ideas and then we had about two weeks to get it together.
Will: All of which had been accumulated over the years.
Brad: About a month of like really working on the songs…
Steven: …Before we went into the studio.
Reid: We still didn’t have like lyrics or anything for the songs until we got in the studio.
Steven: It was kind of like a really unorganized thing, but because it was so unorganized we feel like that’s why it kinda came out the way it did.
Will: There was a lot of fresh life that just bursted through the recording. It wasn’t improvised or anything like that.
Brad: It was definitely impressive because of the time. We had lots of procrastination. But I mean, it became a little more positive more than I thought it would be negative. Because usually when someone says procrastination you think so negatively about it, but I procrastinated with the lyrics, but coming through it when I had to do it, I sort of enjoyed that after the fact. I mean, I was killing myself during it, but after the fact I really kind of enjoyed it.
 
Was it fun being in the studio, even if it was kind of chaotic?
Will: Funnest time of my life.
Steven: My favorite place to be when it comes to being in a band because you just kind of really get to see how everything really works.
Will: I just like walking aimlessly through Baltimore all the time. I’d never been there so every day was a new day.
Reid: And we all live with our parents so it was cool that we got to stay in an apartment for two weeks and do whatever the hell we wanted to.
Will: Watch dirty movies. Talk about 12 on the house phone. All that stuff.
 
So you’re going to live off of the EP for a while, but you want to be completely written up before the studio next time?
Will: Yeah, we will be.
Brad: Everything will be completely finished.
Will: The only chaos is in this drink. Anti-gravity.
POZ: You’re gonna have fun on stage with that.
Will: Yeah, I’m gonna be shaking.
 
Will there be fall tour plans?
Will: Yeah, we’re working with that right now.
Steven: We’ve got some stuff going on for October. We’re trying to work out some things for September. It looks like we’re going to be off in July and maybe do some stuff in August.
 
You guys are obviously on an unsigned tour right now, but has there been any label talk?
Will: Yeah, a little bit. Especially considering that Mike, our manager, owns TDR Records. Then we have a buddy that owns another record label that’s called Modern Short Stories that’s kind of an up and coming label. They’re gonna do a co-release with Punchline and TDR. So those are kind of like our brother and sister labels and friends that we like to associate with, but there’s also a few other people we have out there like Mega Huge Records. No [Laughs], I’m kidding.
Full Band: [Laughs]
 
So in a here from now, you guys would like to see maybe an album about to come out and just constant touring?
Will: Yeah.
Reid: Album recorded, about to come out.
Steven: And 8 weeks on Warped Tour.
Reid: Our goal is to do the entire Warped Tour next year. I don’t know how that’s going to happen, but we’re putting it out right now.
Will: Hey, he did Kevin Lyman the other day and said he was awesome

Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Will: Check out our music video. We’re gonna probably eventually be coming out to a city near you, so spread the word. I know it’s every bands goal, but we’re really trying to just get everyone to tell anyone about Barely Blind right now.