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Phone interview with Jordan Buckley from EVERY TIME I DIE

By Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal

December 1st 2010, Los Angeles CA

Andrew: How has the "Shit Happens" tour been going so far? Has shit been happening or has it been all smooth sailing so far?
Jordan: Shit has been happening. I think we lost a tyre today. I've been sick for like the last week. I got my back X-rayed on my birthday as well, so I guess there's a small amount of shit that's been happening, yeah.

Andrew: You're touring with Trap Them and Howl. How are they fitting in with your music on this tour?
Jordan: Well, we like them. Whenever we headline, the nice thing is that for the most part we can just bring with us whatever bands we want. So we just brought on two bands we really like, and they rule! It's awesome to be on tour with them.

Andrew: There's also a DVD out which is titled "Shit Happens". For people that don't know about it, what can you tell them?
Jordan: A couple of years ago we put out a DVD called Shit Happens. People really took to it and it had a lot of backstage, the bus, the van, the hotel kind of stuff. In most band DVDs you find mostly just the live stuff. Shit Happens is about 5 per cent live stuff and 95 per cent us dicking around, and it caught on really well. Couple of years past, we just realized that we had enough footage for another DVD. But instead of putting out just a sequel, we kind of wanted to do something creative with it, so we put out these 5-minute webisodes every week. After about ten or twelve, we decided to put all of that together plus two more hours of footage in an actual release. And whenever you put something out, you're having to tour around to promote it. So that's what this tour is for.

Andrew: There was something about this DVD on twitter. It involved Kanye West for some reason and word got spread around. What was that all about?
Jordan: We were pretty bored in Germany and we just decided to promote the DVD ourselves by talking. We basically pretended to be a bunch of celebrities that you wouldn't expect to listen to Every Time I Die, and pretended to them talking about how excited they were about the DVD. It was pretty funny, and it's funny how on twitter you can do that without anyone really stepping in and saying, "Hey you can't do that!" So we did that, some people believed it and some didn't. It was just a lot of fun. Some people took it seriously.

Andrew: Well, it's an interesting idea for promotion. I think more bands should do that!
Jordan: Yeah! DIY, you know.

Andrew: The last time I talked to you was at the Warped Tour in Pomona. How was the tour for you overall and how would you sum it up in terms of what you gained and did not gain from it?
Jordan: You know, it's weird that I really can't sum it up. I mean, it's an honor to be on it and be on the main stage everyday. It starts at 1 in the afternoon, so you could wake up and find out that you are playing at 1 PM in 100 degrees heat and then the next day you could be playing at 7.30 and your set could be cancelled because of a rainstorm! It's very hard to sum up because everything is different on Warped Tour.

Andrew: On this tour, what are you doing in terms of the set list? This being your own headline tour, you can pick pretty much whatever you want and play for however long you want.
Jordan: Yeah, we play about 15 songs up there and we mix them up if we ever get bored of them. For the most part, it's the bunch we really feel like playing at the moment. We never get stuck with a set list and we play what kids really like and want to hear. The live show is an important aspect of Every Time I Die and we've got to do everything to make sure that we maximize the energy of the kids. We got five CDs and we've got to be careful about what songs are going to get the most energy out of the kids.

Andrew: On this tour, is there one song which you're really enjoying playing, something which you usually don't play?
Jordan: In Anaheim, we broke out "The Sweet Life" for the first time ever and that was cool because on the CD, Matt Caughthran from The Bronx sang on it. He was at that show, and he sang it with us. It was a lot of fun. We've done that a couple more times on the tour after that. So it's fun to do that kind of stuff. That's probably the newest addition to our live shows. We wrote that song about a year and a half ago so it's kind of cool to still be able to play songs that have never seen the light of day.

Andrew: I read that you went to college for illustration. Is that why you take care of doing the band's posters and all that stuff?
Jordan: Yeah, I do. I didn't want it to go to waste and even though I didn't complete it from the aspect of the University, the talent and the motivation was still there even without a curriculum. So yeah, I started doing a lot of the artwork since the last couple of years.

Andrew: You launched your clothing line this year called Jordan Buckley World Wide. How's that been going?
Jordan: Great! I just put out eighteen shirts actually. It's great and the response is amazing. As with anything, it just gets better as it goes on.

Andrew: I'll end this with a nostalgia question. Do you remember the first ever show you played with Every Time I Die?
Jordan: Yeah, of course! It was at a record store where kids were in the isles (laughs). It was with Buried Alive, who we've played a lot of shows with back in the day. I'll always remember that.

Check out Every Time I Die's official website.

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