We caught up with Zac Eisenstein and Justin Collier of Man Overboard ahead of their sold out headline show at London’s The Old Blue Last. Read more for talk on the ups and downs of touring, the current state of pop punk and the bands own Lost Tape Collective label.
You can find out more on Man Overboard via their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/ManOverboardNJ
HTF: So you guys are about half way through your UK tour how’s it been going so far?
Justin: It’s been awesome.
Zac: The shows have been great.
Justin: I would say this is probably the best run that we’ve ever done over here.
HTF: I saw another interview with you guys where you were talking about various mishaps on tour such as missing guitars and bags getting stolen at Hevy. Has everything been going smooth on this run?
Justin: We’ve had some van troubles but other than that it’s been pretty smooth sailing. In terms of the shows, and the other bands, and kids coming out, it’s been great.
HTF: You guys seem to have been touring quite a lot over the past few years, any stand out highlights?
Justin: It’s kind of like every time you go somewhere new or revisit somewhere that you’ve already been there’s usually something new about it. The first time in Australia was great but coming back to England this time has been great because you know, more kids come to the shows.
Zac: We get a little deeper every time.
HTF: So doing the tour with New Found Glory and you’re doing Warped tour this year as well, they must be like living childhood dreams.
Zac: Yeah that’s exactly what it is.
HTF: So is there anything else left to tick off the list?
Zac: Yeah a lot, we’re doing great but the real list involves Blink 182 somehow and playing a show with them.
Justin: Yeah play more shows with bands we admire. I can’t speak for everyone else but I like going to weird places like we’re going to Russia. I think it’s cool, everyone else thinks it’s a little sketchy which it probably is, I get a kick out of getting to do stuff like that.
Zac: I think we’re always going to be hungry for a little bit more.
HTF: You guys have always been pretty vocal on your love of pop punk, so I just wanted to know your thoughts on the genre as a whole because it seems to be in a really good place at the moment.
Justin: Yeah I think the cool thing that’s going on right now is there’s No Sleep, Run For Cover and Rise and all these labels that have all these bands building their own community and giving kids a lot of music to listen to, it’s awesome.
HTF: Are there any newer bands you guys are into that our readers may not have heard of?
Zac: The Story So Far.
Justin: I think Save Your Breathe and Basement are two of the best UK bands right now, there’s a lot of really good stuff out.
HTF: If you guys could make your own pop punk supergroup who would you have in it?
Zac: I’d have Tre Cool on drums, Mark Hoppus playing bass, Billie Joe Armstrong play guitar and be one of the singers, and Davey Havok sing, sing not scream and Dexter Holland from The Offspring he can have a microphone too.
HTF: So aside from pop punk is there any bands you guys are into that might surprise people?
Zac: There’s a lot.
Justin: Yeah I’d say most of what we listen to.
Zac: I would say it’s only 5 or 10 percent of the time that we really do listen to pop punk because you become immersed in it and I think it’s part of being a human being as you reach a certain age a lot of new bands stand out for you but you’re into what you’re into and you’ve already been influenced by the things that will influence you. But we listen to a lot of metal and rap, hardcore we like a lot of different stuff.
HTF: We also wanted to ask you about Lost Tape Collective, you started your own label and what was the thought process behind that?
Justin: We realised that when kids were starting to get into our band that we could offer them our band and try to offer them something a little more and so we do. We do a label and we release some of our own stuff, like we released a live cassette of when we played Leeds last year and release other bands either digitally or cassettes, a couple of cds and 7 inches and just give kids some other stuff to get into.
The band’s current album the self titled Man Overboard is available now, and the boys return to our shores in April supporting Your Demise.
Interviewer: Gavin Lloyd
