Dan "Soupy" Campbell - The Wonder Years (13/10/2014)
Look, I'm not going to beat around the bush, The Wonder Years are my favourite band. Ever. The way the band bled that crazy punk energy with pop melodies and aesthetic is really the culmination of what pop-punk is all about. I've always loved the more melodic and catchy side to the Philadelphia five-piece but fast, punchy songs like American Religion and You Made Me Want To Be A Saint are always welcome in my book.
So when I found out that I would be interviewing vocalist Dan 'Soupy' Campbell, needless to say, I was ecstatic. Hearing the voice of someone I look up to speak directly to me was immensely satisfying as a writer and a fan. Of course, I omitted this when speaking to Soupy as to not sound like 'that fan' or a kiss-ass. I went directly into the topic that was on every one's lips: The Wonder Years on Soundwave 2015.
“I'm feeling really good! Really excited!” Soupy tells me about finally being able to come to Australia. In case you were busy under your rock last month, the band had to cancel their upcoming Australian tour due to reasons out of their control; which inadvertently made us all sad again.
“I was very, very very upset when we had to cancel our [Australian] run in September. I was really beat up by it and our agent knew that but we were playing Reading and Leeds and our agent comes up to us like, 'Hey I don't want to get your hopes up but AJ is here and he is talking about you guys doing Soundwave.' We played our set and I literally walked off stage and he was like, 'You guys have a Soundwave offer.' It was amazing because I was so bummed about not being able to come out when we originally planned.”
Although I stayed off the subject, many speculated the band canceled their headline run to simply play a bigger show at Soundwave. I can tell you right now that listening to it straight from the horses moth, that is not the case.
Even with next year's Soundwave sets being much longer after being spread across two days, I can safely speak for every fan when I say I still would want a headline show for The Wonder Years and Soupy does too.
“There's nothing confirmed, it's all up in the air and it's up to AJ but I really would love to do it. We would jump at the chance so hopefully!” Soupy exclaims.
Being the lyricist of the band, Soupy has always written very personal and lose-to-home lyrics. Yet living life on the road so long and having experiences the average person would miss out on must change the feel and vibe of the songs for him, right?
“Some songs can change definitely. They can take on new meaning to you and feel different as you grow older. Not necessarily songs from The Greatest Generation but songs we wrote when we were twenty-one, twenty-two, they're going to mean different things me to now without a doubt after all we've been through.”
With the band's first album, Get Stoked On It! not even worth mentioning by the band, it's going to be all up to the clock as to how far back the band's Australian sets will go.
“Depending on whether we play the festival or the sidewave is really what will make the setlist. Our main focus is to get the Australian fans on The Greatest Generation material. We haven't ever played any of that stuff in Australia before so we're going to get those songs played live. We always try and mix in some old stuff like we're on our ay to start a tour in the States and we've been practicing a lot of older stuff for this run 'cause we are headlining and have plenty of time.”
Australia is always raved about by bands as being extremely beautiful and a kind and generous place; although for Soupy it's something else as well.
“Deadly paradise.” is the singer's two word description of our country. “It's a really beautiful place where everything an kill me!” he laughs.
As I mentioned before, Soupy writes on a personal level that has governed as much praise and criticism as it has emotional letters and responses and although it is indicative of the times and the use of the internet, it still surprises him when people half-way round the world can relate to him and his messages.
“It's really cool and surprising and amazing that [my] lyrics and messages can go cross the ocean and touch someone and I think that we are lucky generation with being able to do that. It's not just music but in regards to the whole world. Were more plugged in and we have a better understanding of whats going on in the world and that can make us better people. Hopefully that we continue to use that for the good of the world I guess.”
Anyone who owns a physical copy of The Greatest Generation will immediately draw a correlation with that quote to what was said on the liner notes. Soupy muses that this current generation could well be the greatest generation as oppose to one that fought in the war. With today's society having that ability to connect and help each other so easily yet not actually doing s is only one of many hings that drove Soupy to speak that message.
“Obviously that is one of the things that made me say that but not entirely so. I mean, it's Spiderman where he goes 'With great power come great responsibility” and I think that that is the internet and today's resources. You can chose to use it in that way or you can choose to use it in the completely opposite an that is the beauty of it. People tend to use it for meaningless shit and bad things I think but in the same breath I will say that I am seeing a lot of people use it in the right way and the right direction and that's really cool. It's not rally a race, just so long as you get there,”
I have to admit though, I used to hate this band. There, I said it. I used to think they were a whiny, shitty pop-punk band that could deal with some re-thinking of their lives. Then I heard their third record, Suburbia and I fell in love. All their back catalog and everything from then o just clicked and made sense to me. I have since then grown up with this band blaring through my iPod ad headphones and as Soupy says, that is exactly what he wants.
“That's what we really strive for! I think there's an ugly subtext to pop-punk in that it's about (puts on nasally teen voice) 'staying young forever and never growing up!' Some Peter Pan bullshit right there. We're trying to kind of break the mold of that and say you can grow up with this music ad this music can grow up with you and we've tried to make age appropriate records every time we go into the studio. Not to hang shit, Blink 182 are one of my favorite bands ever but I remember listening to Take Off Your Pants and Jacket and some songs were like really childish and what not and singing about teenage politics when you're a thirty year old man seems really shitty to me. When we wrote a record at twenty-two we wanted to write about what it was like to be twenty-two and the same when we were twenty four, twenty six and no I'm twenty eight and we are currently writing a record about being twenty eight. Some of those songs are universal and our younger fans will be able to relate too and some songs our older fans will be able to feel the same way and won't have to worry about being older.”
Hold up, did he say “we are currently writing a record”?! Yes, yes he did!
“In the weeks we were supposed to be in Australia in September we went into our dingy, dark, dirty nightmare factory of a writing space and wrote some songs and I gotta tell you, I can't wait to show you! I've never done two weeks of writing where I've felt this good about the songs that have come out. I'm so excited!”
Matt Sievers
SOUNDWAVE 2015
SATURDAY 21 & SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY - ADELAIDE
SATURDAY 21 & SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY - MELBOURNE
SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY & SUNDAY 1 MARCH - SYDNEY
SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY & SUNDAY 1 MARCH – BRISBANE
So when I found out that I would be interviewing vocalist Dan 'Soupy' Campbell, needless to say, I was ecstatic. Hearing the voice of someone I look up to speak directly to me was immensely satisfying as a writer and a fan. Of course, I omitted this when speaking to Soupy as to not sound like 'that fan' or a kiss-ass. I went directly into the topic that was on every one's lips: The Wonder Years on Soundwave 2015.
“I'm feeling really good! Really excited!” Soupy tells me about finally being able to come to Australia. In case you were busy under your rock last month, the band had to cancel their upcoming Australian tour due to reasons out of their control; which inadvertently made us all sad again.
“I was very, very very upset when we had to cancel our [Australian] run in September. I was really beat up by it and our agent knew that but we were playing Reading and Leeds and our agent comes up to us like, 'Hey I don't want to get your hopes up but AJ is here and he is talking about you guys doing Soundwave.' We played our set and I literally walked off stage and he was like, 'You guys have a Soundwave offer.' It was amazing because I was so bummed about not being able to come out when we originally planned.”
Although I stayed off the subject, many speculated the band canceled their headline run to simply play a bigger show at Soundwave. I can tell you right now that listening to it straight from the horses moth, that is not the case.
Even with next year's Soundwave sets being much longer after being spread across two days, I can safely speak for every fan when I say I still would want a headline show for The Wonder Years and Soupy does too.
“There's nothing confirmed, it's all up in the air and it's up to AJ but I really would love to do it. We would jump at the chance so hopefully!” Soupy exclaims.
Being the lyricist of the band, Soupy has always written very personal and lose-to-home lyrics. Yet living life on the road so long and having experiences the average person would miss out on must change the feel and vibe of the songs for him, right?
“Some songs can change definitely. They can take on new meaning to you and feel different as you grow older. Not necessarily songs from The Greatest Generation but songs we wrote when we were twenty-one, twenty-two, they're going to mean different things me to now without a doubt after all we've been through.”
With the band's first album, Get Stoked On It! not even worth mentioning by the band, it's going to be all up to the clock as to how far back the band's Australian sets will go.
“Depending on whether we play the festival or the sidewave is really what will make the setlist. Our main focus is to get the Australian fans on The Greatest Generation material. We haven't ever played any of that stuff in Australia before so we're going to get those songs played live. We always try and mix in some old stuff like we're on our ay to start a tour in the States and we've been practicing a lot of older stuff for this run 'cause we are headlining and have plenty of time.”
Australia is always raved about by bands as being extremely beautiful and a kind and generous place; although for Soupy it's something else as well.
“Deadly paradise.” is the singer's two word description of our country. “It's a really beautiful place where everything an kill me!” he laughs.
As I mentioned before, Soupy writes on a personal level that has governed as much praise and criticism as it has emotional letters and responses and although it is indicative of the times and the use of the internet, it still surprises him when people half-way round the world can relate to him and his messages.
“It's really cool and surprising and amazing that [my] lyrics and messages can go cross the ocean and touch someone and I think that we are lucky generation with being able to do that. It's not just music but in regards to the whole world. Were more plugged in and we have a better understanding of whats going on in the world and that can make us better people. Hopefully that we continue to use that for the good of the world I guess.”
Anyone who owns a physical copy of The Greatest Generation will immediately draw a correlation with that quote to what was said on the liner notes. Soupy muses that this current generation could well be the greatest generation as oppose to one that fought in the war. With today's society having that ability to connect and help each other so easily yet not actually doing s is only one of many hings that drove Soupy to speak that message.
“Obviously that is one of the things that made me say that but not entirely so. I mean, it's Spiderman where he goes 'With great power come great responsibility” and I think that that is the internet and today's resources. You can chose to use it in that way or you can choose to use it in the completely opposite an that is the beauty of it. People tend to use it for meaningless shit and bad things I think but in the same breath I will say that I am seeing a lot of people use it in the right way and the right direction and that's really cool. It's not rally a race, just so long as you get there,”
I have to admit though, I used to hate this band. There, I said it. I used to think they were a whiny, shitty pop-punk band that could deal with some re-thinking of their lives. Then I heard their third record, Suburbia and I fell in love. All their back catalog and everything from then o just clicked and made sense to me. I have since then grown up with this band blaring through my iPod ad headphones and as Soupy says, that is exactly what he wants.
“That's what we really strive for! I think there's an ugly subtext to pop-punk in that it's about (puts on nasally teen voice) 'staying young forever and never growing up!' Some Peter Pan bullshit right there. We're trying to kind of break the mold of that and say you can grow up with this music ad this music can grow up with you and we've tried to make age appropriate records every time we go into the studio. Not to hang shit, Blink 182 are one of my favorite bands ever but I remember listening to Take Off Your Pants and Jacket and some songs were like really childish and what not and singing about teenage politics when you're a thirty year old man seems really shitty to me. When we wrote a record at twenty-two we wanted to write about what it was like to be twenty-two and the same when we were twenty four, twenty six and no I'm twenty eight and we are currently writing a record about being twenty eight. Some of those songs are universal and our younger fans will be able to relate too and some songs our older fans will be able to feel the same way and won't have to worry about being older.”
Hold up, did he say “we are currently writing a record”?! Yes, yes he did!
“In the weeks we were supposed to be in Australia in September we went into our dingy, dark, dirty nightmare factory of a writing space and wrote some songs and I gotta tell you, I can't wait to show you! I've never done two weeks of writing where I've felt this good about the songs that have come out. I'm so excited!”
Matt Sievers
SOUNDWAVE 2015
SATURDAY 21 & SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY - ADELAIDE
SATURDAY 21 & SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY - MELBOURNE
SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY & SUNDAY 1 MARCH - SYDNEY
SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY & SUNDAY 1 MARCH – BRISBANE