Max Becker - Emily's Army (03/10/2014)
The band may have started out as a 10 year old's dream inspired by the film 'School of Rock,' but over the past ten years, Emily’s Army has grown and developed into something much more than that for its four young members – brothers Max and Cole Becker, Travis Neumann and Joey Armstrong. While still in high school, they toured extensively up and down the west coast of America and add in a stint on the Vans Warped Tour two years in a row, the boys of Emily’s Army are now ready to head to Australia for their first time as part of Soundwave 2015.
Speaking with The 59th Sound, Max Becker, Emily's Army's vocalist, spoke about their excitement for Soundwave and what the future holds for Emily’s Army.
“I’m so excited, you have no idea. We’ve had people who have wanted us to come down there for a long time”
The annual festival takes place from February 21 to March 1 over two massive weekends; however, for Emily’s Army this will be right in the middle of their college semester. Unlike other bands before them, they have decided not to ditch school for the rock star lifestyle.
“We are currently all enrolled in school, but the next few months we are taking a break to tour. We’re going back to Europe, we were just there but now we are touring in the south west and possibly the US. So we’re working pretty hard right now and then we go back to school in the spring.”
“What’s happening is we just keep taking time off school, we’re not really ditching it,” Becker assured us.
For a young band that’s relatively still up and coming, you would think that trying to juggle school and a band would be hard work, but according to Becker it isn’t that way.
“It’s actually pretty easy, because we’ve toured so much at this point now we can just fly into different areas of the country and just come out and make some money still, just for the weekend. So we’re lucky we’ve done enough hard work already so it’s not really getting in the way."
In the last two years, the band has worked incredibly hard to get where they are today. The year 2011 was the defining year for band, with their debut album 'Don’t Be A Dick!' showing the world what a group of young teenagers could do and getting them the recognition they deserved. However there will always be critics and for Emily’s Army it seems like they can never escape theirs. “The way I see it is it’s always important to listen to somebody, I honestly read all reviews and critiques because it doesn’t really affect me, and if it’s constructive criticism I usually listen to it.”
With drummer Joey Armstrong being the son of Green Day front man Billie Joe Armstrong it’s not surprising to see why many people would be so critical. Their first album was produced by Billie Joe Armstrong and then released through his label Adeline Records. While this has certainly given the band the kick-start they needed, they don’t want this connection to define them, but have since come to terms with it.
“We learnt to deal with that pretty earlier on, ever since our first record came out. It’s cool that they compare us to Green Day, but at the same time now especially with our new songs coming out we are drastically different. We are so different that if someone makes like a dig it’s kind of hard to believe them, because I know for a fact our music is so different.”
Their latest EP Swim is a step in an exciting new direction for the band, with a new sound and Soundwave being the last time they perform under the name Emily’s Army. Instead, the band has decided to change to Swimmers, a step they believe will showcase who they truly are as a band.
“We’re in the process of the name change now, it’s not going to be official until March and I think the reason that we are doing it is because like I said before, we’ve been a band for about 10 years now and we want people who have never heard of us before to be able to look us up and see what we are and not what we were a eight years ago because we are so different. What I figure is that if we change our name to something that we love, it means that people can look up Swimmers and that’s what they’ll see.”
The EP is fun, upbeat and has a Californian 1960s feel to it, something that is expressed in the music videos that accompany all four songs. It is a far cry from their earlier releases and officially marks the end of the teenage punks the band used to be. In terms of the recording and writing process for the EP, it was much different from what they had done with their previous albums.
“The recording was pretty different because we did it in two days, and actually we were originally going to have seven songs but they didn’t end up making the cut. The writing was a little bit different too. I think we tried to make it less dark and emotional like Lost At Seventeen because we figured our personalities are happy and I feel like Lost At Seventeen kind of portrayed us like what My Chemical Romance used to be. We wanted people to know that we are happy people who just like to have a good time, the good guys”.
When most bands decide to change their sound, fans often become divided over whether or not they like what the band has produced, but Emily’s Army have so far managed to avoid that and have received a positive response from their following.
“It’s amazing, I mean for an EP that didn’t get any press especially in the US, like we didn’t go through a press agency for this EP because we didn’t have enough money to pay for one, we got a great response.”
Before parting ways, Max cheerfully gave us a taste of what fans at Soundwave can expect if they do decide to catch their set.
“I think that if they come see us they’re going to be very impressed, we’re a good band and we’re great live and we’re going to make everyone happy if they ever come see us”.
With the future all planned out for them – a new EP and a name change to define who they want to be – there’s no doubt Emily’s Army (soon to be Swimmers) will be going far. When planning your Soundwave schedule, make sure to include them because they are one band you won’t want to miss.
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
Ashleigh Minnell
Speaking with The 59th Sound, Max Becker, Emily's Army's vocalist, spoke about their excitement for Soundwave and what the future holds for Emily’s Army.
“I’m so excited, you have no idea. We’ve had people who have wanted us to come down there for a long time”
The annual festival takes place from February 21 to March 1 over two massive weekends; however, for Emily’s Army this will be right in the middle of their college semester. Unlike other bands before them, they have decided not to ditch school for the rock star lifestyle.
“We are currently all enrolled in school, but the next few months we are taking a break to tour. We’re going back to Europe, we were just there but now we are touring in the south west and possibly the US. So we’re working pretty hard right now and then we go back to school in the spring.”
“What’s happening is we just keep taking time off school, we’re not really ditching it,” Becker assured us.
For a young band that’s relatively still up and coming, you would think that trying to juggle school and a band would be hard work, but according to Becker it isn’t that way.
“It’s actually pretty easy, because we’ve toured so much at this point now we can just fly into different areas of the country and just come out and make some money still, just for the weekend. So we’re lucky we’ve done enough hard work already so it’s not really getting in the way."
In the last two years, the band has worked incredibly hard to get where they are today. The year 2011 was the defining year for band, with their debut album 'Don’t Be A Dick!' showing the world what a group of young teenagers could do and getting them the recognition they deserved. However there will always be critics and for Emily’s Army it seems like they can never escape theirs. “The way I see it is it’s always important to listen to somebody, I honestly read all reviews and critiques because it doesn’t really affect me, and if it’s constructive criticism I usually listen to it.”
With drummer Joey Armstrong being the son of Green Day front man Billie Joe Armstrong it’s not surprising to see why many people would be so critical. Their first album was produced by Billie Joe Armstrong and then released through his label Adeline Records. While this has certainly given the band the kick-start they needed, they don’t want this connection to define them, but have since come to terms with it.
“We learnt to deal with that pretty earlier on, ever since our first record came out. It’s cool that they compare us to Green Day, but at the same time now especially with our new songs coming out we are drastically different. We are so different that if someone makes like a dig it’s kind of hard to believe them, because I know for a fact our music is so different.”
Their latest EP Swim is a step in an exciting new direction for the band, with a new sound and Soundwave being the last time they perform under the name Emily’s Army. Instead, the band has decided to change to Swimmers, a step they believe will showcase who they truly are as a band.
“We’re in the process of the name change now, it’s not going to be official until March and I think the reason that we are doing it is because like I said before, we’ve been a band for about 10 years now and we want people who have never heard of us before to be able to look us up and see what we are and not what we were a eight years ago because we are so different. What I figure is that if we change our name to something that we love, it means that people can look up Swimmers and that’s what they’ll see.”
The EP is fun, upbeat and has a Californian 1960s feel to it, something that is expressed in the music videos that accompany all four songs. It is a far cry from their earlier releases and officially marks the end of the teenage punks the band used to be. In terms of the recording and writing process for the EP, it was much different from what they had done with their previous albums.
“The recording was pretty different because we did it in two days, and actually we were originally going to have seven songs but they didn’t end up making the cut. The writing was a little bit different too. I think we tried to make it less dark and emotional like Lost At Seventeen because we figured our personalities are happy and I feel like Lost At Seventeen kind of portrayed us like what My Chemical Romance used to be. We wanted people to know that we are happy people who just like to have a good time, the good guys”.
When most bands decide to change their sound, fans often become divided over whether or not they like what the band has produced, but Emily’s Army have so far managed to avoid that and have received a positive response from their following.
“It’s amazing, I mean for an EP that didn’t get any press especially in the US, like we didn’t go through a press agency for this EP because we didn’t have enough money to pay for one, we got a great response.”
Before parting ways, Max cheerfully gave us a taste of what fans at Soundwave can expect if they do decide to catch their set.
“I think that if they come see us they’re going to be very impressed, we’re a good band and we’re great live and we’re going to make everyone happy if they ever come see us”.
With the future all planned out for them – a new EP and a name change to define who they want to be – there’s no doubt Emily’s Army (soon to be Swimmers) will be going far. When planning your Soundwave schedule, make sure to include them because they are one band you won’t want to miss.
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
Ashleigh Minnell