OHIO ROCKS:  I’ve read a lot and listened to interviews about how you’re known for being introverted and shy, but it seems like your lyrics are intensely personal a lot of the time. How do you reconcile that on stage or do just not even think about it?

 

Erika: Well, I think that sometimes meeting and speaking to people I don’t know is a bit more awkward for me because I tend to be a bit of an awkward person. I think that when you’re onstage you’re playing these songs that you’ve practiced and presented to the band and then the band plays them over and over and then you record them. They are very personal things, but I’m just more comfortable with it. To me it’s a lot easier to get up and sing in front of 500 people or more or less than to speak to them. I absolutely can’t…it’s so hard for me to talk on stage. And you always get that one douche in the crowd when you actually decide to say some stuff, like a heckler or something, God!

OHIO ROCKS: Where does that “hot and heavy pumpkin pie” folksy country sound come from?

Alexander: (laughter) I think it just comes from the country within. Country in my spirit. Country I already had in me and country I wanted to have. When I was young my father would take me on these summertime journeys. We would all be stuck in a van driving across the southwest and I would get dirty and run around barefoot. It was an earthy happiness. That’s where it comes from.

OHIO ROCKS: Tell me the story of the song Solid Ground. Did you sleep on the ground?

Dave: It is a song I came up with rather quickly. It was the first time we had ever toured in England. We were at the college and I was watching this female professor cracking open chestnuts with a knife. It was in Norwich and it just had this feel about it. We went out in this field and I started humming the song but I wasn’t even trying to write a song. A very cool earthy experience. I never thought I was creating something that would be on an album. I was just sitting in the field contemplating the contours of the earth.

OHIO ROCKS: This tour for Hospice,…..how is it going?

Peter: Well,… so far great! This is the first night of our tour. We just drove out of New York yesterday and now we are here. I like Ohio I think we get excited every time we play here. I mean one time we had a bad experience in Akron but we just played there a year ago and it was good. Ya never know how certain shows on a tour are going to go. In fact we were a little nervous about this show on our drive here. I think some things have turned around for us and people came out and they had a good time. So did we!

OHIO ROCKS: Any cool stories you have about Ohio?

Sune: One of my coolest moments was here. We played at the Buddy Holly tribute event at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We spent 2 days with Maria Elaina Holly, Buddy Holly’s wife. She told us all these stories and we stayed at the same hotel, it was amazing. She showed me the pin Buddy was wearing the night they first met. Because of the music we play…….wow it was a huge moment.

OHIO ROCKS:  You guys have just switched labels?

Alex: We started on Hopeless Records and this year we signed with Interscope. We are making that transition to the major label. It is a good transition but we were a big fish in a small pond and now we are a small fish in a big big pond. It is a little scary but at the same time exited to have them behind us. It is a very big machine. They are responsible for people like Lady Gaga!!!!! Who is Phenomenal!!!

 

Cole: It’s kind of similar. Well, England we have a good hype. We have a management company working for us, they got us hyped. One of our singles got on the UK singles chart. It wasn’t very high at all, it was like, 115. That never happened in the States, being on the singles chart. So that was kind of cool. We’re more or less the same size in Europe as here. In a big city, like New York or Chicago, we could bring maybe 1000 people, and in smaller cities it could be anywhere from 200 to 5 or 6 hundred.

 

OHIO ROCKS: Even though you may have not written the lyric, what Manchester Orchestra lyric is the most emotional for you?

Chris: Yes, there is a lyric for me,….”I’m going to leave you the first chance I get”. That moment means a lot to me. When you can say “I’m going to leave you the first chance I get”! It’s an angry moment. Maybe ya wanna take what you said back but you can’t. You may love this person and want to the rest of your life with them but you messed up.