Roger Manganelli

"Roger: For starters they drink at a younger age so inevitably they’re a little rowdier."

"JR: Cause Aaron Barrett* signed off on the publishing. He sued us because he said that we ripped off “Sell Out”"

"Roger: So we had to wait until it, like, settled in court so we could figure it out. I mean, we’re friends and everything, but when it comes to money…"

"*Aaron Barrett is the lead singer of Reel Big Fish."

"Roger: [laughs] Yeah, there’s a lot more bands, a lot more stages, a lot more really bad haircuts."

"Roger: I was super, crazy little! Yeah, like my dad's a guitar player and my uncle was in bands when I was growing up. I sat behind a drum set when I was like six years old. I started taking piano lessons when I was like nine. So, like I've been around music my whole, entire, entire life."

"Roger: They have internet now on tour."

"Roger: That was our tenth Warped Tour, it’s out of control, we’ve played six full Warped Tours and partial Warped Tours, Australia Warped Tour, European Warped Tour, bits and pieces of US Warped Tours. We’re like those hookers that have been around so long that they don’t even have pimps anymore. Actually it’s really organized, we hadn’t been on it in three years, the whole thing, and it seems really on, not only the bands and stuff but the crew has done it so many times that they didn’t screw anything up."

"Roger: I don't pay much attention to what is popular to be honest. It's a never ending cycle - style comes in and out of style - I try not to get caught up in all of that, and just listen to stuff i like, and play what I like; popularity is overrated."

"Roger: It’s a little more freedom, sort of, but it’s more work, too, to keep up with all the little things. It’s kinda worth it, I guess; nobody really buys CDs so it really doesn’t matter."

"Roger: Well no I think it goes a long way with people who are actually fans of the band. I understand that people who do buy the records are stoked when it’s something that has some value and some thought and actually looks cool. Hopefully slowly that will start to get people motivated to buy vinyl again. Not only does it sound better but you get more of an experience with the artwork and stuff and the lyric sheet in your hand rather than on your computer screen. There’s something more intimate about that. I think slowly but surely vinyl will continue to kind of hold steady even with people not buying CDs anymore."

"Roger: But really, a punk rock kid is the same all over the world, it’s the same dress code, everyone’s wearing chucks, it’s the same skull tattoo, it’s the same look, and everyone’s happy to be there. Our fans are the same everywhere."

"Roger: Umm.. I had a lot of different phases when I was younger. When I was really little, I liked a lot of stuff like, Iron Maiden, Kiss, and Def Leppard and like Aerosmith. Stuff like that. That's what I grew up on in the '70s you know. Metal like Slayer and Metallica and then I got into punk rock and metal when I was in junior high. like The Descendents and like Operation Ivy and you know.. that whole era of stuff."

"Roger: You know it’s always a good time people are energetic and it’s awesome. Totally excited."

"Roger: I think that we still do what the song is asking for; you can't really control what kind of songs come out while writing,, so if the songs needs horns, we'll do some horns, if not, then that's ok too. We really don't think too much about what our fans want us to write, we just try to stay true to what is best for the song."

"Roger: Uhh.. You know.. I'm really picky and I don't actually like very many bands. The only like new band that I really like is System of A Down. I think they are amazing! It's good stuff. It's aggressive and unpredictable and I love it!!"

"Roger: Yeah, it’s really not that rad."

"Roger: The press girl’s not that cool (chuckles) but that’s all. I’m just kidding! (Press girl making mean face). I’m just kidding! I just like that face…that gasp."

"Roger: Buddy’s my main influence."

"Buddy: I wear boxers, Roger wears boxer briefs."

"Roger: Yeah, our bunks are right across from each other so sometimes we sing each other to sleep at night. It’s lovely, you should check it out."

"Roger: Let's see.. Chris and Vinnie knew each other in high school and were in bands and then moved to Gainesville, Florida for college. I moved to Gainesville, Florida for college. And then Chris had a party and I told him I played guitar. Which I played guitar at that time. And he said you should come and play guitar then I went to practice with a guitar and then they're like, "Oh, by the way, we're going to be kicking out our bass player - would you mind playing bass?" I said OK. So I went out and bought a bass and that was in '92. And that's how it started. Then we started getting into the horn player thing. Shuffled a few horn players over the years but it's been the same main four guys the whole time."

"Roger: It's all right,, they seem to be backing the new record, and aside from the typical major label red tape - where it takes forever to get things done - I think Warner is still into the band."

"Roger: Yeah, we are at the ass end of a tour another four shows or so."

"Roger: Umm.. I couldn't tell you! I don't really know what the secret is. I've never been in any other situation. For us, we just really try to really deliver when we play and make that the focal point of what's going on. And then there's the live show. We try to be really good to our fans in the way of musically by having things up. Fans that have been fans of our records will always have something to relate and not have a record that is completely different ever, but also not doing the same thing over and over and over again. Trying to have a steady change on what kind of music we're writing and stuff like that. I think touring is the key to it. We've always been a touring based band. We play a lot, a lot of shows and that's what keeps us fresh in peoples' minds."

"Roger: It’s totally cool you know. We go out there and put our best foot forward and we play songs we’ve played before, and that feels like we know what’s going to happen. The crowd is going to react to it or they’re not going to react to it. If we went out there and played all new songs it would be lame."

"Roger: It was awesome! A lot of fun, good fans, good shows. We toured with Reel Big Fish and when we tour together things seem to be awesome so no complaints"

"Roger: It seems that way – it’s kind of weird how things are with music these days. You’re not really touring for the record anymore ‘cause no one buys the record. Everything’s downloaded and all that kind of stuff. We have the new songs but we’re still just touring because we’d be on tour anyway, ya know what I mean. So yeah we’re still touring in support of the new record but the new record is kind of supporting us sort of"

"Roger: See.. that's a tough question 'cause I went to a lot of really small shows for bands that nobody knew who they really were 'cause that's the kind of thing that I grew up on - was like going to clubs and stuff. The first like real, real concert that I went to was U2 at the Orange Bowl in Miami for the Joshua Tree Tour. I think it was in '87? Something like that. Yeah... I think that was it. We were way up in the nosebleeds and Bono was like this big! (Roger shows thumb and index finger really close) (all laugh) But, that's what I thought a concert was at that point - really huge. Everything else was more like a rehearsal or you know.. club shows. Like oh, that's nothing - 500 kids. It doesn't seem that weird. I've played in front of 500 kids at my piano recitals and I didn't think it was a big deal."

"Roger: Yeah, I don't know. It was awesome. It's a great feeling. I don't really know. It's built up so slowly that I can't even tell you when it actually went over the threshold of 500 kids or 1000 kids or 2000 kids or whatever - but we've stood it all. We've played with 80,000 kids at these festivals in Europe and we've played to eight kids, you know? It feels great. It feels great every time. As long as there's somebody out there singing or jumping around making an idiot out of themselves just as much as we are, then we think it's ok."

"Roger: We ran into a mall, and ran throogh the song and then some overzealous security guy at the mall thought he'd impress his boss with an arrest. It was dumb, the cops really didn't wanna arrest chris, but it was the mall security guy that was really was being an asshole and so Chris was detained, and booked. It was a pain in the ass, but at least we got him out with enough time to finish the video."

"Roger: It’s complicated. It kind of has different phases. It will be like Chris [Demakes, guitarist/singer] or I will have a song idea and Vinnie Fiorello [drummer/lyricist] will write lyrics that go with that song idea or Vinnie will just have words that he wrote down and we’ll take that and sort of mold it into a song. I mean it kind of happens in different ways and not everyone is always involved, and sometimes everyone is involved it just depends. There’s no like formula for writing songs at least not in our band. It’s pretty much however it comes apart and falls apart and everything if it feels right it feels right the song is the ultimate guide. Am I being too hippie for you?"

"Roger: I also have been producing/recording more and more, and that takes time, too. But that's what i always wanted to do, work on music,, so it's not a bad thing."

"Roger: That is true to a degree; I usually have songs ideas demoed out, and I will pass them off to vinnie, and he will focus on the lyrics. Then we all get together, work out the nuts and bolts of the song, kick around some changes and everyone is involved in the finishing touches. Chris will do the same, bring in a song idea, and we'll all throw in ideas and the songs just evolve. Some songs change very little from the initial conception, (like a new song called "In-dependence Day") and others really go through many arrangement changes/lyric changes, (like "Still Life")"

"QRO: How many Pez dispensers do you have?"

"Roger: Well over 800 at this point."

"Roger: Well it’s been the same members of the band since ‘92 with the exception of one horn player. So it’s been the four of us since the beginning of the band and then we’ve had some different horn players but JR’s the new guy and he’s been in the band for eight years so it hasn’t been that drastic."

"Roger: Oh! I think just having the opportunity to be on yet another major label again after being on Capitol in the late '90s and then going to an indie label and coming back.. and now we're on Warner Brothers. Just having those kind of oppurtunities is pretty awesome. Because there are bands that struggle their whole entire life time to just like you know.. "oh, we just want to be on the radio - we want to be on a major label. That's all we really want." We've had the chance to do that twice. I think that's pretty amazing."

"Roger: No I don’t collect stem variations – the different colored bottom part – cause you can have one Pez dispenser that has a head and there will be the same head but the bottom will have a different color. I don’t collect those at all so mine are all different Pez dispensary heads, because the head is really the most collectible part. I’m trying to give you lessons on Pez dispensers… How dare you suggest I collect stem variations? Are they all duplicates? NO THEY’RE NOT DUPLICATES! That would be cheating."

"Roger: I think it's different in the way of how they handle stuff. I don't think they were really trying to. They wouldn't want us on it if they didn't like our music, you know what I'm saying? They obviously want us to create what we create and then they do what they're going to do. It's more things like interviews and more videos and photo shoots.. things like that with a major label kind of brings to the table. Which I may or may not be into - but it's a cool chance."

"Roger: Yeah! There's one that we'll be supposedly filming when we get back from Europe. Not really sure exactly what's going to happen or anything in the video 'cause Vinnie and I had like a great idea for the video and they basically said that they would have to spend way too much money on it so.. there you go. They don't want to pay for the special effects that we were talking about. It's a bummer though. It would have been good. (laughs)"

"Roger: I have 800 Mickey mice. I just love Mickey Mouse, I have 800 of them, it’s awesome"

"Roger: Umm.. I don't know! It's kind of um.. a little more.. it's more in the darks of being really singy songy. It's nothing super blazing fast. There's not any super slow reggae kind of thing that we've done before. It's not like that. It's sort of in the tempo and sort of really poppy and really catchy. There's some really good stuff. There are some songs I'm really excited about. It's always been melody based I think. When we did our last record, we wrote like 32 songs and they ended coming out on two separate CDs. And this time we didn't really do that! We kind of just took 15 ideas and used those as the focal point and then we wrote around those and just improved on those 14 and kept bringing things in and out of those songs as opposed to having a whole bunch of songs. Whether that's better or not, I don't know. It definitely seems a bit more focused. We don't have a bunch of extra songs or anything like that. When is was time to actually record, we have everything pretty well sorted and that was cool. There's definitely some good stuff on there."

"Roger: Well, because you’re guaranteed to see Buddy make some funny faces, you’re guaranteed that Chris will say something that is sort of out of line or inappropriate, and I’m gonna play a bunch of fuckin’ really fast bass licks, it’s gonna be great."

"Roger: I’m a Back in Black guy. I can’t help it man. I see both sides of that fence. It’s a tough one."

"Roger: It depends.. A song is melody and lyrics and the music, you know? For our band, Vinnie the drummer writes like 95% of the lyrics so he's the main songwriter if you want to look at it that way. But he doesn't write any chords or melodies or any of that kind of stuff. So, it's kind of hard to split up or dissect a song that way, you know? On this record.. it's pretty fair, you know, pretty even between myself and Chris.. Actually JR and I. JR's the first song writer outside of Chris, Vinnie or I to like actually sit down and reword a song for the record. So he's becoming like a bigger part of that sort of thing. I don't know. It just depends. I definitely write a bunch of them! (laughs)"

"Roger: Yeah “Does the Lion City Still Roar?” Actually I saw it on Fuse today, it was awesome. Steven played it today. Download that bad boy."

"Roger: Hmm.. I don't know. I like playing at home because sleeping at home after the show is a bonus. That's really nice. I'd have to say I really like playing Japan. There's just a different level of respect or something that goes on with the fans. They're just completely animalistic and going crazy during the show and then in between songs like as soon as a song stops, it's silent 'cause they want to hear what you have to say so they can try and understand what you're saying. It's really awesome - it's great. Even in the UK and London - places like that, fans are just rabid and go completely crazy and it's always fun. I'd have to say Tokyo and London are pretty awesome"

"Roger: God I seem that crazy then, is that what you’re saying?"

"Roger: To some degree everyone is involved ya know what I mean. Chris doesn’t really do that much, he’s the lead singer he’s allowed to do whatever he wants. He’s that guy. I kind of deal with all the audio stuff and Buddy [Schaub, trombonist] deals with all the video stuff and [Peter] JR [Wasilewiski, saxophonist] deals with all the online stuff and Vinnie deals with everything else and we have a great publicist named Rey [Roldan] he totally does what we need him to do. It’s a different world but a lot of bands are doing it and you know it’s a way to stay on a smooth track not to have any kind of weird outside voices."