saves the day!

hi

so i've been listening to a saves the day podcast. if you don't remember jonah was a huge saves the day fan and i'm going ot make it much more visible. hopefully i'll catch the attention of mister chris connely himself. if that's how you spell his last name. i need to memorize it or something. BUT what does this make me want to do? write "perfect kisses"? nope. write "last place"? nope. not at all. what? somethign else? why of course it does. come on it has to have at least a little bit of jonah love in there...

it does don't worry.

setting: ap podcast #46: red letter day's bennett williams

I: so today we're joined with a very special guest today, mr. williams from the band red letter day. after putting out a series of ep on their own money earned from shows and jobs at coffeeshops and record stores they managed to leave thier small-town to a bigger palce which was chicago, illinois where they were signed to soft sound records. they put out yet another ep all acoustic as a homage of sorts to the band sunday drive that jump kicked the band into motion once they broke up in march 2005.

after releasing two full lengths off of soft sounds they left the line-up unexpectedly and joined a tiny indie label run by sean bleet and elisa loren. now releasing their third full length red letter day is returning to their sunday drive roots with songs that were made for a 16-something out in the middle of nowhere moping about a girl or wanting to leave and get somewhere.

i sat down with williams on a day in march. not knowing it was one of the msot important days of the year for him and his wife, elisa loren who became elisa williams one year ago today. not only that it was the last sunday drive show of seventeen williams ever saw and the last show for the band period. it is a bittersweet day for the tall skinny twenty-something and of all things he didn't complain at all- which is surprising being that he is the infamous newly adopted emo king known for bitching about life and integrity and girls like it's going out of style in the large catalogue that is growing day by day.

I: so hello, it's great to have you back after such a long time.

williams: it's good to be back. it's jsut kind of weird without the other guys here. this side of the table feels empty. [laughs]

I: it's strange having you here alone. i have to say, you're a lot more contianed than your
fellow bandmates.

w: i'd agree with that except for paul. he's probably the most reserved guy in the band. he doesn't go off into his own thoughts or anything. i wish i was like that... but i'm not. i'm sort of the in between.

I: in between....

w: well when our guitar player jonah met chris conelly from sves the day he was literally ripping his hair out saying five-hundred words per minute and chris was kind of like... what the fuck is up with this kid... while i was more like, you know, 'i love your music, your one of the bands me and my wife met over...' and paul was the one who treated him like a normal dude. said like 'hey, what's up...' you know. i'd like to think i'm a lot more self-contained than jonah, but if i met like the sudnay drive guys i'd flip out and completely fan-girl my ass off and kiss their feet.

I: you've never met the sunday drive guys?

w: no but my wife has. she was really cool about it too. she said they were really neat guys and she asked if they knew who we were- naturally, becuase she knows how sunday drive obsessed paul and i are and how everyone else sort of likes them, and they said they checked out our set and they are fans of ours. but i emailed them once and i freaked out when they responded and it was just a huge step for me. it made me realize how far i've come from being the whining emo kid in my friends' basements.

I: you've brought up a lot i want to get into actually. first i'll dive into your label right now. you signed to south records... recently?

w: yes we did.

I: and jsut to clarify because i never heard a lot about this in other interviews. i've heard rumors that you're married to...

w: elisa, yeah, which is one of the reasons we signed to them. but also sean bleet has been one of my closest friends for a while so it wasn't like a 'oh you guys need money we'll bring in a lot for you...'

I: i was just going to ask if it was for you and elisa if it was like 'maybe if we signed to you, we would get more money for groceries...' or something you know...

w: yeah, exactly. that's what a lot of people think but the reasn we signed to them was because they are our friends and we love them, but we don't treat them like our friends. elisa may feel obligated to work alongside me, but in the end it's the two of them working to have us put out music we love and other people will know and listen to and hear. and the whole business that's with their label is like a family. with soft sounds we were like trash talked and shit. especially me and paul [spinella] because we're more reserved and stuff... and with this record label it's like we have a good place to build off of as artist and musicians where we won't get eaten alive and i can still manage the mortgage of our house and paul can still provide for his family and jonah and aaron and james can all live in their apartments and eat and not starve. we get by.

I: i've never heard you tlak abotu you marriage a lot specifically or directly. but i don't know if it's too personal for me to ask you about....

w: no it's fine. it's just nobody asks about it.

I: i mean obviously you write all the lyrics for the band so i know you haven't had the best realtionship or the smoothest...

w: actually, that's not true. sorry [laughs]. um... well most of the lyrics i write are not auto-biographical. the ones that are are the happy songs. the love songs that the bands lets me just take out my acosutic and record like that. there are probably seven or so under the name red letter day that are just elisa's songs. the first song we ever did together as a band that was out own was liteally called 'elisa's song' and i've been in a relationship with her logner than in this band. and weirdly enoguh, like, on message boards people assume elisa and i just scream at each other and want to kill each other and break up all the time and how we use each other, but really i'm jsut hopelessly in love with her. i can't help it. i've been with her, what? nine years? and we've never really broke up officially. it was like a short break once. but it didn't last. and it was my fault and the songs i write are about the people around me.

I: really? that's really interesting... can you give an example.

w: uh, sure... [pauses] like on the new record we have 'nobody has to know' which is... oh wait, well, it's about someone in the band losing the love of his life and then getting her back, but only half of her. i mean they still loved each other after everything but i was in a relationship a lot like it with the same girl where all you got was hook-ups and like sex and it did a number on him and somehow they ended up together but from the song it's just abotu givign only half of yourself to someone when you want to give them everything and have a fair exchange too. so i wrote it from his point of view with what i knew and what my past expiriences were with the same girl.

I: oh, so i see. so lets say i pick up a red letter day record, how many are going to be like... autobiographical for you.

w: for me? i don't know it depends on the record [laughs]. on average maybe like two or three.

I: and all your records are like thirteen-fifteen track albums.

w: yeah, well, it's a little bit selfish. i mean i don't like being called the frontman but i'm the one who has all these pictures online. i'm the one who has shit tlaked about them. i'm the one who girls freak about my haircuts. but then again i'm the one who has to write the lyrics. i'm literally the voice of the band while i have paul and the rest of the guys to provide what i lack. paul is just a genius with producing and tracking and outlining songs. he is like the business man of the band and anyone who meets him just likes him automatically. he won like the 'dude i want to be best friends with' superlative at warped tour a few years ago. while i got the 'tour whore' superlative.

I: where is mr. spinella?

w: he's probably at home playing sunday drive records to his daughter. i thin kthat's what he's doing. his wife- rainie- is in boston right now for a writing workshop thing. she's a writer, and stuff. so he's home with his daughter for a little while while we're on a break.

I: does he jsut play sunday drive records in an attempt to musically educate his daughter?

w: no actually, today is the anniversary of them breaking up, or their last show. and his daughter loves sunday drive. i don't know how but i guess it's like a gentically inherited kind of thing because rainie and paul were both obsessed with sunday drive in high school which is why paul and i got along. and i even met my wife over sunday drive. it's like you either loved them or hated them. and somehow when we both foudn that girl that had those sunday drive records in their cars or something- i think paul showed sunday to his wife... but anyways it's hard to come by someone that likes sunday drive from where we are and when we did ou latch onto them and have like a community of sorts. some sort of unity.

I: like i never got into sunday drive until i had someone come to me and say okay listen to this song then this song and then you'll love this record and then listen to the next record and then this ep... i was wondering did someone ever do that to you?

w: no actually. i was at this place where i used to work and i was going through the new stuff and i found the acoustic album and just bought it becuase i played acoustic guitar and i thought it was cool to have a band that went out and just put out a full acoustic record. and i listened to it and i jsut fell in love. then i passed it to my friends who passed it to their friends and i think i started a small thing but people outgrew it and then i met paul and he started workign at the same record store i was and then i met elisa. and it just was like this band gave me my best friend and my wife and a reason to sing and to be who i am. my wife puts it best, she always says: 'once you're a sunday drive fan you're one for life.' and i'll probably have sunday drive playing at my funeral.

I: that's so weird. i mean kids who come in here that say: oh i'm a sunday drive fan, you just can tell. they give off this atmosphere and this attitude thato cne you know they like this band you jsut understand why they are like that. it's like a movement or a manifestation of some type of thing. i don't even know. it's like a cult sensation type thing where people get sucked in and if they wait long enough they can't get out.

w: exactly.

I: i read somewhere that you guys are beign called that now. like you are reaching the kind of stature in this scene of sorts and you are just sucking people in but in a larger scale.

w: i mean, i think we won over sunday drive fans more than anything because we had the backbone to put me and my guitar on a record and not just say we need this to be full band and we need it to be loud and rock music. we kept in touch with our roots and our feelings. and yet we never made the same record twice. we never made a sunday drive record and we never made a saves the day record or any other band's stuff. it was strictly us. it was my wailing and emo-ness mixed with jonah's saves the day feddish and paul's musical genius and aaron's braid and jawbreaker love and then james came in and he's an incredible bass player and he was made for aaron's drumplaying.

I: so with james being brough up, what happened with your original bassist?

w: alex was our old bassist. he was temporary because when paul quit his old band he lost his best friend and all of them so he couldn't have his friend jack play so he brought in alex and said we could replace him like with no problems but he stuck around and then we met james... and if aaron and james weren't completely straight they would have been married or something. they are perfectly met and everything. they know exactly what to do andwhat to play it was like the most amazing musical chemistry.

I: i've heard it said that you and paul are like perfectly matched too. like in reviews of shows and record reviews there is always something said about your chemistry and musicianship that just go together because you have the voice to support the stuff that paul sneaks in there and you can see that there is always something that compliments what paul is playing. which after hearing it it's true.

w: well like i said before, paul is like a musical genius. he is amazing at gutiar and he comes up with these guitar parts and we all want to just rip it off so we all end up copying it and then paul just goes in and plugs the stuff we come up with into the right place so it jsut all fits. but paul has been my best friend since a few months after i started dating elisa, and we just always listen to the same stuff.

I: whose the glue point in the band?

w: definatly jonah... he's just always so out there that it's like he doesn't get whats going on but he always understand completely and he always knows what to say and what to do so that everyone seems happy around him and he's jsut always so like over the time the guy just has a cloud of optimism. it's so weird but you just always are happy and havign a good time with him.

I: i also want to bring up the fact that some old songs are surfacing... can you tell me about that.

w: oh yeah, well i did this thing where i went to a small club. and this was abotu a year and a half ago because i proposed to elisa on the anniversary of the sunday drive breaking up and what i did was play the first three sogns i ever wrote her and then i asked her to marry me on the side of the stage and then it was like a youtibe sensation. people were begging me to play those songs again so i said okay, i'll do an acoustic show. i jsut got up and said 'do you want to hear a cover, a red letter day song or one of elisa's songs?" and they wanted to hear elisa's songs so i played them and then paul said we should record them and stick them out there. so we did and right now we're in the process of re-releasing all of our old songs which means we're digging up our old songs. studyign them and relearning them and re-recording them and then we're going to release them for like five or seven bucks online and it's print on demand and also digital so we're new-age. and we also are going to have vinyl because i'm a vinyl head and so is paul and we know a lot of our fans are too so the plan is to give something for everyone.

I: red letter day fans are going to shoot me but, how did you guys start again? i'm sorry if this is a little late.

w: so, it's cool, um, i really liked this girl but she started dating paul...

I: aw i should have known. you never mentioned this in the last interview...

w: well i think it's okay now to mention it but like he was datign her and they fell in love and finally i came out and told the girl and there was all this drama and finally paul dumped her... because of me, and i started to have this like friends-with-benefits thing with her and i told paul how she was because we were co-workers and we started tlaking more and then i told her i couldn't see her anymore and she ended up back with paul. and i started liking this girl elisa right then when her and paul got together again and i was doing a solo project which was me playing songs in basements of parties and i fell for elisa and i wrote her a song and was in this talent show thing- for my mother of course- and we started dating and i got sick of doing acoustic stuff and pau lhad quit his band and everything and was talking about startign something. and i did this really big show at the church in the center of town and paul said we should start something which meant we were going to start a band and we ended up working in our hometown playing shows and stuff and we got signed afterp putting out a ton of eps and here we are.

I: you are already being called influential, so what does that do towards your attitudes and relationhips? because i know there was a period where you weren't so sure about letting the world in especially with your personal life.

w: i still don't let everyone in. especially with my wife. i let people know how we met and stuff and then i just say we're happy. we're perfect. she's my high school sweet heart and my partner in life. i'm not going to tell the world everything. but i'll let them have what the songs are about and i want girls to know how in lvoe i am with her. and paul feels the same way. he doesn't talk abotu his duaghter or his mini-van or his wife or his cat. he just focuses on music while i can't really beign that my wife is my boss- i guess, and peopel are going to notice her name went from elisa loren to elisa williams a year ago exactly.

I: oh, happy anniversary.

w: thank you.

I: so one last question... whats in store for you guys in the future?

w: i'm actually going on an acoustic tour and we're going to be selling the b-sides record on it and it's all small clubs and my wife is coming on it with me and jonah is too. paul is going to take a break and be with his family and his cat-

I: and just for natural reasons, what's his cat's name?

w: [laughs] bear... it's name is bear.

I: so now the world knows more about his personal life...

w: i hope he doesn't gt mad [laughs]. but anyways aaron will be startign a jawbreaker-esque band with james and some other guys. it was originally going to be a cover band but they are considering writing their own songs and shit. but yeah, that'll take us up until next year where we'll put out another record hopefully and tour and stuff. i am really looking forward to it.

I: well good luck. i wish you the best with the badn and you and elisa.

w: thank you.

I: please come again, hopefully next time we'll have a full band with you like before.

w: i hope so too. i'm looking forward until then.

I: this has been...

jaseyray