Back to Relient K

WHO: Nick Cooper / Relient K lead singer, Matt Thiessen

WHERE: San Francisco / Ohio

WHEN: November 16th, 2004


N: So it was released November 2nd. How do you feel about the new album?

M: I'm pretty happy with it. It's good to put out an album that isn't clouded by a little bit of regret.

N: So where did you get the name?

M: It was kind of dumb. Basically, our last two album titles had really long pseudo clever titles; it wasn't just your normal album title. Obviously, to follow that up you can't do something completely normal and of course we didn't want to do a really long one again so we had a bunch of weird little one word titles that we wrote down. One of them wasn't a word, it was 'mmhmm' and we thought that would be OK and you know, there's about 10 different ways you can pronounce it and the intended way is a kind of sarcastic, shrug of the shoulders 'mmhmm'. Yeah, it's just a dumb thing we thought would be difficult for radio DJs to say.

N: So people label you as pop, pop-punk. How do you label your group?

M: I mean if somebody asks me on the airplane I always say rock n roll just cause there's some connotations that come along with the pop-punk label, but I listen to a ton of that type of music so it's not like we hate it. I mean my mom doesn't know what pop-punk is, so I just say rock n roll.

N: So what was the concept of this album?

M: I think a lot of the songs were influenced by events that happened within the last year or so. It was a year that had some rough edges to it; some darker times. That sounds almost a little too sobering, but it was a kind of overcast sort of year so that definitely came off in the album. The album has a more serious vibe to it than our previous stuff.

N: I think it's cool. You really seem to be open in the album. I think people will be able to relate it; I know I did. The song The One I'm Waiting For, I think it's a song that anyone in their 20s or teens could really relate to. Was there any specific story behind that?

M: Yeah, you've got to be careful I guess, because we're talking about specific people. It was a girl. I dated her for a long time. You know, she lived in LA and I witnessed a priority shift with her. It became less about the things of the heart and the personality and the intellect and more about just stuff and I think that's what LA can do to people. There was a large priority on clothes and other things of that nature and that's what the whole songs about... stop worrying about all the stuff all the time and start putting your efforts into loving the people you do love.

N: Have you lived in LA?

M: No.

N: You're right about what you said. I was there for 6 years and it definitely starts to have that effect on you.

M: I like the place. The weather is amazing and all of that stuff. I would go out there for a good chunk of time, especially to hang out with her and I just had a really tough time making friends out there. No slam on anyone out there. I'm just from Ohio so I guess I just come from a different place.

N: You seem to be very down to earth. Do you think that's because of your Ohio roots?

M: Maybe! I always tell her that. Us boys from Ohio don't care about celebrities. We don't care about any of that stuff, they're just people.

N: How do you deal with the music industry being so down to earth? You don't seem that cut throat type.

M: Well, there's different people. I mean, sometimes people we work with get really excited over different things, like getting to meet certain people or getting to work with certain people and I think definitely for all of us, fame is at the bottom of our priorities. It's almost an unfortunate thing for us, just because we're so like 'we don't care' if we're on MTV. We just kind of take it all with a grain of salt, but we definitely really appreciate getting to do what we do and they both go hand in hand. That would probably be the worst thing for us if we got really famous. Well, maybe not the worst thing, but if that was the only thing we got out of this... notoriety... that would be the least of our priorities.

N: How do you keep perspective? How do you keep your feet on the ground?

M: I feel like all of us in the band are good buddies and keep each other in check. We just have a way of getting excited about the things that you should get excited about, but not getting carried away. I feel like it's a conscious decision we've made to try and stay chill.

N: I respect you for that. So touring... I know you tour like 200 days a year. How do you cope with that?

M: It used to be. I think that last 2 years it's kind of mellowed out a bit, just because the other 2 guys in the band got married, but we love going out and playing shows. Me personally, I can't stay at home for 2 weeks without wanting to get back on the road. But, you know, it's a fun thing and I really enjoy it.

N: So what artists do you look up to? Who do you emulate?

M: We toured with Switchfoot a couple of years ago and it's crazy how things have gone for them and we're just so excited for them. They proved to be big brother mentors for us on that tour and definitely always gave us good advice, were very good hangs and we respect them as songwriters and live musicians and everything. A lot of time we find ourselves saying, "Well, we need to make a change here and a change there... What did Switchfoot do? It's almost cheesy that we do that, but they're great role models. Musically there are a lot of bands we think are cool. The energy of The Matches, NOFX, stuff like that... We try to emulate that sort of thing. The melodies of the Beach Boys and stuff like that.

N: The Beach Boys, no way.

M: Yeah, The Beach Boys and Ben Folds are pretty huge influences on our band even though it's tough to tell sometimes.

N: So this book, great idea. Who's idea was it?

M: Well, the book is actually something we've been trying to sweep under the rug a little bit, just because we were approached by this publishing company and they were like, "Hey, let's a do a little book!" They whipped out this handbook, The Hipster's Handbook is what it was called, and they were like, "Something kind of like this, but with your own spin on it." We looked through it and thought it was cool, so thought 'let's just do it, why not?' It ended up not coming out exactly how we wanted it and we didn't really have a whole lot of input, although we did read the whole thing and take out parts we didn't like and all that stuff, but we felt a little bit guilty having our names on it, 'Written By Relient K' when we really didn't write much of it. You know, we probably wrote 12 paragraphs in the whole thing.

N: Oh, really!?

M: Yeah, it was written by a guy and I think he's credited on the cover. This guy named Mark Nicholas. He's way cool. We used to hang out and talk about the book and stuff like that. You know, we had meetings and brain storms and stuff and they sort of just ran with it and just let us put our signature on it. We were entranced by the original proposal, like 'oohh, let's do a book!, that's something we've never done before' but it didn't exactly come out the way we wanted it.

N: So the future... you have a tour coming up, right?

M: We don't have anything on the books, but we're working on stuff, you know, probably something in the winter. I guess we're basically going to get on the road all next year. We're just working on getting all that stuff set up, but there's really nothing official to report yet.

N: My last question to you would be... I know there are a lot of young bands that look up to you. What would your words of advice be to them?

M: It's kind of a crazy thing, just cause it makes us feel old having people look up to us. It's a case by case basis. You know, figure out what your strengths are. If you're writing original songs and it's relevant music, then you're gonna get picked up by somebody. Or if you're already picked up, then work on capitalizing what your strengths are. Tour with bands that you like, but definitely something that we've tried to keep constant in our years of doing this is that we don't get down on ourselves when things don't happen right and that we're always having a good time with this, cause that's why we started it and it's easy to lose sight of those origins.

N: Great, well thank you Matt.

M: Yeah! Appreciate it.