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Exclusive Interview: Bayside's Anthony Raneri and I Am The Avalanche's Vinnie Caruana

BEHOLD THE ZEN MASTERS OF LONG ISLAND HARDCORE

VINNIE CARUANA of I AM THE AVALANCHE and BAYSIDE’s ANTHONY RANERI took some time out of doing laundry and wet-vacuuming to chat with Jason Pettigrew about their impending tour with Saves The Day and Transit, inclement weather, their long-running bromance and achieving inner tranquility.

Were either of you affected by Hurricane Irene?
VINNIE CARUANA: The bottom floor of the house me and my friends live in flooded, and that’s the floor I live in. Not ravagingly [sic] flooded, the carpet was just wet as shit. There was nothing floating around. I moved my mattress out and put everything I had on top of my bed platform.
ANTHONY RANERI: Not at all. The infrastructure is a little different than it is on Long Island.

See, I was told that you were cleaning up things.
RANERI: Well, I’m doing laundry [Laughter.]
CARUANA: Me too, dude!

Look at you two! The old saying “brothers from different mothers” comes to mind.
CARUANA: Well, I think the word is “rockstar.” Doing your laundry is very rockstar. I did my laundry and had a bagel. I took a whole bagel to the head as soon as I woke up. [Raneri laughs.] Anyway, October 6 is the first show. I have an exclamation point beside the date on my calendar. I want to drive to the [Philadelphia club] Trocadero right now, and live there for a month [before the first show].
RANERI: Just camp out?
CARUANA: Yeah, what else am I gonna do?

You guys have had a bromance for a while now. You did a split single, what, five years ago? (IATA contributed “Drinking Song,” while Bayside covered Death Cab For Cutie’s “I Will Follow You Into The Dark” for a 2007 tour-only release. —record nerd ed.)
RANERI: We recorded that in Mikey’s [Ireland, IATA guitarist] ex-girlfriend’s bedroom. But we go further back than that. [To Caruana.] What was that, Warped Tour ’01?
CARUANA: Yeah. That’s when I first remembered meeting you. Danny Navetta from the Movielife introduced us.
RANERI: The Movielife were doing some shows on that tour, and Bayside were doing shows. [Vinnie and I] are very similar people. We grew up in the same scene; we grew up around the same people. It’s Long Island, New York—we all stick together.

It’s good that you’re out on tour together. It’s almost like you’re foxhole buddies in the trenches, considering how the industry standard these days is for bands to buy onto opening slots on tours.
RANERI: We reminisce a lot about how things used to be. The music scene was very different at the time we were coming up than it is now. We’re definitely two bands that hold on to those old standards.
CARUANA: That’s why we respect each other as musicians. There are friends that are friends, and then there are friends you are actually telling the truth when you say, “Wow! I love your record.”

And the friendship is strong enough to survive when a question like, “Dude, what the hell were you thinking when you did that?” comes up?
CARUANA: I don’t think we’ve ever had that conversation. Anthony?
RANERI: I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed with any decisions you’ve made in your career. I back the records; I back the move [to another label]. We did a lot of things for the first time together. [Bayside] were playing shows when Avalanche were just starting. Me and you first met when you were still in the Movielife and Bayside had just started. We did our first solo shows together, which turned into much bigger things for both of us. I remember when we were in Australia and [some promoters] asked me to come DJ at a party. I had never done that before, and you just stood beside me at the DJ booth, watching me as I was trying to figure it all out. [Laughter.]
CARUANA: We were in a fancy hotel room in Australia, and these people wanted Anthony to come across town and DJ this party—which ended up being massive. There were 15 of us in this hotel room, drinking beer and being silly, and Anthony’s like, “Only if they send two vans over to pick us up, and all my friends get to come in and have free drinks.” [Laughter.] He said to me, “Dude, just hang out, this is going to be really weird.”

You guys have the bromance down so well, your bands could go anywhere in the world together and it will still feel like home. That’s admirable.
RANERI: Home is where your friends are.
CARUANA: It’s going to be an easy tour for me. You’re driving in the van and you know that everyone’s waiting at the club to hang out all night.

I Am The Avalanche have been sidelined for a while as the band wrote songs, got their business in order and got jobs so they could pay their rents. They haven’t done an extensive tour for a while. Anthony, do you have any tips on getting Vinnie acclimatized to road life again?
RANERI: It’s funny: I can see how the perception could be like you said. People could consider this tour a reintroduction [to IATA]. Publicly, it is. But as a good friend of Vinnie’s, we talk almost on a daily basis. I know that they’ve been pushing for years to get this new record out. To say that they’ve “sidelined” anything is definitely the wrong word, because it’s been a priority for them all along.
CARUANA: We haven’t had much of a presence. If you’re standing in front of people, they’re wondering where you are.
RANERI: I wouldn’t offer advice to him. [IATA] know what to do. They know what’s going on. They worked on their band everyday, writing songs to get this album finished. This isn’t a place to get comfortable; you have to keep wondering what your next move is going to be, career-wise.

The interview continues on page two…

So when did you wake up one morning and think, “We should go on tour together?”
RANERI: I think the exact conversation we had in the past was, “When you guys get this record out, you’re going on tour with us.”
CARUANA: The way I feel about it is, when it comes to Bayside, I never leave a tour thinking, “That’s definitely the last time I’ll tour with that band.” We’ll always be playing shows in some way, shape or form. They’re a successful band, and we’re obviously smaller. It’s cool for us because they can help us and it’s cool for them because they like to look out. For our record to come out during the first week of this tour? I can’t think of a better tour to be on. I think kids are definitely going to listen.
RANERI: We’ve been on tours before where—I don’t know if “embarrassed” is the word—but we haven’t been proud to say all the band names in one sentence. With this tour—with Avalanche, Saves The Day and Transit—those are bands I am so proud to be associated with, to have my band’s name on the same poster with theirs. And just having friends: Like you said, when you show up at the venue, it’s hard to ever feel like work when you’re playing music and hanging out with your friends. That’s a good day.

This tour has something for everybody, including the boys from Transit. Would you two like to impart any wisdom to them?
CARUANA: Respect your peers. Write incredible songs that mean a lot to you. And play them really well live.
RANERI: Which they do, already. Both of us know those guys; they’re great kids and they’re fully respectful to us and their fans.
CARUANA: I like going into parking lots [after gigs] and seeing them doing acoustic shows for their fans. They care a lot about the right things.
RANERI: I think the three of us can agree: The bands who are respectful and who are fun to be around are the ones you want to tour with—and as a writer, they’re the ones you want to talk to and support. Promoters and labels want to work with people who are respectful.

I’m sure you have some stories of dealing with band dudes who think music is their way out of being the drill-bit inventory specialist at the Home Depot. You know the type, complete opportunists.
RANERI: I can smell that stuff from a mile away, and I know Vin can, too. You meet bands that have the wrong idea or they’re doing it for the wrong reasons… I used to get pissed-off about it, but at this point I’ve seen so many bands come and go, I know now if somebody is there for the wrong reasons or they don’t deserve to be there, they’re going to be gone soon. It never fails.
CARUANA: There are fakers in every genre of music. To start a band because you think you’ll be rich and famous is pretty difficult—you’re better off getting on a reality TV show, if you want that.
RANERI: But you can smell the shit from a mile away. You see these young bands on Warped trying to embed themselves in this scene, and you know they were talking about nothing but football last year. The girl who was a cheerleader now sings and has a tattoo—and now she’s just like us? That stuff goes away. The universe weeds them out.
CARUANA: I was on Warped Tour [one year] and a friend of mine was wearing a Jawbreaker shirt. Somebody from another band of young, good-looking boys with nice hair walked by, looked at my friend’s shirt and said, “Great movie.” [Laughter.] That is the whole story, no exaggerating.

Maximum eyeroll! Do you think the communal spirit—the one shared by bands who come up together from a city’s music scene—erodes away as their careers advance? Does it devolve into a gladiatorial spirit as to who is more successful or who is more “relevant?”
CARUANA: Long Island is chockfull of dramatic shit-talking. Forever. Long Island is the worst.
RANERI: Both of us have seen that firsthand. But I also feel that we’ve seen the opposite, though. We’ve seen bands that grow out of Long Island and they do other things and they don’t get along or look out for the “old people” anymore. But there’s also serious camaraderie, as well.
CARUANA: I would say for the most part, there is a respect thing going on. There were so many bands in Long Island that came up and did really important shit for this genre of music. It is important that they all recognize where they came from and it is important that we all respect each other. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve made enemies and done shit along the way, growing up being a shitty little kid. As a man, I just have so much more respect these days. I’m happy to support anyone who came with the similar ideals in music that I have.
RANERI: It comes down to music, really. If the bands sounds similar and have similar ideas about things, it’s easier to stay close-knit and it’s easier to keep touring together. There are bands from Long Island that I have been good friends with, but they aren’t bands we can closely connect with, career-wise.

So if I Am The Avalanche sounded like Nickelback, you wouldn’t slash the tires on their van?
RANERI: [Laughs.] We’d be a little more like… Not secret friends; we just wouldn’t tour together.
CARUANA: [Proudly.] I’m friends with people who are in terrible bands! We all are. [Laughter.] But we’re all friends. I shouldn’t say “terrible bands.” Bands that are terrible to my ears are probably good for other people. I’m a peaceful man; I don’t want to hurt any feelings, anymore.
RANERI: What, you moved out to the beach, you’re all mellow now?
CARUANA: I’ve been a peaceful man for a while now. I haven’t been punched in the face for over 10 years. [Laughter.]
RANERI: It all evens out. Sometimes you kick people’s asses who may not have deserved it, and sometimes you get your ass kicked.
CARUANA: You do good work and be a good person and that’s the best you can hope for. Otherwise, the universe will drop a boulder on your head.

Let me see if we can conference in Deepak Chopra, because it sounds like I’m talking to the Zen masters of Long Island hardcore.
RANERI: Can that be the headline for this article? alt

The Bayside/Saves The Day/I Am The Avalanche/Transit tour begins October 6 in Philadelphia. For more tour info, visit baysidebayside.com or savestheday.com. I Am The Avalanche’s new album, Avalanche United, will be released Oct. 11.