Gameface formed in 1990 when Jeff Caudill and Todd Trout met Paul Martin and Bob Binckley. Jeff and Todd kept seeing their future rhythm section at multiple punk rock shows around Orange County, California. This prompted Jeff and Todd to combine their talents with Bob and Paul. A band and a bond were formed.
They would go on to play shows and backyard parties and release seven-inch EPs. The things young punk rock bands do for the next few years. After recording a full-length LP (Good) for Network Sound Records and touring the US, they eventually caught the eye of Bill Strange of Dr. Strange Records, who gave Gameface the opportunity to record their next album. While still young in age, they were on their way to establishing themselves with the caliber of shows they were playing. However, it’s here the story takes an unfortunate turn.
This year marks thirty years of that album, Three To Get Ready. A pop punk album that feels more mature than other releases around that time. The record was a learning experience for Jeff and Todd both personally and professionally. They were kind enough to reflect on that time and the story behind, Three To Get Ready.
(This interview has been edited for clarity)
Dying Scene (Forrest Gaddis): When you guys had recorded the album, how long had you been a band at that point?
JC: I guess four years, 1994 is kind of when we approached that album.
DS: How did the band get together?
Todd Trout: We were at a Big Drill Car show and Jeff met Paul and Bob. Jeff and I had been kind of playing in little side bands since high school. We were right out of high school. I think it was our first year, 1990. Jeff said, “Hey, we’re going to go jam with these two guys.” We went to Buena Park and had our first practice. I think we wrote a song or maybe two. It was kind of magical. We left thinking, well, that was great. Very power pop, which I think is definitely our groove, especially around that time.
JC: We just kept seeing these same two guys at all the shows, whether it was a hardcore show, an ALL show, or Big Drill Car. I remember just the best lineup. I think it was Down By Law, Chemical People. We ended up just walking up and talking to them. I don’t know how the relationship really started, but it was like these dudes must be into the same kind of stuff we’re into. Paul or Bob, maybe both, went to a school where a friend of mine’s dad was the teacher. I was in a band in high school, and the teacher had the record cover on the bulletin board of the school. The teacher was like, “Hey, you guys like indie music? You might like this.” So they somehow knew of my high school band, which is very weird because like ten people knew about that band.
TT: It was like, Paul went to Savannah High School and Bob went to Cervite. Mr. Jocelyn’s class. So, that shows how music connects us all. I mean, because how many copies did you guys press?
JC: I mean, a couple hundred at most. Most of them are sold out of the back seat of a car at the show, right?
TT: Versus being distributed by some huge label, and they are aware of it. That was an awesome connection.
JC: We were finally like, “We know that you guys like the same type of stuff, would you want to start a new band?” That’s kind of how it really happened.
DS: How often were you guys playing shows when you started to write this album?
JC: This album was certainly a different type of situation for us.
TT: For people who aren’t aware, prior to that album coming together, Bob, our drummer, had struggled with a lot of addiction issues. It got to a point where I don’t think he was really able to function normally, at least mentally. The last practice Gameface had was during the O.J. Simpson Bronco chase. I’ll never forget that as I was driving to practice down the 5 Freeway and we hadn’t had practice for a few weeks. It was really critical. Like, oh my God, we got to get together.
JC: We had shows coming up and all kinds of stuff.
TT: I see all these cops way back there behind me, and I’m thinking, I don’t know what’s going on. I didn’t know it was OJ. I remember just speeding. They’re all behind me. They’re not going to pull me over. That was our last night of practice. Then, tragically, Bob took his own life in a tragic fashion. We might as well throw the whole story out there because I think it’s important, especially if there are people struggling with addiction. He ended up going to a gas station around 2:30 in the afternoon, bought some gas, sat down, lit himself on fire, and died in just a horrible fashion.
As young adults in our early twenties to try and navigate addiction and then suicide was super intense back in the early nineties versus, say, now with all the materials and support that’s out there. That’s the buildup. This was not a normal, “Hey, we got some new songs kicking around.” It was a very laser-focused healing process, I think.
JC: The months leading up to Bob’s suicide, we felt really helpless. We honestly did not know how to… We weren’t in a lot of communication with him. You know, it’s not like we had cell phones. It’s not like I could reach out. We would see him briefly. I remember one time he came over to my house and we had a very strange interaction. He was struggling with a lot of paranoia. I think it was quite possibly schizophrenia, but who knows? None of this was diagnosed at all, but he was concerned with the government listening to our conversation in my apartment through the light bulbs in the house.
He asked that all the lights be turned off. After he left, I felt very clueless and helpless. I couldn’t just grab him and take him… In hindsight now, I wish we had been a little more aggressive about… I do remember talking about what we were going to do. Jumping months and months later, we had decided that we wanted to keep the band together. It was the best thing iwe could do to honor our friend and deal with our own grief. We felt like being together was the best way, doing the things that we love and how we function best as friends.
We are going to continue the band. Let’s just take some time and deal with an incredible amount of grief and loss. We were just not equipped and didn’t really talk to each other about it. We just sort of were there, and I think the act of having a project and having some sort of community helped us through. We probably didn’t talk it through like we should have, but that’s the nineties for you.
That’s where we were. I remember having some songs that I’d written before all this. I also remember a good batch of songs that came after, and just about all of them, you can kind of see little pieces of us dealing with this.
TT: I was going to say, at that time, we were all in our super early twenties. We were hanging out as much as possible. Like every weekend, the band was together; not a lot of other responsibilities were happening at that time. It was literally working part-time and then just doing the band. Practicing a couple of times a week and just always together. There weren’t cell phones. It was really hit or miss in that sense. I think, like the rest of us here, are any of us planning on dying or killing ourselves in the next year?
The answer is no. To Jeff’s point, when he said maybe now he would have grabbed him, but we would have never thought that. Bob was like, “I’m going to be fine. I’m going to work myself through this.” Again, mental health and all that was not anywhere in conversations back in the 1990s. Bob probably had undiagnosed mental issues that we had no clue about because we had no experience with that. I think that’s important. We were so close-knit, and we were together all the time, the four of us. That’s all we did. We had toured, and we had gone out eight weeks in the summer, and it was just the time of our life type stuff.
It was just this huge blow, and I think Jeff just started doing some more songwriting and started talking. Bob was Paul’s best friend, and Jeff was my best friend. We were all so supportive of each other. It doesn’t mean we always got along, but the care was there. I think for me and Jeff, playing in other bands, it’s never been that closeness that Gameface had. I get it was a different time. Not many responsibilities, et cetera.
JC: It really was because of our age, because of the timing, because of what we went through. Gameface has felt more like family and all the things that come with that: all of the pain, the highs, and lows. Gameface has certainly felt more like a family than a band throughout my entire life. It means something bigger than other bands I’ve played in.
TT: Yeah. And we had a bunch of Gameface friends; it’s just a huge collective. It was very unique, having this huge group that wasn’t even a scene. It was just a group of friends. I remember Bob’s funeral being super emotional, and everyone’s there. That was just a testament to the closeness of this group. We decided we’re gonna push forward with some of these songs and see where it goes. Our game is always, like, un-punk, not hardcore. We’re just this power pop band.
JC: I just want to add to that; that’s another conversation in itself, but the fact that we existed in this hardcore scene, playing music that wasn’t hardcore.
TT: We tried out some drummers. This guy, Phil, he’s got this big mohawk. He’s just a lightning-fast drummer. When you go back and listen to Three To Get Ready it wasn’t so successful because it was so much faster than anything else we played. I remember, so we’ve got this mohawk and he’s just cranking through stuff. He said, “Oh, my favorite song from Gameface is ‘Retraction.’” It’s just one of our slower songs that we had. I remember that blew us away. Here’s this tall punk rock mohawk guy, and his favorite song is this more emotional, slower song. Instantly, right there it feels like a really good fit, personality-wise. It’s not the easiest situation to come into.
DS: Were there any big memorable shows around that time?
JC: It’s all a blur at this point, to be honest with you. They’re all memorable in that they all led us to where we are. We met a lot of people that we’re still tight with today on the very first tour. I can’t really point to any one moment. I know I’ve mentioned this before in an interview or two, but a friend of ours that we still have today is Francis Garcia, who was in a band when we first played with him called Yuck. He ended up playing in a bunch of bands. He’s from Texas. I think we first met him in Houston. It was one of our first road shows. We played Arizona, New Mexico, or whatever. And we get to Texas and so this band starts playing. They’re playing Superchunk and then a Green Day cover. Then they’re playing all these rad original songs that are right in our wheelhouse.
I remember that was one of the first times we met a very like-minded group of guys in the middle of the country. We were like, “We’re going to be best friends.” That happened in little pockets all over the country on that first tour. I think that was just the vibe of doing the thing that you sort of heard about. You go out and play, and you find your people. Now it actually happened.
That was really pretty monumental for us in those early years. We didn’t start playing killer shows until after Three To Get Ready, really. That was sort of like throwing us out into the world and trying to find people that were into that stuff. Luckily, that was the early ’90s, and there definitely was a scene for that. Green Day was getting big and Jawbreaker was… it was all these things that were sort of bubbling up, and we certainly benefited from that.
TT: We played crazy shows, basement shows, small club shows, and then, you know, started playing. I think that the Three To Get Ready, Texas Is the Reason, Lifetime tour.
JC: Yeah. We’re actually playing like proper venues and stuff.
TT: Hanging out with Brian McTernan in Boston. Our friendship with Texas Is The Reason kind of bloomed right there, and that was wonderful. We went on our first European tour off Three To Get Ready. That was an experience, but it wasn’t always great. I mean, it was wonderful. We went to all these different countries and played these shows. Then we got home and played with the Spin Doctors at the House of Blues in Hollywood. Which, to this day, I’ll say for this interview, I loved it. We were getting ready for soundcheck, and there were probably thirty reporters out in the crowd.
The Spin Doctor guys are below the stage and chairs doing their full interview because at that time they were the shit, right? They finish and Jeff says, “Hey, does anyone want to ask us a question?” The guy says, “Yeah, who are you?” They all packed up and left, and it was so funny. I remember the curtains opening, and it was like a bunch of thirty-year-old women, and that was mind-blowing. Now being in our fifties… I mean, that was kind of one of our bigger shows at the time. That was one of the last shows we played with Phil, I think.
DS: Did you have a venue out here that felt like home to you guys that you played often?
Pre-Three To Get Ready, we were learning how to be a band, and Toe Jam in Long Beach was the place. If you want to talk about memorable shows, we played there with just about every band in our scene.
TT: Sense Field’s first show was there.
JC: Inside Out played there. I think that felt like a home venue. I think we’re too old to have adopted Chain Reaction. I know Chain Reaction is like the Orange County place, but I think that kind of happened after us. We played there a couple of times, but it was never really my vibe at all.
TT: I think the Melody Bar in New Jersey. I know that’s not local, but that was a place we always loved playing. It was just this awesome scene. Mankato, Minnesota, also. Those are the two places that really stick out to me. Just every time we came to town, awesome shows, just awesome bands. I mean, Shades Apart, all this great stuff. Those weren’t local, but those are places that I would consider every time Gameface went out there.
JC: We played so much in Orange County and Southern California that I feel like there was a time where we did wear out our welcome. You can kind of overstay. When we did get out and start touring those areas, like New Brunswick, New Jersey, and Mankato, Minnesota, are those areas where it felt like an event. I remember we did two shows on the same day just to accommodate the vibe in New Jersey. We sort of found homes in other places once Orange County had moved on from us.
DS: Is there a moment on the album that you feel is your proudest moment, maybe a riff, maybe a lyric?
JC: I just listened to it, and like I said, I try not to revisit all that too often. There’s definitely a lot of moments. I mean, just that opening bass hum; I could listen to that for three minutes. I mean, there are some lyrical things where I feel like it has sort of stood the test of time. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to conjure them all up right now..
We had talked about it in the wake of Bob’s passing. We definitely didn’t have the tools to talk to each other about how we were dealing with our grief. Just the idea of being present and staying together. The moment for me that encapsulates that was in the song “Three,” it says, “We don’t have to talk about it, we just have to be there. One on my left, one on my right.” That’s definitely a line that still resonates now. When I hear that, I think about that stretch of time where we really didn’t have the words to say to get through what we were getting through, but just the fact that we were together.
“The Only Chance We Get,” for me, sort of encapsulates the message of the album about trying to understand the gravity of the now. I’m not going to be able to articulate this. “The Only Chance We Get” and the quiet moments in that song, I think, are ones that just kind of stay with me.
TT: “The Only Chance We Get” and “Gibberish” are two songs that we continue to play in every set pretty much to this date. I think those two songs mean so much. I’m more of a lyric guy than a music guy. If there’s a good lyric, it makes the song for me, but obviously, those two songs have stood the test of time. I think “Start Me Over” and “Only Chance” are the two songs, for me, on that album that Jeff so eloquently says, “Start me over, pick me up and start me over.” We were just defeated at that point, not knowing how to deal with our friend’s death. It wasn’t like he got sick and died; this was tragic.
I have one other thing I wanted to add as far as the songs go. I’m guessing we were twenty-three, kind of similar in age to our daughters now, and the song “Green Tree” is Jeff really kind of at that awkward age of being an adult, but not an established adult, but not a teen anymore; and him just passing by his old house, the place where he lived, and just trying to figure out your way as a young adult. Probably not with a full-time job or steady income. I think that the album kind of resonates with that period. I think that was also connecting to a lot of people at the time. The people coming to our shows, the people we were friends with, were all the same age, and everyone was kind of going through that.
Three To Get Ready was really memorable, not just for the tragedy addressed, but also the time of life we were at. I was going to say the back art was a box that Bob had made and left on our porch the night or so before he ended up taking his life. That was something I thought was also really heavy. We weren’t fucking around as far as our feelings, like, “Hey, this is out there. We don’t have to deal with it.”
The song, “Three,” the lyrics just kind of describe it. It was just really, we’re not going to sit here and polish up this horrible situation. It’s just a horrible situation. I would say Dr. Strange was so supportive of that whole process, too. Bill was just such a good guy to us, and to this day, it wasn’t just this business thing for this record deal, you know?
JC: Yeah, he had written us a letter and said, “I don’t know what the future looks like for you guys, but if you want to continue this, I would love to be a part of whatever comes next for you guys.” I feel like that’s kind of what we needed to hear as a band. If someone wants to put out a record, which at the time was pretty huge. However, he’s just been a solid guy for support since then..
As we toured after Three To Get Ready, the songs kind of seeped out into the world. It wasn’t like we came out and said, “Hey, this is what happened.” People who knew and people who wanted to know could ask, and we would talk. I definitely met a lot of folks who were pretty moved by the whole situation, and people who were kind of in the same boat. I don’t want to say, “Our music saved anyone’s life.” That’s insane to say. I do remember talking to some folks who said, “Listening to your music really helped me through a pretty dark period.”
Those types of conversations, that’s the valuable stuff from all of this. I remember a lot of that coming out of the Three To Get Ready period, having a lot of conversations with people similar to that. That’s really heavy. That’s the stuff that makes it worth all of the other scene bullshit. Speaking of scene bullshit, the big song for me is “The Big Deal,” where I do feel like I articulated the scene politics, and because we got a lot of eye rolls from the hardcore scene, like, “This is a weak attempt at being punk.” We heard it all, so that’s where the unpunk thing was born out of.
TT: One of our very good friends came up to me years ago and said, “Hey, can I talk to you, really big dude?” And he said, “I was over in Iraq, and we could only bring a couple albums, and I brought Three To Get Ready as one of mine.” I’m thinking, “Oh, this is interesting. I don’t know where this conversation is going.” And he says, “So, you know, we’d have to go out and patrol, and there were times we were shooting at and being shot at. It was really intense, and as soon as I got off duty, I’d run back to my bunk and put on Three To Get Ready. And I just kind of say to myself, ‘This is not who I am. This is not who I am. I don’t want to lose myself.’”
You know, just the horrors of the military and killings. He just wanted to introduce himself. That’s something. The impact you don’t really think of, especially, to your point, Jeff. All the conversations I’ve had about addiction and mental health, but this was now this other level. I did say, “Well, out of curiosity, what did you listen to before you went? How do you get really jacked up?”
He’s like, “I listen to Slipknot.” To this day, he is a dear friend of ours, we see him pretty much every time we go out. He’s just this wonderful guy in the sense that he just gets the point. I don’t want to get into politics and military stuff right now, but I’m saying it was definitely somebody trying to keep themselves from getting lost in that shuffle.
JC: It’s nice to feel like you’re a sort of a source of grounding for people.
TT: That was a day. Having this dear friendship is really special, all based off of that album, you know?
DS: Were there any disagreements about the songs when it came to recording the songs, or were you guys pretty much on the same page at that point?
TT: We rarely had disagreements, Jeff being the principal songwriter, too. Maybe he remembers it differently, but I’m saying I think we followed his lead with the emotions and the skilled songwriting. That album hit so many nerves in the emotional stuff, even “The Big Deal.” Even “Gibberish,” just kind of that relationship aspect, right? To this day, there have been so many bands that we’ve met saying, “Hey, we cover that song.” It’s one of our favorites because it’s not just the music; it’s those words. For this album, I don’t think there was any… I think it was very rare. I think it was a pretty good open conversation.
JC: I think we threw everything we had at this one. I wrote a lot of songs, but there were definitely a lot of collaborations. I’m going to go back to another song we haven’t mentioned yet. I don’t want to say it was deliberately nostalgic, but because we were mourning our friend and writing about, deliberate or not, we were really writing about our friendship. The song I remember Todd came with was “Ten Blue Sticks,” which is about a childhood friend of his, but I believe that was some music that Paul had written. Todd had written lyrics, which is rare. There are two songs on this record that Todd wrote. Todd wrote the lyrics for “Undone” and I had written the music.
Of all our records, it might have been the most patchwork album where everyone was sort of contributing. I don’t think we said no. If I didn’t say no to the song, then no one will say no to anything.
TT: I would say putting my grandfather at the end, which was a thrill for me. Like, hey, run with it. You know, I won’t make that work versus how do we make it work?
JC: It wasn’t the time for us to be super critical about what we were bringing. I feel like if anyone was bringing anything, it was valid. It was like, yes, yes.
DS: Like the improv thing: Yes, and…
JC: Yeah, yeah. I don’t know, are there fourteen songs? I know we re-recorded “Home,” but it’s a lot of songs.
DS: I know the Anniversary Edition had you guys doing a cover of “Time After Time.”
TT: Was there a different version? Because “Time After Time” is at the end of Three Get To Ready. It’s kind of a hidden track.
JC: Is that pre or post Grandpa?
TT: There’s two Grandpa stories, one before and one after and then the reissue is the original version of that one.
JC: It’s the demo that we recorded before the album.
TT: It was for the Look, Ma! No Hands! or some kind of compilation.
JC: Right. We recorded a couple of songs for a cassette-only thing that was basically distributed at a show that we played; it was a show. I can’t remember the other bands, but we recorded two songs. It was a Valentine’s Day show.
TT: It was President’s Day weekend, but it was at that, whatever that really cool place was.
JC: I think it was like the promoter of the show. He was like, “Give us some love songs,” and we had a demo of “Time After Time.” Anyway, that’s getting really in the weeds, but we can move on if you like.
DS: I kind of treat these and most interviews I do like that kid who’s into jazz, I like those small details.
JC: No, there’s plenty of those.
DS: I think those small details are what make some of these. It’s that little nugget that music nerds like so much.
TT: Jeff’s done all the design layouts for our album. His full-time job is that, and he’s done a million album covers. Going way back into the first two records, we had the first album say, “The Millennium Falcon is piloted by Han Solo.” Little nuggets for our own kind of music we drop in there.
I think back to my grandfather; that was one of those things like, “Hey, let’s do this thing at the end of the album. Just this weird story.” People thought, “Who’s the homeless guy?” I’m like, “Well, that was my 91-year-old grandfather.” I think we’re always trying to have some type of that creativity to add in there just for our own amusement, right?
JC: Versus what was cool, I do think adding that audio stuff that’s like, that comes before “Ten Blue Sticks,” we did it sort of like for our own amusement. Especially the grandpa stuff, it’s pretty poignant. When you do listen to it as a whole unit, it’s actually not just for a laugh..
TT: I think Three Get Ready was about just those life situations and how to navigate them at such a young age.
DS: How many records did you guys do with Dr. Strange?
JC: Three To Get Ready and then we had a seven-inch before. It was kind of like a single just leading up to that. Then we did the Cupcakes EP.
TT: Then Every Last Time was with Revelation Records.
JC: And then, The Reminder was through Dr. Strange, but I’m certainly not calling that a proper release.
DS: Did they just have the rights to the old music?
JC: It was really our idea. I think it was because we wanted to just compile everything onto a CD. The demos really were only on a cassette. The early seven-inches were only on vinyl, and CD was king. We’re like, let’s just put all of our old stuff on one CD.
TT: While it doesn’t sound great, all these demo songs were never released. Songs we were playing at the backyard parties before we played any proper shows. I mean, love it or hate it. I think it’s fifty-fifty. Some people think, “I love that you have that.” It’s also not that great-sounding.
JC: Right. I think at this age, where you know, everything eventually gets digitized and you can find it on the internet. The internet, I think it would have been a better move to not compile them all in a CD and just eventually have them all surface on the internet. Then, people that wanted to find the Gameface demo or, you know, the weird thing that we whatever, I think that would have been a better move because now that thing is part of our discography, and it’s certainly not on par with, you know, a lot of our proper albums.
Kind of like the Into The Unknown Bad Religion record, which I love. I want to go on record saying I love those songs. I think it’s a great record. They don’t even acknowledge it as part of their discography.
DS: When they did those Decades sets, I don’t think they touched any of those.
JC: I have it on vinyl, and it’s a very expensive, sought-after record.
DS: How do you feel your songwriting has evolved since this record?
JC: I think that we were still sort of learning how to be a band. I mean, those songs are pretty solid. That was like the beginning of really understanding how to put songs together. I definitely feel like I’ve grown since then; my taste has changed, my influences have broadened, all that.
Those songs are just so direct, like, “I’m gonna tell you exactly what’s going on with me.” I’ve learned to be about nuance and building some tension, building some suspense. I don’t know how successful I always am, but I know some songwriting tricks that I didn’t know or even care about back then. That was kind of the beauty of it. We didn’t really care. It was just like we’re gonna tell you exactly what the fuck is going on, and this is it. I think I’ve learned a lot about the craft of songwriting since then, for better or worse. I guess, probably better.
DS: I kind of had a Gameface and adjacent afternoon. Let’s listen to everything. I gave the Low Coast another listen because it’s been a minute. It’s kind of a different beast, not even a beast. A different animal I’ll say because it’s really nice. You can hear the songs teased out a little bit more.
JC: I think the same thing. I think Sleep Pod Two does the same thing. We’re thirty years older now, but there’s some maturity in understanding how to present a song or a melody. Start a song and know where you want to go with it, not just give it all. Like for Gameface, we pretty much give you everything in the first verse and the first chorus. That’s the beauty of it. The beauty of being young and fucking having all these high-running emotions. Not caring about song craft and just being fucking this is it.
TT: I think, though, in alignment with just becoming better songwriters and better musicians, when Steve joined the band after Three To Get Ready, his drumming style really allowed the songwriting to expand. Jeff was able to play guitar. You couldn’t play guitar during Three To Get Ready. For Cupcakes and Every Last Time and the albums after, it really anchored the songwriting process. In my opinion, that allowed Jeff’s musical growth and writing to come in. Without that, all the new albums wouldn’t have been possible if they weren’t in accordance with how Steve was.
JC: We got an actual real rock drummer. Then we were able to sort of mature and write rock songs, and that kind of makes Three To Get Ready special and youthful. I do love those songs, but thinking about playing them as they were now, it just feels exhausting to me. I struggle sometimes, right? And this week I’m gonna have to shift my approach. We’re getting back in the studio this week. I have to turn that switch and sort of think in a different way than I would with my current musical thing.
DS: Is it easier or harder to write something new that stays true to the sound that you guys have cultivated but evolves it, or do you just have your other projects where you try something new?
JC: Yeah, I feel like Gameface. We’ve stretched it as much as we can, or we do as much as we can within a sort of narrow. I don’t mean narrow in a bad way, but just our thing that we do.
TT: I think it’s a pretty basic formula that we stick to, but I don’t think we’re afraid to add anything. I just think we get together and play these rock songs that we like. I think we know our boundaries.
JC: I think that is the right word. I don’t want to push our boundaries too much because we’ll become something that we aren’t. We all have our outlets beyond the band to sort of cater to that, but I don’t think Gameface has ever really thought about that. It’s always, “This is what comes naturally. This is kind of what we do.” We’ve never sat down and said, “Okay, how can we push our limits as a songwriting group?” I don’t think we’ve ever had those conversations, but I do feel like we all know what the band is. It’s very apparent if I’m creating something new; I know pretty immediately whether it’s a Gameface thing or not just because we’ve had so many records.
TT: I’m doing a new writing project that has keyboards. With Gameface that wouldn’t fit, not that that wouldn’t be cool, but our songs are pretty… there’s a formula for a sound that we’re looking for. While it continues to mature like these new songs, which are great, but they’re very Gameface. You wouldn’t go, “Oh, wow. The new Gameface sounds completely different.” No, the new Gameface sounds the same.
JC: We’re not gonna pull an AFI on ya.
DS: For the second time by the way.
JC: There’s nothing wrong with that; I think it’s actually pretty great, but also, just to have the luxury to do that is pretty amazing. Our side bands are different bands for all the different sounds, right?
TT: To keep the Gameface stuff kind of pure and holy, I guess.
JC: Whether people want to admit it or not, when you love a band and they change, it’s rough. It’s hard to stomach sometimes, and the bands that you love have that group of records, maybe two or three albums that are the ones that really… Either the other ones are okay, but when you think of the bands that you love you’re gonna gravitate towards the ones that are probably all in a row, when they were doing exactly what that band does for you. I don’t think there’s any fear of us veering too far away from what we did to make people like us in the first place.
DS: Are you able to tease at all what you guys are working on?
JC: Sure. I don’t think that we’re the type of band where the word’s going to spread like wildfire. We’ve been sitting on a couple of songs for, I don’t know, how many years, at least two years ago, and we had just made some practice recordings. Every once in a while, I pull them out and listen to them, and I still like them. Especially now, I feel like they have something to say. We want to keep the bar high when it comes to releasing music. We don’t want to just put out some stuff that we’re kind of going to scrap together, but I feel pretty strongly about these two songs. The idea is just to do a single or a seven-inch, or something.
A big thanks to Todd and Jeff for sharing their story with us.
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