PipemanRadio Interviews The Vapors About New Album Wasp In A Jar

0:04 Hey, you have done too yes censure. For se Wow were you young? Why Become America? It's time for the Adventures of Pipe Man on W four C. Why do com West pomp Beach is number one Internet radio station. Here's your host, the White Man. You saw it coming, so we hit the ground running. Where hits the ground running? Where hit the ground honey is?

0:46 We saw it coming? So we hit the crown runnyway. It's the ground runnyway, the grown honeyes. I had a dream that they weren't hand the cow money. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures Pipe n W four C Y Radio. I'm very excited about our next guest. When I saw this press release, I'm like, wow, holy crap. I want to do that interview. And so let's welcome to the show. Steve from the Vapors. How are you? Oh good, thank you? How are you? I'm doing great? And you know, I was listening to your new music, the newest single you dropped on the seventeenth, and it just brings me all the way back to nineteen eighty and like hit the ground Running to me is like just like I went in the DeLorean back to nineteen eighty which is funny because I just got off into a radio coverage at ship Rock where the theme was the eighties and they had the DeLorean there. Wow, So it is pretty funny. But what a what a great song. So tell us what it's like after forty five years to write new music.

1:56 It's been great. We've been, it's been. We had a lot of songs, and we had an American friend who said, oh, you should, you should. You guys need to make another album. You know, the last song is great, make another one. And we had a friend called Mike Giblin who has his own studio in his basement. He said, yeah, I really would love to do it. I'd love to produce uh and yeah. So we headed down to Pennsylvania to Mechanicsburg in September and I spent two weeks there making what I think is is a. Is an energetic fun album. Well it's not only are jagging fun, but the subjects that you guys are writing about are Again, how are we back in the eighties where we have to write about some of this crap still? You know, like it seems like some of the subjects in the world are the same as they were in the eighties.

2:54 Absolutely. Yeah, we've been playing some songs from the first album quite recently, and it's just like, we play a song called there's a song called cold War, and it's like, well, there's still some kind of Cold war going on. There's so many of the same issues and the same problems now as there were right back in nineteen eighty. Yeah, it just blows my mind. Like I remember me and my bro we would be like, it doesn't matter in the world's going to blow up in nineteen eighty four anyway. And who would have thought in twenty twenty five we would still be thinking that way, but still here, you know. Yeah, you'd have thought it would ever have completely got blown or up, or we'd have done something about making sure it could never happen. Yeah, it's hard to believe we're in the same place.

3:42 Yeah, totally. And you know, Okay, so I've they're viewed and I'm friendly with Joe from the Vandals, and one time, who's joking around during the interview because he knew wouldn't ask him this, but he was like, and don't ask us when the Vandals are going to come out with new music. Nobody wants something fifty year old punk, rocker rate and new music. But you guys did it fabulously. I mean like like it's the music is as relevant today as it was then and these this new album is just like bad ass to be blunt brilliant. I so glad you like it, and we're really proud of it. We really enjoyed making it. We had a lot of fun making it and basically we set the equipment up, we put some microphones in front of it, and we played live and recorded it.

4:34 It's very wow. It's very much. Recorded in the way that we would have recorded Nuclear Days back in nineteen eighty. I love that because, you know, as being from you know, the scene all this time myself, it's like I can't miss those old days of the more the different type of DIY like DIY today. But DIY is a lot easier today than it was back then. Oh yeah. The computer is totally democratized music and made it possible for everyone to make. Records, which is great. It's great everyone has the possibility to make records now. Yeah, it is great. And on the other side, like back when you started, it's like you learned to become a musician, you know, by basically trial and error and doing it.

5:25 Just going out and doing gigs. Yeah, just play and play and play and play and get better and get better and get better hopefully. So do you think also that the period of time where we had no live music for COVID helped you in writing new music because the way I look at is for a lot of a lot of like current bands, it gave them a chance to get off the hamster wheel and like create again. And I think with that downtime that creativity comes out. Yeah, I mean yeah, I think we didn't do very much during COVID as a band. I mean we didn't even really get together or rehearse very much. But Dave was very it was prolific in writing stuff and he had a lot of stuff. He had a lot of stuff written when we came out of COVID and we started playing again, and he was like, well, you know, I've got some new songs. You want to play some new songs, And it's all about it has to excite me first for me to if I hear something that excites me, I think this could excite everyone else. And some of the songs I was just like, yeah, this is a great song. I love this bit and I love that bit, and yeah, I hope that feeling comes across.

6:40 It does come across, And that's why I brought that up, because, yeah, where with that downtime, you're not you can't really rehearse together, you can't really be on the road, you can't play, you can't all you can do is right, is the way I'm thinking. You know. So that's when you have that time where you can switch, to switch off for everything else and just focus on the creativity. Yeah, and I think Dave must have done a lot of that, because I'm sure it came out with some great songs. Yeah, and so tell us a little bit about the different songs, because they definitely have some meaning, like, for instance, the Human Race.

7:24 Yeah, well it's just about it's about the band, really, Yeah, this song about the band and you know what what we've been doing, which is running in the human race. And it's nice to escape to music from the human race nowadays. Yeah. Yeah, but there's another one. I mean, I love that song too. It just it makes me smart. Yeah. Well, and then of course, so I was on that I told you that cruise ship rocked and radio coverage. But my daughter she lives up in the Panhandle of Florida, and she texted me a video of them having a blizzard there.

8:05 Wow. And you know you have another song on the album talking about climate change and if it's a blizzard in Florida, we need to worry for sure. Yeah, we do need to worry when we need to at least, you know, think about it and not just blindly carry on like we have been for hundreds of years now, Yeah, exactly since the Industrial Revolution exactly. Now, is there any song on the album, like they're all probably your babies, but is there one that really, you know, like it's home for you besides the human race, because obviously it's about you guys.

8:49 I mean I really like Hit the Ground Running because it's because it's so punk rock. It is, and I definitely got the turning Japanese is like vibe out of it, you know, the vibe of it, you know, that's what I mean, that scene vibe of that music. Then yeah, it's just let's just let's just play live. Let's just try and capture the energy in the room. Yeah. I think Mike Given the producer, has managed to do that absolutely. And now speaking of live, you guys are going to be doing a tour, and so tell us about live shows are going to be going on in twenty twenty five.

9:36 Well, first up, we've got some UK shows to promote the album we're doing. I think it's eight, but we've gone right back to our roots, doing small club gigs. Wish. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to that. Then we've got we've got some gigs with Big Country in the UK in April and May, which I think is ten or twelve gigs, and then in the summer in August and September, we're coming over to America to play on the Lost Eighties Life Tour, which is six weeks long. Yes, and that. Do you know yet? What states there's going in?

10:17 It's all over It's all over there. It's where there's some some place. We're going Florida, We're going to yeah, at Georgia, this is California, Texas. It's quite a few, quite a few states this time. I definitely have to be at the Florida show, especially since Okay, you guys are playing big countries playing Flaker's goals, and my friend Josie Carton is playing so Icicle works. It's definitely it's definitely going to be a live of fun for sure. Yeah, those tours are just such fun to do. Really, you get some you get to make a lot of friends in the other bands because you spend so much time to go the backstage hanging out, right, You make a lot of friends on those tools.

11:05 And we did. We did The Lost Eighties in twenty nineteen, and I'm still friends with a lot of people from that tour. Nice. And see that's good to hear because you know, back in the eighties, Okay, so as an example, you know, I was into metal, and you couldn't be into new wave if you were into merdle, and you couldn't go a little punk show if you had long hair, and vice versa. And it was just so stupid. And yeah, you know, you know it's funny because the first time I was ever talking with Josie, I was like, you know, I can say it now, I used to like you in the eighties, but I wasn't allowed to have to keep it secret, I know, right, I remember it was so funny. One day one of my best friends, we went to all these metal shows all the time, and you know, I found the album. I was just talking about this recently. I found this album Man's House and I was like, what's this like? And not in a nice way, and it was Adam and the Ants Kings of the Wild Frontier. To this date, that is one of my favorite albums ever, you know, And so yeah, it's like it's like, but you know, I had to play, you know, like, oh, you shouldn't be listening to this, you know. And it's so cool that nowadays, you know, that's the one place in the world that we can

12:37 all get together and get along and be united. And that's in any type of live music venue, event, festival, I don't care what it is, and doesn't matter what genre you're from. Yeah, everyone can. Yeah the get together and chewing. Yeah. I've said, if we want to solve all the world's problems, just have one big live music event with everybody and you know, and we could all unite and stop you know what all the powers that be are trying to manipulate us to do, and let's just love each other and be human beings together.

13:18 Yeah, and share and help each other, no, be kind. No doubt one hun. So, is there a tell us how people can check out the new album. It drops February twenty eighth. Yeah, it's Vapor Zone Records. Yeah it's it's being released in America on Red Chuck Records. I think it's available from band camp. Uh, and that's going to be the album's gonna be on vinyl n CD on Red Chuck. Nice for all our American friends. I love it. I love it, and so yeah, definitely badass album. I can't believe after forty five years you're still playing out great music that is, you know, like stands to test the time. And that's the key right there.

14:11 Too, thanks very much. Like I say, the song's all excited me when I first heard them, and and that that gives it a good chance of exciting other people. That's the most important part. Like if it doesn't excite you and you're you're the one playing it, who could who would it excite? Exactly exactly, And I'm pretty firm about that, Like if if we play something and. If any of us go to or you know, I'm not. Really sure about this one. It's just like, okay, we're not doing that one. Hey, we all have to think, yeah, this is great. Absolutely, and it's the same for me as pressed like I won't do an interview of an artist that I don't like the music because I can't passionately promote them if I don't like it.

14:58 Yeah, I mean you can't. Yeah. I mean, who you're going to say is I don't like it? Right? I mean I see these other media people sometimes I go on tour and do these festivals all over the US, UK and Europe. I see these media people more here than over there, that they're doing interviews with bands that like they don't even like the music, And I'm like, why are you doing press an event that you don't even like that? Right? Music is a passion, and when you're talking to people about music, you have to have that same passion about it. You know, well, you guys definitely have it. I can't wait till you play live here in the States, and you know, I can't wait for this album to drop. Everybody needs to get it.

15:43 Thanks a lot for putting out new music all these years later, and thanks for being on the Adventures of pipe Man. I thank you for having me on. It's been great. Cheers, cheers. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Man on w for c u I Radio. This is Steve Smith for the Vapors. You're listening to the Pipe Man on w fl C Y Radio. Yes,