Cover Story
A Q&A with Bayside's Nick Ghanbarian
Date published: 11/1/2007
Victory Records band Bayside is one of the growing number of music acts that have gotten involved with the nonprofit To Write Love on Her Arms.
Bassist Nick Ghanbarian took some time out of a mid-tour practice session for a phone interview with it! reporter Brinkley Sharpe. The edited transcript follows:
Brinkley Sharpe: How would you describe your music? Your MySpace says "Alternative/Punk/Rock," but genre labels are nondescript.
Nick Ghanbarian: We all grew up listening to punk rock, but the whole political side of punk rock isn't something that we're necessarily about. We're about the energy.
Alternative, we say that sometimes, too, because sometimes we feel like writing a different song, not just a fast, upbeat punk-rock song.
Whenever anyone asks us what we sound like I always just say other bands. I'll say Alkaline Trio or Green Day--something that someone can relate to, a bigger band that maybe we're comparable to.
B.S: What are Bayside's origins: High school garage band? College rock project?
N.G.: Bayside started definitely off a message board called the Long Island Zoo, where people were talking about the Long Island music scene and there was a good way to network. Almost seven years ago now.
B.S.: When did you become involved with To Write Love on Her Arms?
N.G.: We first met Jamie and his crew on tour with Anberlin this past February through April. We'd seen the shirts pop up here and there before then and knew a little bit about it We really just grew close to them ever since.
B.S.: How did you guys get involved with TWLOHA?
N.G.: On that tour we saw Jamie every day and we just talked more and more about what he was doing, and a lot of it hit home with us. We've had, certainly, some tragedies in our past band lives and our personal lives We want to be able to help people, and we see that Jamie is out there to do that.
B.S: Was this idea of helping people in your mind when you started the band, or was the goal just to make music?
Date published: 11/1/2007
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