EVERY AVENUE SHARES THE HAT TRICK SECRET (if you want to decipher the title, you’ll have to ask the band!)

Francesca: So, when was the first time you realized that music was what you wanted to do for your career?

Josh: “Uh, for me, as soon as I got a guitar, I had played sports all my life up until like, 5th grade, I played sports, but I got my first guitar between the 8th and 9th grade and I didn’t have a desire to play sports for the rest of the time, just because for me, music was what got me really excited, I used to sit in the basement…I was a dork”

Mike : “Same goes for me, what I started getting noticed for being musician, not that it’s a big ego booster for me or anything but I didn’t played sports – ever and nobody paid attention to me as being an individual and then I started playing music and I actually got acclaimed for it, it was like that positive reinforcement, it was good, I dunno, it was fun”

Jason: “For me, I was kinda dark, didn’t really have any friends and I just kinda went home and played guitar, a lot, and eventually got good at it, and for the longest time, I wanted to be in our drummer Mike’s band, his band in high school was like – it – you know what I mean? And eventually after I graduated they asked me to come play for them and I was like ‘oh, my god’ and marked it on the calendar, which was fantastic”

Francesca: How much time do you guys spend on the road?

Josh: “Umm, well, it depends, like we just got back from recording in California for a month and then we toured for a few weeks after that and then we leave again at the end of August and then we’re pretty much on the road till October, with a couple breaks in between, so…we try and tour as much as possible, just as opportunity grows and we spread the word”

Jason: “Being in a band is much like being on a roller coaster. We’ll have a bunch of stuff happen and then nothing happens. For example, we had our band’s trailer stolen out, just completely jacked, all gone and that same morning, we got picked up by a major management corporation, and so I’m like, our life basically crashed before our eyes and then immediately picked up like all in the same day. It’s crazy”

“We’ve all gotten to that point where we’re like, ‘is music what I should be doing right now?’ all of us have gotten to that point, but at the same time we all love it too much to give up. Well it usually gets to that point when the bill collectors come. No, totally true, basically going to L.A. put us in debt, but our manager’s really confident that this is gonna be good for us, especially being in L.A., pretty much every label that has talked to us, they’re waiting for the tracks to finish. We’re at that career point…”

Francesca: Being on the road all the time must be difficult. How do you manage to find personal time?

Josh: “We don’t”
(laughter)

“First when we were recording out in L.A., we had a 1 bedroom apartment, just the bedroom with one air mattress and then the living room, kitchen and bathroom and we lived out there for a month and just recording and when we weren’t recording or we weren’t out on the strip talking to people or something, we were sitting in that room and just kinda watching Simpsons DVD’s and shit, and you learn to live with each other, you learn that everyone has quirks about ‘em, but you learn to get along. These are my best friends in life and like I would do anything for those guys and I know that they’d do the same for me at the end of the day and you know we have our fights, we have our little girl scraps you know, where we scratch our eyes out”

ML: that’s not how girls fight (laughter)

Josh:“Well maybe that’s just a man thing, I dunno.”

(laughter)

Francesca: Any words to live by?

“Do what you gotta do. You know, you don’t do it, you’re not gonna be happy. Plus all the people that think you’re gonna be happy, screw ‘em. So you gotta do what you gotta do, regardless you know, you should. My dad taught me, long time ago, he wanted a music career too, he started out in high school, he had scholarships to major league schools and stuff, his parents were from the old school, they were like, ‘when are you gonna get a job?’ you know, he got a job. And now he’s looking at me doing the same thing, but not stopping me from doing anything, so I do what I have to do”

“Funny thing is all three of us come from very different backgrounds. From my stand point my parents never supported me in doing music, they think I’m wasting my life right now. The thing is, all I can say is, you gotta make yourself happy. For the longest time, I always tried to make my parents approve of me and the thing I realized finally is they’re not gonna approve of me doing what I love, so I have to do what I love for me even if it’s not in their eyes, you know the most uh, the best thing for me…and that’s the thing, if I’m never gonna measure up to their standards, it doesn’t matter any more. I’m measuring up to my own standards, so…and you know, I’m proud of where the band’s gone, but I’m not content yet, we have to keep moving on, and you know, take over the world.”

“If I were to have any advice for a kid, it would be to make yourself. You know, too many people will go through life trying to find themselves, and all that kind of leads to is feeling lost, what you have to do is figure out who you want to be and then make yourself become that person so that’s all I have to say".