FE: Yeah.

Travis: BRING 'EM ON!

FE: First of all, we wondering about any insight into the new album, ' cause we heard a) something about a choir of kids coming in, b) you playing "November Rain" piano. We're wondering what that is alluding to.

Travis: Well, we tried to work out the kids, I went to a school where I worked. I used to work in an after school program, so I went there and i had them sing a bunch, they were yelling and stuff. Its cool, they're at the beginning of the song, but they're not actually in a song, so, I tried to have it work out but... The "November Rain" thing, we just used a real piano on the record, used a bunch of different instruments, tried to, I dunno, there's all sorts of stuff on there.

FE: Is this the most evolved record you guys have put out?

Travis: Yeah, absolutely, I think thats partly because of how much time we had to work on it. We had a month, we worked from October 1st to October 30th, we were in the studio everyday except for two days.

FE: Where did you guys record it?

Travis: Q Division, its in Somersville, Massachusetts, and we did it with this guy Paul C, who's made some amazing records before. Helped make a few Radiohead records, helped make the Pixies records, so it was awesome working with him, he had all these cool instruments, he had all this cool insight. It was awesome, awesome, we just got the mastered versions yesterday, we're so psyched, it sounds so good, we cant wait.

FE: Now Rama just left for LA right?

Travis: Worst move ever! We hate him for moving.

FE: What do you think its gonna do? You'll obviously get a bigger push out there now. Is that why he went?

Travis: I think more of a reason he moved, really, is because he hates winter. Like he moved there because he wanted it to be eternal summer. The Big Wheel office is still in Kenmore Square, Thomas is still there, Aaron is still there, all the interns are still there, Galley is still there, all the people except for Rama are still there. Hydrahead is still in the office so, i mean, Big Wheel isn't going to stop, Ramas just going to do things on the West Coast that he could do out here, so there'll just be two offices but Boston is still the main office, its still going, its not gonna stop.

FE: Do you guys have any plans to do a video or anything like that?

Travis: There has been talk about it, but I dont think I'll believe it until its happened. I mean it'd be fun, it'd be cool, but if its gonna happen it'll probably happen when we're out in California on this tour, or we'll have a scheduled time when we'll just go somewhere and actually..you know what I mean? There's talk, but nothing really serious yet. So, we'll see what happens.

FE: What made you guys start going again, 'cause I know you were on "hiatus" or whatever you want to call it, you stopped for a while.

Travis:I'm not exactly sure what made us get going again, I guess all of just wanted to start playing music again. Before we really started going again, me and Andy and John, would get together and play music every once in a while but it wasn't anything serious, we were just jamming and doing goofy things because we wanted to play. We just started playing, then we asked Aaron, well we didn't really ask Aaron, he was just like "Why dont we start playing again" and we all started playing again, we started writing songs, and we were thinking of what we wanted the future of Piebald to be, if we wanted to start over again, change the format, change what we did, but you know, us four, we like how this feels, so we started writing new songs, and before we knew it we had a whole bunch. Rama was like, "Do your band", we like "Yeah this rules, this is awesome." So we just started playing shows and now its more serious than its ever been. None of us have jobs, this is what we do. I mean we're all broke, but this is cool, I wouldn't change it for the world.

FE: The double CD you put out, you put all of Sometimes Friends Fight on there, now people that may not have ever heard that before have, do you have any plans to start playing those songs again?

Travis:I honestly, me personally, I really hope that we play a couple of those songs, I want to do like one or two a set. Those aren't songs that I really want to play but I understand that people want to hear them and I understand that those are songs we wrote. Just because we wrote them 5 years ago...but at the same time we have grown out of it and we haven't played them in a long time. And in fact, we're training Luke and ourselves to be as good as possible right before we left and were recording an album for the entire month before we left, we just learned a set. So we know 11 songs, and we only play 10, then we're done, we cant play anymore, because all of together don't know anymore.

FE: Oh so i was gonna ask if you had a chance to break out New Coke but I guess no.

Travis:We couldn't do it. Hopefully, we'll go home, learn a few songs every time we have a break between tours, we're gonna have to know some more songs. We're going to Europe, supposedly, in January, so the sets gonna have to be a little longer, and we're gonna have to learn old songs over again.

FE:Back to the double CD, who's that guy talking shit on the beginning of the second CD?

Travis:I honestly can't remember, but I know it was like, Steve and Adam, the guys from Cave In, a long time ago we're interviewing this guy, for Steve's zine that he did a long time ago, and they just thought it was so funny, since us and Cave In are such good friends, that this guy was just talking trash to them. They showed us the tape, and we thought it was hilarious, it happened so long ago, we always wanted to put it on a record and this was the one to put it on.

FE:Do you guys still do comps and everything or all you kind of confined to BWR?

Travis:Can we do other stuff? Yes.

FE:I mean, Totally Travis, that came out on Big Wheel, how did that come about?

Travis:What happened was I was like "Rama, I'm still writing songs, even though Piebald's not together, and just recording them on a 4 track. If i give you a tape, will you put it out?" And he was like, "Well I wanna listen to it but I'll probably put it out just because it's you, and we're friends", so I showed it to him and he was like, "yeah, whatever, we'll put it out", and so it's just like what happened. We've actually, I don't know if this will happen, but us and Thursday have been on tour for the past 5 or 6 days, and we think those guys are cool and we wanna put out a split with them, but they're on Victory and we're on Big Wheel, so we're gonna try. Maybe that'll happen, that would be awesome. I would be so psyched about that, but I don't know.......we've been kicking around that idea almost everyday we've been together (Thursday and us).

FE:Do you have any plans to tour as Totally Travis?

Travis:Not any time soon.

FE:Because I know you did this past summer.

Travis:Well, I did a few shows, I never really did a tour. Just a few shows here and there.

FE:Where did you get the ideas for those songs?

Travis:I guess just the same way I did Piebald songs. Just whatever happens, happens. I didn't have a plan or anything. They were just leftover songs, or songs that would've morphed into Piebald songs, but just never made it, or we broke up for that time, or, you know.

FE:Any bands coming out from around Boston that we should be looking for in the near future?

Travis:Well, The Damn Personals already have the one album out, but they have another one coming out probably around the same time as ours, and they're amazing. I hope everyone in the world gets to hear that record and make a fair decision about it, because I have a feeling that not enough people are gonna hear it and I want more people to hear it.

FE:Alright, well, we'll probably see you tomorrow cause you're playing on Long Island.

Travis:Cool, thanks a lot, see you there.