EPIC {{arts & entertainment}}

I’m just going to come out and say it. Architects is one of the best bands I’ve heard in the past few years. In an industry filled with repetition, whining, and “Superman”ing ladies, Architects play honest rock music. They write songs about two things: drugs and law enforcement (frontman Brandon Phillips’ words, not mine), they turn out some killer guitar riffs and hooks, and they even possess the ability to keep a crowd of BrokeNCYDE fans somewhat captivated by real music. Needless to say, it’s impressive and refreshing.

Now that we’ve established Architects make good music, I’d like to point out one more thing. They are good people making good music. I recently sat down with drummer Adam Phillips at this year’s Warped Tour in Mansfield, MA; not only was he a pleasure to talk to, but he also looks great in a yellow Vans poncho. Check out the interview below!

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WRBB: You guys were the Gadjits first, and your keyboardist left. There was a different sound in the albums after. Did that come with the lineup change or wanting to distinguish the new band as the Architects?
Adam: It was kind of both. I mean, physically, the chemistry changed. We got a new guy in the band, and things were just a little bit different. When somebody joins the band or leaves the band, there’s a whole separate set of creative and personal influences on that person. It kind of takes a little while to really get in the groove and harness each other’s best abilities. You can teach a monkey to play a song if you’ve already written it, you know, but if you’re going to bring someone into the fold, it should be because you really respect what they bring to the table. But to get what they have brought to the table, you’ve got to work with each other. That person has to learn how we work, and we have to learn how that person works. That created some differences in the sound… and there was also just a general opinion of things that we did in the past that we want to stay away from, and things we’ve always wanted to do. You know, you get to make a new record; there’s your opportunity to come out of the gate with. You learn all the lessons from your last record, you’ve been on tour all year and played with a lot of bands. You kind of figure out what you want to make different. Yeah, it was pretty cool to be able to make that distinction… and we went way further than that. We went ahead and just completely killed the Gadjits. It’s totally dead, never going to come back, and we just went full force as Architects. It was pretty cool. I was happy to do that.

WRBB: When the keyboardist left, I read that he dropped the bomb over the “awesome blossom” at Chili’s. Did you kind of eat your feelings after that? How did the meal go?
Adam: No, it was cool. It wasn’t like some bad break up. We’re all still friends and actually, he’s come in and recorded some keyboards on… He played all over the first Architects record. He came in and recorded some stuff on the second and third albums too. He played a little bit on Vice, and he plays on the new one, The Hard Way. It’s pretty cool. He’s still a friend, and he actually co-wrote one of the songs on the new record. We love him to death. I’d love to play with him forever, but he had a lot of different personal goals in his life. He really wanted to go to school and study art. He was painting for a long time and just doing some different things. He didn’t want to be an old, salty road dog like us. That’s totally fair. We love you, Ehren. We love you to death.

WRBB: Alright. You guys were signed by Frank of Leathermouth and My Chemical Romance fame. I actually remember a blog he wrote, saying he saw you guys in Asbury and it changed his life and everything. It just seemed like he worked really hard to sign you guys. How long did it take him to convince you?
Adam: We would talk to him for about 2 or 3 months before we really sealed the deal and made it official. That was really, really cool. It was really exciting. We were on tour with this band called the BellRays, and they had scheduled just a day off. You know, we were out on tour, just opening for them every night. They planned a day off, so we have the day off. It was a Friday night, and we’re in Asbury, so we called a few people we knew and we pulled a show together. We didn’t expect it to be very cool. It’s like this last minute show, bar we’ve never heard of… The place kicked ass, called the Saint. We’d never really heard of the place and we didn’t expect anyone to be there, but we went ahead and just booked it anyway. We had a couple of friends, Brian and Pete from the Bouncing Souls, and we called them and we were like, “Hey guys. You know, we know you’re not on tour right now. If you’re at home, why don’t you come on out? It’s ten minutes from where you live. Why don’t you come on out? There’s probably going to be no one at the bar, and we’ll just play to you and have a few drinks and hang out.” They were like, “Yeah, alright, we’ll come. What time are you on?” Like, we’re supposed to play at midnight. It’s like, “Alright, cool. We’ll be there at 11:59.” Alright, cool. So I’m onstage and tweaking the tuning on my drums, making sure everything’s set. We’re tuning guitars and stuff, and boom! They walk in the door, and they brought a couple of people who we didn’t know, and one of them was Frank. There were maybe a dozen people in the bar. We just played our asses off. We’d been on tour for a while, so we were just a well-oiled machine. We just went up there and kicked ass all over the stage. We finish up… and yeah, I didn’t know who Frank was or anything. He just came up and was like, “Yeah, I really liked it. You know, I have this little label.” Oh, okay. Cool. I didn’t really think much of it. We kept talking, and then somebody told us where to check out that thing on the blog. It’s like, “Oh, shit, this is really happening! Cool.” We kind of talked off and on for a couple of months and made it happen.

WRBB: That’s probably one of the better signing stories that I’ve heard. But The Hard Way just came out not too long ago, and it’s your first record on Skeleton Crew. How was the process different? The transition?
Adam: Well, it was pretty easy. Skeleton Crew’s really cool, really cool people to work with. We’ve done a lot of records over the years, so we don’t really need any help to get the thing done. So they just kind of let us do our thing, and they check in to see how everything was going. We did our record. We recorded it in like, a week in Kansas City. There’s this cool engineer/producer there that we’ve known for a couple of years. His name’s Aaron [Connor]. He has a bunch of platinum records on his wall from doing all the Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, a lot of rap. A lot of platinum and gold rap records on his wall, but he really knows his rock ‘n’ roll stuff too. It was really cool. We’ve recorded with him, we did the last three albums at the same studio. He produced Vice, the last record, and he produced the new one. We really had a good thing going, we knew how to work with each other really well. It was just great. It was awesome.

WRBB: Architects 101. What 3 songs would you say define you as a band? Like, 3 of your own songs.
Adam: Wow, that’s a good one. Yeah… Alright, 3 songs in no particular order. I would say “Knowing is Half the Bottle.” It’s one of the songs on the new record. I would say “Hell Came to Breakfast.” Well… Man, top 3! This is tough!
WRBB: I’m sorry!
Adam: Let me start over! “Bastards at the Gate” off the new record, “Pills” off of Vice, and… I’m going to do 4. We’ll do top 4.
WRBB: Okay, 4’s good. We can deal with that.
Adam: There’s a song called “Daddy Wore Black” off of Vice, and I’d say “Knowing is Half the Bottle” off the new record.
WRBB: I’d say those are solid choices.
Adam: I think, in a nutshell, that really does it.

WRBB: More summing up… Describe the band in 3 words.
Adam: (Pauses for a while)
WRBB: You can do 4 if you need to, I guess.
Adam: I’ll do 3, but the third one is hyphenated.
WRBB: Okay, that’s cool.
Adam: No, no… Switch it up. Man, 3 words to define the band. Uh, fuck. “Rock ‘n’ roll.”
WRBB: I like it. It’s good. Usually, we get “drunken, tired, and underpaid.”
Adam: Well, that’s… If that’s the only way you can describe the band… I mean, rock ‘n’ roll’s pretty vague, but that’s what we do. If you really think about rock ‘n’ roll, that’s what we love. There’s no screaming, there’s no crying, there’s no bullshit. It’s rock ‘n’ roll. As fierce as rock ‘n’ roll can be, and as cool as rock ‘n’ roll can be. That’s what I think. That’s what we go for.

WRBB: Speaking of your rock ‘n’ roll, your albums are absolutely impossible to find on the Internet. Do you think that’s a good thing or a bad thing?
Adam: I think it’s a terrible thing. The music industry is so screwed up right now. It puts us in this really weird position… because we want to work with cool people, and we want to do cool things. It’s like we develop a great reputation with cool people and a great reputation for doing cool things and going out on cool tours and playing cool shows and all this stuff, but… Yeah, for some really lousy reason, the only way to really have a strong presence on the Internet and a strong presence in chain CD stores is to have the backing of a multi-multi-millionaire who wants to throw it all into marketing. We just don’t have that. We’re just a good band, kicking ass, and it’s kind of weird. Every CD shop and the Internet is just flooded with bullshit, whiny crap or like… angry for no reason, indecipherable, lousy-arrangement song about nothing crap. You know, it’s just kind of hard to get in touch with people. We’re on tour as often as we can be, and we’re working on some really cool tours post-Warped Tour to try to get out in front of a ton of people and show them what’s up. If those things come through the way I want them to, everyone should know inside of a year.
WRBB: Does that mean I can have your albums for free? If I stop by your booth, you’ll just give them to me so I can spread the word?
Adam: No, because we have to buy them.
WRBB: Well, I tried.
Adam: Valiant effort, valiant effort!

WRBB: Alright. What’s your definition of success? When do you get to say, “We made it”?
Adam: If I can pay my mortgage and not work a day job. If I’m not working a day job when I’m at home and I can still pay my bills, that’s success for me. I’ll take that.
WRBB: I think that’s a good goal.

WRBB: Last question. Might be kind of weird, but… If your music was one of my ex-boyfriends, tell me why we broke up.
Adam: You probably just couldn’t take the heat, so you got out of the kitchen. We bring a lot to the table. We’re a handful.

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That they are, but I’m more than willing to handle it. You should be, too.

Note: Interview conducted by Lindsey Fortier for Local Distortion, WRBB 104.9 FM. Thanks to Marshall and the rest of WRBB for making it happen.