Interview Say Anything Discuss Erectile Dysfunction
Say Anything's new album — the double-disc behemoth In Defense of the Genre — is a wildly ambitious and startlingly confessional take on what we know as emo. On it, lead singer and songwriter Max Bemis moans and snarls about his Jewish heritage ("Died a Jew"), tumultuous bouts with bipolar disorder ("The Church Channel") and, you know, girls (nearly everything else). It's an engrossing, time-consuming listen — like reading the most exposed LiveJournal in the world while rocking out to vintage Weezer or Sunny Day Real Estate. We recently headed over to the band's record label to chat with the group and, even though Bemis famously spit in a woman's soup in NYC during an especially manic episode a couple years back, he was perfectly normal in person — almost sedate. As Say Anything feasted on a sushi buffet for lunch, we talked about stealing booze and crazed fans.
Blender: Max, you give away a lot of personal details in your lyrics, do you ever think, "Maybe I shouldn't say that"?
Max Bemis: I never really stop myself from saying anything embarrassing. I talk about pooping and not getting it up and crap.
Alex Kent [bass]: So you do poop!
MB: There's no barrier for me but I think the fact that I'm over honest and sympathetic is its own issue. It's like some rapper saying he's above it all; I'm below it all, I'm shitty. In reality, I have my own ego to tend with with and I try not to get embarrassed — if I farted when I was walking down the street I would get embarrassed, I wouldn't be like, "Take that!"
B: Did you guys do anything special for the album release?
Jake Turner [guitar]: We went to a party. There was a line of 200 people and we walked up and they were like, "Come on in!" We thought we'd have to wait. It's the first time we walked the red carpet.
AK: A guy in a cowboy hat was like, "Look over here, look over here!"
JT: Common was there. We were all really drunk when we left. Alex decided he wanted a bottle of vodka out of the window and security caught him. Luckily, we have a really hardcore crew and our merch guy got in his face. He has a lisp so people feel bad for him. His nickname is Lisp.
AK: He's a tough motherfucker.
B: So nobody got arrested?
JT: Not this time.
B: The new album is two discs and it has 27 songs — it's a record you need to devote serious time to, which most people don't really want to do right now. What gave you guys the balls to go ahead with it?
MB: I'm not trying to turn turn anyone off but we're trying to make album albums instead of just singles. I grew up with music that you could discover new things as you listened so I wanted to channel that. If someone takes the time to make something like that, they probably have something to say.
B: How did the label respond to the album? It doesn't exactly scream "multi-platinum."
MB: It's a big record company and they wanna make big records and they're pretty outspoken if they don't like something. There was a little controversy when we decided to make a double record but once they heard the songs in order they were like, "Ok, that's fine."
B: With the record industry in free fall, do you think there's kind of an "anything goes" mentality that helped you guys out?
MB: It might have something to do with the climate — nowadays it comes out of nowhere when a band sells a lot of records. We're kind of an unpredictable thing and we're not the most successful band. Before, you could kind of predict it: another band that sounds like Creed.
B: We visited the Say Anything message boards and the activity is out of control on there. Have you met anyone from the boards?
AK: It's weird because sometimes you think people on the message boards are fucking crazy but when they meet you they're really shy. You wouldn't believe how shy they are because their internet personas are really aggressive. Yesterday we were walking from a House of Blues in Atlantic City and this girl walks right up to the rail of this fence and just yells "whoa!" in our face ...
MB: ... no introduction. I was facing the other way and didn't turn around. We're really nice to our fans though — I can confidently say we're nicer than 80 percent of the bands out there. Still, we have lines that we draw. But since we've been touring so much and grew up as big music fans we've seen how other bands can be assholes. I heard a story from these two girls who were freaking out on us outside of our bus and being all starstruck. They told me about how they met this older, jaded indie rock type dude and asked if he would play a song and he said, "Just because you're creepy we're not going to play the song." Things like that make me wanna not only beat up some people but be nicer to our fans.
JT: There are some fans that are really hardcore crazy. Not like crazy crazy but they really want to meet Max. There was this one dude who walked up to me and grabbed my shoulder and said, "Is Max on the bus?" I was like, "I don't know." I did know he was on the bus this guy weirded me out. He said Max was the reason why he didn't kill myself. Then Max came out and talked to him for a half hour.
AK: When we're walking around the venue girls are like, "I wanna hug." I'm like, "Why do you want to hug me? What is that going to accomplish?" People ask for a hug but I just think it's weird.
B: Are there any bands you wanted to hug when you were younger?
MB: I'm still obsessed with Saves the Day. There are certain unapproachable bands that you wouldn't think of ever meeting like U2 or Smashing Pumpkins. But then there are a few people close to our age in punk rock bands and you're like, "I could end up at a bar with this guy." I was extremely too intimidated to talk to Chris [Conley] from Saves the Day but I met him and he turned out to be a fan of our band and now we're really good friends. When people meet me they'll think, "Oh, you're so regular." It's pretty weird once you start to realize that about everyone — that they're just normal. [Sees a picture of Alicia Keys in the room] Like Alicia Keys — even though she's wearing a big floppy hat — she's pretty normal. [Sees a picture of Tom DeLonge] Like Tom DeLonge — we were all big fans of Blink 182 and some of us have met him and he's a little larger than life.
AK: He lives three minutes from my dad.
MB: [playfully] I'm sure that's going to make it into the article.
AK: I thought it was cool! And he lives on the same street as my friend.
AK: I'm not sure. He has a pretty serious gate. It's like a space ship.
