ITS SUMMER TIME @ FYS

Artist: Valencia

Genre: Alt/Rock/Powerpop

Label: I Surrender Records

Location: Philadelphia, PA

Members

Shane Henderson

JD Perry

George Ciukurescu

Maxim Soria

Brendan Walter

Social Networking: myspace.com/valencia

Interview courtesy of Matt Epstein and Brendan Walter of Valencia. September 2009.

This band needs no introduction, in my mind. Amazing musicians, and amazing albums to prove it. I found this interview, done by Matt, lying around, and thought “hey, why not post it?” Besides, the band is currently in the process of writing a new records, so why not start up the hype? I cannot wait to see what these guys have in store for 2010. Check it.

Hey guys, how was your summer?

It was awesome man, we had the summer of our lives just touring with our best friends and playing music. We went to Japan and seriously had the best time ever and good times just spilled over to the tour with Every Avenue and into Warped. It was a great time.

I hear you guys are in LA writing new stuff. What can we expect on the new material?

You can expect something new and exciting that’s for sure. We’ve just been sort of writing songs and seeing where it goes. We’re not setting a standard or a specific style, we’re just sort of feeling it and flowing. At this point we have songs that sounds like NOFX and songs that sound like the Pixies, but eventually we’ll make it all fit into an album that makes sense for us.

What do you guys think about the “electro” bands on Warped this year?

I think that they’re doing their thing and it works for them but I don’t really get down on that kind of stuff. I grew up on rock music and bands that play instruments live, so I can’t really get into most of this stuff. I’m starting to come around on certain artists in the electronic but most of the ones Ive been listening to weren’t on Warped Tour. I was mostly into the bands like NOFX, Bayside, Bad Religion, Less Than Jake, etc.

Valencia’s sound has shifted on “We All Need A Reason To Believe” from your previous album. What brought about the change in Valencia’s sound?

Well it was just kind of a natural progression for us, we were doing the pop punk thing but we had always more enjoyed bands that sounded a little less compressed and fake and a little more ‘live’. We just wanted to kind of follow in the footsteps of our favorite bands and how they sounded but still keeping our pop punk roots.

What bands have influenced each member the most?

Hmm well I can’t really speak for everyone else specifically but I know that George and I have similar tastes. We kind of grew up on The Beatles and Bob Dylan and just classic stuff like that really inspires us. We also get down on indie bands and just any band that does something different and unique. Shane’s biggest heroes are guys like Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. JD is a huge classic rock guy and grew up on that whole hard rock kind thing ranging anywhere like Boston to AC/DC to Van Halen, etc. I think we all sort of meet in the middle on the pop punk stuff from the 90’s like Green Day, Blink, The Get Up Kids and Saves the day, Bad Religion, NOFX, etc. so we can all take inspiration from different places to make something unique.

If Valencia were’nt musicians what careers would you guys have?

Ah that’s a question i hate to have, it’s a little bit of a loaded question. I don’t think any of us like to think about that too much. We’re fortunate enough to have our career be creating music that we love, and if it weren’t for Valencia, we’d probably be working in music in some other way or giving it a shot at some other band. We all have other interests, I enjoy Photography, Cinematography and Graphic design, but I don’t think I could ever pick any of those careers over music.

What’s ONE unsigned band Valencia thinks the world should know about?

The most recent unsigned band I’ve been getting into is Empires, they’ve been making great music for a long time and that song “I Want Blood” is really great. Everyone should go check them out.

Valencia is known for being a great live band. What part of your live set do you take the greatest pride in?

Thanks! That’s a great compliment. We take pride in really being connected with the fans and not taking the whole “rockstar” stance like we’re better than everyone else. We really like to just have fun and interact with everyone and just make it like how we used to enjoy shows when we were kids. George and Shane often head into the crowd and we really like to just play the best we can play and have fun with everything rather than trying to look super cool or using autotune or overusing samples. We just like to play the songs we wrote and shoot to have a good time with everyone at the show.


Miley Cyrus or Demi Lovato?

Ah i honestly have no idea… probably Demi Lovato just because Miley Cyrus seems to have a big mouth and vowed to “ruin Radiohead”. So just based solely on that I’ll go with Demi Lovato, even though I don’t know much about either!

Thanks for chatting with us guys!

No problem, thanks for having us!