MXPX

The Gospel of Punk According to MxPx
By Troy Schmidt

Your music is fast. Do you drive the speed limit?
Yuri: No. Not normally. I got pulled over one time doing 80 in a 60. And I just apologized, said, “I’m really sorry.” He looked at me and said, “Aw, go ahead.” (all laugh) I got that nice thing going.
Tom: For me, I got an old car and the taillight comes and goes intermittently. You have to jiggle the chord to make it come and go. During the day, no. During the night, yeah…
On your CD, you were talking about one song that was a “slow song,” but it was just as fast as everything else. What is your definition of a slow song?
Mike: That’s like a 6/8. Almost a 50s feel to it…doo wop. Comparatively it is slower. It’s not SLOW, compare to most other music.
Tom: It’s MXPX slow. For us.
Mike: We have a couple other slow songs.
Yuri: Usually like the mid-tempo or a little slower than mid-tempo. ‘Cause we have like three ranges of time. Blazing fast. Medium tempo. And a little less than that…
Now I read you all like “The Simpsons.” If MXPX was to appear on “The Simpsons,” how would you fit into the plot?
Mike: Wow, that’s a great question. Well, I will always gauge the success of my career on whether or not I’ve been on “The Simpsons.” So, I’m not there yet…It’s pretty fun when Sting was on there, digging to the kid buried in the well.
Tom: I liked the one with Elton John. Homer meets him at the airport. He’s like “I love you.” He goes, “Ow here, have a Grammy.” Homer’s like “Uggg” and throws it away.
Do you think Homer would be your tour manager? Bart would want to join the band or Lisa would be a groupie?
Tom: Couldn’t see Lisa being a groupie. I could Bart trying to be in the band.
Mike: Bart would become a roadie. So, Matt Goerning (creator of “The Simpsons”) if you’re listening…
I like your song “Foolish” on the latest album. What sort of mindset are you addressing?
Mike: I think it’s a spiritual song. It’s about how other people see what we believe in particular, but it could be taken for anything that you believe. But for us, a lot think it’s foolish to believe in God. It wasn’t directed towards one certain person or anything like that. It’s my interpretation of how a lot of people maybe see what we believe.
Do you get flak from Christians who say “you’re a punk band, you don’t look like a Christian band” or from the punkers going “how can you be a Christian”?
Mike: I think from both. It’s not so bad. You know, our fans are our fans and they love us. There are fans that are Christians and there are fans that aren’t. It’s about the music.
Tom: There are extremists in every scene. Religion or anything for that matter. There are always people who are really, really hardcore about it. Over the top. “You’re not doing it right! You’re not punk enough! Because you don’t have a Mohawk or a safety pin through your eye.”
Mike: I think we’re doing it right. Whatever “it” is.
According to “Thoughts and Ideas,” what absolutes do you see in our universe?
Mike: I definitely see God as an absolute. I think that if there wasn’t an absolute, if there wasn’t something that was absolutely true all the time, a constant, then what we believe and how we live our lives, would be different, obviously. Morals in general. You don’t kill people. Why? Why not? I don’t know. If you can truly be your own person and be autonomous from anything or God or spiritual things, you should be able to make your own rules. Why should somebody tell you what to do?
Yuri: The way our society is set up, there is absolutes. There has to be. There has to be a bottom line and a right and a wrong. But when it comes to believing in God or something higher than yourself, “no, no, no.” The whole society is set where there has to be a bottom line. You can’t just make up your own rules and kill somebody and have it be alright.
Mike: I think if there wasn’t a God, why wouldn’t it be alright to kill somebody if you felt like it? You can do whatever you want. History tells us like with the Roman empire they started doing whatever they wanted to do and it started to crumble from within. We try to build our lives on something that’s not going to crumble.
What do you have to do to be a member of the Girls Schmirls Foundation?
Tom: Basically, be a guy, get dumped.
Mike: Be heartbroken.
It doesn’t happen to you?
Mike: All the time. Just the other day a friend of ours went up to this girl and tried to talk to her and she was like “ehhhh, see ya.”
So he became an honorary member.
Mike: He was already a member.
Tom: He’s been in it awhile. It’s not so much that he’s had his heart broken. It’s that he’s never had a chance to have his heartbroken.
What teacher had the most impact on you?
Yuri: I remember a third grade teacher of mine. I wouldn’t say it was the heaviest impact…
She was cute?
Yuri: It was a guy, actually. He was fairly cute.
Tom: I had a history teacher in junior high. He took me outside one day and threatened to kick my ass. He goes, “Tom! Outside!” And his room was down by the outside of the school, so I’m standing in the hall and he goes, “No. Outside!”
Yuri: Was this Yogi?
Tom: Yeah, this guy was also an ex-Marine. He takes me outside and pushes me against the wall. Right in my face and starts yelling at me. I’m like, “I’m going to die.” He had an impact on me.
More of a physical impact.
Tom: He impacted me into the wall. As far as role models, me and Yuri had a pretty cool band teacher. He got a little crazy as we went through high school, but for the most part he was pretty cool.
Yuri: He pushed us. Like singling me out in front of hundreds of people like telling me I had no idea what tempo meant.
Tom: You know like other teachers- you learn from other people, not just school teachers. We had a producer name Steve. He was the first one to really produce us, push us, as a group of three to be a better band.
You wrote the song, “Elvis is Dead.” Are you sure?
Mike: I’m not quite sure. That song is actually about this movie “True Romance.” Where Christian Slater’s conscience is Elvis.
Tom: Played by Nicolas Cage.
Mike: I thought that was really funny. So I wrote a song about a guy who’s conscience is Elvis but, really he’s just going crazy.
Tom: But is Elvis really dead?
Mike: Is Tupac dead?
Tom: Tupac’s not dead. He has two double records coming out. There’s no way he recorded those.
How do people waste their time?
Mike: Watching television I guess.
Yuri: Unless it’s the History Channel.
Mike: Unless you’re watching us.
Or “The Simpsons.”
Tom: TV’s not so much a waste of time. I’ve learned a lot from TV. If you’re watching Jerry Springer, that’s pretty much a waste of time.
Yuri: Exercise. Now that’s a waste of time.
Tom: Books? Books?
Actually that’s the next question, what are you reading?
Mike: Right now I’m reading a book called The Secret History. I just started it. It takes place in Vermont, like an Ivy League school. Really weird. I haven’t gotten into the actual meat of the thing. Fiction.
Yuri: I’m reading the sixth book in the Left Behind series. The Indwelling.
Tom: I don’t know how to read. Magazines. Picture books. I’m not a big reader.
Mike: He likes movies.
Your new EP is coming out, “The Renaissance EP” and you’re working with Andy Husted (original member). What was that like?
Mike: That was cool. We hang out with Andy all the time when we’re at home. He lives near us. A couple years ago we started hanging out with him again. It was really rocky. Andy’s our first guitar player. It was weird for a long time, but we’re best of friends again.
Tom: Before the whole, “you’re out, Tom’s in” thing, we were all really good friends, then afterwards it was rough. Then it’s like it didn’t even happen. He comes to the shows and hangs out…It’s funny, on the website, it says Andy came in and worked on the record. And people are like, “what song does he play guitar on?” He just yelled on a song.
Mike: You can hear his voice because he’s echoing me on a song.
Tom: He sounds like a big tough guy.
What sorts of things scare you?
Tom: Rollercoasters.
Mike: Being trapped underwater.
Yuri: Scuba diving freaks me out…
Tom: I hate flying.
Mike: I don’t really have anything like that.
Yuri: Mostly emotional stuff?
Tom: I scare Mike.
Mike: Probably, I’m scared of spiders sometimes.
How do you keep your fan base so loyal?
Tom: Bribery.
Mike: Actually with our fan club, we do tons of stuff for that. We have a meet-and-greet every night, every show. Talk to people. And that’s only through the fan club. We send out CD’s. We make a Christmas song every year. We do demos. We try to do a lot of extra stuff. Just be real with people, as well as our lyrics. A lot of the kids relate to what we’re saying.
We have a saying at Hard Rock Cafe, “Love all, serve all.” What does that mean to you?
Yuri: That’s probably the only way you can be happy through life. I mean, Jesus talks about that. Serving people, being a servant to people.
Mike: I think if you’re self-serving, maybe you’ll be happy at that moment, but ultimately you’re not going to be happy if you’re not showing love to those you should be loving. Especially your family- friends, and stuff like that.
Tom: There should be more loving all and serving all.

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