We Are The In Crowd are one of those really promising pop punk bands and they’re playing in Paris tonight. On the Seine’s dock, in the pretty cool Point Ephémère, bassist Mike Ferri and drummer Rob Chianelli accepted to chat a bit with us. While we can easly guess that they will be as big as bands like All Time Low in the five next years, they talked to us about this pretty quick succes and how important live music is for them.
You guys are ok?
Rob Chianelli (drums) : Yes!
Mike Ferri (bass) : Yes!
You’re happy to be in Paris?
R : Absolutely! It’s our first time in France actually!
First time ever or with the band?
R : First time ever yes!
Did you have time to visit a bit?
M : No, not yet. We arrived there directly.
R : We’re going to do that tonight normally, after the show. We want to see the Eiffel Tower and all!
Is the tour going ok?
R : It just started!
M : Yes, so far so good!
You’re actually coming back from tour with All Time Low, The Maine, right?
M : Yes, it was in the UK. It was cool!
R : It was huge!
M : Being with those guys it’s always fun and the shows were really big. It was a good time.
For the moment you’ve got an EP and an album. You’ve already played with those huge bands, you’re going to be on Warped Tour this summer. You’ve done quiet a lot for a pretty recent band, have you still got any dreams now?
M : We already did Warped Tour in 2010, so it’s the second time.
R : Warped Tour has always been like a big dream because as a kid I used to always go and see my favourite bands play. It’s amazing. Now, I would say, a dream of mine is to do what we’re doing and just do it as far as we can do.
M : Yes, just keep playing and bring out music that people care about. Keep going to places like France and being there.
We saw that Taylor was going to sing on a song of the new Yellowcard’s record. Alex Gaskarth (All Time Low) is singing with you on “Kiss Me Again”. Did you plan anymore featuring for now?
R : I think it’s awesome to do collaborations. Even more when it’s with bands I use to listen to when I was a kid. Then if it happens it happens.
M : It’s tough to do stuff like that. There is not much featuring with bass or drummer then it’s pretty limited for both us. (laugh)
R : There will probably be some on our next album.
M : Yes, we’ll see.
Could maybe know a bit more about that next album?
R : We haven’t start even righting it! We’ve just put our last album out six months ago.
M : Yes, it just went out pretty recently so…
Anything is planned for the moment then? No DVDs, or live album or anything?
M : Everything is just like an option. For the moment we just want to keep touring, touring and touring, around the world, as many time as we can. Playing for many people as possible. We’ve got new fans to get in too. We have to make sure we are getting part of them.
You seem to talk a lot about touring. What particular place do give to live music?
R : We’ve already been, as a young band so far, to five of the six continents. It’s pretty amazing that we’ve travelled that much by doing what we do all around the world.
M : We tourred in the States, we tourred in Brasil, in the UK…
R : Canada!
M : In Asia too! We’ve done Australia! We’ve been to a lot of places.
R : Where ever we think pop music is popular, we want to go.
After travelling that much, what’s your favourite place?
M : UK is definitely the best market. I mean, I like Japan a lot, like personally too.
R : I like Japan too. Australia, UK… I mean, our first headline was in the UK… It’s insane that, somewhere far from hometown, we’re headling here!
Where does “We Are The In Crowd” comes from?
M : It really just isn’t a cool story. It’s just a name, it comes from Bernstein’s book, “The In Crowd”. Then we added “We Are” to it because we formed that band. It’s just like Fall Out Boy, they don’t have a cool story on it neither.
R : We should’ve name it “Fork”. (laugh)
M : Stupid! (laugh)
What style of music are you listen too those last days?
R : There is still a lot of newer bands. Today I was listening to The Swellers, they are a pop punk band! Also some stuff like Story So Far…
M : We listen to everything. Right now, the new Fun CD is great.
R : Yes, the new Fun CD is great!
M : Really, really good band from Arizona.
R : We actually listen to everything who could be catchy.
Mostly bands who’s playing the same music than you then?
M : Well, I listen to everything.
R : I also listen to 80’s rock, 90’s rock…
What’s your favourite last album that came out recently?
R : I actually really like the last Yellowcard album that came out! It was really good.
M : Yes, it was really good.
R : The new New Found Glory’s CD is pretty good too.
M : We played with them in Japan.
R : It was awesome!
Pop punk looks to be big in Asia, right?
R : It’s huge! Punkspring is like 15000 people! It’s great!
Where was your best show ever?
M : It’s tough. There is a lot of good ones.
R : It depends, you could play a small room and have a crowd to be so in to it and makes it amazing or it could be a huge festival where it’s amazing as well.
M : Anywhere where kids are singing every word, every songs are our best shows.
Were you really looking to make the band that big before was it just an option?
M : It was everyone ends goal. We were just like “is that going to happen? I don’t know, if it does, that’s cool”.
R : Before this band I was working at home, selling cellphones and you know, I’ve always played music in my entiere life.I was like 19, 20 years old and that opportunity came on. I asked people and sombody told me “do it” and I was like “You know what? He’s absolutly right! I don’t want to sell cellphones, I want to see the world and play music, being part of something that’s just bigger than myself.”.
M : If the band ends tomorrow, I would still be happy I did it because it really was what I had to do.
Travelling seems to be one of the most important things for you isn’t it?
M : It’s not the most important but it’s definitely something outside of songwriting or recordind, playing awesome shows. Touring is definitely like the biggest thing. For me tourring international is just like the biggest thing!
R : Not everybody gets to see Indonesia or Japan or Australia… So that’s cool to say that “Yes, I’ve been there”. Those bands are normally bigger than us actually. We’ve been lucky enough to have people outside of the US that really pick up to the band fast so, we have a lot of opportunity tourring international that all the bands don’t have. We used to talk to bands that like tourred Europe and we were like “How is it? Is it cool?” and now poeple ask us questions like that! Singapour was that, “how many time have you been to Japan?”, it’s cool. It’s probably places that I would never, never been too for any reasons so it’s nice doing this. The world seems smaller now than it used to. In two day, I can be in Indonesia, Japan and then, New-York! That’s crazy! I’m like “Oh yes, I was in Japan yesterday!”, that’s fucking weird.
To finish with, what rock your life?
M : Life rocks my life!
R : Yes, life rocks my life right! Food rocks my life! (laugh)
Did you have time to try french food?
R : Yes!
M : Actually we only ate paninis today. It’s all we had, nothing really french! (laugh)
R : I like crepes. My mom is actually french so, when I was growing up she just cooked crepes and something like a fat sugar, cooking bread. I think it’s called “galette”. A sort of cake. It’s like a desert.
Yes, absolutely, “galette”! Thanks a lot for finishing on that then!
M : Thanks!
R : Thanks!
Website : wearetheincrowd.com