PJ – Over all, especially playing here when we’re not an established band, we try to feed off the energy of the crowd. There was energy and we just go up there and try to thrown down what we can. I thought it was a good time.

Did you have fun?
PJ – I did.
Chanley – Fucking A.
PJ – It’s always fun.
Tron - Make sure you write fucking A. I want the word fucking in there.
Chanley – Fucking A fun.

(To Jeff) What about the quiet guy over here?
Jeff – Quiet guy was disappointed.
PJ – Quiet guy is always disappointed.
Jeff – I’m always disappointed.
PJ – Every time we get off the stage he’s whiney.
Jeff – Always pissed off.
Chanley – He’s very hard on himself.

Describe your sound in comparison to any other band.
Chanley – Sweet.
Jeff – I don’t know how I describe it. I always gave it a hard core groove with melody.
PJ – We used to be more like a hard core type of band. Craig’s (Tron) background was always in rapping. That’s pretty much how we met him. So there was a lot of that. We grew up listening to the old hard core stuff, so there’s a lot of that hard core influence. We try to throw a hip hop kind of flow into it.
Chanley – We grew up listening to everything, though. We all listened to Journey and Minor Threat.
PJ – Simultaneously.
Chanley - And Public Enemy.
Tron - Then Def Leppard, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel.
Chanley – We all grew up from eclectic backgrounds from different kinds of stuff. Now we’re trying to come to terms with that and not be so hard core, just do what we know. We’re opening up the music a little more so you can hear things and pick out each instrument. Everything is layered more instead of just constantly in your face. Basically we’re maturing as a band and hopefully each personally as musicians.

As far as your song writing, do you all sit down and do it together or does someone bring a part of a song in?
Chanley - Somebody brings a riff. Usually one of these four guys (pointing to the rest of the band) brings a riff in, then we’ll just start bickering at each other until we organize something.
PJ – Chaos.
Tron – We build it from there. PJ has mostly a primary creativity. He can come up with something and make it fucking good off the riff. Ian has a lot of primary creativity. Chanley and Jeff are more secondary creativity, where they can make it better by listening to that person and get an idea. That’s how we usually write and then we build it from there. It’s like a building block. Somebody comes up with a riff and someone says, “I can make it better here” or “This would sound better”.
Tron - He’s right, we do bicker. It’s been pulling teeth, but I think our new song, “Friends With Benefits” just proved that it was everybody together, making that song better. I came up with the foundation, then everybody was like, “It sounds better like this” or “Let’s try it like this”.
PJ – Everybody is developing that. It’s not like someone will come up with a whole song and be like, “Alright, you guys play this”. It’s real different. It’s hard to describe because one of our newer songs, Jeff wrote the entire thing. We came in and were nit picking about little parts. It’s really a whole process with the band.
Jeff – Sometimes it’s a real pain in the ass and I can vouch for that ‘cause I’m always complaining. But overall, when it comes out, it’s done and it’s nice.
Chanley – I think the songs are getting better, though. I think as the songs get better, we’re learning how to deal with each other better as we’re writing. We used to just go and straight rock it. If it made your head bob, we wanted it in there. Now we’re trying to structure it, so there’s a lot more dynamics of the songs. So we bring it down and calm everybody down, then just come in hard with it.
Ian – I just say no. If someone brings a riff, I’m like, “Fuck that, mine’s better”, then we go from there. Everyone else can suck my ass.

Where do you guys stand with recording any new material?
Ian – We hope to be in the studio in a couple weeks. Ben from Switch produces our songs, so we hope to get into Spider Studios in two or three weeks and do some more shit.
Jeff – We’ve jumped around and tried different producers and studios, but it hasn’t fit us. We like Ben and we like his sound. It’s clean and clear and to the point. His melodies help us.
PJ – We were down in L.A. recording with Jeff Tomay, who did Siamese Dream by the Smashing Pumpkins, Matchbox 20 and Jackyl.
Chanley – He didn’t do Jackyl, but that’s who’s house he records at.
PJ – It’s a beautiful house. He was great to work with, but unfortunately we were on a limited budget and a limited time schedule so we just kinda came in and threw everything in and tried to produce it the best we could to come out with something decent. It sounds good.
Tron – Jeff Tomay did give us options. He did a hell of a job with us. He has his pluses and he gave options, which was good. We recorded with Ben who did Chimaira and Switched. Now he’s doing Drowning Pool and he’s just so good. It was amazing just to be there.
PJ – We’ve had a lot of fun over the summer. We traveled a lot. We were out on the east coast playing through New York and Rhode Island. We came back for a couple days and then went down to record in Atlanta with Jeff. Then we were out west in Reno and gambling everything away. We were in San Jose playing with Insulence, who’s pretty good. We were at the Roxy in LA. The people at the Rainbow were super cool to us. It was great.
Tron – We got to sit with Fear Factory and Good Charlotte. It was great. We got to hang out with the stars.
PJ – That was a real good experience for us coming from Cleveland where you don’t see that. Out there it’s more common place. There was a lot of people with a lot of good advice.
Tron – I met and hung out with Matt Zane. We were hanging out at the Rainbow Room and I was talking to Matt. He was so cool. God, I wish I could get into porn.

How did you get this line up of members?
PJ – We’ve been together for two or three years. We did 3 Vex Fests. Our first show had a different line up. Jeff, Craig and I were still in it, but we had a different guitar and bass player who left in the same day. Chanley came along. We had a show with their band, Facade. We thought they were good and they liked us, so we were playing shows with them. When we lost those other members, Chanley came up and said, “I don’t want you to have to not play the show, so if you want, I’ll learn a couple of your songs so you can play for a little bit”. That was great. Ian came down and started practicing with us. We played our first show as a band at Vex Fest two years ago, which was the first Vex Fest.

Where did the name come from?
PJ – Oh, boy.
Tron – We came up with that name and PJ wanted to be called Knee Deep in Discharge. We decided to go with the Bedroom All-stars.
PJ – No. I fought the name for a long time ‘cause I thought it sounded like a high school punk band.
Chanley – I came from the outside and heard that name. I was just like, ok we’re playing with that. That name stuck, though.
Tron – We all fought it.
PJ – You say it to a guy and he’s like, “That’s funny as hell.” You say it to a girl and she’s like, “Oh, really?”
Chanley – It has that kind of vibe like when you first heard Limp Bizkit or Korn, you’re just like, that is not the name of their band. It just grows on you.
Tron – We figured, if we’re gonna have a bad name, maybe we can be good.
Chanley – I think it’s a memorable name even though I may not like it.
PJ – I’m not a big fan, but it works.
Tron – We’re not above changing it again.
Chanley – We made several attempts. Judd Nelson said, “You guys are cocky as hell. I think I’d call myself Semi-Adequate.”
PJ – He said, “That’s an awful lot of pressure.” I told him that we’re pretty confident and proud of ourselves. Yeah, I love going to my girlfriend’s house. They’re like, “What’s your band name” and I just mumble, “Bedroom All-stars”.

You have a lot of songs about girls.
Tron – It’s just about shit that really happens. We do have other songs that we didn’t play like “Strippers on Ecstasy” and “Pressure Point”. Most of it is about what we know. We try to stick to what we know. We’re pretty real. I’m not gonna talk about being a gangster or something I’m not. We know about drinking, women, breaking up, getting hurt, just regular emotions.

What’s the local Cleveland scene like?
PJ – It’s notoriously not a good market to play in.
Chanley – I think the key is to give away free acid at the door and maybe you’ll get a following.
Tron – If you can make it in Cleveland and get a following, you can do it anywhere.
Jeff – Drugs and hard core.
PJ – There’s a lot of bands that we play with from the outskirts of Cleveland like the Youngstown area. There are so many good bands. There’s been shows that we played where kids have gone nuts, then the band after us people were literally spitting at. I think that’s asinine. It’s a hard market. You either nail it or you don’t.
Tron – We’re a chick band.
PJ – It’s true. When we play in Cleveland we have a 70% girl ratio.
Chanley – Thank God.
Jeff – Yeah, ‘cause we don’t like boys, we like girls.