During Smile Empty Soul’s cross country tour with Trapt, they made a stop here in Pittsburgh. They were scheduled to perform live in 105.9 The X studio, along with play for a near capacity crowd at Metropol plus do our little interview. But as luck would have it, the man behind the platinum selling band who pushed the phrase “I did it for the drugs” into everyone’s mouth, was sick. Yes , Sean Danileson was worshiping at the porcelain altar. The live radio performance was cancelled. There set for the show got cancelled, but good empire pulled through and were able to corner Ryan and Derek in the tour bus and ask them a few questions.

First off, I just got the new Revolver in the mail today and you guys are one of the bands to watch. They gave you a half page on that.
Ryan – I haven’t seen it. Sweet.
Derek – Oh, yeah? Cool.
Ryan - Hey (patting Derek on the knee), good job, buddy.

You are out touring with Trapt and a Fuel tour is coming up. How does it feel to be out with bands of that caliber?
Ryan – So far, it’s been really great. We’re just finishing up this tour with Trapt in the next couple days actually. It’s been really, really good touring with them. They treat us really, really well and make sure we get all kinds of tasty treats and all kinds of food. With most bands, you just don’t get it, but they make sure we get stuff. They’re all really, really great guys and we’ve become friends over the past four months. We play practical jokes on each other and stuff.
Derek – Fuel will be cool. They’re multi platinum. It’s pretty cool to go out with an artist who has that.
Ryan – They’re a little bit older than we are.
Derek – It’s gonna be a completely different crowd, so we’ll see.
Ryan – I’m looking forward to actually going out with Fuel cause it’ll be a completely different crowd.

How has the audience response been with a Trapt crowd?
Derek – Awesome.
Ryan – Really, really good. Really good. Every night it just seems to get better and better. It’s going great.

Ryan, I hear you were the one that fell off the stage out in Austin, Texas?
Ryan – That was me.

How’d that happen?
Ryan – I was playing, doing “Bottom of a Bottle” and it was right before the bridge or something like that and I walked right up to the edge (of the stage) where the monitor is. Usually they put tape on the edge of the stage so you can see and no one taped it. So, it’s like the lights are in your eyes and it’s just dark, I can’t see anything, so I fucking slip off the stage and my arm hits this barricade the guitar just smashes. The neck hits me right in my face and I just fell. On the barricade there are these braces that come out about two feet. My back landed around it.
Derek – It was pretty scary.
Ryan – I got up and I was all bloody. It was everywhere.
Derek – It’s funny now.
Ryan –Yeah, it’s totally funny. When it happened it wasn’t very funny at all. I thought I broke my nose.
Derek – I thought he knocked all his teeth out.
Ryan – It hit me right on my mouth. My teeth were sore for days. It was swollen inside my face.

You are from Santa Clarita, California. What kind of scene exists there, if any?
Ryan – There’s bands out in Santa Clarita, but the thing is, there’s not many places to play out there. So whatever bands are there, you gotta go out to San Fernando Valley, LA or Hollywood to play shows. It’s hard for local bands to build a local following ‘cause there’s not many places to play.
Derek – It’s a middle, upper class kind of town. The kids just don’t do much but get little odd jobs to buy their weed.
Ryan – And fix up their Honda Civics.
Derek – There are a lot of bands out there, but not too many good ones.

Any bands in general that you’ve heard that really stand out in your mind, which you think should be number one?
Ryan – Fractional.
Derek – Yeah, Fractional.
Ryan – They’re about to get signed right now.
Derek – Check ‘em out!
Ryan – They’re actually from Santa Clarita, also and they’re really fucking good. Really good.

You guys have played some radio festivals. How does that compare to a club show like tonight?
Derek – The shows like these are so close to the kids you can look in their eyes while you’re playing.
Ryan – That’s what I like about the club shows.
Derek – It’s almost like you’re in the basement. Outdoor shows are cool ‘cause you can reach so many more people. But then you got the outside elements like wind and rain.
Ryan – Yeah, if it’s a windy day it fucks up everything. It blows out all the highs so all you hear is mid and low. It’s fucked up. And kids throw water bottles. We did a radio show in Portland and it was so fucking hot outside. We were playing and these kids had water bottles out in the crowd. They were filling them up half way and chucking them at us. So I’m playing an it’s like POW!, I got hit with this full water bottle right in the shoulder. It hurt so bad, dude. I wish I could’ve seen that guy who did that shit.
Derek – I don’t think half of them mean to throw ‘em at you. They’re just going crazy and throwing it in the air.
Ryan – No. Some people are ass holes and they wanna throw shit at people.
Derek – We throw stuff at the audience, so they’re gonna throw stuff at us.

Then they get their little laser pointer out.
Ryan – That hasn’t happened to us yet, but I’m sure you just jinxed it. It’ll happen tonight.

You guys did the MTV2 Rock Show. What was that like? Ryan – What it was, we taped for like an hour maybe and they chop it up and make it a week’s show. We’re reading and doing little interview segments and stuff. It was actually really cool. Every time we’ve gone to MTV, we’ve seen famous people. Except for yesterday. The first time we went, we saw Chris Rock. He was like, “You guys are a new band? You guys are gonna be big.” I was like, “Cool.” Chris Rock says we’re gonna be big. Then we saw Beyonce. She’s beautiful. I love you, girl.

You guys have moved up from the van to the bus this tour.
Ryan – Yeah, fortunately. Most bands wouldn’t see a bus until x amount of records sold and they know they can make money on the shows. Our label’s just really, really concerned with our safety after we got in that van accident.

You have got to tell us the story about that.
Derek – We had a driver that was just driving way too fast on the highway in Texas. It was an undivided highway, so we just started hydroplaning. We fishtailed left and then we spun out right so we were going sideways down the highway with the trailer so we were taking up both lanes.
Ryan – We were so lucky there was no oncoming traffic.
Derek – Then we skidded out backwards and knocked over a fence and a freeway sign.
Ryan – If there was a tree or a car or anything, it would’ve been a completely different situation. The thing is, none of us were wearing seat belts. Derek and Sean were in the back of the van where we had a futon mattress. So they were just laying down reading or whatever.
Derek – Laughs. Reading? I don’t read. We don’t know how to read.
Ryan – I was lying down on the bench seat, so when it happened I was sitting up watching the entire thing.
Derek – None of our equipment was even really damaged.
Ryan – We were really lucky.
Derek – Yeah, really.

You guys are from California. Any comments on the election out there?
Ryan – (In best Arnold voice) Send in the choppers.
Derek – It’s kind of like, whatever. I wanna run.
Ryan – It’s a very interesting situation. Unfortunately I can’t really keep up with the news. None of us can. Our lifestyle rarely permits it. We rarely get to watch TV. It’s hard to keep up with things like that. What I have seen has been very interesting. We’ll just leave it at that.

Some of my questions were about the lyrics, but that’s for Sean (He was sick that day and missed the interview.)
Derek – They all come from real life situations.

Do you take part in the writing?
Derek – Not lyrically, no. We help arrange it, but it’s mostly Sean. He comes to us and says, “Play this, play it good!”
Ryan – “Do it now!”
Derek – “Or you’re outta here!”
Ryan – “You’re fucking fired!”

Anything you want to add or throw in?
Ryan – Buy our record. It’s self titled, Smile Empty Soul. Buy it at Virgin Music!

Oh, wait, I have to ask the girly question (from Denise). Do you have any girlfriends?
Ryan – I have a girlfriend.
Derek – I don’t! I’m the single one.