“Everybody has to get over being wounded.”  Bayside, a New York band named for their own hometown, is defintely a band with experience enough to talk about wounds.  Playing their music their way, signed to Victory Records, everything seemed to be going well until a van accident on tour took the life of drummer and friend John Holohan.  The rest of the group were declared “walking wounded” and treated, but things are never the same after something like that.

But the wounded have continued walking, and are carrying on stronger than ever, supporting a new album, working on another, and staying true to themselves in that magical way that only rockstars can.  Shout! recently sat down with guitarist Jack O’Shea, and even got a word or two from lead Anthony Raneri…

S!: With regard to Walking Wounded and the meaning behind it, Anthony has been quoted as saying “everyone gets wounded at some point or another as they go through life”, what are some of the ‘wounds’ that you guys have had to overcome and draw from?

Jack O’Shea (guitar): Well “walking wounded” actually is specifically a term that was used in the ambulance after our accident.  It was used to describe the surviving members of the band and crew…they were saying that they had one that was dead and six walking wounded, so it’s an actual medical term to describe people who are going to the hospital who at least can stand and get into the hospital.  In terms of like, emotional wounding, I’d say that it defintely played an important role in the development of us, not only personally, but as a band.  Other than that, I think everyone has failed relationships and has issues from home, whether they be small or large, it’s just a matter of how you deal with them.  So I mean, it doesn’t even nessicarily have to do with the specific nature of the ‘wounds’ or the particular instances that have created that emotional or physical trauma, it’s just the idea behind the whole record was more on how the person handles the situation and deals with rectifying that situation versus dwelling on something that’s sort of irrepairable.  You can’t really take something back once it’s happened, so it’s just a matter of how you go on with yourself after that. So I think that’s more what it’s pertaining to rather than any specific damaging event.

S!: So more of just an abstract idea, then?

J: Yeah, there are records that are very specific, and you can pinpoint our record to a couple of things…namely the accident and stuff, but i think that it is more a general encompassing theme moreso than specific events that we’re speaking of.

S!: I know you hate reading the official criticisms of your albums.  How do you feel that Walking Wounded has done as an album, and how are you judging that?

J: Well, it has done similarly to the way that our prior records have performed, slightly better than the last, so there’s definitely sort of an upward trend.  It certainly hasn’t been recieved with huge mainstream appreciation or accliam, but that’s actually probably in our best interest. And we’ve always been a band that’s taken our career to be more something similar to a marathon and less like a sprint, so we’re looking for for a long career out of it.  So the fact that we’re seeing steady progress versus sort of abnormal or exponential growth with any of our record cycles is actually more pleasing to us than dissapointing.  So we’re right on track as far as we’re concerned.  We’ll read everything from the smallest webzine to Rolling Stone, and we value everybody’s input and opinion, but we certainly aren’t overly cocky with good reviews in the same respect that we’re not overly negative when we read something bad.  In fact, sometimes the bad reviews are more funny for us than anything else!  So if we read something that’s comically over the top, we’re probably all more likely to sit anmd collectively read that than a positive review.

S!: I’ve read other interviews in which you guys tend to not be too happy with the state of music as a whole right now.  Do you feel that bands nowadays are putting less thought into things?

J: It’s certainly not a fully encompassing term, but there definitely is a level of artificaility in music right now where there are a lot of bands that seem very produced and very manufacturedup front becasue they happen to be exisiting at a time when that’s acceptable or trendy.  When something like that happens, it’s frustrating to any working band who’s actually taking a lot of pride and a lot of time with their career to do something important, and it becomes difficult sometimes to see a band that seems to lack the substance or integrity that we hold important to us.  Certainly, it’s not a finger pointing contest, and it’s not us saying that we’re better than any other band, but it’s a noticable thing that has happened where you do notice a lot of bands that come up and then you see them live and it seems like the band is very ill prepared for the status that they’ve achieved.  It’s like if you were a doctor, and Doogie Houser comes in, but Doogie houser is not a good doctor…you’d be like “aw man.  That sucks!”

S!: So what do you think is the cause of that whole situation?

J: [Laughs] Short attention spans?  I don’t know, any time there’s a shift in trends there’s always a rush.  Ultimately, in a very capitalist sense, it’s a marketplace, so if there’s a big trend that comes along, there’s a lot of the vendors, be it labels, or television or anything else, is gonna be fighting to try to find the next thing the fastest.  So it’s not necessarily a time consuming process where you’re looking for what’s best, it’s what works right now. I think that’s a pretty big leading cause of it, but I wouldn’t say that it’s solely responsible.  I mean, you can market a band to people, but if it’s THAT dog shit terrible, nobody’s gonna buy it, so…but people are still buying a lot of stuff that, in MY opinion is dog shit terrible, but…

S!:  So what do you think is the cure?

J: I don’t even know what the cure is…

Anthony Raneri (lead vocals, guitar): I disagree; I think there is a cure.

J: I think everyone needs to go to school.  I think everyone needs to wake up and listen to good music…

A: I think the cure is a band or a new movement of bands that’s gonna come out and knock some sense into people, like when everybody was listening to hair metal in the 80’s and it was bullshit, and nobody could understand that it was bullshit because they were so surrounded in it.  And then bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden and Pearl Jam came out and everybody was like “oh yeah, this is what real music sounds like.”

J: According to George Carlin, that band is Wyld Stallyns.  I’m not kidding!

S!: On a personal note for me, I just found out that there was a Counting Crows tribute album that you were a part of.  Are you guys fans of the band?  What made you choose to cover “A Long December”?

J: It’s 100% Anthony on that one, actually…I’m not NOT a fan, but I certainly am not familiar with the catalogue. It was a friend who was putting together a compilation, and had offered us the opportunity to be a part of that, and the choice of the song was definitely something that Anthony had picked.  We sort of just listened to it a bunch and then went into the studio and tracked it.  And actually, as a not HUGE Counting Crows fan, I was really pleased with the way it came out.

S!: I read that the next album will be out sometime this year, and that it may have a bit more of a punk sound to it…can you tell us anything about that?

J: It’s really difficult to say. It’s the way the music develops, the music kind of changes very quickly and very frequently, so it’s difficult to really say without having the material fully done that ‘thins is what it’s gonna sound like’.  I think that the closest thing that I can tell you, the most truthful thing that I can tell you is that it’s gonna sound like a Bayside record.  Definitely a progression…a cohesion in general sound between all of the records, but at the same time, a progression.  That’s what I think they call “waffling” in the political world!

S!: Well speaking of progression, all of your albums have ‘themes’ to them, and are progressive in that way…can you tell us anything about the theme of the one you’re working on now?

A: So far I haven’t written much of the lyrics yet, but so far, what seems to be coming out on its own is that I’m starting to feel like life is pretty good if you look for the good things.  There are a lot of people who if they’re unhappy, they try to change their surroundings to make themselves happier, when what you need to do is change your perception of your surroundings.  Like, change yourself and not change what’s around you.  So that’s basically the theme so far, is just be happy with where you are and that being happy is kind of a choice that you make that you need to strive for and work at.

S!: Well thanks so much for your time…anything else you’d like to say while you have the chance to reach out to our readers?

J: For whoever has sort of been with us for a long time, or people who are joining us very recently, we certainly are appreciative of the support, and it’s great to know that we are a band that has been doing this for a while, certainly longer than I have, but I mean collectively, we’re all pretty dedicated to what we do, so the fact that there are still lots of people who are interested in what we’re doing, that what we’re doing is important to them, means a lot, so thank you very much!

• MySpace URL: http://www.myspace.com/bayside