Sometimes karma is a bitch.

I’ll be the first to admit, I have a problem of running my mouth about music. I’m overly opinionated, and very vocal about what bands, labels, scenes, genres, tours, albums, stage shows, sounds, and anything else related to music that I think blow.

One of the genres right now that I have been particularly harsh towards lately is the style of music that has often been mislabeled as being “Happy Hardcore”. If you look up Happy Hardcore on Wikipedia (the ultimate source of accurate information) you will see that it is actually a style of trance dance music. What I’m referring to here is a blend of pop punk and hardcore music, made popular lately by Four Year Strong and of course, Set Your Goals.

I wanted to do this interview so I could learn more about a band that performed a style of music that I had jumped to a conclusion about. I wanted to see if I had misjudged the genre as being a family friendly version of hardcore music.

And of course, I had misjudged the genre, and the band’s fans. Jordan was a really nice guy who knew his stuff. And the fans… they tossed my rear end into a skate ramp at the Bamboozle Roadshow for standing too close to the pit. Remember when I said karma is a bitch?

So let this be a lesson to you. Don’t talk bad about a band or style of music, because the artist will turn out to be a cool dude and the fans will bust your ass.

Jordan from Set Your Goals was nice enough to take time out of their nonstop touring schedule to answer some questions for us.

Shout!: Can you give a brief history of the band?

Jordan: We started in the winter of 2003 and recorded a demo that spring and started playing shows that summer. The kids really picked up on it and understood what we were going for and we have toured nonstop since then. We went through several lineups but the last couple of year it’s been the same group of people.

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S!: How would you describe your sound? <!–[endif]–>

J: Its various styles of punk and hardcore music. We have influences listed on our website from New Found Glory and H20 to Gorilla Biscuits to Kid Dynamite… but basically that general punk and hardcore audience. I guess it comes from just growing up and going to various types of shows and putting all of that into Set Your Goals.

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S!: How has the hardcore community reacted to your music? <!–[endif]–>

J: We received a lot of good feedback. The hardcore community has totally accepted us mentally. If it weren’t for them we wouldn’t have been able to expose ourselves to other audiences. They’ve been very supportive and we carry a lot of their ethics and beliefs.

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S!: How was the tour with Gallows and Fucked Up?

J: It was great. It was a musically refreshing tour for us. It felt good to go out and play for our fans in England there as well. It’s awesome over there. Very cool place.

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S!: Do you have any updates on the DVD’s you guys have been working on? <!–[endif]–>

J: We don’t. It’s been such a runaround. The label refused to put it out two years ago due to some copyrighted material, which is totally understandable. The last couple years we have been running around trying to put something out. I know people want video content from us, but if you go to our MySpace page, we just uploaded three Warped Tour videos from us, so people should check that out. We will continue to put videos online until we can release a proper DVD.

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S!: How has the Bamboozle Roadshow shows been? <!–[endif]–>

J: Bamboozle Roadshow is awesome. Saves the Day is headlining and they’ve been playing a mix of old songs and new songs every night. They learned over 70 songs for the tour so it’s been a lot of fun. Armor for Sleep and Metro Station are on the tour as well. A Cursive Memory opened the first leg of the tour and Lydia is with us now opening the rest of the tour.

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S!: You guys played Movielife material with Vinnie at Bamboozle Left and will at Bamboozle in a few weeks. How was that experience? <!–[endif]–>

J: It was awesome. People were so into it and it was great to see Vinnie up there singing those songs again. It’s been so long since anyone has seen that happen. People really appreciated it. We are hoping to give Vinnie closure to the band because he’s been wanting to do that for five years now.

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S!: You guys are touring with I Am the Avalanche in the future correct? <!–[endif]–>

J: That is correct. The dates should be up on our MySpace. It’s us, Hit the Lights, I Am the Avalanche and The Years Gone By, and our friends 2*Sweet will be opening up the shows, and the Dear Life will open the two shows in California. It should be a good run.

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S!: I know people are wondering, if you guys are touring with I Am the Avalanche, will you guys throw a couple Movielife songs in there?

J: No, this is really just a one-time thing. We are really doing this with Vinnie to give him closure to the band, so once Bamboozle hits this will be the last time Vinnie sings these songs. Hopefully people will come out and see us and I Am the Avalanche, but no Movielife songs this tour.

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S!: Are you guys excited about doing Warped Tour? <!–[endif]–>

J: Yeah very excited. We had a blast last year and it’s a pretty cool lineup from what we can see. We’ll get to be out in the sun all day with good music 24/7… it’s a cool atmosphere.

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S!: Anything else for the Shout! readers?

J: Check out Warped Tour for sure this summer and the tour before that, dates on our MySpace page. We’ve got some new songs we have recorded that we are going to try to get up before summer on the Internet in the meantime while we record a new album.

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S! Thanks for the interview Jordan, we appreciate it.

J: No problem.

• Image Courtesy Of: http://www.myspace.com/setyourgoals