I’ll admit it. When I was sent a digital copy of upbeat pop-rock band Every Avenue’s EP Ah! by their rep last year, I fell in love and burned multiples to pimp them out to friends.  I’ve been blasting it in the car, singing at the top of my lungs since I received it. I don’t care if I’m old…I wanna be “home for the weekend” too.

As fun as they are on stage, the guys are even more so packed into a van talking about how big they are. Oh get your mind out of the gutter! I’m talking about the crazy whirlwind of an interview we got from them recently! Read on, you perv.

S!: A positive outlook on the music industry is rare nowadays, but your bio on Fearless’ site claims that you have just that.  What, in your opinion, is there to be positive about?

Josh: For us, we’re really happy with the team that we have around us.  We’ve seen a lot of bands get screwed over by record labels and stuff, but we’re really happy with our label (Fearless).  I don’t know, it seems like a lot of people get kind of jaded by the whole music industry thing, and we kinda want to be the exception to a lot of the rules, I think. We’re hopeful!  We love what we do, we love our fans, and we have fun with it, so there’s nothing really to be sad about…I’m in North Carolina playing guitar with my best friends!  Nothing really to be negative about right now [laughs].

S!: I’ve also read that you’re suddenly being recognized more and more in public.  How strange is that?!

Josh: Yeah, it’s kinda cool…it’s kinda weird though, sometimes!  My parents have had people come up to them that didn’t know that I was their son, and that’s extremely weird, because my parents are just really taken off guard and they’re like “oh, maybe he’s not a loser!” [Laughs]

Cam: I don’t get recognized anyway, that’s a question for someone else!

S!: I’m sure you’re compared to Fall Out Boy quite a bit.  Is that a compliment or an insult for you? 

Dave: Both. A lot of people say sometimes that we’re trying to be or sound too much like them, I guess, and that’s when we’re like “aw, fuck!  That’s not good!” But at the same time I think they did a lot of the right stuff.

Jimmy: I think that they took the band that got huge off of this type of music and compare it…that’s all they have [to compare us to].

Josh: For me, personally, it’s more about when someone’s against a genre…like, we’re in a similar genre to like Fall Out Boy and bands like that. I don’t personally think we sound like them, but for me it’s like when you read a review, and someone’s not into a genre, they immediately just pull the standbys like Jimmy said.  They immediately go for the biggest band and say “oh, they’re trying to do this.” And to be honest, it’s never been our intention; we’ve actually never called ourselves pop-punk, like, ever! So I think a lot of that gets misconstrued with people when they don’t understand where we’re coming from in the first place.

S!: What would you classify yourselves as, then?

Josh: We call ourselves pop-rock…we like pop music, we like punk too.  We listen to everything!  If people want to call it pop-punk, they can, but we’ve personally never called ourselves pop-punk, or claimed to be punk.

S!: How do you feel that your style is different from the bands that you’re compared to?

Josh: To be honest, we don’t go out and try to write a certain style of music, we just write songs that we like, and we think we kinda have our own style mixed in there. We’ve never been one to believe that we’re breaking new ground necessarily.  We just try and write good songs.  We like songs with catchy melodies and hooks, and that’s what we try and write.  We’re not trying to be necessarily groundbreaking, even though we want to have our own style, our own view on things. We just write music that we like, that’s basically what it comes down to!

S!: After four years of being a successful unsigned band, how does it feel to have been noticed and recommended by someone like Mark Hoppus?

Josh: Fucking awesome!  I think we all listened to Blink 182, right?

[Chorus of “yeah!” from the other band members]

Josh: I think that was a pretty cool thing…it’s Mark Hoppus!  He’s an awesome songwriter and producer, and we respect his opinion a lot. When we were on his podcast, we were really excited and surprised, to be honest!

Matt: I think a band could be signed for a long time, and then you get a recommendation like that…even if you’ve been signed for a while, that’s pretty cool! So kind of doing a lot of DIY kind of stuff and still getting that recognition is really fucking cool.

S!: Tell us about the first full length, Shh. Just Go With It, on Fearless!

Cam: I really enjoy my bass playing!

Josh: We’re super pumped about it!  We’re happy with the way it came out…we were really happy to work with Zach [Odom] and Ken [Mount], they’re amazing producers and awesome guys.  We’re happy with it; we like the songs, we like the way it came out, and I think it’s a pretty good representation of where we were at when we wrote it and where we’re at now.

S!: Tell us something that no one else knows…

Jimmy: A lot of people are like “what’s it feel like to be a rock star?” and for all those people…we get $5 a day, I live in Dave’s basement, Matt lives in Josh’s basement, and Mike lives with his dad! We’re all broke as shit!

• Official Site: http://www.everyavenuemusic.com/
• MySpace URL: http://www.myspace.com/everyavenue