Batman Parade

Batman Parade
Date: Aug 1, 2007 1:40 AM

Contessa-
State your names for the record:

Steven Johnsrude ( Lead vocals , Guitar )
Phillip Cala ( Drums )
Davin Chang ( Lead Guitarist , Violist )
Sean Alix ( Bass )
Christophe Courtier ( Guitar , Keyboards )

Together we are BATMAN PARADE :]

C-Um, background on how you came up with the name?
I could make guesses but that wouldn't be half as good as the truth.

Well, someone made up this thing and said that if you take the name of your very first pet and add it to the first street you ever lived on that is your stripper name. Ha ha, It was one of those stupid childhood things that gives you a quick chuckle. So when we asked Davin what his stripper name would be he told us that his very first pet was a hamster back when he was in preschool that he named, "Batman Parade". We still laugh about it because we have no idea why Davin would name his Hamster Batman Parade. I mean, he may have been a tiny tot, but that's still hilarious.

Then one of our first shows, before we had a permanent drummer with us, we had a temporary drummer friend named Frank play for us. So from then our name became "Batman Parade VS Frank". Even after Phil joined us the name still stuck. Until too many people just couldn't remember the full name. Ha, I guess after a while we just got tired of people asking us what our name was over and over again. So we just changed it back to Batman Parade. No troubles since. Crazy story, eh?

C-How long have you been together?

BP-Some members have been playing together for seven years but as for Batman Parade it's been almost four years.

C-So you have a new EP due out, eh?! Where ya going to sell it? Who and where was it recorded? Tell all!

BP-Yeah, we hope to put it out soon. We are still hard at work in the studio. We've been recording in a couple different places: Studio 132 in San Francisco and right now a studio up in American Canyon. It'll be mostly sold through us online and at shows. Who knows what could happen in the future though.

C-So what makes "Blanket of Dust" one of your favorite songs?

BP-It's just really fun to play. It's got a myriad of twangy and ambient guitars, a bumping bass, and fast-driving drum parts that turn us wild when we play. Not to mention it showcases haunting viola and vocals and it gives us this primal urge to rock out. And besides that, it's one of the first songs we played together. It has a lot of memories attached to it.

C- see that some of your influences include: Broken Social Scene, Interpol, Radiohead, We Are Scientists and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

I definitely hear the Interpol styles in the echoic vocals and brazen guitars. Where else do you feel these bands have inspired your music?

BP-We've gone through a lot of different influences. We've had electronic songs, folk-acoustic songs, and everything in between; You name it we've probably experimented with the genre. That was our original creative drive, to mix all these different styles of music together, since we love it all. The stuff we have up on Myspace is aimed to please a certain crowd of listeners but we have some other material that if you heard it, you wouldn't think it was us. It'll probably be in the album.

C-So you call your sound an "orgy of lights and sounds."

Hmm, orgy---

a wild party especially with sexual activity.
unrestrained indulgence in any activity.

Which definition do you feel your sound is more like?

BP-Well, we are pretty sexy so I'm going to have to go with number one.

C-So, as always, I want to do one more fun question--The word game, woot!

I say a word and then you say the first thing that pops into your head, ready? GO!

C-Fish.
BP-Taco
C-Mud.
BP-That commercial where people are playing soccer in the mud and rain..but its cool, they got Gatorade. No worries. No worries.
C-Gobbler.
BP-Peanut
C-Periwinkle.
BP-Weezer
C-Hobo.
BP-Hollywood
C-Talent.
BP-Shmalent
C-Spank.
BP-nnuendo
C-Stowaway.

BP-E.T.

Ha! I'm terrible at this game. It's fun though.