JANELLE: How’s the touring going?
AARON: It’s been going real good. We’re touring with New Mexican Disaster Squad; they’re good friends of ours.

JANELLE: You’ve toured with them before.
AARON: Yeah, we’ve toured with them a couple times before actually. They’re from FL and we keep running into them. Our drummer met them on a tour he was doing when he was in another band, so we keep hooking up with them here and there.

JANELLE: Okay, that’s cool. Other than just today’s show being cancelled, the shows you’ve been getting good reception with the new material?
AARON: Yeah, we’ve been playing a lot of the newer songs for a while, but it’s our first tour with our new record in hand. So, it’s going real well and we’re happy to finally be able to share our recording with people instead of hiding it and trying to keep it under wraps.

JANELLE: So how long have you had these songs about would you say?
AARON: A few of them, I’d say maybe two of them we’ve had over a year, but the bulk of them we wrote right before we recorded the record, so we wrote last summer and early fall and then we recorded them in October. We’ve been playing about half of them live since we recorded, and now with the record out we’ve just started playing all of them live.

JANELLE: And then do you have any other touring plans in the works for the rest of the year?
AARON: Yeah, in mid-August we’re gonna tour with our friends Fire When Ready, they’re from Binghamton in upstate NY near where we live and after that we’re gonna be doing a lot of touring in the fall. We don’t have specific plans or destinations but most of it’s gonna be the eastern half of the U.S. We wanna really keep building in that area, and we’re trying to get out to the West Coast. Well, at least once.

JANELLE: Have you done that before?
AARON: Yeah, we’ve done that before, at least once before the end of the year. We went to the West Coast with Nakatomi Plaza. I guess it was over a year ago since we’ve been out there, so it’s been a while.

JANELLE: Yeah, actually I’m from Long Island, so I’m around your neck of the woods kind of… So how would you say the crowds differ from coast to coast?
AARON: I think East Coast, especially the Northeast, is a very comfortable place for us because we know it very well and also if we’re gonna have anything political to say during the songs, we feel we can basically say anything. Whereas there’s a lot of other places – especially in the Midwest and the South – where the opinions of the kids are a lot more diverse. It’s interesting because a lot of times after we’ve said things onstage about the war or President Bush or what have you, I’ve had kids come up to me a lot more outside the Northeast to talk about those things with me and to sort of challenge what I have to say. So that’s really cool actually. The Northeast feels kinda homogenous in that way as far as opinions go. But as far as crowd excitement or just people being cool, that totally varies from town to town. Louisville is just awesome; the kids are always a great time there. And certain other places we play – I won’t name any names – we just haven’t ever had a good show. We don’t know if it’s the scene or if we just haven’t hooked up with the right kids or they just don’t like our music or whatever. So it just depends totally from town to town.

JANELLE: Yeah, but that is interesting. That’s true what you said, though, about the political beliefs of different areas, so that’s cool you get some debate.
AARON: Yeah, I really like that too. It makes me feel people are actually listening, even if they don’t like the music, at least they’re listening to what we’re saying. So it feels like what we’re doing has a little bit of worth to it.

JANELLE: Yeah, so when would you say maybe your political beliefs were formed? I mean, I’m sure this last election and 2000 definitely had a big impact, but you were pretty political before that too?
AARON: Oh yeah. I’m not sure exactly what it was, but I think it’s a lot of the bands I was listening to were pointing out in their songs just sort of how unfair everything is, you know, how wealth is distributed and the way the people who run our country and other countries don’t really have anyone but themselves in mind. I remember as a little kid I was obsessed with fairness. If somebody wasn’t following the rules of the kickball game or something I got really distressed about that, so I think once I started getting into politics that strong sense of fairness or justice really transferred over. I guess that came about in high school, which was in the mid-’90s for me.

JANELLE: So you said some bands, what like Bad Religion, Dead Kennedys, stuff like that?
AARON: Yeah, I’d say it wasn’t quite DKs-era. Bad Religion was definitely influential. I’d say Good Riddance and Propagandhi, a lot of the early- and mid-’90s punk bands I really liked what they had to say. I like what DKs have to say too, but that’s not what I was listening to at the time this was happening.

JANELLE: Well, is that how you were? We’re probably around the same age, but definitely like I’d say Bad Religion and NOFX and all that and then I looked back [at older music] and that’s when I found all the great old California bands. I know Bad Religion was around at that time but…
AARON: Yeah, definitely. I don’t often think about, “Oh, would I have rather grown up at a certain time?” but I definitely would’ve like to have seen the California scene in the early-’80s or the D.C. scene in the ’80s as well. I would’ve liked to see just how new that was ‘cause at this point punk’s been around a long time so it gets pretty plain or average to people, so I would’ve like to have seen what it was like when it was that exciting.

JANELLE: Yeah, me too! Even NY back in the mid- to late-’70s…
AARON: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that scene too. I forgot about that one.

JANELLE: Also… [Laughs] Just speaking about old California bands, when I heard the first song, “Painting by Numbers”, and heard the first line, that made me think of FEAR a little bit.
AARON: Right! What’s funny is I’ve never listened to FEAR and somebody pointed that out to me a couple weeks ago actually. “You know, there’s a FEAR song ‘Let’s Have a War’” Oh shit! [Laughs] It’s not intended to be a rip-off or out of respect to them or anything. I just had no idea. That’s kind of a coincidence. But I guess it’s kinda natural if enough people are singing about certain topics that this stuff’s gonna get kinda rehashed.

JANELLE: Oh yeah. I wasn’t implying…
AARON: Oh I know.

JANELLE: Oh man, but since you found out, have you heard it yet?
AARON: No, I still haven’t heard it.

JANELLE: You definitely have to hear it. It’s VERY sarcastic and they just got people’s goats. One line is like, “Give guns to the queers.” Just totally un-PC. All sarcastic… But yeah, I think that’s a really good song to kick your record off with. Definitely powerful… Also, I was just wondering, I haven’t heard the EP that came out prior, so I was wondering about some differences between the two. I don’t know if you have any songs like “Names Have Been Changed”, you know acoustic or if that was something new you did.
AARON: We had a different guitar player who was helping us write the music for our old EP and he definitely has different influences, so some of the stuff is a little heavier on the EP guitar-wise. Also we didn’t do anything acoustic on the EP without full-band. I also think the EP is slightly more literally political. The full-length has more story-telling, connecting politics through things that happened in my own life and the EP is a little more just generally talking about political things.

JANELLE: Do you feel you’re trying to convey one main message or is it just a whole slew of things?
AARON: No, there’s not really a mission or an attempt in that way. I think we’re just trying to build some level of awareness. What’s unbelievable to me is there’s still not that many bands that have a lot to say these days other than singing about getting their heart broken. I think it’s a valid thing to sing about, but it’s just getting kinda overbearing how many bands are singing about that and how few bands are choosing to sing about anything else. We’re just trying to add some opinions and perspectives with some substantial content to them and to make kids aware that the world’s not how it’s taught in high-school textbooks.

JANELLE: Right, open your eyes. But as you said before, it’s not just talking about getting your heart broken or whatever, it is making people think and you have proof of that – kids are actually listening and discussing it.
AARON: Right, the hope is that we can continue that.

JANELLE: Just about your live show, why should we go out and see you?
AARON: We don’t really have any shtick or whatever and we don’t have any costumes or choreographed moves or make-up or haircuts. [Laughter] We grew up watching bands that just played because they loved the music, and we try to convey that and just be as energetic as possible and show how excited we are about our music and just being able to play it for people across the country. I would just call it high-energy and a lot of fun. We’re pretty serious lyrically, but when we get onstage we’re there to have a good time – you know, to share some ideas, but that doesn’t have to be a really boring, serious time. When you’re talking about ideas it can be pretty exciting too.

JANELLE: Okay, so it’s not a lecture. [Laughs]
AARON: No. Absolutely not.

JANELLE: No, I know, I know.
AARON: [Laughs] Right, exactly.

JANELLE: But also I noticed a lot with the press and everything, of course they note the bands you were in previously. Does that bother you at all? That it’s always mentioned, “Featuring members of…”
AARON: Yeah, actually we have a debate with our label about that all the time. [Laughs] You know, mentioning who the producer’s produced before, what bands we used to be in and whatnot. I don’t wanna hide the fact that we used to be in certain bands. I only have a problem when it sort of supercedes the actual quality of what we’re doing. If someone’s gonna take that information, which is all true, but take that as their primary reason to listen to what we’re doing, then I think that stinks. So that does kinda bother me. I don’t really like the press game trying to get people’s attention with certain information like that. But at the same time, if someone has a pile of CDs and they need a reason to look at them, I guess we’ll try whatever it takes. I don’t like the idea that someone would only listen to our band because of other bands we’ve been in.

JANELLE: But then it also goes the other way: if they see you were in other bands and it doesn’t sound exactly the same then…
AARON: Right, exactly. I don’t want it to be a turn-off to anybody.

JANELLE: How about then, do you guys get compared to other bands and maybe you feel that you don’t really sound anything like them?
AARON: I think people are usually pretty accurate with it. As long as people can take it with a grain of salt, like if someone says we sound like Strike Anywhere, for example. I think that’s true to a certain extent, although I think the influences that Strike Anywhere are the same we have. I wouldn’t say we’re influenced BY them, but that we’re coming from the same place. So I think that’s kinda strange when people take very current bands as the influence ‘cause I don’t think we’re influenced very directly by very current bands. But it’s fine. It’s rare that anyone totally gets it wrong in that case.

JANELLE: I know I saw Bigwig mentioned…
AARON: Yeah, which is funny because we’ve seen Bigwig several times in reviews and none of us have really spent any time listening to them. Not that we dislike them; we just never heard them before really. Someone said something about Swingin’ Utters, which I thought was kinda strange. [Laughs] But whatever people hear… I used to do reviews too. The business of writing about music is tough. Communicating what something sounds like and words can be hard, so I understand how that’s the easiest way to do it.

JANELLE: …Is there anything else you wanna say about the album?
AARON: I’d just say we worked really hard on it and I think it’s the best music we’ve ever made. I know my bandmates would agree. We’re just really happy with it. And I’ve talked to a lot of bands who come out with a recording and they don’t really like it for whatever reason or they’re concerned about how their fans will respond. And we’re just really confident this record is what we want it to be. We’re hoping a lot of people will like it, but at the same time we’re very content with how it came out and we’re really excited to share it with everyone. So hopefully a lot of people will get a chance to hear it.

JANELLE: In the end, what would you want people to know about Marathon? One main thing. An overall statement.
AARON: We’re just five people who grew up in very comfortable surroundings who are trying to make our lives more interesting and also trying to figure out what’s really going on in the world around us. That has political implications as far as none of the mainstream media will really present what’s really going on, so you have to go and find out for yourself, and also has just lifestyle implications in that not everyone has to just go to school and get a job right afterwards. The coolest people we meet are the people who are just not afraid to fuck up and they’re just trying new things, trying new adventures. And we’re just trying to keep up with those people we meet who are doing amazing things with their lives. And we’re trying to find adventure and find some things out along the way. I know that all sounds kinda vague, but we don’t have it all figured out and I think the more we write music the more we realize that we’re just trying to share ideas… And some questions.