As Less Than Jake tour Europe, taking along Yellowcard and The A.K.A.s on their UK leg I got the chance to catch up with The A.K.A.s lead singer, Mike. Read on to hear about what they've been doing on tour, language barriers, and their album release in the UK. In one of our longest interviews to date!

Can you make a dictionary definition of "The A.K.A.s"?

Of our name or the band?

The band

Erm, I would say er… this is gonna be really good when I think of it! And audio rocktionary up-rise slash musical middle finger to the vapid, saturated, music scene and social status quo [cheer as mike finishes this very long sentence]

Did you know it actually says "the S.K.A.s" on the poster outside?

What? The s.k.a.s? The skas, you hear that bob? That's awesome… that sucks! And we're the one band that is not at all ska.

You've been touring with Less Than Jake and Yellowcard for over two weeks now?

Yellowcard were supposed to be on the whole tour but they only ended up being on 5 shows. All the Europe dates were with a band called hydrolycious this Dutch punk band who were awesome and we played two shows with Capdown and now with Yellowcard but… yeah continue!

You've been going almost non-stop around Europe and that looked a pretty hectic schedule, are you all pretty tired now?

Well yeah, but we were on tour in the U.S. for 6 weeks and then only home for 3 days before we came here so when were presented with the tour we were like "fuck yeah!" you know we'll do whatever it takes to make it work and they were like, the UK dates will be awesome, the Europe dates will be a little more work cus I guess they thought there were further drives from one venue to the next you know, but for us when we drove on tour in the U.S. we went all the way from New York city to L.A to get to the first show and then we drove all the way from Oklahoma back to New York which is like a 40 hour drive so we're used to kinda, overnight drives and stuff like that so it's been really an adventure because its different, because back home we have friends in most cities or if we don't we can just put a little sign on our merch booth and be like "hey we need a place to stay can we stay with you?" and it's a really big dichotomy over here where it's like, we'll play a show in front of 4000 people and then we'll go and sleep in our van because we're too poor to stay anywhere its really interesting because back home with my mom who I'll email and say "yeah we played in front of 4000 people in Italy" and she goes and brags to all her friends and then I'm like sleeping the fucking van with 6 people, you know it's just crazy there's a lot of things but it balances out to be a fucking amazing experience and we appreciate the chance to be here and the guys in Less Than Jake are fucking awesome they're like the coolest ever. We've had the blessing of being on tour with bands where they're always like whether or not we like the band they're always awesome people cus we tour with all kinds of different bands like punk bands and rock bands and hardcore bands and EMO bands or whatever the fuck you wanna call it and we just always don't kinda fit in on a bill but its always really awesome people so we're super excited about that but on the first day with Less Than Jake were all hanging out with them and goofing around and it was really cool so we're super excited about it

Are glad you're nearing the end of this tour?

Yeah after tonight we have two more shows with those guys and then a couple of days off to hang out in London and then we have just a show on our own cus our record comes out may 31st which is in like 2 or 3 days and then our first show by ourselves is on the first which kinda like a little small party record release show so… and then we go home and we don't know what we're doing so… we're gonna take some time off cus we've been out by the end of this tour it'll be 9 weeks so we're just ready to go home and do normal people shit for a few days and our record has already been out in the states and the last show of this tour will our 125th show since our records come out so, we're rolling!

How has it been performing in countries where the main language isn't English?

Well I've been over before and knew what to expect but this time going over it's been more apparent, I envy kids in Europe because.. I mean it's not so bad over here, but sometimes it's hard for me to understand ENGLISH English, but one of the things I think is really awesome about the kids in Europe is that almost everybody does speak English., like even if they speak it really poorly it's still 10 times better than I can speak German or Dutch or Italian or anything, so I think it's really awesome. My girlfriend's family is all from Italy so they all speak fluent Italian and I'm sitting there in their house and thinking "what the fuck is going on?" but Italy was the one place where most kids didn't speak any Italian, which was really a struggle cus we're a band where we talk a little bit onstage and try to talk about important stuff or whatever so I had to cut it down cus I could tell that when I was speaking they were all looking at me like "what the fuck are you saying" but still you know I would talk to kids and they would be really bashful and embarrassed to talk to me and I would be like "what's the matter?" and I did an interview with a kid in Germany and he was really nervous and I was like "why are you so nervous man?" and he was like "oh I'm really embarrassed my English is so bad!" and I was like "dude, I know like 5 fucking words in German so don't be embarrassed you guys can actually speak more than one language!" so I think its really cool, but it's defiantly a challenge I think that as much as we try to talk and rock our live shows are really energetic and entertaining and kids get what they need out of that so that's good… If I don't ever actually answer the question, remind me at the end cus I'll just talk forever!

Ok, what do you miss most when touring?

I miss really normal things like my girlfriend like crazy and I miss being able to just sleep in my bed and wake up and eat food over here especially we're at the mercy of schedules. In the states we don't get anything really but on tour over here we get food and stuff but we're at the mercy of a schedule so you wake up and you're starving and there's nothing to do so… its weird cus I hate eating fast food, but being in Europe for a few days and I'm like "where's the fucking McDonalds?!?" I just want French fried n stuff like that, so its not really very interesting things, I just wanna sit on a couch and watch a movie and hang out and being with the same people all day everyday you just wanna be by yourself, but at the same time I love travelling and doing new stuff and I love meeting people and having conversation which has been a bit weird over here cus most of the kids are so young and they're just like "ahh!" and I'm like "o.k... it's nice to meet you, but I have nothing in common with you!" but its really cool I have met a few people who I could just sit n talk to which was awesome so…

Have you got 3 headlining shows coming up?

We were meant to but now we just have one and some days off, which are my enemy! I hate days off!

Are you excited about this show?

Yeah its cool because it'll be more like the shows we're used to playing like where its small and we play on the floor and everyone is right there. The thing I miss a lot about playing these kinds of shows is being able to like connect with people cus when we play on these huge stages it's great but there's 8 feet between you and anybody and everyone is so far away and there's so many that you cant really connect with anyone, so it'll be a chance for us to do that and we'll be in our natural environment which is cool but I'm sure when we're doing that stuff we're gonna miss the roar of the crowd. But I'm just looking forward to hanging out in London, cus I think its like New York and another thing that I love the aspect of travelling a lot that's why I'm in a band but like the problem is that you're only in a place for a day and you mostly almost the whole time in one club and don't get to see the place and experience what's its like to live there so I guess I'm just looking forward to hanging out in London and going and checking out stores

Who have you got supporting you on this show?

There is just some other band, I can't remember the name. Its just us and one other band like really low pro, like an art rocker show… I'm not gonna try n explain it cus I'll sound like an idiot but it's like a music club and really DIY and underground style so it'll just be like a couple of hundred people so…

So really quiet compared to here

Yeah, but like I said that's what we're used to really so… I think the best show we ever played was in a restaurant on the floor with two other bands, while we were setting up people were eating dinner and then they cleared all the tables out and packed in a load of people and we just played our asses off and it was awesome and I really like stuff like that.

What do you think of this particular venue?

Its big, its awesome, I will prolly be able to tell more after we play. Sometimes I dunno its just some places just end up being the same its ok… they have a shower… with warm water! Which is pretty nice and I dunno just from the sound check it sounds awesome onstage but I think that's also to do with the sound people who do sound every day and they're from the UK and all super geniuses. Its also awesome really cool to be right in the middle of town where you can go check out all the local shit … so I like where it's located, centrally located!

Where, if anywhere is you're favourite venue to play?

Anywhere in the world? I dunno, some of my favourite cities to play are just like, whether the venue sucks or not just like the places where we have the most fun so far, like New York city obviously and we end up playing whatever we play all over the place so its cool. There are lots of legendary clubs all over the place which are really small but cool all the same like but there's also places that are famous which are fucking shit holes like CBGB's is a fucking dump you know but we've played there a couple of times and it was ok. But it was an awesome city to play in, very awesome. The best shows for us are more about the people there rather than the venue, like our first show in Europe was in hidelburgh Germany and we had no idea what to expect and it was sold out and we came out first and it was packed and the kids were just crazy and that was a fucking awesome way to start the tour and schweinfurt Germany was awesome. And then the first two shows in the UK, it was Plymouth and Cardiff I think? [Checks backstage pass] yeah Cardiff, both those shows were awesome and there was tonnes of people and they were all really cool to us

You came from Glasgow yesterday? Was that a long drive?

It wasn't too bad we had yesterday off so we just stayed with some friends of friends and we didn't do shit we just watched 7 movies in a row and later on did some laundry n took showers and did normal people shit but yeah it was really nice to just watch TV… its weird cus when I'm at home in my natural habitat I almost never watch TV I never sit around I'm usually busy doing stuff constantly but after being on tour you just wanna be "Bleh" cus you're always on the move and so busy

That's all my questions, if you wanna promote anything, or say anything then now is your chance! Go!

We're awesome! Like I said before, our record comes out on Solapoint records which is part of on may 31st… I don't know when that is I don't know what day it is

Monday

Yeah it's Monday so it's called white doves and smoking guns and we're really excited about it. Its produced by an awesome guy who has done Stella Star and All American Rejects which don't sound anything like us but we're excited about that and we feel it's a really fun but smart record which will inspire people to rock and rage and I think we'll be back in the fall to do smaller support or something for fun… but if people wanna go check out the band they can go to www.theakas.com or if you wanna hear it you can hear free music at www.purvolume.com/theakas so there's two or three free songs on there that people can listen to so go there and look at it [points at the minidisk recorder] go there!

Thanks to Mike for the interview, it was very interesting and insightful. And we all at Rock Pulse hope to see you when you come back in the autumn! Like Mike said, for more information on The A.K.A.s go to www.theakas.com and to listen in go to www.purevolume.com/theakas.