The Academy Is

Adam T. Siska had been awake barely half an hour when he started chatting to Rock Pulse around 2:45pm on a sunny September afternoon. He divulged that his late rising was due to him staying up until the early hours watching a docu-film about Joe Strummer, The Clash and Camden. Going on to tell RP of how he has many good memories from time spent in Camden and that every time they visit the UK, He and The Butcher (Andy Mrotek, Drums) take the train into Camden and stroll around. The bass player mentioned that he loved how eclectic the place was, explaining how it blends his two favourite music genres, Reggae and Rock’n’Roll. 

Conversation moves onto the subject of the new album from The Academy Is… titled ‘Fast Times At Barrington High’. RP discovers Sisky’s favourite song from the new album is ‘After The Last Midtown Show’ which features one of his best friends (Andrew McMahon of Jacks Mannequin) on piano. The set-list for the UK tour contains more songs from Fast Times At Barrington High than ever before, Adam explained how they’ve gradually added more songs to the set list every time they’ve toured a different country since the release of ‘Fast times…’ They’ve already toured Australia, New Zealand and Japan before hitting the UK for an 8 show run. 

RP brings up the topic of album leaking, as the bands album was leaked in entirety on the internet a week before release. Adam confirms RP’s suspicion that it was a conscious decision taken by the band to leak the album to fans, in its finished, mastered state. This was done through a competition to win a widget of one track off the new album delivered to their email inbox. He stated because almost every new album these days is leaked before release, even if only in part but often in an un-mastered state, He and the rest of T.A.I would rather the fans hear the mastered and final version of the album that the band are proud of than some un-mastered version that didn’t meet a standard they were comfortable with. Adam told RP how he’d seen peers have their albums leaked and thought it would be good to take control of the wheel for Fast Times At Barrington High’s unveiling themselves.

Reflecting on the past of The Academy Is.., When asked if the Academy Is… were ‘Almost here’ after 3 years, Adam instantaneously answered ‘not at all’ detailing that he feels they still have so much area to cover both personally and musically. In reply to RP’s further enquiry of the lyric from the song ‘After the last midtown show’ which states ‘We’re almost here again’ he told RP that we were one of many who had come up to him and asked about that line, continuing to re-affirm that even though its true that they have come a long way since their debut album ‘Almost here’, The Academy Is… still have plenty more ground to tread yet. 

Many TAI fans can’t wait to see what the future of The Academy Is.. will bring, while you wait you can get hold of ‘Fast Times At Barrington High’ in all major music stores or through iTunes.