Goin' on Tour and Never Coming Back

New-School punk rockers MxPx talk about religiously touring.

2000-03-26

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MxPx is back on the map. Fresh on the heels of their latest recording effort, the happy trio is taking it on the road as a warm-up to the summer vacation they’ll be spending on the year’s Warped Tour. In talking to guitarist Tom Wisienewski, and having not heard much about the band since their second full-length, Slowly Going the Way of the Buffalo, I was pleased to know there’ll be much to look forward to for MxPx fans as they release a new album, hit the road and spread joy and happiness throughout the land.

The trio calls home a naval town — Bremerton, Washington — and it’s these roots from which they developed their self-styled blend of punk and rock that’s become so prevalent these days. Citing major influences like The Descendents and a myriad of other SoCal punk bands, it’s clear to see where their sound has evolved. Catching up with Tom on his cell phone while on a trip back from Seattle to pick up some amps, he let me in on some of what makes MxPx tick.

How was the new album, recording it and such?

It went really good actually. We spent last summer recording it with [unintelligible — damn cell phone]. He’s done Rancid and Green Day and Superdrag and a bunch of different bands. And it went really good, we’re really happy with it. On our last record we did everything, like we did the drums in 10 days and then everything else in about two weeks. It was pretty much noon to 6 AM every day. Just working, working, working just, like, insanely tired the whole time, but we decided to keep going. So this time we actually got to take our time a little bit, we actually planned ahead.

You don’t usually go like that?

No, this was the first time it ever happened. We actually got to take a good amount of time to do it right.

And how’s it being received so far? It’s been out for how long?

It’s not out.

Oh, I’m sorry. It’ll be out when? This is the one called The Ever Passing Moment, right?

Yeah, it’ll be out in late April, I think.

You guys are usually identified as a Christian band, but in a lot of the press I read you seem to distance yourselves from that a little bit. Why is that?

Well basically we feel that a band is a band and it’s a bunch of people playing together. It’s not like a person. It can’t go get saved. It can’t believe in God. It’s a band. The three of us are Christians, though.

But it seems like a lot of bands will use that pulpit from which to dispel politics and views and such and you guys don’t necessarily do that.

We like playing. We’re not out to change the world or anything. We’re not out to make people believe what we believe. We’re just out the saying, "We’re Christians and we’re totally normal." There’s a lot of negative stereotypes attached to it obviously like, "Oh, you’ve got to be Charlie Church and burn all your CDs or whatever, and stop hanging out with all your friends." And that’s just wrong.

What about politics? Are you keeping up with the election at all? Involved in that?

Not really. I know I don’t want George W. Bush to win.

You would vote for…?

Whoever is running against him.

You are doing the Warped Tour again this year. Was it fun last time?

We did it in ’98, and it was fun. This year it should be great too. It’s going to be NOFX, Green Day, us, Long Beach Dub All-Stars… so it should be fun.

Who’s your favorite band to tour with?

The Get-Up Kids were really good. We had a good time with those guys. We just went on tour with No Motiv and they were really fun too. Actually we’re going back out with them. Good band, all around good guys, they’re total troopers. They slept in their van for six weeks.

Wow. So what does the future hold for MxPx?

Just a whole lot of touring. When the record comes out we’re going to go on tour and probably never come back.

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