Before their show at the Bunkhouse on Super Bowl Sunday, Nate Gangelhoff and Nick Johnson from Banner Pilot sat down with us to talk about fanzines, their relationship with Fat Wreck Chords, and why they dropped off a 2008 show at East Side Joe’s after seeing the place.
Did you guys watch the Super Bowl today?
Nate: I watched a little bit of it in a casino. It was a good game, it was entertaining.
Nick: I’m more into the Puppy Bowl, really.
Did you bet on the game?
Nick: No, but we watched it at the MGM Sports Book.
Nate: Someone was crying. They had all this money on the line.
Nick: Last time we were here, we placed a bet for like $10 that the Twins would beat the Mariners. It seemed like a lock because the Mariners always sucked, but the Twins lost.
Nate: $10 of band money, wasted. It was fun though. It was an intense baseball game.
Nate: In New Orleans once, we took $10 of band money and went on Twitter and asked “red or black” and put the money on what got the most votes. It worked! Maybe later tonight we’ll walk downtown and play some blackjack or roulette or something.
How has this tour been?
Nate: Really great so far. We’ve been down the West Coast. We started in Seattle, and this is our last show in Vegas. We did a bunch of stuff in California. There were a lot of great shows.
Nick: Yeah, there have been some really great turnouts. Nice weather. Nice break from Minnesota. We woke up this morning wearing shorts in San Diego.
Since you guys are touring kind of by yourselves, you’re on a lot of bills with local bands. Have any of them really stood out to you?
Nate: I thought Bastards of Young was really cool in Sacramento. And then Turkish Techno and Madison Bloodbath in LA were both really good.
Nick: Yeah, those were great. We played with Broadway Calls, but everyone knows them.
Nate: Yeah, I wouldn’t consider them an opening band.
Speaking of last time you came out here, you guys played at East Side Joes in 2008 right?
Nick: We sort of did, we sort of didn’t. I don’t know how to put this. It was very sketchy.
Nate: It wasn’t what we thought the show was supposed to be like. It was a bunch of metal bands and we were supposed to play at like 2 a.m.
Nick: It was the one and only time we bailed on a show. We just couldn’t do it.
Nate: They said if you needed to take shit, you had to use a bucket behind the house. Those are the kinds of accommodations that don’t really endear you to a place.
Nick: Yeah, we’re very high maintenance. Semi-working toilet is in our rider. It probably would have been a pretty wild show, but at the time we just were not feeling it.
Nate: I’m not sure if anyone really noticed that we didn’t play.
Nick: Yeah, it’s not like anyone was there for us anyway.
How did you guys get involved with Fat Wreck Chords?
Nate: Basically about 3 years ago we were demoing new songs and needed a new label, and they were always our top choice. So we sent some demos to them through our friend Billy in Dillinger Four because he had a connection at the label, obviously. They loved the demos and wanted to hear more.
How has it been working with them?
Nate: They’ve been amazing. It’s the label we always wanted to be on. It’s cool that we got on it, and it’s been great for the band, but they’re also just really awesome people.
Nick: Yeah we just got a tour of the offices when we went to San Francisco and they came out to the show and gave us free sweatshirts and CDs.
Nate: They’re just super nice, friendly people. It’s a fun label to be on. And they’ve done really well for our band. It’s really cool.
What made you guys decide to re-release Resignation Day on Fat Wreck Chords?
Nate: The first time around, the mixing got kind of rushed and we knew from the get-go that it was kind of a sub-par sounding record. We always wanted to revisit it. It was a perfect storm of events where Fat said that they would be willing to put it out for us and the engineer we worked with on Collapser said he would remix it for us. So it was kind of a no brainer. He did a sample song for us that sounded 10 times better, so we thought “why not do this?”
Nick: Yeah, it turned out that it wasn’t the recording that was bad, it was just the mixing. We didn’t know what went wrong in the process. We just knew we didn’t like the end result.
Nate: Yeah, the basic tracks were fine, so once you revisited it, it was fine.
Nick: It was cool because we could suddenly hear leads and backups that we did and had forgotten about. So we’re happy that it happened for sure.
How has the reception for Heart Beats Pacific been?
Nate: It’s been cool! I wasn’t sure. When you play shows right after the record comes out, not that many people know it, so it’s more subdued. It’s been about 3 months now and I think it’s been enough time where people know the songs. We’ve had a few shows where those have been the best-received songs. It’s cool, because you always worry when you do a new record that when you play the new songs at shows, people are just going to stand there with their arms crossed nodding their heads. But so far at least, people seem to like the new songs as much as the old ones.
I know Heart Beats Pacific just recently came out, but are you working on anything new? Maybe an EP?
Nate: Yeah, we’re demoing stuff already right now.
Nick: In the van, Nate actually wrote 3 songs on GarageBand on his iPad. It doesn’t sound that bad.
Nate: Yeah, it sounds pretty good! You have to tap your fingers to do power chords, like 2 fingers and move the chords. It’s pretty limited, but it’s a fun way to kill time. But yeah, we’re demoing new stuff. I think the next thing we do will be an album that we’d maybe record sometime next year or something. I don’t think we’ll do any EPs or 7 inches.
Let’s talk about some of the other bands you guys have been involved in. Both of you were in Rivethead?
Yeah!
Have you guys seen more interest in Rivethead, since the band broke up and the members split off into Banner Pilot, Dear Landlord, and Off with their Heads?
Nate: I don’t even know because Rivethead doesn’t really have anything out anymore. The records are all out of print and we never did a CD or anything digital, so the only people who have our stuff anymore are people who get it for free on torrents. So I have no way of knowing. I think they’re probably more popular than they were when we broke up.
Have you ever considered putting out that material?
Nate: I wanted to. At one point, I wrote the liner notes for it and everything in case we did a CD. But now, even CDs are kind of old so I don’t know. I’d like to put it up on Bandcamp at some point or something. But I think the people who want to hear it have already heard it.
What about some of the current stuff you’re involved with? Like Gateway District?
Nate: Yeah, we’re actually recording a new record, probably in April of this year. I’m looking forward to that.
Do you find it difficult to juggle the two bands?
Nate: Well in Gateway, the 3 of those guys write songs and then I just write guitar leads over them or suggest shuffling things around. It’s just minor stuff, so it’s not really much of a time investment. It’s just hanging out with friends and recording every now and then and doing a few shows. Gateway doesn’t tour that much, and when they do, I don’t usually go with them. It’s not a huge amount of time. It’s just a fun thing to do on the side.
Can you talk a little bit about the book you wrote, You Idiot ?
Nate: Basically I did some fanzines years ago and I got sick of copying and stapling. So I did a book combining it with some new stuff. It’s a lot cooler to have the book than to have a bunch of zines.
Nick: Then you have another one that just came out.
What’s that one?
Nate: Hit the Ground Stumbling. It’s the same thing. Reworked fanzines.
What did you cover in the zines?
Nate: There was a lot of weird pop culture stuff. I reviewed anti-drug videogames and Hulk Hogan’s rap album.
Nick: He reviewed bands that we could hear from our practice space walls.
Nate: Yeah, just goofy shit like that.
What do you think about the digitization of zines?
Nate: I think zines are kind of dead. It’s a hobby for people now, like collecting pogs or something. Well, it’s not that bad. [laughs] Before when I was doing it, it was kind of a cool way to get your voice out and you could do it yourself. Now it’s way easier and more practical to do it on the internet. Zines are still cool, but I think they’re a lot less relevant than they were.
Do you think it gets watered down since it’s pretty easy to start a blog? You don’t have to have that drive to go out there and make copies and distribute your zine.
Nate: I’d say that 99% of fanzines are bad, and 99% of blogs are bad. If anyone can do it, and it’s easy to do, a lot of it is going to be crappy. If you find Cometbus and Burn Collector, and the really good zines, then they’re awesome. And the really good blogs are awesome, it’s just a matter of finding those.
What have you guys been listening to lately?
Nate: Pop-punk wise, I’ve been into The Copyrights. Their record last year was really good. House Boat. I like Joyce Manor a lot.
Nick: The Fucked Up record [David Comes to Life] was really good.
Nate: I’ve been into some more indie British stuff like Los Campesinos and Johnny Foreigner, Tokyo Police Club, stuff like that.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Nate: When you’re in Vegas, bet on number 28 on roulette, and always bet on black.
Nick: That’s what Wesley Snipes said. But he also went to jail for tax evasion, so bet on red.
Interview by Emily Matview
Transcribed by Ashleigh Thompson
Photo by Emily Matview (edited by Tyler Newton)
Find out more about Banner Pilot at their facebook: facebook.com/bannerpilot
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