In a time where the voice has become a thing of the past when it comes to communication, it’s hard to sit on the phone longer than five minutes with anyone who’s not your dear grandmother. So what do you get when you put three adults used to texting and twittering, not to mention are socially awkward? A Monday afternoon, Everybody Loves Raymond on mute and a trio of strange adults who if put in the middle of a social situation would drown. That best sums up the phone conversation between Vegas’ Last Call’s Adam Blasco (drummer) and Austin Jeffers (vox) and me (writer). But once we got past all our weirdness we opened up to one another and laughed a little too much for a standard phoner.
If a Vegas attraction the Last Call pair would be a Cirque Du Soleil show, if a drink…the pair don’t partake in alcohol induced recreations, so they’d be a pina colada with strawberries and after I made them choose things to be, we got into connecting to their lyrics, them winning a slot on Warped Tour, their new EP, Stay On The Outside and much much more, like bombs.
Kendra: You’ll soon be releasing your new EP, Stay On The Outside. Can you tell me a little more about the writing process for this one?
Adam: When we wrote Stay On The Outside we started writing it just after 12:57 last year. We had some stuff written and we hooked up with Mightier Than Sword Records and started talking about doing this EP so we kind of kicked writing into high gear. We started writing and then about a month before we went to record we ended up scrapping pretty much everything we had written in the last I don’t know, eight months. So the last month, probably all of February this year was very stressful. We were writing pretty much every day. It kind of came down to the wire. We didn’t finish writing till the night before we went to the studio. So everyone was kind of on edge and stressed the entire time we were writing but I don’t know we’re very happy with how it came out and we had a lot of fun.
Kendra: You have a couple songs streaming over on your guys Facebook and I couldn’t help but fall for “It’s Like This Place Isn’t Even Real” just because I’m 24 and well, yeah i feel stuck in this moment. But what I’m getting at is growing up I identified with shit like Good Charlotte, go ahead and laugh, because I was (am) a fat kid who didn’t fit in and had daddy issues. So how do you hope your lyrics connect with a younger audience? Because it’s obvious people my age will gravitate towards what you are saying…
Austin: It’s hard for me because the thing is when we write songs and I start working on lyrics and stuff like that I’m not a very positive person. I’m kind of neurotic and I’m depressed a lot of the time and i think a lot of us go through that stuff in life. Ultimately when it comes to younger person trying to enjoy our music it’s hard to say whether they’re gonna find something. All I can say is that I write music from a sad place, but I always write it with the idea of working through it. So I’m hoping that the older person has seen more of life will enjoy it, but anybody who’s coming up in their life and who’s 16 years old and is experiencing life, they’re gonna have hardships and it’s hard to find a common ground.
Adam: I think that to kind of embellish what Austin said is the older people that are our age are gonna identify with the lyrics and the music because they’ve been through it and they’re kind of, they’ve gotten to the other side of it. Whereas younger people, they might be like in the thick of it right now so I think that they’re both identifying but on difference levels.
Austin: When I was young I thought the whole world was coming down on me. I really didn’t understand how to deal with problems and now that I’m 24 years Old I’m not gonna say I’m better fitted for it but I understand that some problems aren’t as important as other ones. It’s just going through life.
Kendra: I could ask what you all want to “stay on the outside” of, but instead because of the season, I want to know what was your favorite thing to do outside when you were a kid during the summer?
Austin: I’ve lived here my whole life and we used to have a waterpark called Wet and Wild and granted you were swimming in 90% pee; it was a lot of fun. We didn’t have stuff that was kid centric.
Adam: They ripped it out and put casinos and high rise condominium there; high-rise condominiums where nobody lives. Now there’s nowhere to stay cool.
Kendra: Okay I wasn’t expecting Austin too, so I wasn’t ready to ask but you can answer too. Adam and was there any drummer in particular that got you interested in drumming? And Austin was there a singer that got you into singing or rather, writing?
Adam: I really hate answering this because it’s so cliché but Blink-182; Travis Barker obviously. he was probably one of my bigger influences especially when i was in middle school and wanting to play drums and i was just listening to blink everyday so he was probably my biggest influence but I think now there’s a ton of drummers in general that influence me and not necessarily even big bands I Just appreciate them for their talent now. If you’re a good musician i appreciate that so i guess he was the original influence but it’s kind of gotten much broader.
Austin: I guess one of the first times that i stopped playing guitar in a band and started singing was because of one of the first people who really got me into singing Daryl Palumbo from Glassjaw. He sounded a lot like Elvis Costello to me and i was always a big Elvis Costello fan growing up.
Kendra: Now you all recently played Warped like a week ago, some weeks ago. You all actually won a chance to play on it. How’d that come about and go?
Adam: XPOZ is the promotional group in Vegas that supports a smoke free music scene. So they were the ones sponsoring this whole thing and they asked us in June to participate and they had asked us after all of the bands that had already been announced promotions’ had started, so everyone had a head start on us and it was all based on presales. A lot like a lot of the shitty Battle of the Bands type things. It’s all based on presales, how many of your friends you can get to shows so we already weren’t too stoked on it. So we were preparing for our release and we hand a bunch of stuff on our plates, so it really wasn’t a priority.
So we played the show, the preliminary show and we ended up winning, getting picked for the best overall show out of all the bands that competed, so that was pretty cool for us because we were the only band that wasn’t picked off of presales, or ticket sales or the numbers or anything like that. We did what and someone appreciated it. We don’t know who it was but someone was into it.
Obviously getting to say you played Warped Tour is just an awesome thing in it and of itself. It’s kind of different on the day you play Warped here in Las Vegas though. You’re going pretty heavily; we were up at 6 in the morning for an 8 o’clock call time and we didn’t leave again until 9 o’clock at night. When we finished loading up, we drove away. We were going for I don’t know, 14 hours. And it was, I don’t know what the temperature was, probably in the 100’s, maybe 100, I don’t know.
Austin: It was 108.
Adam: I felt like dying about three songs into our set and my life flashed before my eyes. We had a lot of fun though and I hope we get to play next year, or in the future. We got to hang out with a lot cool people, a lot of friends that we don’t really get to see that often. It was a really fun time.
Kendra: Really quick, a couple more Last Call reminded me of Last Call with Carson Daly, you know the TRL host from MTV’s late night show? Well that got me thinking about TRL and I wanted to get your two cents on music videos. Do you wish they were still relevant?
Adam: I think music videos are awesome and I love when bands that I like put out music videos, granted they aren’t on TV anymore. I still think it’s something you put a lot of passion into and I don’t know, it’s something that you create that’s just as relevant as the music that you record.
Kendra: Do you have a favorite video from when you were younger?
Austin: When TRL was showing videos I might’ve been into a lot different things, probably a Slipknot video. I was a big Nu Metal fan when I was in middle school. I was 100% sure I was really a disenfranchised youth when I really wasn’t.
Kendra: Did you like Korn Limp Bizkit?
Austin: I’ve hated Limp Bizkit. I always did. What as your favorite video?
Kendra: My favorite video from the TRL days was Backstreet Boys “All I Have to Give.”
Austin: Oh and I’m the guilty one here, I see…
At this point I had to confess that I was offended in Austin’s hate of Limp Bizkit and that I spent 200 dollars for the NKOTBSB tour and how I left Warped in Pomona early to head to that show. They laughed and asked if I screamed when the Wahlberg ripped his shirt off. I quickly said, “No! He’s like 50.” They also wanted to let the world know that their band mate Ryan (apparently the ladies man) loved him some Bizkit.
Kendra: Okay, we’ve come to an end and it’s time for you to make me a mixtape. Going off your tune “It’s Like This Place Isn’t Even Real,” could you make me a mixtape of your top 5 songs that take you from reality? Like ones that even in a terrorist attack, you’d be too much in the musical zone to notice. Adam and Austin wanted to note that this mixtape should not be used to stop a bomb.
Adam: Wow a terrorist stopping mixtape and I have to pick five of them? Can we do it together or are doing this separate?
Austin: Oh, we’re doing this together. I’d say “The Red, White And Blues” by Defeater. It’s a concept album so I’m always listening for the storylines.
Adam: A few weeks ago I was in New York City and every time I was on the train I would listen to a band called Bayonet. They’re putting a record out on Mightier Than Sword this month and every time I was on the train I’d listen to them and it’s a perfect example. I’d get lost, be in the zone, so probably “Nightmare” by Bayonet.
Austin: I guess song three would have to be, I’m so scared. There’s so much music going through my head right now.
Kendra: Well, it really doesn’t have to stop a terrorist attack if you’re under that much pressure.
Austin: If I had to choose to stop a terrorist attack I’d just choose Winds of Plague songs because when I saw them at Warped Tour every single time he stopped he’s say “support your troops.” So I’m pretty sure that guy’s down to stop terrorism. Their opening intro track was a sound clip of Obama talking about when Bin Laden had been killed. That was how they started their set…
But I guess the next song I’d have to pick is “When They Really Get to Know You, They Will Run” by Pedro the Line because I’ve been following Dave Bazan’s career since I was in middle school and he’s been making music from probably 12 years. Whenever I’m feeling kind of lost or down I listen to Dave Bazan a lot, so that’ll probably be my third choice. When it comes to being lost in music I don’t’ want to be too generic and say Sigur Ros but the new Fucked Up record has a lot of songs on it that for some reason, I like listen to something else and I always end up back to the new Fucked Up Record. So I’d probably say “The Other Shoe” by Fucked Up. That song’s really good and I think Adam has a good fifth choice.
Adam: Seahaven “Bottled.” Every time I listen to it, it’s one of those songs where you feel like driving. It’s a perfect song to just drive and clear your head to so that would have to be my number five pick.
Okay, so that wraps up my time with Last Call and remember, what happens in…Well you know the saying about Vegas, but thankfully Sin City’s own Last Call aren’t staying in the confines of their hometown forever. They’re hitting the road soon with Forever Came Calling in support of their new EP, Stay On The Outside.
Originally published on July 15, 2011
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