Since you’ve been doing this for almost two years obviously being on the Warped Tour is not too different for you guys.
Actually, this is our third year so we kind of have it all figured out. Every year you do it, it gets a little easier. We have it a little more figured out this year and we know everyone now.

People think of the Warped Tour as kind of punk tour and Bleed the Dream and Opiate for the Masses are bringing some metal to the stage. How cool is it to be the different band on the Warped Tour?
It’s just fun. There is so many people going to the Warped Tour that likes to see different styles of music. People might be walking by while were playing and stop and check us out. It’s such a great opportunity for people to see how our bands like.

How cool is it for you just as a band who normally gets stuck on tours with similar sounding bands and you are going to play with bands that are totally different from you?
It just makes it fun. That’s one of the things about being on the road that you just play with so many bands that sound just like you and it gets a little boring after a while and playing on the Warp Tour is like cool because it’s like oh wow...there’s an Irish band playing and go check them out..it’s something you don’t get to see everyday or whatever it may be. It’s all there.

On the Taste of Chaos tour, you got to go acoustic for a while. How was that?
That was fun. A lot of people was like wondering how we were going to pull it off but it actually was kind of easy because we write all of our music off of our guitars so all we had to do really was strip them down to the bare bones of when we first wrote them.

Howcool was it just to do something a little different from something like Warped; where there wasn’t much set up, just pulling out the acoustics and just play?
It was fun. It would have been fun to rock out, electric too, but it was different. It kind of gave us a little more respect for people in the industry cause just playing, we’re not a heavy band but we are a little heavier trying to translate hard rock songs on an acoustic guitar is a challenge.

I saw you in Dayton and I thought it was spectacular. How tight knit and how close like family is Bleed the Dream?
We’re like a bunch of brothers. Just like family, we might love each other one day and hate each other the next day but being family, you wake up the next day and you move on. We know what the big picture is, we also got to give each other our space and stuff like that. We just take everyday for what it is and live our lives day by day because you never really know what’s around the corner.

Bleed the Dream is of the founding bands of the Warcon label. Is there any added or extra pressure or is it to just hopefully pave the way to take this label to the next level?
We were actually the first band to sign to them and there’s absolutely no pressure whatsoever. We really try to not let the business things influence our everyday situations. You have to be able to separate the business from the music and you also have to be smart about the business end of it but you really have to separate the two. On the other hand, we’re excited because it’s like hey, who knows where Warcon Records are going to be like twenty years from now. If they did end up being like Drive Thru or something like that it would be cool to say we were the first band they ever signed.

What brought you to signing with a label that has never put a record out before?
In a way, that was kind of cool and in a way kind of scary because they were brand new. But the guys that own it have already proved that they know how the industry works and we were already friends with Kevin (Lyman) and we considered him family already. And we just felt that it was the right thing to do. We could go with Capital records and get dropped a year later and then go to another label and be the #1 band a year later. So, there is no right or wrong. You just try to get the best record deal you can get and just jump in with both feet. Do whatever you have to.

Last year the Warped Tour had a lot of big name bands and it seemed like once they got going, people couldn’t really get to the smaller stages...it seems that they’ve toned down the big name acts and went with mid-level acts...how do you feel about the line up this year?
I’ve checked it out. I’m not super familiar with every band that’s on it but I’m excited about seeing some of the bands that I’m friends with. It will be fun to go see a lot of those guys that we don’t get to see very often. I’m excited about Billy Idol. That’s pretty cool. There’s a couple of other bands that I think will be pretty cool to check out everyday.

How much of your time is dividing between checking out some new bands versus meeting fans versus getting sleep for the next day?
Usually, I try to walk around a couple of hours everyday to sign autographs and meet people and then go see other bands. If there’s a band that I’ve never seen play and when I get the opportunity, I just walk over there but usually, you do all that around lunch time to go check out all the other bands.