When you drove to Salt Lake to play with Chris, did you know right away that this was going to work, or did it take some time for the band to gel?
Fin: It was instantaneous. It was awesome, and the way we met was weird, too.
Lucien: Yea, we met at a wedding.
Chris: My friend whom I have known for like 23 years was getting remarried, and they came out the night of the wedding, and that is where we met. It was really crazy. I was just hanging out and partying and then they show up. There was this big-ass blizzard going on, these guys roll in and that was that.

Driving up there, how serious did everyone take this meeting of Chris? Was it more of a let's see what happens or was it we need to fill this void to move forward with our career?
Lucien: We were already signed to the label, but we needed someone to complete the puzzle and we were pretty confident that Chris would what we needed to complete that puzzle. The label was stressing to us to find someone and we new we needed to get it together, but we also needed to find the right person with the right chemistry. And we really knew that Chris was going to be that person.

So, this isn't a Spinal tap thing going on where your drummers are dying?
Lucien: (Laughing) I don't think so. It was more looking for the right person.
Fin: We didn't want to settle for a drummer, we wanted to find the right one this time.

I have only heard a few songs, but heard comparisons to bands like Simple Plan. Listening to your music, there are similarities, but a lot of variation from that as well. Does it ever frustrate the band that maybe not the best comparisons are made?
Chris: I think that is an easy thing to do, and honestly, the tempo of the music is probably how they are comparing us to Simple Plan, but that's it. Simple Plan has a couple of songs with a specific tempo, and that is the only thing they know. And most people, whether they are writers or work at a label will compare it to what they know and what is popular. Not saying that people who make those comparisons are idiots, but sometimes people just talk about what pops in their heads first and say, "Okay, it has some poppy beats and is upbeat, it sounds like Simple Plan." When it all actuality, it is nothing really like that band. Sure, some aspects can be, but we have keyboards and piano parts and a bunch of effects all over the place.
Fin: The only connection I see is that we are pop-rock with melodic choruses. But it doesn't bother us to be compared to anyone, if that will help people listen to our music and find out what we are really about.

Has being on the tour with The Used helped this band out at all? Does having someone with extensive touring experience help this band handle the day-to-day touring aspects?
Chris: Well, I was just out with The Used for fun, and I used to drum for Good Charlotte. So I have toured for years and years, and these guys have done the same thing. We have all been touring for years off and on. I am having fun, and this is pretty similar to anything I have done in the past, and I am just as exhausted as I remember being when on the road.
Fin: It helps to have good chemistry with the guys. That is really what you are looking for. It of course helps to have good players, but you need to have a certain chemistry to be able to handle the grind of touring. Because we are basically living together in a van for months at a time.
Chris: That is definitely one thing that can make or break a band. You need to be able to hang out and have fun with the people you are in a band with otherwise it is just not worth being on the road with people you don't get along with. But that is the cool thing with this band, is we are all friends and at the end of the day, no matter what, it all comes down to that.

I read your CD comes out August 29. Is it frustrating at all to play these shows and to have kids want to get your music, and having to tell them over and over August 29th? How excited are you about this record coming out and how frustrated are you that you are on the road playing the music and no one can buy it?
Fin: A lot of our fans are very Internet savvy and they can pretty much find any song we ever recorded, and the ones that don't seem to get into it and start searching and finding music. Some just happen to find them; some will get the different samplers with our songs on them. But either way, we are really excited the album is coming out.
Lucien: That is really all we want is a record out. That is all we really wanted for a long time was to have a record out, and to do this (tour). I am totally and insanely happy and excited about this.

Would you say having the record out and touring is how you envision this band, or do you see this band beyond that and being at a certain plateau?
Fin: I think there is a little of both!
Chris: I think we have our sights set high and want to go as far as we can. But then again, we are also grateful to be where we are. But yea, we want to be mad successful.

And the Warped Tour?
Fin: Yea, we are on for like a week-and-a-half in the Southeast coast.

That is a show that is great to play on, but not sure how great it is for an up-and-coming band because there is so much competition to have someone hear you play with everything that is happening. How much are you looking at the Warped Tour as a promotional tool for the band versus just having fun for a few weeks?
Fin: I definitely see it as an opportunity to move forward, because there is such a concentrated about of people in one area. For us it is just a playground.
Lucien: We are going to give like 1000 samplers a day out.
Fin: Yea, and if it takes 5000 samplers to get the word out to kids, that is what we will do.
Lucien: We will probably spend most of the day passing out stuff.
Christ: And we have all been to Warped Tours, so we are supper stoked to play them, too. I never actually had a chance to play them before, so it is going to be really exciting.

This band is the poster child for how important the Internet is. This formation of the band happened because of Myspace, your music is on a Myspace compilation; kids are hearing your music from the Internet. How important is the Internet for a band like The Summer Obsession?
The Internet is the whole reason we got signed to Virgin in the first place. At the time, Myspace was under like a million people, and right when we finished The Summer Obsession demo we put them up on Myspace. And then we heard about a Myspace party in Miami, and we really wanted to meet Tom. So we hauled ass down there, sat down with him and we have been friends ever since. So it was definitely being involved with Myspace that got us label attention and he helped us out with the Myspace compilation.

At the same time, I think a band can get almost too close to fans where your fans want to and expect more from the band than normal. Have you ever had to disconnect yourself from the Net?
Lucien: Well, if someone crosses the line about something, we will definitely call them out on it, but in a nice kind of way, but we have only had a few instances like that.
Chris: We try as often as possible to connect and correspond with fans as often as possible. As get more fans it does get harder and harder, but we still try to do it. But there will be people who all of a sudden expect things from you and it can get creepy. For example, we did something out of the goodness of our hearts and sent some T-shirts and stuff to some kids who were doing some Street Team work and the return address was my parents address and because I was in good Charlotte, these kids looked up my parents address, got their home phone number and we calling my parents house. They were telling other people the number, so that is something I worry about. We try to do something nice, and some people will want to take it to another level, and it can get scary because you never know how far some kid will take it and maybe something we do now will come back to bite us in the ass in the future. And once kids start expecting something, they will get mad at you for the dumbest little things, but we know there are a lot more kids who respect that we take the time to communicate, so those are the kid we do this for. We just have to be more careful. We just hope kids understand that we are trying to respond to everyone and we definitely want to continue to stay in contact with kids as often as possible.

I was watching Fin and Christ count out the band T-shirts and was hearing a lot of youth sizes being counted, meaning you have a young fan base. That also means that you have fans that may tell their favorite band something before they will their own parents, teachers and maybe even friends. Has anything like that ever happened with this band?
Chris: There have been those kinds of things happening, which I never really expected. But at the same time, it is pretty cool because at least they are telling someone. I remember when I was a kid there were a lot of things I wouldn't want to talk about to anyone. But I get a lot of e-mails from kids who tell me they cut themselves or that they are suicidal. And it is a lot to take and sometimes it does freak me out, but at the same time it gives me the opportunity to respond back with a long, encouraging message. But it is weird to know that kids would come to me before they would someone they could go face-to-face with. But at the same time, I completely understand because at that age, I didn't really feel comfortable talking to anybody, especially my parents. You do feel very alienated, and you want to reach out to someone who you feel has been through the exact same things you are going through. I never would have imagined in a million years that kids would write to me telling me that they cut their arms up or want to kill themselves or they are bulimic or anorexic. And it happens all the time.
Lucien: Do You Remember got written after I was getting emails like that and I just transferred that energy into a song.

Do you write songs specifically for kids to latch on to and get something out of or do you just write the lyrics without any agenda?
Lucien: I write like I am telling a story, and there is no real agenda that I want someone to get out of a song. But at the same time, I can see how kids can take our songs a certain way and relate to them, and that is very cool when that happens. I don't know, I can answer that better later after we go through media training (laughing).
Chris: I just think music has always meant a lot to kids, and it is probably the only thing that means anything to me.
Fin: Yea, I mean we can look at ourselves. I know I have taken songs that seriously before and so we know that there is always the chance that our songs can be taken that seriously, too. There are kids who feel exactly the same way as we did when we wrote the song and that should be a big point of writing music is connecting with people. It should be about spreading what we feel as songwriters, and if listeners feel the same way, then that connection is made on some high level. Even if we write about something bad, it may not be a good thing that they are relating to it, but at least that kid knows there is someone who has gone through the same things and understands what is happening to them. I would love to get a help line directly set up through our Web site, especially geared towards our single, Do You Remember.