Sierra Kusterbeck and Blake Harnage of VersaEmerge

So how’s warped tour going? Are you enjoying it?

Blake: Of course, it’s going amazing. We’re about two weeks in, it still feels like the
beginning, and its just craziness. It’s like a traveling carnival.

Sierra: Pretty much, yes. It’s rock and roll summer camp, it’s a traveling circus, it’s
absolutely insane probably the most fun that a person could have for a summer in a
band.

Give me two or three words to describe your live show?

Sierra: Twisty

Blake: Sticky

Sierra: A little funky

Blake: Kind of sharp

Sierra: Sharp, yea.

So, what’s a normal routine like for VersaEmerge before a performance?

Sierra: Warming up, getting our gear together, jumping around. I do pull-ups and
push-ups in the semi-stage-stage of it.

Blake: We all put our hands in and kind of on the spot pick random words that we…

Sierra: …have to do with the city or…

Blake: …that we embrace, and sometimes it doesn’t have to do with anything.

Sometimes it’s like “potato salad.”

Sierra: Sometimes its “ham sandwich. Haha, yea we do a lot of food, actually.

Speaking of food, are you enjoying the food on tour?

Sierra: Oh my god yes. It’s awesome, today we had Portobello burgers.

Are you guy’s vegetarians?

Sierra: Yeah I am.

Any struggles on the road so far that has made it hard to be on tour?

Blake: It’s pretty hard that it starts at 11, or 7 for crew, doors open at 11, and its just
all day. Throughout the day we have our schedule so it’s like; lunch, press, set –
depending on what time our set is we find out the morning of – signing, setting up
stuff before we play, and then trying to get to the showers, and trying to hang out at
our table and meet fans. There are a lot of things you got to cram into the day.

Sierra: It’s all very spontaneous.

Any crazy crowd/fan interaction while on tour?

Sierra: The last few days have been really receptive to live show, tons of kids have
been watching and they love it. Really good energy, I always end up in the crowd at
the end of the set.

Blake: This kid jumped up on stage the other day and got like tackled off.

Sierra: oh yea this kid, I don’t know why, but they were like giving me a high five and
I pointed at them and I guess they thought that meant I invited them on stage. And
the stage is very strict and this person started to crawl up it and they just took him
out. I was like “sorry!”

Blake: Security doesn’t tolerate…haha

Anything you’d like to say to your fans?

Blake: Look at our tour dates, come chill with us, learn our songs so you can sing
them in the front row.

Sierra: Pick up the record. Just be who you are and follow your dreams.
Vic Fuentes and Tony Perry of Pierce the Veil

Give me two words to describe your band?

Vic: Selfish Machines

Tony: Really Exciting

Are you guys enjoying warped tour?

Vic: Yeah dude, it’s been amazing

Have there been any struggles on the road?

Vic: The weather was really intense the first couple of weeks. There were gnarly
storms through Texas and stuff, but other than that it’s been awesome.

Anything you like to do before you perform?

Vic: yeah, I warm up for like an hour before every show. I do stretching and stuff
like that, because our show is really physically intense, so I gotta make sure I stretch
it out a little bit.

Tony: We’re always jumping around; we have huge risers that we’re jumping off, so
it’s kind of physically demanding I guess. We are always trying not to get hurt.

How do you get your fans more engaged in the show?

Vic: We kind of feel out each crowd and see what they need, if I need to fuckin yell at
them more, then I’ll do that. But otherwise today was just crazy, they were just
going nuts.

Tony: Yea usually in the morning, their kind of slow. The kids today went nuts right
away. Usually if we play a show at 11:30 in the morning the kids are like half asleep.

What was your favorite stop to play on so far on Warped Tour?

Vic: I think today was one of the best. Boston killed it today.

How’s the food situation on tour?

Vic: It’s awesome. Catering is awesome.

Tony: When you can get it it’s great.

Vic: yeah, like today we might have to miss it. They have vegan and vegetarian
versions of everything.

Any crazy stories from tour so far?

Tony: The other day Vic came back with like a cut on his face and we were like “what
happened?” And I guess he said a girl saw him and got excited and just like smacked
him in the face…

Vic: Yea she hit me in the face with her magazine and cut me, and gave me a paper-
cut on my lip. I was bleeding trying to take pictures with her. It was funny.

Anything you’d like to say to your fans?

Tony: New albums out – Selfish Machines

Vic: Yeah, go pick up the new album, its on iTunes, at hot topic, on MySpace and
follow us on twitter @peircetheveil
Tomorrow’s Bad Seeds
An interview with members:
Sean: Guitar/Vocals
Mat: Guitar/Keyboards/Dj/Vocals
Pat: Drums
Andre: Bass

Okay, so give me two words to describe your band?

Reggae Up-Your-Ass!

So where are you guys from?

Southern California. So-Cal basically.

How are you guys enjoying Warped Tour?

Fuckin love it!

Great!

Awesome!

How long have you guys been together as a band?

5 years

So what’s a normal routine that you guys do to prepare prior to going on stage?

Before we go on stage we like to go back and chill out, stretch out, warm up, get a
couple beers in us, loosen up a little bit.

So what City has been your favorite place to play on warped so far?

Burgettstown was pretty fun, Pennsylvania was fuckin awesome. They’ve all been
pretty good, you never know what to expect. And not having played a lot of the
cities it’s kind of cool that we can draw at least a little crowd as the passersby stop
by and stick around to see us play.

In Burgettstown there was a lawn in front of us where these kids were just chillin,
and as we started playing they just started coming down, that was probably the
better show by far.

We’ve been getting a lot of new fans on this tour because I would say that we’re the
only reggae-influenced band on this tour.
Do you have any other tours planned after Warped Tour? Any other plans?

We’re actually going right into the next one from this one.

Yea we’re doing a tour; we’re meeting up with Pepper, for a date, then continuing a
West coast tour with this other band from New Zealand called Katchafire. We got a
new album that just came out called Sacred For Sale, it’s our sophomore album, but
we’re thinking about recording an acoustic album at the end of August.

Any hardship’s that you have experienced on the road?

Just family, being away from family, that’s the hardest thing.

We love to surf, and being on tour…after awhile it kind of gets to you. Not being able
get to the water. I mean it’s nothing crazy, but when we really want to surf, it’s like
damn there’s nothing we can do when you’re in the middle of the country.

Do you guys write a lot of music on tour?

We try to, yeah. And we come up with ideas and we try to work them out with each
other.

Do you have a message you’d like to say to your fans?

Spread the seed. Check us out! Google Tomorrows Bad Seeds. We just really want to
play conscious music, and have a good time, and just keep it real.

And to keep spreading a positive message to the kids that do come see us play,
instead of just that vulgarity and the desensitizing music that goes on. You’ve got to
enjoy life while you’re here and if you have that attitude of fuck life, you’re going get
that in return.
Jerry Roush of Of Mice and Men

So, how’s Warped Tour going?

It’s awesome. It’s so fun everyday. I get to hang out with a hundred of my best
friends everyday. A lot of the bands on this tour are good friends of mine, so it’s just
cool to be able to hang out with your really good friends every single day. And then
to be able to play shows for thousands of people a day too, it’s a lot of fun. Drink
some beers.

Who are some of your friends on tour with you? Is there ever any drama?

Confide
Suicide Silence
Emmure
Attack Attack
Emarosa
Pretty much everybody

There’s no drama, and the vibe is good, that’s what we call ourselves the Vibe Tribe.

Have you experienced any hardships on tour?

Well, obviously when your on long tours like this it kind of sucks to be away from
your friends and family, although I do get to see my friends everyday that are in
bands, but other friends at home and family. So that’s the only kind of hardship, but
if you can tough that out then tour’s awesome. But it gets old, just like anything if
you do it everyday.

Two words to describe your live sound?

Get Live, because we make that shit live. We try to make people wake up.

How has the fan interaction been?

Oh it’s been really awesome. There’s a lot of bands like I said, like Suicide Silence,
Bring Me the Horizon, and Attack Attack are all good friends of mine, but when we
play the same time as them, because they are different stages, its kind of like who’s
gonna take the kids? What show are they gonna watch? Are they gonna watch Bring
Me the Horizon, or are they gonna watch Of Mice And Men, are they gonna Suicide
Silence? The same kids like the same style, so that’s the only thing that we might
play against people.

How are you enjoying the food on tour?

Ohh man, food is like the best thing on tour, it’s like gourmet food. Shout out to
TaDa! Catering, they’ve been doing it every year and they fuckin’ do their thing.
They’re really good.

Anything you’d like to say to your fans?

Just keep on coming and watch our show. I know there’s some drama with our old
singer that left and you know people are kind of hating on the fact that I’m the
singer now. And you know some people can accept change, and that’s what it is. It
wasn’t my idea, I don’t even know Austin Carlile, and I’ve met the guy maybe once or
twice. When I first started with them I was filling in and then they kicked him out,
and then conveniently asked me. And then people were like “you tried to sabotage
him.” Well, it wasn’t that way at all man. I just like to make music and try to have
fun. I’m not on the record that people buy so if you listen to that, don’t just shun it
out there from the music, come and at least watch it live with me. And also Austin
doesn’t really scream, he does this like fake whisper scream type thing where he’s
like “I’m not screaming, but I’m…” but you know that’s what he does. So I’m a lot
different because I’m actually screaming and doing what a screamer should do, a
front man.

Does Of Mice and Men have any future plans?

We have a tour after this with August Burns Red in Europe. After that we are
probably gonna start writing heavily.