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My Interview with HOOBASTANK

I would like to Share My Interview with Hoobastank last time. It was fun and here the Recap. No stranger to his Asian fans, baby-faced Doug Robb and Dan Estrin, lead singer and Bass Player from American rock band Hoobastank, as they tell us.

Rendy: Why You Guys named Hoobastank as your Band Name?

Dough: I don’t remember how we ended up with the name Hoobastank. It’s something that we came up with when we were all playing in high school. We should have come up with a name that’s cooler, huh?

Dan: What keeps us going is the fact that we are always conscious to keep things fresh and not to repeat ourselves. Musically, the changes that we’ve been through (as a band) have been natural. We kinda just write about the different life experiences that we go through.

Sofian: Have you had that a lot – people saying you’re not a real rock band?
Dan: Yeah. Even before “The Reason” I think people were jealous you know. We’ve been doing this 10 years. We’re not this knock off band. We’ve had this whole Incubus knock off band thrown at us…we grew up in the same neighbourhood, listening to the same music and obviously we’re gonna have some similar styles and stuff. I think most of it was the fact that Doug and Brad were both heavily influenced by Mike Patton from Faith No More, so there’s some similar styles with that, but I think our music’s totally different.

Dough: People just always try to put us down. The same people who said we got lucky after “The Reason” were the same people saying we got lucky after “Crawling In The Dark” and “Out Of Control”. Well, how many times can you get lucky? What, we’re a 5 hit wonder band or something?

Dan: I guess now we’re starting to get a little credibility. I don’t know why people were shitting on us all the time. Oh well, it’s probably cos we weren’t all rock n roll and blowing up buildings.

Rendy: Are you surprised at the success over the past year with the single “The Reason”?
Dough: You notice it more over here. Maybe that’s cos we haven’t been here so much. I think our goal now is to start coming over to the UK a lot more. As I said earlier last time we came out over here was about 2 years ago and we just haven’t had the chance to come back cos we’ve been so busy in the States. Before we were playing places like the Garage in London and smaller places around the UK and now we’re playing 2500 seaters and they’re sold out. It’s pretty cool.

Sofian: It was a bizarre moment as a fan and it must have been even stranger as a band. When you first came out you were literally everywhere with “Crawling In The Dark”, you hibernated for years and then suddenly you turn on MTV and can’t escape “The Reason”
Dan: After that UK tour we just took about 6 months off and started writing the 2nd album. And then for about the last year we’ve just been out on the road going across the States in support of this album. It took us to South East Asia, Japan, Australia, Canada and all of the States and the last time we did England it was only for Top Of The Pops. After the UK we go to Brazil, have 10 days off and then another 2 months out in the States. Hopefully then we’ll be able to start writing some music you know.

Rendy: Is it when you do the live shows you really realize what an impact that that song made?
Dough: Yeah. I don’t give a shit about charts or what airplay we have that week. It’s all about people coming to your shows. Charts are more for the record company, but the truth is you can be at Number 1 and still be playing a small venue with no-one there. You still have bands that can’t get on the charts that still have huge sold out shows.

Sofian: So how do you feel about the download situation seeing as “The Reason” was downloaded about a trillion times
Dan: Yeah, we got the report through. Hoobastank’s “The Reason” is the most downloaded song of 2004. It’s like great, buy the album. People are going to always download it cos it’s free and it sucks. I have friends that download, but i’d feel bad if I was doing it. It hurts because record companies in the States will look over here to the UK and say you’re not really selling that many albums, it’s hard to grasp how many fans you have when people are just downloading music. Over in the States the local record shops are closing down and printed magazines are folding because fans have already downloaded the album before a review comes out – whichever way you look at it, it is hurting people.

Rendy: You must have had your rock n roll moments?
Dough: I got arrested for drunk driving last May. That’s kind of rock’n’roll-ish. Don’t drive drunken in California cos it’s like the worst. I ended up paying a $10,000 fine and places like Canada look at it as a felony so I have to do all this court paper stuff every time we go.

Rendy: At this stage you must know where you’re going to be 12 months from now. How is it living your life permanently on the road?
Dough:  I’m always writing when i’m on the bus. I play more guitar than bass, but Dan is such a good rhythm guitar player so I show him what I have, but then he’ll take it and vamp it up. He’s such an innovator. We’re just starting writing properly at the moment and there’s always this thought that the second album’s always the tough one, but I think it’s going to be the third one for us.

Dan: The way if works is when we get home we’ll record all our riffs individually. We all have pro tools set-ups at home and we make a CD and pass it round the other members. Were not like a jam band who jams around. We always write by ourselves. We’re just not gonna pressure ourselves too much. Whatever goes out goes out. For us there’s not a great pressure to rush anything out, maybe get something out for the end of 2005 / early 2006. We’ve just released “Disappear” and we’ll see how that goes and if it goes well we’ll just keep touring.

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