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Mark: Yes, he is actually on plain at home right now. He broke his arm when we shot the video for When Your Heart Stops Beating back in September and his doctor told him to take 8 weeks to heal. He only played with one arm during the last US Tour. It’s still not healt. He has spoken with the doctor the other day when he was out here. It starts hurting again pretty bad and his doctor looked at the latest test and said he needed to come back and see a specialist about what is going on his arm, cause it looks as more than a broken arm right now. They do much more work on it.

2. Isn’t that a handicap?

Mark: We played with Travis last night and about midnight last night the replacement drummer who is Gil who Travis is really good friends with. We met him a few times, he is a really good drummer. He arrived at Amsterdam around midnight and we told him about 6 o’clock at the morning teaching the set and the songs. We are gonna go over on the sound check. Run to the set, walk on stage tonight and to be interesting.

3. Is it normal having so many interviews?

Mark: Yeah on tour definitely. We even are home sometimes 3 hours of phone interviews and things like that. It’s good, it is a part being on band.

4. Is it sometimes boring to hear the same questions?

Mark: I used to be actually kinda get annoyed at answering the same questions all the time. Then I started my Podcast Himynameismark and I was interviewing bands I like, going on the other side on the microphone and being interviewer. I get a hold on respect. It’s difficult to come up with questions in an interesting but that a band has been asked a thousand time. So now when we are doing interviews and somebody has a question I am tired of answering. I realized it’s part of everyone wants to know about anyway. It gives me lot of prospective and I don’t mind some much anymore.

5. What’s difference between the audience from +44 and the older bands?

Mark: I think we kinda have the best of all world, because It feels like from blink-182, Travis and I were in. A lot of those people come over to +44. Also people that love Shane’s old band and Craig’s band. There are some people we met at the show who said “we don’t really care for blink-182”, but I love +44. So I feel we did the best of all world.

6. Is there maybe an older audience?

Mark: I don’t feel like there is an older audience really. I feel like there is older people that are in +44, I feel like the range of +44 is a little wider than blink-182. We started blink-182 for 15 years ago and people would like going them from the beginning and older now. +44 is a different crowd as well.

7. Do you mind hearing a lot of questions about blink-182?

Shane: No, it’s not boring me at all. I mean it’s like Marks decision about the questions if you wanna know about and it don’t mind me this answers and it’s gonna be asked. It’s definitely important.

8. It doesn’t make you feel that you are like one of the four members of the +44?

Shane: Oh yeah, I mean.

9. How important is that for you become more underground?

Mark: It was conscious decision that we made when we talked to our label, to our management and booking agents. We said, we want to start at the ground and work our way up. We want to build this band on the music. From day one we didn’t really hype it up before the record came out. We did press, we did promotion and everything else but it wasn’t like….you know we want to start with the music and let it build from there, because we want this all a foundation and we wanna stand on his own legs, not necessarily be like blink-182 part 2, even Travis and I loved everything we compared in blink-182 and we loved it all of the time that we spent in that band.

10. Will you have some guests in your next record?

Mark: Possibly, we talked that actually on this record. A lot of people that offered jumping on the album and a lot of people we would like to work with, but on the first record we wanted to be just the four of us. I concentrated on doing that road and haven’t be of collaborate project with a bunch of different people. But on the next record for sure!

11. Have you already listened to the covers of Odi?

Mark: No I have not. Is Odi a guy or a band? I have seen mention on him on lot of this sites. I have seen a lot of talking about him, but I have never actually heart it. (CD

12. Why did you choose The Tommys as your support?

Mark: That was a booking-agent thing, to be honest. I watched them for the first time and listened to them last night. I thought they were really cool, they definitely rock!

13. Is it a different thing to play in Europe, especially in Europe than in the US?

Mark: It seems like people are kinda of excited and enthusiastic everywhere we go. Sometimes introduce people last quite what is your favourite place to play and what’s your favourite venue and things like that. It really just depends on the night. We could play in the exact same city, in the exact same club five nights in a row and every single night would be different. The shows in L.A. we played that I loved. Every place is filled with good people.

14. What is your relationship to Angels & Airwaves?

Mark: I haven’t spoken with Tom about two years. People listen +44, people listen to Angels & Airwaves, people listen to what ever they want. We don’t even feel like this competition on any other band, no matter who it is. We do our own thing.

15. Was it a big step for you singing alone in +44?

Mark: Absolutely, I didn’t think I can do that in the past when we were recording the album, I kept saying we have to find another singer, because you know we are writing songs. Normally I sang Up to C anything about that Tom would sing. So I wouldn’t sing in D,E,F at all. On this record there is a song in high F and I actually sing that. This necessarily we haven’t found somebody that fit with us. It happened organicly, so I was doing all vocals. At the end of the record I am really proud of the vocals on the record. I didn’t know I could that with my voice.

16. Do you have a vocal coach?

Mark: No I don’t, it’s very conscious. It’s more impresser now for sure. I am the only one who is doing the singing. Before I was aware of my voice and being sick and things like that awkward. But now it’s like ten times of that, because I am the only singer. I don’t drink on tour, I don’t smoke on tour I trying to use my seats I can, drinking lots of water and that is pretty boring on tour, because I am worried of losing my voice.

17. Will you become more influenced in more directions?

Mark: I don’t know. I think that we are gonna go out for a lot of different directions, because we have really defined to ourselves what +44 is. There would not confirmed by that. We are punk rock band, we are an electronic band, we are influenced by hip hop beats, we are influenced by dance music whatever. But we are all those things and none of them is specifically. If we wanna do a song there is all electronic we would, because it sounds fun to us. The last song we started writing till up ended at the next record, was like this Indie-Sounding-Country Song. That sounded cool. We all listen to all different and diverse music. No one of us listen to just one thing. We have a bunch of different tastes. When we go sit down writing a song, all kind is coming to play. We never know how a song isn’t how the song is done. There are songs on the record start off with electronic songs and ended up with an acoustic guitar with nice verses.

18. Have you already written new songs?

Mark: We have a couple. We are actually gonna write a bunch of this songs out on this tour, I think. But see how it like goes without having a drummer here. We work on co-progressions and things like that.

19. Was it hard for you writing all the lyrics alone?

Mark: A little bit I definitely worked really hard on the lyrics for this record. We have recorded in our studio in Los Angeles and I would sit up there and write words and sometimes spend a couple of days out there. But the time I was finished the lyrics, I was really proud of them. Shane and I worked together for some lyrics on the record as well. I thought they were really good actually. On all the blink records I feel like we talked honestly about a lot of things. But I felt like when I was writing lyrics for blink, it qualified things, take it back a little bit. On this record if a song is downer, it’s let it be a downer. If a song happy and uplifting, it let it be that.

20. Do you show some emotions in your lyrics?

Mark: First time when we finished on the record was the song called No It Isn’t. It’s about the end of blink-182 and when I finished that song I was like man that is pretty earnestly about the end of blink-182. I called the song No It Isn’t as a joke at myself.

21. What do you inspire to write the best song?

Shane: Honestly I don’t really know. It just happens like you sit down. I never say “oh my god I have to write a song”. I sit down, pick up one of my guitar in depending on guitar that I pick up and a certain song come out. I honestly have no idea what’s gonna come out.

Mark: I don’t know where my inspiration comes from either. When we writing songs this feeling when I get when another song is working and when it’s not working. When it’s working it’s just the best thing in the world. Watch a good song come from a small idea, built a completed song is the most satisfying thing in the world.

22. What will happen after the tour? Have you some plans?

Mark: We finish the tour in the 10th February. Then we fly home for about a week and then we fly to Australia and Japan, come home for a few more weeks and then we go out for tour with Fall Out Boy in the United States.

23. When will you come back to Germany?

Mark: This Summer!!!!


24. Will you play again with Carol Heller in the future?

I would love too, it would be really fun if she comes out on stage and sing her part in Make You Smile. I don’t know if that is gonna happen, she is pregnant and having kids.

25. What will be the next single here in Germany?

Mark: I don’t know. We are just talking about the next single right now and it’s something we have to discuss with the label. It’s down to either “155” or “Baby, Come On” or “No It Isn’t”. It’s kind of songs which have being discussed.

26. What are you experiences as a rock star?

Mark: Yeah lots. One time we went to go visited this radio station and we walking into the building, were in the parking garage, there is a woman outside that ran up and trying to haircut Travis. That was a little bit strange.

27. Are you satisfied with your record?

Mark: The response has been we even expected. We are really humbled by how much people say about the record. We just kinda locked ourselves in studio, kept our heads down and recorded the album we wanted to make, we love. Put it out there and our representation and release the record, go out on tour and start building things.
We put up the record and doing all the work. We didn’t know what to expect as far as record sales or things like that. We started off pretty smally one, play in small clubs and building our way up. We don’t have that grand expectations off everything.

28. Is it more honest to play in “+44” than in “blink-182”?

Mark: It’s just lyrically in blink I was felt like people really honest stuff. I didn’t ever feel like I was putting up into the front or anything. When I was writing in blink-182 even our writing completing on a song. Adam’s song is a perfect example. It’s a downer song, it’s a midi-depressed on tour and about a bunch of things. In the end it’s you can’t wait to go home. The last chorus of the song puts a positive spell on things. It’s more hopeful at the end of the song. So it’s a downer song with a hopeful ending which I really like and that was cool. On this record I didn’t wanna qualify everything and make a happy ending on things. I wanna the downers down.

29. How do you think about the internet?

Mark: The internet is a kind of a source both ways are undeniable like file-sharing, people burning CDs it’s definitely harming the record in the street , but it’s also great thing for bands, because there is so much available for people that like a band. We are growing up, be like a band and only have the record. Maybe you would go find a poster of the band. I love the “Descendents”, they are my favourite band for a long time. I had no idea how they look like until “Liveage” came out, there were pictures of the band. Now if you like a band, in a few hours you can have a hundred of photos of them, Tour-dates, T-shirt like everything. It’s a great thing for bands, especially for young bands starting out at Myspace and something like that.

30. When you are on stage, what do you think of?

Mark: All kinds of different things during the show. Sometimes I am thinking about “I hope I remember the words to the next line. Sometimes I am thinking something back home, sometimes I thinking about what I need to clean my garage at home. I spend a lot of time looking at the crowd and interacting with the crowd, just watching their reaction. Who’s doing what clothes, it’s always so fun watch the crowd, cause that’s the show is really all about. It’s connecting with the audience and it’s usually a bunch of people at front singing every word.