Monday Night, once local band Another Day Late rolled into town to melt some faces at the Haunt. The band is made up of Kohl Hegmann (vocals), Scott Kircher ’05 (guitar), Justin Talbott (guitar), Chad Philipps (bass) and Josh Hubberman (drums) and is managed by a fellow ’05 grad. They made a quick stop-over in Ithaca this week, en route to NYC, as part of the national Pac-Sun Tour they’re currently rocking with The Audition, Envy on the Coast and Danger Radio.
The show kicked off at 7:30 on Monday, and featured two other awesome local bands as well — Fairway and Aficonado. Another Day Late played a super set, providing living proof that Cornellians don’t HAVE to be doctors or lawyers.
The Sun: So, you guys have been touring with The Audition, right?
Another Day Late: [Josh] Yah, The Audition, and Envy on the Coast, and Danger Radio.
Sun: What’s been the best part, the worst part, etc. of touring?
ADL: [Josh] The cold.
[Chad] Yah, loading in the cold.
[Scott] Sleeping in the cold.
[Chad] Being in the cold … unless you’re in Justin’s bed. It’s real warm in Justin’s bed.
[Josh] It’s been, yah, doing a tour in the winter and hitting up the Northwest has been pretty crazy. The drive from Seattle to Salt Lake City, Utah was like, through the mountains. We had to put chains on our tires, a couple of the highways were shut down. And we ended up hitting black ice twice and luckily none of the bands got hurt. That’s definitely, of this tour, the worst part about it but other than that, I mean, it’s a blast.
[Justin] I would say the hardest part is playing twice because like seven days a week we’ve been playing twice a day, acoustic for daytime, and then electric at night so…
[Scott] Kohl’s vocals …
[Chad] Yah, Kohl’s been kicking ass!
[Josh] Nasal rinses every day, and vocal warm-ups, he bought a humidifier, and saline solution.
[Chad] We massage his thighs.
Sun: So this is the first time you’ve been back in Ithaca in a while, right?
ADL: [Josh] Year and a half.
Sun: And you got started in Ithaca?
ADL: [Josh] This [The Haunt] was our first like real venue we played at.
Sun: You guys like playing in Ithaca, it’s good to be back?
ADL: [Josh] Yah, we love it. It’s been an interesting thing I think for all of us, just because I mean I grew up here, everybody else went to school here. This is Chad’s first time.
[Chad] Yah, I’m actually from California originally, so this is my first time. It’s a cool city though. The one thing I did notice, like, we went to, what was that place called?
[Scott] Maté Factor.
[Chad] Yah, it’s the one place I feel comfortable because everyone looks like me. People are like “Jesus” and there’s like ten Jesus’ there. [Chad is the one with long, dark, wavy hair.] I feel like I fit in, and I love it, I think I’m gonna buy a house in Ithaca, probably. Some time this month.
Sun: So, Scott, just you went to Cornell, or was it two of you?
ADL: [Scott] Our manager, Janet, went to Cornell too.
Sun: And you graduated in ’05? Do you miss it?
ADL: [Scott] Yah, I used to bartend, so that was awesome, and I was in Sigma Chi, and that was awesome too.
[Josh] Cornell. My dad works for Cornell. Interestingly enough, he designed CoursEnroll, which I heard just got hacked.
[Justin] Dude, Al got hacked?
[Josh] Yah, my dad got hacked, and they registered for classes like 6 months early or something. There’s this big crazy thing, like who hacked it, how did they do it?
[Kohl]That’s awesome!
[Josh] He wasn’t the original developer; he just did, kinda like, the refreshes.
[Chad] Yah, he was another day late.
[Justin] Yo, did the Collegetown Creeper ever get caught?
[Josh] Yah, in California, I think so yah, they caught him like, out-of-state.
[Justin] Wow, nice!
[Kohl]Yah, we talk about him like all the time.
[Justin] Justice!!
[Chad] Hey, just for publicity, in the article can you say that we hacked that program? So, any publicity is good publicity. I just wanna like…
[Justin] And the craziest thing was, we just took like a week course in computer science and that was it.
[Kohl] Thank you, Cornell.
Sun: I will make sure that goes in somewhere. So, how’d you guys get on tour with The Audition, how’d that work out?
ADL: [Josh] We developed the tour. We asked them to play with us. Yah, I worked at Pac-Sun in Ithaca, then I moved to California, started working out there, and we had toyed around with the idea, so I went to our CEO with the proposal that, hey, Pac-Sun should really do a music tour, and they liked the idea, so I got to work at corporate for 5 months, and like planned the entire thing. Got to choose the bands. Did booking agencies.
Sun: So what’s been your favorite place to play, on the tour?
ADL: [Josh] Chicago was the coolest venue. It’s a place called Metro. There’s a mezzanine upstairs.
[Chad] Yah, this legendary venue, it was like, I mean it was just amazing.
[Scott] Smashing Pumpkins used to play there.
[Josh] As a city, I though Seattle and Denver were really cool cities to hang out.
[Chad] I don’t think there’s been a venue, where we were like, just pissed.
[Josh] Everywhere’s been sick.
[Scott] Except that one, remember when the sound went out, it was just like me and nobody else for like 10 minutes.
[Chad] I didn’t hear that.
[Josh] Yah, where was that?
[Kohl] Nope, dude. That was in your dreams.
Sun: So, moving off the tour for a sec, how would you guys describe your music, if you had to?
ADL: [Josh] Progressive Indie Rock.
[Chad] College, all, uh … Progressive Indie All-College Rock. We have a pop sensibility.
[Josh] Yah, we’re like, it’s really weird, we’re all such different guys when it comes to musical backgrounds. We really seriously all have, I know everybody probably says that answer, but we have such different tastes that when it comes together, the feedback we always get from our fans is like, there’s a bunch of metal kids that love us, a bunch of like, really indie kids that love us, a bunch of rap, like parents love us, little four year olds. And its weird, ‘cause were just like in the middle of all those things. We all bring such a different weird thing to the table that like, I dunno, it’s weird.
[Chad] Yah, like when we’re writing songs, no one is trying to be one certain thing, everyone just comes up with their creative parts and Justin and Scott are like two of the most creative guitarists that I’ve ever worked with and on top of that, me and Josh build on that and Kohl like has his…
[Josh] Yah, I think it’s beneficial that Kohl really doesn’t listen to any of the music that we do.
[Chad] Yah, like Kohl’s awesome.
[Josh] Like Kohl, what do you listen to, oh yah, Imogen Heap, Feist’s new album…
Sun: Feist is a good album!
ADL: [Josh] Yah, oh yah, its amazing, but it’s like, since he doesn’t listen to like any of the hard rock that the rest of us listen to, like the guitars are doing all this rock shit, and he just sings what Kohl sings, and it always creates this odd thing because a lot of people are like ‘I never would’ve pictured those vocals going over the type of music you play.’
[Chad] So, what we’re trying to get at is Creed is our favorite band.
[Scott] Nickleback, yah, that’s what we’re trying to get at. [please note sarcasm].
Sun: So do you guys write most of your own music, all your own music?
ADL: [Kohl] It’s all original yah.
[Josh]Yah, we write every one in a completely different manner.
Sun: You have no process for writing? It just sort of happens?
ADL: [Josh] Yah. Usually, it’s our two guitarists, who are some of the most creative dudes ever. And they just seriously write all the time. Like we have so many ideas flying around that like, if there’s all of the sudden a drum vibe or a bass vibe that we just sort of go off that. It keeps going ‘til there’s a song.
[Chad] Yah, we always write it. I mean that’s why we’re a band, it’s just fun to write music, you know?
[Scott] Yah, it’s awesome to have two guitars, ‘cause I’ll be stumped sometimes and I’ll be like ‘yo, Justin, check this out,” and he’ll be like ‘oh, yah, I love it.’
[Josh] No one’s ever had any feedback on Justin’s guitar work in a bad way ever.
[Scott] He’s really intimidating.
[Chad] Yah, he beats up dorks, so…
[Kohl] Fights ‘em.
[Josh] You wouldn’t mess with him.
Sun So what’s like the coolest person you met, or the wackiest thing that’s happened to you on tour?
ADL: [Chad] The stories could go on forever.
[Josh] So, Chad met Slash and Dr. Phil in the same night.
[Scott] We played with Slash.
[Josh] Slash’s book signing or whatever. So, I mean, it was kinda like a joke show to be honest, but Slash was there so we were like, ‘who cares, just like Slash from Guns N’ Roses. Badass.’
[Chad] Long story short, we had a few brews up in the Green Room, and like Slash was making his rounds, and we got like a lot of cool pictures of him too, but like I [Chad] just saw him there, and I was like, I was thinking to myself, I was like, ‘Chad, now’s the time.’ And the only thing I could think of at the moment was, all I have was, I don’t have, I had a marker and my cell phone. So, I said, ‘Slash, sign my cell phone battery,’ and he did. And I have it right here, as proof, if you guys wanna take a picture of it. The craziest thing was, we walked downstairs and there’s Dr. Phil and his wife because his son was in one of the other bands.
[Justin] And Chad was like, ‘I’m Chad,’ and Dr. Phil was like, ‘I’m Dr. Phil.’
[Josh] Dude, Dr. Phil was staring at Chad’s girlfriend all night.
[Chad] Dude, behind my back!
[Josh]He was creepin’ on girls all night. But, that and then there was like Vegas, where we all almost died. We ended up, Chad fell down an escalator backwards, passed out on it … and like his hair almost got sucked into it.
[Chad] Yah, I almost lost my luscious locks. They almost went through the escalator.