australia interview

1. What does the name 'Anberlin' mean? and where did you come up with it?
none of us are married, or have any children, but one day in the future i want to name my daughter anberlin. i don’t think that i can name her that now, because she would always assume that i named her after the band.
2. How did Anberlin begin?
three and a half years ago the 4 of us came together and decided that we wanted to pursue our dreams and passions and pursued music full time. i was still in college and we went to atlanta, georgia and recorded our demo with matt goldman. we shipped it off to various labels and got amazing response. we assessed all the contracts offered and realized tooth and nail gave us the biggest opportunity and fighting chance.
strayer (guitarist) joined us may of ‘05 and has made such a positive impact on our live show.
3. What are some of your greatest achievements?
i could say the international touring, to austraila, new zealand, scotland, whales, england, etc. or the amazing stateside tours we have been on with fallout boy, hawthorne heights, story of the year, my chemical romance, etc. or the album sales, but the greatest achievement i believe is taking a chance to pursue my dreams even though there have been some of the toughest moments of my life. the other crowning achievement of this band has been to walk into this band with a couple of friends and when we walk away, we will walk away brothers.
4. Stephen, you have an awesome voice! Did you take singing lessons at an
early age or does that shit come naturally?
honestly i believe i am the least talented person in the band, think about it a singer is born with his talents, sure you can improve on what you have, and develop new or different ways to warm up or down, but honestly you can either sing or you can’t. i have taken a couple lessons with sandra babbel, an amazing opera singer that now resides in kalowna, canada. but honestly i attribute being raised around music as the contributing factor in developing my range and style.
5. Do you think that it is important for all self taught musicians that want

to make it big to take a few lessons to improve their skills?
ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!!!! when you think you have ‘made it’ or think you have all the talent you need you are preparing yourself to be in a box, and can no longer develop what you have. i think at one point or another we have all (in anberlin) received lessons. if i could i would go and get more but we are never in one place for more than a couple days, so i can’t. but i think it is imperative to improve, evolve, and mature in whatever instrument you are learning. and don’t stick to just one genre of music to learn from and immolate. their is amazing blues like muddy waters, jazz like john coltrane and nina simone, folk like blue merele or union station, etc. don’t just listen to your peers in one genre or you will end up sounding like them.

6. What is the best tour you guys have done? where did you go? who do you
tour with? and what was the best memory of it?
every tour is amazing in its own way,
our first tour was with further seems forever and movielife, they taught us how to survive on the road and movielife taught us about how brotherhood in the band is so important. every story of the year tour has been so much fun, that band has shown us more kindness than any other for sure. i think our first tooth and nail tour was our biggest learning ground as we had to headline for our first time. each one is amazing in its own right. each one i would not give up, even the hardest of times.
7. Who influences you guys and where does your u
niqueness come from?
i think all 5 of us like 5 different types of music.
deon likes punk rock, joey likes metallica and alice in chains, strayer only listens to hard core, nate loves the beatles and brit pop, and i am into the smiths and instrumental stuff like circle of birds and godspeed. i think the advantage to listening to so many types of music is that our music doesn't sound like everyone else’s. we pull from a more broad background of inspirations, so we don’t sound like everyone else in our same category.
8. What would you consider to be the best invention that we have today?
cell phones. for bands it keeps us in contact with the outside world, but on this tour it has been so cold that i think the best invention was the car heater. as far as things on the road you shouldn’t do with out is an IPOD because CD’s get lost or messed up, and an apple laptop doesn’t hurt either.
9. Are the type of guys to befriend your fans?.. If a fan wanted to party
with you guys how would he/she win you over?
yea for sure, i love hanging out with fans. the easiest way to win us over is to pretend that you don’t care that were in a band. we get a ton of people asking for our autograph, but not many people ask if we just want to get a drink and hang out. talk about anything but band stuff and were cool.
joey and deon love cartoons, strayer loves movies (he owns over 400 dvd’s cause he worked at a video store), nate young likes rock climbing and lord of the rings, i love fashion, the stock market, and books, so talk to us about other stuff than just band gear, or if this person from this band is cool.
10. Where do you want Anberlin to go from here?
if we stooped today chantaine, i would be so happy. it has been a wonderful and amazing road that we have journeyed on, and the people i have met have been more than brilliant. the places we have been able to see are more than most people get to see in a lifetime! i feel honored and humbled that people from all over the world sing along with something i helped create.
so in other words, anything more than what i have done is truly just ‘icing on the cake,’ because life doesn’t get much better than this...