November 28, 2006
[interview by Alexa]

Estrella: Could you please state your name and what you do in the band?
Paul: My name is Paul Fried and I play with giraffes and I play the bass.
Ben: My name is Ben Einzinger, I play guitar and I sing.

Estrella: How did all of your members meet?
Paul: Ben and I are step brothers, we've been step brothers for almost 20 years now. Ben was friends with George when he used to go back to St. Louis and they went to camp together ironically. Both Ben and I are from Los Angeles but we have a family friend who is really close with George's family, so he kind of came along. Actually, the band had just started with Ben and I and we asked Steph if she wanted to sing and we found Steph through our friends in the band, Phantom Planet. What had happened is that Ben and I after we broke up from our last band, Ben started to write songs and he asked Steph if she wanted to sing them and Ben asked if I wanted to play some bass and so on and it's all from there. Sorry that question gets asked a lot.

Estrella: Who would you say some of your biggest influences are as to why you have a band?
Paul: Our influences are obviously all the music we listen to from Radiohead to Ray Charles to Nirvana to The Beatles to Pink Floyd, I mean it's all over the map. You know, we just love music as people, so that's it's own inspiration but if you're asking where we draw from, I mean it's life. We draw from life, whatever our experiences are whether they're good or bad.
Ben: Definitely John Lennon and we could go all the way up to Thom Yorke to Toni Braxton. Just joking.

Estrella: What do you think you'd be doing if you weren't in a band?
Paul: Trying to make a lot of money.
Ben: I don't know. That's kind of like asking what would you do if you weren't you? I mean, like one day when I'm done being in a band, I want to write music for movies, that's what I got started doing within the last year, working on music for commericals and movies, just sticking my feet in it. That's something I'd like to do.

Estrella: When signing to Immortal, who found who? Did the company come to you or did you find it?
Paul: We had relations with owner, Happy Walters for two years previous to that and we asked him to come down to our show and immediately, I think the next day he asked us if we wanted a record deal and we were so excited about having a record deal that we went for it.

Estrella: Recently, you did a track for a Santa Cause II and how was that?
Paul: Santa Cause too, I don't know, we wrote a Christmas song but I don't think it was for Santa Cause II, I think it was for Myspace.
Estrella: I mean it's about the same Immortal brought out the album and sells it over Myspace?
Paul: Oh okay, now I'm clear, I'm sorry. We had a great time writing the song. I mean, anytime we write a song we want to make it the best we can, we all put our hearts into it, this is why we're here. They asked us if we had wanted to write a song for the album and we were totally down to do it and it came out really good. We got my brother Mike [Incubus] to play on it and we had Sam [Phantom Planet] to play it on it, it was great. It was a collaboration.

Estrella: By being out the road, I'm sure you've come across quite a few towns. The sketchiest/shadiest town you've ever been and I'm sure there's been a few but I want to know about one that stands out.
Paul: Well I can tell you about a motel we stayed out in Austin, where I found blood in my sheets. Like, there's a lot of places in the United States that are kind of a little scary but I can tell you that our hotel, like people were living there/they lived in these motels - it was a huge huge huge building - there was tons of people, it was a little scary but when I found blood on the sheets, I was just like "Yeah, I don't think I want to stay here again."
Ben: That was by far, the worst one. It was so scary, every night there was like 3 or 4 police cars coming up every single night because there was something going on and there was literally families living in the place. I remember when we walked in the hotel and everything was made for someone who was like 4 feet tall, like the couch you couldn't lie on it - you couldn't stretch your legs out, your knees would be like rammed into your jaw. I remember when we got into the bed, when I was getting into my bed - it was like a small twin bed and there was hair, all over, all over it. I remember George's - he had blood in his bed.

Estrella: After the Hoobastank tour, do you have any upcoming tour plans to follow?
Paul: As of right now, we're still seeking out to find dates and hopefully we'll find some soon but right now January's kind of a quiet month cause it's right after the holidays but I'm sure it'll pick up soon. Like there's been talk about maybe going out with Phantom Planet, you know we'll see what comes along.

Estrella: Best Halloween costume you've ever worn.
Ben: I really liked going as Dee Snider, along with my friend Ricky Sambora to an AA meeting, that was the whole character, it couldn't just be Dee Snider by himself because that wouldn't have been that funny but the fact that I went with my good friend Ricky Sambora and we were on our way to an AA meeting was probably the best.
Paul: I was a werewolf in eighth grade and my brother Mike put hair all over my face because I couldn't grow hair myself and I went to school as a werewolf, all day.
Ben: Mike actually shaved his pubic hairs and put it on his face.
Paul: It was actually my chest hair, I had chest hair just no facial hair.

Estrella: Any bands you would like to plug into the interview that you don't think are getting enough exposure.
Ben: Bands that I don't feel are getting enough exposure? I'm trying to think, I don't know. All of the bands I want to talk about already have enough exposure. I have no idea right now. My brain's on stand by.

Estrella: Favorite candy bar.
Ben: Snickers, I started recently trying to get into Almond Joy, I like the coconut, it makes me feel like I'm on vacation.

Estrella: Favorite candy cane flavor.
Ben: Strawberry.
Paul: Classic peppermint.

Estrella: If you were on a desert island, stranded. What are three things you'd take with you?
Ben: I'd take my fiance, I'd take my family, and I'd take all the music/guitars/everything in the world and I'd leave behind everything that sucks.
Paul: I'd bring my wife, I'd also bring my family cause Ben will be there, and I'll bring some chinese food because I like chinese food a lot.

Estrella: Upcoming plans for the band?
Ben: Probably a lot of touring. We're going to go home in January and probably take the month so we can record and write some songs, just more songs. Kind of get started on the material for the next record, then touring throughout the summer next year.

Estrella: Any closing statements.
Paul: Go buy our record and shake Santa Claus' hands.
Ben: Come to our Myspace.com page because we love that site and it's the only site we really check, that's how we're able to communicate with our lovely fans.