The Mosaic Interview: The Early November

On Feb. 28, The Early November will step on stage in the Trabant University Center alone, without a big-name band waiting to follow, plucked from the line-up of the Warped Tour entourage and lacking the huge-production-yet-small-club spectacle of its U.K. tour with New Found Glory. The band, whose university concert is sponsored by the Student Centers Programming Advisory Board, will have no set-list and make no promise to remember every song it's willing to play. The Early November's only goal in the Multipurpose Room on Wednesday night is to please its college-aged audience and further spread their unique artistic vision and story.

After the indie/emo-pop/rock band from nearby Hammonton, N.J. formed in 2001, it quickly started to make a name for itself after signing with the small, yet successful, Drive-Thru Records, performing on one of the biggest musical festival tours in the country and releasing its first full-length album, "The Room's Too Cold."

At a time when its genre was exploding into mainstream popularity, it seemed as though the members of The Early November had a golden ticket to ride this musical bandwagon to the top. However, as friends and peers in bands like Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco began topping charts across the nation, The Early November remained merely an opener.

Some attribute this left-behind reputation to the release of the band's second full-length album, "The Mother, the Mechanic, and the Path." The album features three separate CDs which tell the story of a troubled father-son relationship from differing viewpoints. Each disk has a unique sound - the first capturing audiences with a traditional rock 'n' roll sound, the second portraying a softer, smoother side and the third as an unusual combination of dialogue set to music.

Despite the album debuting at No. 31 on the Billboard Top 200, support for the triple-CD album dropped rapidly as it was too long and too misunderstood.

Now, amidst a sea of break-up rumors and on the brink of the band's national headline tour, drummer Jeff Kummer takes time to address some of the common, pressing questions that face the group.

So this Delaware performance looks like a good warm-up for the upcoming tour. Is this where you plan to work out all your jitters?

As far as I know for this tour, what we're planning to do - because we've played two college shows so far and we did this and it was really good to just get a good vibe going - is we're going to go out every night without a set list and just take requests. We're just going to play what people want to hear. I think that's the best thing to do and it's less stressful for us. We may fuck up because we don't know the songs, but you know, whatever. We're going to play what people want to hear even if we don't know how to play it. We're going to make every show as good as it can be.

The last nationwide tour you did was opening for Fall Out Boy. How did that go?

It was good. We hadn't played with those guys in a really long time. We've been touring with New Found Glory for the past four months because we went to the U.K. with them. It was cool because we knew everybody going into that tour, but it was different because it was such a production. They did all the production they would do in an arena tour, but they did it in small clubs, which was pretty crazy. I've never seen anything like that.

We've heard you were talking with some major record labels, why did you decide to stick with Drive-Thru Records?

It wasn't that we decided to stick with them, it was because we were locked down in a contract. We're tied to them for like a bazillion records or something like that. Even if we did want to go to a bigger label, we wouldn't even have a choice. If we weren't, we would probably try for a bigger label, just to see what it's like. We're with Drive-Thru and they're really good people, but I'd like to see what it would be like if our band was on something amazing.

You released the triple album at a time when the other bands in your genre were really starting to make it big. Why, at such a crucial moment, did you decide to release the triple album?

We weren't really paying attention to what was going on with everything, we just had a ton of songs and we just thought "What the hell?" We'll just record a crap-load of songs and do something really cool. We were all really into it at the time so we just went with it.

A lot of people were like, "This record is going to kill you because no one is ever going to listen to that many songs." I think that is kind of the case because a lot of people can't get through that CD. I can understand why because there are a million songs. But it was fun to do and I wouldn't take it back.

How did the triple album do commercially?

We expected it actually to do a little better. We were told a bunch of things and we were made a bunch of promises about what it was going to do for us, but it was on MTV for like a week and then they were like, "We aren't going to do anything with your band anymore."

It was awesome that we sold so many records in the first week, but it was a disappointment to a lot of other people. A lot of people gave up faith after the first week and no one stuck with it. But I couldn't be happier with [the album], I think it's awesome.

Do you ever wonder, "What if we didn't do the triple album and decided to go the more traditional route, where would we be today?"

I honestly think if we did just one record and decided to just make a record full of hits, then we would be in a different position right now. But, what this band really likes to do is record and we wanted to put out a ton of songs. We knew we had a lot of stuff and we were like, "Well, why hold this stuff and hold it to the next record or the next record? Why not put it all out at once and give our fans more to listen to?"

How much longer are you going to push the triple album before heading back into the studio?

We haven't really thought about it. I don't even know if we have any plans for after this tour as of now. That is something we need to talk about. We're just going to take it as it comes.

After the release of the triple album, there were some rumors floating around that the band may be breaking up. Is there any truth to those rumors?

Oh yeah, we break up like every other day. There was a point when we almost officially broke up. We break up almost every tour, but that's just what happens, like with any other band. I think it just gets out a lot more with us. Other than that, we're a pretty tight-knit group and we're all great friends. Even when we're like, "Oh, we're going break up," we're still good friends. We're just five completely different people and everyone wants to be something different. It's like any other relationship, even if there's no woman in it. It's like, "Dude, come back, I love you."

After this headline tour, what do you plan on doing next?

I'm planning on going into the studio with this band I've been working with, Grace Period, as a side project. We go into the studio in May and we're going to record a full-length and see what we can do with that. It's me and some guys I started my first band with. We just figured it would be fun to just go and record something. We'll do that on our downtime. Ace [TEN lead singer and guitarist] may be coming to sing on a couple songs. As of right now [The Early November] doesn't have any other plans, just the tour and Bamboozle in May.