Set Your Goals are a part of a new pack bringing back good old-fashioned hard and fast pop-punk and hardcore to a tired scene rife with bad haircuts, gimmicks (seriously, crabcore?) and more breakdowns than you can poke a windmill and roundhouse kick at. Having just played a show in Bakersfield, California as part of the Fall Ball tour with The Academy Is... and Mayday Parade, singer Matt Wilson had a chat with us about their impending visit as part of the Soundwave Festival.
yourGigs (yG): So you'll be in Australia during our summer for Soundwave Festival. Are you looking forward to it?
Matt Wilson (MW): Yeah we're stoked. We're looking for any excuse to come out there; it's our favourite country in the world. [Laughs].
yG: Hah! Are you just saying that?
MW: [Laughs]. No I'm dead serious, we all got a koala tattoo to celebrate how much we love that place, it's cheesy and American but we did it.
yG: Actually I saw a photo of you guys holding a koala on your MySpace.
MW: [Laughs]. Yeah, yeah we've done that twice now actually, we went back last time too.
yG: Are you gonna do it again?
MW: Probably [Laughs].
yG: Have you heard much about the Soundwave line-up? And if so who are you looking forward to seeing the most?
MW: I've heard a few bands are on it, I haven't really looked at the line-up too much, but I know Paramore are on it. I heard Gallows are on it, Sunny Day Real Estate which I'm really stoked about; they're like one of my favourite bands ever. Their tour's overlapping with ours in the States so I'm stoked that I get to see them over there. I love Anthrax; I think it'll be a good time.
yG: It's a pretty decent line-up; do you think you'll do anything different to stand out from all the other bands?
MW: I think we're just gonna get up there and do our thing, maybe we'll have some sort of special surprise for everyone, but we'll see. We like to keep it interesting.
yG: What sort of special surprise?
MW: It's secret! [Laughs].
yG: Are you familiar with many Aussie bands?
MW: Yeah there used to be this band Day of Contempt that I was really into, and Carpathian, Deez Nuts, Stealing O'Neal, Parkway Drive of course, I know all those bands. We toured with Stealing O'Neal last time we were out there.
yG: Do you get much time to hang out with all the other bands while you're on tour?
MW: Absolutely, there's a lot of down time in touring, especially in Australia because we're not driving. I mean if you're coming over there in an American band you usually fly to every show, so there's a lot of downtime. It's cool; you get to hang out and do fun stuff.
yG: Is there anything in particular you want to do while you're here?
MW: [The band] Four Year Strong were telling us something about sharks; you can go out on some boat and get in this little cage and the sharks come and feed right next to you, I think that'd be fun!
yG: Your most recent album This Will Be The Death Of Us is out now through Epitaph. How has it been working with such a legendary label?
MW: It's awesome, it's great to have a label behind us that actually works as hard as we do, they actually, obviously, work harder than we do. [Laughs]. But it's good to know the label has the resources to do everything we want them to do with the record.
yG: I guess there are quite a few bands on their roster that you look up to?
MW: Oh definitely. I'm really good friends with Every Time I Die, Converge; the new Converge is incredible. They put out a lot of good stuff, even their back catalogue is obviously untouchable, all these staple bands of punk rock like Bad Religion and Offspring, NOFX [and] Rancid.
yG: As a band that is unashamedly melodic pop-punk/hardcore what are your thoughts on the party-mosh-breakdown type bands that are so trendy these days? Do you see it as something long-lasting?
MW: I think, you know, a lot of kids credit us for being a part of that, sort of revolutionising of that sound, you know, the poppy with the breakdown. We sort of tried to stay away from that, we didn't want to become part of a trend or be seen as a band that was just doing something to become popular. I mean obviously we strayed away from that a little bit on the new record; it's faster and heavier than anything we've ever released. We've still got the elements we like in there without making it corny or generic.
yG: The video for 'Summer Jam' came out recently, is it a pretty good indication of what life is like for you guys on tour?
MW: Yeah Mikey [Ambrose] our drummer made that, it's just a bunch of old footage from like our first tour and stuff.
yG: Are you still cramming into a van on tour, or is it a little nicer now?
MW: It depends on the tour; we're doing a van on this tour right now. If we go over to Europe or something sometimes we'll do buses, obviously in Australia we just fly into every show.
yG: So at the moment you're not really showering?
MW: [Laughs] No, no, no, we still get hotels or stay with friends when we're in the States, so showering plenty. We usually get hotels at this point 'cause, you know, we're old. [Laughs]. We're grumpy old men, we don't really party or do anything too exciting on the road; we just like to mellow out, watch movies and stuff.
yG: Finally, if you could choose any one band to join you on the Soundwave line-up, who would it be and why?
MW: Hmmm, probably Led Zeppelin, I would love to see them. Why? Just because they're a legendary band, and I know I'll never see them otherwise.
yG: Haha, you don't need to explain Led Zeppelin.
MW: Yeah [Laughs]. It's pretty self-explanatory.
yG: Anything else you wanna add?
MW: Follow us on Twitter! TheRealSYG. [Laughs].
Mike Jeffery
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