Roger Manganelli citations

“Roger: It was awesome! A lot of fun, good fans, good shows. We toured with Reel Big Fish and when we tour together things seem to be awesome so no complaints”

“Roger: It seems that way – it’s kind of weird how things are with music these days. You’re not really touring for the record anymore ‘cause no one buys the record. Everything’s downloaded and all that kind of stuff. We have the new songs but we’re still just touring because we’d be on tour anyway, ya know what I mean. So yeah we’re still touring in support of the new record but the new record is kind of supporting us sort of”

“JR: Cause Aaron Barrett* signed off on the publishing. He sued us because he said that we ripped off “Sell Out””

“Roger: All right, cool. Thank you. Oh great, it ends on me saying I liked a Hillary Duff song. I was hoping for something else after that. Make something up, something… to be or not to be – anything.”

“Roger: i'm stoked that we have such hard core fans but I've never thought about it. It's been there all along,, and I think we are really lucky. I think all of the singles, and picture diskc, and toys and that sort of stuff has kept the collectors out there stoked.”

“Buddy: I wear boxers, Roger wears boxer briefs.”

“Roger: Uhh.. You know.. I'm really picky and I don't actually like very many bands. The only like new band that I really like is System of A Down. I think they are amazing! It's good stuff. It's aggressive and unpredictable and I love it!!”

“Roger: It does a little bit of both I think it depends on the band. On a band that is enormously huge like Metallica it definitely hurts cause people are just going to download their stuff-period. But a smaller band maybe that hasn’t sold anything but has been able to have some good shows and get some fans out because of their MySpace or whatever you know what I mean. Using the Internet as a tool to promote the band is awesome. My sisters’ band doesn’t have a CD or whatever but they constantly pull 100 kids at their shows because they promote heavily on the internet and they stay in touch with their fans that way so it can be either or. For Less Than Jake we’re right in the middle. We definitely get a lot of paths to talk about the band, and interviews, and stuff for sale, and you know what I mean MySpace’s and Facebook’s all that kind of stuff there’s a presence there that definitely helps the band. But at the same time I know we’re one of the bands that is a victim of a lot of downloading so there you go.”

“Roger: I also have been producing/recording more and more, and that takes time, too. But that's what i always wanted to do, work on music,, so it's not a bad thing.”

“Roger: Well, because you’re guaranteed to see Buddy make some funny faces, you’re guaranteed that Chris will say something that is sort of out of line or inappropriate, and I’m gonna play a bunch of fuckin’ really fast bass licks, it’s gonna be great.”

“Roger: Nobody cares. So anymore Warped Tour questions?”

“Roger: This place called Common Grounds that used to be called the Covered Dish. We’ve been playing there over the last thirteen years so that feels the most home-ish. [some background chatter] Yeah the old room moved to where the Covered Dish used to be, the old room is a club that’s called 1982 that my friend owns. That’s a cool little club. That’s more where I go to hangout than Common Grounds. Common Grounds is kind of hectic and that kind of thing but yeah it’s the same owner as it was from the little place.”

“Roger: Yeah, we're kind of like a rock band with a horn section and high energy. That is how I do say it when I meet people who have no idea who we are. Well, it's like fast reggae and a lot of singing and harmonies. There's a lot of jumping and sweating involved. There's a lot of exchanged energy. A high energy level kind of thing. I really don't like bands who stand around and stare at their shoes and don't really have anything to say.”

“Roger: I have 800 Mickey mice. I just love Mickey Mouse, I have 800 of them, it’s awesome”

“Roger: Umm…last two cds… Bouncing Souls Gold Album and I bought System of a Down Steal This Album…”

“Roger: Yeah “Does the Lion City Still Roar?” Actually I saw it on Fuse today, it was awesome. Steven played it today. Download that bad boy.”

“Roger: New bands.. old bands - whatever. It's kind of weird. I guess I stay out of the loop on new bands, younger bands an who's getting signed or how many records this band is making. Persoanlly I don't care about things like that. I like melodies and lyrics and songs and energy. Isn't that what's it all about?”

“Roger: Let's see.. Chris and Vinnie knew each other in high school and were in bands and then moved to Gainesville, Florida for college. I moved to Gainesville, Florida for college. And then Chris had a party and I told him I played guitar. Which I played guitar at that time. And he said you should come and play guitar then I went to practice with a guitar and then they're like, "Oh, by the way, we're going to be kicking out our bass player - would you mind playing bass?" I said OK. So I went out and bought a bass and that was in '92. And that's how it started. Then we started getting into the horn player thing. Shuffled a few horn players over the years but it's been the same main four guys the whole time.”

“QRO: How many Pez dispensers do you have?”

“Roger: No I don’t collect stem variations – the different colored bottom part – cause you can have one Pez dispenser that has a head and there will be the same head but the bottom will have a different color. I don’t collect those at all so mine are all different Pez dispensary heads, because the head is really the most collectible part. I’m trying to give you lessons on Pez dispensers… How dare you suggest I collect stem variations? Are they all duplicates? NO THEY’RE NOT DUPLICATES! That would be cheating.”

“Roger: Buddy’s my main influence.”

“Roger: We will be hanging out for an extended amount of time in Europe. From November 1st until the end of our lives, it’s a very long tour. We’re playing the Fest on Halloween, which is my birthday in Florida – in Gainesville. We’re playing the Fest, my other band, Rehasher, is playing the Fest and we’re just going to be taking a little bit of time to breathe in January and probably be out on the road again pretty soon in the states. We’re doing some international stuff Australia, Japan, South America – that’s going on but nothing going on in the states quite yet.”

“Roger: Umm.. I had a lot of different phases when I was younger. When I was really little, I liked a lot of stuff like, Iron Maiden, Kiss, and Def Leppard and like Aerosmith. Stuff like that. That's what I grew up on in the '70s you know. Metal like Slayer and Metallica and then I got into punk rock and metal when I was in junior high. like The Descendents and like Operation Ivy and you know.. that whole era of stuff.”

“Roger: Yeah, our bunks are right across from each other so sometimes we sing each other to sleep at night. It’s lovely, you should check it out.”

“Roger: [laughs] Yeah, there’s a lot more bands, a lot more stages, a lot more really bad haircuts.”

“Roger: No, not anyone in the band. No, not really. We don't get that. There was one time where we played a show and we were playing at Sunlight Convention Center or something and they just had no idea what they were doing security wise. Kids were dancing and stuff and kicking stuff on the stage and this security guy had no idea on what to do so he just pushes this kid right off the stage and he just falls and breaks his leg in like a second! There's been some stories like that. Faulty employees, I called it. (laughs) You have no idea what to expect. Sometimes we'll play a college show and we'll just show up and start doing our thing and security's like stop, no moshing, no crowd surfing, no circle pits or whatever. Well, why did you have us play here? Don't you know that's what we do? Haven't you ever heard of us before? That's what we do! We get people excited, get them running around! They're going to jump around! That's what we're trying to do!! (laughs) Get some energy flowing between us.”

“Roger: See.. that's a tough question 'cause I went to a lot of really small shows for bands that nobody knew who they really were 'cause that's the kind of thing that I grew up on - was like going to clubs and stuff. The first like real, real concert that I went to was U2 at the Orange Bowl in Miami for the Joshua Tree Tour. I think it was in '87? Something like that. Yeah… I think that was it. We were way up in the nosebleeds and Bono was like this big! (Roger shows thumb and index finger really close) (all laugh) But, that's what I thought a concert was at that point - really huge. Everything else was more like a rehearsal or you know.. club shows. Like oh, that's nothing - 500 kids. It doesn't seem that weird. I've played in front of 500 kids at my piano recitals and I didn't think it was a big deal.”

“Roger: Umm.. I don't know! It's kind of um.. a little more.. it's more in the darks of being really singy songy. It's nothing super blazing fast. There's not any super slow reggae kind of thing that we've done before. It's not like that. It's sort of in the tempo and sort of really poppy and really catchy. There's some really good stuff. There are some songs I'm really excited about. It's always been melody based I think. When we did our last record, we wrote like 32 songs and they ended coming out on two separate CDs. And this time we didn't really do that! We kind of just took 15 ideas and used those as the focal point and then we wrote around those and just improved on those 14 and kept bringing things in and out of those songs as opposed to having a whole bunch of songs. Whether that's better or not, I don't know. It definitely seems a bit more focused. We don't have a bunch of extra songs or anything like that. When is was time to actually record, we have everything pretty well sorted and that was cool. There's definitely some good stuff on there.”

“Roger: Yeah, and then they get kicked out and then I got to go bail them out and then the security guards are having a fit and then we have to send our tour manager to talk to whoever's running security. Ahh, it's crazy. Crazy times!”