Interview: Fireworks - 17/12/2009

Currently in the UK for their first time, Alter The Press managed to sit down with Detroit's own Fireworks prior to their last night supporting Set Your Goals at London's Islington Academy.

The band spoke to ATP about their time in the UK, new material, signing to Hassle Records, the upcoming New Found Glory 10th Anniversary Tour, the possibility of a Four Year Strong/Set Your Goals/Fireworks UK tour and more.

Alter The Press: How has your first trip to the UK been so far?
Fireworks: Amazing! It's far exceeded our expectations.

ATP: Best show of the tour?
Fireworks: Every show has been awesome, but we'd have to say Manchester.

ATP: Any pastimes you can share so far, of your time spent in the UK?
Fireworks: For two nights on this tour, we had mandatory stage dives. In order to get our buyouts for the day, our tour manager made it mandatory that everyone had to a stage dive to get their money for the day. Those two shows were crazy, one was in Leeds and one was in Manchester.

ATP: How did Fireworks get together?
Fireworks: We were all in different bands and it was an idea for a fun side-project to do, just to do a different style of music that we're used to playing. Kind of conveniently, all the bands we were in, broke up at the same time so we took it from there. We had all been friends forever, we grew up with each other and all went to shows together.

ATP: You signed to Hassle Records UK this year, how did this happen?
Fireworks: No idea. We're assuming it was through Triple Crown Records. It was weird because when we got here, we didn't even know which label we were with and Andy (Betts) who works at Hassle, turned up at one of our photo shoots. They came out to check if we got in okay, make sure everything was cool, and to be honest, when we first saw him, we said, "Who is this good looking guy?" and we had to ask our driver what label we are on here, because we had no idea. But, Hassle Records have been awesome and we haven't even met them yet; they have been super cool to us and checking if we are good with CD's etc.

ATP: Speaking of Triple Crown, how did you sign with them?
Fireworks: Our friends' band, Hit The Lights, is on the label and our name was thrown around a lot but, as Fred Feldman (Owner of Triple Crown) says, he was sitting in his office and had our CD in his six CD changer and one of our songs came on and thought, "Hmm? I wonder what this is." After that, he contacted us from there.

ATP: Your debut album, 'All I Have To Offer Is My Own Confusion'. How would you describe it in your own words?
Fireworks: It's a record we wanted to make basically. We captured everything we really wanted to. The only thing we were unhappy about was the short amount of time we had to work on the record because we recorded the whole thing in 11 days. The record draws from the pop-punk which we grew up on, as opposed to a lot of the stuff which is coming out these days. We wanted to go for a real organic sound instead of something fake and digital.

ATP: You've recently been announced next year to go on the New Found Glory 10th Anniversary Tour. How did this come together?
Fireworks: They basically hit us up and said they really wanted us to come on tour for their 10th anniversary and we were one of the first bands to pop into their head, which is a huge honor to us. We are beyond excited to tour with NFG and Saves The Day. We have done dates with New Found Glory before, like we toured with them for a few weeks and wished we could of done a proper tour. This came up and we are really excited.

ATP: The tour the UK wants to see is, Four Year Strong, Set Your Goals and Fireworks. Will this ever happen?
Fireworks: We did that tour for 50 dates in the US and probably the best tour we've ever done, it was all really close friends. We'd barbeque every night after shows and it was perfect. We did have serious talks about a European tour, and had kids say to us they had heard that the tour might happen here, but it's out of our hands.

ATP: Have their been talks about coming back for a headline run?
Fireworks: Between us, we'd like to. We thought this tour would be good but it's gone over way better then any of us expected. When going into it, we were worried, hoping everything would turn out okay and now; we just don't want it to end. People who don't even know us have been treating us great. British hospitality. Needless to say, we want to keep coming back as much as we can, without over staying our welcome.

ATP: Have you been working on any new material?
Fireworks: We haven't had too much time but we've already demoed a couple of songs ourselves. Fireworks is the kind of band that keeps writing for days. For us, it's a case of just buckling down and getting everything together. We have two songs that we are excited to work on as new stuff. That's one of our favorite things to do as a band. After the NFG tour, we are probably going to polish the new stuff off.

ATP: Any titles?
Fireworks: "Common Life Breeds Common Men". It's taken from a line from another band that Chris (Mojan - guitarist) was it. When we make a song and hear what it sounds like, that's when we write lyrics to it and subject matter. Another song is called "The Challenger".

ATP: What are the plans for 2010?
Fireworks: The New Found Glory tour, Australia and maybe Warped Tour. We are trying to keep ourselves busy on our off time, and keep touring constantly. Hopefully we will release something, it won't be a full length though, it's not realistic. We are hoping for a couple of digital songs and a 7" would be completely ideal, like a 7" split with Set Your Goals. It's been spoken about, as a friend thing, but nothing about making it happen. It's just dumb ideas we've spoken about but it hurts, just the idea of not releasing something in 2010.

'All I Have To Offer Is My Own Confusion' is out now on Hassle Records.

- Jon Ableson