Interview: Anarbor

Just before taking the stage at the London stop of the 2010 Give It A Name Introduces UK tour, Alter The Press! managed to sit down with Phoenix, Arizona's own Anarbor and talk about the their new album 'The Words You Don't Swallow', being overseas for the first time, signing to Hopeless Records, recording the theme song for Scooby Doo and more.

Alter The Press: How has your first trip overseas been so far?
Anarbor: It's been awesome. It's pretty cool; none of us have been carded to buy any drinks! It doesn't happen in the US in like that; our moms get carded, our dads get carded. We've had a great time over here though; it's been a lot of fun.

ATP: How did the band originate?
Anarbor: We started when we were thirteen years old. We were driving home from summer school one day and said, “Let's start a band together.” We all went to Warped Tour, other festivals and local shows together, and shared the common interest of loving punk/rock music.

ATP: Which band really influenced you, to make you want to start playing music?
Anarbor: Definitely Senses Fail, MXPX, Blink-182, NOFX, New Found Glory, The Starting Line. Even local bands made us think, 'Dude, they're playing shows, we got to be doing that!'

ATP: You've just released your new album, 'The Words You Don't Swallow'. How has the response been so far?
Anarbor: It's been great, so far so good. People are really starting to be digging it. A lot of our music is out there now, we used to only have six/seven tracks, but now we’ve got a good twenty out there, with the new album.

ATP: It's the first full-length you've put out with Hopeless Records. How did you end up signing to them?
Anarbor: We were playing Southern California a lot, and they found out about us, so we set up a showcase. They messaged us on MySpace; we exchanged contact information, set up the showcase, played a few shows for them and then signed to them. We got to know them and it was a good friendship.

ATP: The track 'Let The Games Begin' has been featured on ESPN and even 'The Hills' (popular MTV show.) How did this happen?
Anarbor: One of our representatives at Hopeless helped us out with that. Her name is Erin Choi and she markets all the Hopeless bands to different television, movie, and video game outlets.

ATP: Are you fans of 'The Hills'?
Anarbor: Not of 'The Hills,' but it's cool watching basketball/football games and hearing our song, that's pretty cool.

ATP: That must be huge though, as these games are broadcasted to millions of people across the country.
Anarbor: Yeah, we'll get text messages from our friends saying, 'I just heard you guys!'

ATP: Would you say that's been your biggest song in the mainstream world, especially with regular Joe's who don't listen to this style of music?
Anabor: That song, or 'You and I,' because we wrote it for the Scooby Doo movie.

ATP: You must have walked away with quite a lot of new fans, especially with the popularity of these shows.
Anarbor: Definitely, we get a bunch of college dudes coming to our shows. On our last tour, this girl came up to us and said, “My dad told me about you guys from watching the Patriots game!”

ATP: Did you do the theme song to the Scooby Doo movie then?
Anarbor: They wanted us to write the theme song, and an original song based on Scooby Doo. They said they wanted a song based on Shaggy and Scooby Doo but not a song about a dog and a guy! They wanted it about a guy and a girl so we all got together and took our songwriting and wrote a song for the movie.

ATP: I know Simple Plan wrote a song for Scooby Doo as well.
Anarbor: We re-did that one. The version they sent us was their version of the theme and said, “We need you to perform this music for it.” We took the music and did our own twist of it.

ATP: They did the 'I Don't Want To Think About You' track as well, I remember.
Anarbor: Yeah, that was our 'You and I' for the movie. They did two songs and then we were asked to do the same thing.

ATP: What's the plan after this tour?
Anarbor: We fly home with a few shows routing there, then we go to Japan and then Warped Tour. We're extremely excited and honored to be a part of it; it's something we grew up going to.

ATP: Would you say, over the years, it's no way as big as it used to be?
Anarbor: Very much so, especially last year, with so many shitty bands. I think this year is the come back year though, there are so many good bands playing this time. They saw what happened, having the Jeffree Star type bands, the fans didn't like that; they want to bring punk and rock back to Warped Tour, like how it started out to be. It's a skate/punk-rock tour, not an electro/dance show.

ATP: Do you have plans to come back already?
Anarbor: We do, not booked plans, but we hope to be back within this year. We've been talking about it and we really want to.

ATP: After Warped Tour, what's happening for the rest of the year?
Anarbor: Touring in support of the album. We're in the start of this record cycle, so a lot of touring.

ATP: Thanks guys. Anything else you would like to add?
Anarbor: Check out our new record!

'The Words You Don't Swallow' is out now on Hopeless Records.