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T3M: If HURT were to do a full acoustic performance, how do you think that would sound?

JA: Maybe we'll find out very soon. I don't know. I think it would sound great. Most of the stuff is written on acoustic. You can strip down the music and it's still good.

T3M: How does performing with HURT compare with your experience playing in a Ska band?

JA: My friends give me so much shit about playing in a ska punk band. First, I rub it in their faces that 'well this is my third record contract, and this is your first.' I was playing music, and playing with a band, and then all of a sudden I saw this band, and they were just great. I don't give a shit what kind of music it is, man. I love it all. There's great music in every single genre. It's usually country and rap that people exclude. Some rap songs are pounding intense rhythms and lyrics that are gorgeous to me. And country rips my freakin soul out. Any kind of music to me is amazing. Those horns... I miss playing with those horns. Freakin Tower of Power horn section, they were unbelievable.

T3M: I have a couple of those albums.

JA: Which one did you get, Catch 22?

T3M: And Streetlight Manifesto.

JA: I was the original bass player for Catch 22 back when Keasbey Nights first came out in 1998. And then I was in Streetlight Manifesto from 2002 to 2004. I had a great time playing that music. Their guitar was playing the rhythm, there's no lead guitar, so it was really lead bass, and I was all over the place. It was fun, we'd just go nuts. I had the horns, the steel drum, the vocals, and it was so much fun playing that music.

He wrote some intense lyrics as well. We play stuff that is very deep, and I had the same thing with that band. They can joke with me all they want, but I have people coming up to me saying 'you saved my friend's life'. He wrote lyrics about suicide, and things like that, that were un-fucking-believable. I don't care what anybody says. It was music that moved people... that's what I want to do.

I had fun with that. I had to go back to my style for this music now. It's completely different, and I've learned... at first I was way too busy with this music. I had to learn to keep this solid grounding bass, and know when to put a little flair in. Before, it was all flair, and sometimes I would hold it back.

T3M: A lot of your fans feel they are witnessing history in the making.

JA: Who said that?

T3M: It's been floating around. I've really enjoyed watching you guys perform this week. It's been an amazing experience.

JA: I don't know what's going to happen. There's millions and millions of amazing bands out there. It's not enough to just be good. It's not enough to have good music. It's not enough to just be good players. It's not enough to have just a good band manager. It's not enough to just have money. There are an immense amount of variables, and you don't get on the hope that all the variables are lined up. You know what I mean.

T3M: I've seen a lot of growth from HURT since the first time I saw you guys.

JA: Yeah. We haven't been together as long as some other bands. It's only been the four of us as a whole for almost three years now. A year and a half ago we started touring, and we were only together for a year and a half. And we played our first show right before the album came out. Hopefully we'll never stop growing. If anyone stops growing, then what's the point? I think that it's really fun now. I've been having a blast playing with these guys. I don't know what the reaction is going to be to Vol. II, but I think it's a much more mature album. It's much more dynamic.

T3M: I think that you individually all stand out which enhances the whole sound.

JA: There's parts of the album where the bass shines through, the drums shine through... Vol. 1 was not as dynamic. All of us are more confident playing with each other, so we're more confident playing with ourselves. So there's moments where it sticks through that it keeps our dynamic, that's why I feel that Vol. II is a lot more dynamic than Vol. 1. Everybody's parts are more interesting, but not trying to steal the show. Still doing what's appropriate for the music.

T3M: You guys look like you're having fun on stage, even smiling at each other once in a while. Is that your way of saying to each other 'yeah this sounds great'?

JA: It depends. A lot of time I'm in my own little world just feeling the intensity of it. Then all of a sudden, two seconds later, you hear somebody mess up, and you look over and smile. Or you mess with them a little bit. There's just some non-spoken communication that happens up there. Some other times I think that one person is smiling at one thing, and the other person thinks they're smiling at another. Sometimes I never know what the other guys are thinking, and we get off the stage and they're like 'I saw you giving me the evil eye', and I was like 'no I wasn't, I was just intense' (laughs). It's not all laughs and smile up there sometimes. I can be the first to be in a bad mood on tour, and if somebody pulls some crap, I'm ready to tear their heads off.

T3M: Well it's good that you guys have so much fan support.

JA: It's amazing. That's what we do this for. Without our fans, we'd be sitting in our basement recording music. I'm enjoying having fans with us and being able to give that to them. I don't anybody else to go into my basement and play music.

T3M: Do you have a favorite place to play?

JA: I can't say that.

T3M: Large or small venues?

JA: There's pro and cons in each of those too. When we started this thing, we were putting ourselves out on stage when there was like eight people. We played in Detroit, and there were literally six people waiting for us to go onstage. It felt awkward, but those people came up to us and were like 'I can't believe that you still jumped around and sweated your ass off.' Those people now have that... if we do become something that is big they can say 'dude, I saw them in the basement of St. Andrews in Detroit with five of my friends and that's it. It was one hell of a show just for us.' So that's kind of our thing... we never try to cut corners. So when you have it in front of like thirty people, it feels intimate. It feels like these thirty people are there sharing it with you, and they're loving it still just as much. Usually it's the quality of the crowd, not the quantity. Even if there's thirty people, I can look out there and see people with their eyes closed or their hands in the air, or whatever it is that they're doing... they're feeling it. What's the difference if there's an extra two thousand people. Don't get me wrong, we just played a festival in front of fifteen thousand people, and it's amazing. So there's pros and cons to both.

T3M: Thanks so much for taking the time. I know you guys are busy.

JA: Absolutely no problem. It's my pleasure.

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| 10.11.2007 | Interview by Kristen Pierson and Raina Menchetti |