Close to close 20 years strong rockstars Hoobastank
have kept the musical ball rolling right along since way back when. Now on
their fifth album "Fight Or Flight" vocalist Doug Robb took some time
to talk about the band's yearly matters from past to present.
1. Can you give me a brief summary as to how the
band came about?
Doug: The
briefest I can make it is that Dan the guitar player and myself met in high
school in the early to mid 90's and were in different bands so eventually we
started hanging out and playing music together. We then found our drummer and
original bass player in a newspaper. So that happened in December of 94 and
began playing in 95, got a record deal in 2000 and been doing this for close to
20 years.
2. What’s the origin of the band’s name?
Doug: The name
came from a friend of ours in high school that use to blurt it out and in appropriately
during class and at prep rallies; I don't think it meant anything it just
sounded funny. That being said when we first started rehearsing we were sitting
around saying "we gota call the band Hoobastank that'd be so awesome"
no we had a billion other names to go through, before we settled on Hoobastank.
I think everything else we wanted to be called was either taken at the time so
the time was ticking away that we needed to promote for our first show, so we
had to put something on the flyer so that name would pop up as a joke for a
name for the band so we just cave in and went with that. But if we had known
that would have been such a big decision at the time I think we would have gone
with something different. You know it is what it is. It's a name that everyone recognizes
because it's so unusual because for almost 20 years we're always having to
explain where it came from.
3. In 2 years you will have been a band for 20 years
how does this make you feel?
Doug: Old. It
makes me feel old but puts perspective for me, how I use to look at bands for a
certain amount of time I just feel old and lucky. We have so many friends who
we have had since we started, others who even got record deals at the same time
as we had, everybody just rides it out so only a handful of us have been able
to continue this as career so I feel really lucky. It's a chapter of my life as
a human being so I feel really fortunate.
4. Out of all of the albums you've released which
would you say is your favorite and why?
Doug: I don't
know. It's hard not to let the commercial success depend on how I feel about
the albums. Our second album "The Reason" for my life and the band's
life made it amazing for us, the experiences, through that record, musically it
wasn't - there's songs on every record that I like but I could take 2 songs off
each record that would be my own greatest hits but it wouldn't be just one
entire album.
5. Do you ever look at your hit single "The
Reason" and think it's made you a one hit wonder type of band?
Doug: To the
casual fan that is probably true. I guess the more well versed fan who was
there since our previous album did have a few hit singles so those were
alternative type hits and we had built a core following then. For those people
it's just another song but with the song "The Reason" you can't
control what happens after it's out - so for the first part of the band from
95-03 it was all dynamical young kids, mostly guys mosh pittting and such. We
just saw ourselves without anyone else there but us as a rock band. Then in 04
we're playing huge places along with everyone else who was there from before
too, so it had opened this door to a whole another audience. That audience came
in for that one band or song so once that band fades they go onto the next one.
So those people will go "oh yeah that band has that one song" but for
me I feel really lucky to have had such a success and be under the radar of
those fans so I guess it's better than to say "I was a no hit wonder"
haha.
6. You released a Best Of album in 2009, why did you
think that, that was the time for it?
Doug: To be
honest with you I think that was a record label choice so in Japan and South
East Asia we had such following there that they thought, that was the time for
it. Never once did the band sit down and say "hey let's do this" a
lot of people thought that was the end of us and we did get a lot of questions
then but no it was not it's just what the label had wanted to do.
7. Now you're on your fifth album what are your
thoughts on it?
Doug: It depends
on the perspective of it, but I look back at my favorite bands who didn't even
have five albums so then it's kind of a lot it just depends really.
8. Do you guys have any new music in the works?
Doug: We wrote a
lot of music for this last record and was done ready to go for a while before
it even saw the light of day. So since then we have been tossing out ideas but
I gota say we could put something out quickly but in the past we separated the
job of a musician of doing this or that from this time to that time we let
those overlap; but this time we have been writing a lot more other things at
the same time so there is music to be recorded but when it happens who knows we
may get together next month and put together the ideas we have.
9. What are your upcoming plans?
Doug: Well we
just got back from a tour in Japan, so we've been busy since late June a couple
of weeks on and off. Radio stuff happening in January there is always
constantly stuff happening with meeting's trying to figure out what that next
task is ya know? There will be stuff going on but at this time of year
everything just stops and shuts down so we're just taking a long breath and we'll
attack come January.
10. Thanks for doing the interview, anything you’d
like to say to your fans?
Doug: I'm always
saying thank you to the fans with how lucky and fortunate I am to be able to
play music for a living. Follow us on Twitter @hoobastank and Facebook all
those good social networking sites and our main website just check us out!
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