Warped Tour:Interview with From First to Last
Written by Francesca Wahking
Photos by Francesca Wahking
Date: September 30, 2008
The Academy Is… has gone a long way since their start in Hoffman Estates Illinois. This 5 piece band consists of William Beckett, Michael Carden, Adam T. Siska, Andy Mrotek and Michael Guy Chislett. They’ve recorded three records already and have toured with Motion City Soundtrack, Something Corporate and +44. They are signed to Decaydance record, owned by Pete Wentz (Fall out Boy’s bassist). Their new CD, Fast Times at Barrington High, was released on August 19th and their first single, About a Girl, was featured on an episode of the Hills.

Band's website: theacademyis.com

Francesca Wahking sits down William Beckett and Adam T. Siska about their new CD and TAITV (their YouTube channel).



Muted Magazine: You've obviously wasted no time in coming out with the new CD. What can we expect?

Beckett: You can expect what we consider our best album. It's extremely exciting for us to have this album out. Making this album helped us to rekindle why we're even here. What we do is write songs, what we're good at is writing songs, it's like the only thing we're good at.

MM: And what are your other hobbies?

siska: One thing is for sure, everyone needs a hobby. We're both big into sports. Pole vaulting and pogo-sticking. I enjoy rope and I enjoy writing short stories about putting myself in situations that are death-defying. One of my hobbies, and I would say this for Will here too, is making the videos that we put up on our website twice a week. I'm a part time actor, part time funny-man, so i try to keep that going.

MM: Is TAITV unscripted?

Siska: Well we call it unscripted, but when we come in to shoot TAITBD we have a general idea of what we're going for. But we're improv masters too; it's like the 40-year-old virgin. We get a bunch of funny guys on the set, and we say “here's a guy, he's 40 years old, he's a virgin, make some jokes”. And you keep going “roll roll roll roll roll”, and then Jack the camera guy is extremely talented, and it's a bunch of fun. Like, we all grew up making short movies and movies with our VHS recorders and editing with our VCRs and shit. Plus we're all huge movie fans, and big movie buffs as well, so you can get a glimpse of who we are and our personalities, and what we do when we're not on stage or in the studio.

MM: So have you ever thought about making it into one big DVD?

Siska: We did look into doing that, but unfortunately there's so much other stuff happening in the background. We run into like, the Coke logo or something, and if you want to put it out for sale you have to show the money. So we keep the video on the internet for now, it's free for people to see and we like it that way. There's a free podcast for Itunes and you can put it all on your Ipod, which is better than a DVD nowadays anyways.

MM: Would you consider Jack the camera guy more of a star than you are? Last time i saw you guys he was pretty much mobbed by a bunch of emo girls. Does that happen everywhere?

Siska: Yeah, he's a superstar. What else can we say about him? He's a good talented man, and it's really exciting for us having gone to high school with Jack, to feed off each other's talents. I think he has a bright future in the entertainment business.

MM: So you all recorded together instead of separately, and I think I saw a clip of you guys recording together in one room. What was that like?

Beckett: It was important to the energy and the overall outcome of the album, for us to track live and track all in the same room together. Also for the energy of what the butcher was doing, because we were doing that for the sole purpose to have the drums get recorded, and go back in and get overdubs and things like that. It was important for us to get that live energy on our album, which is not very common nowadays with a lot of bands. With the technology thats available nowadays, it makes a lot of musicians more lazy. With us, we were more prepared with a lot of the songs and the arrangements going into it, that it was just a no-brainer for us to play together. It was a blast. While we were in the studio we had all these different 80's high school movies playing as well to help our vibe and to help get the album plastered in our brains.

MM: Is there anything else you'd like to say to your fans?

Beckett: The Album comes out August 19th. We're extremely proud of it. “Fast Times at Barrington High” Check it out, it's an infectious little number.

MM: Alright thanks.