Sherwood - Thursday October 25, 2007

1. Before we start please introduce who you are and what you do in the band.

My name is Mikey and I play keyboards in Sherwood.

2. For people that don't really know much about your band, how did you come up with the name "Sherwood?"

Actually, it's kind of named as a tribute to Disney's "Robinhood." We had to change our band name like 4 years ago and we couldn't come up with a name. So our guitar player Dan was watching Robinhood at the time and we're just like "Sherwood Forest" is perfect. Now we try and steal from the rich and give to the poor or at least ideally we'd like to.

3. You're currently opening up for The Academy Is on the Sleeping With Giants tour. How has that been going for you guys?

It's been a lot of fun. We already knew The Rocket Summer going into the tour and we already met The Academy Is before but we never met Armor For Sleep. Now I feel like we are all BFF's and everyone is awesome. It's a big tour with about 24 people and everyone really gets along well.

4. Do you think it's going to help your fanbase a lot at all?

That's a good question. I don't know. There's kind of a certain scene that The Academy Is is in and I don't really know is Sherwood totally fits into it. The response from kids has been great and there have been a lot of Sherwood fans here and I think we have a lot of the same fans as The Rocket Summer.

5. Has there been any crazy or funny things that happened on the tour so far?

Yes, actually. These kids came to the show a couple weeks ago and they had these amazing fake mustaches. It was the real deal. You kind of glue it on your upper lip. I guess this isn't that funny but anyway they gave me a mustache and I went around the entire night as Borat. I wouldn't go out of the accent and at the end of the night I stole The Academy Is videocamera and I did this whole "I hijjacked The Academy Is" in the Borat voice. Then I didn't tell them I did it either so a week later Jack, their camera guy was looking through the footage and said he couldn't believe I did that. There's been other things that happened but I was just thinking of something that came to mind right away.

6. Where are some of your favorite places to play?

New York for sure. Nokia Theatre where we're playing tonight is probably one of my favorite venues in the whole country. In Seattle we have had some great shows and I love it there. A lot of the time it's not always where we have our best shows that are the fun cities. Actually, the last time we played in New Jersey we had a really good show at the School of Rock. Whenever we play headlining shows it's always interesting to see who comes out to see you.

7. What song means the most to you off your album and why?

I would have to say the song "Alleycat." We haven't started playing that live yet because it's a lot of electronic stuff. It's kind of an idea we've always had; to keep Sherwood but bring in more digital stuff. I feel like the actual lyrical content of the song is concise and it just says something. It's talking about this true heartbreak and it's definitely one of my favorites. I think my favorite song to play live is "Song in My Head." It's a lot of fun and it seems to be the song that most people know the words to. It's fun to know that you can stop singing and there's a lot of people out there that are still singing.

8. Do you ever feel any pressure to make it big in the music industry?

Yes but maybe not the way you would think. We have all been doing this for about four years. I dropped out of college and that's where we all met. It's kind of that thing where the experience is something I'd never trade in. You kind of start to think to yourself "wow I'm doing this fulltime but it's not a carreer." So in the idea of making it big it's more to actually say "this is my career" to "this is what I'm doing fulltime." I guess there's that kind of pressure. I'm 24 and our singer Nate is 26 and we're all starting to get to that point where it's like what do we have to show for my age. A lot of our friends are already getting these big desk jobs and I would never want that but they're the ones taking us out to dinner and we're not taking them.

9. Do you have any plans to do an upcoming headlining tour?

After this tour we are going to the UK with Hellogoodbye for a few weeks and then in February and March we are doing a headlining tour. We are bringing out the Matches and the other two bands have yet to be confirmed so I can't really drop those names. It might be The Higher or Houstoncalls. It will probably get confirmed soon.

10. What do you like the most and least about being on the road.

I'm a gemini and my horoscope tells me that I love meeting new people which is true. I'm always needing to be somewhere new or see something different and I just love that. I love waking up everyday being in a different city or state. What sucks about that is it's very easy to forget your friends and family back home. It's hard to just to call and maintain those friendships. Those are the ones who will always be around and support you when this is all done. It's definitely hard and there's always crazy stuff happening.

11. If you were stranded on an island what three things would you bring with you?

First and foremost I would bring our singer Nate. He's the most handy person I've ever known in my life. He's the most resourceful person I know and he's so funny. I think I would bring a trumpet and a surfboard.

12. How do you deal with the ups and downs of what critics have to say about your band?

That's actually a great question. There are some guys in my band who are reading every single review and always looking to find out what people think. Truthfully I feel like that warps your mind because you're not really making music for yourself you're just trying to make people happy. You'll never be able to make everyboy happy so I just don't really read the criticism. Usually I laugh at the good stuff because sometimes people say such nice stuff and I say they're lying.

13. If you could tour with any band who would it be?

Wilco. Wilco is a band from Chicago and they've been around for about 12 or 15 years. They're kind of older. Actually I might change that. Wilco is just one of my favorite bands so I don't know if I'd want to play with them. That's a good question but I think there's about a dozen bands I could list.

14. How does it feel since your band has gotten a lot more well-known. For example, your name has gotten more known since 2006 when you played the Myspace stage on Warped Tour.

It's really weird. Sometimes I can't even come up with the most eliquent way to say it. At a show when people come up and recognize you that's weird but it's even more weird to walk into somewhere random and have people know you. I walked into a Starbucks once in a random city and someone said, "wait you look really familiar." I said that I wasn't from there and they knew I was in Sherwood. It's such a fun feeling that people know you.

15. If you could be a superhero what would your power be?

I'd be like the movie Unbreakable where you could touch people and know everything about them.

16. Is there anything you'd like to say to end this interview?

To anyone who has ever made us cookies thank you and to the person who got us sick from making cookies un-thankyou. I just hope one day we don't piss people off and then we get poisoned. Also, we are doing a series of short videos that should be coming up on our Myspace page. People that know about those have been asking us about it so if you'd like to check that out you can go to www.myspace.com/Sherwood.