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Mike Levin and Geoff Lackey in the Shyster daysthe main differences in this bandsince the shift in area codes?Atlantic/Pacific was really just me workingon a solo album. I played with a milliondifferent people in New York, lots and lotsof combinations. When I started makingAtlantic/Pacific I really didn’t have anyonein the band. I got Wes [Snowden] fromShyster, who had been living in New Yorkfor a while—but we had never talkedabout playing together. When I told himthat I really wanted to make this album,Wes got onboard to do that. I didn’t havea drummer so I put an ad on Craigslist—everyone I met in New York was justCraigslist, Craigslist, Craigslist… so thenthis pseudo-celebrity, Russell Simins [JonSpencer Blues Explosion] contactedme and said he wanted to play; I hiredhim to make the album. The bass tracksand drums were recorded in a studioin Midtown, which was like an officebuilding. It was all hurried and stressful,Within the last year and a half I’veopened up for Smoking Popes and theForgetters [Blake Schwarzenbach ofJawbreaker’s current band]. Both ofthose times were so special for me. I hadreally cool conversations with peoplein bands that I have just eaten up theirshit—not literally—but I have just beenso influenced by them, so impressedand so emotionally affected by SmokingPopes and Jawbreaker that to have playedgood shows with them and have themin the audience for me and me be in theaudience for them, I was just ear to ear.Especially the Forgetters show becausethat just went so well and it was reallycool conversing with Blake... And goingway back in the day, doing the WarpedTour was pretty unbelievable. Just thesheer volume of people, having that hugecrowd moshing and going ballistic wasunforgettable. It was one of those “I can’tbelieve this” moments where I can dodoing the Warped Tour waspretty unbelievable. Justthe sheer volume of people,having that huge crowdmoshing and going ballisticwas unforgettable. It wasone of those, “I can’t believethis” moments where I cando nothing but just smilelike an idiot and try to playcould have just been that people withpurse-strings and connections didn’t thinkwe were all that. A lot of it probablyhad to do with timing. We did tour, but Idon’t really know. Maybe we didn’t haveenough tattoos. Also, we were kind ofweird and didn’t really fit into any specificgenre enough. We were an emo bandwith a punk rock drummer, so maybe thatthrew people off... We did lots of coolstuff, but touring got a little depressing.After being on the Warped Tour, we didtours by ourselves that didn’t go very well.Then people started quitting. We werealso changing a lot. We didn’t stick withthat Say Uncle sound for very long. Maybeif we did another album like Say Uncle,18someone would have taken note.Kevin Comarda: And whathappened with the originaldrummer?Geoff [Lackey] left Shyster to join DieselBoy and that took a little wind out of ourproverbial sails. I didn’t realize at the timehow big Geoff was in our identity. He toreit up. We had good drummers after that,but we could never replace Geoff.KB: You released Atlantic/Pacific(The New Lows’ second LP) whileliving in New York, and I Couldn’tSleep was released years later afteryou returned to Orlando. What arebut they had really nice equipment.Then I went to a really beautiful studioin upstate New York called the Artfarm,in an old renovated barn in the woodsand finished the record there, which wasreally just me by myself. Atlantic/Pacificwas a product of that hodge-podge. Itwas disjointed and really a studio project.It wasn’t a show band at all. You can tellfrom the product... Then I came back[to Orlando] and it was just all aboutgetting with friends. I started playingwith my friends Mickey and Matt whoboth quit. Then I had Ralph [Ameduri]and Ralph was shot in a robbery, so Iwas by myself again. It always happenslike that. So I started grabbing more ofmy good friends to play with me. Weplayed a tribute to Ralph and that leadto a bunch of shows. Six months laterwe headed to New Orleans to make analbum in a totally different way. I Couldn’tSleep is more organic. It’s more like abunch of dudes that hang out all of thetime and play shows together and wentto bang out a record. It was a totallydifferent effect. In terms of the style, theyaren’t completely different. Both haveobligatory Americana numbers [laughs]and some punk rock numbers. I Couldn’tSleep has a little more of a punk rock edgeto it because that’s where I was personallyat that time. I wanted it to be more rawand more live sounding.KB: What moment as a musicianhas made you the happiest?nothing but just smile like an idiot and tryto play. [laughs]KB: What’s been your lowest point?Mmm, there’ve been a million. Whenband members quit, especially ones thatyou have been playing with for a longtime, it’s difficult. You always have torestart and restart and restart. The recordrelease show for Atlantic/Pacific...was awful.It was a real low point. I had come down[to Orlando] from New York and playedwith the New Lows in Orlando and hadgreat shows in the past. But somethingabout this date and everything elsecoming together… it was on July 4th,which for some reason I thought peoplewould be out, but there was nobody there.It was a lot of work and energy involvedto put this record out, then to have a showin a hometown scenario and then to feellike nobody actually gives a shit at all...but I go through that cycle of self-loathingregularly. I’m always sort of bumpingbottom and bouncing back... Theexperience with Russell Simins was kindof depressing. I realized that the wholeproduction and recording in this officespace was outside of my control; it wasn’tfun. So to be spending all of this money tomake a record that wasn’t fun... and I hadone rock star band member that didn’tgive a shit about anything and anotherwho was a good friend, but who was notinvolved in the project that much at thetime and had all kinds of other shit goingon, I felt like I was just kind of scraping