Aim At Your Enemies
Interview with Chris Stewart & Mike Licari
By PopPunkWayo
| Please state your name and what you play. |
Chris Stewart – lead vocals and Mike Licari – drums
| You guys formed during the summer of 2011. Can you give us some insight on how you all came together? |
Mike: Well, it all started the day I first listened to the song “Don’t Let Me Cave In” by The Wonder Years. Griffin, our lead guitarist, and I had been playing in some lighter sounding Pop-Rock bands for a while and I just thought to myself, ‘why am I not playing the kind of music that really motivates me and makes me happy?!’ So, I told Griff and Ray (bass) that I wanted to start something new. Then, I called Brian (rhythm guitar and vocals) and told him we were going to give it another go with a new Pop-Punk band and he was down. When we started, we actually intended on being a four piece. But then we found Chris!
| Singing for you guys is Chris Stewart, formerly of Sweatshirt Weather & That’s Outrageous. How did you acquire him? |
Chris: I decided to move to Chicago in March of 2011 because of my love for the city. When I moved, I really had no option but to leave Sweatshirt Weather. I knew that I wanted to continue to play music in Chicago though, so I put up a classified ad on AbsolutePunk.net. My ad was actually found by Mike’s mom, as a coincidence! (laughs) So, they gave me a call and we set up a practice. Things really clicked right from the start, and we went on to write “Good Things Are Coming” and began the recording process. While they recorded the instruments for GTAC, I took a trip to New York, where I ran into the guys from That’s Outrageous. They had just parted ways with their lead singer and asked if I wanted to record some vocals on their new demos. Soon after I returned home, they contacted me and asked if I was interested in doing a full US tour with them. I told everyone in Aim At Your Enemies about the opportunity and they told me that they would support my decision to hit the road with That’s Outrageous for a couple months. When the tour was over, I returned home and started picking up where I left off with AAYE!
| You guys dropped your debut EP Good Things Are Coming this past December, can you tell us how the writing process was for it and how have kids been reacting to it live? |
Mike: The writing process was really unique actually. Usually, when you start a new band, things are a slightly awkward and it takes a little bit to get into the full swing of writing. But in our case, we got together and within the first month of writing, we had enough material to essentially record a full length album. Most of the songs started off as a single riff written by me, that would be brought to the full band, and get completely changed around and turned into a full song. Essentially GTAC is the five songs that came together the quickest; and also, the ones we felt would give listeners the best possible first impression of our band. As for the crowd reaction, so far, kids have been learning the lyrics and singing along with every show we play. We try to make our music relatable so kids can really get the point and sing along with us at the shows.
| I have seen you guys recently and you covered “All Star” by Smash Mouth, a classic 90′s jam! What made you guys want to cover it? |
Chris: The idea came together because we wanted to play an extra song for our first show. The song was chosen because Mike and Ray were rather big Smash Mouth fans as children and after re-listening to it, we all thought that it would be a rad song for people to sing along and move around to!
| For being a band for a short time you’ve already played with some great bands such as Patent Pending, City Lights, & The Story So Far! Are there any other bands you guys would like to play with? |
Mike: Well, I mean the list is endless! But, to narrow it down to some plausible examples, we would love to play with This Time Next Year, The Wonder Years, So Many Ways, Such Gold, Transit, and other up and coming Pop-Punk acts like that. Also, just to make Brian happy, we should probably get some shows with Hatebreed. (laughs)
What does AAYE have planned for 2012? |
Mike: What we have planned for 2012 is to mainly reach out to as many new listeners as possible! In reality, only the first half of the year is planned out so far. We are going to be putting out a short acoustic EP in February, and then begin working on another full band EP. As of right now, we are shooting to release it in late summer/early fall. Also, on the performance end of things, we are going to be touring with our friends, Trophies, from Pittsburgh in March! We’re super stoked for that. It’s a Midwest tour and we’ll be posting the dates and info very soon! We would also like to start playing bigger shows at larger venues in Chicago so we can really extend our fan base as much as possible.
| Any current albums you guys have been listening to and what are you most anticipated albums for this year? |
Chris: Currently, I think we’re all still listening to albums from the summer. We all got into “Under Soil In Dirt” pretty hard. Also, I got into “Suburbia I’ve Given You All And Now I’m Nothing” a lot over the summer and still can’t put it down. The new Transit record is a big favorite with most of us. I just picked up the Believe You Me album “For The Record” recently and I think it’s such a great CD.
What can someone expect when they come to an Aim At Your Enemies show? |
Chris: They can always expect rad sound because of our awesome sound guy Kevin Flasza! Also, they can, without a doubt, expect a high energy performance from start to finish. We like to have a lot of fun for the 30 minutes we’re on stage, and we love to see new people moving around with us and getting into it. Then we don’t look so dumb… (laughs)
| What do you think of poppunkwayo? |
Mike: We LOVE PopPunkWayo! Seriously, no one has ever shown us so much support and respect for our band as Colin. What he does for the Pop-Punk scene is a huge help; and I feel that before PopPunkWayo came about, there was really no one there doing what he is doing. It also helps that it is based out of Chicago! I feel like he has this magical power to bind the bands with the fans and really just make the Chicago Pop-Punk scene one big family. We appreciate everything has done for us in the past and all the help he will continue to give in the future! Also, he has the hugest dick in the galaxy. No doubt!
Pick up “Good Things Are Coming” for 3 dollars on bandcamp!
http://aimatyourenemies.bandcamp.com/
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