Ryan: Alright, so every interview I’ve ever done, the interviewer asked me a question about Long Island, and what it’s like to live in Long Island or whatever, so I want to know, since we’re both from Long Island, do you plan on staying here forever, do you have any regrets about being here or growing up here, and what is your whole view about being in a dude in a band from Long Island?
Doug: It’s definitely weird, because I’ve spent a lot of my life here now. I’m originally from Jersey, and I’ve lived a substantial amount of my life there and when I came to Long Island, the only New York I had before Long Island was New York City, and going there was a fucking adventure. When you’re young and you’re going to fucking New York, it’s like ‘Holy shit.’ When I found out this band was doing tryouts, the Sleeping was having tryouts, before we ever played a show or anything, I got into this band and I was like, ‘Alright, now it’s time to step it up.’
I bounced back and forth in Queens and whatnot— and I love Queens so much—but when I finally moved here to Long Island, it’s weird, where other people try to have this cool vibe about Long Island where they’re like, ‘Yeah, it’s cool, whatever.’ I love Long Island. I really do. I want a family here, I think I would honestly love to have a family here, and my only regret about living here, I’ve met so many friends, and just because of the life we have, you lose a lot of friends because they don’t understand how hectic your schedule is. When you’re never around. I’ve met so many people, my only regret is I wish I had time for every single person to see all the time, because so many people in Long Island that I’ve come in contact with have just automatically become my best friends. It’s an awesome thing, but it’s heartbreaking at the same time, because some people don’t understand it’s really hard when you do this for a living and you’re always away. For the most part, most do understand and you have so many best friends in this place and I would definitely want nothing more than to live here for a very long time. And if I had to go anywhere else I would go to Texas to see my family.
Ryan: Did you grow up there in San Antonio, or in Jersey?
Doug: My whole family is in San Antonio, and I’ve pretty much been raised there, visiting. I love Long Island, and I love Texas, and I love hummus.
Ryan: So I remember talking to Cameron awhile ago about the writing process for stuff in the past, and he told me there was a lot of Cameron [Keym] and [Joe] Zizzo jamming together. Now that Cameron’s not in the picture anymore, have you guys come up with a new approach, have you come up more into the forefront? I know you guys have new songs already.
Doug: It’s actually kind of weird that you mention it like that. We actually have written pretty much every song just by all of us jamming.
Ryan: That’s rad that you have that chemistry.
Doug: It’s always been like that. I wouldn’t say Cameron and Joe jammed more than anyone else, we all pretty much jammed in the room together. Cameron was more of the ‘Oh, I think this riff sounds cool, let’s play from that.’ Joe would throw in his drum things. When you’re the drummer you have a lot to hold down; you have a lot to do.
