What’s your favorite song on the record?
I think my favorite song is probably ‘Let Your Love Grow Tall.’
Why’s that?
It has like all the great elements in it. I think it sounds a lot different than all the other songs we have and when I started hearing it I just like envisioned us playing that song. And like we could just hear the crowd singing that line, ‘let your love grow tall,’‘ back with us and it just feels like an anthem in way.
‘Let Your Love Grow Tall’ is also one of the songs that use a children’s choir. Who came up with the idea for that?
Wel,l Mike always had this idea in his head. He’s always wanted a children’s choir and now is the time where we could do it. We were in a professional studio, we had the budget. Mike and the producer Chris Vane had been searching around for a children’s choir and they couldn’t find one. Then they stumbled across PS 22 because they had a bunch of YouTube videos. They were covering Beatles’ ‘Strawberry Fields’ and they were really into doing contemporary stuff and we just got in contact with them and they were super adamant on doing it. It was like 54 children in the studio and they were so excited to do it.
With Manners being your first full-length album, do you feel any pressure following up the Chunk Of Change EP?
Yes and no. I mean there are a lot of expectations for it, but you can’t really let the pressure get to you and I don’t think we are either. We’re kind of enjoying the place that we’re at right now and we’re enjoying the success that we are seeing from it. So we’re not trying to freak out too much, we’re just enjoying everything that’s happening and feeling very lucky and very blessed for all the good fortunes that we’ve had. It’s very easy for us to get crushed underneath the pressure but at the same time we’re so grateful but it’s still so new to us, like the band line-up right now has been together since August of ’08. So it’s not even a year, and we’ve been touring all over the place and playing these huge shows. It can be very nerve wracking but we’re trying to take every step in stride.
