SCENEzine
Before working with Aaron Marsh were you a big Copeland fan?

Kevin Jordan
Yeah Copeland is probably one of my top three favourite bands of all time. When we were going into the recording process after the first time with Aaron we knew his skill set which I see as being in arrangements and working with different instrumentation. We knew that skill set would be really helpful to us because Anthony and I both started off as drummers then we picked up guitars later on. When it comes to keys or stings or anything else outside of that world we are not super familiar with using those instruments and arranging actual three part harmonies and stuff like that. We knew that his skill set was going to be what we needed to make a record that wasn’t just two guitars and that’s it.

SCENEzine
It’s not long until your back in Australia. You must be excited to get back down here with old touring mates Mayday Parade?

Kevin Jordan
Yeah when we got the offer to do that tour it’s one of those things where that band could bring out anybody they want or absolutely nobody and it would probably make no difference to the ticket sales. So for them to ask us to join them for a celebration of a record that was so massive for them in such a cool place it’s really humbling that they would want to bring us along. We are super excited to play we haven’t been to Australia since the last Soundwave. We’ve been open to going any time we can but it’s just so tough to get out there with the current lack of a festival scene.

SCENEzine
Do you have a favourite Australian touring memory?

Kevin Jordan
The first time we went there was a lot of fun playing the small clubs. We hadn’t even put out our record yet so it was kind of challenging because we were going out there and playing off a EP that we had self released. So when we came back for Soundwave our record had been out for six months or so and that was some of the coolest shows we have ever played. I particularly remember the Melbourne date where we did a sidewave where we played a headline show. I was blown away that so many people had already learned the lyrics from the album and were singing along. It was a really fun time for us.

SCENEzine
Is there anything you’d like to do in Australia besides play shows?

Kevin Jordan
I definitely want to catch a Kangaskhan from Pokémon Go. I don’t have that one yet. Aside from that we just try not to spend a ton of money because everything there is so fucking expensive.

SCENEzine
Recently we were lucky enough to have Dashboard Confessional touring Australia. There’s a lot of similarities within your music. It must of been surreal when you got to tour with Dashboard?

Kevin Jordan
Yeah I explained this actually on stage every night. I said when I got my first acoustic guitar when I was twelve years old my girlfriend at the time she bought it for me for Christmas. It was under the condition that I learnt how to play a song for her. It was her favourite song at the time and that song was “Screaming Infidelities”. So literally the first song that I ever learnt how to play and sing on a guitar was Dashboard. Then fast forward over a decade later we get the offer to go out on tour with them and do a national tour playing these awesome venues. Chris is just the most gracious, passionate dude. He’s been doing it for so long. He’s been in stadiums with Bon Jovi and the tour that we did with him was where he wanted to go back into small clubs. To know that he’s played for tens of thousands of people, he’s had massive radio success, platinum records and then to go into these smaller clubs like he did with so much passion and love was really inspiring to me. It shows that you can do this long term and still have the love for the music and not have to get jaded or give anything up. He’s been a really good mentor to us since that tour. During our writing process right now we get to send demos to our musical hero and see what he thinks of us. It’s been really cool.

SCENEzine
When we interviewed Chris Carrabba he told us with song writing he has to write for himself and can’t think about the audience at the time. Is that similar in how you write?

Kevin Jordan
Well I think with Low Tides it’s kind of funny because we knew that we were going to end up alienating some fans by putting out a record that was so much darker than clouded was. I think a lot of that comes from the people that listen to This Wild Life aren’t necessarily alternative rock or even acoustic fans. I doubt most people that listen to This Wild Life at least in the early stages were acoustic folk or indie fans or anything like that. I think that they are mostly kids that go to Warped Tour and kids that listen to bands like Mayday Parade and New Found Glory. I think that when we put out that record they hadn’t heard anything like that yet or at least they didn’t listen to a lot of stuff like that. So we knew going into it that it wasn’t going to be something that just took off right away with our foundation following. We knew that it was a record that the sound could work for a lot of different people that maybe don’t listen to that Warped Tour scene. We definitely don’t think about how people are going to perceive it, we made the record that we wanted to make.

SCENEzine
A huge crowd favourite is when you play your cover of “Sleepwalking” by Bring Me The Horizon. How did you realise that song would work so well with your acoustic style?

Kevin Jordan
I think when I heard the song I just noticed that there was a lot of melody to the song itself. Not only in the track but with Oli’s vocal you could tell that there was a really awesome melody behind it even though he was yelling it. I just had a feeling it would translate well to acoustic so we did that in a couple of hours.

SCENEzine
When your not playing music what do you do for fun to relax?

Kevin Jordan
I love dogs. I just got my own dog. I like to relax at home. We spend so much time travelling and going to different places that to me the idea of going on vacation and going somewhere is so dreadful (laughs). I just want to stay home most of the time. Aside from that even though I play all the time I still love going to shows. I got to one or two shows a week when I’m home. I like to catch as much music as possible.

SCENEzine
A big song from Clouded that really connected with people was “Concrete”. Is that still one of your favourites to play live?

Kevin Jordan
Yeah for sure. On our last headline tour we opened up with that song. It just has such a good energy to it right when it gets started. I think that first verse lyric is probably one of our more popular ones. So just to get the night going with a huge sing-along right away has been a lot of fun. We still love to play it.

SCENEzine
Was it a cool experience making the video for “Over It”?

Kevin Jordan
We weren’t super involved in the actual screenwriting process and we are hardly in the video. It’s more of just about a story telling from the beginning to the end of a relationship. I thought it turned out really beautifully. Sometimes when you have a small budget and you try to do any camera effects it ends up looking really shitty and cheap. But the guy who did our video is just so talented I thought it all ended up looking really professional for such a small budget. I was stoked with how it came out. When we went on to Warped Tour for the first time right after that video was released legitimately three or four different guys from other bands came up to me and were saying dude that video was so good I don’t want to sound like a wussy but I cried watching that.

SCENEzine
Since your music deals with breakups and pushing through hard times in a lot of your lyrics do a lot of people assume you have all the answers when it comes to working life out?

Kevin Jordan
To some degree yes. I’ve tried to make it pretty clear in my interviews in the past and anytime that I talk to people that I’m writing these songs not from the other side of the rainbow where I have it all figured out and everything’s perfect. I’m writing these songs because I’m going through the same things and I probably know just about as much as anybody else does about how to deal with your own emotions, tragedy, trauma or anything. I always tell people listen I’m all ears if you want to talk to me about anything that’s fine but if your looking to me for advice I don’t feel like I’m super capable. I don’t feel like I’m the appropriate person. I’m not a professional or psychologist I don’t know how this stuff works. I tell people that there’s probably a better outlet for them to reach out to if they are looking for advice.

SCENEzine
What stage are you at with working on your new album?

Kevin Jordan
We haven’t started recording yet. We are going into the studio right after Australia I’d say writing wise we are probably 70 or 80% done Just writing at home between the two of us. I live in Arizona and Anthony lives in California at the moment so we kind of just email each other ideas back and forth. Sending files back and forth until we have demos done. It’s funny because you’ll go through a demo and pass through it two or three times and they take on a whole new life in the studio. So by the time a song is really done we have gone through four maybe five phases of a song. It’s pretty interesting how much they change.

SCENEzine
Lastly you have some awesome tattoos, do you have any advice for anyone who’s thinking of starting a sleeve tattoo?

Kevin Jordan
My whole thing was I wanted to wait. When I was in high school all my friends started getting tattoos because one of our friends bought a tattoo machine on ebay and started learning how to tattoo on all of my friends. So while I was in high school all of my friends were getting tattoos really early but they were getting really shitty tattoos because they were free. I just said to myself I’m going to have these on my body my whole life so I think I can wait. I didn’t get a tattoo until I was 21 and even then I’ve never jumped at the chance to get a free tattoo as many as I get offered. I’m always willing to pay the money to have a great artist do the work. So I’ve only ever had one person tattoo my arms. One person tattooed my legs because I found the person I wanted. So my advice would be don’t get free tattoos (laughs) and don’t get them too young or too early just for the sake of it because you have all the time in the world there’s no hurry to get covered in tattoos.

Interview by Christian Ross