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Closing out the Devil’s Dance Tour 2014 on May 21, brothers Matt and Trevor Wentworth, Alex “Woody” Woodrow and Tim Molloy, otherwise known as the band Our Last Night, performed for fans at Irving Plaza in New York City. Alongside bands Chiodos, Emarosa, Hands Like Houses and ’68, Our Last Night performed a set full of their biggest songs and popular cover of Katy Perry‘s Dark Horse (which we may or may not play on a daily basis in our office – check it out below!).
We had the chance to sit down with them before they hit the stage and ask a few questions to help get to know them better. Here’s what they had to say…
CM: Before we watch you guys perform tonight, do you guys have any pre-show rituals that you guys do?
Matt: Um, not like, not really.
Trevor: A lot of people ask us this; I feel like a lot of bands do have this.
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CM: Do you feel like maybe you should develop one?
Trevor: Yeah, I think maybe now’s the time that we need to start doing something. Nah, I don’t know. We kind of just all hang out, relax. Don’t stress ourselves out too much or psyche ourselves out.
Matt: And then about 10 minutes before you go on, you rush everything on stage really quick and hopefully start playing.
Trevor: Because, yeah, you know it’s going to be stressful setting everything up, so before you have to do that, you kind of just relax.
Matt: I think sometimes, if you have a set thing, at least for me, it’s just like, I don’t know, it just gets you kinda psyched out maybe a little bit. It gets you more nervous for the show, cause you’re like…
CC: Thinking too much?
Matt: Thinking too much, yeah exactly. It’s almost time to play, and then you’re like doing your whatever — thing. I don’t know, I feel like it’s cool to just like, hang out, realize you’re playing in ten minutes–
Trevor: And then walk out and have it be amazing.
Matt: Yeah, just go for it.
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CC: Do you guys prefer performing more or writing and recording?
Trevor: I mean, they both have their perks.
Matt: I mean, yeah, they’re both so different, I guess. I love writing, and I feel like there’s nothing cooler about being in a band than finishing up an album and listening to it when it’s done. And shows are awesome, but those are all the songs that you’re gonna be playing at your show, so it’s a really cool feeling to finish a bunch of songs, a whole album. Then listen to it and be really excited about it.
Trevor: Yeah, exactly.
Matt: But obviously, playing live is nothing like that either. Just the energy and —
Trevor: It’s kind of like the shows come from what you just made. It’s kind of like you write something, feel great about it, and the next step is to play them live, so it’s definitely cool.
Matt: You never really know how it’s gonna go either, every show. A crowd could be awesome, or a crowd could be boring, and you just have to work a little bit harder to pump ’em up.
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CM: Have you guys had any particularly bad crowds?
Trevor: Not on this tour at all. I mean —
Matt: We’ve been a band for a while so…
Trevor: It depends on what you mean by ‘bad crowd.’ If a bad crowd is like throwing tomatoes at you, and rotten fruit at you? Then no, luckily, we’ve never had that, but —
Matt: I don’t know, sometimes I think it’s just a vibe. Sometimes, a lot of people are, like, you can tell, they’re paying attention and they’re excited about what you’re doing, but sometimes, crowds are just more mellow, and sometimes if you think about it, just the personality of each person in the room – you might get sometimes a lot of people with sort of timid personalities that just like to chill and watch you. It’s not like a bad show, it’s just a little more calm.
Trevor: Also, sometimes I feel like it has to do with the venue you’re playing in, too. I feel like some people can feel super weird and awkward in a certain place, like —
Matt: If you’re surrounded by a foot of space around you, it’s weird, you’re not gonna be like freaking out all by yourself.
Trevor: But if it’s super packed, if it’s like, I don’t know, like it just depends.
Matt: I wouldn’t say a crowd that doesn’t move that much, that they’re a ‘bad crowd.’ It’s obviously a little less exciting on stage, but a lot of times those kids were just as excited to see us as the kids that went crazy. It’s just the vibe of the room, the vibe of the people at the show.
CM: For sure. I have hard time reacting sometimes, so if you guys see me tonight and I’m not moving, it’s not personal.
Trevor: No, I’m the same way. If I go to a show, I’m not like — I stand in the back and watch. I love it, but I’m not like front and center, like “Here we go!”
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CC: What song gets the best audience reaction?
Matt: I think we definitely agree on this tour which one does.
Trevor: Yeah, I mean, we play a cover every show.
CC: “Skyfall”?
Trevor: No we play “Dark Horse.” We used to play “Skyfall.”
CM: I knew it was “Dark Horse.” We had a bet going.
Trevor: Those are the only two covers we’ve ever played live.
Matt: Sometimes, we’re like, “Aw man … yeah, a cover song.” Everyone goes nuts and it’s not even our song. But I think a lot of times, what has to do with that, is that even people that don’t know our band at the show, they’re still familiar with that song. They’re like, “Oh cool! A new version of the song.” They know the words cause they’ve heard “Dark Horse” a billion times in the last few months.
Trevor: That song live is definitely pretty crazy, and it’s just got a lot of energy to it.
CM: I just want to add that now whenever “Dark Horse” comes on the radio, my first reaction is always “Oh! I like this song!” And then I realized it’s not your version, which I prefer to Katy Perry’s.
Trevor: Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
Matt: We get a lot of tweets saying “the only reason I know all the words to all these pop songs is because of your covers.”
CC: Yeah, like the rapping part?
Matt: Exactly. That’s funny.
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CM: Speaking of your covers, have you guys heard from any of the artists that you covered?
Trevor: Zedd, with the “Clarity” cover. He tweeted us and tweeted the cover that we did.
Matt: That was like, two days after we posted it. So it was cool. I don’t know if people were like tweeting at him. Sometimes, we do like a tweet at Rihanna and try to get her to watch it. They’re so big that they probably don’t even tweet their own shit anymore.
Trevor: Also, some of those people may have seen it, not necessarily tweeted about it. Like, so, we come across covers of our songs all the time. Everyone sits on YouTube, even Adele, even Rihanna. So, I don’t know. Maybe they’ve seen it, maybe not. But there’s definitely a good chance that maybe they did.
CM: The other question we had about your covers, sort of as fangirls over here – will there more covers in the future at some point?
Trevor: Yeah, definitely.
CC: Another “Summer of Covers“?
Trevor: Exactly. It’s just something that we do when we have down time in between writing our own music slash not being on tour. It’s just something to keep fans interested, and they’re fun to do.
CC: Do you have any idea which songs you’re going to be covering soon?
Trevor: Yeah… a little bit.
Matt: We’ve had a couple that we wanted to do for a while that are more timeless songs, not like in the moment. Mostly the ones we’ve done now are songs that are big right now, or we try to guess which song’s going to be big because usually those get the biggest reactions, I guess. But we’re doing one coming up. We never say what they are, but there’s one —
Tim: Naaah.
Matt: What? I’m not gonna say. I’m saying, “We never say what they are, so I’m not gonna say…” but it is a more timeless song that people from, even younger people now and people our age should know.
Trevor: We can tell you guys off the record.
CC: From what decade?
Matt: It was popular, like really huge, when I was in like 6th grade.
Trevor: So, 90s.
Matt: All over TRL, definitely. It’ll be a fun one to do though, for sure.
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CM: You guys have made it pretty big, but if you weren’t doing this, you guys are still so young, was there ever any back-up plan?
Trevor: I mean… Not really, honestly. I’ve been in the band longer in my life than I’ve not been in the band, which is pretty crazy. So, I don’t really know what I would do, other than this.
Tim: Any one of you guys got back-up plans?
Trevor: I honestly don’t.
Tim: All I did was play drums when I was younger, and then getting to do this was never anything I had planned. It just kind of happened. The next thing I knew I was here.
Matt: I think definitely, being in a band, you kind of take it — whatever happens, you roll with it.
Tim: It’s also hard to know what you would be doing other than this, because there are things I like, but I don’t know if I like them enough to be doing that everyday of my life, you know what I mean? I’d probably be a bum. I’d probably be a hobo.
CM: I thought you just said you’d “be a mom” and I thought that was quite the 180.
Trevor: That’s impressive!
Tim: Who knows what I’d be doing?! To each his own. Or her own.
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CC: What’s the most personal song for each of you?
Matt: It’s different for each record, but I would probably say “Sunrise” for this one. It’s the most personal one for us, and probably for our fans too. We kind of wrote it for our fans, as a positive outlet. A lot of our fans contact us, Trevor and the band, on Facebook, just saying thank you for your music, “It means a lot to us,” so we kinda wanted this to take things to a next level. Writing more positive songs, because we have a lot of fans going through – I don’t know – certain shit, and it seems pretty hard to deal with.
CM: When you guys aren’t recording or touring, what’s your go-to stuff to watch, on TV, on Netflix?
Matt: Ohhh, that’s a great one. Last was definitely True Detective. We were really into True Detective. It’s hard to top Matthew McConaughey.
Trevor: Matthew McConaughey‘s a boss.
Matt: Yeah, so that was awesome, I think we’ve been a little obsessed with it. Parks & Rec, The Office...
Tim: Breaking Bad...
Trevor: Breaking Bad. Best TV show ever. I’m a pretty big Sons of Anarchy fan.
CM: Nice. You guys sound like maybe you should work for us.
Trevor: Yeah, perfect.
CM: That’s your back-up plan!
Trevor: There it is!
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CC: Lastly, what’s your dream collaboration?
Trevor: That’s a great question. Dream collaboration…
Tim: I mean, well, I just came up with this in my head, but I think it’s the best answer. For me, anyway. Beyoncé… featuring Kendrick Lamar, with me playing drums.
CM: Like a Travis Barker situation?
Tim: Exactly.
Matt: I think for me personally, I don’t know if it’d be with Our Last Night, but I would love to write a song with Ryan Tedder, from OneRepublic. He’s just one of my favorite songwriters, OneRepublic’s probably one of my favorite bands.
Trevor: Definitely, I mean, anything. Doing a song with Lana Del Rey would be amazing.
CM: You guys are surprising me here.
Trevor: Pretty much all I listen to is like, Lana Del Rey, The Neighborhood, and The 1975. That’s pretty much all I listen to.
Matt: Yeah, something like that could be cool. 2 Chainz. That would be great.
Tim: 2 Chainz would be awesome!
Matt: 2 Chainz on some heavy part. It would be sick. We should just save up a shit ton of money and just get 2 Chainz. It would be worth it. Even if no one likes it, it would be worth it. For me, personally, it would be worth it.
Tim: Monumental.
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Our Last Night will be playing a hometown show in Boston, Massachusetts on August 22 to celebrate their 10 year anniversary, and no, that wasn’t a typo. Though they’re only in their twenties, they’re already veterans to the music scene. With plans to hit the road again this summer, and releasing their acoustic EP in mid-June, we highly suggest every one check them out because they’re pretty amazing musicians.
