Chaser is one of the bands that made my heart filled with joy when I heard their new record Sound The Sirens. It was about time that I talk to the guys at this year´s Punk Rock Holiday!

We are here with Mike and Bill from Chaser, so guys, your new record Sound The Sirens is out! How are you satisfied with the feedback?

Mike: We are just totally overwhelmed with all the great and positive feedback from it. Like everyday we are getting messages, e-mails and all kinds of great and positive feedback and it is so cool to get the type of response having this album after a break and that was our goal, if we´re gonna come back, it will be with a punch to the face, you know?

You consider the new record as a fresh start?

Mike: Yeah, totally! We have a new member, we have a kinda different vibe now and we just wanna, as bands always say,  get back to the roots and just play fast, melodic, energetic punkrock.

The album is out on Dying Scene Records/Effervescence Records, is it a cooperation between the labels or the album came out DIY and they only do the distribution?

Mike: It is a very synergistic relationship. They never worked together before, but Effervescence signed us up for all the physical stuff like vinyls and the cds and Dying Scene Records is strictly digital, so we got offers from both, which is totally awesome and we talked to both camps and arranged for a marriage sort of, you know? For everybody just to work together and it´s been going great, both labels have been taking such good care of us and each handle different aspects, so it´s a very well oiled machine.

Yeah, Dying Scene Dave is such a great guy.

Mike: Oh, yes, he is! Shout out to Dave right now! Yes, he always took care of us for promotional needs and he has just been so easy to work with in this label signing process.

I saw that you have a lot of t-shirt design motives, a lot of cool merch stuff and in my opinion, when touring, I think merch is what keeps band so to say, alive. Is it important to you?

Mike: That´s where it´s at! That´s the money maker. If a band makes any money at all, that is with merch.

So no one of you guys lives off the music, I know for Mike that you are a fireman in California, so all of you have steady day jobs?

Mike: Yeah, that´s true. I´m a fireman.

Bill: I´m a math teacher.

Oh yeah? Allegra here is a teacher of Croatia language in school too!

Bill: That´s awesome!

Mike: Yeah, we all have careers that we are established with now, the music is our hobby, it´s for fun, it´s passion and that´s what kinda makes this new face of Chaser so much more enjoyable, it˙s because it˙s strictly for fun and there is no stress.

It´s important part of your lives.

Bill: Even though it˙s not a career, we take it very seriously for us to put out really good product and put out great shows, so as much it is hobby, it is something we are very passionate about and we really want to give the listener, the fan, the best product we can and we definitely work incredibly hard to do that.

Is some agency doing the booking for your tour or you do everything yourselves?

Mike: Honestly, to me that is the one missing piece that we would like to have, but so far all of our shows are based on the connections we made and networking, you know we are out here because Andrej, the promoter of this festival saw us in 2006.when we came out with Good Riddance. You know, things work out, but it would be nice to have professional booking agency  to get us on tour.

So, everything you do is completely DIY.

Bill: Yeah, a complete DIY, even though people have helped along, putting us out, providing back line and doing all the logistical things, but like Mike was saying, I think the next step for us is to make sure we have a booking agency to take care of all the logistics, it would be easier for us, especially when going international.

Mike: We like to be hands-on. We´re very hands-pn band, like Bill was saying, we are very, very professional, we do something and we go all the way for it.

Basically, when it comes down to it, that is all that matters, this network of friendship and underground connections.

Bill: That´s what I love about the European festivals, it´s a very much family atmosphere and everyone has been really accomodating, very helpful and if we needed a hand here and there, so many people have stepped up and we didn˙t even asked any questions and of course we would do the same thing for any other band or any other person that needed help along the way. The cool thing is that it seemed that everybody was just, if you needed a hand with something then they˙re gonna help you.

Now that you are in Europe, this is like six or seven shows tour?

Mike: Three actually. We did three festivals, like I said we don´t have a booking agency so we are not on a big, long tour right now it´s just an honour to get on these three alone. So we did Punkrock Summer in Paris, with We Care Booking, so shout out to them and then we did Brackrock in Belgium a few days ago.

I saw you had a blast there!

Bill: Oh yeah, we had so much fun there! That was a great festival.

I think you˙ll also enjoy it tonight, after all you are headlining the Beach stage tonight!

Mike: And then we got this and all the shows we did are close to each other, so I brought my wife and kids, we˙re making a vacation out of it also, like a family trip to experience kinda what we do.

Yeah, to go sightseeing some of European culture.

Mike: It˙s really good for them.

Are the punkrock and hardcore kids in Europe any different than the kids in the United States? When you compare the energy at the shows or enthusiasm?

Mike: Lot of similarities, some differences, I won˙t dig into differences too much, but they are both pretty unique as well. So, as far as fans to the band, the energy is the same. When we play, the reaction, the energy is the same. I would say that people are here a bit more open minded, checking out the music they never heard before and Europe has treated us very well. We made a lot of new fans.

Let˙s get back to your new record. Do you consider Chaser to be a political band? When I read the lyrics you have like a clever mix of personal and political in there. Are the political issues important to you in your lyrics?

Mike: Very little. The only politics we do, kinda intermix is more social politics, just how society interacts with each other, the general feeling of our country in the world, but like you said most of our songs are definitely based on personal experiences that other people can relate to. We want to have broad spectrum of people that relate, not just right wing person or left wing person, so we stay away from politics for the most part.

I think, in ten years time, we will meet again at some festival where Chaser will headline one of the days at main stage.

Both: We sure hope so, man!

I am not talking this necessary as a fan of Chaser, but as a fan of music in general and your new record just brought some kind of force into me, like a living hardcore punk energy and I really got goosebumps on my skin while listening to that record.

Mike: You just gave me goosebumps.

Bill: Thank you so much!

So to end this interview, there is one typical fanzine question left. What are the plans for the immediate future?

Bill: We will do a little bit more touring, we will play Canada in September and Japan, middle of next year, shows to support the record over the next year and hopefully start the process again, songwriting and we are very proud of this record and we definitely want the live thing, as you know, the live shows are where you really connect to the people, when you see the band play live, it has always been the thing for me. Listening on the record is great, but live is the real thing.

Thank you, it was a real pleasure doing this interview with you guys. I think this is the first Chaser interview for any Croatian media.

Mike: Cool, that is impressive.

Bill: Thank you very much for having us!