Europunk.net - Interview: Cobra Starship

Interview with Cobra Starship

Posted on Apr 20, 2007 by DevotedToMusic

Cobra Starship are a Fueled By Ramen band from the U.S. With one of their songs on the Snakes on a Plane soundtrack and big U.S tour with bands such as Fall out Boy and The Academy is.. they are sure to be a hit here in the UK.

The band consists of 5 members:

Gabe Saporta - Vocals
Ryland Blackinton - Guitar
Alex Suarez - Bass
Nate Novarro - Drums
Victoria Asher – Keytar

In April they toured the UK with Fall out Boy and The Shiny Toy Guns. I Alexandra McLoughlin caught up with them to find out about Dancing,Touring and American Fans.

How do you feel to be here in the UK?

Ryland- It feels very good to be here. I haven’t been here for a while and have missed it greatly and I’m very grateful to be here it’s a lovely place.

Gabe- Good. It feels a little cold. A little humid. That range is nice. The sun is pretty good. It’s not too cloudy and err yeah!

What type of venues do you prefer playing?

Ryland- The ones with the most people in them per square foot so we prefer maybe like a packed smaller venue verses like a big ass venue that’s packed but the people are so far away from us too you know? We like the sweaty packed smaller venues and a funny thing is I find that if I do get nervous I get more so with the smaller ones where your right there in front of people where you can reach out and touch them. The thing with the larger shows is they don’t necessarily feel real they feel surreal.

Are you nervous yet for the show tonight?

Ryland- Absolutely not.

Gabe- Yes I have already sold 3 pairs of pants…

Ryland- Soiled that is.

Gabe- Sold (Laughs) soiled 3 pairs of pants. No I’m just excited to be honest. I think it’s going to be a very good response and it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Which venue are you most looking forward to playing here in the UK?

Ryland- From my perspective I don’t know enough about the venues to say which is my favourite but I do know a little bit about Hammersmith and I’m really looking forward to that one.

Gabe- Yeah I haven’t played Hammersmith nor Brixton so I’m really excited about that but I hope to when we come back if we play the mean fiddler because I really like that venue that’s next to the Astoria (says in an English accent)The Garage, have you been there?

No I haven’t been there. What are you looking forward to about playing this venue tonight?

Gabe- It’ll probably be awesome but yeah I’m just looking forward to playing a good show and kicking ass and shacking ass and making ass.

You much have noticed by now the amount of fans waiting outside all around the venue. Is that freaking you out or making you more nervous?

Gabe- What freaks us out is that not enough of them know who we are. So I think we are going to go out there and introduce ourselves 1 by 1 to all the fans out there. Hello we’re Cobra Starship you alright? How you guys say it and get to know them. If we don’t get a chance before the show defiantly after the show.

Ryland- Absolutely

Gabe- Maybe they’ll see us play and will be like wow who’s that I’d like to meet them too because I see these kids here. I go wow who are these kids I want to meet them.

Ryland- That’s funny we want to meet you too so hi what’s your name?

Talking about shacking ass I’ve heard that you tend do a lot of dancing on stage. I don’t know much about that but I am curious to find out about it.

Gabe- Dancing is a magnificent thing it’s where you move your body and your feet in particular and sometimes your hands to the rhythm or try to music. You can do it without music too can’t you? Like in an interpative dance.

Ryland- Yeah absolutely yeah like an interpative dance like a movement piece.

Gabe- Will that still have music?

Ryland- You can’t hear it but the music’s there. You feel the music also dancing is good because here I am up there not nessacerily hitting the right notes not nessacerily playing very well if I simply turn around with my back to the audience and gyrate applause becomes loud enough that it doesn’t matter what I’m playing so I like that very much.

Gabe- In all seriousness our music is defiantly dancy we try to start building a beat and fitting the song around the beat and we just want to make kids have a good time and shake their bootys as upposed to punching their neighbours. If that makes sense.

What is the most embarrassing song you would like to admit dancing to?

Gabe- I dance to like Barbie Girl. I dance to like New Kids on the Block.

Ryland- I dance to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. I think that’s like the best songs that Cindy Lauper ever made or anyone.

Gabe- We have no shame. We’re not embarrassed.

Ryland- That’s part of our whole deal. We don’t feel any shame to what we do.

Gabe- It’s not a guilty pleasure it’s a pleasure. There’s no guilt.

Ryland- Yeah exactly. It’s so pleasing that the guilt is killed.

What’s your favourite song to perform on stage?

Ryland- Send my love to the dancefloor. I’ll see you in hell are my favourite songs to perform live.

Gabe- Yeah. I also really like The Ballad of the Big Papa in Diamond Girl because I get to do a bit of salsa dancing with Victoria. Speak a little Spanish.

What’s it like touring with Fall out Boy?

Gabe- It’s awesome! There’s a lot of screaming girls for Pete …

Ryland- Mania!

Gabe- I just wish the screaming was for Ryland because he’s cool too!

Ryland- When they scream for me it’s because im getting to close to them not because they are excited about that. They are like ‘Get away ahhhh!’

How do the UK fans compare to the US fans?

Ryland- Right off the back because we don’t have a release here not so many know the lyrics here as well as they do in the US whereas in the US by the end of the last tour that we did nearly everyone that we could see knew all the lyrics so it’s just a little more effort on our part to charm them over and warm them up to us.

Gabe- We are starting over a bit so it’s a great challenge and our point to come here is to make fans so we are excited that we have a chance to play these huge places where a lot of people get to see us. We just hope we can kick enough ass where people like us.

Ryland- It’s a challenge but we welcome the challenge.

Gabe- Yeah.

My final question to you guys is what are looking forward to the most about the rest of the tour?

Gabe- I think just picking up some of your wonderful Queen’s English. Being able to speak in a more proper manor. Maybe picking up some etiquette. Finding some good tea. Biscuits. Chips.

Ryland- Meeting the Queen. I’m looking forward to our headlining show on Thursday at Waterettes.

Gabe- Yeah I’m looking forward to that also.

Ryland- It’ll be fun and a small venue hopefully we’ll get really sweaty and it’ll be really rough. I like that.

Interview with Cobra Starship

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