The following is my interview with Mike Davenport, the bass player of the Ataris. We sat down on the band's bus, got comfortable, and had a great chat. He is a really nice guy and liked to talk. So, without further ado, here we go:

Tom & Mike chillin' on the bus.

Tom: Okay, umm…. So… Now I want you to tell me a little about the band. Here, I know you guys have like, the ultimate like rock & roll wet dream for how you guys got your record deal and stuff. Mike: Well, it's a weird story uhh… it's long. uhh…. We've been a band about six years, started about six years ago in Indiana. My singer was umm… uhh… he was just a kid in his room, makin' uh... demo tapes. And uhh… he had a friend that really, REALLY dug what he was doin. And he labeled the project, but all the tapes were the drum machine. And did played all bass and guitar and sung himself. So, this buddy of his, started takin' the tapes to other bands that were comin' thru town, and he handed one to The Vandals. The Vandals went on to Europe and they just started the Kung Fu Records, their label, and said, "Hey man, we need to uh… uh we need to find a new band to sign." This tape out of a hundred tapes kept on poppin' up & poppin' up. They called Chris up and they said, "Hey man, uhh… uhh we got your tape, ya know we wanna make you a record deal." And he thought it was his friends bullshit'n him. So he, uhh… ya know, uh, he didn't call back or anything. And then he got a message and two weeks later they called again, finally he got the hint it was the real deal. They said "bring your band to California." He's like: "I don't got a band, that's just me and the drum machine."

They didn't even know it was a fuckin' drum machine… and they were blown away. So, they hooked him up with this drummer I knew… uhh… from Santa Barbara, named was Derek, he used to play in Lagwagon, so they put them together to do the first record.
So Derek brought him to Santa Barbara where I lived, and where Kid lives, that's our drummer, Kid right there, and uh… haha... And so umm… Kid was playin' in a buddy of mine's band… we shared a practice space. The old drummer didn't work. The drummer they put him with didn't work out but we had become friends and he stayed in Santa Barbara.So me, Chris, and Kid decided to, uhh... decided to start the band over about five and a half years ago. And we frenzy shuffled guitar players with John you just met here, uh… New York native… still lives here actually, but we have to drag him out to California, he hates it. But John's been in the band a year and a half, man. He's it! We won't change again. We've gone through a couple of guitar players, but, uh… ya know, just got the van bout five years ago and just played every Elk's Lodge in America, ya know and… and just started ya know its… The Ataris build has always been real gradual, real steady, but always up.

Now, I have, this is a weird a question but ya see a lot of bands that like, like Green Jell-O, they got in trouble for using Jell-O as their…

Right, Right.

Ever any hassle or anything from the Atari company about it, they never gave you guys any shit about it?

Never any hassle at all. And the coolest thing is: like, Steve Jobs is a big fan, and he actually bought one of our songs, umm… for a… which?… Apple commercial. And that was awesome, but he asked us the same question. Cuz he was tied in with the early Atari, ya know.

Okay...

And uh, but you don't know we used to use some incriminating logos on our shirts and shit, and so when we started to get really big, ya know, it was the people that were in charge were just like "Hey, you should boot that stuff just in case." But now we got a copyright on our name, for the music part of the Ataris and… and uh, Columbia. It flew with Columbia, so that's about it, their legal department ya know, was worried too, but they cleared it.

That's cool. You guys have done a couple of Warped Tours and stuff uh…

Right.

Whats uh whats the craziest shit that had happened to you on one of the Warped Tours, on any tour actually. This is a standard question, but it is you get some funny stories out of this.

Yeah, uhh… the crazy shit happens all the time, but the other night we had like a huge dance party right here where yer sittin'. And the whole bus was shakin' and people were pourin' Ruffles all over each other and smashed them into the carpets, where uh, yeah our bus driver wasn't too happy, and that was just like two nights ago in Toronto, so… it was pretty funny.

Now I heard you guys had a little trouble getting out of Toronto or something...

No, Montreal. Yeah, yeah... our starter froze and I'm telling you: there, it is just minus twenty or something and yeah not only us, but everyone on the tour. Autopilot Off couldn't even make it they were so snowed in. Rufio ended up in a ditch and had to get pulled out. Uhh, Sugarcult lost the whole muffler from the engine… the engine on back... it's like, everybody… it was like disaster getting there, but ya know, three of us played the show and it was kick ass. It was the coolest Montreal crowd we ever played for.

So the crowds in Canada are pretty crazy then?

Toronto is insane. Always has been. Montreal… we played Toronto seven, eight times. Montreal we played probably about five times. And I would say that they were very like… French about it, very like "show me something." And very cool and you really have to work.

Sounds like Syracuse.

Yeah, yeah, you really have to work to get em goin'. But uhh… oh man! They were like Jell-o the other night. So I think we finally… it takes five times or something, but we finally got em.

Right... now you played a lot of stuff overseas too, I understand.

Yeah, oh yeah. We've got a gold record in Australia. Last uhh... release. Uhh… it's a gold record in Australia. We did really good in Japan. Really great in England. Really great in like Holland, and uhh… in Belgium too, which is weird.

So yer getting some pretty good, you know feedback from all over the planet, not just like…

Oh yeah, we've flown around the world a couple times.

That's cool. Umm… I was gonna ask you about something else. Oh I know you guys just had a couple days off. Umm I saw on the website. You guys just went back to Indiana for a few days or something?

We had one day off, and then one show… one show in Indianapolis. And that's all for Chris, man. 'Cause his daughter lives there, and his mom and dad live there and they're big fans so… but yeah, Indianapolis is, I will say just like Montreal we've been through there ten times over the years, maybe more maybe even fifteen times, because Chris always has to stop to get… to see his mom and dad. And literally it was always we never did good there. We always are wonderin', or maybe we thought because of the Anywhere But Here record… it's map of Indiana like you know. But it was this last time it was completely awesome. But yeah, if there's any place I don't want a day off its Indiana. But, that's where we get our days off, huh Mike. Hehehe. Man of many words over there.

Yeah I know… you can't get a word in edgewise with him, haha.

Right, that's our sound guy and all he does is tinker with things. He can't speak; he's a mute.

Now uhh… you guys have been playing on this tour, you're playing a lot of smaller venues, club stuff, or are you playing some big arena stuff?

No, this is all, this is it, right here. We're doin about… this is about as small as it gets… Umm, we're averaging probably about 1200-seaters a night in the big cities. Secondary markets like Albany, then we'll bump down to four to five hundred. But uhh, you know uhh, I think, ya know, the strategy is to do it like this just so we make sure and sell everything out. And just get some, ya know, just get the promoters known that we're back. We've been a year off makin this record so, ya know its just kinda like "Hey" ya know… people were, ya know… including us. We were like "Well I hope they didn't forget about us" …'cause we toured for four years in the van, 250 to 300 shows a year. And then, instantly we take a year off and its like we're tweaked, and we're wondering what the kids think…

Awesome, obviously! I've seen on your site that every show has been selling out, obviously the kids are very happy to see you back.

Yeah, we're we're so excited. We just get that little phobia like "Have we been gone too long?" ya know…

Now, the new album is called So Long Astoria?

That's right.

And that's coming out in the spring?

It's comin out March…

Mike's girlfriend: February seventeenth.

Mike: February seventeenth.

Derek LaVine: That's my birthday! (Side Note: Derek is a BIG fan of the Ataris.)

Everyone: Hey!!! Alright!!!!

Mike: It's gonna be a good birthday for us, for you.

Tom: Cool, now umm, how long did it take you guys to record the new album?

Mike: Literally, from start to finish, it was about a year process… It's so rad that Columbia let us do that. With Kung Fu, ya know, it's an indie label; they have no money. And its like we would come in for a tour, and that's the only way we could survive back then is to play shows and literally have like a month to do a record. And that includes rehearse for it, and then get it done… and we could just never make the record, (even though I love our old records), that…to take the time we really wanted to with a record. So… it was awesome. We demo'd like three times before it, and just kept tweaking and just perfecting every… every iota of the record. It's… it's the most amazing thing. It's ten times anything you've ever done before.

Tom: Alright, who do you have producing the record?

We got Lou Giordano, he did Samiam's Clumsy, he did Goo Goo Dolls' A Boy Named Goo, he did uhh… umm… ya know, Sugar Hopper Blue which is just ((*undecipherable*) ) for one of his good friends, so…

Okay, this is a tech question, but where… where did you guys record it?

Recorded three… three different maybe four huh? Three different studios, yeah. Yeah, Grand Master in L.A. is where we did all the guitars, vocals, bass. All of the overdubs, everything, most of it at Grand Master. We did the drums at this place called Ocean where uh, Ocean Studios in Burbank where Foo Fighters did Color in the Shape the drums. We just love that drum. Dave Grohl uh… Kid got Dave Grohl's kit. Then we got, we had the same Foo Fighters engineer. We wanted to replicate that drum sound. And then we wanted, like, the vocals and guitars of like Sam I Am and Goo Goo Dolls, that kind of thing. So we kinda got the best of both.

Cool. So now you guys are headed where from here?

Uh… to Boston then to New York City, man. There for a few days. Gonna be havin a good time there.

That's cool. So how long are you guys gonna be on tour for now?

Oh geez. We're literally booked for the next year. But uh, like with a week off here and there. Literally booked. I mean, we go this tour ends, and uh in like Vancouver uh, right before Christmas, the twentieth or somethin'. And then we have a week off and we fly straight to Australia for a big New Years festival and then a big tour there, and then home for two weeks. Then straight to Europe for a month, and then home. And then all Canadian tour. Best Canadian tour we've ever done and then back into the U.S. Back through there again so… then Warped Tour, and then back to Europe for the festivals so… hehe...uhh… its on fire now.

Now, I gotta ask about this… I bitch about this in every interview I talk about. You guys come through here, everybody comes through here. They play Buffalo, they play Rochester, and they play Albany. Uh, any chance, maybe, of you guys, (on the next tour) stopping in Syracuse?

Ya know what? It's for sure. As a matter of fact it's funny that you say that because Syracuse is one place where uhh… I am the business guy in the band and I look at things like sound scans and things like that and Syracuse the numbers there are SOO amazing, and they've always have been, before anywhere they were hip on The Ataris. And I actually made it a point when they said they're gonna do… they made it a point that where I was gonna get to do uh… Syracuse was on my list of the next markets to do. And its just because of all the support we got there, but uh… I mean we got close once we played… uh… theres a little city straight down from it…

Binghamton? Ithaca?

Ithaca.

The Haunt? Or…

Yeah yeah. We played Ithaca, we played Binghamton, We played Sh-en-ec-tady.

Schenectady (Pronounced: Ska-neck-titty)

Schenectady. See… I mean, I'm telling you when we were doin the Elks Lodge days we played every… but never Syracuse. But Less Than Jake they might be go to Syracuse, huh… okay so we looked into the venue, Mike was telling me about it, LTJ going there… its uh, it's a for sure.

Yeah, the place there now, (they used to have the place: The Lost Horizon, the joint was uhh huge… but they just got new management in there, they changed. So now its called 32 Degrees… they're booking some good shows there.) ...but the place to play is: Man, this is a tip to you: Bridge Street Music Hall! (Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge…) The crowds come out and get crazy there. I mean it…

Yeah, we back Syracuse, man. Like I said, looking at the numbers, its amazing what Syracuse has been to us over the years and we definitely wanna give that back, so…Yeah, our guitar player, he's from Monroe, NY so… that's why we're playin shows like uhh… ya know uh… Poughkeepsie we're playin. That's just for him.

Oh that's cool. I'm trying to think of something else I wanted to ask you about…Pretty much covered everything I wanted to talk to you about. The new record, the tour, uh…

Awesome. All I just wanted to say that uh… ya know, we try to write everyone back we can. Email us, Ataris.com is our website, and uh we try to email any questions, answer everybody back. We have a record store in Santa Barbara where we're from, called (Down on Haley?). Come visit us cause that's where we practice. And if we're ever home again, we hang out there. So uh… yeah, just you know we like to give back to the fans, and that's what we're all about.

Yeah, we all appreciate that too. Now uh… the last question before I turn this thing off, any umm… final statements you'd like to make? Anything important to you? Any comments about anything…

Just love, man. It's all about love. That's all.

Cool. I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

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