by Deborah J. Draisin
MARCH OF THE SAINTS
Steve Oyola - Guitar and Vocals
Jason (“Jay”) Romine – Drums
Vincent (“Vince”) Avarali –
Guitar
Andrew Escobar – Bass
March of the Saints is a band risen up out
of the ashes of the incredible local band
Evelyn Hope (founded with Chris Mizzone of
Element 101 and ActionReaction.) Together
less than six months, March is already in
the process of finalizing an excellent demo
which will showcase their fan favorites, "Rejoice"
and "All the Saints Sing." March
is looking to hone its sound by performing
as many local gigs as possible, but they are
not opposed to hopping onto a summer tour
should the opportunity arise.
In addition to this venture, Vince, Andrew,
and Steve (along with Frank Iero of My Chemical
Romance and Bobbie Venom of Champagne Charade)
have just completed a demo for their side
project, Leathermouth (due out next month.)
Leathermouth performed a one-night only gig
at the Knitting Factory last October.
March of the Saints’ versatility, along
with their positive message "Keep Loving"
combine to form a unit worth seeing. Their
live show is spot-on and full of energy. This
interview was done at the Clash Bar in Passaic,
NJ, at a recent show.
Q: First of all, you guys, are you negotiating
a deal right now with anybody – do you
have anybody in mind?
Steve: Not that I know of…
Vince: (shrugging) We’re trying to get
our name out right now.
Steve: We’re actually forming our sound
still, so we’re not that eager to…
(Jay and
Andrew nod their heads in agreement)
Q: You’re not ready, okay that’s
fair enough. How about tours?
Vince: Well if the opportunity arises, if
it’s substantial enough for us to leave
home and pay our bills…
Andrew: We just figured that a lot of time
home will build that fanbase up.
Jay: (laughing) Spending a lot of time in
New Jersey and New York.
Q: Build a fanbase up and have them to follow
you, absolutely. The last time I met you guys,
we talked a little bit about kind of the religious
theme that you guys have going on. (All nod)
Where do you guys get your inspiration from?
Jay: (laughing) The Bible (Everyone laughs
with him)
Q: Absolutely! So you just take passages out
of The Bible – like, oh that one’s
cool?
Jay: The whole thing’s cool –
from cover to cover, it’s all good.
Vince: That, and you know, personal experiences.
Love…
Steve: Not like, girl love…
Q: Nah not that kind of love, fuck that, that’s
yesterday’s news, right? (All laugh)
Is anyone a college dropout? Did you quit
school in order to do what you’re doing?
Steve: I did not succeed in college, if that’s
what you mean.
Q: I didn’t either.
Jay: I technically finished, but I didn’t
send in my application for graduation, so
technically, I’m not finished.
Q: What? I’ve never heard of the before!
Jay: I know…
Q: That’s weird!
Jay: I just have to go down there and meet
with them and sign off, close it out. Yeah,
I admit I had to make up a class and I didn’t
go; I work full time – I didn’t
have time to go back and get it.
Steve: Limbo!
Jay: I’m in suspense so…bad example!
Q: Do you guys have parental support? Are
your parents supportive? (All nod)
Andrew: Yeah I mean, we’re pretty much
independent so whatever we put our minds to,
our families back us.
Q: That’s awesome; do they come to your
shows?
Vince: They do! You know, whatever we’re
passionate about, they support us, because
they love us.
Q: That’s great; you guys are really
lucky! (All nod)
Vince: You know we may be broke…
Q: Starving…
Vince: And starving….
Q: Not helping them at all, (all laugh) being
the black sheep at the family dinner
table…Would you guys ever play a wedding?
Vince: Sure (laughs; everyone laughs with
him)
Steve: I would!
Q: You would?
Jay: If they wanna hear us, hey whatever.
I wanna play at my own wedding.
Q: Are you getting married soon?
Jay: Not that I know of (checking his watch.)
Q: Not the last time you checked, right?
Jay: Not going to protest but…
Q: She drags you kicking and screaming you’ll
go, right?
Jay: Um, I’d probably drag her kicking
and screaming.
Q: Oh, so you are thinking about it!
Jay: It’s rattling around in there somewhere.
Q: Oh, she’s going to be surprised when
she sees this!
Jay: Nah, she knows (all laugh at him.)
Q: You guys, what do you think of new bands
out there; anyone kinda jazzing you right
now?
Steve: Well not new bands but some we’ve
discovered recently like this band from Japan,
MONO.
Vince: Our friends’ band, Holler the
Wild Rose.
Q: Oh I love them! You guys played with them
the last time; would you play with them again?
All: (nodding their heads) Yeah!
Vince: Maybe end of May.
Steve: We’re talking about Maxwell’s
maybe, in Hoboken.
Q: That would be awesome!
Jay: They may actually play with us at that
Loop Lounge show in June.
Q: Alright, cool, um would anybody dress in
drag?
All: (shaking their heads vigorously) No!
Q: Really? Not even for a million dollars?
Jay: Not on purpose; maybe when I’m
sleeping…
Andrew: Yeah…
Steve: (indicating Jay’s chest) Girlfriend’s
bra.
Q: Sleeping, and your girlfriend’s bra
accidentally winds up on you…?
Jay: Nah, I don’t know how that would
happen.
Vince: (sticking his hand into Jay’s
shirt) You sure?
Q: Yeah, you’d better check; anything
missing from the underwear drawer?
Jay: (checking) Nah.
Q: What do you guys want everybody to know;
what do you want people to know about you
guys?
Steve: That we are normal people (band nods
in agreement;) that we are human and faulty
just like everyone else.
Jay: We laugh at the same dumb t.v. shows
you do.; we laugh at the same stupid things.
Q: Oh like what; what do you like?
Steve: Arrested Development
Q: Haha that’s a good show!
Jay: Whatever amuses us, we kinda talk about
and record it; you know - driving places,
acting like idiots…we’re just
like everyone else! All the same things you’d
laugh at I’m sure I’ll laugh at
too.
Q: Anybody have any retarded pets?
Jay: Uh, my dog eats its own poop a lot…A
LOT!
Q: That’s pretty common.
Andrew: I have a lame dog - her rib’s
bad, so she gimps a lot.
Q: Awww, that’s cute.
Andrew and Steve: (shrugging) Eh, sometimes.
Jay: After a while, you know…
Q: Anyone have a cool dog name; anything interesting?
Jay: Nah, we just named our dog Honey; it’s
not very original.
Q: My grandmother had a dog named Honey; I
loved that dog! Wow, you guys are really taking
off; since I first saw you, you’re doing
very well.
Steve: We’re just trying to book ourselves
as much as possible - you know not stupid
places like the Clash Bar (all laugh - inside
joke; the Clash Bar gave my underage photographers
a very hard time.) We’re just trying
to get our name out.
Q: I’m trying to help you do that, you
guys.
All: Thank you, we appreciate it.
Q: You guys have a really great live show;
you deserve a good crowd.
Jay: Thank you for the support, we really
appreciate it, and we really appreciate the
YouTube videos, which are fun to watch.
Q: Which you took down!
Jay: Yeah, we’re trying to modify our
sound; kinda hone it. That was like, our first
show.
Steve: Right, that was our old sound.
Q: Oh, I see, “Don’t expect us
to be like that.”
Jay: Yeah, it won’t look exactly the
same; we don’t wanna mislead people.
It was cool to see it - it was cool to have
other people see that hey, we actually are
a band, we didn’t just make a myspace
page for fun; we’re actually doing things.
Steve: Not like Leathermouth (all laugh)
Q: Is there anything going on there or…?
Vince: The record’s coming out soon.
Q: Cool! That’s good to know.
Vince: That only took us what, like two years?
Q: You guys are going to be busy boys!
Andrew: We’ll see.
Q: Are you guys going to tour on that, or
probably not?
Vince, Jay and Steve: We’ll see.
Q: Well you guys have got this going on so…
Vince: Between this and Frank it’s…
Q: Well his schedule is crazy.
Vince: It’s horrible, but it’s
cool, we got to do a really cool side project.
Q: A heavier, fun record; it’s so different
from what you guys are doing with March.
Andrew: We’re doing it just for fun,
you know - playing it with friends; it was
something that was two years in the making
and we wrote it so…
Steve: Doing it in our spare time, so much
so that we had to record the drums in a garage
this size (holds arms about a foot and a half
apart.)
Q: That’s fun shit though!
Vince: But we did it, we recorded the whole
record ourselves so…
Q: You guys are always evolving – I
think I commented on that the first time I
met you, from Evelyn (Evelyn Hope was March
of the Saints’ original venture, with
Chris Mizzone of Element 101 and ActionReaction)
to this to Leathermouth, you guys are just
all over the map with your sound; it’s
really interesting.
Andrew: Yeah it’s fun to play with…
Vince: You have to be as musicians, you know…
Jay: We’ve got an R&B record coming
out next.
Q: Ah; you going to do a little rapping; there’ll
be rapping in this band?
Jay: (making a cutthroat gesture) Noooo! No
way!
Q: (to Steve) Well, you know I love what
you do with the drum and the guitar at the
same time; that’s the craziest thing
I’ve ever seen (Andrew nods his head
emphatically.)
Jay: Bo Jackson, you’re the Bo Jackson
of music! Baseball and football. Dave Grohl!
Steve: Yeah, there you go.
Andrew: Yeah!
Q: Yeah; it could be! He did garages once,
right?
Andrew: Yep!
Steve: (shrugging modestly) Nah…
Jay: Don Henley.
Steve: (nodding) Don Henley.
Andrew: Steve Oyola.
Steve: Nah I look up to the dude from Genesis,
Phil Collins; he’s my boy.
Q: Ah Phil Collins, he’s the man –
and he sings as well as you do, too; you have
a great voice!
Steve: Thank you.
Q: You really do; I don’t think people
would realize that you can sing like that.
Steve: (shrugging) I sing how I sing, I don’t
really know what that means, but I appreciate
the compliment.
Q: Well I think people would figure, “drummer,”
you know, I mean Phil Collins is an example,
but a lot of people wouldn’t realize
how many people are multi-talented. You’re
very versatile; you’re all very versatile
- it’s interesting!
Steve: Vin plays a mean violin slide.
Jay: (throwing his arms up dramatically) You
going to play the tambourine?
Vince: No.
Q: So are you going to pull that out tonight?
You guys have any surprises up your sleeve
or…?
Steve: We actually switched the set around;
same songs but a little tiny tweak in the
sound…
Q: Any new material or not yet?
Andrew: Nah, we’re really just adjusting
our sound – finding it. I mean, in comparison
to most bands, we’re not even a year
old. We’re still writing and trying
to hone what March of the Saints is; like
idealogically we know what it is, but just
um, musically and all that.
Q: Do you guys have a message?
All: Keep loving!
Q: Ah, I saw that on your space, that’s
a really good thing. I think everybody should
follow that.
Steve: That was inspired by me personally.
Q: Ah, there you go! Well I’m going
to let you guys go get set up, thank you for
your time and good luck!
All: (waving) Appreciate it, thank you.
Where to catch them: http://www.myspace.com/marchofthesaints/
Interview by: Deborah Draisin, http://www.myspace.com/dstarpro
