Warped Tour in Kansas City: I’m Too Old For This Shit

I interviewed Adam Phillips, drummer for Kansas City’s hard rock, semi-punk band The Architects, outside the band’s merch tent while a Dave Matthews-loving rapper from England named Shad played a stage nearby. A Dave Matthews-loving rapper from England on Warped is as strange as a three-legged cat humping a fire hydrant, but hey. . . strange is relative. Especially on the Warped Tour.

The Architects
Photo © 2009 Meredith L. Phillips

Popshifter: Thanks for the interview. What is it about Warped that makes you want to play it over and over?

Adam Phillips: Man, there’s so much inspiration on the tour. There are a lot of bands that I think are really terrible but there’s bands like Gallows, the AKA’s, There Fore I Am, The Bouncing Souls, and Bad Religion that light a fire inside you that makes you want to throw down as heavy as they do.

Popshifter: Speaking of Gallows, I somehow missed them.

Adam Phillips: Ah man, that sucks. They are a fucking serious band. A couple nights ago in Chicago they played a set that was the best and coolest thing I’d seen in years.

Popshifter: Your band recently left Kansas City based label Anodyne for Frank Iero of My Chemical Romance’s label Skeleton Crew. How has the KC music community taken the news?

Adam Phillips: Honestly, no one has said anything to me about it one way or another. We’re all still friends with everybody at Anodyne. I don’t see how anything would be different. The Skeleton Crew guys are really cool. We played a show in Jersey for like, seven people and one of them happened to be Frank Iero. He said he really liked our band and asked us if we wanted to make a record on his label. We had recorded three records with Anodyne. Someone offers you a good opportunity to record with them, how can you say no?

Popshifter: What’s been the reception been to the new material and the new record?

Adam Phillips: Man, so far honestly it’s really good. The Hard Way came out like, two days before we left for Warped so we haven’t stopped moving since the release. I don’t know if there are any good or bad reviews; I’ve been too busy to notice.

Popshifter: What’s it like to play Warped in your hometown?

Adam Phillips: You know, it’s really kinda weird. Kansas City has a long history of shunning bands that go outside of KC. Any band that stays and never leaves can be HUGE in KC, but if you stat traveling around, no way. It’s that way for every KC band. Man, I’ve seen groups that do well outside of KC like The Get Up Kids; they’d sell out huge venues in Japan, Europe, Australia, coast to coast in the US. They’d come back to The Bottleneck [in Lawrence] and play for 50 people.

Popshifter: If you sell out shows anywhere, you should be able to sell out at home.

Adam Phillips: Exactly. Yeah, it’s bullshit. I have high hopes for a good crowd for us today. We’ll see.

Popshifter: What are the best and worst things about touring?

Adam Phillips: That’s a tough one. I’ll say it about this tour. On Warped, there is a very remarkable sense of camaraderie between all the bands and the crews. Even the bands that don’t sound anything alike or may hate each other’s sound, help each other. Like if you see someone struggle with their gear or merch cases, you help them out. If you need it, they’ll help you out. Everyone pounds drinks and dances together at the end of the night when it’s all said and done. It’s just badass.

The worst thing about it is definitely taking a shit in a porta-potty and not being able to wash your hands. Six weeks on tour and no sinks. Absolutely dirty porta potties with no sinks. The worst.

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