Valencia's Brendan Walter on touring, Japan, Starbucks

Full interview

Thursday, October 29, 2009

The men of Philadelphia-based punk band Valencia don’t feel like success came fast, but guitarist Brendan Walter says that when you compare them to other acts, he can see why it would seem so.

The foursome began playing together in 2004 and by 2005 they were signed. About a year later, they were a part of the Columbia Records family. Since then, they’ve released two records, have been a part of the Warped Tour, opened for Blink-182 and spent two weeks playing music in Japan. On Thursday, they’ll open for Dashboard Confessional for ECU’s homecoming concert in Minges Coliseum.

But on Oct. 5, Walter was spending his last moments in California, where the band is working on its next album, before heading back to the East Coast. We talked to him about touring and the upcoming show:

mixer: You guys are coming to ECU on Oct. 15 with Dashboard Confessional, but you’ve already been on tour for a while now, right?

Walter: We toured all summer, but me and my singer are ourt in LA now recording demos for the new album. We’ve been away for a while, but not necessarily touring.

mixer: Since the tour is kind of over, is the show at ECU just part of the winding down phase before recording your album or is there another tour coming up?

Walter: No, this is kind of winding down. We have two shows this week with Blink (182) and two shows with Dashboard the next week and that’s about it for the year for us.

mixer: You’ve already done a show with Blink 182 before, right?

Walter: Yeah, we did their first show back which was pretty awesome and then they offered us three more dates, but we could only do two. But either way, it’s amazing.

mixer: That’s really cool. What’s it like playing with Blink in what, I guess, could be called a comeback tour?

Walter: It’s pretty cool. To be honest, when I started the band, it’s something you never think would happen because it’s your idols. But it’s awesome. I was pretty nervous to play while having Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge watch us play, but it was rad. It was very cool.

mixer: Before, you’ve done the Warped Tour and toured with Every Avenue and a ton of other people. What bands or tour have been the most memorable so far?

Walter: Probably the most memorable tour would be the tour we did with our good friends All Time Low and Boys Like Girls. It was like everyone was successful and everyone was having fun, there were tons of people at the shows it was just one of those tours that was a really good time.

mixer: You guys spent two weeks in japan?

Walter: Yeah we did two weeks in Japan this summer. That was definitely up there on my list of favorite tours of all times.

mixer: Other bands we talk to who have gone to Japan always talk about how the crowds in there are very appreciative of various different kinds of music. What was your experience there like?

Walter: Yeah, I mean that definitely describes it pretty well. They were very appreciative and respectful and just overall welcoming. You're in this country where they speak very little English and you don’t speak Japanese, but you try and they accept you and they just love music, which is really cool. It’s funny because us, we went with Every Avenue and Hit the Lights, who are good friends of ours, and all three of us are bigger there than we are in America — just because they’re more active in checking out music and they just love music in general.

mixer: I always wondered about that because it seems the Japanese are very big fans of U.S. bands, but like you said, many of them don’t speak much English. But they know all of the words to the songs.

Walter: Yeah, it’s kind of a phenomenon, I guess.

mixer: So did you learn any Japanese while you were there?

Walter: Very, very little. Like "hello," "thank you," "where’s Starbucks?"

mixer: I guess I should’ve figured there would be a ton of Starbiucks in Japan, too.

Walter: Yeah, yeah. They have petty much everything chain-restaurant wise that we have here, but it’s like not what you’d expect. Like Denny’s is rice and soy sauce. It’s not pancakes.