Interview with Lee Weiss From Life After Liftoff
Life After Liftoff, a band from Dayton Ohio, just released their second EP “Brand New Life”. In honor of their new release we were able to have a quick chat with the lead singer Lee Weiss. If you are a Blink 182 be sure to check out this interview, there is a lot in store for you!
If you havent bought “Brand New Life” yet you can here!
To see the full bio and review of the album and the band, click here.
Can you tell us a little bit about your new EP: “Brand New Life”?
“Brand New Life is the second EP we are releasing. It is the follow-up to “Memory of You”. We’ve been working on it for a little under 11 months. It’s very different from our last EP. I always say there are two sides to Life After Liftoff, and this is definitely the more mature/experimental side. ‘Brand New Life’ the single, which just came out, is a power ballad. It’s very much different from anything we’ve released before. The rest of the songs on the EP are just awesome and different in beautiful ways.”
Who are your musical influences?
“Besides Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg-I mean what else can I say? No, but really, I grew up on Motown and The Beatles. My Mom and my Dad both grew up in the 60’s so that’s where I got my musical start. When I found music, I was nine years old. In all honesty, I started listening to Dr. Dre, so basically, I started off on rap. I was one of the whitest kids, I had no rhythm, you would laugh, but it’s true. I remember a friend of my family had Dude Ranch and I heard “Damnit” for the first time ,and I instantly fell in love. It made me who I am, Blink 182 lead to my discovering punk rock. It was a gateway band, because they lead me to Green Day, New Found Glory, MXPX, Jimmy Eat World. It was just this incredible world that literally helped me go through my childhood. It actually opened the doors to Bad Religion, NOFX, H20, bands like that. That’s where I primarily come from, pop punk and punk rock music. When I got to college, I discovered U2. I remember my freshman year of college my cousins sent me “The Joshua Tree” for my birthday. Just like “Dude Ranch” that changed my life, I fell in love with U2 and that kind of helped create Life After Liftoff. The merging of 80’s rock and 90’s pop punk.”
How awesome was playing Warped Tour? What was that experience like?
“It was totally kick ass. It has been literally a childhood dream ever since I went to my first Warped Tour and saw MXPX. I thought I want to play this. I remember being younger and hearing about Blink 182 being on and Sublime and I just remember every year telling myself – next year its’ going to happen. I actually built a relationship with Kevin Lyman. So I actually got to go backstage and meet people so this time in 2011 it was such a cool experience for me. Literally the last 4 or 5 years I was telling myself it’s going to happen and when it actually did, I jumped up like a five year old kid screaming and our merch guy was standing next me and looking like what is wrong with you? It was the most surreal moment I’ve had in a long time. It was hot, it was one of the hardest shows and days we’ve had as a band. We played two shows that day. We played an acoustic show on the Kevin Says stage and a full electric show on the Eernie Ball stage. I remember walking onto the Eernie Ball stage and it was at least 102 degrees and all of us looked like we had heat exhaustion. I literally remember dropping down to my knees during the bridge of the second to last song and just felt my knees burning. I was like ok, don’t think, get up. Other than that moment, it was definitely awesome. I can’t wait to do it again, and it’s definitely something I waited a long time to do. As a band we were so thankful and amazed and stoked that we got the opportunity.”
Do you have any touring plans in the near future? Are you going to try to play Warped Tour again?
“We are trying to play Warped Tour currently. We’re back in the battle. We’re trying to settle on some dates. As far as our tours are concerned, I just got some new info yesterday, that I’d love to share with you guys, but I have to wait to get it confirmed. But I can say as far as touring, is that we are going to be touring all summer, up until October. We will be touring in support of “Brand New Life”, and probably a little bit after that. So yes, you’ll be able to catch Life After Liftoff on tour. We can’t wait! We have been working on these songs in rehearsal because they are much more in depth and have a lot more heart and instrumentation on them. I cannot wait. So yes, we will be touring.”
If you could spend the day with anyone dead or alive, who would it be?
“Alright, I’ve done these before, but instead of one person, can I get top five? If I was to sit there and tell you Mark and Tom from Blink 182 that’s totally cliché, and obvious because everyone knows I love blink 182. And I’ve done that. So of course Mark and Tom from Blink and I use them as one person, because to me they go together, it’s like peanut butter and jelly. Besides Mark and Tom from Blink: Paul McCartney, Bono, John Lennon, and definitely Justin Pierre from Motion City Soundtrack. I’ve met him, I’ve hung out with him and every time I do I’ve either learned something new, or am just fascinated by him as a human being. He was my fourth I think, and fifth and final would be Bill Clinton. Just because I never answer with politics and I love politics, so I’m just going to finish up with Bill Clinton.”
Kill, screw, marry: Mark. Tom. Travis.
“Oh that’s evil. Too evil. Marry Tom right out of the gate. I’m screwing Mark, and I love Travis Barker to death I think he’s one of the best drummers of our generation, and I hate to do this, but I gotta kill him. Even if he went, no one could ever replace Travis Barker. Mark and Tom raised me to be the person who I am today.”
Besides the release of your new album, what does this year hold for Life After Liftoff?
“Well actually we just partnered with the organization Stand 4 Change. Growing up as a punk rock kid in middle school and high school, I was part of the alternative theme, part of the counter-culture, I wasn’t one of those cool kids. So I, like a lot of my friends, got bullied and picked on just because we didn’t dress a certain way or listen to a certain type of music. With the correlation of Brand New Life, we want to help stand for change. May 1st -“Brand New Life” comes out and we are going to be very much involved with going around to schools and talking about bullying and being instrumental in that. Hopefully we will be touring with it and really helping the organization as much as possible.”
You can watch Life After Liftoff’s Stand4Change PSA here:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbtlPh9sid4&feature=youtu.be]