Where are you guys from?
Travie-From upstate New York. Geneva. It's like in between Syracuse and Rochester. A small town.

How is the Vans Warped Tour going?
Travie-It's incredible. I would equate it to rock & roll summer camp.

I was reading on the message boards a lot of the fans are saying you all are nice and sign autographs and stuff. How important is being in touch with your fan base?
Travie-It means everything. They have gone out of their way to show up at the shows and the least we can do is hang out for a minute. It's always meant a lot to me cause to have it come across that the band is from a different walks of life but were the same as them for the most part and as long as we make that connection. They can realize that our lives aren't that different than theirs.

Listen to Travie talk about the Vans Warped Tour

I was looking at the liner notes in the CD and it says you are responsible for the album concept. Can you tell me how you came up with the concept and explain the concept to me?
Travie-The title As Cruel As School Children suggests, we know kids can be some of the meanest people in the world but at the same time I think we all save some of that childhood ridicule and I think it depends on what you do with it. It could build character or ultimately destroy your character. But like, As Cruel As School Children is metaphoric not only like for growing up as kids but a metaphor for the world in general. Do you have the album with you now?

Read our review

Yes.
Travie-If you look at the chubby kid on the cover he represents Gym Class Heroe's as a band. On the cover he has all the kids picking on him and he still has a huge smile on his face. On the next page all the kids are like "Wow, we're all picking on him but he's still smiling." The third page all the kids have the same shirt and the same haircut as him. That represents our band in the sense that we haven't changed anything that we do to cater to anyone around us. I feel like as long as you stay true to who you are and what it is that you love to do eventually the world has to change to cater to you. I feel like the artwork represents that. We worked with Dave Crosland and artist from San Francisco and he definitely took our vision and applied it and made it happen.

Your song "New Friend Request" has gotten a lot of buzz. I know you guys are so busy now but did you ever have time to get into the whole Myspace thing?
Travie-Oh we make time for it believe me. We definitely make time for it. I thought I had a problem but our guitarist has a huge Myspace problem. It's healthy. It could be something worse he could be addicted to substances or something so I'm glad it's Myspace.

You know when I told people I was interviewing you the number one question they wanted me to ask you was, "Have you all ever hooked up with any girls from Myspace?"
Travie-Yeah. I'd be lying if I told you no. I'm being completely honest right now. On many occasions, not many I'm not that busy but there have definitely been situations. I mean…the website the thing about it is kinda unique is that there are people I haven't talked to in 10 or more years who contact me over that thing and it blows me away how one website can be so…it's crazy. I think Gym Class Heroes as a band has had their fair share of Myspace hook-up's.

Travie on Myspace hook-ups

Are there any songs you were really feeling that didn't make the album?
Travie-There was a version of Skin or Scholastics that we actually sampled Hall and Oates but we couldn't get it cleared in time. Its on my computer for my own private consumption but I wish we could have got that cleared. But there are a couple of demo's that we recorded. This one song, the demo version was called "Radio," that we are going to put on the Internet as a B side or something.

Now I know it's four of you all but you are the only one here so you can probably only speak for yourself but what groups were you influenced by growing up?
Travie-It's funny. Growing up my dad was a bass player so he used to listen to all kind of music from Sly and the Family Stone to punk groups. My mom was like more into soul and she was also into hair metal like Poison. I listened to so many kinds of music growing up. For me Hall and Oates and Phil Collins are artists that stood up and Michael Jackson when I was younger. All the music I used to tell my dad to turn off or stop listening to is everything that I listen to now. Hall and Oates is one of my favorite groups now and for all time. I listen to a lot of 80's R&B like Prince and Ready for The World. To me that music makes me feel like a kid again.

What's your favorite Hall and Oates song?
Travie-There's a song called "Do What You Want, Be What You Are" and I would probably say "Out of Touch," is my favorite song.

My favorite Hall and Oates song is "Method of Modern Love."
Travie-Oh I love that. The thing when I first heard the Method Man song when I was younger I was trying to explain to my friends "That's a Hall and Oates song." Of course they didn't believe me. But that's a great song.

Your label mates Panic at The Disco have had really fast success. If you all took off that fast would you be ready for that kind of success?
Travie-Umm I think in a sense just being in this setting for the past three years I think we could handle it. We've built this thing and yeah I'm ready for anything.

Are you looking forward to your headlining tour this fall?
Travie-I cannot wait. It's going to be awesome. I think we are at this point now the next thing to do is a headlining tour. We've supported a lot of acts and out played a lot of acts we supported so I think it's just natural progression.

I want to ask about you all's song writing process as a group. Is there one person who does the writing and another person that does the music or is it a collective process?
Travie-When Gym Class Heroes writes a song how does it come together? Well musically it's definitely a democracy. We all like chime in. It can vary. Like if Disashi our guitarist comes up with a riff and Matt can come with a beat and we will just lay stuff over that. And basically anything can happen. I write all the lyrics and structure the songs accordingly but it's definitely a democratic collective effort.

Are you happy that the new album is out?
Travie-I'm so happy. It's like we actually got the record two days before it came out so we had a record release party. It dropped on the 25th and we were like "Oh our records out today." We set out to make a summertime record and we accomplished that. Its out there and I want people to enjoy , you can still rock it after the summertime but the perspective might change a little bit.

Related Links
http://www.gymclassheroes.com
http://www.myspace.com/gymclassheroes