Fresh off a full Canadian Tour, Less Than Jake drummer Vinnie Fiorello talked to the Alligator about life on the road and returning home to play a special Halloween show at The Fest. First stop Gainesville, and then it's onto Europe for a six-week tour.
AVE: What's your favorite thing about coming back to Gainesville? Is there anything you really miss?
VF: It's weird because this time of year is when I miss Gainesville the most when it starts to get a little bit cold. It's coming up a few weeks from now. It's the best time to be in Gainesville. You see the seasons start to change. You really don't get that in South Florida. Overall though, I mostly miss the food. When I'm gone, I'm like 'Oh yeah, I could really go for Adam's Ribs' or 'I would love to have Chopstix' or the cinnamon ice cream from Leonardo's 706. I just go down the line of things you can't get in Germany or wherever.
AVE: Your newest CD, "GNV FLA" has been described as going back to the classic Less Than Jake sound. What were you going for with this album?
VF: Just to sound like Less Than Jake. I think that for "In With the Out Crowd" we have a certain sound that we reached sort of out of the box of who we were. I think that was a necessary thing to do. We have been a band for a really long time, so just to be able to reach out of the spectrum of what people expect is a cool thing. I think with "GNV FLA" we just wanted it to sound like Less Than Jake, what people expect of Less Than Jake and out of Less Than Jake.
AVE: Why did you decide to make it a tribute album?
VF: I think that that's where all of the lyrical sort of content is from. For me, there are two places as far as writing-lyrics-wise that have affected me the most: New Jersey, where I grew up, and Gainesville, where I have lived for 17 years. I think that there's a time and sort of a place and this time and place was to talk about the people that I know, and the family that I have is Gainesville. Sort of tell their stories. I would hope that I use the lyrics so that people can generally apply it to themselves. Outside of the United States, a big city or a small town, no matter where it is. It's sort of a balancing theme, when you start naming it something specific. We call it "GNV FLA," to make it a little bit more general and the people who know "GNV FLA" as Gainesville, Fla. know that it's about Gainesville, Fla.
AVE: I read that your first CD, "Pezcore," was homage to your PEZ collection. Why PEZ?
VF: It's one of those things from when you're young. My parents gave me one for Easter. It's just one of those things that sort of stick with you in your memory. For some people it's a Mustang. You had it when you were younger, and now that you're older you want another one.
AVE: How many would you say you have?
VF: Probably peaking the thousand mark right now.
AVE: For people who have never seen you play, what can they expect at The Fest?
VF: You know what, it's a very secret thing that we are having right now. They can expect something that they've never seen out of our band before. It's Halloween, so we're trying to do something that's fun and interesting. So, I can't really tell you, except that we're going to try to make it fucking interesting.
