Transit

Listen up. If you haven’t listened Transit or their latest album Keep This To Yourself yet, get on that stat! Perfectly blending pop-punk, Midwestern emo and other genres, Transit has released quite the behemoth that should strike those craving music with heart and relatable lyrics. On their latest tour with Fireworks, The Swellers and Man Overboard, we spoke with frontman and lyricist Joe Boynton and guitarist and vocalist Tim Landers in one of the sketchiest alleys that Anaheim, California had to offer. Topics discussed include the new album, the message behind the lyrics and a few other goodies you should get excited for. This definitely an interview you don’t want to keep to yourself. Tell everyone you know!

Jerry@RRR: How are you guys today?

Joe Boynton: Good.

Tim Landers: Good. How are you?

Jerry@RRR: Great. Have you gotten to do anything fun while in Southern California?

Joe Boynton: No. [All laugh] Not really. We’ve just been playing the shows.

Tim Landers: Playing fun shows, hanging out. Really just trying to get some sleep, get to the shows on time, repeat the process.

Joe Boynton: That’s pretty much all we’ve done in California. No beaches this time. Nothing really.

Tim Landers: Hang out in sketchy alleys. [All laugh]

Jerry@RRR: Not a lot of down time?

Tim Landers: Not too much at all.

Joe Boynton: No, we keep busy.

Jerry@RRR: So you’ve been on tour with Fireworks, The Swellers and Man Overboard for about three weeks now. How has the tour been so far?

Tim Landers: It’s been really really awesome. Definitely the coolest tour we’ve gotten to do so far.

Joe Boynton: Hands down.

Jerry@RRR: Would you consider it the biggest one you’ve done so far?

Tim Landers: Yeah.

Joe Boynton: Absolutely.

Jerry@RRR: Recently you released Keep This To Yourself on Run For Cover Records.How does it feel to finally release the album to the masses?

Tim Landers: Really good. We recorded in April. We’ve had it for a little while. It did come out pretty fast; it’s only the summer. We were anxious to get it out.

Joe Boynton: We’re very proud of it. We put a lot of work and a lot of heart into it.

Tim Landers: A lot of stress.

Joe Boynton: [Laughs] Yeah. Oh my God…

Tim Landers: It’s just cool to have out there.

Jerry@RRR: In a bit of a surprise, Jeff from Run For Cover released the album Bandcamp about a week before its physical release date. What are you thoughts on the label’s overall marketing strategy?

Tim Landers: What happened was he released it the same day as our record release [show]. We found out that day that the CDs were stuck in a UPS warehouse about an hour from where the record release show was, so that’s why we ended up deciding that we would release it on Bandcamp because we figured that no matter what someone was going to put it online. It would’ve leaked that night. So, we decided that we would just put it up. If anyone else wanted to get it, then they could.

Jerry@RRR: Do you feel that the leak of Man Overboard’s Real Talk playedin how the record’s release was handled?

Tim Landers: I thought that was handled really really well.

Joe Boynton: Yeah they were really quick.

Tim Landers: I thought that was a really cool gutsy decision. Jeff has always been a close friend of ours too, so we definitely back his business decisions. We have a lot of say with what we want to do with it too, so we definitely had no problems with anything that happened.

Jerry@RRR: Moving away from the business plans for the record, Keep This To Yourself is your second full-length. How would you describe the band’s progression from any of your previous releases?  

Joe Boynton: With this one, we’ve learned more about music. We’ve had way more control with what we wanted to do and we’ve had an idea on what we wanted the songs to sound like. I guess we have a better understanding of what we want from this band now. It’s not as cluttered and all of the place. We’ve reached more of a mutual decision of what this band is about, what we want to say and what we want to sound like.

Tim Landers: Recording in the past it would always be over a large span of time. It would be kind of sloppy. We would wait weeks to record guitars, vocals and everything. With this album, we really got to just live in the studio and put everything into it. It was cool.

Joe Boynton: It was awesome.

Jerry@RRR: Considering the album artwork and song titles such as “PS”, “Dear Anyone” and “Return Address”, Keep This To Yourself has the semblance of a concept album. Would you classify as such?

Joe Boynton: Yeah. It’s a personalized album. We listen to a lot of bands that you would consider…the concept really came out of me and our guitarist Joe Lacy talking about Algernon Cadwallader and we were like, “This is one of those bands where they are writing songs just for me. I’m the only one who gets it.” Even though other people like that band, I feel like we tried to write an album for individual people with each song and we were really thinking about our friends at home. We wanted the album to be for the individual and not just trying to please everyone. We wanted to make this album as personal as possible.

Tim Landers: And from that, that’s where the letter thing came from and song titles played into that.

Joe Boynton: It’s not a complete concept, but it’s a light concept. It’s us trying to be like, “This is for our fans because that’s who we care about and who we always think about.” That’s what music is: relating. A group of people, us, relating to a group of people who listen to us. That’s what the whole thing is about. We’re trying to keep that in mind the whole time. 

Jerry@RRR: Why did you decide to use an open letter as your vehicle and focal point?

Joe Boynton: I don’t know. A lot of the songs are letter themed. All the songs on the album are either about my friends or my family or people I’ve met in the past few years.

Tim Landers: Girls…

Joe Boynton: There’s some songs about girls. There are not directed to anyone. They are more to a majority of relationships I’ve been in. A lot of it is about family and friends. All Transit songs have been about family and friends for the most part. I feel like always about she did this to me, etc is overdone.

Jerry@RRR: Do you have any particular events or experiences inspired the lyrics?

Joe Boynton: That’s tough. No, not really. I would say a lot of it is family members in my life who have really impacted my life and made me who I am today. I put everything I have into it. I don’t really hold back. One hundred percent of what is on the album is my life. If it’s too much, that’s what it is; I’m just giving one hundred percent of who I am. I can’t really talk about it individually. I don’t really like to tell people too much about the songs. I feel like everyone has their own idea about what the songs are about and I should let them have that and not take that away from them by telling them exactly what it’s about. You know what I mean?

Jerry@RRR: Yeah.

Joe Boynton: That’s how I feel about it.

Jerry@RRR: With your writing, how did you keep the lyrics fresh in a sense and not be cliché about things?

Joe Boynton: I listen to a lot of random bands. I listen to a lot of 90’s hip-hop. One of my favorite bands for lyrics is Pig Destroyer. I listen to a lot of obscure music to keep what we do fresh and read a lot of poetry, comic books, stuff like that. Just like everyone else. I’m not doing anything different than what everyone else is doing.

Jerry@RRR: Would you say there is revolving theme that you are trying to convey in Keep This To Yourself?

Joe Boynton: No. It’s really just things that I’ve gone through. This is what I’ve gone through, maybe you can relate. Besides the letter theme and the light concept, nothing really. A lot of it has to do with being from Massachusetts and growing up there. When I read the lyrics, I’ve learned more about who I am as a person. But that’s really what it is all about for me. Trying to find myself: self discovery. That’s what it’s about for Tim. That’s what it is about for everyone in the band, musically and lyrically. It’s just about self-discovery.

Jerry@RRR: You touched on it earlier. Music is about relating things and teaching people. For those listening to your album, what would you consider the most important lesson to be learned and internalized?

Joe Boynton: Oh my God…[Laughs]

Tim Landers: Damn! [Laughs]

Joe Boynton: That’s intense. Most important lesson? I would say be who you are. Embrace what you’re about. Don’t listen to anyone, but yourself. With Stay Home, I wrote a lot about that. Do whatever you want to do. You only live one time. Listen to yourself. Even if it’s your close friends, if you’re not one hundred percent about what they’re telling you is what you should be doing, don’t listen to them. You only live one time and that’s it.  

Jerry@RRR: Recently, there has been some fabricated controversy regarding you and The Wonder Years…

[All laugh]

Joe Boynton: I knew it! I knew this was going to come up!

Tim Landers: [Laughs] When you started the sentence, I knew where this was going. There’s nothing.

Joe Boynton: There’s no beef between us and The Wonder Years. It was a joke song title. They’re our friends. They’re great dudes.

Tim Landers: They hit us up when they were here. We’re like, “that’s funny.” The rumors are so absurd. It’s like we got some band in Boston to beat them up.

Joe Boynton: That didn’t happen! Whoever made up the rumor that we had them beat up by some band in Boston, please e-mail us and let us know who you are because you are a very creative person and could definitely help us with future…beef. Do not be our PR agent. [All Laugh] Don’t ever be a PR agent; you’re terrible.

Tim Landers: There’s nothing.

Joe Boynton: There’s no beef with us and The Wonder Years. I think—I have a bad memory— we were going to name the song “This Side Down” for a package idea and we changed it to “The Downsides”. I don’t know.

Tim Landers: We thought it would be funny to name a song “The Downsides” because The Upsides is such an influential pop-punk album now and we’re kind of in the same genre, but they have very uplifting songs. At the same time, we do, but that song is not very uplifting at all.

Joe Boynton: Yeah. If you read the lyrics, it has nothing to do with The Wonder Years. It’s about me in past relationships. That’s really it. Soupy texted me a week ago dying laughing. Kids on message boards love to feed the fire.

Jerry@RRR: Yeah. I’ve read some kids saying, “Yeah the lyrics mean this!” I know the song very well and I’m like, “It doesn’t have any sort of correlation…”

Joe Boynton: Not even close! I think it was worth naming it. I think it’s hilarious.

Tim Landers: I think it’s funny.

Jerry@RRR: People like to place Transit in pop punk. But when you listen to your songs, it’s more of a mix of things. How would you personally describe your music?

Tim Landers: Just over the past few weeks, we’ve been called a pop-punk band and Keep This To Yourself has been called a pop-punk album so many times. It’s kind of frustrating.

Joe Boynton: We don’t really try to be anything. We just listen to a bunch of bands and try to write songs that we collectively like. We’re not trying to be a pop-punk band. We’re not trying to be a punk band. We’re just being ourselves.

Tim Landers: We don’t consider ourselves to be a pop-punk band, but if someone asked me what type of band we are, I’m just like “Uh….”

Joe Boynton: I always tell them Green Day because you know the person only listens to Green Day. We go into a gas station and some guy goes, “Oh, you’re in a band. What do you sound like?” I look at them and think, “You probably only listen to Green Day but I’m going to say that just so you have some idea of what we sound like.”

Tim Landers: A lot of the bands we tour with are pop-punk bands, like we’re grouped in with them a lot. We definitely have a lot of pop-punk influence like we’ve all played in pop-punk bands and there are definitely pop-punk elements to our songs. I don’t really know how many more times I can say pop-punk in one sentence…

Joe Boynton: Pop-punk, pop-punk…We love pop-punk so that’s probably why it comes off in more of our songs.

Tim Landers: I think we have different elements to our stuff.

Joe Boynton: Oh, definitely.

Jerry@RRR: Who else would you consider your other influences?

Tim Landers: It’s a lot of hardcore, pop-punk, indie…

Joe Boynton: Midwestern emo. A lot of 90’s influence. For me, influence from 90s hip-hop because that’s all I listen to. If you look at my iPod, it’s either 90s hip-hop, Midwestern emo, 90s emo and then pop-punk.

Tim Landers: We’re all into our own bands.

Joe Boynton: Yeah. We listen to different stuff.

Tim Landers: We listen to similar stuff, but everyone has got their own thing going on.

Joe Boynton: Yeah. It keeps it fresh.

Jerry@RRR: Justin of Man Overboard in a recent interview stated that Balance And Composure was originally in your spot. How did you get on the tour?

Tim Landers: Because they decided not to do this tour and to do another tour, so we got their spot.

Joe Boynton: And we’re friends with Fireworks.

Tim Landers: It kind of fell into place like that.

Jerry@RRR: If it hadn’t been for this tour, what would have been your plans to promote Keep This To Yourself?

Joe Boynton: I don’t know.

Tim Landers: Probably would’ve asked our friends in other bands like Such Gold, Tigers Jaw or something. We would ask them, but we don’t know if we would’ve got it.

Jerry@RRR: What can we expect from Transit after your European Tour with Man Overboard and All Or Nothing? Do you have any other tours lined up?

Tim Landers: Even before then, we’re going back out this year with a band called Hostage Calm. We do tour dates with them. Then, we do the Europe thing. Then we’re coming home, write some new songs.

Joe Boynton: Yeah. We’re already trying to write some new stuff now.

Tim Landers: We’ve been working on some new songs.

Joe Boynton: We’re just constantly writing. We want to keep doing that, just constantly writing all the time. I think every band should do that. They shouldn’t take breaks ever.

Tim Landers: No reason to stay home. Our parents are just going to get mad at us and kick us out.

Joe Boynton: Exactly. I’m just going to have to work and clean the kitchen every day.

Tim Landers: Go back to school.

Jerry@RRR: Other than Keep This To Yourself, can we maybe expect another release from the band? Perhaps another split?

Tim Landers: We have intentions to an acoustic release really soon with some old songs done acoustically and some new songs. That’s what we really want to do next. Other than that, we’ll just be writing another album.

Joe Boynton: I definitely think an acoustic thing will be cool. Nothing definite yet, but I think that is our game plan for right now. I think it’s cool. I’m psyched. I want to do it.

Jerry@RRR: You guys were talking about writing new material. Would you guys consider writing a new album and releasing next year or…

Tim Landers: Yeah.

Joe Boynton: Absolutely.

Tim Landers: Definitely. I want to record it in at least the next seven months.

Jerry@RRR: So essentially are you guys are going to turn into Portugal. The Man and releasing albums twice a year?

Joe Boynton: We have a lot to say.

Tim Landers: We never really stop.

Joe Boynton: No one should ever stop. I feel like when bands have their breakthrough CD and just tour for a long time and then decide to record again, it falls apart.

Tim Landers: We recorded Keep This To Yourself in April and since then we’ve played music pretty much every night. We’ve already grown though that and I’m already anxious to record a new album.

Jerry@RRR: So something next year wouldn’t be out of the question at all?

Joe Boynton: No way.

Tim Landers: I would definitely expect it.

Jerry@RRR: Well I’m out of questions! Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. Any final thoughts?

Tim Landers: You’re really good at asking questions [Laughs].

Joe Boynton: We’re going to be touring a lot. If you’ve seen us once, you’re going to see us again hopefully.

Tim Landers: Unless you thought it sucked…[Laughs]

Joe Boynton: Unless you thought it sucked, then that’s cool. We respect that. This is always what we wanted to do. This is what we love so we’re going to keep doing it for as long as we can.

Tim Landers: Thank you for having us.

Joe Boynton: Thank you for having us.

Keep This To Yourself is easily one of the best albums to come out this year and even in the past few years. Buy the album here and on vinyl here. If you need further convincing, check out Review Rinse Repeat’s review for it here.