Interview by Amanda Wiest, September 6th, 2007.

Amanda: This is Amanda from Betweenttrees.com with Between the Trees.

BTT: Hello!

Amanda: Can we introduce everyone and what you do in the band?

Wes: I’m Wes, I play keys.

Ryan: I am Brad, I play guitar.

Josh: I’m Josh, I play drums.

Jeremy: I’m Jeremy, I play bass.

Brad: And I’m Ryan, I sing lead vocals and I play guitar.

Ryan: He plays piano too, he’s awesome.

Brad: Oh yeah.

All laugh.

Amanda: Awesome, so how long have you guys been in this band?

Ryan: Uh, two and a half years or so?

Josh: Yeah it’s going on two and a half years.

Amanda: Yeah? Where did you guys meet?

Ryan: Me and Josh, we uh met each other and became best friends immediately. And we both lied about how good we were in our musical whatever we had and started a band off of that lie. Yeah, then Jeremy, being Josh’s brother..

Wes: They’ve known each other their whole lives.

Ryan: Yeah they’ve known each other for a little while. So that’s how he came into play and we, me and Josh have been in a couple of other bands and uh, Wes was someone who liked the band, I guess. So he came to a lot of shows and eventually became somebody who came on the road with us and uh, one day uh, like not really a practice of between the trees, Between the Trees wasn’t really anything. But moreso one of the other projects me, Josh and Jeremy were working on. Wes was there and we were like "Do you know how to play keys?" and he says "nope." And we were like "alright, you’re in!"

All Laugh

Ryan: So he started learning keys and probably about six months down the road we met Brad at a show and we needed a guitar player and I said "Do you play guitar?" and he said "Mainly metal," cause that’s all he uh..  so he had been playing guitar for about three years so we gave him a shot. And it just seemed to click, so it went from there.

Amanda: That’s awesome. So um where did the name "Between the Trees" come from?

Brad: Take it away, Josh.

Josh: It’s kind of this idea we have, that if one tree were to represent the beginning of everything, and one tree were to represent the end of everything, just kind of that time we are spending in between, in what we are doing.

Amanda: That’s really good, How old are you guys?

Ryan: Thirty - Thirty-five.

Brad: Forty

Josh: Yeah, Ryan has three kids

Wes: We’ve actually stopped time. Sorry.. I got caught in heroes.

Josh: My birthday was a couple of days ago, I turned twenty three, I’m the grandpa of the band.

Amanda: Happy Birthday.

Brad: Everyone else is twenty.

Ryan: Except for Jeremy.

Brad: Except for Jeremy, he is nineteen, baby boo! He’s gonna be twenty!

Josh: It’s coming up though, December, December 18th, make sure you say happy birthday to Jeremy. He’ll be twenty.. the big two zero.

Ryan: You know technically, he’s not really a teenager. Nine teen

Jeremy: nine TEEN, there’s no fighting that.

Ryan: Well, nein, you know, German for ‘no’ NO teen

Amanda: Ha ha that’s a good argument.

Ryan: Thanks.

Amanda: How did you guys become involved with To Write Love on Her Arms?

Ryan: I was really good friends with Renee Yohe, the organization kind of started around her and her essential, i guess, needs. Yeah I was good friends with Renee and started to realize that she needed other people in her life besides me. When she finally came to the decision, or I guess the decision me and a couple other people already knew, including the guys, that she needed rehab, we tried to just do whatever we could to make that happen.  So she met Jamie Tworkowski, the guys who started To Write Love on Her Arms. He wrote a story about her and started selling some t-shirts and stuff like that and we’ve just been a part of it ever since the beginning.

Amanda: That’s awesome.. It went really far.

Ryan: It has gone very far

Amanda: Lots of people wear those shirts, I see them everywhere.

Ryan: They just went out on tour with I think The Almost.

Wes: We all have like too many of these shirts, We are all like "You’re wearing it today? What the crap! I thought I was wearing it!"

Ryan: Exactly

Amanda: How is Renee doing? Good?

Ryan: Renee is great! She is eighteen months sober?

Brad: I think it was nineteen months.

Amanda: So can you tell me a little about your record, Like what is the title and everything, when it came out?

Brad?

Brad: What’s there to tell? It’s a record. Woo

BTT: It’s called The Story and the Song!

Josh: It’s been released twice.

Brad: It’s called "The Story and the Song." It was released twice now. And we released it last september independently, under Bonded records, and then this past spring that label got distribution, so we released it again to stores through Universal/Fontana along with Bonded again, and recently we just signed to Universal Motown, and I think they are gonna kinda re-release it again, but not really like a big thing about it.
Ryan: A soft release.
Jeremy: Just kinda put it out there and start promoting it really hard.
Amanda: So what are your like, musical influences?
Brad: Jimmy Eat World.
All separately throwing names: Nickelback, Creed, Alabama.
All laughing.
Amanda: I can see that.
Ryan: I think when me and Josh kind of started the band, we were always kinda listening to oldies and stuff like that. I mean we’ve always liked the stuff we grew up on, like the Get Up Kids, or Foo Fighters, or Further seems Forever and somewhere in the mix of all that there is a big chunk of oldies that we just work off of.
Josh: We listen to just about everything from bluegrass to hardcore… jazzscope, spice girls
Ryan: And now that we have signed to Universal Motown, we are great affiliates with Cash Money.

MORE TO COME!