STORY OF THE YEAR// Party and Sing-Songs and Say “Fuck” a Lot

I don’t like the term ‘acoustic re-imagining.’ It’s like a wanky way of saying, “We unplugged and are essentially selling you the same shit, just quieter.” Story Of The Year vocalist Dan Marsala knows better than to bang some tambourines together and call it a day. He and Missouri’s finest celebrate their career-making record Page Avenue by releasing 10 Years And Counting, an instrumental renovation of the original which showcases how slick their music chops really are.

If you chuck strings or piano on anything, I’m all over it. And you threw the oboe into the new recording too, right?
Yeah there’s little bit of everything on it. Anything we could figure how to either record or synthesise. Our goal was to make it exciting and completely different to the original recording. We didn’t want to just do a half-assed acoustic version and just be like, “Oh, here’s a broken-down version.” We didn’t want to do that because we knew it wasn’t worth it if it wasn’t completely cool and different and special.

Can you describe the partnership you have with Phil Sneed, as a vocalist and guitarist?
It’s been 10+ years of touring together and we were friends before the band. We grew up skateboarding and playing in a bunch of local bands in St. Louis. We just got lucky and somehow the music that we created was cool to people. It was just our hobby, you know? We skateboarded, played music and maybe we wouldn’t have to get real jobs someday. It was friendship first, and music just occupied our time. Now ten years later, we just wanted to deconstruct the songs and reinvent them in any way we could. He is incredibly talented, on any instrument. It’s astounding.

No one can truly say they have a favourite record, but which one would you love to see played live in entirety?
We did a couple shows with Finch on their anniversary and they are a big influence on us. Wow I don’t know, that’s hard.

I saw Weezer do The Blue Album last year. That was rad.
That would be really cool. I heard they were doing that. I love Pinkerton as well. I’m into ‘90s punk rock like NoFX and Bad Religion but I don’t know if I would want to see any of their records played fully. I’d love to see Glassjaw play their first record, Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence, straight through.

Hey I found out that you’re in a band called The Fuck Off And Dies.
Yep. I started that band in 2009 just as an opposite, to just play fun punk rock and have no expectations of trying to be on the radio or anything. We chose the most off-putting name ever and play a bunch of party songs [laughs]. We just party a lot and sing songs and say “fuck” a lot. //