Lambgoat's Drew Ailes had an opportunity to speak with Boys Night Out guitarist/vocalist Jeff Davis in February amidst their tour with Armor For Sleep and Chiodos.

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Dude, the first time we met him, he had come to meet us when we were writing the record, we had to go get him from the airport. We were like, "what is this guy going to look like?" He's like, "yeah, I'll be waiting outside." We pictured he'd be like, a seven foot tall black guy with dreadlocks and surface piercings in his face and stuff. He's maybe a five foot-ten....very plain looking, jewish guy. I don't know, he's just a very normal looking dude. He's just a guy.

[laughing] No, that's another thing we thought, too. That's the only Machine I know, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he's not so much like that.

Yeah, and we knew what we were getting into when we wrote it. We knew that we were going to bum some kids out. We definitely weren't writing it for those kids, we were writing it for ourselves. We definitely did the record that we wanted to do and what would make us happy in the long-run. We knew that there would be a sacrifice involved with that. We did it for us and we did it for the fans who are in it for the long-haul and not for the fans that just kind of hear a record from a band and want that band to be just that one record and repeat it over and over again. The way I listen to music is like, I love a band that can write what I think to be a great record and then to expand on that and to try new things, and to grow. That's the best thing about music and getting into bands, so when I'm writing music, I try to go about it the same way. So yeah, there's been some bummed out kids, but it's all taken with a grain of salt. We've been doing some great tours and meeting a lot of new kids and a lot of new fans, so it was definitely worth it.

Absolutely not. For example....Cave In. I was so stoked on Cave In and everything they've done. I think they're a brilliant band. Bands like....Saves The Day, who took a different turn on things...

Aw, which one? I read an interview online where I was totally misquoted throughout the whole thing. There was some quote where I supposedly said something about Cave-In's new record not being heavy or something.

Yeah, I think that was the same interview as I read. I remember doing an interview with the guy and he just totally paraphrased and misquoted everything.

Yes! Yeah! Yeah! [laughing] And I posted on their board. I read that interview and I was freaking out, like, "oh my god, I look like such a tool, I didn't say any of this shit, I look like such a cunt." So yeah, I was so pissed.

Okay, what I actually said was, he was asking about the band name. I said that it's just a band name and it's something we've had for a long time and that we're over it. We're not going to change it, we just don't care – it's there. I had heard in the past, interviews with Green Day, where they say they don't care about their band name and it's been around forever and they're over it. So that's what I was saying. I never said that I talked to Green Day, or met, or that I'm best friends with Green Day and that they tell me all the time how they hate their band name. I read that and I was like, "aw, fuck, I look like such an idiot."

Yeah...interviews are great.

Well no, because that's the thing. When I did the interview with the kid, it was cool. It was in person and everything was fine. He asked some alright questions. I guess he just like...it was not verbatim. It was so paraphrased and so expanded upon. It just made me sound like a total prick. There was all this other stuff that I didn't say. I was just like, "dude, why did you type it up like this?" I was so bummed on that. Someone sent it to me asking if I had said this stuff, and I was like, "oh, fuck."

Well, I don't know. We've done so many, I guess because being a band that's trying to grow, you take all the interviews you can get when you're first touring, like ones you get from a 13 year old high school newspaper. So we've definitely had kids come out and, "what's your favorite color, what kind of sandwiches do you eat?" Just the dumbest, dumbest, shit.

Oh fuck, really?

But yeah, so there's been a whole slew of awful interviews over the years.

But back to that Cave In thing, I wasn't trying to...I didn't want to come off wrong saying anything about Cave In just because I have nothing but respect for that band.

Yeah, well, "Creative Eclipses" is kind of a bummer, but I thought "Jupiter" was great.

I thought the new record they put out this year was really awesome.

It was, definitely. I had to do a top-five list and it was in there. I thought it was really cool.

Yeah, it's kind of like we're all on the same page. Granted, we do all have different tastes, we do have lots of similar tastes as well. When it comes to writing and when it comes to this band, we all tend to be on the same page, musically, when we sit down to write it. If anything, it's a good thing that we all have such different tastes because, say when I bring a song to practice and I have all the guitar stuff written, everyone else starts adding their own thing and that's where you getting different flavors from all the other influences within the members and through their instrument and stuff. I think it's a really beneficial thing.

No, no, no.

No, we all pretty much listen to everything. Like, from old school punk, to metal, to country, to hip-hop, to pop music, to pop-punk...everything. We're music fans. We each individually don't just like certain genres, but we all just like everything. Having said that, we're all extremely, extremely, picky of what we listen to. But I'm just saying that we're not subject to a certain genre.

It's been pretty good to us. There's definitely areas where we do a lot better, like in the whole Northeast, and then like, some of the west coast. There's areas where we definitely have a stronger fanbase, but like, for example, North Carolina, at that show, there wasn't many kids who were there for us or knew who we were. But that's fine, because there's places like that and Nashville where we haven't really gotten the opportunity to tour before. It's a good tour. Us and Armor For Sleep, we have a pretty similar fanbase, and I'm really stoked on it so far. Especially coming from, well, I don't want to talk shit about the tour coming from that Fall Out Boy tour that we did, because that was an amazing opportunity and it was crazy, but some nights when you're playing for large amounts of kids like that, that are there to see a band that they know from their MTV single, and a band like us gets up and plays some more proggy stuff and some heavier stuff, some kids get confused. So coming and being able to do a tour like this in smaller venues with bands more suited to our genre, it feels good.

Well, not really, because going into it I didn't really know what the band had accomplished. I didn't know what kind of venues we were playing or how big that band was. We played with them years ago and stuff like that, and then all of a sudden like, it was a big deal that the tour's happening. We went on it and it was like, wow, this is a really big tour. All of a sudden this is a multi-platinum band. It was kind of happening all around the tour, too, so it was just so weird to watch all this happen. It was a very different and bizarre thing for us, but it was definitely a cool thing to be a part of.

Nothing, right now. Granted, it's only a week into the tour, but I have no complaints. The kids are all cool, the bands are all cool – I'm content. Talk to me in two weeks after I hate it and I'll say something different.

Yeah, there's some bands we've gone out with that we don't get along with and we know it's just not a good match-up, personally. I'm not going to say any names, but it's definitely happened.

Yep, yep, it happens.

Aw, dude, that's not going to happen. We're up against Motion City Soundtrack and they've already put us in the grave on that one. They're all good dudes. They're all great guys, but they're also a massive band and they're going to kill us. So I don't even consider what would happen if we were to win as it's pretty much....they're going to take that one.

I thought it was cool. Before, we were the Spin 'Band of the Day' at some point last year, that was really cool. Then when I found out we were up for band of the year...yeah, I think it's a cool thing. Pretty awesome.

We used to have a pretty fucking ridiculous rider when we first started touring. I don't even remember what was on it. It was when we didn't know any better and our manager was like, "you have to put a rider on," and we were like, "what the fuck is a rider?" And he said, "it's what you want to have at a show when you get there," so we were like, "ohhhh....really." I seriously can't remember. It was a bunch of random bizarre shit that would never ever end up at a rider. Mostly just lots of drugs, I think. But yeah, it was just more of a joke than anything else.

Close. It didn't actually ever happen. It was before we were even a real band, we hadn't recorded anything. We were going down with Brian, our drummer, his old band he used to play guitar in, Fordirelifesake. They took us out for a few days and just for fun we went to play this show in Chicago and before we left for the tour, we got a whole bunch of Emails from some woman's group that was...y'know, not stoked that we were coming.

I don't know, I guess we had some MP3's on the Internet that they heard. I have no idea, it was just bullshit. Nothing ever came of it. There was nobody there to protest.

He probably misquoted me and said that there was a protest and there was a fight, and someone pulled a gun....awful.

If we were all really fat?

No.

[laughing] I think we might have some fans, but uh...for example, going out on tour with Fall Out Boy, and if a bunch of four-hundred pound dudes and dudettes got on stage to play, I think, you know, that music being what it is, we would not have as many fans as we do. That's true, too, I'm not even kidding.

The only thoughts like that I ever had was on that tour, seeing them go to the mall with security. Oh my god, can you imagine? That'd be a nightmare. We're definitely all about playing to as many kids as possible and having fun with it, and sure, being a successful band to the extent where we're not compromising ourselves musically; but then getting to that point where you're that big of a band. It's just like, "oh man, is that what we really want?"

It would be. A big burden. That's like, celebrity status. That's what starts to drive people crazy. I don't know if anybody can handle that in a sane way without completely kind of snapping at one point. We've never really considered that as a viable option, but seeing it happen, you wonder if that could ever happen some time in the future. That would be very, very, weird.

Not really. There's been some, but just really fucking stupid kids. Nothing to be taken seriously. But for the most part, it's actually nothing like that. It's usually just, "it's Boys Night Out, what the fuck is a girl doing in the band, you've got to change your name now, you pussies!" It's either that or people really love her and really appreciate her being in the band.

Yeah, so we've done that and most of the kids think it's a really cool thing and really appreciate her for being the great musician she is and everything else, but then it's those kids that just automatically see that and, "what the fuck, a girl!? Gahhhh!"

[laughing] Yeah, she does. We get tons of messages and Emails and stuff for people asking to marry her and stuff like that. One show, some kids just kind of jumped on stage and like zombies, started walking towards her. Our guitar player was like, "what are you doing," and he was like, "NERRRRRR!" And he had to grab the kids and throw them off stage, like, "get the hell out of here, man." They're all like, fifteen year old boys, so it's nothing she's too interested in.

Yeah, it's dumb. I just want to direct them to one-million other bands, past or present, that are doing it worse than we are. And by worse I mean like, more violent and grotesque with the imagery or whatever, but it kind of stands out when people ask about it. It's been asked to death and it's just kind of annoying.

Well, I haven't in a while. I used to write a lot. One thing I wrote was in some...book. I don't even remember what it was called, it had a bunch of people in bands writing stories and poetry and stuff. The story for "Trainwreck" was actually a story I had written. So I've written some, but I haven't in a while. I don't know, the other people in the band might.

Me and Connor have a country band that...we've recorded some stuff and we were supposed to record a bunch of stuff before we left but we didn't have time before tour. It's called Hard Calibers. Our guitar player who just left is in a hip-hop band. Kara does some solo stuff, but I think that's about it.

That's so weird, I have the same exact fear, but not consciously. It's constantly when I'm sleeping. I've looked into it and apparently it means I'm a bad person and/or a liar.

If you dream a lot about your teeth breaking or falling out or rotting or something like that, it's supposed to mean that you're either a bad person or you're generally untruthful, or a pathological liar.

No, not most of the time. Most of the time I'm not. But I think it's moreso because of the fact that I had braces for five years and had thousands of dollars spent on my teeth. That's what I like to fool myself into thinking.

Yeah, I don't know. It's the same thing, I wake up so often grabbing at my teeth. It's a very weird thing.

No, I don't, that's another thing.

On Warped Tour, I didn't brush my teeth. I completely fell apart the last two weeks. I didn't shower or brush my teeth, or get off the bus.

Yeah, hah. I got a horrible, horrible, gum infection, and I actually thought I was at risk of all of my teeth falling out. And that still hasn't really gotten me to do anything about it.

Doing it in a van is fun because you can go get hotels for a night, you're driving, and you have complete freedom. You leave the show when you want, you get a hotel, you shower, you do your thing, you drive when you want to drive. With a tour bus, with a driver, you don't do that. You go when you're set to go and you don't stop. You just go from venue to venue to venue. You bathe yourself when you can or you pray to god that there's a venue that has a shower, or if the driver is getting fuel in the middle of the night, you wake up and you run in there and you shower. You gotta do what you gotta do. But hygiene definitely does fall to the wayside.

Uh...

Yeah, I want to say that because it'd be so cool, but I wonder how crazy I'd go and how fast I'd completely lose my mind over being able to play music, plus being able to....I think I'm taking this question too seriously.

Regardless, I think I'd go for liquid metal. You could do a lot of cool stuff.

You could fix things, because you'd be metal, and I'd imagine you could use your metal fingernails and take them off and put them on things to fix them.

I would say a Canadian band called Wintersleep.

No, god no. They're a very chilled-out indie rock...

Yeah, Wintersleep, that's who I'd recommend.

Well thanks, cool.

Thank you very much.