We had a chance to sit down with Matt Riddle from No Use For A Name and get an exclusive interview.

CW:
We are here at the Vans Warped Tour in San Diego CA with No Use For A Name. Would you mind saying your Name and what you do in the band?

NUFAN:
Sure, I am Matt Riddle and I play bass.

CW:
Cool man, I have a few questions for you and I really appreciate you doing this for us.

NUFAN:
Absolutely!

CW:
Can you tell us a little bit about your newest album, “Keep Them Confused”?

NUFAN:
Well, basically over the last couple albums we have made, we have kind of tried to change it up a bit, going from one extreme to the other and on this one we decided to put all the extremes on one record. Have you heard the album yet?

CW:
Absolutely!

NUFAN:
Ok great, so what we tried to do is go from a fast one to a slow one to a mid-tempo, jumping around a whole bunch. We wanted to make it really dynamic and it was something we really wanted to pay attention to. It still sounds to me exactly like No Use For A Name has always sounded, in fact some of the songs are even old school sounding like Bullets. We had a blast making it. It was a lot of fun!

CW:
My personal favorite song on the new album is “Black Box”. Can you tell me a little on what that song is about?

NUFAN:
It’s no secret anymore that Tony has always had a fear of flying and it’s actually about that. The song is called Black box and they lyrics are pretty much dead on but knowing Tony there is definitely an underlining meaning to it too. It’s definitely right in line with the lyrics and facing his fear. This year Tony will do more flying than he has ever had too before and we are all pretty stoked about it, we think its rad. He is definitely nervous about it so writing a song about it may help.

CW:
Who are you personally most excited to see play this year at Warped?

NUFAN:
I can be the average guy and say my friends like Strung Out because I really like watching Strung Out play but as far as the new school bands go I gotta say I really like My Chemical Romance. Its one of those things I don’t want to admit but Fuck it, I have too. They are super nice guys which is like, god damn it, ya know! I was hoping they were jerks so I had a reason not to like them but I do. I think they are a really good band. I am surprised that these new school bands actually sound pretty good. Hawthorne Heights are a really good live band. I am looking forward to Billy Idol getting out here. I am glad Thrice is out here, I love them. I like Avenged Sevenfold, all the metal bands.

CW:
I really liked Tony’s acoustic CD with Joey Cape. Have you guys ever done an all acoustic set with the whole band live?

NUFAN:
Its funny you brought that up, another band I want to mention is The All American Rejects; they are the coolest guys ever. Last night we got done with the show and I walked out of my bus and Tyson who sings for them was like. “Dude, we are going to go do an acoustic set at a bar, want to come??” I went with him and watched and it was sweet. We did it one time in an independent record store somewhere and it was me and Dave on the acoustics and Tony sang and then Tony got the acoustic from Dave and we finished up with Justified and stuff like that all fast, it was funny. We would like to do it more often. It’s fun.

CW:
From what you have seen, how has the fan response been to the new album so far?


NUFAN:
Everything has been pretty good. You get the off comments here and there but the reviews have been good and the kids are always coming up and saying how much they love and explain why they like one song, which is great.

CW: Still only one Dad in the band?

NUFAN:
Still one dad. I am actually a step-father but Tony just had his baby who is out here too for 7 or 8 days. It’s really cool and we are very accommodating and she’s a really rad little kid. My step-son is out here too. He is 13 and is tripping out. This is the perfect age for him and he is just at the age where I can let him go. Go out and have fun, just don’t take drugs! He’s a cool kid and knows what’s up.

CW:
Back to the question on craziest thing to happen on a tour.

NUFAN:
One time on the road we played this 30,000 seat festival in Italy. There were some other bands there like The Deftones, Us, Limp Bizkit. This was back in 2001 where they were still somebody. Also Blink 182 was there and we are friends with those guys. So Blink is up on stage, 30,000 seats and right after limp Bizkit had played. So you have 30,000 drunken Italians and one person threw a bottle on stage. Somebody says, “Don’t do that” and that was it. All that means is “please throw more.” Bottles and Rocks come flying through the air and the sky got dark. Blink runs off the stage, tells everybody to fuck off, jumped into their van, went straight to the airport and flew to New York. It was nuts, the riot police showed up and started beating the hell out of people, it was scary.

CW: Have you guys ever had any pressure from bigger labels to switch from Fat?

NUFAN:
We have been talked to about it by other labels but I guess the day that Fat Wreck Chords doesn’t do what we want will be the day we leave Fat, ya know. I have known Fat Mike for so long and he is the reason I even got back into playing music. After I left Face To Face, I quit music. I did join this band Pulley for a while but I was done with music. I really was. I hated the music industry. No Use called and I was kinda, no I just don’t want to do it anymore, I am over and then they called again and then Fat Mike called and he was like look, they are really super cool guys and I would really like to have you back on Fat again. I talked to my wife who was my girlfriend at the time and I decided to do it for him.

CW:
Last question, how long will No Use keep making CDs and touring?



NUFAN:
The only answer I can give you on that one is when it’s not fun anymore. I mean long term, not one bad show. When the over all vibe is like “yeah, we’re done”. If we ever get to that point, that’s when it will happen. We are really challenging ourselves in this tour. It’s a tough tour to be on. There was one day in particular where there was like 500 kids in front of us on the main stage. Nobody wanted to leave there Hawthorne Heights or My Chemical Romance spots on the other Stage. We were like whatever, at least there are 500 people here who like us, ya know. It’s rough. I will be interested to see what happens today. It’s a different tour for us. Like I said, playing to a bunch of kids that already like us is what we do on our own tour. We look forward to that in January or February we do our own tour and play to our fans, but if we make some new friends along the way, what’s wrong with that?

CW:
Well, thank you so much for talking with us today and good luck on the rest of the tour. No Use rocks.