TAT – Champagne, Cocaine, and Britney Spears?

7/16/08

Merriweather Post Pavillion – Columbia, MD

 

Every year that I cover Warped Tour I try to discover a new band to watch and get into. This year, that band was TAT. This English trio was recommended to me by a very sweet tour organizer and some of my media peers, and it was, by far, the best tip of the day. TAT is the best band that you haven’t heard of yet. They’re energetic, witty, funny, and they put on a great performance. Plus, having a gorgeous lead singer/guitarist in Tatiana DeMaria doesn’t hurt either. In Columbia, MD TAT closed the show on one of the smaller side stages and even after a disgustingly hot day, TAT still had their fans singing and dancing along with them.

If you haven’t heard of TAT before, you will soon. After Warped, they’re on tour with MXPX and TAT has a full-length album coming out sometime this Fall. Check them out, you won’t be disappointed.

 

PBP-First, could you tell me a little bit about yourselves and a little about your

band?

Tatiana- Well we’re a 3-piece rock band from London, England called Tat. I’m Tatiana DeMaria, I sing and play guitar.

Nick – I’m Nick Kent and play bass and backing vocals.

Jake- I’m Jake Reed and play drums and sing some stuff.

 

PBP- Who are your musical influences?

Tatiana- Well they vary between all 3 of us, but it boils down to melody, integrity, and substance. I listen to everything, we all listen to everything. Our main influences for this band would be probably The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, Rancid, earlier Offspring, Green Day, NOFX you know stuff like that.

Nick- I came from a heavier background with late 90’s metal. But when it comes to bass lines I come up with more jazzy stuff all the time.

Jake- I come from more of an old school rock and punk background. The Police, Sex Pistols, American Hardcore, Black Flag and that kind of stuff.

 

PBP- If you could go on tour with 3 bands of your choice, any bands in the history of music, who would you tour with and why?

Nick- NOFX, The Bouncing Souls, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, which we’ve already toured with.

Tatiana- Hell yeah, we can all die now.

Jake- We can die happy.

Tatiana- Hang on, who did I want to chuck in there? What did you make me think? In the history of something…

Nick- Rock.

Tatiana- Fuck I give up, I’ll go with those.

Nick- Aerosmith.

Tatiana- Really?

Nick- Yeah. It’d be a good tour, we’d write a book about it

Tatiana- Its funny cause Richard Ogdon, we had this manager like, 4 years ago for a bit and basically he was with Aerosmith. I think he was their publicist in the 70’s. Basically Steven Tyler went up to him and was like ‘hey listen can you do me a favor’, they hooked back up years later, ‘and tell me what happened between 74 and 79 cause I have no idea’. He was like ‘dude I was your fuckin’ publicist and I don’t remember shit either’. But we could right a book on that.

Nick- It could be good.

 

PBP- Time for the fun stuff.

Tatiana- Alright.

 

PBP- What came first the roadie or the groupie?

Tatiana- Definitely the groupie.

Nick- Yeah.

Tatiana- Cause we only just got roadies now.

Jake- The groupies came before the roadies so I’ll go with that one.

Nick- The groupies came first and when the band was rockin’ the tour manager and our roadies came over and told us to shut the fuck up.

Jake- There’s only roadies cause they wanted in on the groupies.

Tatiana- I think the groupie came, and then the egg did, and then the chicken, and then the fucking orgy.

Jake- The groupie came and then the roadie came hard.

 

PBP- What’s your favorite fast food place to stop at on tour?

Tatiana- OH KFC!!! DING! DING!

Nick- Taco Bell.

Jake- Jack in the Box.

Tatiana- Don’t be a dick, its fucking KFC don’t lie to me.

Jake- Fuck KFC.

Tatiana- In the US, but in the UK what do you like? FUCKING KFC!!

Jake- But we’re not in the UK are we?

Tatiana- He’s a lying bitch don’t listen to him. Shut up!

Jake- Ok, lets keep it current.

 

PBP- Part 2 of that question, when you get to your favorite fast food place, and you go to the soda machine, do you mix all the different sodas or do you stick with just one?

Jake- I like Coke and Sprite. I love mixing Coke and Sprite.

PBP- Do you ever mix like Coke, Grape Soda, Orange Soda, and Sprite and think it’s going to be fantastic and it tastes like shit?

Nick- I’m the only person that hasn’t done that.

Tatiana- I haven’t done it.

Nick- I’m going to have to do that next time.

PBP- Or even Slurpees from 7-11, you don’t mix them? And they sit nicely on top of each other so you have different flavors each layer.

Jake- Oh yeah.

Tatiana- I’m indecisive. So I need to like take one thing and run with it and be like convinced of it and get intense with it. So if you’re going to give me a fucking Slurpee I want blueberry all the way but I want all the blueberry syrup you could possibly fathom in the glass. Don’t be diluting anything for me I want it intense.

Jake- I think they make those flavors for a reason, that would spoil it now.

 

PBP- When you guys go shopping when you’re on tour, and stop at Wal-mart or Target…

Tatiana- We don’t. We go help Hurricane Rita victims and we go play shows in Wichita and Memphis in saunas and skateparks ok sorry keep going. We do really. (laughs)

PBP- (laughs) OK then…can you walk out without buying anything? Or can you go through the dollar section without getting anything?

Nick- They have that?

Jake- We haven’t experienced the dollar section.

Tatiana- Why haven’t we experienced the dollar section?

PBP- Like when you go through there you see 10 washcloths for a dollar, you didn’t know you needed them before you walked in there but you buy them anyways.

Tatiana- I’m like that with stationary and sharpies. Sharpies definitely and gaffer tape. Little things like that I’m a sucker for, and Chapstick  I really wish I needed Chapstick cause it looks like so much fun.

Nick- Well they see that Warped Tour is coming through town so they don’t stick gaffer tape or sharpies in the dollar section.

 

PBP- What do you think of Britney Spears?

Tatiana- HOT! So fucking hot.

Nick- She still bald?

Tatiana- LEAVE BRITNEY SPEARS ALONE!

Jake- I think she’s having a tough time and people should quit fucking bothering her.

Tatiana- It’s amazing isn’t since that South Park episode I was actually quite disturbed by it cause it was so fucking true. It’s scary. I wonder if Britney spears turned around and said ‘I retire, fuck you all I’m retiring’ whether that would be 2 to 3 years of Britney getting her head together and people going ‘ok she’s not famous anymore’ and lose interest cause nothing more is going to happen. I wondered that if she did that if that would solve anything.

Jake- Did we get too serious?

PBP- It’s alright.

Tatiana- I thought she was hot, you could just take it all out of context and be like fuck it this is what she said. (laughs)

Jake- I think she’s got a wonderful looking vagina in the pictures.

Tatiana- Do you? I thought it looked like roast beef.

PBP- Well then you’ve got to compare Britney’s to Lindsay Lohan’s and hers really does look like a roast beef sandwich.

Tatiana- I haven’t seen Lindsay Lohan’s vagina, do you have an iPhone? Can we take a look at it?

Jake- The last thing I want on my iPhone is Lindsay Lohan’s va-jay-jay.

Nick- Va-jay-jay?

Tatiana- Damn, I kinda like roast beef sandwiches. But I want them to taste like roast beef not fish.

Jake- Not vagina. (laughs)

 

PBP- What is the craziest thing a fan has ever done for you?

Tatiana- Driven 14 hours and taken their mother from Poland to the UK to say Happy Birthday. It was fucking wicked. Or some dude got my autograph tattooed to his arm which I thought was pretty crazy.

Jake- Wow.

Tatiana- Yeah I sent you the picture.

 

PBP- I’ve been covering Warped Tour for some time now, and every band has some sort of Warped Tour story. Something fucking crazy and off the wall…

Nick- First day picking up the RV driving across the bridge in San Francisco we had a blow out and stopped on the bridge.

Tatiana- Yeah we got stranded on the bridge.

Nick- It was quite traumatic.

Tatiana- Well what about, oh well that wasn’t on Warped Tour.

Jake- Well it wasn’t on Warped Tour but in March we had quite a funny incident that was one of our favorite stories ever to tell, in interviews especially. Can I tell it?

Tatiana- Go ahead.

Jake- So we were just on a show with Bad Religion and we were driving back in the people carrier. We all had a few beers, getting pretty sleepy and Jay, our tour manager, was driving us back. And there was this car that was looking a bit swervy and suddenly it veered off the road and crashed into a telephone pole totally wiped out, smashing debris everywhere. And Jay goes, ‘LOOK THERE, FUCKING LOOK’, Tatiana goes ‘WHERE’? Everyone gets out of the car and rushes over to the scene, and then the people in the car are fine. But then we look over at Nick and he’s got blood all over his face and a big gash in his cheek.

Tatiana- And we’re like what the fuck happened to you?

Nick- I was rushing over and tripped on the curb, OK?!

Tatiana- The funny thing is Nick after like 3 beers, he’s half asleep. Cause he’s narco as well. Funny thing with Nick is that he’s never tired, ever. He’s either asleep or awake. So like we’ll be waiting for a train, and it says the train will be here in 2 minutes on the sign. So we’ll sit down and the train comes and he’s snoring and we’re like are you fucking serious? So we call him Narco cause we think he’s narcoleptic but he refuses to see a doctor.

Jake- Probably more that he’s just the hardest working one in the band since he’s always tired.

Nick- I’m like the donkey.

 

PBP- What is your favorite alcoholic beverage?

Jake- Bloody Mary’s. A very spicy Bloody Mary.

PBP- What kind of vodka?

Jake- Absolut.

Nick- I’ll have a good mojito, when its made right.

Tatiana- Caribbean Jack which I’ve branded Caribbean Tat. Caribbean Tat, that’s my favorite drink. Its great man, knock you out like a fucking light.

 

PBP- How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Tatiana- 13 tons.

Jake- 7 million.

Nick- He’d give up and go to the pub.

Tatiana- He’d be writing our second album.