You have to give them something where they walk away and say, 'I want more of that.' To create something like that, you have to take them on a journey. So the live show is very important to us; we've been working on that a lot.
We've been lucky. Even as a young, local-level band, we were able to rise out of the local scene without having any debt, without having signed the wrong deal with the wrong manager or the wrong booker or a small label.
It doesn't matter what we post about ourselves on social networks or how many times we play live TV, even. It's all about those people, those fans who are telling other people about us.
If you really see how many live shows are going on... you can start to do things that are out of the ordinary.
We do things differently. You don't have to worry about being part of a particular genre. You just go for it.
Live shows have been going on for so long, can you really do something that's never been done before?
Here in Ohio, the hardcore scene is a big thing, so some of our good friends are in hardcore bands. So we've had to figure out how the heck we get these people to respect us.
There's so many people who have never heard of us, but I think what we've learned is you can't underestimate the power of a core fan base and people who believe what you're doing. I think they're the ultimate marketers. They're the ones promoting us.
For a long time, we just played here - Columbus is a perfect place to work your way up and maybe build a fan base.
Our moms accuse us of selling out all the time, so we're still trying to cope with that. They claim to be true fans, like they've been there from the beginning, and they think that we've kind of, like, changed as humans.
When Josh and I are recording a record, we're very mindful of how the music will manifest itself live. That's where we have to live every day. When we tour for the next record, I imagine there will be a new story to tell, and we'll introduce new characters.
If I were to give advice to someone that just started a band and how to get someone's attention, you've gotta have a central hub. For us, it was Columbus, Ohio.
When you play a show or festival, people know what they're getting; they want it. Then you're thrown onto a show where people are watching TV in their houses, and whether they ask for it or not, we're being played in front of them. There's a lot of negative feedback.
Pretty much all the programming on our CDs is done by me personally, so I've kind of been able to have complete control of what sounds I'm looking for to complete a song.