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Family Force 5 Interview

By: Nicole Bradley

Shred: So to start, could you tell the readers your stage name and the meaning behind them?

Chap Stique: I will demonstrate. I’m addicted to this (lifts up chapstick) you can’t control your cravings for luscious, wet, buttery lips. And that’s the chapstique meaning.

Crouton: Mines Crouton and it’s because I was eating a gangster salad and I saw that crouton and I couldn’t resist that crouton. Garlic!

Na Daddy: My name is Nadaddy and that’s my real name. I don’t know what you’re talking about gangster name. I’m a gangster and that’s how I was born, and that’s my given name. It comes from Puff Daddy and the fact that I’m a Mac daddy. You know what I’m saying? That’s how you get Nadaddy

Shred: You used to be named The Phamily, but had to change to Family Force 5. Why?

Crouton: Legal issues. There’s a little artist by the name of Prince.

Chap Stique: Yeah maybe you’ve heard of him.

Crouton: Well, he had a band in the 80’s called The Family so we had to change our name, and I think it was also time to change our name. We wanted it to be something more like a giant robot.

Shred: Don’t you think the name is quite restricting in the case of wanting to add/subtract a member?

Crouton: We will never add or subtract.

Na Daddy: Yeah, we could always add.

Chap Stique: Yeah it could be like Family Force 5 with a couple others.

Crouton: The rule is that we’d only have to light five people at one time.

Na Daddy: Guns & Roses had a symphony orchestra band.

Crouton: You can have like ten members but as long as only five of them are lit, people will only think there are five.

Na Daddy: And if we’re just in the pictures, it doesn’t matter who the other guys are.

Chap Stique: U2 doesn’t have two members in their band. Think about it. All you see is The Edge and Bono so everyone thinks U2, two people, boom! But it’s not, there are two other guys. And then there are some other guys under the stage. So it’s more like U4, 5, 6.

Shred: Yeah I think there are ten people under the stage.

Crouton: Yeah there is.

Chap Stique: They play a lot of instruments.

Shred: What’s the most insane outfit you have worn on stage, and off?

Crouton: We have pretty plain outfits right now, but there was one show that we raided the drama closet and we all got gorilla outfits. Na Daddy was a wizard. Yeah I had a little bear outfit on. Yeah that was actually pretty fun. Right now we are wearing football gear.

Chap Stique: Remember we raided the middle school?

Crouton: Yeah we were all like bandits

Chap Stique: Yeah that was the bomb.

Crouton: We were everything famous from like the 1940s and earlier.

Na Daddy: Like newsies and train robbers.

Crouton: Off there was a time where in my high school days I went through a Goth stage and I wore the platforms, the fur coat, it wasn’t a real fur coat, and I had all seven different hair colors and that was pretty crazy.

Shred: What’s the dumbest thing you’ve done on a tour?

Na Daddy: Wow.

Crouton It’s really dumb. Na Daddy, Chapstique and I were playing in Washington. Washington D.C. the District of Columbia. And we were like let’s go for a joy ride, I’m sorry not a joy ride. A joy stroll should I say.

Chapstique: We were going to go visit our buddy Barack’s house.

Crouton: So we thought that was like a mile and a half away from where we were playing. So we see these awesome monuments and we’re like damn these things are so close. They weren’t we ended up walking five miles and realizing that we had to be back for the show in a half hour. So we were running because none of us had money for a taxi cab either. So by the time we got to the show, we were like two minutes late and we went on the stage and apologized for being late, but we were very tired.

Na Daddy: We got on stage in the middle of the intro

Crouton: Yeah but we had been running for a while so we were like [makes exhausted/dehydrated sound]

Na Daddy: They were like yeah they were going to go on without you, Soul Glow, Phatty and Xanadu. I don’t know how that would have happened but it would have been cool.

Shred: What’s your favorite fast food place to stop while touring?

Crouton: In & Out Burger

Na Daddy: No fast food is my favorite fast food.

Crouton Yay. If it could be any fast food it would have to be Chic Fil A or In & Out Burger.

Chap Stique : I like Taco Bell. But that’s only happened once in the entire history of Family Force 5. It was so good. We got like 8 chili cheese burritos.

Shred: You have a phone number listed on your Myspace. What’s the craziest voice message you’ve ever gotten?

Na Daddy: We get a lot of funny voice mails. Most call to try to absolve Crouton’s marriage. Which they are not going to do!

Crouton: Exactly. They’re not going to do.

Chapstique: We post them a lot on our Myspace. Whenever we find a really funny one or like a meaningful one we put it up there. There are a lot of kids that call and are like “FAMMILLYY FORCEE 55555. I LOVEE YOUU.” And then there is a girl in the background screaming really high pitch. Those ones are awesome.

Shred: Who’s the best break-dancer of the group?

Na Daddy: Probably Xanadu, he’s the best break-dancer.

Crouton: Yeah, that’s why we hired him.

Chap Stique: Crouton got second place for best dancer at Warped Tour, second to Katy Perry.

Shred: My final question, How important is it for you to play Soul Fest this year?

Crouton: It’s very important. We are actually stoked to play it. We played about two years ago and it was awesome then, but we never really got the chance to play last time because right as we went on and they were like “And Supertones last show will be playing at the exact same time as Family Force 5”. We were an unknown band at the time. So we had like about 20 people, but now we should have some more.

Chap Stique: Maybe we should do a farewell show during the Supertones set.

Shred: Well thanks so much for your time.

Chap Stique:SHRED SHRED SHRED