Sitting down with P.J. DiCiccio, guitarist for Armor for Sleep at the Vans Warped Tour.
The latest album, the whole theme, can you explain what motivated you guys to write like that?
It was just kinda like a fluke thing, we didn’t plan on doing like a concept record but Ben had written a song about something through a certain perspective and then he read a book about after life, a sort of existential book about what happens and it kinda snowballed into what it is right now.
Do you have any ideas on a new album coming out?
Yeah, we have like. probably about 80% of our songs written right now and their not too far off from what they were before, but they are definitely different and we’re going to start recording it in about 2 months from now. Hopefully it will be out by the beginning of next year.
You were just featured in that new documentary entitled, “Bastards of Young” Can you tell me a little about that?
I haven’t actually seen it, but it’s pretty much an old interview from the first time we played skate and surf, like three years ago, and it’s got some live clips – It’s really cool to see New Jersey ‘s scene put together in a DVD, really cool seeing old Thursday shows that I was at and everything.
You think Thursday helped you guys out?
Yeah, I mean I don’t think they really did anything specific for Armor for Sleep, we’ve never been on tour with them, but they definitely showed us how morals work in music, you know you don’t have to like, try and write a hit single to be a successful band, you do what you do and people will either join up with you guys or hate you, its kinda what we think about it.
What are your thoughts on New Jersey ‘s music scene?
It was really good when I was growing up, obviously it influenced a lot of bands like Thursday, Saves the Day, Senses Fail, you know a shit load of bands. Right now it’s kinda shitty. Most of the venues that I would go to are closed, there’s really no small places to go to, the churches pretty much kicked everybody out, its pretty much just like big venues now – I don’t even know a small place where you can play now. It’s kinda deteriorated.
Are you working on any new videos?
We just did a video, three or four months ago, the third video for this record, it’s gotten some play here and there, but we’re not going to do a video until the new album comes out.
What are your plans once Warped Tour is over?
I‘m actually going to go home after Warped Tour and hopefully we’ll write a handful of new songs, and kinda demo them with our friend (we’ve been doing that for about a year) then go into the studio, think it out and hopefully have it out soon.
Anything else you want to talk about?
Go to Warped Tour, see all the bands you can, bring some water.