Off With Their Heads' Ryan Young Just Wants to Write Murder Songs and Hang Out with His Cat

Every year, Gainesville, Florida plays host to a music festival called simply The Fest—a name indicative of the whole beautiful shitshow's standing. Over the last 11 years, it's established itself as the annual punk festival to attend, but it's about more than "just" 300+ bands and an outpouring of $2 PBR tallboys; it’s knowing that you’re going to spend three grimy days having your friends from every goddamn place together in one place. That, chums, is what gives me googly girl eyes for Fest.

Now, with the aforementioned 300+ bands and all, Fest is, invariably, a whirlwind of activity, so in lieu of trying to interview anyone while actually in Florida, I opted for a classy post-Fest email interview with Ryan Young of Off With Their Heads. We shot the e-shit about everything from van disasters and Linkin Park to their upcoming album, Home.

Noisey: You guys always have, but are not limited to, at least one disaster per tour, it seems. In fact, the van broke down in Canada the week before Fest, correct? So, what's the best disaster been so far? Or, at least, the most laughable.
Ryan: Yeah, it started spraying oil out the bottom. Made it about a block down the street after the show in Toronto. I'm a van breakdown away from having a fucking nervous breakdown. On this two and a half month tour alone, I've put over $4,500 into keeping it running. I guess that’s pretty laughable.

Ugh, it’s not. How many Fests has OWTH played now? What do you look forward to with Fest?
I don't remember how many of them we have done. Quite a few. I just look forward to seeing my friends that I rarely get to see. I didn't even really get to do that this year though, because I was dealing with the van.

How is the dynamic having Zack Blank and Ryan Fisher back with OWTH? They're not on this email thread, so you can be totally honest. That Fisher is such a punk...
Zack isn't back with us, he just did those two shows because he was around. He plays whenever he can, but hates touring. I totally understand that.

Post-Fest, you dudes left Gainesville with Propagandhi and the Menzingers for a tour—how's that going along? Round two at the Canadian border today, right? Tell Propagandhi to talk some sense to that border patrol and let you pass. They speak Canadian and shit!
That tour was awesome. Both of those bands are fun to be around. The Canadian border is the worst. I don't see why they give a shit about half of the things they do, but they do. I always say that I'm never going back, but we always do.

What is your favorite Linkin Park album? Part 2, WHY is it your favorite?
Minutes to Midnight, because it's the single best piece of music to come out since Nirvana's Nevermind.

What's the dumbest thing you've ever seen Robbie (Swartwood) do? (Sorry, Robbie)
I saw him throw a fucking banana peel in front of a cop to try and cartoon the poor guy. That was pretty dumb.

Favorite U.S. Goth clubs? Because I know you love that shit...
Ground Zero in Minneapolis. They do the whole bondage thing, and you can really piss off your girlfriend by getting involved in the industrial dance parties they do. Drunken Unicorn in Atlanta is pretty tits, too.

OWTH has toured with SO many bands the last few years; any delightfully embarrassing tales you'd like to share? You can leave band names out of it and keep some friends...
Not really. I'm more of the closet downer addict who just tries to avoid all the antics that come with being on the road. I don't really get in much trouble anymore, and if the other guys do, they don't tell me much about it.

If you've got any beef you've been meaning to start you can do that here.
Five years ago, I would have jumped all over this one. The fact of the matter is that I don't care anymore. Everyone can do whatever they want and wave their punk flag around. I just want to write murder songs and hang out with my cat.

The new album, Home, is still set to come out March 2013. I know you said that there was a lot more band collaboration on this one; can you fill me in on that process a bit? Did you just hammer out the entire album during those 25 days in July with everyone together?
Yes and no. They were all my songs. I brought them all to the studio. The difference with this one was that we were able to play through them and work together a bit on arrangements. Zack just sat in his room and watched TV on his laptop, because he is a white trash piece of shit. Then Bill would come in and be a dick to us for five or six hours, and then we would go to bed. It was awesome. But yeah, it comes out on March 12th.

Nice, just a few days before my birthday, which means it’s going on my list.

Follow Ren on Twitter and check out the rest of our photos from Fest.