How has the feeling of your live show changed since Infinity on High came out?
We’ve done a bunch of shows since the record came out, but we’ve still been playing a lot of songs from the old records, so this is going to be the maiden voyage of the new material. There’s going to be a bunch of surprises. People are going to be pretty surprised with the set, both the actual stage and the songs we’re going to play. More than anything I’m really excited about some of the music we’re playing. On one hand, I hate when bands decry their old material in favor of their new stuff, but it is going to be pretty damn cool to play the new stuff.
Nowadays it’s an accomplishment to release two wildly successful albums two years apart, especially for a band that’s constantly on the road. How did you make it happen where so many other bands fail?
Records are just recordings of something that happens in passing. There was a very big temptation to make a Chinese Democracy with this record, a neverending album that we keep revising. But one of the problems with records is you never know who’s going to listen to it in 10 years. We might totally fall off the planet and no one will care, so make sure that you like it more than anything, more than worrying about what chart position it’s going to have and that type of stuff. That’s how we made the record happen, and we have no idea how anybody took to it.
Give me your take on the significance of the environmentally-conscious Honda Civic tour and playing the Live Earth concert.
I hate when bands go overboard beating it into people, but that is a very big part of us. This year we’re going to explore it a little bit more. I’m very excited to be a part of it. That almost makes it sound like it’s something you can be excited about; the reality is that it’s a really major problem in the world. It is the world, literally. We’re in kind of dire straits at the moment, and somebody needs to do something about it, so it falls on the responsibility of dumb pop stars. So here I am, dumb pop star. This is my responsibility to tell you about it.
With Cobra Starship, Paul Wall, +44 and The Academy Is. June 24, 6 p.m., $37. The Pearl, 942-7777.