PropertyOfZack spoke with Tyler from State Champs a few weeks ago for a brief interview. Tyler and I discussed the band’s signing with Pure Noise Records, the band’s first release, recording a new EP for a summer release, future touring, and much more. Check it all out below!
For the record, could you state your name and role in State Champs?
I am Tyler Szalkowski and I play guitar in State Champs.
It was announced late last week that the band had signed to Pure Noise Records after being quiet for a little while. How long were you guys talking with Jake at the label?
We were talking to Jake since the summer ended. But the legitimate negotiations, if you will, started to go down about two months ago.
Were you guys talking to multiple labels? Was Jake just the right fit?
We had a couple of interests, but nothing more than an email that said, “What are you guys doing now? Where are you at?” But Jake, I don’t know, he showed passion. He’s just an all around great guy.
It feels like you guys released that EP right at the end of 2010?
Yeah well we put it out on the first day. We put it out on January 1st of 2011. So we’ve had one release in 2011.
Kids seem pretty stoked on it. There haven’t been a lot of releases since then and there wasn’t a lot of touring. Is there a reason you guys weren’t that busy? In terms of the band?
We haven’t been that busy. We’ve been in school. Two of us don’t go to school and three of us do. And the ones who don’t go to school work full time. Derek, our singer, is a designer at All In Merch and our drummer Matt works full time stocking shelves or something. But I work as well. Like when I’m not in school, I’m usually working. The same with the other two, actually. We’re all just workers man.
Would you say that fans have stayed interested with you guys?
Yeah. Well we’ve always wanted to be busy, but it’s just never been that feasible. We’ve had like three or four tour offers. But a lot of us are in school and a lot of our parents aren’t really cool with us dropping out. I haven’t even told my dad yet. Obviously the decision is ours, but moving out of our parents houses… you’ve got to make it a nice split, you know? We were doing as much as we could with what we had. Like fall semester, I skipped a week of school to do that week tour with Daybreaker. And this past semester I just skipped a week of school to go to Canada for the Jamboree Festival. But not everyone is down to skip class.
So signing with Pure Noise, you guys are going to be busy over the summer and then you’ll tour when you can during the school year?
No. Not at all. We’ve all taken this signing very seriously. We know what’s expected of us. When you sign, as I’m sure you know better than anyone, you get hooked up with a booking agent from there and then generally hook up tours and stuff in the school year. You’ll definitely see a lot more of us in the end of 2012 and the majority of 2013.
