I recently interviewed Josh from The Semester Review.
PPND- What’s your name and role in The Semester Review?
Josh- My name is Josh Rockett, my real name is Josh Capati. I do lead vocals, lead guitar, and I am the primary songwriter for the band
PPND- How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard it?
Josh- I would say that our music is leaning more on the "pop-ier" side than most of the other pop punk bands today. We generally base our songs off of simple chords, but most of all, a catchy melody. It's safe to say that we take influence from older bands like blink-182 and The Starting Line. It was that era of music in which we take most of our influence from.
PPND- What’s the pop punk scene like in Arizona?
Josh- It's not that big, but it's growing at a steady pace. Post hardcore is still very prominent where we live. Give it a year or two, the pop punk scene will fully blossom.
PPND- You put out a music video for your song “Everything”. You guys looked like you were having a lot fun in it. What was it like to shoot that?
Josh- It was very fun and it felt very natural for us because we were doing what we always like to do... mess around and do weird stuff haha. That's just who we are haha. It was crazy because we shot the video at a mall without any permission, so we had to do most of the stuff in one shot and get it done quickly before the security guards would catch us haha. Our friend was behind the camera filming, so I felt bad that he had to put up with our shenanigans.
PPND- Haha I figured you didn't get permission. When I first saw that video I couldn’t stop laughing because you look like my friend Chris from Like Pacific. If you guys ever come to Toronto you have to meet and play a show together.
Josh- Of course man! I was surprised about how much we look alike! haha. It's amazing. I think we are related!
PPND- You guys are a very young band but have already shared the stage with such well known acts as The Story So Far, Seahaven, Man Overboard and I Call Fives. What has been your favourite show that you’ve played so far?
Josh- It's a tie between two haha. The Story So Far show was just simply perfect because we sounded very solid and the crowd seemed to acquire a taste for us as well. On top of that, I did my very first stage dive during our set, so it was truly a night I will remember. Also being able to say that we had the opportunity to share the stage with TSSF makes me at a loss for words.
The other show that blew my mind was the benefit show we put on earlier this month. It was the first time I saw the fruit of our labor haha. There were kids throwing down, hanging on the ceiling, crowding around onstage to scream the words with me and there were kids crowd surfing as well. The moment I saw all this happened, I was immediately overcome with chills haha. Overall, the show was a complete success for us.
PPND- As a band still in high school, what do your families think of your music?
Josh- They are very supportive of what we do. We are so grateful for the support they have given because they have been there for us from the start.
PPND- That's definitely a positive thing. You just released your EP “How To Get To Third Base”, how did that come together?
Josh- It was a long, painful, but vigorous journey for us. The EP was supposed to be released back 2011, but things kept coming up. We've recorded and re-recorded a lot of the songs more than once because we weren't satisfied with how we played those songs, and our recording engineer kept getting new equipment, so it was inevitable. In a way, I'm glad the EP took a while. A lot of it was trial and error, and as a result we became comfortable with what we put out because we had the time to make sure everything was just where we wanted it.
PPND- What else can we expect from The Semester Review in 2013?
Josh- You can expect us to be playing a lot of shows while promoting our EP. Oh! We were planning on a small summer tour, but there's still a lot of things that need to be figured out haha
PPND- Sounds good dude. Thanks for taking the time for this interview. Any final comments?
Josh- Thank you for having me! I want to thank all the people who continue to support us! For all the people who haven't yet, you can go ahead and download "How To Get To Third Base" for FREE at thesemesterreview.bandcamp.com or www.purevolume.com/thesemesterreview
Thanks!!! =)
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