Matt And Kim

When I came up with that idea, it wasn’t necessarily taking place in Times Square. While Matt and Kim songs are pretty upbeat, sometimes the lyrics have a darker edge. I feel like to a certain extent that song is about the freedom of hitting rock bottom. I wondered what real freedom would be like and taking your clothes off in public seems pretty free to me. Then I kind of expanded it. You could do it on a desolate road, but it would be way cooler if you did it in Times Square. Then it took me like three months to convince Kim that it was a good idea. She was terrified. She hates doing things that break the law. She just hates the idea of getting into trouble. Finally, I convinced her into it and she was still pissed about it. Until we won a VMA, then she had to admit it was a good idea.

[Chuckles] It was one of those things. I kept telling myself, “Johnson you know you’re going to be taking your clothes off in public, you should probably start working out.” Then, I think, three days before I did ten push-ups and I was like, that’s enough of that.

Probably without a doubt, Budweiser. It’s funny, we’ll go to these countries that are known for their beers, like Belgium, but we still always drink Budweiser. Our crew gets so bummed out that that’s always what’s there, but for some reason that’s one of those things Kim and I can agree on: cheap, American beer.

Basically, [Rivers] was coming to town. Weezer was doing two shows: a Blue Album show and a Pinkerton show. We got an e-mail that said Rivers is coming to town and he would like to work on a song with you guys, and I was like, I don’t know what this means but I am into it. So we got together in the studio just once and we worked on a song all day. Weezer was one of my favorite, well, was my favorite band when I was in seventh and eighth grade. I continued to like them all the way until now. Which is very rare that any band you like at that age, you still really like as you get older. They’re one of them. And then to do this song, Rivers and me singing on the same track, it was, wow, so bizarre in a great way. But we didn’t end up having time to finish it. Ever since then we’ve been trying to make a plan to get together again but we’re both quite busy. It’s too bad. The song was coming out rad.

Thanks Michelle! I feel like so much of the energy that’s brought is the audience that brings the energy. You know, we kind of set the whole theme for a situation for everyone to just get as nuts as they want and I feel like the more wild an audience gets the more wild it makes Kim and I get and the more wild we get the more wild the audience gets, so it starts this chain reaction… there’s only so much two people can do in the room, but if there’s three thousand and two getting wild, or like you know one of these, like, festivals forty thousand and two people getting wild, it can just add so much energy.

It’s sort of the best case scenario that I could ask for. It’s one of those things. I feel like any other relationship I’ve been in, it would not have panned out this way. Kim and I spend every waking minute together, and somehow we just don’t get sick of each other. I know that’s almost, like, vomit-worthy, like “Oh my gosh, that makes me want to throw up.” I don’t know why it works out that way. The thing is we got together because we were compatible on a lot of levels. We like the same stuff and have the same opinions things and whatnot, and the thing about being in a band is you are with that person all the time, so it kind of makes sense that this works, that your significant other works for both of these things. And then, when you tour for nine months out of the year you don’t leave someone behind.

Two things: A, Just having people who’ve never seen our band get to see us, and also getting to play for them and B, just getting to see Blink-182 and My Chemical Romance every night. Sounds pretty good to me!

Yeah, we went to — 'cause we’re doing just a set after the tour — and we went when they came to a beach in New York and the Blink show was, you know, just really incredible. I was actually hanging out at the beach and didn’t get to see My Chemical Romance, but I’m sure I will see it plenty coming up. But it was so great and they shouted out their final song to Kim and I and it was pretty epic.

We’ve had a little bit of interaction. Our first person to person meeting, just with Mark and Tom, was we hung out with them at that show a couple of weeks ago. And they’re just super-rad guys and we were totally able to chill with them, and [they’re] supporters of our band and really like our band a lot. But before that, Kim had an email interaction with Tom that kind of went back and forth awhile escalating in, I think, who could be more offensive. And Kim is pretty offensive, but Tom held his own… he’s known for… you know just, I think at one point… yeah, I don’t know, they were sending some sorts of weird pictures back and forth of themselves. I don’t know where it went to; it seems like it’s going to be a lot of fun.