Technician: How’s the tour?

Spitalfield: “We’re doing a few weeks of in-store tours. It’s different playing in record stores and being the only band playing but it’s going really well. People are coming out and really enjoying themselves and it’s definitely a good idea. You know, independent record store selling the record, it helps them and helps us.”

Technician: So you guys are for local music stores and bringing in the local music scene?

Spitalfield: “Well yeah, playing in stores like Best Buy is where we get the majority of our sales. And those places of course can afford to put the album on sale easier. We’re fortunate enough to be distributed by a company that can get us all over the place, but in general the independent stores are thankful and it’s cool to be able to play even in little indie shops and the kids pack in there. It’s important to support your local record shops for sure.”

Technician: Dan Lowder is no longer a part of your group, any details you can share?

Spitalfield: “Without getting too personal, towards the end of July he gave us advance notice that come October he wouldn’t be able to tour with us anymore. It wasn’t like he left the band and it wasn’t like there were any hard feelings because we knew what was going on and we respected what was going he had going on in his. We’re not looking to replace Dan as a person or a friend because he’s still a friend of ours. It’s just that he’s been touring with us for a long time, he’s been in the band for five years and he had some changes in his life that he had to deal with. We support him and we’ll miss him but we’re going to press forward and take the negative feel positive which is trying to be the strongest we can be as a band with or without Dan.”

Technician: Spitalfield is signed to Victory Records … how do you like being on their label?

Spitalfield: “Victory is a huge label, it’s an independent label, but it’s competing with every size label and it’s cool to be a part of that because by all sense of the word they’re an independent label and we have direct contact with them in just about everything we do, so it’s not as if it’s a big corporation that we don’t have ties to. We’re very fortunate to even be in a position where we could negotiate a contract with them. They definitely put us on the map, we went from being just a local Chicago band to a now both national and international touring band, and that’s great. Hopefully this new record is a new breath of air that can take us to the next step.”

Technician: You’ve been compared to Fall Out Boy and Dashboard Confessional, those are two distinctly different bands with different sound … what do you think about that?

Spitalfield: “Hopefully we’re getting compared to bands in a good way. If someone thinks we sound like Fall Out Boy and that’s a good thing to them, then cool. If someone thinks we sound like Fall Out Boy and that’s a bad thing to them, then that’s a negative thing. All we care about is getting our music out to as many people as possible and wanting them to decide for themselves whether or not they like it. The hard part is getting them to hear it. They can make the choice, that’s the easy part.”

Technician: What do you feel are the pros and cons of sites like MySpace and Purevolume where you can get your music out there but run the risk of losing a lot of profit?

Spitalfield: “I think for a band in our situation there’s nothing better than Web sites that offer free music for kids to check out. It seems to me that we benefit more by kids hearing it and if they like it, hopefully coming out to see us play or maybe picking up a record and telling someone else to check it out. It’s a great way to get music out there. It’s the same thing with illegal downloading and file sharing, it may hurt some record sales in the big picture and it might hurt royalties and all that stuff if you want to get technical with the music industry, but generally speaking I think the more kids that listen to your music the better. I think them coming out to the show and showing support and bringing more people to your shows or getting your music out to more people is way more important than them going to a store and picking up the record. I mean, record sales are important and they do help dictate what happens to your band in the big picture, but I’m a firm believer that within the underground and independent music scenes it’s all about word of mouth.”

Technician: Did you always know you wanted to have a career in music?

Spitalfield: “It’s definitely always been music. I couldn’t foresee that I’d be doing what I’m doing, of course when you’re young you have goals and dreams and since I picked up a guitar in sixth grade I wanted to play in a band and write music. I’ve been writing music since that time when I was 11 years old. Whether you’re playing for five kids or five thousand, that whole concept of performing is the biggest rush for a musician, I think that holds true for me and it hasn’t even been watered down at all by touring for a few years. I’m just as excited as I was then especially knowing there’s so much more out there. I was going to school for music composition, specifically for score writing for films. If the band didn’t pan out I think I’d still be in the ballpark, playing music. I think music will always be my thing.”

Technician: What’s the worst show you’ve ever done?

Spitalfield: “We’ve played about 800 or 900 shows as a band and we’re gonna break the 1000 mark this year. We’ve had a wide range of good and bad show, technical difficulties have to be some of the worst things you can count on onstage.”

Technician: What is your most memorable performance?

Spitalfield: “The thing that sticks out in my mind would probably be our record release show for Remember Right Now which was in June of 2003. Looking back on it, listening to a recording of it and looking at a video, I don’t think we played the best we’ve ever played; it was not our best performance ever, we’ve grown a lot since then but I just remember the excitement and feeling that went into that show after being a local band for four and a half years having our debut on the next level and feeling the love and support from our friends and family and local fans in Chicago.”

Technician: What’s the weirdest place you’ve ever performed at?

Spitalfield: “We played a fundraiser at our high school gymnasium … that was kinda weird. I’d like to say something fun and awesome like we played on a cruise or something, but that hasn’t happened. One time we played in the middle of a forest preserve in a pavilion that had no electricity, needless to say we didn’t actually play. There were four people there and they were carrying 40s in brown paper bags and were playing scrabble and there was no power. The promoter paid us 65 cents.”

Technician: What is your favorite current band, whether mainstream or underground?

Spitalfield: “I can name a few bands like long-term favorites that’ve never let me down like the Foo Fighters and another band that musically is just out of control is a band called Minus The Bear. As far as newer bands, a band that’s been around for a while that’s just starting to resurge is a band called Maxine. I spent a few days with them and they remind me of current pop/rock. There’s so much music out there I could recommend bands all day long but those are three different sounding bands I’d plug. Not that Foo Fighters need my help.”

Technician: What is the future of Spitalfield?

Spitalfield: “Music-wise I can predict that we’re gonna write another record. This record right now could be a make-or-break for us, we might move on to the next level and press forward for the next 5 to ten years, or if this record comes and goes unnoticed, maybe we’ll be in a different situation and have to do something totally different. It’s hard to make predictions about where we’ll be.”