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Here are some questions that Waterparks have answered from fans during the Fandom tour! All credit for the questions goes to those who asked them.
Read our January issue!: galaxy-mag.com/issue-16
Photos by Yising Kao & Brynn Edwards
Photo by Yising Kao
How did you come up with the “Entertainment 2019” and “Double Dare 2019” mashups?
Awsten: At some shows, people would play like a minute of a song then stop. So, I'm like, there’s a better way to do that and I know how to do it, so it’s kind of like that idea where you can let people hear everything without completely disregarding the past. But also moving forward and being like, “This is the Fandom tour.”
What was your favorite music video to film?
Awsten: “Watch What Happens Next.” I wasn’t afraid of the gators, but then they were like, “So, when he starts to struggle, just hold it really tight!”
Geoff: I think “Watch What Happens Next” was a lot of fun…actually “Dream Boy.”
Awsten: it was a blue screen since my hair would blend in with a green screen.
Otto: “Not Warriors/Crybaby.”
Awsten: Otto likes “Crave” because he got to be himself. That’s a furry joke.
Otto: Yeah.
How’s Rory?
Geoff: Rory has been awesome! She just started preschool and I read to her every night. She’s making friends which is really cool. I didn’t know babies could go to preschool at such a young age. It’s really cute because whenever she’s done, we live like a block away from the school so since she started walking, I've been holding her hand and she gets super freaking excited. So, she’s great, thank you for asking.
Awsten: You're talking about your pet minion still? You know she likes minions!
Geoff: Don't do this to me!
What’s your favorite Panic! At The Disco song?
Awsten: That’s really hard.
Otto: Vices and Virtues came out I listened to “Ready to Go” for like 3 days straight, so probably that.
Geoff: A Fever You Can't Sweat Out.
Awsten: That’s not a song. “Dear Maria, Count Me In!”
What super power would you want to have?
Geoff: I’d like to teleport. That’d be cool.
Awsten: Take anybody, anywhere, anytime, shit their pants. So, I don't have to have the guilt of like hurting a person necessarily, but you can pick times for them to shit their pants. Say they're on a date like every Friday or Saturday at 8pm and just make them shit their pants on a date. Say it’s like someone in a band or they're on stage and they're all like yeah” or if they were to crowd surf. I'm not hurting them but I'm like psychologically ruining their lives.
Photo by Brynn Edwards
In 2018, you wrote a letter about the Entertainment release and how you were hesitant about it but then you thought about it and felt good. So, I was wondering if that happened with Friendly Reminder and if it was too late to cancel the release to reanalyze how you were feeling? How would you feel if it went through?
Awsten: I mean, at the end of the day, we control our shit. So, if we’re like, “We’re not gonna do that,” there’s no one who will be like, “You have to.” Because management’s always behind whatever we want to do. I don't regret putting out Entertainment or anything, but I just didn’t want to do that again.
What’s your favorite flavor of soup?
Awsten: Tom Yum soup is my favorite with some chicken, no tomatoes though.
Otto: I don't have one. It’s not that I don't like soup, but I just never put one soup in a higher regard.
Geoff: In San Francisco they have these sourdough bowls with clam chowder. They're so good!
How do you feel about the My Chemical Romance reunion?
Awsten: Very good! Actually, we were going to cancel our San Antonio show if we could get tickets. I didn’t want to try to ask for it. Anyone who’s a touring person knows not to ask for guestlist in Los Angeles or New York. We were all trying, even Otto which is crazy ‘cause he doesn’t use computers, and Jawn and Lucas. But now we’re not flying out, we’re playing it.
What’s your Taco Bell order?
Geoff: It’s the same at every location. It’s either the number 7 or a T7 which is a chicken quesadilla with a crunchy taco.
Otto: Mine used to be like 20 of the Doritos Locos tacos. They stopped doing that though, which is wrong, so now I don't.
Awsten: I'm a little bitch, so what I used to do was I’d get grilled chicken and lettuce and eat it with a fork like a little bitch in the van in 2016.
Photo by Yising Kao
What was the most embarrassing moment you’ve had?
Awsten: I'm going to break vocal rest to tell the story. It’s so funny. Otto is the most fucking awkward person. No matter what, whenever we’re coming or going from anywhere, he’s the guy who: *Awsten and Otto get up to mimic the situation where two people try to walk through but get in each other’s way by sidestepping each other.* a band member from one of his longtime favorite bands, in a festival in Australia, was in the same elevator. He and Otto are about to leave after small talk and the guy goes, “alright, see you later!” And the guy goes for a handshake and I'm like, “Oh, this is not gonna be good!” So, I gave him a fist bump and Otto tries to do a fist bump with him too while the guy tried to do a handshake. And then it happened again where they both switched and I was like “ugh”. It went back and forth fucking 4 times before the guy was just like “Alright” and left. I fucking scream-laughed and I fell backwards over my suitcase.
Geoff: I see them get to the thing and Awsten’s on the ground just like dying.
Otto: In my defense, I was reading the room, which was the small elevator. I was the last one to get an acknowledgement, so I was like, “fist bump. Fist bump. Ok, we’re fist bumping."
Awsten: So, he fucking- *Awsten mimics the fist bump and handshake switching.* I’m seeing it in slow motion and was like, “OH, SHIT!” The suitcase was huge and I fell over it and I'm just laying on the ground fucking crying. The elevator closes and Otto’s like, “WHY AM I LIKE THIS?!” and then another time, same band. He has been listening to this band sine I've known him when we were like 17 or 18. Somebody gave him a little cowboy outfit. Like, you’ve seen his short shorts, they were shorter. He looked like woody if like woody was trying to kind of seduce somebody and also be a boy scout leader. So, he had a little hat on and everything, he was going for it. He was full-on cowboy. I was like, “Yo, you should talk to him,” because we were sitting on the same bus. He was like, “no, no.” I was like, “Yo, my friend over there, drummer, he’s a really big fan and he has been listening to you guys forever.” And he’s like, “oh, the one in the little cowboy outfit?” I was like, “Yeah, the one in the little cowboy outfit.”
Otto: I hated that.
Awsten: I had a good time. Dude, actually, I think every time he has ever come into the office with management, I get to watch him be weird with some band. Our managers, Benji and Joel were in this meeting and they were coming out of one. And I watched him try to walk in, and he did that back and forth thing with Joel for like 7 steps. I was like, “Motherfucker, don’t be weird. Just step back!”
Otto: We were going to get ice cream, but first I had to grab my bag. So, Joel was giving a tour to two artists that I didn’t know. They were big dudes. The studio has two doors and I opened one while Joel was opening the other so we kind of met at the threshold there and I did the thing and that was my first impression with the two artists he was showing around. He was like, “By the way, this is Otto.” And then I was weird with Sleeping With Sirens on the way out.
Awsten: They were all sitting at this big opening at the table and so Otto was just leaving and kind of looked back at them a little bit and Jack waved at him, and Otto was like “Oh” and kept walking. Jack was like, “Oh, you think you’re too good for me?” and he was fucking with Otto. And Otto, I guess he took that seriously and goes, “No!” He’s the fucking worst. Those are my favorite moments.
Otto: There’s a lot more.
Awsten: I think y’all get it.
Photo by Yising Kao
If you had to get a tattoo of someone’s face, who would you get? Awsten: Geoff and Otto on the bottom of my feet so I could step on them all day.
Geoff: How did that come to your brain so quickly?
Otto: I’d probably get a big old chest piece of Daniel Day-Lewis.
Awsten: You can like harness that energy every day. That’s why people like tour shirts with people on them. It makes you feel like that person.
Geoff: Stephen King.
What’s your normal experience on this tour?
Geoff: yesterday there was a whole thing that happened with catering. When we get to play House of Blues most of them have restaurants so they made a whole catering thing for tacos and they were really good. They have a really nice spread and nobody’s trying to get food or anything, everyone’s chilling in the green room. And all of a sudden, the black beans.
Awsten: From what I remember, everything just fell in the hallway
Otto: Our bathroom door opened by itself the other day. A spirit had to use the can.
Who’s your all-time favorite band?
Awsten: Waterparks.
Otto: Waterpark.
Awsten: Is Shawn Mendes a band?
Geoff: Linkin Park is my all-time favorite band.
Awsten: Ottoparks is really good, man, y’all aren’t ready for the new Chapel album. Imagine if I leaked it.
How was your day?
Awsten: there was a lot of drinking tea and eating cough drops and medicine, being in my bunk. Finishing the Houston hoodie design, signing posters. How was your day, Otto?
Otto: Swell.
Geoff: Mine was great. I got to go to the bank. It’s just fun for me. When you’re a dad, you just like to go to the bank. Then I went and had a nice lunch at a sushi bar.
What’s the craziest thing that has happened during the show on stage?
Awsten: Ottoparks was pretty hectic. Geoff demolished like half our mannequins last night. He smashed like half of them on accident.
When you get on stage, what are your emotions?
Awsten: I try and just like, blank out in my head and do nothing. I play phone games, like Solitaire. And I don't wanna know what time it is, and I want Lucas to be like, “Alright, go!” And I’m like, “Ok.” I just try not to have any thoughts, or I used to do the thing where I pretend I'm Kanye for a minute and juts like, “hey I'm tight. Whats up?” I just try to clear my head completely.
Geoff: Same. ‘Cause if you start to let it get to your head, you start definitely overthinking things and then sometimes if you overthink things, the simplest thing that you're so used to just becomes impossible for a second at least, like tuning your guitar.
Awsten: I used to even wanna know how many people were coming but now, I'm like, “Nah, I don't wanna know anything.” It’s cool ‘cause I know tonight’s sold out so that’s tight, but yeah, I just kind of like to walk in and like, “Cool, there’s people, let’s go!”
Photo by Yising Kao
Do you still have the hair that Jawn cut and gave to you? Awsten: Yeah. Gross, it’s in Houston. Jawn’s hair used to be down hair and I've known him since like junior high so when he cut it, he gave to to me. Actually, I think he has done that twice now. I think I have two bags of his hair now, like equally long. I know one’s in a bag in my parents’ house back in Houston. I don't know where the other one is, probably Houston. Yeah, gross.
What’s your worst memory of this tour?
Awsten: Getting sick. That was such trash. I was having a great time. I was like, “I’m not gonna get sick this tour. I'm fucking killin’ it.” Y’all do not understand the precautions I took.
Otto: you really don't understand the lengths he took to make sure this didn’t happen. I felt really bad.
Awsten: I was straight up walking around with Lysol wipes in my hands everywhere. I wouldn’t touch surfaces or instruments and was wearing my face mask constantly.
Otto: I got Lysol in my mouth.
Awsten: He got really close!
What’s your favorite song to perform on this tour?
Awsten: If you don’t like spoiler alerts, close your ears. Ok cool, nobody did it. I think “Watch What Happens Next” is fun. I think “Turbulent” is fun. I think “Easter Egg” is fun, just kidding!
Photo by Brynn Edwards
If you could trade places with someone, who would it be?
Otto: The keyboardist of Rammstein.
Geoff: I would be, honestly, I’d like to be in Sum 41. I think that Dave is constantly like, “I’m fucking great!”
Awsten: I’d be in Michelle Branch’s band.
What song do you think describes your personality?
Geoff: *Singing* “A whole new wooorld!”
Awsten: *Blasts “Don’t Cha” by The Pussycat Dolls on his phone.*
SAN FRAN:
What’s your favorite song off of Fine Line by Harry Styles?
Geoff: I’ve heard the first 3 songs so far. They’re really, really good but I honestly can’t pick a favorite yet just because I haven’t heard it all the way through. But I'm waiting to have a nice separation to where I can actually listen to it all.
Awsten: I'm waiting until I'm a lone and in a Zen space so I can listen to it all the way through.
Otto: I've only heard snippets on iTunes, but “Cherry” sounds promising.
When are you going to release your song “Play?”
Awsten: It’s out on YouTube. *Emoji sticking its tongue out*
If you made a movie, what would it be?
Otto (reading Awsten’s answer typed out on his phone after like 10 minutes): Hells by Awsten Knight, produced by Blumhouse. It would be about us being on tour. We go to the green room and realize the green room’s completely empty. We realize we’re late for soundcheck, so we go to the stage and we see Lucas is eating the last of the techs. I was able to get one text out to the SWAT team at 91111 and then my phone died. Lucas eats Geoff’s frigid ass. I have to raise his stinky baby. So, the whole thing is us trying to outlive Lucas. Otto and I set traps with marbles and paint cans and shit. Its only when we check the day sheet we never look at and follow Lucas’ instructions, that we’re able to get directions out the door. We get to the door. He’s standing in front of it. “This is all I’ve ever wanted,” he says. “You read the day sheet. I am complete.” And then he turns into a wet baby and we step on him. *Everyone claps.*
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