The other night, we headed over to Roseland Ballroom to check out a sold-out Angels & Airwaves show. After handing over our golden ticket, we caught the tail end of Meg & Dia’s opening set. And after their performance (and earlier ones by The Color Fred and Ace Enders), we were lucky enough to steal a few minutes with the former Discover & Download duo, even though Meg had almost totally lost her voice due to the flu. Their dressing room walls pulsated as AVA stepped on stage and tore into their first song and we strained to hear what the sisters had to say about their upcoming album and being on the road with a bunch of guys.
Buzzworthy: How did you guys hook up with Angels & Airwaves for this tour?
Dia: Meg and I designed a shoe for Macbeth, which is Tom DeLonge’s shoe company. And I guess they wanted us or otherwise we wouldn’t be here. It’s really flattering. Every day we come and we play and we see the guys and we’re like, “Thank you so much. Can we go, like, wash your bus or something?” We’re so lucky to be on this tour.
BW: What’s it like being on the road with a bunch of guys?
Meg: I’m surprised at how nice and generous everybody is. There was a snowstorm and I was sitting in the van with, like, two inches of snow on the windshield and Jason [Mascherino] from The Color Fred, who didn’t know I was sitting there, scraped off our windshield and then just walked away. For no reason — just ’cause he’s awesome. Even crew guys, the guys that move the equipment, come up to me and give me tons of medicine when I’m sick and make me zip up my jacket. People think dudes just drink and party on tour, but everybody’s so considerate. It’s humanity at its best.
BW: Do you two ever fight?
Dia: I think we actually get along well for how much time we spend with each other. We get in little spats every now and then. But it’s never, like, too intense. If it is, we pull each other aside and talk about it. I guess we’ve matured since I was eight and she was 10 and she would hit me with the couch cushions. [Laughs.]
Meg: As we evolve as musicians, we’re reaching another level of professionalism. I have so much respect for Dia because she’s singing and practicing everyday. But you’re always going to compete with whoever you’re closest with. That’s how you compare yourself, you know? But we are working toward the same goal, so it’s really easy to get along.
BW: What’s the status of your new album?
Dia: We are recording it right after this tour, actually. We’ve been writing a lot — we have, like, 20 or 30 songs. It’s supposed to come out, hopefully, in September or October.
BW: What can fans expect this time around?
Dia: Honestly, we really don’t know right now. We’ve actually been having a hard time deciding what we want to do with it. We want to create an atmosphere. We definitely want to be a little more upbeat, almost like a dance party. But, you know, when you get into that type of music the lyrics can kind of not matter, so we want to make sure we keep our integrity.
After wrapping things up with the girls, we bolted to the balcony for the rest of Angels & Airwaves’ set, which was a-maz-ing (and included lots of cool green lasers and Tom’s version of Blink-182’s “Not Now”).
After the show we bumped into an exuberant, soaking-wet-with-sweat Tom. When we told him the show was “awesome,” he apologized as if to imply they could have done better. Hm … maybe he thought we said “awful.” Er … hopefully we didn’t accidentally bring him down from his much deserved high.
If you just can’t get enough Angels & Airwaves, be sure to check back on Monday to see the premiere of their new video, “Secret Crowds.” In the meantime, watch them work their “Magic“…