Interview: Kicking Daisies

Tommy2: Hey, it’s Tommy2 and I hope you’re all enjoying the summer – it’s be flying right on by. Today, we’ve got a special act on the line – the winners of the 2010 Radio Disney N.B.T. – Kicking Daisies. How’s everybody doing?

Kicking Daisies: Very good – What’s going on man?

Tommy2: Good! Now why don’t you all introduce yourselves and to start this off, say your age and how about your favorite Classic Rock act.

Duran Visek: Hey this is Duran, I’m sixteen, I sing and I play guitar and my favorite Classic Rock act is probably Pink Floyd.

Carly Kalafus: Hi, I’m Carly, I’m fifteen, I play bass and I sing and my favorite Classic Rock is Led Zepplin.

Ben Spremulli: Hey this is Ben, I am fifteen and I play lead guitar and keyboards. Favorite Classic Rock act would probably have to be Black Sabbath.

Caitlin Kalafus: My name is Caitlin, I’m eighteen, I play the drums and sing harmonies. And my favorite Classic Rock act is Rush.

Tommy2: I’ll have to go with Caitlin on those picks!

Kicking Daisies: (Laughter)

Tommy2: You’ve all had a pretty busy week let’s start off talking about your new Keeping Secrets EP that just came out exclusively at Walmart.

Duran Visek: Okay, yeah well it originally was released just this past Tuesday in about 1,400 different Walmart’s across the country and one, we’re very, very, very excited about it’s a… we’ve never done anything like it before. We’ve spent a lot of time on it and worked very hard on it. So we’re really excited and we think the fans are really going to like the new material.

Tommy2: And do you have a new single with the EP?

Carly Kalafus: Breathing!

Duran Visek: Just to keep me breathing.

Tommy2: Will that be on the air on Radio Disney or anything like that soon?

Carly Kalafus: Umm.. I think yeah.

Caitlin Kalafus: Pretty sure.

Carly Kalafus: So we’re really excited.

Tommy2: And on the new EP what are some of your personal favorites?

Caitlin Kalafus: This is Caitlin, my favorite song is Dangerous cause it’s really personal with me. I wrote it when I was going through like, well what it talks about it in the song. I really like it cause I was really surprised to hear how it came out and to hear Duran and Carly singing on it, and Ben, he did all the synths and crazy music on it. So it was really, really cool to hear that all come out, and it’s my favorite song.

Carly Kalafus: Yeah, I have to agree. Either that or Shut Up. I just, I love like to sing those songs, they’re so much fun.

Ben Spremulli: Yeah I think my favorite songs, definitely Dangerous.

Duran Visek: I love Dangerous, but I love playing (Keeping) Secrets live. I think it’s our most up-tempo songs and it’s the one people can rock out to the most.

Tommy2: And you’ve been road as well this summer including some shows last weekend on the Warped Tour. What’s it like to play an event like that?

Caitlin Kalafus: It was really awesome. It was really hot outside but it was so much fun because everyone there was so nice, and everyone we talked too and we were just hanging out all day – came to see our band. And we even got Set Your Goals to come see us play, so it was really awesome.

Tommy2: Yeah I was going to say was that kind of a fun opportunity for you all cause that audience is a really good fit for you guys in terms of age and music right?

Caitlin Kalafus: Yeah, it was really great cause they’re all our age, and it was really cool to have like everyone, different styles of people come to see us play and they all really liked our music and hung out with us.

Tommy2: Did you get to check out any of the others acts?

Duran Visek: Yeah, it was mostly Metal Bands but me and Ben got to go in the mosh pits a couple times, it was pretty fun.

Tommy2: Nobody got hurt?

Duran Visek: No… I only did like 360′s and front flips over like 5,000 people while getting elbowed in the face.

Tommy2: I like to hear that man. Haha…

Caitlin Kalafus: It was crazy cause Ben and Duran went to see Less Than Jake and brought Ben up on stage and they wanted to shave his head.

Tommy2: And how’d you get out of that Ben?

Ben Spremulli: It’s funny, I got up on stage and they thought they were going to give me a mohawk. They put this lever down on my head and I thought oh they’re going to make it look like I have a mohawk. And then they came out with a razor and I’m like “oh, I can’t do that.” I had to, I ended up just jumping off stage and running.

Tommy2: Did they actually know that you were in a band performing that day?

Ben Spremulli: I told them, I can’t get this done, you know I got to go play later. And they’re like no…

Duran Visek: They did not believe him.

Ben Spremulli: They didn’t believe me.

Tommy2: This year, you I see you’ll be performing on an episode of So Random. That’s definitely going to be something interesting to look forward to huh?

Caitlin Kalafus: Yeah, that was like the coolest experience ever. We got to hang out with the cast, we got makeup done, we got to play on their awesome stage and it was really fun.

Duran Visek: Yeah, the cast, it’s very cool and the best part about it was all you can drink soda. There was like, like fifteen different sodas in this fridge in our dressing room. And it was like this is awesome! I’d never had Tab before though, it was my first time having Tab and I gotta say it was not my favorite soda though.

Tommy2: Now you’re making me wonder if the first question I should have asked you all was – What was your favorite Soda from So Random?

Duran Visek: Ahh… Dr. Pepper. They had a lot of Dr. Pepper.

Carly Kalafus: I don’t even remember?

Caitlin Kalafus: That wasn’t – for the rest of us at least, that wasn’t the highlight of being there.

Carly Kalafus: Probably a random refrigerator that Duran found.

Caitlin Kalafus: He was totally stealing soda from all that cast.

Duran Visek: Sandwiches and crackers and everything.

Duran Visek: So you guys were rubbing elbows with everybody and checking out the set and Duran’s in a refrigerator huh?

Caitlin Kalafus: Yeah!

Carly Kalafus: Yeah, it’s usually what happens.

Tommy2: Back in June, you had the opportunity to perform at the charity – A Time For Heroes to benefit the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids foundation. In addition to that are there other charities you get involved with?

Caitlin Kalafus: We’ve done like a lot of charities and stuff. I’m trying to think of, well there’s one here, it’s call Rent-A-Palooza and it’s about raising money for kids with Cancer and we’ve done that a bunch. And we just kind of like do a bunch of other things that raise money for pretty much anything, we just like to help out a lot.

Carly Kalafus: I think we’re going to be playing like Boys & Girls clubs this summer too. And I wanted to start, this is Carly speaking, I wanted to start selling my like old clothes online and having some of the money go towards women that are leaving, like… like Homeless Shelters and starting their own lives and I wanted to like donate money to that, so.