In Part 2 of our exclusive interview with Henry Menzel, front man for New Jersey pop-punk/ska band Survay Says!, we discuss the evil that is social media, whose life we’d like to take a deeper look into, and the question of the year – What would Bob Belcher call a burger if it was created for your band? Let me tell you, Part 2 delves into the important issues!
If you missed part one of our interview with Menzel, you can check that out here!
To hear more from Survay Says!, you can purchase a CD here. The band has plenty of tour dates coming up, and they just continue adding more! To see them live, you can purchase concert tickets here.
Infectious Magazine: So it seems like our whole world has been consumed by the Internet and social media. How has this connectivity helped you guys grow to the point you’re at now.
Henry Menzel: I don’t know that it has. (laughs) I’m not speaking for everybody in the band, because each of us has a different relationship with the Internet. I don’t have a good relationship with it. I’m not a fan. I don’t like what it does to certain people. I don’t like what it does to me. I think it’s a good idea, and it was a decent attempt to raise social consciousness, but we just completely failed.
Other than my personal problems with it, it’s completely necessary for our band, because it’s where people are. I don’t make music to sell it to people so much, but I know that I need people to hear it if I’m going to connect to anyone. It has to be there. I wish I could be all punk rock and say we don’t use the Internet, but 90% of people have their heads in their phones all day. And there’s no way for me to reconcile that. We need to use it. Which to me is a necessary evil, but it’s how people get the media.
That’s another reason we focus so much on playing shows. Shows are real life and I’m more of a fan of that. It’s so hard to gauge how involved you should be on social media. You’re giving people access to you all the time and people overdo it. It puts a lot of pressure on the artist, because, essentially, if I post as Survay Says!, that’s band content. That’s not a personal blog. It’s not Joe Schmoe posting about what burrito he ate today. That’s content.
You can even see it with the way Facebook has it, which is so stupid. You won’t get engagements unless you create something that is essentially content. If I just post my tour dates, nobody is going to see it. And that bothers me because I want the social media aspect to lead to real life, but it doesn’t. It keeps people in the box. It needs to be something engaging. That’s a lot of pressure on artists to continually put something out there that people are going to see, let alone like. And I think that might be why people post dumb shit. Because it gets attention. People like negativity. They gravitate to negativity more than they would something positive. I try not to use a platform like that. I try to play the game like some other bands do. I use it to promote shows. I want it to be about the shows, the music, and what we’re doing.
I try not to be too topical on the who Survay Says! stuff. I try to be funny. But I don’t try to take it to a place outside of Survay Says!. And that’s hard because some people may not see it, so it’s hard for us to grow. I find that it’s something that I have to keep reckoning with. I wish it wasn’t like that. I wish it was something that we could all enjoy. I look at it mostly like an ugly caricature of real life. The Internet in general and our freedom with it and our constant access to it, it sometimes hurts more than it helps. Which is another topic over how I use it for the band.
IM: You could write a book on it.
HM: Yeah, I could write a thesis on it. It’s tough. It’s hard to deal with and reckon with. It’s not easy to use. It’s not as simple as some people make it out to be.
IM: Exactly. You have to have the reach. I do the Facebook page for this magazine and we have quite a few likes on the page. But when we post stuff, there’s times that we’re only getting like a reach of eight. Are you kidding me?
HM: I have 15,000 and I’ll be lucky if I get 50-100 people.
IM: The way that Facebook is set up is not good for people who are trying to get actual real information out there.
HM: Yeah, outside of things like “15 Things ….” whatever the hell they post about.
IM: All that BuzzFeed stuff gets a huge amount of reach.
HM: Because it’s still and it’s dumb. Mostly superficial and negative. Social media is the perfect name for it. You’re essentially making everyday people join in the journalistic industry. Your magazine has to have good content, and now people have to have good content? That wasn’t the point to me originally and I think that puts a lot of pressure on everybody. And it’s frustrating. And that’s why once a day I have to read about somebody who posted some dumb shit. I won’t let them off the hook if they said some racist, bigoted shit, but they probably felt the pressure to put something out there that everyone would fucking look at.
IM: Well, speaking of Facebook. One of your interested listed is “Bob’s Burgers,” which is awesome! I saw the background on your phone. Nice! If one of Bob’s “Burgers of the Day” was a Survay Says! burger, what would be on it and what would it be called?
HM: Well I don’t have the punning skills of Loren Bouchard.
IM: I wish we all had that.
HM: I wish we did too. Oh my god, why haven’t I thought about this before? What would our burger be? Because this is important.
IM: It is!
HM: I know that it would have to be something poutine based or burrito based. That’s where we find our common ground.
IM: That’s a weird combination.
HM: I mean, a poutine burrito, why would anyone have a problem with that? But they would never serve a burrito at Bob’s Burgers, so that’s the difficult part. I’m gonna have to get back to you on what we’d call it. I’ll have to go through our song names.
IM: This is like question of the year.
HM: This is great. This is great stuff. But I do know it would have to be something… When we book shows, sometimes we submit a rider. Two of us are vegan and I’m “straight edge.” I’m not straight edge in terms of partying with the x-gang, I just don’t drink or smoke. But because I have that, and I’m the lead singer, the band gets labeled as straight edge. But we’re not, I am! So sometimes we’re the vegan band. But unfortunately I cannot make this [burger] vegan. Bob’s not abide by making anything vegan.
IM: Oh god no. Wasn’t there an episode where he did something like that or they were going to change the meat? (points to two of my accompanying friends) Those are my friends by the way. They watch the show too.
HM: They didn’t base a whole episode on it, but they’ll touch upon it in random dialogue. There hasn’t been an entire episode based on this concept though.
IM: I love your knowledge of this show.
HM: Ahh yes, this is where I thrive. So there’s no concept for a veggie burger, but they do bring it up from time to time and Bob just shuts it down. So if we were on the show, we couldn’t abide by that. Sorry vegan readers. Nothing against you guys, it’s just not something I do. It’s the same thing with drinking and smoking – it’s just something I don’t do. But anyway, I’ll get back to you on the name.
IM: I love that this is important to you.
HM: It is! This is for real. This is good shit. But yeah, it’s gotta be something poutine-based. Which they had a poutine burger on the board and it was called “Poutine On The Ritz.”
IM: (laughs) That’s so brilliant!
HM: Again, these are things I know. It would have to be something with poutine. That’s our band food.
IM: We don’t really have that down here.
HM: No, you don’t. It’s because we love Canada so much, it’s like our thing. When we go up and tour Canada, it’s all we eat. We actually had a sponsorship with a poutinerie. Simply because we tweeted at them and asked if they would ever give a sponsorship to a band. And they’re like yeah!
IM: Hell yes!
HM: And it worked. So they give us discounts and free stuff. Which is great, especially when we’re in Canada. Things are expensive. Or I should say gas is expensive.
IM: Really?
HM: They trick you, they put it by liter. It’s only $1.25 a liter and you have to multiple that by like 3.75 or something like that. It’s like $5 a gallon. We bitch about gas prices in America, but we actually have some of the lowest gas prices in the world. But our living isn’t as good… but we’re not going to get into that.
IM: No! Different interview!
HM: But yeah, I’m going to pick poutine-based because a burrito is a burrito. You can’t really turn that into a burger.
IM: You guys took over our Instagram a couple weeks ago. If you could have anyone takeover your Instagram, whose life would you want to have a glimpse into for a day?
HM: Hmm, people are boring.
IM: People are very boring!
HM: It was tough because I had to come up with things to say. During the day, there’s not a lot going on. But if I had to choose, I’d probably go with a comedian. I really love comedians. They fascinate me. I know how bands work, I get it. Even bigger bands. Even they’re boring. They’re just like us. They get to the venue and sit around and twiddle their thumbs for a while. So yeah, probably a comedian or a writer. My favorite creator of anything is Joss Whedon. But I don’t know what he does all day.
IM: He just rolls around in money.
HM: Yeah, money and ideas and creative wealth. Everything I will never have. And the love and adoration of people like me. That was a lot of pressure to takeover your Instagram. How was I going to make it interesting? I imagine I’d have to pick somebody who could create something interesting on the fly. Comedians will tweet funny things. Joss Whedon is a witty guy, so I feel like he’d be able to put something out there that would be interesting. So yeah, Joss Whedon is my final answer. But then that brings up the question of why would Joss Whedon have anything to do with me?
IM: It’s a fantasy world. Anything could happen. Do you have any final comments for the readers and your fans?
HM: Come to shows. That’s all I ever say at the end of these. But that’s why I’m here, it’s so people can come to shows and be entertained. And trust me, I’m a big proponent of sitting and watching the T.V. for a really long time. It’s the only other thing I do besides play shows. But for one night, come out, even if it’s not for my band, go to a show. Watch some music. Support a band that needs supporting. There’s a lot of us. Whether it’s my band or whoever, go to a show. Go to shows. It’s an artform that needs way more help and support than television. And I love t.v., don’t get me wrong. Love it. But we need help.
IM: I think that’s the perfect way to end this. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this!
HM: Oh, thank you.