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Interview with The Beautiful Mistake
By: Patrick Steven Patterson
 The Beautiful Mistake have been around for four years - and
have gone through just about as many drummers. The band
recently released their second full-length for The Militia
Group, This Is Who You Are, and hit the road
on the Dance or Die Tour with Anatomy of a Ghost, Emery
and The A.K.A.s. Sadly, the band announced yesterday that
they would have to drop off of the remaining tour dates due
to a death in the family.
Fortunately, NowOnTour was able to catch up with The
Beautiful Mistake on the road a couple of days prior to this
announcement. Food and drummers seemed to dominate
the discussion, but singer/guitarist Josh Hagquist was able to
gat a couple of words in about their new record, winter
driving and their fans.
Hagquist has a natural gift for gab (in a good way), but with
less than fourteen minutes remaining on our digital recorder,
we had to push the free-tongued one with a bit of a
countdown. 14...13...12...
Hey, I've only got about 14 minutes left on my
recorder, so you'll be rid of me in that much time. By the
way, who am I talking to?
No worries. This is Josh; I'm the lead singer and guitarist.
I'm looking at an alligator right now. We're in the
Everglades. We're right in Everglades National Forest. We
just pulled off. It's not even twenty feet from me in the
water. It's that cool.
(Thinking now how to follow that up
with what I wanted to talk about...) Well, before I even
started I wanted to ask about the link I saw on your site to
Go
Vegetarian. Are you guys vegetarian or
vegan?
One of the guys in the band is vegetarian, the rest of us
aren't.
You done a crapload of touring? I imagine touring
while being a vegetarian would be a pain in the
ass?
It's hard for him. We can stop anywhere, but a lot of times
we'll go places and they don't necessarily have... he has to
always eat the same thing - a salad everywhere. A lot of my
[touring] friends are vegan and some of them do it really
well. They go to Whole Foods stores and they make as much
food as they can at hotels, but I know a lot of other people
on tour that are in bands that eat crap. They're vegan and
they don't take care of themselves. They just eat
junk.
Do you have any restaurant recommendation on
the road?
There's a great place in Austin called Magnolia Cafe. It's so
good.
What should people stay away
from?
Waffle House.
I asked those same questions to somebody about
nine months ago and they said the exact opposite. They said
go to Waffle House.
Oh, we go all the time but it gets old after a while. I like the
Mom and Pop places better.
You guys were recently in an accident on the road.
We have an office in Salt Lake City and I grew up in
Colorado, so we're familiar with winter driving. Everybody
escaped unscathed? What actually went
down?
We were driving, we'd just made about 100 miles into
Wyoming outside of Salt Lake City and we hit a patch of
black ice. We spun the van around twice and jackknifed our
trailer... flipped over our trailer. It was 8 days old and we
hadn't even paid for it yet. All of us were fine, none of us
had a scratch. The van got messed up...the
alignment...there's a huge dent in the side but the trailer was
totaled. We rented a U-Haul and kept going and didn't miss a
show. We made it to our next show.
I'm not sure if you have heard, but your
label-mates Copeland's drummer left the band the other day.
You've gone through drummer issues. It's generally
accepted that it takes a different kind of cat to bang on shit
night in and night out, but what gives?
Well, the drummer we have now, Josh, is actually the
original drummer. He and Shawn and I formed the band at
the end of 2000. About eleven months into being a band, he
wanted to get married and go back to school so he quit.
Then we had a guy named Armin play drums for us - who
we had known from a couple other bands from our
hometown. He played on the Light A Match CD
and then right after our Hopesfall tour last year he quit to go
back to school. So, we had a fill-in drummer all summer -
then he moved to Switzerland. And then we had another
drummer that we ended up kicking out after about a
month-and-a-half. Then Josh ended up wanting to come back to be
in the band, he was tired of school. So, it really worked out
for the best because we've all known each other forever and
it's pretty much the original line-up. It feels really good - we
all get along really well. It's like family.
You've seen [This Is] Spinal
Tap, right?
Oh, yeah, I know. No spontaneously combusting drummers.
I know - drummer is a hard position to fill when you're in a
band. It's hard to find a drummer that fits your
style.
Tell me about the new record. It's only about three
weeks old?
Yeah, three weeks old as of yesterday.
You recorded in Los Angeles?
We recorded the drums in Los Angeles and we did all the
guitars, bass and vocals in Berkeley, California. We ended
up doing the drums at a place called Hard Drive Studio. It's a
small little room in North Hollywood where Jimmy Eat World
recorded Bleed American. It's not fancy, it's a
really good sounding drum room, we did the drums there
and then went up to Berkeley and tracked everything at
Michael Rosen's studio - the guy that produced the record.
We were there for a little over two weeks.
You mentioned Jimmy Eat World. It seems that
ever since the time Jimmy Eat World's first couple of videos
hit on MTV, what two years, two-and-a-half years ago, there
seems to be a growing mass, almost a glut of bands in that
genre. And not directly in an attempt to classify you guys,
but that being said, how does a band like yours separate
themselves from that pack of 'whatever you want to call
it'...if it's Emo or post-Emo, or it's or it's Punk or if it's
Hardcore or whatever it is? Why are you guys
different?
I think we're different because I think our influences are a
lot different than a lot of the bands that are coming out. Our
first record, Light A Match, people were quick
to dismiss us as Thursday rip-offs because of the
singing/screaming. That kind of bummed us out because we had
been a band since 2000 - we had never even heard
Thursday until Full Collapse came out. And
when Full Collapse came out we had already
written Light A Match. It's hard because
everyone is going to have their opinion and it's cool that
people go beyond that and use their brain and go 'I can see
the differences here and, you know, I think the guitars are
different.' We're big U2 fans, but we're also way into
Snapcase and Quicksand and bands like that. I think, too,
just not trying to write loud-soft-loud-soft, or have Hardcore
breakdowns or anything like that, I think we mix it up. The
guitar leads are a lot different than quote-unquote Emo
bands and it's not like Pop-Punk set to a heavier chord
progression. We just had to mix it up a little more and not
just write five or six different parts. We tried to write actual
songs, verses and choruses. It was cool because no one told
us to do that. It wasn't like a label saying, "You guys have to
write radio songs." We just sat down and for the first time it
was a fully collaborative effort between all of the band
members whereas the older stuff was just Shawn and me - it
was all of us this time. It felt really good, it felt like a team
and it felt like the songs came out exactly the way we
wanted them instead of [having] one or two people in the
band being really into it.
What's the response from folks you're seeing at
shows?
Oh, the response has been awesome! I usually keep up on
reading reviews just to see what people are thinking about
the new songs. Most of the reviews I've read have been
really positive. We always get a couple of people at shows
that are like, "I hate your new stuff, where's the screaming?
It's so wussy. It's not heavy anymore." But, I think the new
record is a lot heavier. I don't think screaming makes it
heavier - I think guitar tone and riffs can make it
heavy.
How has the reaction been to the new record at
shows?
It's been cool - people are coming out that didn't even hear
Light A Match, that bought the new CD or had
seen the video on Fuse and [thought], "Hey, I'm gonna go
check this band out." They have no prior history with us, but
it's cool bringing in new people and still keeping a lot of the
same faces that have come to see us - seen us the five of
six times we've been on tour. So, I think the response has
been awesome. It's always a roll of the dice. You never
know. People could absolutely hate the new CD. We've been
really lucky that people are connecting with the new
stuff.
Ok. We're down to 2 minutes... Give me 5 items
that a band can't be without on the road?
Computer. You have to have a computer with wireless so
that you can go to a Starbucks, or most downtowns have
wireless servers.
Lots of CDs. You need 20 cases of CDs because everyone
has their own stuff they want to listen to, and it's good to
have variety.
You need Throat Coat if you're a singer because it makes
your throat feel good.
Lots of sleep. A good sleeping bag, good pillow.
That's four...
You gotta have a USA Today everyday to read.
'Cause that's what I do.
Ok. I've got one minute.
Quick hitters...
Ok. Cool.
Water: Bottled or Tap?
Bottled.
Beer: Domestic or import?
Import.
Automobile: Domestic or import?
Uhh...import.
Beard or a mustache?
[Laughingly] Neither.
Chicken or Fish?
Wow. Chicken.
Got any shout-out's from the road, man, that's all
I've got?
Yeah, big shout out to all the bands that we've toured with,
especially Funeral For a Friend - we just got to play with
those guys - also we were out on tour with Coheed, so, big
shout out to them...and everyone that saw us at Surf And
Skate.
Word.
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