Mest
Meet Blue Island's Best Punksters
by Randy J. Klodz
Photo: Geoff Moore
Mest—which includes singer/guitarist Tony Lovato, guitarist Jeremiah Rangel, bassist Matt Lovato, and drummer Nick Gigler—released Mest, the band’s fourth major-label effort, last June. Along with its own share of headlining gigs, Mest could be found opening for such bands as Goldfinger, Blink-182, the Used, and Good Charlotte, to name a few. Mest also played many dates on last summer’s annual punk rock extravaganza, the Vans Warped Tour.
Tony Lovato, 23, called in from Florida, two days after returning from Japan, alertly avoiding the blustery hometown winter weather, a few days before beginning yet another tour of the States. The spikey blond-haired, tattooed, and lip-pierced frontman talks to SOAK on topics ranging from the scare that happened while he was “Fear and Loathing” in Japan, the irony of a goof-punk song getting play, and the thrills of owning your own Cadillac. You better fasten your seat belts.
Soak: How was your recent headlining tour of Japan?
Tony Lovato: It was our second tour over there—my third time being in Japan. Everything was pretty cool except for the very last night. On the way back, we’re walking back and the whole mood just changed all of a sudden. There are two Japanese guys looking in some secluded dark area and they walk away, and some guy gets on his bike and he was looking over there and he takes off. So it’s me and my friend E.J., and I’m looking over there and I’m like, ‘Dude, what the fuck is that, is that what I think it is?’ And he just looks at me, and he’s got this ghost-white face and he’s just like, “Let’s go dude.” I look over to the right and I’m getting closer and closer, and I’m walking up to make sure what I’m seeing is real—some dude hung in the park. We walk away and we go into the restaurant; everybody’s having a good time laughing and they’re like, ‘Oh you guys missed it, Nick [Gigler] just ate some horse meat.’ And I’m like. ‘I know you guys know that we are on drugs (editors note: Mushrooms are legally sold in shops within Japan), but me and E.J. just found some dude hung dead in the park.’ But other than that the shows rocked and the kids were cool.
Soak: You decided to have Benji Madden from Good Charlotte guest-star on “Jaded (These Years)” on “Mest.” How did that come about?
TL: We’ve been friends with those guys for the past few years, and while we were out doing our record last year at this time out in L.A., he happened to be out there. We were in the situation where it was friends being with friends a lot—just hanging out and messing with some songs and stuff. We just worked on some songs together and recorded some shit. It just happened that it was one of the songs that he liked that we worked together with, and it ended up being a single.
Soak: Did people give you a hard time when you guys first appeared on the radio with a song called “What’s the Dillio?”
TL: To be honest, we didn’t really make it big from that song. That song hurt our career more than it helped. Radio stations started playing it like crazy and people didn’t really have an understanding of what our band was. Some of our favorite bands like NOFX, bands like that, write hokey-joke songs, and that’s all that song was, a hokey-joke song. We’re not the most serious band, but we tend to take our music pretty serious. For the label to release it as a single—at the time we had no control over singles—it stuck us in that all the stations backed it, and then it didn’t work and there was a backlash from it. Then all these punk-rock bands didn’t want to take us out on tour because the songs were so hokey, not like punk-rock songs. It made it really hard to get tours after that. So we had to over-climb that, and tour our asses off the next three years. Everything that we have now is based on touring and fan loyalty.
Soak: What’s your favorite place to hang out when you guys are back home?
TL: The city that I don’t go out in the most is my own city. Every time I’m in L.A., I’m on Sunset Strip and I go out all the time. When we’re in New York, we go out. When I come home it’s time to rest and just kick it and chill—save all the partying and damage to your body for the road.
Soak: So since you’re from the South side, I would guess that you are a White Sox fan?
TL: Fuck yeah. Though, I haven’t been able to follow up with what’s been going on with them this year, but everybody has been telling me what’s been going on—and nothing sounds good, that’s for sure.
Soak: Most bands have the standard bandname.com while your band has www.mestcrapp.com.
TL: Whoever was making up our Web site at the time was probably like, ‘What do you think about this?’ and at the time I was probably just like, ‘Sure, whatever dude, I don’t really give a crap.’
Soak: I remember about three years ago, Mest was playing the side stage in the parking lot before a Blink-182 concert at the Tweeter Center in Tinley Park, and there had to be a couple hundred people there.
TL: That was pretty crazy. I remember talking to the people that worked there and they were like, ‘Yeah, that’s the most people we’ve ever had over at the side stage, we’ve never seen that happen before.’ We were pretty stoked on it; it was cool.
Soak: The lyrics to your song “Hotel Room,” off of your debut “Wasting Time,” read: “Wanna touch you, but I know I can’t touch you / Wanna be inside of you, wanna be inside of you,” do you think a line like that would help Soak readers pick-up chicks?
TL: Well, onstage I change it to: ‘I want to see you, but I know I can’t see you / I want to fuck you, but I know I can’t fuck you / I want to cum all over you.’
Soak: Your song “Cadillac,” with its “With the top down seat back rollin’ in my Cadillac” chorus, makes it sound like you have had some good times in your Caddy.
TL: Before we recorded Destination Unknown, me and my drummer, Nick [Gigler] had just bought my Cadillac and we drove down to Florida to hang out with my girlfriend for like a week or something. Then we flew to L.A., and I flew back to Florida, he flew home, and then me and my girlfriend drove up [to Chicago]. It’s a neat car. It’s cool. Shit happens.
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