Starting out in Nashville Tennessee, the country music capital of the world, can't be easy for an upstart rock band. But Framing Hanley, isn't just your ordinary rock band. They are hungry and eager for success and we like that here at Blogs N Roses. So we decided to sit down and conduct an interview with Nixon, the lead singer of Framing Hanley. Towards the end the band finished putting the equipment away and jumped in on some of the questions.

You can listen to the interview, unedited, below or you can read the edited version. The choice is yours and yours alone.

BnR: How is the tour going for you?

Nixon: Dude, it's been a lot of fun. It sucks that tomorrow night is the last night of it, but it's been a lot of constant partying. We've met some cool people, some cool fans on this tour that we haven't had an opportunity to meet yet because we have been playing some markets we haven't played yet. All in all, it has been a great experience so far.

BnR: What is coming up for you guys next? Are you still going to continue to tour?

Nixon: Yea, I am almost positive we will be out the rest of the year. We are crossing our fingers on a couple of other tours. We are waiting to see what happens. We are going to do some headlining dates and some co-headlining tours with a band called Echovalve.

BnR: So how have the other bands been treating you on tour?

Nixon: It's like a brotherhood. All three of the bands are on the same label. You know all the way across the board, I think it is safe to say that it is three different styles of rock. We put that aside every night and we all go out there and just throw down. I wasn't expecting bad things at all, but it's been even better than we expected out here. The guys are all cool as hell. I remember years ago when I was in high school being a huge Tantric fan and now the song that I was a fan of, Mourning; I go out every night and do that song with them. It's really surreal. But yea, it's definitely like a brotherhood between all three bands.

BnR: That's awesome. They were saying the same thing.

Nixon: Well the label told them to take us under their wings. So pretty much "taking us under their wings" consists of making me drink vodka until I throw up and holding a bucket while I am puking and then handing me the bottle of Absolut between hurls.

BnR: Fantastic! Puke and rally. It is like hazing. So how have the fans been treating your new album? Have they enjoyed it?

Nixon: Not as many people as I would hope, know about us.

BnR: That is true. We never have actually heard about you outside of this tour.

Nixon: Yea, we are still what the industry calls a "baby band." But every night we get out there and leave it all on-stage. I don't care if there is one person in the crowd who knows who we are, 300 people who know who we are, or if there is no one who knows who we are, we still get out there every night. When we play those songs, we play them with the same passion that we had when we wrote them. We have had a good response. We sold out of our merchandise a few times. I guess that is a good thing either that or it is terrible on our merch company's part. It could be us though as I am the one in charge of running our merch this tour and I am always the one drunk at the end of the night. I'll take responsibility.

BnR: Or slight miscalculations.

Nixon: "We're supposed to have 65 more cd's and now we have none." In Grand Rapids, everybody is like "You guys got cd's?" I said, "Somewhere we have 65 cds." It ended up we miscounted.

BnR: Everyone has iTunes now so they can just get online and get the album. So who are your biggest influences? Obviously, Tantric.

Nixon: Hah! Personally for me, the whole reason I am in rock n' Roll is Guns N' Roses. I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. My dad was a country musician and I remember hearing Appetite for Destruction for the first time. That's what did it for me.

BnR: Shit, that's why we are here.

Nixon: I was wondering that when I saw the website. I thought, that would be awesome.

BnR: Our whole goal is to be sued by Axl Rose.

Nixon: Really? That is awesome!

BnR: We are well on our way.

Nixon: Yea, I am like the only person out there who would cry if he met Axl Rose. Just because, growing up in the middle of nowhere in the country, that was the first rock band that I was introduced to. But I would say collectively we are huge fans of Deftones, 30 Seconds to Mars, Incubus, Thrice. I love Thrice. We saw them in Vegas when we were out there and they put on a killer show. Flyleaf, she has an amazing voice. There is just so many. We listen to everything.

BnR: Any shameful things you listen to? Like Hugo said Enya.

Nixon: Well I have Elton John.

BnR: There is nothing shameful about Elton John.

Nixon: Not really dude. We listen to a lot of singer/songwriter stuff like Damien Rice, huge Matchbox 20/Rob Thomas fan because I think he is a great songwriter. I know there is somebody that people would just laugh their ass off. I have my warm ups on my iPod, especially when I have it on shuffle and surround sound in here [RV]. Then all of a sudden "eeeeeEEEEEEEE" comes on and everybody is like 'What the hell is that?' The Beach Boys, the band makes fun of me for that.

BnR: Time for a technical question: Ryan, is he the guy filling in now?

Nixon: The guy who looks like Ashton Kutcher?

BnR: Yea, is he a sound guy for you or just a friend?

Nixon: Yea, him and Tim, who is the guitar player who just had surgery, they used to play in bands together. Tim has a really unique style of playing. He does a lot of tapping and sliding. Ryan plays exactly like him and it was definitely the best fit we could ever hope for.

BnR: So you said your dad was a country star?

Nixon: No, not a country music star. He was a country musician. There is a big difference. We are not rock stars, we are rock musicians. Look at our bank account. That totally tells you that we are not stars.

BnR: Well being from Nashville, what would you rather do play at the Grand Ol Opry House or motorboat Dolly Parton?

Nixon: Aw dude motorboat. I am a motorboatin' son of a bitch!

BnR: So how did you guys meet and then subsequently decide to start a band?

Nixon: It was all eHarmony.com originally.

BnR: Oh thats awesome. We all met on Adultfriendfinder.com.

Nixon: Chris and Luke, our drummer and bass player, they were in a band together and all went to high school together. They were looking for a lead singer and posted an ad on a little bulletin board at the community college we were going to. I answered it and it wound up being the biggest mistake of my life and here we are now. [laughs] We got signed in December of '06 and had two songs, Hear Me Now and Wave Goodbye from the cd. And then Tim joined the band in January of '07. We wrote the record in three weeks after he joined. It was like the missing ingredient.

BnR: So it was a quick writing process?

Nixon: Yea, we wrote the cd in less than a month.

BnR: Oh wow! That is really quick considering Chinese Democracy is ten years in the making. Now the harder question, some people have called your band "emo." Is this a label you are comfortable with or would you like to distance yourself from it?

Nixon: We wear girl jeans and have a swoosh in our hair and we scream occasionally.

BnR: There is nothing wrong with girl jeans.

Nixon: No, but it makes you emo. If you had a swoosh, you would be emo.

BnR: Oh, well thank god I can't grow hair.

Nixon: Oh see that is why we all have swooshes because we are starting to get receding hairlines. It is what it is. There is the term nu-metal and they call Fall Out Boy nu-emo. People are just making shit up. When people ask what type of music we are, we just say 'kick ass rock.' Because that really can encompass so many different genres. When you look at our influences, I think the last thing anyone can do is call us emo. But whatever. 

BnR: Hey, I just picked that up from a record review.

Nixon: I know exactly what you are talking about.

BnR: Have you started writing any new songs?

Nixon: Yea dude. Before Tim had his surgery, we were actually playing two brand new songs every night, Ghost Town and That's What She Said. We have a lot of cool things we want to do with our next record, but at the same time we are not wanting to rush in to the studio right now. We are still trying to push this record right now. But I am really excited about the next record. It is really going to be something different.

BnR: Quick question time, if you were a super hero who would you be?

Brandon: We were just talking about this the other day. He's [points to a member of the band to quickly for me to figure out who it is] Batman, I'm Rambo.

Luke: I'm Blankman.

Nixon: Nah, I would probably want to be Superman. He has X-Ray vision.

BnR: So while in Germany, Kerry King had a rabid Slayer fan approach him and want Kerry to carve his signature into the guy's arm. Are there any crazy Framing Hanley fans out there?

Nixon: A lot of people have our symbol tattooed on them. There was this one time where this couple brought their 12 year old daughter and they wanted us to flip off the camera with her. That was weird.

BnR: Well at least you weren't screwing her [the 12 year old girl].

Nixon: That would be even weirder and illegal in most places.

BnR: Well speaking of that, have you ever had sex with a girl from MySpace? If so, did Chris Hanson from NBC's To Catch a Predator show up?

Nixon: No one in our band has had sex with anyone underage.

BnR: That's fine, but how about a girl from MySpace...perhaps someone in your Top 8?

Nixon: No one in our band has had sex with anyone underage.

BnR: Alright, have you ever been nervous on stage?

Nixon: Sometimes it hits you. We have been doing this for so long in other bands and in general. I grew up in music, but every now and then it hits us. When was it? I think it was last night I felt butterflies in my stomach.

Luke: At random points during the tour it pops up on you like at an exceptionally big show or something like that. But we get used to it after a while.

Nixon: We had six shows in a row and we were ready for a day off. Then we had three days off and yesterday was our show coming back to finish up the tour. I think that might have been why. It was out of the norm. It felt like we were at home for a while. But no, I just get anxious more so.

BnR: What has been your favorite city to play?

Nixon: Tonight [Lancaster] was definitely a great show. Spokane is always one of our favorite places. Fort Wayne, Indiana, that place is always crazy when we go there. Chicago. Illinois typically has bad ass rock crowds every time we go there. The crowd is ready to see a rock show. They are not just sitting around. But Pierre and Fort Wayne is where we have had continued success and where we get all of our tattoos. It was like 2,000 people when we played there the other night. And they were throwing down the entire time we were there.

BnR: Which New Kids on the Block member do you most identify with? We normally ask an A-Team question, but we figured you didn't know who the A-Team were.

Luke: Oh I can answer that. B.A.

Nixon: Was Marky Mark in New Kids on the Block?

BnR: No only Donnie Walhberg.

Nixon: The guy from Saw? I don't know, that guy seems like he is doing alright. People know who he is, but they don't talk about him all the time. So I would want to be him.

Luke: You find someone who doesn't know who Mr. T is.

Nixon: Yea, but Mr. T wasn't in New Kids on the Block.

BnR: I wish he was. That would be awesome.

We want to thank Framing Hanley for the awesome interview. We encourage all our readers to check out Framing Hanley on their MySpace page (www.myspace.com/framinghanley). You can keep up to date with them on tour, sample their music, and even join the street team.

Below is the podcast. You can press the play button to hear our unedited interview with the band. Contains: Not safe for work language and our idiot staff attempting to run an interview. We are not responsible for you losing your job over the interview being played at work or our terrible voices.

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