I sat down with Mark from Spitalfield a long time ago..well..back in December. I’ve tried several times to get this interview up, but every time, something has gone wrong. Here it is, finally! Sorry it took so long, guys!!

Trevor: So how’s the tour going so far?(theAudition, Dropping Daylight, Plain White Ts)

Mark: The tour has been awesome, actually. Even the weeknights have been awesome. Every stop so far has been pretty good in some way. We’re really having fun with theAudition and the T’s. It’s some Chicago love. Dropping Daylight were on the tour until two nights ago and they were pretty cool, too. It’s a pretty good vibe going into the holidays. Everyone knows that when this tour is done, we have a little time off for Christmas and New Year’s. It’s a very optimistic tour.

Trevor: I’m sure that it helps being with friends so close to the holidays.

Mark: Oh, definitely. Yeah, things are good.

Trevor: You went overseas a couple of months ago. Do you have any stories from that? Any crazy things happen to you?

Mark: Well, it was our second time there. We did the UK last February with Fall Out Boy and we just went back with Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, and Bayside. I mean, there’s a lot of crazy stories because you have two bands to a bus. They’re like double-decker busses. I mean, we’re all like, real tight friends. All the Victory bands; we’ve all toured together before. I mean, we had a lot of fun, no doubt about it. Individual crazy stories? Our bus driver’s name was Norm Crapper. That was actually his name and he rocked. We brought him out on stage one night in place of me. He’s a super huge guy and was wearing our “Snakebit” t-shirt with a red-rocker wig. He came out and was like, “Hello Birmingham!” and no one knew who he was. We had security come and take him off the stage, and then I came out instead. So it was pretty good.

Trevor: There was a drastic change in sound between your last album “Remember Right Now” and your new one “Stop Doing Bad Things.” Do you attribute that to anything?

Mark: Not really. We’re the same band, but it was just two years of being on the road and maturing, so we wanted a slightly different sounding record. We went with a different producer and the material itself was a little more rock-and-roll, a little more raw. That’s what we were going for. I don’t think I can blame it on anything except being on the road. The first record we wrote, we had toured before, but had never toured like this. It wasn’t until we spent the greater part of two years on the road that we started writing the way we’ve been writing.

Trevor: Since the album dropped, you guys have been on tour supporting it for pretty much the whole year. Is that paying off for you?

Mark: Yeah, overall I’d say so. The whole point of being on tour all the time is to be hitting markets again and again. We’ve been on a range of tours, ranging from headlining like right now to support spots. I mean, hopefully we can press on as the same band. We’re going to have some time off and start demoing for our next record before we go back out in February with Silverstein. We stay busy, but I’d say the hard work pays off. We’re definitely the tightest as we’ve ever been right now. Our fanbase is probably the highest it’s been.

Trevor: TJ left. He had some family troubles. Now how has that affected you guys live?

Mark: Of course at first, you know having someone else on stage is a different feeling. We’d been playing on stage with TJ for almost three years. I don’t know. It was different at first and it took a little getting used to, but we try to be professional and deal with what we have. Since then, I think we’ve really come together with “new TJ.” I think that we’re actually doing quite well. We’re definitely moving past the change.

Trevor: How does the touring affect you guys during the holidays, being away from home and everything?

Mark: It can be tough. We’ll be home for Christmas, which is good. We’ve never really had to miss Christmas before. This past Thanksgiving, we were also able to stop home and have a few days off. It’s tough because you see everyone and you want to be home for a little bit and see your friends and family. You don’t want to just say, “Hey, how’s it going?” You want to be able to hang out. You want to be able to be around and sleep in your own bed, go see movies, and sleep in. But we chose this lifestyle and we love it, so it’s okay.

Trevor: Do you guys have any new videos in the works?

Mark: Nothing really. We might want to do a live video next, but no planned videos for this record. We probably won’t be shooting another real video until our next record.

Trevor: Do you have a target date to start writing for your new album?

Mark: We’ve been writing. We’re going to do some demoing in January. Hopefully we’ll be in the studio by late Spring, and then over the Summer have samplers for it, and have it in stores late Fall. Hopefully next September or October.

Trevor: Are you guys going to try and play Warped Tour this year?

Mark: Always. We always want to play Warped Tour, but we’ve never done it. Fingers crossed, we’ll get something this year.

Trevor: Any other tours lined up for the new year?

Mark: The only thing we really have scheduled besides some college shows here and there, you know to keep busy during our time off because we want to focus on writing; The next tour we have lined up is Silverstein, us, Stretch Armstrong, and theAudition. That’s in late February.

Trevor: Great. Thank you for sitting down with me.

Mark: Oh, no problem man. Anytime.