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Hey everyone. Thomas Nassiff here with the next installment of the LR Interview series. This time we have an interview with Tym from the Long Island band Daytrader.

LR: From the release of the 3-song demo to the 5-song EP on Run For Cover, Daytrader obviously made a good amount of noise within the punk and independent community. I know it’s a general question, but for the sake of those unfamiliar with the band and the projects you guys worked on before Daytrader – can we maybe get an overview of the earlier part of the band’s career surrounding that EP release?

TYM: I think we tried to start this band something like seven years ago. For some reason or another we could never find the time or the right lineup. Eventually Gary started jamming with Pat and we had the chemistry to make some songs and a demo happen. Gary had been extremely busy with Crime in Stereo and I was busy with my career, but the response to our first songs was way better than we expected and it just kind of worked out with some things in my life and the demise of CIS that it made sense to make Daytrader our number one priority and really make a go of it. We recorded some songs for an EP with Vince Ratti and went on tour for most of the rest of the year.

I think releasing the EP on Run For Cover was obviously a big boost for you guys when that happened, but to me what makes Daytrader stand out and a big reason for your guys’ success with the EP is how much you guys tour. If I’m not mistaken, you did somewhere around 200 tour dates in 2011, right? That’s pretty crazy – can you take us through the mindset of being on the road that much, being away from home and how that has helped your band get noticed?

I think we talked about trying to do 200 dates in a year. We ended up touring most of the time from before the EP’s release until the end of the summer – at that point it became abundantly clear that we should just buckle down and take the time to write a real record. It was a little draining to do all these DIY tours on a 5-song EP, playing the same small handful of songs every night and all that. We headed home and locked ourselves in a windowless basement in Whitestone, Queens, for six months, writing.

In October, you guys announced a new LP that would be coming out on Rise Records, and Daytrader became part of a pretty enormous-sized tidal wave of punk bands that Rise started signing. For you guys specifically, why was Rise such an intriguing label to work with?

Rise has been interested in helping us make music since we first posted our 3-song demo online. At the time we were not a full time band, and just wanted to put out a record with our friend Jeff [Casazza, Run For Cover Records owner], which was great. As time went on, Rise signed some great rock bands and we became more serious about making music something we did year-round and it was obvious they would be great partners in helping us to do that in our own way. Gary and I actually met Sean [Heydorn, Rise Records label manager]) on a Crime In Stereo tour that I was doing merch for years ago, so we had been friends for a while.It’s been great.

Has being on Rise changed maybe the pressure or expectations around the recording of the LP? How did you think your fan base reacted to the signing?

I don’t think it’s really changed much for the LP. They’ve definitely made our lives easier by helping us make our album the way we want, taking the time we need, working with the right people for both the audio and visual parts of the record, all that. We didn’t really catch any flak for the signing. I think once Hot Water Music signs to a label you’re pretty much in the clear. We let people know that [there are great people at] Rise, who just wanted to help us make the album our way. I don’t think we seem like the kind of people to blow smoke up your ass, so I guess it was taken at face value. Who knows though, people might think we suck now. That’s okay. On the February / March tour we just did, we definitely saw a small influx of people coming out to our shows that had heard about us from Rise one way or another. It’s really cool that the Rise fanbase is open to different types of music and generally seems to be getting into rock and/or punk music as a result of these recent signings.

You guys picked a very interesting producer – Mike Sapone – to work with, in my opinion. How I view Daytrader is that there is a pop accessibility in the songs that makes them easy to listen to, and I can imagine Sapone honing that to a new level. What made you guys want to work with him and how is he helping you make the best record you can?

He definitely has produced some of our favorite records and has been an integral part of the seminal Long Island bands. There were more typical producers to work with for the scene of bands we play with, but we wanted to do something different with our first album, and the Long Island connection just made sense for us. A lot of records that have been coming out in the last few years sound really safe to me and that was definitely not something we were looking to do. Which is not to say that they sound bad, but for better or for worse, we wanted to go in a different direction. As for how it turned out, he helped us make a better record than we thought we could make. Never would have guessed when we put out Last Days of Rome that our LP would sound the way it does.

You mentioned to me a while ago in a casual chat that the direction of the new record was going to be more rock-oriented in a way. Can you describe maybe the differences you’re seeing in Daytrader’s writing and recording for the full-length?

With the 7” and EP we just kind of wrote whatever songs we had and recorded them. Our new songs are much more thought out, and we’ve really been trying to push the boundaries of what Daytrader sounds like, without writing something “rock” or something “experimental” just to do it. Everything was really natural for us. There are some songs and parts on this record that at first you might think are totally bizzarro to be on a Daytrader record, but it all makes sense. We are extremely excited about how it came out, it was a real journey to write and record this LP. I don’t think any of us have ever put this much into a piece of music before.

When can we be expecting the record to drop? And what else does Daytrader have planned for 2012?

We’re shooting for a May release. We just got back from a tour with Man Overboard, Seahaven and Handguns, and we’re going on a short stint with Pentimento in April. Much more touring is being planned for the rest of the year. We’re very excited to go to UK/Europe for the first time.

Thanks very much to Tym for the interview!