If it wasn’t for the Movielife, the emo/pop punk scene of the early aughts (and current “emo revival”) would look a whole lot different. Although the Long Island band never blew up in popularity quite as much as some of the other groups of their generation, they were pioneers of (and essentially gave birth to) the scene developing in their area at the time. There likely wouldn’t be Taking Back Sunday without the Movielife, and who knows if Brand New would exist without the other two (maybe Jesse Lacey would’ve found something else to be upset about).

Regardless of their impact, the Movielife broke up in 2003 at the peak of their career. Frontman Vinnie Caruana went on to form I Am the Avalanche, while guitarist Brandon Reilly created Nightmare of You. For all intents and purposes, the Movielife was over just six short years after its formation.

After briefly reuniting for a couple shows in 2011, the Movielife is back this year, playing bigger and better shows than ever before. As part of that current run, they’ll be one of many emo/punk/hardcore acts at Taste of Chaos this Saturday in San Bernardino (just east of LA). Myspace chatted up Caruana just days before Taste of Chaos to discuss the emo revival, all those Long Island bands and the future of the Movielife. 

What’s it like to be back with the Movielife over a decade after the initial breakup? 

It’s pretty special. It’s weird to be an adult in the Movielife, because we have wives and kids and careers now. It’s very different. As kids, we were focused on the Movielife all the time. We were touring for nine months out of the year, and it was our whole life. Now, we get to take a break from daily life and play a few shows a month. 

We broke up at our peak, so to get back together and see the support we’ve gotten—it’s pretty special. When you break up, you know people will miss you, but you just don’t know at what level they missed you until you get back together.

Some people say, “Bands never really break up, they just take breaks.” Do you think that’s true for the Movielife?

At the time, we were done. We were a band for six years, but for the first three years no one knew who were were outside of New York. We crammed as much touring into the last three years as we could, and I think that contributed to the breakup. 

My advice to bands now is just don’t break up. If people ask you what’s going on with the band, just tell them, “Oh, we’re just hanging out at home” or something. A few years ago we played our “last” show, but now we’re back and it’s like how many “last” shows can you have?

What do you think of the current “emo revival”?

I think everything just goes in cycles. In the early 2000s we were part of the pop punk thing, but in high school we called bands like NoFX and Lagwagon pop punk. Now we call the Wonder Years pop punk. As kids, we called Sunny Day Real Estate emo, but it was always indie to me. Then emo became bands like My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy and it was like “Wait, this is emo too?”

What’s the difference between the Movielife in 2003 and the Movielife in 2015?

I think we’re more professional now. A lot of effort goes into arranging and organizing everything to make every show as good as it can be. We used to travel with some friends of mine who really weren’t professional or qualified for it. Now we have a full crew that we travel with.

The goal for this year was to play shows and then figure out what we’re trying to accomplish at the end of the year. We want people to be impressed by our shows, not just feel like they saw some throwback act. We’ll talk about writing new music at the end of the year. I’m very curious to find out what the Movielife would sound like now, because I doubt we’d sound like the Movielife. I don’t know if people would like it or not.

Bands like Taking Back Sunday and Brand New really blew up out of the Long Island scene right after the Movielife broke up. What do you think about bands like them?

It’s crazy. Eddie Reyes (founder and guitarist for Taking Back Sunday) was a founding member of the Movielife, and Adam (Lazzara, Taking Back Sunday’s singer) was a big fan and used to come out to the Movielife’s shows in North Carolina. That’s how he met Eddie.

It’s insane with Brand New, because they were the Rookie Lot until Brandon (Reilly, the Movielife’s guitarist) came over to play for the Movielife. I went to high school with those guys; they were kids who were two years younger. I saw Brand New play at a tennis stadium not too long ago and it’s crazy to me that they’re the same kids. 

Bands like Taking Back Sunday and Brand New were destined to get huge. The Movielife wasn’t like that. It’s pretty cool how Long Island has made its mark though. We all became bands because of where we grew up.