It’s been 14 years since The Starting Line blessed the pop-punk music world with their debut album, Say It Like You Mean It, and we’ve been in love ever since. Following two more successful studio album releases and a hiatus, the band made a comeback and played this year’s Taste of Chaos music festival.

Myspace caught up with the guys before their performance to talk about the past; how things have changed over the years and what they’ve learned from it all.

Kenny Vasoli

Age: 32
Instrument: Vocals and bass guitar
How have you grown as both an individual and as a musician over the the past ten years? Maybe like an inch and a half. Wider. We upgraded to playing 4 or 5 chords and added some harmonies and dimension to our sound.
What advice would you go back and give yourself when you were just starting out? I’m not really one for going back and trying to tell my younger self stuff because I feel like I’m well enough adjusted now that I feel like you have to go through that stuff to learn what’s going to set you down the right path for the rest of your life. That’s what being a kid is all about, and as far as being a kid, it was a pretty awesome time.
What artist(s) have you been most excited to watch grow and progress alongside you over the past decade? Probably Anthony [Green]. Anthony’s seemed like he was sort of touched from the get-go, like when he started performing with Circa [Survive], I think everybody on the Warped Tour was turning their heads like ‘oh shit, someone bending the genre a little bit.’ Glassjaw was an amazing influence and helped to break us out of the box. They were another band that was always doing something different and pushing the envelope, and it was rock solid.
Guilty pleasure: Ice cream — any flavor, you name it. Have you had vanilla before? It’s good!

Matt Watts

Age: 37
Instrument: Guitar
How have you grown as both an individual and as a musician over the the past ten years? We went from being a full-time band to a part-time band, which makes us appreciate one another for the four or five shows that we get to play every year.
(Golla: It makes the shows that much better—you definitely don’t take any of them for granted. When you live on the road for a while, it just becomes part of the routine and you don’t appreciate it as much as you should.
Schmutz: It makes shows like this super exciting. We’re always available for something really cool, like if this show is happening, we’re down.)
What advice would you go back and give yourself when you were just starting out? You’re not going to be Aerosmith or the Rolling Stones. I thought I was going to be Keith Richards.
(Schmutz: You thought that? Haha!)
What artist(s) have you been most excited to watch grow and progress alongside you over the past decade? We all love Hot Rod [Circuit]. We’ve done Warped Tours together, so we’re pretty tight with those guys and big fans of theirs. They aren’t on this tour, but Brand New is a band whose evolution I admire. I got to see them play the other day in Tampa, and it was amazing to see their growth in terms of their fan base but also pushing boundaries creatively and they do it at such a high level, so it’s been fun to watch.
Guilty pleasure: Float tanks or sensory deprivation chambers. You’re weightless, can’t see, and can’t hear anything, so it’s a really interesting way to meditate and hit the reset button. I was bored the first 10 minutes, but then I got into the groove and now I do it pretty frequently and love it.

Mike Golla

Age: 35
Instrument: Guitar
How have you grown as both an individual and as a musician over the the past ten years? We’ve definitely all gotten older —
(Vasoli: — but we’re still young...)
What advice would you go back and give yourself when you were just starting out? Save all of your money — that’s the most realistic advice I could give myself. Appreciate it more while you’re in it. When we were in it and touring around playing these awesome shows, we were just in this feeling that hardly spoken about, but in a sense we thought it was going to last forever. It doesn’t, and it’s kind of mutual when it doesn’t last forever, but don’t take it for granted.
What artist(s) have you been most excited to watch grow and progress alongside you over the past decade? I’m beyond excited to be here with The Get Up Kids since it’s something we’ve never done together.
(Vasoli: HUGE influence on us.)
Guilty pleasure: Disney movies, because I have a handful of kids and they’re all girls, so there’s a lot of pink and princess stuff happening at my house. Pixar movies are pretty awesome.
(Vasoli: Golla’s basically super dad.)

Brian Schmutz

Age: 84 (ha!)
Instrument: Keyboards
How have you grown as both an individual and as a musician over the the past ten years? I joined the band later, and we definitely started experimenting with the sound. Based On A True Story was one sound, then Direction was another —there’s still a bunch of dick jokes in the lyrics, but otherwise we’re a regular Foo Fighters of our genre.
What advice would you go back and give yourself when you were just starting out? Talk to James Dewees. He’s the reason I started playing keys.
What artist(s) have you been most excited to watch grow and progress alongside you over the past decade? New Found Glory was really instrumental with getting us on the road and helping us get our feet wet when it came to playing shows, and spring-boarded us into exposure through their fans, which is something we’re probably in debt for.
Guilty pleasure: I’m a big movie dork. I watch them constantly, and recently I’ve been getting into a lot of comedies.