“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!”

That was my exact response (seriously, no exaggeration) when I saw on the Angels & Airwaves tour schedule that they were coming to the NorVA.

The first time I heard Angels & Airwaves (AvA) was about four years ago. I was listening to the radio and heard a song that left me dumbstruck; I think my heart stopped for a few seconds, actually. I found out later that it was the song, “The Adventure,”  from the AvA debut album, We Don’t Need to Whisper. I bought the album on the spot, and I was immediately hooked.

It was actually some time later that I discovered that the lead singer of AvA was Tom DeLonge from Blink-182. Tom teamed up with guitarist (and lifelong friend) David Kennedy (who has also played with Over My Dead Body, Box Car Racer, and Hazen Street), drummer Adam “Atom” Willard (Rocket From the Crypt, and The Offspring), and bassist Matt Wachter (30 Seconds to Mars) to make some pretty intense, amazing, and powerful music. (Sidenote: Matt Wachter joined AvA in 2007, just before the creation of their second album, I-Empire. Ryan Sinn played bass on their first album).

Love it.

Angels & Airwaves third album, LOVE, was released as a free download on Valentine’s Day of this year.  Yes, you read that correctly; the album is free. As in … free. If you haven’t seen it yet, here is the music video for LOVE’s first single, “Hallucinations.”

The band is currently working on a feature film, also called LOVE, which is to be released later this year.

I had the honor and privilege of talking with the incredibly awesome David Kennedy … here’s our chat …

2010 is a huge year for you guys.  The album was released, you’re in the middle of the tour, the movie’s coming up … it must be amazing momentum for you.

Yeah, it really is. And it’s kind of overwhelming because, to really think about the steps that it took for us to get here … all the records create some sort of drama, and some sort of difficult process, you know, putting it together and actually having it come out. But this one … was the most sort of disjointed and disconnected and difficult version of that. But yet, it’s the most complete idea that we’ve ever had from the beginning of the band.  Somehow, with everything that was going on last year, and getting to this point, and all the work that we did from I-Empire … I don’t know, it’s kind of shocking to potentially have the movie actually done. And to ever have gotten this idea of a free record out, and being completely free of the label, and to be on tour … I don’t really know … I don’t know how we did it. Every day I still sort of keep my fingers crossed that it works. But then, the shows seem to be showing that it may be actually working.

Going back to I-Empire, the movie was originally meant to go with [that album], so when did you guys decide to make the shift? Did the movie itself inspire the new album? Or did you already have the new album in mind?

The movie concept and idea originally was talked about with We Don’t Need to Whisper. But then it took that long to get to I-Empire, and then we actually got started with I-Empire, and [the movie] just took that much longer. We got steps further with it, but … we still have so far to go. None of us know anything about making movies, and it’s way more involved than making a record. There’s so many more people involved, there’s so much more money … you know, and it’s a whole new thing. We don’t have a clue what we’re doing, but we’re actually learning, and figuring it out, and we’re getting further. It’s really just the timing of it. We always believe that everything happens truly for a reason; if this would have happened on I-Empire, if we would have gotten it any earlier than it is now, it wouldn’t have really worked because we own everything now. There was so much red tape, and so much business involved when other people … own those songs, and own the publishing to that stuff. And then when we want to do a movie, it’s not going to be the simple thing of just “Hey, [let’s] put ourselves in a movie.” You’ve got to deal with lawyers, and people, and red tape … now, we own it. So we have the ultimate say of everything to go with this record and it’s really just the most perfect thing we never planned (laughing)… the most perfect thing we never could have planned for.

Well, sometimes that works better, when you don’t have everything completely planned out … it seems …

Well, what it does is … it means you are always available for opportunity.

Right, that’s true.

DavidKennedy (Photo | Phil Konstantin)

And that’s something that I always continue to live by. If everything’s so planned out and so regimented, it’s hard to deviate. Now we’re a very small group, there’s probably 10 people, (you know, the 4 guys in the band and then everyone else that works really close with the band)that really work on Angels & Airwaves. But that means that we’re just very mobile. We don’t have everything planned out. We’ve just thrown ourselves into the mix. We’ve created opportunity. And we can move. Fast.  You know? And efficient. And it’s really cool.

This album’s message is clearly love. I mean, that is the name … (I giggled)

Yeah … (laughing)

But I kind of see it as a message of love on a larger, grand scale. Not just romantic love, but love for life itself, [and] spiritual love. Am I way off?  Is that kind of what you were hoping fans would take from it?

No, it’s definitely not a literal love or a conventional love between two people. It’s really about love and passion for living your life the way you can live it, and the way you want to live it. But it’s also smaller moments. Intimate moments with yourself.  I mean, I know what they are for me, (I don’t know what they are for you) but for me it’s like riding a motorcycle through someplace [like] Box Canyon in Colorado … and all of a sudden a certain song comes over [you] … that the feeling that you get from the sun and the wind, you know, and the sounds all around you. It’s the comfort.  I think that’s what we’re trying to portray with this record. I think we tried to make it love of a symbolic nature and not some sort of a froofy love … and kind of take it away from that aspect. And people can kind of think of it more like … just like you said.  Perfectly. I should have just said, “Yes” instead of all this other stuff …

Oh, no, no … (laughing)

And they can think of it for themselves, you know, within themselves first, [other] than thinking about it as necessarily between two people.

I’ve seen the trailer for the movie, and I know that it covers many years from the Civil War to the future and space. Is it a love story? Is that how it connects to the album?

Not really, it’s a movie of connection. It’s really about the idea of when … you have questions that you can’t answer in a situation that you feel that there’s no hope or way out … it’s like trying to find your purpose. The ultimate way to live on is through connections through other people, and yet in yourself … But [the movie] is telling a story … the end is when everything comes to fruition and [shows] how it all connects.

What song on this album do you feel the strongest connection to?

(pause)

Is that a tough question?

You know, there’s a song called “Shove” on the record …

Yes.

I think lyrically it’s the most intimate song I think that Tom’s ever written … we have songs like “The Gift” which I think is a fantastic love song …

That’s one of my favorites …

I don’t know … listening to the [“Shove”] lyrics, in the chorus … it’s kind of like … everything you’d want a girl to say to you, or vice versa, “Show me the world that’s inside your head.”

I know! That’s my favorite line actually …

Yeah, it’s like the coolest thing ever, you know. I think it’s very visual, and I can see that.

I also really love “Epic Holiday.” It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek … that song to me is very driving … I don’t want to say it’s a happy song, but it’s sort of tormented and full of angst to me. And when he says, “Life’s just a game, it’s just one Epic Holiday,” I feel like it has a sort of pissed off nature like “Aw, fuck it!” (Oh, I don’t know if I can say that) but you know like “Aw, fuck it!” This just is what it is, and it’s up to you to make your life great … Your expectations, or the way you expect people to be to you or what you think you deserve in life, sometimes it’s really just what you project on everyone else. It’s not really up to them to put you in a great place; it’s really up to you. Life, you know, should be that … it should be looked at in a way that it is a holiday, and you can make it that, if you have that within you to do. It’s your power; it’s your choice, you know?

Yeah, those are two of my favorites, actually, on the album …

Yeah, I love those …

I really relate to both of those, a lot.

And the music from all of your albums is so big … and I don’t really mean loud, but I definitely listen to it loud,

(He laughed.)

but it’s, like, big and spacious …

Yeah …

It’s so full. I mean, it seems like there are so many layers of sound in it. How does each song get built? How does it all come together?

In action. (Photo | David Norton)

Obviously there’s always some starting point, but I think the songs just continue to get bigger and bigger … it comes from the theory of songwriting that there’s not a bad idea. It’s just a piece to a puzzle, and you have to figure out how that puzzle works together. And sometimes it takes a while to find it and it’s by adding ingredients.  And that’s what we’ve chosen to do with Angels & Airwaves … they’re all ingredients, and they’re all tools that you tend to use and revolve around.  And that’s how things get so layered … and so put together.

I don’t know, we try to do the thing, like, we’ll listen to a Coldplay record, and we’re like, “Ok, cool; there’s the organ sound, there’s the guitar sound, there’s the bass sound, the drums.”And there’s also right now an influx of … sort of garage-rock, sort of retro sounding bands, very lo-fi sounding groups. But, I don’t know … that’s just not us. Every time we try to do kind of like a stripped-down version of a song … one of us [is] “Oh, fuckin’ add this, add that!” We have a playground of tools at the studio, of instruments, equipment, and gear … cool things to run other sounds through and develop.  It’s hard to be like “Okay, let’s just not play with all those fun things.”

That’s just become our thing, and I think we really want to brand that also, and really want people to expect that and trust that, and I hope, eventually, give us credit for a certain thing. I know all the bands that we were inspired by, and we chose to pull from, but I think we still create something very new and original, you know, from all the stuff that we were inspired by. It might be a descendant, but it’s not a direct descendant from those other bands.

Switching gears a little bit (and no pun intended. Actually that’s funny). But I hear that you are pretty good at racing motorcycles, too, not just riding. You came in first place at your first race?

Yeah, last year was the first year in a long while that I was somewhat stable. Well, not stable, but I wasn’t running around… if I traveled, it was my decision to travel. I’ve been riding motorcycles since I was a kid. My dad always rode bikes, so it’s something that’s a part of me. And in the last few years, I’ve gotten really more into the racing side of things. But last year was the first year that I could … give it a real shot. Regional, club racing type stuff. I was able to do that quite a bit last year, and that was … kind of the coolest thing ever.

Do you have any races coming up? After the tour, I’d guess …

My goal is to go race in Spain, at the beginning of June. Right when we get done with this tour. I’ll get on a plane and go to Spain.

Nice…

Yeah, but it’s hard because ultimately my real passion and everything really lies in music. I don’t know anything else out there that can ever be that exciting and interesting and creative. And I’m never going to ride motorcycles for a living; it’s just something that I truly do love. There’s a pretty high risk with it, so I try to keep it a distance from the actual playing of shows, and that kind of stuff.

Oh, as far as getting hurt or something?

Yeah, getting hurt. I’ve broken a couple ribs, and a shoulder … and that obviously is going to hinder me playing the guitar (laughing). If I do try to race, or do any of that stuff, I try to keep it … no closer than two months of playing a show. Because I figure that’ll give me plenty of time to heal, and if I can’t heal within two months, then I’ve probably got bigger issues.

Well, I have to ask, because I’m also an interior designer … so I have to ask about the furniture that you work with your brother on. Tell me more about that, if you have time.

My dad built homes, so he always had us building stuff. Like we built our closets out, and the desks in our rooms. We hated it when we were kids, but he always made us do it. Somewhere along the line it really sort of stuck with me, especially when I didn’t know what I wanted to do out of high school. I got right into construction, and ultimately fabricating, and getting into metalwork. And my brother kind of followed … and so for a while we were able to work together. I just always had this fantasy, because I love design and fabrication, that I’d have this separate sort of life, and [do] something that was still very creative, but didn’t depend or rely on music at all. So we were doing that, but you know Angels & Airwaves was very busy, so it was hard for me to keep it going. And then we had all those crazy fires … [our] workshop sort of burnt up, and I was in the middle of touring so [my brother] packed up and he moved to Connecticut. He’s doing really well out there with the furniture stuff. It’s something that I know that I’ll always have, you know? I love the idea of having a two dimensional drawing and then all of a sudden there’s a thing sitting on the table, “Oh shit, there it is! That’s cool!” Functional art; that’s my whole thing.

I know what you mean; I can totally relate to that.

So, right now, you guys are about halfway through the tour. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah. Actually, fuck, I can’t believe that.

Is it hard to get into the groove of life on the road?

The funny thing is, for me it’s different. I don’t, like, have a home. I’ve chosen a very minimalist lifestyle. So for me it’s easy. I’ve been living out of a backpack for years. Being on a motorcycle, traveling … so me getting on the bus with my same backpack, it’s not terrible. It’s not much of an adjustment. But these other guys, they all have families, and wives, and kids … they’re flying back and forth and doing everything, trying to make it work. It’s a different scenario for me.

I know you are probably running out of time, but I just want [to ask] one more question, if that’s okay.

Yeah, go ahead.

Run me through the last 10 minutes before a show starts. Are you guys doing jumping jacks? Do you have lucky socks that you need to put on? What’s happening?

Oh my gosh, there’s a lot … everyone’s together. We’re watching videos (AC/DC, U2, Andrew W.K.). One personal thing is that I always wear a particular necklace, and I always make sure that I put my necklace around the neck of our tour manager, Chris, [who’s] also my close friend … so he wears the necklace during the show. And that’s when I actually lace my shoes up, for the first time of the day.

Oh, really?

Yeah … and then Matt’s always on his bass, getting warmed up. I don’t know; everyone just makes sure they’re together. Everyone has their own little routine. Atom’s over there with his hoodie on, like a boxer, and he’s getting all sweaty. I don’t know … it’s pretty cool actually. Just trying to get focused together. Because we do take all of the shows very seriously.

I said this to David, and I’ll say it again. I couldn’t be more excited about this show. I will be as close to the front as I can, jumping up and down like my feet are on fire. The show’s @ 8. Check here for tickets.