The Actual Interview

Actual rock stars
by Scott Bolohan
Staff Writer

"I’m doing a crazy driving maneuver here, I keep forgetting I have a trailer on the van, and I’m trying to navigate L.A. traffic here," said vocalist Max Bernstein. "I have to make an ‘I’m sorry’ face to the car behind me."

When Bernstein is not actually driving though crowded highways, he’s the driving force behind the power pop band The Actual. Bernstein, the son of Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein and screenwriter Nora Ephron, is embarking on the biggest musical journey of his life.

The Actual will begin a trek across the U.S. opening for Velvet Revolver after being picked by lead singer Scott Weiland to be the first band to sign to his new Softdrive Records label. Weiland, who also co-produced their album "In Stiches," which will be released on May 29, has called The Actual "the smartest sounding band in punk-pop in a long time."

"I’m very excited, a little bit nervous, but very excited," Bernstein said of the tour. The Actual will appear at the Riviera Theater on May 10 with Velvet Revolver.

The DePaulia (TD): How did you form?

Max Bernstein (MB): I recorded a few songs with me just playing all the instruments and went out and tried to get people interested in playing them. I found Jeremy Bonsall, our bass player, through an advertisement then we got his brother, Aaron, to play drums. I’ve known Ben Flanagan, our other guitar player and singer, for nine years. When his band broke up, we were all very excited because we wanted him to be in our band. We said, "Hey it’s great your band broke up, you are joining ours, you don’t have much of a choice."

TD: When did you know you wanted to do music?

MB: I’ve been playing guitar since I was five; I’ve always been pretty serious about it. There wasn’t much of any time when I thought I wanted to do anything else. I’m not one of those people who is like, "Music is everything in the world, and if I can’t play music, what will I do?" This is what I want to do and always has been.

TD: How did you meet Scott Weiland?

MB: We were working with his engineer and co-producer Douglas Grean who works on a lot of stuff with him. We got hooked up with him when Scott was on tour. We started making this record and when we had done three songs, Doug played them and he said, "This is the band we’ve been looking for." Because they had always said if they found the right band they’d like to start a label. Since then it’s been really been smooth and organic, we’ve really got to know him well. It’s been a really great partnership.

TD: When you open up for a band like Velvet Revolver do you try to do anything different than you normally would?

MB: Not really, except talk less. We don’t really pander the set too much. There’s a song or two that we play sometimes that we wouldn’t play for Velvet Revolver, but we pretty much play our regular set. When opening for someone like that, we like to keep the set moving really fast and maybe stop once or twice for a quick chat. We try to impress the crowd quickly and not overstay our welcome.

TD: I’ve always thought that opening for a big band would be one of the hardest things in music because no one knows your stuff and everyone wants to get to the headliner.

MB: It depends who you are opening for. We opened up for Velvet Revolver a long time ago and the circumstances were pretty different than these shows coming up. For them, these shows are all at small clubs, for us these are gigantic. These are now all sold out shows for die hard Velvet Revolver fans. On one hand, people who know about our relationship with Scott might be more inclined to give us a chance. For those who are not, they might be like, "Why is there a power pop band opening for Velvet Revolver." These are people who want to see Slash rip. I think it’s going to be interesting, it’s not going to be like opening for Slayer, which is notoriously difficult. I think if you have an opening slot for a band with a young following, like Bowling for Soup, that’s got to be a piece of cake. But we’ll find out in about 11 hours.

TD: You described yourself as a power pop band, but there’s also the hint of punk and maybe even emo. It seems that if you get labeled that as a band, you turn off half the listening population. How do you go about saying what kind of music you play without offending anyone?

MB: First off, I know a lot of people who are in bands and you ask them what kind of music they play and they say it’s such a hard question, and then I listen to them and I’m like it’s not a hard question, you guys are an emo band. I think that for the sake of convenience and not being pretentious, I just say we are a power pop band. I think that works fine for us. I think that when some bands insist on being described in more than 15 words just have it coming to them.

TD: When you write songs, what do you want the listener to get out of the experience?

MB: I would say I’d like them to think that the song has said something to them that they already thought, in a new way. I feel like all the songs that I really like, there’s a lyric in there that I think is a new way of saying something that I have heard that makes me feel different about it. That’s what I think really great pop songs do. I’d like them to feel bowled over especially live, because live we are a really loud band, not just a catchy radio band. For our songs in particular, I’d like them to feel like they got something that was packaged a little differently. I hope we present these radio-friendly songs with intelligent lyrics in a much more aggressive and glassy package. I want them to walk away bowled over and a little sentimental as well.

TD: What is your writing process like?

MB: The chorus arrives all at once, and with the title as well. The title often comes first. I’m not into those songs where the title has nothing to do with song which are very popular in the hardcore community. So the chorus arrives at once, title, lyrics, melody, and if it’s good then I’ll write the rest of it. I’ll bring it in about 75 to 80 percent finished to practice and we'll finish the rest of it. We put the last stage on together.

TD: When you write, do you focus mostly on the chorus and the catchy hooks?

MB: I focus on them, in that I think it’s the most important thing, in that if I don’t have a good one, I don’t even bother writing the rest of it. That’s always the first thing I write. Let me put it this way. You know when you are writing a term paper? If you have a thesis, the rest of that paper is going to be good because you are going to be able to find some points to support it. But if your thesis sucks, the rest of your paper is going to suck because you're just going to be washing around trying to find something to focus on. A good chorus is like a good thesis for one of those papers when you're saying something that is really interesting. If you got one of those, then the rest of the paper is going to be really good and it’s worth writing.

TD: When people mention you in articles, your parents are always brought up. How do you feel about that?

MB: It doesn’t really bug me because I’m a pretty big fan of what both of them have done. My dad has a book coming out and I haven’t read it yet and I’m pretty excited for it, I know he’s worked really hard on it. And I relate to my mom’s movies. I think it’s really cool to be related to that. It’s fine if people bring it up. As far as I’m concerned, bringing down Nixon, good thing, "When Harry Met Sally," good thing. My stepfather wrote "Goodfellas" which is a really good thing. I’m totally down with that, I’m not ashamed.

TD: Do you think it might even help you draw in fans to an extent?

MB: I think it does not at all. I think that the number of kids who are listening to punk and emo who care about romantic comedies from the early ‘90s or American history is pretty slim. I don’t think it makes a bit of a difference. Sometimes it’ll get a press piece in a magazine that people who are into that type of music again don’t read. I don’t really think that it has that much cred in that world, and that’s fine by me.

TD: What are your goals for the future and where do you want to end up?

MB: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but that’s an unrealistic one there. I would just like to end up to keep going, to keep playing as long as possible in this format. We hope to keep playing enough to get a reputation and a solid and original band. That’s good enough. Anything on top of that is a treat.