Features

Masked Intruder
submitted by
Thomas
 on
Monday, August 15, 2016 - 11:33

Everybody's favorite perps are back! Masked Intruder recently released the "Love And Other Crimes" EP via their new home, Pure Noise Records, and spent their summer robbing all the other bands on the Warped Tour. That's all the reasons we needed to do an interview with Blue. Via email because... you know, don't want to lose my wallet.

 

PRT: First of all, congrats on “Love And Other Crimes”… love the new songs!

Blue: Thanks!

 

PRT: So far you’ve had releases on Red Scare and Fat Wreck, both of which seemed like a great match for you. Now you’ve signed with Pure Noise. Why did you decide to go with them and how did that come about?

Blue: It’s all about trying to expand the audience of the band as far as possible. It’s simple math: the more girls listen to our records, the more likely it will be that one of them will wanna make out with us. The more girls wanna make out with us, the more chances we have to not totally blow it or get too nervous or scare them off or whatever. We’re all about playing the numbers game. It’s like when Red does his 3 card Monte hustle. He always chooses 3 red cards, so he loses money the whole time. It’s like the opposite of that, is what I’m saying.

 

PRT: Do you feel like you’ve found a longtime home now?

Blue: It’s hard to say! As a criminal, you gotta be ready to run and find a new hideout at any time. Your only friend is yourself. And your friends. And if you got any pets. Anyways, it’s hard to say where we’ll be in the future. Hopefully not prison.

 

PRT: I’m really liking the 70ies rock-tinged “Take What I Want” and overall there seem to be a lot more badass riffs and solos, like in “First Star Tonight”. Is that something we’ll be hearing more on future releases?

Blue: Cool, thanks! Yeah, it’s definitely something you might see more of in the future. The main thing we try to do is to evolve our sound a little with each release. The way we do that is just thinking about stuff we think is cool which we haven’t done, and then doing it. As a rule, we only put stuff that we think is cool on our records. I think badass guitar riffs are cool. In fact, most badass stuff is cool as I see it. So, expect badass stuff and cool shit in the future.

 

PRT: On that same note… Cheap Trick, Kiss or Journey? And why?

Blue: Good question! It definitely comes down to Cheap Trick and Journey for me; I’ve never been the biggest Kiss fan. I guess I’m just not much for gimmicks. Also, Kiss songs are all like 8 minutes too long.

I think I have to go with Cheap Trick, since they had so many awesome hits. Journey had some jams, but I think Cheap Trick was way more prolific overall. Plus, that dude’s guitar collection is INSANE. I wish I knew where he lived – I would steal the shit out of that jazz!

 

PRT: Judging from your lyrics and tweets, you seem to have a hard time meeting girls. If you could go on any reality/dating show, which one would you choose and why?

Blue: I want to go on that one where the girl is Kirsten Dunst and I’m this dude that she falls in love with. Wait, I think that was a movie… Does that count?

Otherwise, probably The Bachelor, cause of the ratio. You’re basically guaranteed at least a couple sweet make out sessions.

 

PRT: You just finished the Warped tour… other than that cymbal from Teenage Bottlerocket, did you get some good stuff?

Blue: Oh yeah, tons of shit. Really a lot of wallets, mostly. All kinds of them. Velcro, regular, duct tape. It’s crazy what kids carry their money around in these days. Not much money per wallet, though. Stealing wallets from kids is like eating an artichoke, or a pomegranate: it’s a lot of fuss, but it’s totally worth it!

 

PRT: In between playing yourself and casing the other bands’ buses, what are some of the best ways to spend your time at the Warped tour?

Blue: Catering!!! The catering on Warped tour is pretty fucking delicious. Also, there are tons of options all the time. It’s way better than eating fast food every day, which is a popular diet among touring musicians in America. That’s how we normally eat when we go on tour, aside from the occasional pop-up kitchen when we come across an empty house with a stocked fridge and pantry.

 

PRT: Something we’ve been meaning to ask for quite some time… when you started out, was there any discussion about who would get which color mask?

Blue: We were already wearing them when we met, so we figured we would just stick with our respective colors. Plus, we don’t all wear the same size shoe, so it isn’t like we could just switch all willy nilly. I can’t even imagine our colors being different. Maybe in an alternate universe... Probably not, though.

 

Tom Dumarey
Tom Dumarey

Lacking the talent to actually play in a band, Tom decided he would write about bands instead. Turns out his writing skills are mediocre at best as well.