American Speedway interview

American Speedway hail from the Philadelphia area and they have been getting some notice lately following the release of their “Ship of Fools” album. They play a rather straightforward blend of metal and punk rock. I recently got to check in with vocalist/lead guitarist Johnny Griswold to find out more about this band.

MM-Please introduce yourselves and tell what instrument you play.
JG-I'm Johnny Griswold and I play lead guitar and sing backing vocals.

MM-Tell us a little about the history of your band. Who are your musical influences?
JG-Me, Billy Angry and Michael Thursby go back a long way and have played in various bands together since the mid 90's. After a much needed break from those weirdos, I came back from San Diego, and we started this monster, along with the lovable Chris Callahan on drums. Our band is just straight up fast rock and roll. No reinventing the wheel here. Influences are PeterPan Speedrock, Supersuckers, MC5, Zeke, AC/DC, Motorhead, etc.

MM-It looks as though you are getting a great deal of press on your album. So what has been the response to "Ship of Fools" so far?
JG-Every single aspect of our debut album has had a great response. From it being out on vinyl, to including a free cd, to the artwork, to the amazing songs! It's been great. Actually, it's quite shocking because we're really just four douchebags who bust each others balls constantly and in the middle of all that we blast out a lot of distortion and yelling and beer spitting on stage!

MM-I also noticed on your Myspace page some mentions of you guys getting some play on the radio. Who is playing your music? What songs or songs are they playing?
JG-It started out where we'd get a variety of our songs played on college radio stations, internet radio, then we got "One Foot In, One Foot Out" onto Sirius Satellite radio's Punk channel 29. Apparently they really like us and have been playing us a LOT! It's fun getting emails and texts from people saying they've heard us as they're driving or whatever ... especially hot chicks.

MM-Who have you played with so far? Who would you love to open for?
JG-We've played with a lot of bands you've never heard of. And that's not a bad thing. Some of my favorite bands are underground, unsigned, or bands on small labels that just play their asses off. Bands like Seven Dirty Words, the GT-40s, Blacknots, Kingsnake, Starskream, and so on. I'd personally like to open for a band called "GREG" from Japan. Good stuff.

MM-I know you have been playing dates recently including a trip out to the west coast a few months ago. How have your live shows been going lately? Any interesting stories from the road?
JG-We do a shit-ton of mini-tours. We've still got day jobs, so heavy touring is not an option at this point. Every live show is amazingly fun for us because we feed off the energy of the crowd and they feed off of our energy. And all of the interesting stories are secrets because I don't want to incriminate anyone... especially myself.



MM-I noticed that you are playing an event called the Heavy Rebel Weekender in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in July. Which I believe aside from bands also has a car show and all kinds of things going on. What other bands are playing and will this likely be the biggest crowd you have played to so far?
JG-Heavy Rebel Weekender is by far, for me, the funnest show/event I've played. It's just a lot of beer, boobs, debauchery, laughing, hanging with friends, meeting new people that like to party and checking out a lot of good rock and roll. Even if the bands are not so good, the constant drunken state of mind makes everything listenable! The biggest show crowds for us are usually on our home turf because we rarely play the Philly area. As for the Heavy Rebel Weekender car show - I don't get that whole thing. Just a bunch of old cars, primer gray, sitting there with their hoods up. They don't do anything. They just sit there. Boring. I'd rather look at Mikey's 87 Plymouth Horizon.

MM-What should someone who comes to see you live expect to see and hear?
JG-You'll never leave an American Speedway show and say, "Wow, those guys are great musicians". HOWEVER, you WILL walk away saying, "Wow, those dudes just killed that set!". We pull something together for 30 or 40 minutes that's just an amazing rock and roll event.

MM-What do you hope to accomplish during the rest of 2008?
JG-Record a follow-up album that's even MORE amazing than "Ship of Fools", then sell out for millions of fucking dollars because I'm sick of getting up at 5am every morning.

MM-What is the hard rock/metal like in the Philadelphia area these days? Any great unsigned bands that we should know about?
JG-I have no frickin' clue what the hard rock/metal scene is like in Philly. My guess is it's like the rock and roll scene in Philly: non-existent. Sure the major acts plow through here, but for whatever reason, the local rock club scene in Philly died out some years back and shows no signs of it coming back to life ... but we're doing our part to try and save it... at least out in the burbs.

MM-Where do you hope to be five years from now?
JG-Oh, I totally hope we're still working our day jobs and driving all hours of the morning coming home from shows where we made $140 bucks and sold four records and two t-shirts. All this while reeking of sweat, beer, whisky, fat girl perfume and the never-cleaned bathrooms of clubs in Baltimore, Newark and Trenton, NJ. But wouldn't it be great if four douchebags from the suburbs of Philly got to QUIT our jobs to do this full-time?? I'm hopeful for that.

MM-Is there anything else that you would like to say about your band or your music?
JG-We're a force.

***Thanks to Johnny for doing the interview.

www.myspace.com/americanspeedway