Interviewed by: Jenny Francois
Date Published: 07.06.05

Maryland quartet started playing music at a young age.
In high school, Ryan Escolopio and J.D Tennyson first teamed to form Soar covering songs by Rage Against The Machine and The Deftones.

The band went through another incarnation before completing high school adding Ryan’s brother Aaron, former Good Charlotte drummer, and cousin Mike Schoolden on bass to form Wakefield. After years of playing in cover bands, the guys got serious. They were signed to Arista and followed by the release of American Made. American Made is fueled with pop-punk melodies.

After a long tour supporting American Made, they wanted to change the direction for their next album. Scrapping everything they’ve done before, Wakefield embarked on producing the mature Which Side Are You On. Wakefield’s Ryan Escolopio took the time between touring to talk to us about growing up in Maryland, being addicted to Xbox games and playing with Elton John.

Wakefield are:
Ryan Escolopio - Vocals,Guitar
J.D. Tennyson - Guitar,Vocals
Mike Schoolden - Bass,Vocals
Aaron Escolopio - Drums

Aeki Tuesday: Hi Ryan.

Ryan: How’s it going?

Aeki Tuesday: I’m doing well. How are you?

I’m actually in Florida right now in our RV but we broke down. We actually broke down yesterday and this guy’s trying to fix our RV right now. So we’re all in a a hotel room just waiting. We have to miss the show in Atlanta.

Aeki Tuesday: Oh right yes. You were going to play at Atlanta tonight.

It’s just been a bad week.

Aeki Tuesday: Sorry to heart that.

e were going to headline some of our shows then we broke down. So how is it going? [laughs]

Aeki Tuesday: Doing great.

Good.

Aeki Tuesday: You grew up in Maryland. How was it growing up there?

Jenny it was awesome. It was kind of like a small town. Everybody kind of knew everybody. Playing sports & stuff together. All the kids. They knew everybody in town. So it was pretty nice. We have a lot of Amish people.

Aeki Tuesday: Oh really?

Which is really weird and it was cool. I thought there were Amish everywhere but I guess there’s not. Obviously as I grew, up and found that out. It’s kind of like small town. Everybody knew each other. kind of like a farm town.

Aeki Tuesday: What made you decide to become musicians?

Um I don’t know. Just because we were really inspired when we were younger. JD and me started a band when were in six grade. When I was like in fourth or fifth grade. Green Day’s first single came out. I fell in love with it. I was in fifth grade I think and went out and bought like every one of their records that came out. I asked JD to be in the band because I knew he played drums. So we met that way. We started playing music a long time ago after hearing that Green Day song.

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Aeki Tuesday: So would you say Green Day was your only musical influence when growing up?

Definitely not. I loved listening to Billy Joel when I was younger. Fifth grade was like wow and that was amazing. Since time grew on, I definitely got into different stuff. I listened to Christian punk rock for a long time. For the last five years, I’ve been listening to like old 70s stuff. I can’t listen to anything else. Like Queen, Led Zeppelin and the Beach Boys. It’s ridiculous. I cannot listen to anything else now! It’s kind of kind of like a curse. We’re more influenced by that kind of stuff now than anything else.

Aeki Tuesday: Have you faced any hardships in getting your music out?

I mean all it is is a working progress for us at least. We had nothing big or anything yet. We’re always working for anything we get especially been a hard five years trying to get our first two records out. Our next one’s about to come out. We worked on that for about a year & a half. So it’s been a long time in between all of our records. We thank that is kind of a good thing. We changed a lot. So that gave us some time for our fans to grow. Hopefully they’ll like this stuff better.

Aeki Tuesday: Who’s the primary lyricist in the band or do you all write?

We all write. JD and me would bring an idea to the table and everybody would take that and run. We all get our input in and it’s very diverse.

Aeki Tuesday: Do you think your sound has grown up since American Made?

Oh definitely. I think like I think a lot actually because we are doing a whole different thing. This whole other style. Like I said we were writing songs that we’re influenced from. We’re listening to Billy Joel, Green Day. But now we’re influenced by this whole different other thing that we’ve been listening to a lot. It’s a whole new record. It’s a whole different vibe too.

Aeki Tuesday: What do you think is the most excited place you ever toured?

Probably Japan so far.

Aeki Tuesday: When did you tour Japan?

Probably a year and 1/2 ago right before we stopped touring to do our new record. We went there for like 2 weeks then we did a tour & some promotions. A little promotional tour. We played a couple of shows, which was amazing. It was overwhelming.

Aeki Tuesday: Are there any other band you’d like to tour with?

Probably every band we’ve toured with so far. Homegrown, The Matches, All American Rejects. Just playing with bands we’ve played in the past would be awesome.

Aeki Tuesday: What are your live shows like?

We try to put on a rock show. I think. I don’t know what they’re like

Aeki Tuesday: What would people expect when they see you play

Definitely very high energy.

Aeki Tuesday: What do you do on your spare time?

We play a lot of Xbox.

Aeki Tuesday: What’s the recent Xbox games are you playing right now?

NBA Live. It’s awesome.

Aeki Tuesday: Who do you dream of playing with in about 2 years from now?

That’s a good question. I would love to play with Elton John. That’s huge though but that would be awesome for me.

Site: www.wakefieldrocks.com