Rob caught up with Matt Wachter from Angels And Airwaves to talk about their forthcoming new album, debut film, current tour and Tom Delonge being a busy man.

You have been working on the Angels And Airwaves film for a long time now, how did the idea for it come about and what input has the whole band had on it?
Matt (Bass)The band has been talking about doing a movie since before I was in the band, I guess the idea has been kicking around for about 6 years now. The film started being worked on about 4 years now, as far as our input, in AVA we like to think of it as a collective where we find like minded people and people that inspire us, to help us create something or vice versa, so we found this really talented director/Cinematographer Will Eubank, he directed/wrote the film, our imput was financial, we gave him basic guidelines but he had artistic freedom in a lot of ways. The movie went through a few transformations over the 4 years, but we ended up with something were really proud of.

The film has a science fiction theme running through it, can you tell us briefly about the story and the length of the film?
Its a full length full about 90 minutes long. Its about an astronaut called Lee, who's been left on the International Space Station, while he's up there civilisation back on earth crumbles, the planet destroys itself, so he's stranded up there and basically he finds out that he's a time capsule for humanity. That's the long story short.

I understand ‘Love’ the film premiered a few days ago, do you have any idea of how successful this was and what the people thought of it?
We dont know what the critics thought of it, but the response has bee good, they had to move it up to a bigger venue, it was sold out and they had to turn people away. As for movie critics, I guess we've set our selves up to take shots because were a band dabbling in the movie world, there's a weird segregation that if you do one thing that you cant do another,

How do you plan to release the film to your UK fans and how long do they have to wait for it?
Hopefully not too long, were in talks a German company to distribute it in Europe, there may be a cinema release, but we don't know yet if it will happen.

You have also been busy working on the new studio album ‘Love Part 2’, how would you say this album compares to your last album ‘Love’ and does it also double up as the soundtrack to ‘Love’ the film?
It does, were going to re-release Love pt one as a double album with a whole other disc full of music , so far we have 2 full songs recorded maybe a few more in the works, and we did all the music for the movie, and including that in the 2nd disc, we've taken some of the music we did for the movie, added to vocals to it and remixed it, so you'll get the two albums and the movie packaged together. There's gonna be limited edition versions of it.

What themes and stories are you covering within the songs of ‘Love Part 2’?
It'll be an extension of the first, being lost and finding your way back home, its something that everyone can relate to really.

Your last album was released as a free download through your website is this going to be the case for ‘Love Part 2’ or will the album be getting a general in store release?
This time, no, with the free download, we almost hit the 1 million mark, that got our music out to a lot of people, this time, its gonna be more special, a little different, that's why this time we've decided to make it a physical product this time, make it limited edition. The packaging is gonna be pretty awesome, pretty elaborate too.

I understand ‘Love Part 2’ was due for release on Valentine ’s Day but has now been pushed back slightly to March, what was the reason for this?
Were just not done, with the tour and everything, and us being musicians and losing track of time and reality, its done when its done really. We get optimistic with the release dates but they don t happen.

You are currently on a short UK tour how have the shows been?
The shows have been amazing, the shows have been sold, out, we don t know why its taken us so to come back, we love it over here, We wont be doing festival season as tom will be busy with Blink.

Neon Trees are supporting you on the tour how have you found being on the road with them, and how have they gone down with your fans?
There a great band, I love em, I think our fans are pretty open minded, so I think they might like em too. There great band so its an easy fit for them, there a hard working band.

You are soon to have four albums worth of material under your belts, is this going to make picking a set list hard especially considering the length of some of the tracks?
Its already become a challenge 3 records in. With longer songs we do them different live, as you can reproduce some of the songs, like fading in drums, you just cant do it.

Your tour ends in London tomorrow and then your album is released a month later, will you be heading straight back out on the road in support of the album?
The loose game plan is to tour it. A lot of it depends on what the movies like, and how its goes over, but things change. Originally we wanted to just tour the movie and play along live to the movie, its something we might do,

Obviously Tom is busy now with Blink 182 and Angels And Airwaves how does he work out his schedule for both bands and what do the rest of Angels And Airwaves do whilst he has his Blink commitments?
Tom is the busiest man in rock and roll, its back an forth constantly working, and he has a family too, He has a lot of things to juggle. AVA is a collective, its an all encompassing world, David and I, have got really interested in the whole scoring of movies world, so were involved in doing that, and working on remixes of AVA songs, when tom goes away the AVA ball keeps rolling.

Where do you hope to see Angels And Airwaves in a year’s time?
Hopefully on tour in the states, over here, another movie called poet based around the 2nd album, which will be animated, Its gonna be kind of dream like, we were just talking about it In the dressing room, its gonna be cool and different and not another sci-fi movie.

One last random question that we ask every band, if you could be an animal out of a zebra or Giraffe which one would you be and why?
A Zebra because they look cooler, they got cool stripes.

Thanks for your time is there a message for your fans reading this?
I know every band says it, but we think we have the best fans in the world, AVA is a collective world which includes the fans and we hope that they enjoy being part of the AVA world, and we do appreciate there input and feedback.

Interview by Robert Lawrence