Marc caught up with Jordan Brown and Matt Wilson from Set Your Goals to talk about playing Hevy Festival, their favourite place to tour, past and present music videos and much more.

Are you excited to be playing Hevy festival?
Matt: Absolutely this is our first hevy fest.

Have you seen many of the bands over the weekend?
Matt: We've seen many of the bands in the past but not over the weekend but not over the weekend. We actually just got in this morning we had a fest in Spain a couple days ago.

Oh cool, how did that go down?
Matt: it was incredible it was called the resurrection fest. Some of the bands on this were on that.

Jordan: yea it was awesome.

Hoping the crowd live up to it?
Jordan: Definitely. I think it will. It's looking awesome for all the bands so far, and it's still early in the day.

How does Hevy compare to Slam Dunk? I guess you won't know till you've played.
Matt: It’s definitely a different kind of fest, there's definitely a more diverse line up at this I would say. Which is cool for us cuz we like allot of heavier stuff like mashugga, municipal waste, stuff like that. It's cool to be able to play with different kinds of bands than just mainly pop punk.

Do you ever feel like you’re on the lighter side at a festival like this? We spoke to Deaf Havana yesterday and they felt like a soft band compared to everyone else, and maybe the crowd wouldn't get into it quite as much.
Matt: I’m not to concerned about that because the line up is pretty diverse as I said, but some of the other fests we've played at in the last week or two have been

Jordan: We played the devil side festival and it was just all metal. Allot of our favourite bands were on heat prude was on suicidal tendencies played, then you had adolescence who are like a straight punk band like

Matt: Overkill.

Jordan: Overkill.

Matt: It was like metal fans, allot of real heavy stuff.

Jordan: I played the next day in flames played the day before. but it still worked. We didn’t get booed on stage people were listening and taking it in. Taking a little bit back today when we found out it was called Hevy fest, because you think oh no will we be that odd band out, but it's always worked over here. The imperecon festival as well was a good mix, it was parkway drive, the ghost inside, born from pain, and we were like right in the middle of all these heavy bands. But it was good, that was in Germany.

The crowds pretty crazy over there.
Jordan: nuts it was insane, I think there was 5000 people by the time parkway went on.

Is there like a smaller band around at the moment that you’re really into and would recommend?
Matt: Yea there called mix tapes, we took them on tour. We're doing the next week with them. Headlining shows and a couple fests.

Jordan: There here today and we start tomorrow. We do eight shows and then a festival in Belgium to wrap up our tour over here.

Matt: It's going to be them and a band from Brighton called eager teeth, who are also awesome.

You did Burn at both ends about a year ago now, how are the songs going down?
Matt: Good, I think there received a little better over here than in the states. Just because we have a lot more die hard old school fans in the states. Here especially in mainland Europe not so much the UK we have allot of fans who are only familiar with our epitaph releases and don’t really know mutiny exists.

Jordan: Willing to grow a little bit

Where's your favourite place to tour, is it Europe or America or somewhere else?
Matt: my favourite of all is neither it’s probably Australia.

Jordan: I knew you'd say Australia. That’s a place unlike anywhere in the world. We're from California and it's like a whole country of California but on a larger better scale. You can get some sun. It's hard to say the most because It depends show from show.

Jordan: Definitely.

Matt: For sure.

Jordan: America’s so big it's so different. The mid west is so different from the east coast. West coast is so different from the north east.

Matt: It might as well be different countries.

Jordan: yea, yeah in a way.

You recently shot a video to "The Last American Virgin" what was that like?
Jordan: We didn't even know it was getting shot; it was our friend Mitchell who was out writing with the wonder years on warped tour last summer. Was just getting video of us on the tour as well, would come to watch the shows and was filming. I didn't really know know it was getting put together and then when I was it online I was like this is so fun, it's probably one of my favourite music video's we've ever done. It's all live footage, in black and white. It's just right there, it's very easy to watch and understand, and reminded me of really good times on warped tour. It was fun to do, and it's cool because we were playing this song.

It's all natural.
Yea more natural, and because people are able to watch the video and see a live response to it we can play that and people sing along a lot more.

How much differs now from back when you shot your first video "Goonies Never Say Die!" in 2005 I think?
Jordan: That's another one that was awesome.

Matt: People use real camera’s and stuff now. Before it was like our friend shooting it in my living room. And all our friend literally just came over and moshed on my couch.

Jordan: Literally had an actual party and just filmed it.

Sounds pretty fun though.
Matt: yeah it was real fun.

Jordan: yeah it was. That was another one we did in black and white. And our friend TJ the director of that video "For certain" which is our other single from our last record.

Matt: So you can see how his skills have progressed over the years.

Jordan: Yeah he's definitely done some very cool stuff.

So are all of your video's quite chilled out, do you like to try and go for a more relaxed approach and a strict very directed video?
Matt: There's definitely more of a schedule now a days when were making a video.

Jordan: We like to be loose when were filming, and when we get ideas just roll with it. I think the most scripted out video we've done is "Echoes" because it was a two day shoot and they had to cram so many different shots into two days. And you don't really have more than maybe eight hours in both days to film all of it. You have to sacrifices certain shots. They didn't even get everything they had on the story board that they would like to, and that's almost always the case with any movie or music video. But that was very "We've got to be ready we've got to move we've got to do this and this", but that kind of paid off, it's a very involved song lyrically and that paid off with the video.

What do you think is your favourite’s song that you've written, and has it changed over time?
Matt: For me it's probably "the fallen" just I love the way the music in that song and the flow in the song.

Was it always your favourite song or has it grown on you?
Jordan: it was.

Matt: When we recoded it I was like fuck yeah this is awesome, this is the one.

Jordan: I remember when we were on tour with saves the day and Armor For Sleep and they were in busses on the tour and they had crazy sound systems on their buses. And we were like can we listen to this song on your bus. I waited to do it; we had it for a while. I don’t want them to think like they come listen to this, I didn’t want to act like I wasent trying to show off or anything. I just wanted to hear it and I would have been excited to show them. We played it and we turned it on really loud in the bus and at that moment it was like wow this song came out better than we ever could have thought. And the way people we were playing it for where responding to it, they were saying the same thing. Like this is a huge step up recoding wise, writing wise and the vocals. I remember I played it for Israel, and he’s like I think you guys finally found what you were suppose to do. Our friend that played bass on our first recordings ever so this was three years later, was like you guys finally found what you were suppose to do, go do that.

We can expect to hear it later today then. I look forward to it.
Jordan: yes defiantly.

Matt: for sure.

How do you two write the split vocals? Does one of you write it and then divide it up later?
Matt: more often that not what we'll do is pick a thesis for the song and we'll each contribute lyrics to it and we just fit them to the vocal melody.

Jordan: splitting them up after is the easy bit. The most important part is that we have the lyrics we want that fit the melody. Then splitting it up is pretty easy it’s just like I want to do this part and switch here, there's a lot of options.

Our last question, would you rather be a Giraffe or a Zebra?
Matt: I'd rather be a zebra, even though Giraffe's are cooler. Because Giraffe's just seem like they would have neck problems all the time. That thing can't feel good like if you’re sleeping your necks going to get sore. My neck get's sore as it is, and it's not very long.

Jordan: yeah hahaha. Yeah that was a hard one because Giraffes are cooler.

Matt: absolutely thier way cooler.

Jordan: I’ll have to say Giraffe to counteract it, and just hope being cool will out way the neck problems in the end.

Matt: life is easier for a zebra.

Jordan: life is way easier for a zebra, unless there's a lion coming though. Then you’re like I have no chance right now. Though I have seen a zebra get away on YouTube before. Giraffes also sit like Indian, what are there meditate Indian

Matt: cross legged.

Jordan: yeah like Indian style cross legged, and you could literally put a huka or cobra in front of it and it would look natural. Oh and their coats look awesome, as does a zebra's though.

Matt: As do there weird little things on their head, I don’t know what they are.

Jordan: Oh yea haha there tellytubby anta.

They're pretty weird, they pick up radio.
Matt: haha there picking up wifi.

Jordan: for real, there picking up constant wifi.

Interview by Marc Rich