How Valley Arena did not jump their career in accounting

PHOTO by TODD WEAVER

Valley Arena soldiers on and soldiers on: When their labels go under, Valley Arena finishes the record anyway, and when their bass players leave, Valley Arena iPods volunteer backing tracks, and when guitarist Chris Stevens (full disclosure: Dude used to cover for me on bass when I was too snotty to drive to my own shows) broke his arm and couldn’t play, Valley Arena didn’t believe him that it was broken, and when the doctors confirmed it, Valley Arena apologetically soldiered on. November’s Sesso.Vita full-length on Anodyne (and teaser 45 on JAX) found the band in full cavalry charge: Dischord’s philosophy of precision and Drive Like Jehu’s propulsive vitality made a sound that could snap or soften any second to fit singer/guitarist Warren Woodward’s story-lyrics of break-up and resignation if not reconciliation. 2007 finished with Sesso topping a poll or two and the Valley trio (finished itself with drummer Michael Nielsen) bending half-backward at a roaring Prospector show. Warren speaks now during a rush-hour drive back from Costa Mesa.

What happened the night Chris broke his arm?
That was our third or fourth show—we were just to the point of playing decent shows.

What were you doing before that?
Sucking? We just kind of finally had a fully operational band, and they had a half-pipe at the show, and everyone was teasing Chris how he’d never dropped in a half-pipe before, and he decided to show everyone what was up. And seconds later his arm was broken.

Did he have a good sense of humor about it?
We didn’t believe it was broken. We were like, ‘Come on, man! You’re fine!’ But sure enough… and we couldn’t play shows for four months. We’re like the Charlie Brown of rock bands—the worst luck, but we don’t get bummed about it. It’s never like a train derailing, but obstacles pop up. That was kind of telling about our future as a band.

But this is going to be your fifth year together, too.
We’ve become immune to our own disease! We’ve had bad luck but also good luck—friends going to bat for us. Our first record—two-thirds of the way through recording, the label started going out of business. But we’d fronted the money ourselves, so we decided we had to finish it. And the guy Geoff [Rickly] from the band Thursday heard it on our Myspace and wrote us and ended up flying out to watch us play at the Lakewood Community Center to like fifteen kids in folding chairs—chairs that they were required to sit in! And all the little kids were hounding him for autographs. We thought for sure we’d blown that chance, but he liked us and signed us. And when we recorded record number two—once again, we were in the studio and we had to pay the first bill, and all of a sudden the label wasn’t returning our phone calls. And they went under again.

Was it funny that time?
We had to laugh at the bad luck or otherwise we wouldn’t be able to be in a band. So we did the same thing—put it on credit cards and ignore that we don’t have a way to put it out, and do the best we can. And it worked out again. We did both records completely on our own and were able to make our own final product, so we could tell labels to take it or leave it—and the offers we got were really good.

How’s your credit?
I won’t name names but currently 66.6% of the band had to move back in with their families. It’s taken a toll financially. But we all got experiences I don’t think we would have had any other way. Do we wanna look back on our twenties like, ‘I’m really glad I jumped my career in accounting!’? [Warren Woodward does not actually have a career in accounting. —ed.] Or be really glad that I maxed out my credit card and toured Europe with my two best friends?

Does Sesso.Vita tell a story? ‘Bed’ seems to start an arc that finishes with ‘Quiet Ending.’
There are reasons the songs belong together. The concept for Sesso.Vita—it’s ‘sex’ and ‘life,’ and it doesn’t translate directly to ‘sex life,’ but more sexual lifespan, and the role sex plays from birth to death. Not every song is chronological, but the arc does go from birth to death. ‘Kick at the Ceiling,’ which is the de facto single—that song is about being born and having the shit scared out of you.

The scream and the slap?
And wanting to crawl back in—that’s the first role sex plays in your life. And ‘Quiet Ending’ is sort of the golden years—when your libido is fading into the sunset.

And you can think clearly for the first time?
Yeah—sex not being the issue it was before. I wasn’t going through the best time in my own life, and I think a lot of the songs—while not completely autobiographical—were inspired by the downfall of that relationship. Have you been in a long-term relationship and it ends and you kind of scramble for something else like a teenager? Like ‘What the fuck am I doing? I want the two-car garage and the wife and the kid. . . . ’ Even though you don’t—but you see the appeal of it. It is bitter and jaded in some ways, but it’s therapeutic to get those songs out of your system. I’m good at expressing myself in some ways, but talking isn’t always one of them.

Except in this interview.
Of course.

THE VALLEY ARENA WITH BLOOD RED ORCHESTRA, FORCEFIELD ON AND GUESTS | ALEX’S BAR | 2913 E ANAHEIM ST | LONG BEACH 90804 | FRI 9 PM | $5 | ALL AGES | ALEXSBAR.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/THEVALLEYARENA

Tags: dischord, Long Beach, mp3, sex, valley arena