{"id":69,"date":"2020-08-17T03:56:59","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T03:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=69"},"modified":"2026-01-25T00:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T00:53:13","slug":"the-anthology-of-emo-volume-2-an-interview-with-tom-mullen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=69","title":{"rendered":"The Anthology of Emo Volume 2: An Interview With Tom Mullen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sitting down and speaking with Tom Mullen, I never doubted for a second how seriously he takes emo. This genre of music, whose definition is often misinterpreted, was a subject we would cover in great detail during our interview. Tom\u2019s book, The Anthology of Emo Volume 2,<\/em> is due out this September and make no mistake about it, it\u2019s a labor of love and a mission at the same time: a mission to preserve the history of a genre of music loved by many, and whose influence is still heavily felt today. Interviews in the book include Jim Adkins from Jimmy Eat World, Bob Nanna from Braid \/ Hey Mercedes, Jon Bunch from Sense Field, Chris Conley from Saves The Day and more.

Listening to Tom discuss the process behind the creation of The Anthology of Emo Volume 2<\/em> was something I found myself heavily fascinated by. Maybe it\u2019s my shared love of the genre or perhaps it\u2019s an admiration for anyone who feels this passionate about anything that drew me in. \u201cIf people haven\u2019t read the first book, it\u2019s enjoying a conversation with an artist in text form. It is basically my podcast as a book, it\u2019s edited for a book. And for those that have had the read the first one and are excited about the second one, I have fixed up the first one a little bit. With the second one, we\u2019ve added some more context to the interviews, a little more. I mean, I really went through these with a fine tooth comb on the second volume and the first. I learned a lot doing it the first time, and I got better doing it the second.\u201d

Tom continued: \u201cI started in radio and I saw this as putting together an hour of programming. The fan that only knows maybe the popular stuff, and then there\u2019s an obscure band in there that they might not know about and then they learn about. Or vice versa, someone that just loves the obscure ones, and then doesn\u2019t realize that \u201cWait a minute, that giant artist, actually they\u2019re kind of cool\u201d. So it was a way to get everybody, when they looked at the list of the 10 artists, to be like, \u201cOh, I really like that.\u201d Or \u201cI don\u2019t know about them.\u201d I tried to make it something for everybody.\u201d

Our conversation would inevitably take an understandable turn when we discussed the late Jon Bunch. \u201cI think it\u2019d be great if people learned about Jon Bunch from Sense Field. It was unfortunately the last interview he ever did, I was his last person that interviewed him. It was a big responsibility for me to make sure that the podcast itself was well done and in honor of him, and then same thing with the transcription and his inclusion in the book. I wanted to make sure that his piece was well respected and well done, so I took a lot of care. I would love if someone did know one of the bigger artists, and they found out that how influential Jon was or how much of an impact he had on the scene with a lot of people that maybe they don\u2019t know, maybe they didn\u2019t realize\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI mean, the podcast had been out, and we did a tribute episode as well. There was a show in Santa Ana that all these bands were interviewed for that we did an episode, so there\u2019s actually a section after his interview with a bunch of quotes from that tribute episode that we did after. There\u2019s that little nugget in there that most people will figure out when they start reading through it. But I think for Jon and myself, I was honored to be able to speak to him, and we had a great chat, and I wanted to do what was right. I wanted to make sure that his legacy was passed on and that people found out about him, and people understood his impact because stuff isn\u2019t permanent. Instagram is not permanent. MySpace is not permanent. These things come and go. So for things like that, a book or a podcast, I\u2019m heavily into archiving. I\u2019m heavily into documenting this scene in a way that will, long after I\u2019m gone, someone might stumble upon and understand the history a little bit deeper. That\u2019s the bigger meaning behind it, and I thought it really made sense to have him in the second volume because I thought it was important for his family, important for fans of him, and I think more people need to be mentioning him. Again, when they\u2019re gone, or they\u2019re not creating things, or we\u2019re in this 24 hour news cycle, things get forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussing the lineage of the genre was something I absolutely wanted to bring up. While it didn\u2019t directly tie into the book, when you get a genuine historian on the phone, it\u2019s not a question you want to skip. \u201cThis never went away. Just because My Chemical Romance announces a tour doesn\u2019t mean that emo is back. It never left. These bands and this scene has had a lot of changes and morphs, and it\u2019s been great to watch. I love a lot of the new school stuff that\u2019s been coming out since \u201909, absolutely amazing bands and amazing music. You can see the lineage. You can see the same approach regardless of technology, regardless of what things are available to them. You can see it. You can see that they want to do this. This isn\u2019t just, \u201cOh my God, I\u2019m going to get popular\u201d. \u201cOh man, well, this is the genre to play because everybody loves it, we\u2019ll get signed\u201d. These bands aren\u2019t that. This is, I\u2019m making this sound and I believe in this and it connects. I can tell when someone\u2019s trying to force it and be, \u201cI\u2019m going to try to be this really popular genre at the moment, and we\u2019re going to be huge\u201d. I see right through it. So for me, I love what\u2019s happening today. My whole goal for the whole thing was that there\u2019s a longer history than what you might be aware of. And that\u2019s anybody. That\u2019s someone that might be just into the new school emo revival, or they\u2019re into the mid-2000s and they thought it just began and ended then when My Chemical Romance broke up. Or they thought that it died in the \u201980s, and for people to understand that there\u2019s these pockets.\u201d

As for the beginnings of the genre, Tom was quick to answer that as well. \u201cWell, it definitely starts with Rites of Spring and Embrace. I had Guy on late last year to talk about all this, and he goes in-depth about \u2019emo\u2019, the word, and when he first heard it and the impact of what he was making and what happened since. I\u2019m not going to speak for him, but if anyone wants to check out that episode, he really goes deep into this. But I think that is the beginning. There\u2019s people that complain or argue, that say everything\u2019s emo. Well, of course. Everything is also punk. Everything is also indie. There\u2019s a few things that make something sound like this, and it\u2019s not forced. It\u2019s something that you want to do. It\u2019s not like, \u201cI\u2019m going to make emo music\u201d. You need to be in it. It\u2019s kind of like the inside kid that sits on the message board and talks shit. You need to go to the show. You need to start a distro. You need to make a zine. You need to make a website, or you need to help a band out, or book a tour. Those types of things, you start to see the inner workings of how the scene works and it becomes a little more clear, or clearer to the person experiencing that. So for me, it starts in the \u201980s, starts with Rites of Spring and Embrace, and has stayed alive. And I think that\u2019s the thing that most people don\u2019t realize. A lot of when My Chemical Romance announced all those dates, I predicted all these outlets writing their headlines and saying, \u201cEmo is back\u201d, when that\u2019s disrespectful. That\u2019s not the case. Just because this band that was very, very popular and on top 40 radio, they were on MTV, they were on all these places that were mass-marketed to a lot of people, and hats off to them.\u201d

As I brought my questioning back to The Anthology of Emo Volume 2<\/em>, I found myself really impressed with how Tom phrased things. It wasn\u2019t some kind of \u201chard sell\u201d, it was a man describing something he worked on and was incredibly passionate about. Who can\u2019t respect that? \u201cThis is not a history book. This is just interviews from a podcast transcribed in a book form because I thought it\u2019d be cool. It worked the first time and I\u2019m trying it a second time, so I think it\u2019s, it\u2019s very, very, very, very simple. These stories are, it\u2019s interesting to edit for audio, and edit for text. I\u2019ve actually been really enjoying the difference because I\u2019ve been editing audio for years, and I can almost edit as I\u2019m talking with someone, I can already tell what I\u2019m going to be editing, or what I\u2019m going to be removing or moving around or whatever. And the same thing when I start reading it, I\u2019m like, \u201cOh right, I remember that, this is going to sound cooler if I edit it this way\u201d. It\u2019s really, really fun, because I think everybody reads differently and everybody listens differently, so I think there\u2019s a way to take something from both mediums.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sitting down and speaking with Tom Mullen, I never doubted for a second how seriously he takes emo. This genre of music, whose definition is often misinterpreted, was a subject we would cover in great detail during our interview. Tom\u2019s book, The Anthology of Emo Volume 2, is due out this September and make no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,10],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-music","tag-emo-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions\/77"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}