All: For One.

All play the Vans Warped Tour at the Gold Coast Parklands on Friday.

“Every time we go down to Australia we go down there in our winter,” starts Carl, All's bassist. “We live in Colorado where it's snowing right now so for me that's the primary goal; just being somewhere were it's warm. We love it down there.”

All and The Descendents are sister bands, what makes All different from The Descendents besides Chad Price singing instead of Milo?

“We're actually 3/4th's identical twin sisters,” Carl laughs. “It's the 1/4th's different, Chad our singer, that really does make the difference you know. A different singer can really have a different affect on how the band plays. In our band it's unusual from most bands because everyone in the band actually writes songs. In the course of All we've done a few odd songs that Milo has written and in the course of The Descendents we've done the odd song that Chad has written. The lines just get blurrier; I think any differences that are there it's better delineated by the listeners and not me. I'm in both bands so I can't really tell.”

On the subject of singers All's had quite a few, what happened to them?

“I think most bands only last about four or five years nowadays. I think our changing up of singers is a reflection that our band has been around longer than most bands. I think a lot of people are into the idea of being into touring with a full time rock band for a certain amount of time and then maybe they want to get on with their lives after that. In the case of Milo well he's a biochemist he's got a whole other career that he's interested in doing. In case of Dave Smalley, he had some stuff to do in relation to his home life that he had to deal with. It's not that easy, it's only these past few years that we haven't been on tour ten out of twelve months of the year. There's a lot of stress that that can have on people’s personal relations.”

All have had a lot of Allroy titled albums like Allroy Sez and Allroy For Prez. Where'd Allroy come from?

“One day, we use to have a phone pad in our rehearsal space late back in the 80's and I drew this drawing and everyone just kinda liked it and it became obsessive around the practice space so we just kinda used it on the first record and ever since we've used it. I think it's kinda cool 'cause it gets us around the issues of being fashionable somehow by having a cartoon figure.”

I heard that All are working on a new album and The Descendents are working on two albums, or something…

'There's a Descendents album we're working on right now and then we have another Descendents album that will largely be instrumental and we're going to squeeze in another All album. We have our own recording studio so we can actually multi-task this stuff if we want to. We just thought it was really ambitious and a really fun idea to make just two or three records really really fast.”

What made you guys finally do an All / Descendents split double live album?

“Just the fact that we had recorded those Descendents live sets and we have always done live records, there's two Descendents live albums and one All live album. To me live albums are the only honest albums out there. We all own a studio so I'm very aware of the various ways that you can make a band that doesn't sound that good sound really great through studio magic. I mean live albums don't lie.”

What's one of the most fulfilling things about being in All?

“There's a few different sub-sets for it. Our guitar player Stefan and I have been friends since we were twelve years old and we've thirty-eight years old now. We've had a whole life of being able to work together, that fulfilling. And also being able to express myself in terms of song. In a way a lot of the times it's therapy, you know all those depressing love songs are us trying... whatever song writer trying to come to terms with what's happened to than at the time, I think that's very fulfilling. All listener's aside those songs are what keeps us really healthy as people.”

“Go for All would be the closest thing band-wise that we have as a motto. The context of 'all' involves going for the total extent of a thing rather than going for less than you are capable of or settling for what the world hands you. You try to get the most out of anything you're really into and that's why we called the band All.”