The Academy Is... Ridiculous Primer
The things I do in the summer, I swear.
ETA 10/22/2009 ALL NEW UPDATES ARE/WILL BE POSTED HERE.
ETA 4/23/09 This post almost exceeds LJ's word count limit. :(
ETA 4/05/09 Added pictures of Butcher's new tattoos, a few things about Bill and some link changes at the end.
ETA 3/23/09 Added that Chiz is now married.
ETA 3/10/09 Added some new developments to TAI and Tom's relationship.
ETA 2/05/09 Added a link to a great Chiz primer and a teeny bit to the baby Beckett situation.
ETA 1/31/09 Added some details to the early part of the timeline and some other small things about the guys.
ETA 1/04/09 Added some stuff to the timeline and little details about some of the guys.
ETA 9/27/08 Added some stuff about Fast Times and some info to William, Siska and Butcher's sections.
ETA 8/2/08 Added some bits of info from recent interviews with Bill and Siska
This is The Academy Is...
But so was this.
And this was too.
(you can laugh at Siska's hair, it's okay)
Yes, TAI has had quite the history. And since we're talking about history, might as well start at the beginning.
PART I: TIMELINE
Sometime in 2001-2002, William Beckett and Mike Carden's respective Chicago scene bands (or in William's case, one-man acoustic act, occasionally starring Nick Scimeca) broke up. They had been rivals (eta William's act was Remember Maine, which includes a track that has him and Sean Van Vleet of Empires talking at the end, and Mike's was Jodie) but soon found common ground, with their respective loves of Led Zeppelin and the Smashing Pumpkins. They decided they wanted to make music together. However, William's parents did not approve of him saying no to college and yes to music and kicked him out of the house.
"My whole senior year of high school was this big struggle with my parents," he says. "I had to move out of my mom's house to actually be able to do it."
So, he and Mike moved into a crappy apartment to live the musician's dream. William worked at the Gap to support them.
Also during 2002 (March 4, to be exact), Bill took Mike to his friend Jason Siska's 18th birthday party. It was there that Mike was introduced to Jason's little brother, Adam, and they quickly bonded over music. Bill had known Adam for awhile and it was that day that the three of them decided they should make music together. This was when The Academy Is... was born.
(Again, it's okay, laugh at Siska's hair)
From here, the guys recruit Mike DelPrincipe on drums and AJ LaTrace on lead guitar (Mike has always played rhythm guitar, as far as I understand it).
AJ and Mike D., respectively.
eta 01/31/09 Just wanted to add that before AJ LaTrace joined The Academy, he was in Farewell Night with one, Jonathan Walker.
They started writing and performing as The Academy and released The Academy EP in 2004 on an indie label LLR. However, due to issues with another band called The Academy, the boys changed their name to The Academy Is... Why? I have absolutely no idea. eta 1/31/09 Apparently, they added the "Is..." because they already had The Academy merch made and it was just easier and cheaper to add on "Is..." then come up with a new band name.
eta 01/31/09 Here is a video of them performing in a high school cafeteria back in 2003. As always, please, laugh at Siska's hair.
Soon after, TAI started gathering a lot of buzz in the Chicago scene. Friend and fellow scene king, Pete Wentz was a huge fan and persuaded his label, Fueled By Ramen to see this band and sign them.
This move by Pete is what inspired him to start his own record label, Decaydance.
Now that the guys were signed to a label, they quickly started working on their first full-length album. AJ, who had had trouble working with Mike before, was apparently still not feeling it and neither was Mike D. But, and this is very important, they wrote on Almost Here. AJ wrote almost all the guitar parts, from what I understand, as well. But during August/September 2004, Mike D. and AJ left the band.
Siska announces there's a new lineup, 9/4/2004
anyways, theres been alot of confusion and alot of talk. i just want to clear the air, and dispell all rumors. Everything with me and the academy guys are cool. yeah, things didnt work out the way we wanted it to, but things are good now. - AJ's livejournal (check out the last comment from Siska's old livejournal)
AJ went on to college and seems to have made the right decision for himself, while Mike D. is now in a band called Amrita and occasionally checks out Empires shows.
Now, who did the boys get to replace their guitarist and drummer?
Andy "The Butcher" Mrotek and Tom Conrad.
Tom had been well-known around the Chicago scene for years, mostly for his previous band, 504 Plan, which also starred Nick Scimeca (most notably known for designing the Bartskull and pretty much every piece of early Clan merch and almost every Decaydance/FBR band's website) and Jon Walker, of Panic at the Disco.
The Butcher, who received his nickname from working a butcher's shop, had been making music in the Milwaukee scene for quite some time, himself. But he was, well, in a different sort of scene.
I really have no idea what this about. I've heard that it was a breakdance group turned boy band or that it was a pop-punk band making fun of boy bands or that it was just a straight up boy band. So, who knows.
ETA lexicon brought it to my attention that it was the second option! Here is the article the photo comes from. Oh Butcher.
Anyway, Tom and Butcher joined the band and they finished recording what was to become Almost Here. It was released on February 8, 2005.
It should be noted that the CD booklet credits The Butcher and Tom for writing. This is a lie. The Academy Is... likes to lie to you. Accept this.
Now, the boys start touring. And they tour their asses off. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's all they did through Warped 2006. They toured with many bands, like Midtown, Gym Class Heroes, The All-American Rejects and most notably, Panic at the Disco. The Truckstops and Statelines tour, which started in February 2006, turned out to be the most crucial in Panic's career. It also starts to spell out bad things for the boys in TAI.
Truckstops and Statelines was TAI's first headlining big tour. They were out of the vans and into the bus and they had to be extremely stoked. Opening for them were semi-well known bands, Acceptance and Hellogoodbye, and then a little band of barely-legal teenagers from Nevada, Panic at the Disco. Panic was the opening band when this tour started. A Fever You Can't Sweat Out had been released back in September 2005 but no one had really heard of them. Yet.
Now, things started out fine. TAI and Panic had toured in the UK shortly before this tour and they got along great and even had them star in one of their TAI TVs.
Also, TAI had this guitar tech/videographer on tour with them. His name was, and still is, Jon Walker.
It was his second tour with them, as they had recently rescued him from "being bummed" while working at Starbucks. As you can probably tell, he fit in well with TAI. He also liked those crazy Panic kids, too.
Anyway, as the tour went out, "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" started climbing the charts and the video started getting played on MTV. Soon, people were going to the Truckstops and Statelines tour to see these Panic at the Disco kids and that was it. Panic, who were young and somewhat inexperienced, were stealing the show from it's headliners. This made things somewhat tense.
Warped Tour, however, was not where the morale significantly dropped within the band. It began during our sold out headlining tour with Panic! At the Disco, where the shows started feeling like a co-headlining tour to the leaders within the band. - Tom Conrad
Now, in between Truckstops and Statelines ending in April 2006 and Warped starting in June, TAI, Panic and Gym Class Heroes went to Japan together. Things appeared to be okay, but they were not.
By mid-May, Panic fires their bassist Brent Wilson for being unreliable and not a good-enough musician. And they need someone to fill-in for them. They decide to call their friend Jon Walker and ask him to come fill-in for a few dates. He flies out from Chicago to Vegas the very next day and learns all the bass parts from listening to Fever on his iPod (sorry, the awesomeness of Jon Walker makes me gush). Anyway, point is, Ryan Rossy stole TAI's guitar tech/videographer (also Tom's best friend) a month before the biggest tour of the summer, Warped.
However, that was not the only thing putting a damper on things for everyone, particularly Tom.
Going into last summer was a bit rough for me. I had came home from a tour over seas to hear news that an old friend passed away tragically. Shortly after, my family and I experienced another loss with the passing a family relative due to illness.
In addition to all of this, the guys realize they haven't written music in almost two years and they need to start thinking about record #2.
"The reality was we didn't have any songs," Beckett says, cringing. "We had 20-second pieces [of music]. There's a big difference. I guess that my way of telling myself that it was all right when it wasn't. I think I had convinced myself, or seemingly convinced myself. But on the inside, I was a mess." - AP cover article
TAI really did not know what to do. They had intense amounts of pressure, not only from their record label, but from themselves, to write the best pop-punk-emo record ever. Their labelmates Fall Out Boy were huge by now and Panic was becoming more popular by the day.
TAI wanted to be next, so they started to work on some songs. The only one that came out of that summer, that I know of, was "Toasted Skin."
Warped ended in August and from there, the boys went home to Chicago (or Catskill Mountains, if you take William literally) to work more diligently on their follow-up.
mike, butcher, tom, adam and i are going to write an amazing album in the catskill mountains - Bill
But this is not what happened. We will probably never know what exactly went down, but whatever did, it was not good, because by the end of September 2006, Tom had been kicked out of the band.
I had known Butcher for about two years earlier before we both joined the band (we had replaced two original members since its formation). I was closest with him since we joined at the same time. Butcher broke the news to me because Mike and Bill could not get to the point during a very drawn out conversation. Butcher stepped in as my friend. There weren’t any exact reasons given to me at the time, just that it was not working anymore… - Tom
"I felt bad for him, having to sit through that conversation," Mrotek says genuinely. "He may have known that was going to happen, but when I was like, "Fuck it, I don't think you should be in this band,' that was hard. I wanted to say the words just because I don't think he could hear it from anyone else and take it." - Butcher
Here is the first indication that he had been kicked out. His girlfriend, Danielle, had apparently posted something alluding to him being kicked out on either Livejournal or Myspace, but also deleted said comment that night. No one really knew what was going on and mostly mocked the person for stalking her, but throughout the next couple of weeks, there were numerous posts on theacademyis community wondering if Tom actually had been kicked out or not. There was even this post where Tony Marino (TAI's tour manager) says he doesn't know anything about the whole situation.
It is not until October 23rd, 2006, that the band releases a statement on their website:
brightly forked futures
After two years on the road together, Tom and the Academy Is... have gone in seperate directions.
Tom and his photographs can be found at forevernever.net
William, Mike, Adam, and The Butcher can be found in an abandoned warehouse, somewhere on the southside of Chicago writing their second album.
While we are not too excited about the potential internet drama this news might invite, we felt our fans should know. We hope you understand and can continue to support both The Academy Is..., and Tom.
On November 1st, Tom makes a blog post of his own:
its about time you showed up
I apologize. I would have said something sooner but it was not the right time nor was this the right place to do it and honestly, it still isn't. There's not much to say with what happened besides I dont want people thinking I quit the band. Thank you to everyone that has reached out to me and shared such kind words. You mean the world to me. Big thank you to everyone at Crush, FBR, APA, the Crew and definitely TMx2. But what now for Thomas Conrad you ask? Not quite sure but I will keep taking photographs and this will be the place to view / read of what I've been up to. Moving on...Some of the prints are almost gone in the webstore. Don't wait if you care to have one. Once they're gone, they're gone. What else?!? Ah, I posted a photo journal from my most favorite tour I was ever a part of, this summers warped tour. ooh really? nah... Next week, I will be heading out with Panic! At the Disco to expose what fresh individuals they are through a lens of camera. Jwalk and I were actually separated at birth. Believe it. One last thing, definitely check out Day19.com. They have a photo'zine for sale which is worth the coin. Get it. take care.
-tom
Also, in between these two blog entries, TAI goes to the MTVU Woodie Awards. Here's what they looked like:
Things were really not good for any of them.
Now, like I said, we will probably never know what all happened with the whole Tom situation, but from what I can find, it basically boiled down to this: Tom couldn't write music with them.
3. How involved were you in the writing of Santi? Do you feel like you were welcomed wholly into the creative process?
I was never involved in the writing for Santi, nor was I ever welcomed into the creative process. Butcher and I weren’t a part of the writing process for Almost Here either. This made things unbalanced between everyone. We both joined the band right after the album was completed, which I believe made things hard coming into the band. I was concerned why members were removed so quickly after the record was finished, but I took the opportunity anyways. Since I was not a part of the creative process, things were not as fulfilling. Bill and Mike have their own way of doing things. I was never needed for the writing process, but nor did I ever really fight to be a part of it. Regardless of everything, there wasn’t much song writing that was completed together during the two years of touring. - Tom
Tom just wasn't contributing," Mrotek insists. "[In the practice space, even Beckett] was positive. He was encouraging us. But Tom just wasn't into it. He wasn't happy. It put this weird vibe in the room." - Butcher
Is this Tom's fault? Well, yes and no. He says he didn't fight to be apart of the creative process with Bill and Mike, but, well, Bill and Mike's writing process is not very welcoming, either.
The dynamics between Bill and Mike makes things very hard. One almost has to take sides to get anything done, which is something that I did not do while in the band.
Basically, Tom is an awkward guy who doesn't like fighting and he was in a band with two people who have to fight to get anything done. This was obviously never going to work and getting kicked out was probably the best thing to ever happen to both parties. Tom is a million times happier in his new band Empires than he ever was in TAI and TAI is a million times happier now than they ever were with Tom. The thing that sucks is that it went down nasty, by all accounts.
Supposedly, Bill showed up at the bar by Tom's apartment that fall (to talk, I assume) and things ended in some sort of altercation (There have been a few comments, and one confrontation, where the outcome was a bit on the negative side. - Tom). Also, as of the April 2007 AP cover article that TAI did, Tom had not returned any of Butcher's phone calls or emails, but it's been over a year since then, so I would hope and assume things are much less strained, now.
ETA 8/2/08 Siska and Hey Chris recently had this exchange on Hey Chris' weekly radio show:
Siska: "Oh, dude, have you seen Empires play at all?"
HC: "Yeah, dude, they're awesome dude."
Siska: "Yeah, I really wanna see a show. I ran into Tom at Buffalo Wild Wings one night. I hadn't seen him in a long time and it was really cool and when I come back around to Chicago I definitely want to check them out."
HC: "Oh definitely, dude. Definitely. They're really good, dude. That's cool you guys are still cool and everything."
Siska: "I mean, you know, as cool as I hope and everything."
HC: "Yeah, he's a good dude. He's a solid dude, man."
Siska: "Of course."
So, at the very least, Tom and Siska are cool and hang out and eat buffalo wings together. eta 1/04/09 I've also heard (from gossip comms, so grain of salt and all that) that Tom, Bill, Siska and Butcher are all cool. Mike and Tom...not so much. Also, supposedly Mike forbid Siska from going to an Empires show, but that I wouldn't take very seriously.
ETA 3/10/09 Last week William announced this on his blog:
Since This Providence can only stay on the tour until April 1st, I’ve asked Tom, Sean, and Max from Empires to join us. They will be jumping on in Texas or Tennessee on or around April 1st. Check out the link for the specifics over the next few days. I am very excited about having them out!
And Tom followed up with:
This may come as a shock (as it is for me too) but it has to do with just a piece, not the entire entity. You can't forgive until you're ready to forget. I'm not expecting anyone to understand.
TOM (AND SEAN AND MAX) AND BILL (AND SISKA) ARE GOING ON TOUR TOGETHER! PIGS CAN FLY, PEOPLE. PIGS CAN FUCKING FLY.
ETA 4/23/09 Just updating to say that the tour went smoothly (besides Empires being sick and Siska hurting himself) but nothing bad happened between the guys, which is more than I could ever hope for.
Also, this was not just a band firing someone. Tom and those guys were very close friends and for their relationships to have gotten that bad, well, it's just kind of sad. I mean, Tom was the person who said this in Kerrang sometime in 2006:
"Like the rest of his bandmates, Conrad has an unwavering belief in The Academy Is.., despite his parents' reservations about his dropping out of college to pursue his dream. "I knew from day one," he says. "It was like, 'Let's go, let's do this.' There was no question in my mind. It was the most right decision I've ever made. I think we have an intensity most bands don't have."
And Bill was the guy who said this in the same article:
If we lost any of the five of us, it wouldn't be The Academy Is... anymore."
...Yeah. It's just plain sad. It was for the best, but still, it kind of makes my heart hurt.
Anyway.
While Tom went on the Nothing Rhymes with Circus tour with his bff Jwalk, TAI went back to trying to write their next album. They were working with producer Butch Walker and he basically gave them Michael Guy Chislett, this Australian guitarist that had been living on his couch for the better part of three years.
Michael stepped in to help play and was soon asked to be a full-time member.
Now, back to the writing of Santi. Even without having to deal with that whole Tom situation, writing was still not getting any easier for Bill.
"My band was doing so great," he says as a look of disappointment washes over him. "but I [was] just losing it."
"It was just extreme anxiety," Beckett says. "With the presence of the band there, it was this constant reminder that I wasn't producing. It was unbearable." Eventually, it got to a point where Beckett couldn't get out of bed.
"Beckett, on the other hand, bailed on his bandmates and checked into a LA hotel room by himself. Which seems rather questionable: Why would a guy who was as depressed as Beckett want to isolate himself in such a dramatic way? Does it seem too far off to suggest that like Wentz, Beckett might have wanted to step away from the pressures of pending fame permanently?
After some prying, Beckett will more or less admit to contemplating suicide last fall.
(All quotes from The AP cover article)
...Yeah. When I say things were not good, they were not good. But! Once William checked himself into the empty hotel room and was able to be by himself, he started writing again, and it was in that period that he wrote Santi. (Now, whether or not it was before this or after when he lost half of the lyrics to Santi on an airplane, I am not sure. But he did get "LAX to O'Hare" out of that incident.)
So! Santi is released on April 3, 2007 and it debuted at #33 on the Billboard charts. They did the Honda Civic Tour with Fall Out Boy and Cobra Starship that spring and summer, and continued touring around the world and the US through that fall. Except for a two-week break in the middle of October...
Yes, here we go. The Baby Beckett Situation.
So, supposedly, on October 12, 2007, William and his on-again/off-again girlfriend Christine welcomed a baby girl named Genevieve Dylan Beckett. There has never been an official confirmation from William or the band about this, but back in November 2007, someone on fueledbygossip made this post about a church bulletin from Barrington, Illinois congratulating William and Christine Beckett on the birth of their daughter. Said bulletin is no longer on the internet, but it looked very legit. Also, there is screenshot that Christine supposedly posted of Siska's girlfriend Lindsay holding baby Genevieve. But, like all things involving secret babies and the internet, not everyone was convinced. Many people claimed that they had seen Christine at the Honda Civic Tour and she was definitely not pregnant or that she and William had broken up months ago. And even now, there are still doubters, despite alleged confirmations from Travis McCoy about said baby and marriage. So, until William or the band confirms or denies baby Beckett's existence, it will probably be that way. For what it's worth, I think she exists.
ETA 8/2/08 Bill did an interview with DJ RossStar recently in which RossStar asked him about the baby:
DJ: "Everybody's asking about your baby."
Bill: "About what?"
DJ: "Your baby."
Bill: *laughs awkwardly and pauses* "Yeah, yeah."
DJ: "And by everyone, I mean 27 people."
Bill: "That would also uh, fall under, uh, Wikipedia, uh, nonsense."
DJ: "Really?"
Bill: *doesn't respond*
DJ: "Could you go on there and delete these things?"
Bill: "Oh, I don't know. I don't look at it, to be honest. I don't look at that...crap. I keep to myself and do what I do. We're here to make music and play shows, we're not here to run a circus."
Also, supposedly, Gabe Saporta denied the baby's existence at Warped but it's Gabe, so you never really can tell.
ETA 2/05/09 This was on Bill's twitter last night: in bliss with gdb Do we know what he means by GDB? No, not for sure, but GDB could stand for Genevieve Dylan Beckett, so you know...there's that.
Anyway.
After their fall tour was over, TAI laid low for a couple months. They moved out to LA to start working on their next album and watch Siska's brother on Survivor. By all accounts, things went very smoothly this time around and Fast Times at Barrington High is due out August 19th. Both Pete Wentz and Nick Scimeca say it is "insane" and better than anything they've ever done. Also, Siska has said that they all had an "epiphany of happy feelings" making this record, so that should reflect on the album's content.
ETA 9/27/2008
So, Fast Times At Barrington High was released on August 19, 2008. It debuted at 17 on the Billboard charts and sold about 23,000 copies in its first week (compared to the 33,000 copies Santi sold in its opening week). However, the reviews for Fast Times have been generally very positive and much better than they were for Santi.
In my personal opinion, one reason Fast Times isn't selling as well is because TAI has still not released their video for "About a Girl." They did release the video for "Summer Hair = Forever Young" but I think that was only online? Regardless, they made their "About a Girl" video at the same time and they sent out Polaroids from the set with the FBR pre-sale orders, so it should be done. If they could get that video released, Fuse could play it and it could definitely help their sales. But that's just my two cents.
One thing they are doing, though, is that they're reaching out to the teenage girl fanbase much more than they ever have before. They've been doing interviews with Cosmo!Girl and Seventeen and other magazines like them, which could definitely improve their record sales if they hit the teen girl market. Kill their reputation, probably, but it's not like they had a strong punk rep to begin with, anyway.
ETA 1/04/09 Since I last updated this, TAI did release "About a Girl" as a single and video in mid-October. It's doing pretty well (better than any of their other singles, at least) right now and they just played MTV New Year's Eve bash and their music was all over the Hills this past season. Hey, exposure is exposure.
They also released a song they wrote while on tour, "Winter Passing" on iTunes. Not only is it a good song, I think it says a lot about how they've grown when they can write and record a song while on tour and no one had a breakdown or got kicked out over it.
So, now that we're caught up with the timeline, let's get to know the guys a little better.
PART II: WILLIAM, MIKE, ADAM, BUTCHER AND MICHAEL (AND TO A LESSER EXTENT, TOM)
Name: William Eugene Beckett Jr.
Nicknames: Bill, Billvy (Siska is usually the only one that calls him this), Billiam, Thrilliam (Gabe's occasional name for him)
Instrument of choice: His voice, but he does know how to play guitar and drums as well. He also writes all the lyrics.
Date of Birth: February 11, 1985
Family: Parents divorced, has a step-dad and 2 brothers and 2 sisters. His sister, Courtney, did all the photography for Fast Times. Also, possible wife and child.
The Basics: William is often written as an alcoholic, MENSA-smart slut. Now, I really have no idea where people get this characterization, I mean...
Um.
Well, um.
...Nevermind.
But seriously, there is more to William than the typical fanon characterization. Like, did you know, he was a star baseball player in high school? And he was supposedly a straight-A student. (Back to School video) He also, unsurprisingly, has some emotional baggage.
Because as Beckett continues to step toward the front of the shot, a chunk of long brown hair keeps blowing across his face, and it appears to be crushing a tiny part of his soul.
If you read his old LJ entries, you find lots of the somewhat typical teenage angst you'd expect, but one thing in particular that struck me was William's relationship with Christine's parents.
Christine is amazing-her parents hate me because i'm not going to boston university-whatever, we kickass together. nuff said. - from here
Then imagine this. The love of your life. Her Mother telling you you're breaking up their family. You're embarrassing them by your life's work. You're not good enough for her daughter. You don't look like the type of man she belongs with. You're pants are too tight, people can see your penis. You're choice of lifestyle is disturbing, and you're not helping anyone. You're selfish. You're not righteous, and you're damned. Imagine if I was Jewish or Buddhist... At this point I wish I was out of spite.
Well, if being in love isn't enough, thy will be Damned. - from here
This is why when he decides to cut all of his hair off, I get concerned.
He also said this in Kerrang in 2006:
My mom raised me in such a loving environment. There was very little discipline and that meant that my reservations were pretty unregulated. It meant that from an early age I've always blindly trusted people. I was never skeptical or cynical about other people's motives. I always assume people had the best intentions because my mom always did.
Oh William. :(
But enough of the sad stuff. Because William Beckett is a fucking rockstar.
Make no mistake about it, there's really no job William Beckett is better suited for than being a rock star.
There really is no place he'd rather be than on stage and he is awesome at it. He loves his band and all his batshit-insane fans and even though he hasn't quite made it big, I don't think he'll stop until he does.
ETA 9/27/08
I wanted to add a couple of things that Bill's been bringing up in interviews a lot, lately. One is that he keeps railing against the internet and saying that kids need to get off of it and go out and learn to socialize. Now, disagree with him, agree with him, whatever, but don't doubt for a second that he's not being 100% completely sincere about this. That's the thing about William: he's ridiculously sincere and earnest about his beliefs (and his music, for that matter.) He really is concerned about kids hanging out on the net all day and talking shit about people.
Also, this is just another example how badly Bill wants to be taken seriously as a musician. He puts his whole heart into writing lyrics and making music and it kills him when all people talk about online is his hair or his secret baby or his tight pants or whatever. Is that ridiculous? Well, yeah, but it's William Beckett. He and his band are the definition of ridiculous.
Also, in a shocking turn of events, Bill has decided to start being honest about how shit writing Santi was AND about kicking out Tom. Like in this interview. It actually makes me really proud of him, that he's being this truthful about things and not faking it anymore.
eta 1/04/09 Something to remember when it comes to William is that he is completely ridiculous and over-the-top, no matter what its about. He's old-fashioned and really does love candlelit dinners and long walks on the beach. He's that guy.
ETA 04/05/09
I wanted to add a few things about Bill's writing. He's said his writing is autobiographical in the past and really, all of it is. He puts himself completely out there in his lyrics. On the Snakes & Suits acoustic tour, he talked about how "Down and Out" was written about growing up in a house with domestic abuse, and if you read the lyrics, you can really see what he went through. "Every Burden Has A Version" is also about dealing with abuse.
Also, Big Mess is about Tom and "Everything We Had" might be, too. There is also speculation that "40 Steps" is about Bill finding out about having a baby, but again, just speculation. He has said that is one of his favorite songs he's ever written, though.
But back to "Down and Out." There is a line towards the end that says We won't forget Tony or Johnny. This is referring to Tony Marino (TAI's tour manager) and Johnny Minardi, who are both very old and very good friends of Bill's. He lived with them at some point after he moved out of his house. Tony and Johnny and best friends and they own Snakes & Suits together. Well, Bill definitely won't forget them now, as he got the Snakes & Suits ampersand tattooed on his wrist:
Oh Bill ♥
Name: Michael Stephen Carden
Nicknames: Dr. Fear, Santi
Instrument of choice: Guitar (he has always played rhythm guitar)
Date of Birth: December 3, 1984
Family: Brother, Lukas
The Basics: Mike is usually written as an asshole. This is because he is an asshole.
We call Mike Carden “Dr. Fear” because he’s kind of an intense bastard sometimes... - Siska (he also dressed up as Dr. Fear for Halloween last year but it is too terrifying for me to post)
Don't get me wrong, Mike is not the evil incarnate or anything. He's just kind of a dick. Like, he beats Siska up for the lolz.
Everything was going well until Mike Carden attacked me and started pulling my hair just to mess with me. He seemed to be having a wonderful time. A few minutes later, Tony came by the room and I tried to get him to get Mike out of the room so he would stop ripping my hair out. Just when I thought it was over, I was ambushed and Mike ran back into the room and began yanking at my mullet again... Once he finally left, I requested that The Butcher "pass that kit-kat" from the mini- bar. I broke him off two pieces and kept two for myself. Just then, Mike came back into the room to pull my hair a final time and to quickly snatch my half of the kit-kat bar from my hands. Now that was crossing the line... I was pretty upset at The Butcher for letting Mike back in the room so I politely requested that he go into Mike and Tonys room and steal the kit-kat from their mini bar. A minute later he returned and I ate all four pieces of that kit-kat bar, and didnt break off a piece for anyone. Once again, Sisky Business came out on top! - Oh Siska
Mike and I were goofing around and started wrestling/ play fighting in the front lounge. Unfortunately we got carried away and I got hit in the eye with a 2 liter bottle of Tonic Water. All of the sudden there was blood all over my face and a huge gash. It hurt pretty bad, but all is forgiven. Someone get Siska an adult.
Mike really is an intense individual when it comes to music. If you watch the bonus DVD that came with Santi you can see what I mean. He, like William, is extremely passionate and devoted to this band and to making it work. Also, even more than William, Mike wants to make it big. See, Mike turned down a spot to be in Fall Out Boy back in the day to stay with TAI. (Yes, guys, Mike Carden could have been the 5th member of FOB. Imagine that.) And I think after watching them, Panic at the Disco, Gym Class Heroes and their other labelmates like Paramore make it big, well, I think he really wants it to be his band's turn, next.
But like I said, he's not the devil. But he's no angel, either. So, when he's not making fun of his bandmates or sneaking onto Cobra Starship's bus to eat their watermelon, he likes to smoke in bathtubs and drink alcohol.
He also apparently used to play chess.
Mike's pretty reserved and never writes blogs or anything, so the best way to find out more about him is to watch TAI TV. He's probably the worst actor of them all (not that that says much) so it's pretty funny to watch him always about to crack up when he's reading his lines.
Name: Adam Taylor Siska
Nicknames: Siska, Sisky, Sisky-Biz, Sisky Business, Sisky-Biz Bass Whiz, well, you get the idea.
Instrument of Choice: Bass, but he also plays piano and guitar. eta And harmonica!
Date of Birth: January 8, 1988
Family: Siblings: brother: jason age 18 (son of bearded dad and schitzophrenic mom) johnny age 16 (son of dead dad and hates the world mom) david age 23(son of dead dad and south american mom) gustavo age 26 (son of dead dad and south american mom) daniell 25(son of dead dad and dont know mom)juaquin (son of dead dad and river pheonixs mom mom) Rachel age 11 (son of pony tail dad and black mom) phillipe age 21 (son of pony tail dad and cuban mom) - I wish I was kidding. Siska often signs things as "the boy with three dads" and the best way I can figure this out is that his biological parents ("schizophrenic mom and bearded dad") had him and his older brother Jason and then divorced. His mother remarried but that step-dad passed away ("dead dad") and now his mom is remarried again ("pony tail dad"). Do not ask me how River Phoenix fits into this because I do not know. But, for all simple purposes, his immediate family is his mom, his step-dad and Jason, going by this yearbook ad. eta 04/05/09 Siska has also said that he has family in Argentina and that his parents at one point lived in Alaska. I'm starting to think that Siska has a family member in every corner of the world.
The Basics: Siska is often characterized as being, well, three. He is, not in fact, 3-years-old, but 20. (eta He's finally 21 now!!) However, it is easy to see how the mistake can be made. Some of his favorite things in life are junk food, pizza, Dr. Pepper and going to the zoo.
Siska is the baby of the band. He's at least three years younger than everyone else and he's been in it since he was 15. And as the baby of the band, he keeps things light. When shit's going down, he makes everyone laugh.
"Sisky keeps everything light-hearted," says Andy Mrotek.
He's basically everyone's little brother that everyone is always daring to do stupid shit and he actually does it. Like getting the worst haircut of all time.
Or getting his ass tattooed.
Siska's up for anything.
Kristen: Speaking of women’s clothing, who in the band would make the best drag queen?
Adam: Me. Yeah, I would say me.
Kristen: What would be your drag stage name?
Adam: Esmeralda.
A couple other things you should know about Siska is that he is a ridiculously huge Chicago Bulls fan. He loves all Chicago teams but he loves basketball.
Also, as I mentioned earlier, his brother Jason was on Survivor: Fans vs. Favorites this past year. This will always be funny.
But Jason going to live on a deserted island for a month actually isn't that weird for the Siskas. They were born and spent most of their childhood in the US Virgin Islands before moving to Illinois when Siska was around eight-years-old. He seems to go back at least once a year and listens to reggae and spending time "finding [his] inner rastafarii."
You can also read his old livejournal entries here. Siska has never been the brightest crayon in the box, so beware of the typos. My personal favorite entry is the one where he talks about getting arrested.
The cop asked me what i was supposed to be for halloween. My reply was "nothing at all" and he said "so thats how you always dress??"
Siska is made of pure ridiculousness. He's also, somehow, the best interviewee the band has. Like, he gives the most interesting, funny and professional interviews out of anyone in the band. The back to school video is a very good depiction of him, I think. It shows how dumb and ridiculous he is ("I did not go to class and I did not get A's") but it also shows that he's not just some dumbass guy in a band ("The universe tends to unfold as it should.")
ETA 9/27/08
I neglected to mention a very important thing about Siska. He is extremely loyal to William and always will be. I mean, look at it this way: Siska was 12 when he met Bill, through his older brother. And while they were friends, Siska was just Jason's little brother to Bill for years, until they decided to form a band together, with Mike. Siska was only 15 when that happened and has been in this band ever since then. He spent his senior year of high school on the road and doing his homework online. Siska did not really have the typical teenage experience and it's because of William and this band. This also has to be why he's the most well-spoken member of TAI-he's been in this band and touring and being itnerviewed for 1/4th of his life.
eta 01/31/09 Just adding about Bill and Siska's BFFness.
AS: Yeah, I met William when he was playing drums in a band with my older brother. I remember coming down to the basement and seeing this kid with a shaved head and bunch of piercings, and a drum set with lots of cool stickers like Asian Man Records, Less Than Jake, etc. I thought, this guy is cool, not too many people around here listen to these bands. Later that year he started playing songs and singing, he wasn't great but he was better than anyone else I knew! I'd started playing bass and we started hanging out. He was always better at writing songs than me. He started playing as Remember Maine, and I was the unofficial roadie and merch guy. He was just playing acoustic, so I basically just carried his guitar.
G: So you'd bring his guitar in and then you'd have a drink?
AS: I was only 13 at the time, so not so much!
G: But you've made up for it since then?
AS: Yeah, yeah, though not as much as you'd think. Anyway then my father died and I was going through a weird time. At that time New Jersey was where it was at, all our favourite bands were all from Jersey. I remember thinking I needed to get out of Chicago and go to Jersey. William had a show booked in Hamilton Street Cafe in Jersey, in very early 2003, and I came out. We crashed with the guys from Hidden In Plain View, who also played that show. And I got really attached to the idea of going out in a van and playing, just doing that for as long as I could. Later back in Chicago, we formed the band. - from here
Name: Andrew Bishop Mrotek
Nicknames: The Butcher. And seriously, he only goes by The Butcher.
Instrument of choice: Drums/percussion. Also plays guitar and bass and sings.
Date of Birth: July 4, 1983
Family: Fraternal twin brother Dan
The Basics: The Butcher is three things at all times: Talented, super nice and mostly naked.
In addition to being a kickass musician, Butcher is also a very talented artist. I'm pretty sure he graduated from art school in Wisconsin but I don't remember where I read that.
William likes to call him "their little baby genius".
ETA 9/27/08
Here's some more of Butcher's artwork:
eta 01/31/09 Butcher has a website for his art now! There's lots of great stuff, photography, wood burning, sketches of Siska as a preying mantis and Bill as a chimpanzee, and other awesome Butcher art.
When he's not drawing, making music, sewing sombreros back together or painting his toenails, Butcher is often hanging out somewhere with barely any clothes on.
I assume most of this is because of his seriously awesome tattoos that he likes to show off.
Also, I think he just likes being naked.
Uh...what was I saying?
ETA 04/05/09 Butcher's been busy getting some new tattoos lately, and here are some photos of them:
Oh yeah, The Butcher. Totally naked and totally awesome. He is one of the only people I've heard very consistent fan reports about. Everyone basically says the same thing: "He was nice and smiled a lot."
"Butcher's the glue of the whole thing," says Beckett. "He ties everything together because everybody can get along with him."
Once we got to the hotel, we all headed up to our rooms and the Butcher and I stayed up for a little bit listening to some records and talking about music. I am happy to have such a great roommate. He doesnt smell, he likes good music, and his snoring is under control. - Siska
Today The Butcher and I worked on some new music and had dinner together. It was a nice day. The Butcher is one guy I always get along with. Siska loves him best
Name: Michael Guy Chislett
Nicknames: Chiz, Chizzy
Instrument of choice: Guitar
Date of Birth: April 6, 1982
Family: eta Chiz has 6 brothers and sisters, which he talks about briefly here. eta Also, Chiz now has a wife! Her name is Naomi and they've been together for years. She's also the girl who is on the Fast Times cover with Bill.
The Basics: Michael's been a professional musician longer than most people realize. Before joining TAI, Michael played in a few bands with Butch Walker. They actually still play in a side project together, called 1969.
And before he moved to America, he played guitar for Hillsong, a gigantic Australian church. I think he even went to Africa with them on some sort of retreat thing.
I have to admit, I probably know the least about Chiz out of all of them, but from what I do know, he seems very sweet and kind of confused by things, but it just makes him more endearing. He is Australian and doesn't understand why most Americans hate Vegemite. But he really must be pretty easy to get along with and easy-going. He doesn't drink (often) or smoke and is vegan and somehow fits perfectly in with the rest of those boozehounds.
Also important to know, Michael dropped out of high school at 16 and is really dyslexic. He gets kind of sad if you make fun of his typos on his Myspace. Like he literally says i have noticed that many ppl dont like my spelling... you must remember that i droped out of highschool when i was bearly 16!... and i dont have the time to run spell check! im pretty sure you know what im sayin rite??
So, yeah, Michael is kind of faily but a very good musician and seriously adorable and Butch Walker loves him best.
eta 1/04/09 Just so you know, Chiz really hates John Mayer.
eta 2/5/09 If you'd like to know more about Michael's musical history, please read this excellent primer on him. It's got all the info you could ever want.
While he's not in the band anymore, if you're going to write TAI fic (which is what most primers are for, right?), you should still know at least a little bit about him, right?
Name: Thomas Alfred Conrad
Nicknames: Tomrad, Tombo, Tommy Gun (someone on his now-deleted myspace called him that, anyway), Com Tonrad
Instrument of Choice: Guitar
Date of Birth: May 19, 1984
Family: Younger sister, Denise
The Basics: Tom Conrad is seriously one of the most awkward boys in the world. He's admittedly not very good at social situations and is kind of shy (see: not being able to talk to Bill and Mike about writing issues and waiting forever to call Butcher back after he was kicked out). He also doesn't know how to smile in a picture.
Yeah, he's that guy.
Some things to know about Tom: He's kind of creepy. Like, apparently it is totally normal for Tom to go through his friends' stuff at night (both Nick Scimeca and Sean Van Vleet have attested to this) and/or take pictures of his friends' sleeping.
He drinks lots of cheap alcohol:
And he's an adorable failbot who can't spell and owns an inordinate amount of plaid shirts and flip-flops.
PART III: EVERYTHING ELSE AND LINKS
If you're looking to keep up with TAI, it's honestly easiest to just read theacademyis. Everything gets posted there, so you don't have to keep up with everyone's blogs and websites. But for those that like to bookmark those sort of things for themselves...
Official site, which has links to all their other sites.
Guide to TAI TV. This is super useful, especially if you're just getting into them. They are all worth watching, in their own special way and it gives you the best insight to the guys and they're just plain funny. The first season (the season with Tom that has since been retconned off the Fueled By Ramen Youtube) was predominantly filmed by Jon Walker (Bill filmed and edited them before Jon joined them on tour). Double Duel and Twenty Questions are my personal favorites. The second season is also lots of fun and all of them were directed by Jack the Camera Guy. He also takes pretty much all the photos they upload to their FriendsOrEnemies account and he's been guarding the briefcase of their new music at Warped. The poster doesn't have the third season episodes yup, but they are on the official site and new ones are uploaded every Sunday night. Well, Monday morning, if you want to get technical.
ETA Youtube made FueledByRamen take down all of their videos for some reason that I still don't understand, so most TAI TVs are gone. You can download seasons 2 and 3 from iTunes as a free podcast and for season 1, the taimedia3 has them.
William's blog
William's twitter
Siska's personal FOE
Siska's blog
Siska's Twitter
TAI's FOE There are tons of photos and videos that don't get posted anywhere. My personal favorites are of Siska watching his brother on Survivor.
Michael's Myspace
Michael's Twitter
Butcher's art site
Butcher's Myspace
Butcher's Twitter
Tony's Twitter
Tom's photography site
Tom's blog
Even bigger Photobucket
FBR press materials
Scans of the AP cover article If you read one article about them, this is the one to read.
taimedia3 Total goldmine of media. You have to wait to be friended back by the mods, but it doesn't take very long.
And honestly, I think that is it. If I've made a glaring error of any kind, please let me know. I tried to source everything, but I only semi-recently started obsessively saving links, so some things got lost to the internet. Also, I will try to keep this updated as time passes. Oh, and feel free to link this wherever. I wrote this up because frankly, I was tired of people not having their TAI canon right.
ETA 10/22/2009 ALL NEW UPDATES ARE/WILL BE POSTED HERE.
ETA 4/23/09 This post almost exceeds LJ's word count limit. :(
ETA 4/05/09 Added pictures of Butcher's new tattoos, a few things about Bill and some link changes at the end.
ETA 3/23/09 Added that Chiz is now married.
ETA 3/10/09 Added some new developments to TAI and Tom's relationship.
ETA 2/05/09 Added a link to a great Chiz primer and a teeny bit to the baby Beckett situation.
ETA 1/31/09 Added some details to the early part of the timeline and some other small things about the guys.
ETA 1/04/09 Added some stuff to the timeline and little details about some of the guys.
ETA 9/27/08 Added some stuff about Fast Times and some info to William, Siska and Butcher's sections.
ETA 8/2/08 Added some bits of info from recent interviews with Bill and Siska
This is The Academy Is...
But so was this.
And this was too.
(you can laugh at Siska's hair, it's okay)
Yes, TAI has had quite the history. And since we're talking about history, might as well start at the beginning.
PART I: TIMELINE
Sometime in 2001-2002, William Beckett and Mike Carden's respective Chicago scene bands (or in William's case, one-man acoustic act, occasionally starring Nick Scimeca) broke up. They had been rivals (eta William's act was Remember Maine, which includes a track that has him and Sean Van Vleet of Empires talking at the end, and Mike's was Jodie) but soon found common ground, with their respective loves of Led Zeppelin and the Smashing Pumpkins. They decided they wanted to make music together. However, William's parents did not approve of him saying no to college and yes to music and kicked him out of the house.
"My whole senior year of high school was this big struggle with my parents," he says. "I had to move out of my mom's house to actually be able to do it."
So, he and Mike moved into a crappy apartment to live the musician's dream. William worked at the Gap to support them.
Also during 2002 (March 4, to be exact), Bill took Mike to his friend Jason Siska's 18th birthday party. It was there that Mike was introduced to Jason's little brother, Adam, and they quickly bonded over music. Bill had known Adam for awhile and it was that day that the three of them decided they should make music together. This was when The Academy Is... was born.
(Again, it's okay, laugh at Siska's hair)
From here, the guys recruit Mike DelPrincipe on drums and AJ LaTrace on lead guitar (Mike has always played rhythm guitar, as far as I understand it).
AJ and Mike D., respectively.
eta 01/31/09 Just wanted to add that before AJ LaTrace joined The Academy, he was in Farewell Night with one, Jonathan Walker.
They started writing and performing as The Academy and released The Academy EP in 2004 on an indie label LLR. However, due to issues with another band called The Academy, the boys changed their name to The Academy Is... Why? I have absolutely no idea. eta 1/31/09 Apparently, they added the "Is..." because they already had The Academy merch made and it was just easier and cheaper to add on "Is..." then come up with a new band name.
eta 01/31/09 Here is a video of them performing in a high school cafeteria back in 2003. As always, please, laugh at Siska's hair.
Soon after, TAI started gathering a lot of buzz in the Chicago scene. Friend and fellow scene king, Pete Wentz was a huge fan and persuaded his label, Fueled By Ramen to see this band and sign them.
This move by Pete is what inspired him to start his own record label, Decaydance.
Now that the guys were signed to a label, they quickly started working on their first full-length album. AJ, who had had trouble working with Mike before, was apparently still not feeling it and neither was Mike D. But, and this is very important, they wrote on Almost Here. AJ wrote almost all the guitar parts, from what I understand, as well. But during August/September 2004, Mike D. and AJ left the band.
Siska announces there's a new lineup, 9/4/2004
anyways, theres been alot of confusion and alot of talk. i just want to clear the air, and dispell all rumors. Everything with me and the academy guys are cool. yeah, things didnt work out the way we wanted it to, but things are good now. - AJ's livejournal (check out the last comment from Siska's old livejournal)
AJ went on to college and seems to have made the right decision for himself, while Mike D. is now in a band called Amrita and occasionally checks out Empires shows.
Now, who did the boys get to replace their guitarist and drummer?
Andy "The Butcher" Mrotek and Tom Conrad.
Tom had been well-known around the Chicago scene for years, mostly for his previous band, 504 Plan, which also starred Nick Scimeca (most notably known for designing the Bartskull and pretty much every piece of early Clan merch and almost every Decaydance/FBR band's website) and Jon Walker, of Panic at the Disco.
The Butcher, who received his nickname from working a butcher's shop, had been making music in the Milwaukee scene for quite some time, himself. But he was, well, in a different sort of scene.
I really have no idea what this about. I've heard that it was a breakdance group turned boy band or that it was a pop-punk band making fun of boy bands or that it was just a straight up boy band. So, who knows.
ETA lexicon brought it to my attention that it was the second option! Here is the article the photo comes from. Oh Butcher.
Anyway, Tom and Butcher joined the band and they finished recording what was to become Almost Here. It was released on February 8, 2005.
It should be noted that the CD booklet credits The Butcher and Tom for writing. This is a lie. The Academy Is... likes to lie to you. Accept this.
Now, the boys start touring. And they tour their asses off. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's all they did through Warped 2006. They toured with many bands, like Midtown, Gym Class Heroes, The All-American Rejects and most notably, Panic at the Disco. The Truckstops and Statelines tour, which started in February 2006, turned out to be the most crucial in Panic's career. It also starts to spell out bad things for the boys in TAI.
Truckstops and Statelines was TAI's first headlining big tour. They were out of the vans and into the bus and they had to be extremely stoked. Opening for them were semi-well known bands, Acceptance and Hellogoodbye, and then a little band of barely-legal teenagers from Nevada, Panic at the Disco. Panic was the opening band when this tour started. A Fever You Can't Sweat Out had been released back in September 2005 but no one had really heard of them. Yet.
Now, things started out fine. TAI and Panic had toured in the UK shortly before this tour and they got along great and even had them star in one of their TAI TVs.
Also, TAI had this guitar tech/videographer on tour with them. His name was, and still is, Jon Walker.
It was his second tour with them, as they had recently rescued him from "being bummed" while working at Starbucks. As you can probably tell, he fit in well with TAI. He also liked those crazy Panic kids, too.
Anyway, as the tour went out, "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" started climbing the charts and the video started getting played on MTV. Soon, people were going to the Truckstops and Statelines tour to see these Panic at the Disco kids and that was it. Panic, who were young and somewhat inexperienced, were stealing the show from it's headliners. This made things somewhat tense.
Warped Tour, however, was not where the morale significantly dropped within the band. It began during our sold out headlining tour with Panic! At the Disco, where the shows started feeling like a co-headlining tour to the leaders within the band. - Tom Conrad
Now, in between Truckstops and Statelines ending in April 2006 and Warped starting in June, TAI, Panic and Gym Class Heroes went to Japan together. Things appeared to be okay, but they were not.
By mid-May, Panic fires their bassist Brent Wilson for being unreliable and not a good-enough musician. And they need someone to fill-in for them. They decide to call their friend Jon Walker and ask him to come fill-in for a few dates. He flies out from Chicago to Vegas the very next day and learns all the bass parts from listening to Fever on his iPod (sorry, the awesomeness of Jon Walker makes me gush). Anyway, point is, Ryan Rossy stole TAI's guitar tech/videographer (also Tom's best friend) a month before the biggest tour of the summer, Warped.
However, that was not the only thing putting a damper on things for everyone, particularly Tom.
Going into last summer was a bit rough for me. I had came home from a tour over seas to hear news that an old friend passed away tragically. Shortly after, my family and I experienced another loss with the passing a family relative due to illness.
In addition to all of this, the guys realize they haven't written music in almost two years and they need to start thinking about record #2.
"The reality was we didn't have any songs," Beckett says, cringing. "We had 20-second pieces [of music]. There's a big difference. I guess that my way of telling myself that it was all right when it wasn't. I think I had convinced myself, or seemingly convinced myself. But on the inside, I was a mess." - AP cover article
TAI really did not know what to do. They had intense amounts of pressure, not only from their record label, but from themselves, to write the best pop-punk-emo record ever. Their labelmates Fall Out Boy were huge by now and Panic was becoming more popular by the day.
TAI wanted to be next, so they started to work on some songs. The only one that came out of that summer, that I know of, was "Toasted Skin."
Warped ended in August and from there, the boys went home to Chicago (or Catskill Mountains, if you take William literally) to work more diligently on their follow-up.
mike, butcher, tom, adam and i are going to write an amazing album in the catskill mountains - Bill
But this is not what happened. We will probably never know what exactly went down, but whatever did, it was not good, because by the end of September 2006, Tom had been kicked out of the band.
I had known Butcher for about two years earlier before we both joined the band (we had replaced two original members since its formation). I was closest with him since we joined at the same time. Butcher broke the news to me because Mike and Bill could not get to the point during a very drawn out conversation. Butcher stepped in as my friend. There weren’t any exact reasons given to me at the time, just that it was not working anymore… - Tom
"I felt bad for him, having to sit through that conversation," Mrotek says genuinely. "He may have known that was going to happen, but when I was like, "Fuck it, I don't think you should be in this band,' that was hard. I wanted to say the words just because I don't think he could hear it from anyone else and take it." - Butcher
Here is the first indication that he had been kicked out. His girlfriend, Danielle, had apparently posted something alluding to him being kicked out on either Livejournal or Myspace, but also deleted said comment that night. No one really knew what was going on and mostly mocked the person for stalking her, but throughout the next couple of weeks, there were numerous posts on theacademyis community wondering if Tom actually had been kicked out or not. There was even this post where Tony Marino (TAI's tour manager) says he doesn't know anything about the whole situation.
It is not until October 23rd, 2006, that the band releases a statement on their website:
brightly forked futures
After two years on the road together, Tom and the Academy Is... have gone in seperate directions.
Tom and his photographs can be found at forevernever.net
William, Mike, Adam, and The Butcher can be found in an abandoned warehouse, somewhere on the southside of Chicago writing their second album.
While we are not too excited about the potential internet drama this news might invite, we felt our fans should know. We hope you understand and can continue to support both The Academy Is..., and Tom.
On November 1st, Tom makes a blog post of his own:
its about time you showed up
I apologize. I would have said something sooner but it was not the right time nor was this the right place to do it and honestly, it still isn't. There's not much to say with what happened besides I dont want people thinking I quit the band. Thank you to everyone that has reached out to me and shared such kind words. You mean the world to me. Big thank you to everyone at Crush, FBR, APA, the Crew and definitely TMx2. But what now for Thomas Conrad you ask? Not quite sure but I will keep taking photographs and this will be the place to view / read of what I've been up to. Moving on...Some of the prints are almost gone in the webstore. Don't wait if you care to have one. Once they're gone, they're gone. What else?!? Ah, I posted a photo journal from my most favorite tour I was ever a part of, this summers warped tour. ooh really? nah... Next week, I will be heading out with Panic! At the Disco to expose what fresh individuals they are through a lens of camera. Jwalk and I were actually separated at birth. Believe it. One last thing, definitely check out Day19.com. They have a photo'zine for sale which is worth the coin. Get it. take care.
-tom
Also, in between these two blog entries, TAI goes to the MTVU Woodie Awards. Here's what they looked like:
Things were really not good for any of them.
Now, like I said, we will probably never know what all happened with the whole Tom situation, but from what I can find, it basically boiled down to this: Tom couldn't write music with them.
3. How involved were you in the writing of Santi? Do you feel like you were welcomed wholly into the creative process?
I was never involved in the writing for Santi, nor was I ever welcomed into the creative process. Butcher and I weren’t a part of the writing process for Almost Here either. This made things unbalanced between everyone. We both joined the band right after the album was completed, which I believe made things hard coming into the band. I was concerned why members were removed so quickly after the record was finished, but I took the opportunity anyways. Since I was not a part of the creative process, things were not as fulfilling. Bill and Mike have their own way of doing things. I was never needed for the writing process, but nor did I ever really fight to be a part of it. Regardless of everything, there wasn’t much song writing that was completed together during the two years of touring. - Tom
Tom just wasn't contributing," Mrotek insists. "[In the practice space, even Beckett] was positive. He was encouraging us. But Tom just wasn't into it. He wasn't happy. It put this weird vibe in the room." - Butcher
Is this Tom's fault? Well, yes and no. He says he didn't fight to be apart of the creative process with Bill and Mike, but, well, Bill and Mike's writing process is not very welcoming, either.
The dynamics between Bill and Mike makes things very hard. One almost has to take sides to get anything done, which is something that I did not do while in the band.
Basically, Tom is an awkward guy who doesn't like fighting and he was in a band with two people who have to fight to get anything done. This was obviously never going to work and getting kicked out was probably the best thing to ever happen to both parties. Tom is a million times happier in his new band Empires than he ever was in TAI and TAI is a million times happier now than they ever were with Tom. The thing that sucks is that it went down nasty, by all accounts.
Supposedly, Bill showed up at the bar by Tom's apartment that fall (to talk, I assume) and things ended in some sort of altercation (There have been a few comments, and one confrontation, where the outcome was a bit on the negative side. - Tom). Also, as of the April 2007 AP cover article that TAI did, Tom had not returned any of Butcher's phone calls or emails, but it's been over a year since then, so I would hope and assume things are much less strained, now.
ETA 8/2/08 Siska and Hey Chris recently had this exchange on Hey Chris' weekly radio show:
Siska: "Oh, dude, have you seen Empires play at all?"
HC: "Yeah, dude, they're awesome dude."
Siska: "Yeah, I really wanna see a show. I ran into Tom at Buffalo Wild Wings one night. I hadn't seen him in a long time and it was really cool and when I come back around to Chicago I definitely want to check them out."
HC: "Oh definitely, dude. Definitely. They're really good, dude. That's cool you guys are still cool and everything."
Siska: "I mean, you know, as cool as I hope and everything."
HC: "Yeah, he's a good dude. He's a solid dude, man."
Siska: "Of course."
So, at the very least, Tom and Siska are cool and hang out and eat buffalo wings together. eta 1/04/09 I've also heard (from gossip comms, so grain of salt and all that) that Tom, Bill, Siska and Butcher are all cool. Mike and Tom...not so much. Also, supposedly Mike forbid Siska from going to an Empires show, but that I wouldn't take very seriously.
ETA 3/10/09 Last week William announced this on his blog:
Since This Providence can only stay on the tour until April 1st, I’ve asked Tom, Sean, and Max from Empires to join us. They will be jumping on in Texas or Tennessee on or around April 1st. Check out the link for the specifics over the next few days. I am very excited about having them out!
And Tom followed up with:
This may come as a shock (as it is for me too) but it has to do with just a piece, not the entire entity. You can't forgive until you're ready to forget. I'm not expecting anyone to understand.
TOM (AND SEAN AND MAX) AND BILL (AND SISKA) ARE GOING ON TOUR TOGETHER! PIGS CAN FLY, PEOPLE. PIGS CAN FUCKING FLY.
ETA 4/23/09 Just updating to say that the tour went smoothly (besides Empires being sick and Siska hurting himself) but nothing bad happened between the guys, which is more than I could ever hope for.
Also, this was not just a band firing someone. Tom and those guys were very close friends and for their relationships to have gotten that bad, well, it's just kind of sad. I mean, Tom was the person who said this in Kerrang sometime in 2006:
"Like the rest of his bandmates, Conrad has an unwavering belief in The Academy Is.., despite his parents' reservations about his dropping out of college to pursue his dream. "I knew from day one," he says. "It was like, 'Let's go, let's do this.' There was no question in my mind. It was the most right decision I've ever made. I think we have an intensity most bands don't have."
And Bill was the guy who said this in the same article:
If we lost any of the five of us, it wouldn't be The Academy Is... anymore."
...Yeah. It's just plain sad. It was for the best, but still, it kind of makes my heart hurt.
Anyway.
While Tom went on the Nothing Rhymes with Circus tour with his bff Jwalk, TAI went back to trying to write their next album. They were working with producer Butch Walker and he basically gave them Michael Guy Chislett, this Australian guitarist that had been living on his couch for the better part of three years.
Michael stepped in to help play and was soon asked to be a full-time member.
Now, back to the writing of Santi. Even without having to deal with that whole Tom situation, writing was still not getting any easier for Bill.
"My band was doing so great," he says as a look of disappointment washes over him. "but I [was] just losing it."
"It was just extreme anxiety," Beckett says. "With the presence of the band there, it was this constant reminder that I wasn't producing. It was unbearable." Eventually, it got to a point where Beckett couldn't get out of bed.
"Beckett, on the other hand, bailed on his bandmates and checked into a LA hotel room by himself. Which seems rather questionable: Why would a guy who was as depressed as Beckett want to isolate himself in such a dramatic way? Does it seem too far off to suggest that like Wentz, Beckett might have wanted to step away from the pressures of pending fame permanently?
After some prying, Beckett will more or less admit to contemplating suicide last fall.
(All quotes from The AP cover article)
...Yeah. When I say things were not good, they were not good. But! Once William checked himself into the empty hotel room and was able to be by himself, he started writing again, and it was in that period that he wrote Santi. (Now, whether or not it was before this or after when he lost half of the lyrics to Santi on an airplane, I am not sure. But he did get "LAX to O'Hare" out of that incident.)
So! Santi is released on April 3, 2007 and it debuted at #33 on the Billboard charts. They did the Honda Civic Tour with Fall Out Boy and Cobra Starship that spring and summer, and continued touring around the world and the US through that fall. Except for a two-week break in the middle of October...
Yes, here we go. The Baby Beckett Situation.
So, supposedly, on October 12, 2007, William and his on-again/off-again girlfriend Christine welcomed a baby girl named Genevieve Dylan Beckett. There has never been an official confirmation from William or the band about this, but back in November 2007, someone on fueledbygossip made this post about a church bulletin from Barrington, Illinois congratulating William and Christine Beckett on the birth of their daughter. Said bulletin is no longer on the internet, but it looked very legit. Also, there is screenshot that Christine supposedly posted of Siska's girlfriend Lindsay holding baby Genevieve. But, like all things involving secret babies and the internet, not everyone was convinced. Many people claimed that they had seen Christine at the Honda Civic Tour and she was definitely not pregnant or that she and William had broken up months ago. And even now, there are still doubters, despite alleged confirmations from Travis McCoy about said baby and marriage. So, until William or the band confirms or denies baby Beckett's existence, it will probably be that way. For what it's worth, I think she exists.
ETA 8/2/08 Bill did an interview with DJ RossStar recently in which RossStar asked him about the baby:
DJ: "Everybody's asking about your baby."
Bill: "About what?"
DJ: "Your baby."
Bill: *laughs awkwardly and pauses* "Yeah, yeah."
DJ: "And by everyone, I mean 27 people."
Bill: "That would also uh, fall under, uh, Wikipedia, uh, nonsense."
DJ: "Really?"
Bill: *doesn't respond*
DJ: "Could you go on there and delete these things?"
Bill: "Oh, I don't know. I don't look at it, to be honest. I don't look at that...crap. I keep to myself and do what I do. We're here to make music and play shows, we're not here to run a circus."
Also, supposedly, Gabe Saporta denied the baby's existence at Warped but it's Gabe, so you never really can tell.
ETA 2/05/09 This was on Bill's twitter last night: in bliss with gdb Do we know what he means by GDB? No, not for sure, but GDB could stand for Genevieve Dylan Beckett, so you know...there's that.
Anyway.
After their fall tour was over, TAI laid low for a couple months. They moved out to LA to start working on their next album and watch Siska's brother on Survivor. By all accounts, things went very smoothly this time around and Fast Times at Barrington High is due out August 19th. Both Pete Wentz and Nick Scimeca say it is "insane" and better than anything they've ever done. Also, Siska has said that they all had an "epiphany of happy feelings" making this record, so that should reflect on the album's content.
ETA 9/27/2008
So, Fast Times At Barrington High was released on August 19, 2008. It debuted at 17 on the Billboard charts and sold about 23,000 copies in its first week (compared to the 33,000 copies Santi sold in its opening week). However, the reviews for Fast Times have been generally very positive and much better than they were for Santi.
In my personal opinion, one reason Fast Times isn't selling as well is because TAI has still not released their video for "About a Girl." They did release the video for "Summer Hair = Forever Young" but I think that was only online? Regardless, they made their "About a Girl" video at the same time and they sent out Polaroids from the set with the FBR pre-sale orders, so it should be done. If they could get that video released, Fuse could play it and it could definitely help their sales. But that's just my two cents.
One thing they are doing, though, is that they're reaching out to the teenage girl fanbase much more than they ever have before. They've been doing interviews with Cosmo!Girl and Seventeen and other magazines like them, which could definitely improve their record sales if they hit the teen girl market. Kill their reputation, probably, but it's not like they had a strong punk rep to begin with, anyway.
ETA 1/04/09 Since I last updated this, TAI did release "About a Girl" as a single and video in mid-October. It's doing pretty well (better than any of their other singles, at least) right now and they just played MTV New Year's Eve bash and their music was all over the Hills this past season. Hey, exposure is exposure.
They also released a song they wrote while on tour, "Winter Passing" on iTunes. Not only is it a good song, I think it says a lot about how they've grown when they can write and record a song while on tour and no one had a breakdown or got kicked out over it.
So, now that we're caught up with the timeline, let's get to know the guys a little better.
PART II: WILLIAM, MIKE, ADAM, BUTCHER AND MICHAEL (AND TO A LESSER EXTENT, TOM)
Name: William Eugene Beckett Jr.
Nicknames: Bill, Billvy (Siska is usually the only one that calls him this), Billiam, Thrilliam (Gabe's occasional name for him)
Instrument of choice: His voice, but he does know how to play guitar and drums as well. He also writes all the lyrics.
Date of Birth: February 11, 1985
Family: Parents divorced, has a step-dad and 2 brothers and 2 sisters. His sister, Courtney, did all the photography for Fast Times. Also, possible wife and child.
The Basics: William is often written as an alcoholic, MENSA-smart slut. Now, I really have no idea where people get this characterization, I mean...
Um.
Well, um.
...Nevermind.
But seriously, there is more to William than the typical fanon characterization. Like, did you know, he was a star baseball player in high school? And he was supposedly a straight-A student. (Back to School video) He also, unsurprisingly, has some emotional baggage.
Because as Beckett continues to step toward the front of the shot, a chunk of long brown hair keeps blowing across his face, and it appears to be crushing a tiny part of his soul.
If you read his old LJ entries, you find lots of the somewhat typical teenage angst you'd expect, but one thing in particular that struck me was William's relationship with Christine's parents.
Christine is amazing-her parents hate me because i'm not going to boston university-whatever, we kickass together. nuff said. - from here
Then imagine this. The love of your life. Her Mother telling you you're breaking up their family. You're embarrassing them by your life's work. You're not good enough for her daughter. You don't look like the type of man she belongs with. You're pants are too tight, people can see your penis. You're choice of lifestyle is disturbing, and you're not helping anyone. You're selfish. You're not righteous, and you're damned. Imagine if I was Jewish or Buddhist... At this point I wish I was out of spite.
Well, if being in love isn't enough, thy will be Damned. - from here
This is why when he decides to cut all of his hair off, I get concerned.
He also said this in Kerrang in 2006:
My mom raised me in such a loving environment. There was very little discipline and that meant that my reservations were pretty unregulated. It meant that from an early age I've always blindly trusted people. I was never skeptical or cynical about other people's motives. I always assume people had the best intentions because my mom always did.
Oh William. :(
But enough of the sad stuff. Because William Beckett is a fucking rockstar.
Make no mistake about it, there's really no job William Beckett is better suited for than being a rock star.
There really is no place he'd rather be than on stage and he is awesome at it. He loves his band and all his batshit-insane fans and even though he hasn't quite made it big, I don't think he'll stop until he does.
ETA 9/27/08
I wanted to add a couple of things that Bill's been bringing up in interviews a lot, lately. One is that he keeps railing against the internet and saying that kids need to get off of it and go out and learn to socialize. Now, disagree with him, agree with him, whatever, but don't doubt for a second that he's not being 100% completely sincere about this. That's the thing about William: he's ridiculously sincere and earnest about his beliefs (and his music, for that matter.) He really is concerned about kids hanging out on the net all day and talking shit about people.
Also, this is just another example how badly Bill wants to be taken seriously as a musician. He puts his whole heart into writing lyrics and making music and it kills him when all people talk about online is his hair or his secret baby or his tight pants or whatever. Is that ridiculous? Well, yeah, but it's William Beckett. He and his band are the definition of ridiculous.
Also, in a shocking turn of events, Bill has decided to start being honest about how shit writing Santi was AND about kicking out Tom. Like in this interview. It actually makes me really proud of him, that he's being this truthful about things and not faking it anymore.
eta 1/04/09 Something to remember when it comes to William is that he is completely ridiculous and over-the-top, no matter what its about. He's old-fashioned and really does love candlelit dinners and long walks on the beach. He's that guy.
ETA 04/05/09
I wanted to add a few things about Bill's writing. He's said his writing is autobiographical in the past and really, all of it is. He puts himself completely out there in his lyrics. On the Snakes & Suits acoustic tour, he talked about how "Down and Out" was written about growing up in a house with domestic abuse, and if you read the lyrics, you can really see what he went through. "Every Burden Has A Version" is also about dealing with abuse.
Also, Big Mess is about Tom and "Everything We Had" might be, too. There is also speculation that "40 Steps" is about Bill finding out about having a baby, but again, just speculation. He has said that is one of his favorite songs he's ever written, though.
But back to "Down and Out." There is a line towards the end that says We won't forget Tony or Johnny. This is referring to Tony Marino (TAI's tour manager) and Johnny Minardi, who are both very old and very good friends of Bill's. He lived with them at some point after he moved out of his house. Tony and Johnny and best friends and they own Snakes & Suits together. Well, Bill definitely won't forget them now, as he got the Snakes & Suits ampersand tattooed on his wrist:
Oh Bill ♥
Name: Michael Stephen Carden
Nicknames: Dr. Fear, Santi
Instrument of choice: Guitar (he has always played rhythm guitar)
Date of Birth: December 3, 1984
Family: Brother, Lukas
The Basics: Mike is usually written as an asshole. This is because he is an asshole.
We call Mike Carden “Dr. Fear” because he’s kind of an intense bastard sometimes... - Siska (he also dressed up as Dr. Fear for Halloween last year but it is too terrifying for me to post)
Don't get me wrong, Mike is not the evil incarnate or anything. He's just kind of a dick. Like, he beats Siska up for the lolz.
Everything was going well until Mike Carden attacked me and started pulling my hair just to mess with me. He seemed to be having a wonderful time. A few minutes later, Tony came by the room and I tried to get him to get Mike out of the room so he would stop ripping my hair out. Just when I thought it was over, I was ambushed and Mike ran back into the room and began yanking at my mullet again... Once he finally left, I requested that The Butcher "pass that kit-kat" from the mini- bar. I broke him off two pieces and kept two for myself. Just then, Mike came back into the room to pull my hair a final time and to quickly snatch my half of the kit-kat bar from my hands. Now that was crossing the line... I was pretty upset at The Butcher for letting Mike back in the room so I politely requested that he go into Mike and Tonys room and steal the kit-kat from their mini bar. A minute later he returned and I ate all four pieces of that kit-kat bar, and didnt break off a piece for anyone. Once again, Sisky Business came out on top! - Oh Siska
Mike and I were goofing around and started wrestling/ play fighting in the front lounge. Unfortunately we got carried away and I got hit in the eye with a 2 liter bottle of Tonic Water. All of the sudden there was blood all over my face and a huge gash. It hurt pretty bad, but all is forgiven. Someone get Siska an adult.
Mike really is an intense individual when it comes to music. If you watch the bonus DVD that came with Santi you can see what I mean. He, like William, is extremely passionate and devoted to this band and to making it work. Also, even more than William, Mike wants to make it big. See, Mike turned down a spot to be in Fall Out Boy back in the day to stay with TAI. (Yes, guys, Mike Carden could have been the 5th member of FOB. Imagine that.) And I think after watching them, Panic at the Disco, Gym Class Heroes and their other labelmates like Paramore make it big, well, I think he really wants it to be his band's turn, next.
But like I said, he's not the devil. But he's no angel, either. So, when he's not making fun of his bandmates or sneaking onto Cobra Starship's bus to eat their watermelon, he likes to smoke in bathtubs and drink alcohol.
He also apparently used to play chess.
Mike's pretty reserved and never writes blogs or anything, so the best way to find out more about him is to watch TAI TV. He's probably the worst actor of them all (not that that says much) so it's pretty funny to watch him always about to crack up when he's reading his lines.
Name: Adam Taylor Siska
Nicknames: Siska, Sisky, Sisky-Biz, Sisky Business, Sisky-Biz Bass Whiz, well, you get the idea.
Instrument of Choice: Bass, but he also plays piano and guitar. eta And harmonica!
Date of Birth: January 8, 1988
Family: Siblings: brother: jason age 18 (son of bearded dad and schitzophrenic mom) johnny age 16 (son of dead dad and hates the world mom) david age 23(son of dead dad and south american mom) gustavo age 26 (son of dead dad and south american mom) daniell 25(son of dead dad and dont know mom)juaquin (son of dead dad and river pheonixs mom mom) Rachel age 11 (son of pony tail dad and black mom) phillipe age 21 (son of pony tail dad and cuban mom) - I wish I was kidding. Siska often signs things as "the boy with three dads" and the best way I can figure this out is that his biological parents ("schizophrenic mom and bearded dad") had him and his older brother Jason and then divorced. His mother remarried but that step-dad passed away ("dead dad") and now his mom is remarried again ("pony tail dad"). Do not ask me how River Phoenix fits into this because I do not know. But, for all simple purposes, his immediate family is his mom, his step-dad and Jason, going by this yearbook ad. eta 04/05/09 Siska has also said that he has family in Argentina and that his parents at one point lived in Alaska. I'm starting to think that Siska has a family member in every corner of the world.
The Basics: Siska is often characterized as being, well, three. He is, not in fact, 3-years-old, but 20. (eta He's finally 21 now!!) However, it is easy to see how the mistake can be made. Some of his favorite things in life are junk food, pizza, Dr. Pepper and going to the zoo.
Siska is the baby of the band. He's at least three years younger than everyone else and he's been in it since he was 15. And as the baby of the band, he keeps things light. When shit's going down, he makes everyone laugh.
"Sisky keeps everything light-hearted," says Andy Mrotek.
He's basically everyone's little brother that everyone is always daring to do stupid shit and he actually does it. Like getting the worst haircut of all time.
Or getting his ass tattooed.
Siska's up for anything.
Kristen: Speaking of women’s clothing, who in the band would make the best drag queen?
Adam: Me. Yeah, I would say me.
Kristen: What would be your drag stage name?
Adam: Esmeralda.
A couple other things you should know about Siska is that he is a ridiculously huge Chicago Bulls fan. He loves all Chicago teams but he loves basketball.
Also, as I mentioned earlier, his brother Jason was on Survivor: Fans vs. Favorites this past year. This will always be funny.
But Jason going to live on a deserted island for a month actually isn't that weird for the Siskas. They were born and spent most of their childhood in the US Virgin Islands before moving to Illinois when Siska was around eight-years-old. He seems to go back at least once a year and listens to reggae and spending time "finding [his] inner rastafarii."
You can also read his old livejournal entries here. Siska has never been the brightest crayon in the box, so beware of the typos. My personal favorite entry is the one where he talks about getting arrested.
The cop asked me what i was supposed to be for halloween. My reply was "nothing at all" and he said "so thats how you always dress??"
Siska is made of pure ridiculousness. He's also, somehow, the best interviewee the band has. Like, he gives the most interesting, funny and professional interviews out of anyone in the band. The back to school video is a very good depiction of him, I think. It shows how dumb and ridiculous he is ("I did not go to class and I did not get A's") but it also shows that he's not just some dumbass guy in a band ("The universe tends to unfold as it should.")
ETA 9/27/08
I neglected to mention a very important thing about Siska. He is extremely loyal to William and always will be. I mean, look at it this way: Siska was 12 when he met Bill, through his older brother. And while they were friends, Siska was just Jason's little brother to Bill for years, until they decided to form a band together, with Mike. Siska was only 15 when that happened and has been in this band ever since then. He spent his senior year of high school on the road and doing his homework online. Siska did not really have the typical teenage experience and it's because of William and this band. This also has to be why he's the most well-spoken member of TAI-he's been in this band and touring and being itnerviewed for 1/4th of his life.
eta 01/31/09 Just adding about Bill and Siska's BFFness.
AS: Yeah, I met William when he was playing drums in a band with my older brother. I remember coming down to the basement and seeing this kid with a shaved head and bunch of piercings, and a drum set with lots of cool stickers like Asian Man Records, Less Than Jake, etc. I thought, this guy is cool, not too many people around here listen to these bands. Later that year he started playing songs and singing, he wasn't great but he was better than anyone else I knew! I'd started playing bass and we started hanging out. He was always better at writing songs than me. He started playing as Remember Maine, and I was the unofficial roadie and merch guy. He was just playing acoustic, so I basically just carried his guitar.
G: So you'd bring his guitar in and then you'd have a drink?
AS: I was only 13 at the time, so not so much!
G: But you've made up for it since then?
AS: Yeah, yeah, though not as much as you'd think. Anyway then my father died and I was going through a weird time. At that time New Jersey was where it was at, all our favourite bands were all from Jersey. I remember thinking I needed to get out of Chicago and go to Jersey. William had a show booked in Hamilton Street Cafe in Jersey, in very early 2003, and I came out. We crashed with the guys from Hidden In Plain View, who also played that show. And I got really attached to the idea of going out in a van and playing, just doing that for as long as I could. Later back in Chicago, we formed the band. - from here
Name: Andrew Bishop Mrotek
Nicknames: The Butcher. And seriously, he only goes by The Butcher.
Instrument of choice: Drums/percussion. Also plays guitar and bass and sings.
Date of Birth: July 4, 1983
Family: Fraternal twin brother Dan
The Basics: The Butcher is three things at all times: Talented, super nice and mostly naked.
In addition to being a kickass musician, Butcher is also a very talented artist. I'm pretty sure he graduated from art school in Wisconsin but I don't remember where I read that.
William likes to call him "their little baby genius".
ETA 9/27/08
Here's some more of Butcher's artwork:
eta 01/31/09 Butcher has a website for his art now! There's lots of great stuff, photography, wood burning, sketches of Siska as a preying mantis and Bill as a chimpanzee, and other awesome Butcher art.
When he's not drawing, making music, sewing sombreros back together or painting his toenails, Butcher is often hanging out somewhere with barely any clothes on.
I assume most of this is because of his seriously awesome tattoos that he likes to show off.
Also, I think he just likes being naked.
Uh...what was I saying?
ETA 04/05/09 Butcher's been busy getting some new tattoos lately, and here are some photos of them:
Oh yeah, The Butcher. Totally naked and totally awesome. He is one of the only people I've heard very consistent fan reports about. Everyone basically says the same thing: "He was nice and smiled a lot."
"Butcher's the glue of the whole thing," says Beckett. "He ties everything together because everybody can get along with him."
Once we got to the hotel, we all headed up to our rooms and the Butcher and I stayed up for a little bit listening to some records and talking about music. I am happy to have such a great roommate. He doesnt smell, he likes good music, and his snoring is under control. - Siska
Today The Butcher and I worked on some new music and had dinner together. It was a nice day. The Butcher is one guy I always get along with. Siska loves him best
Name: Michael Guy Chislett
Nicknames: Chiz, Chizzy
Instrument of choice: Guitar
Date of Birth: April 6, 1982
Family: eta Chiz has 6 brothers and sisters, which he talks about briefly here. eta Also, Chiz now has a wife! Her name is Naomi and they've been together for years. She's also the girl who is on the Fast Times cover with Bill.
The Basics: Michael's been a professional musician longer than most people realize. Before joining TAI, Michael played in a few bands with Butch Walker. They actually still play in a side project together, called 1969.
And before he moved to America, he played guitar for Hillsong, a gigantic Australian church. I think he even went to Africa with them on some sort of retreat thing.
I have to admit, I probably know the least about Chiz out of all of them, but from what I do know, he seems very sweet and kind of confused by things, but it just makes him more endearing. He is Australian and doesn't understand why most Americans hate Vegemite. But he really must be pretty easy to get along with and easy-going. He doesn't drink (often) or smoke and is vegan and somehow fits perfectly in with the rest of those boozehounds.
Also important to know, Michael dropped out of high school at 16 and is really dyslexic. He gets kind of sad if you make fun of his typos on his Myspace. Like he literally says i have noticed that many ppl dont like my spelling... you must remember that i droped out of highschool when i was bearly 16!... and i dont have the time to run spell check! im pretty sure you know what im sayin rite??
So, yeah, Michael is kind of faily but a very good musician and seriously adorable and Butch Walker loves him best.
eta 1/04/09 Just so you know, Chiz really hates John Mayer.
eta 2/5/09 If you'd like to know more about Michael's musical history, please read this excellent primer on him. It's got all the info you could ever want.
While he's not in the band anymore, if you're going to write TAI fic (which is what most primers are for, right?), you should still know at least a little bit about him, right?
Name: Thomas Alfred Conrad
Nicknames: Tomrad, Tombo, Tommy Gun (someone on his now-deleted myspace called him that, anyway), Com Tonrad
Instrument of Choice: Guitar
Date of Birth: May 19, 1984
Family: Younger sister, Denise
The Basics: Tom Conrad is seriously one of the most awkward boys in the world. He's admittedly not very good at social situations and is kind of shy (see: not being able to talk to Bill and Mike about writing issues and waiting forever to call Butcher back after he was kicked out). He also doesn't know how to smile in a picture.
Yeah, he's that guy.
Some things to know about Tom: He's kind of creepy. Like, apparently it is totally normal for Tom to go through his friends' stuff at night (both Nick Scimeca and Sean Van Vleet have attested to this) and/or take pictures of his friends' sleeping.
He drinks lots of cheap alcohol:
And he's an adorable failbot who can't spell and owns an inordinate amount of plaid shirts and flip-flops.
PART III: EVERYTHING ELSE AND LINKS
If you're looking to keep up with TAI, it's honestly easiest to just read theacademyis. Everything gets posted there, so you don't have to keep up with everyone's blogs and websites. But for those that like to bookmark those sort of things for themselves...
Official site, which has links to all their other sites.
Guide to TAI TV. This is super useful, especially if you're just getting into them. They are all worth watching, in their own special way and it gives you the best insight to the guys and they're just plain funny. The first season (the season with Tom that has since been retconned off the Fueled By Ramen Youtube) was predominantly filmed by Jon Walker (Bill filmed and edited them before Jon joined them on tour). Double Duel and Twenty Questions are my personal favorites. The second season is also lots of fun and all of them were directed by Jack the Camera Guy. He also takes pretty much all the photos they upload to their FriendsOrEnemies account and he's been guarding the briefcase of their new music at Warped. The poster doesn't have the third season episodes yup, but they are on the official site and new ones are uploaded every Sunday night. Well, Monday morning, if you want to get technical.
ETA Youtube made FueledByRamen take down all of their videos for some reason that I still don't understand, so most TAI TVs are gone. You can download seasons 2 and 3 from iTunes as a free podcast and for season 1, the taimedia3 has them.
William's blog
William's twitter
Siska's personal FOE
Siska's blog
Siska's Twitter
TAI's FOE There are tons of photos and videos that don't get posted anywhere. My personal favorites are of Siska watching his brother on Survivor.
Michael's Myspace
Michael's Twitter
Butcher's art site
Butcher's Myspace
Butcher's Twitter
Tony's Twitter
Tom's photography site
Tom's blog
Even bigger Photobucket
FBR press materials
Scans of the AP cover article If you read one article about them, this is the one to read.
taimedia3 Total goldmine of media. You have to wait to be friended back by the mods, but it doesn't take very long.
And honestly, I think that is it. If I've made a glaring error of any kind, please let me know. I tried to source everything, but I only semi-recently started obsessively saving links, so some things got lost to the internet. Also, I will try to keep this updated as time passes. Oh, and feel free to link this wherever. I wrote this up because frankly, I was tired of people not having their TAI canon right.