Not to labor over the band’s name, does the concept of joie de vivre have any thing to do with band philosophy? Your chosen genre isn’t big on celebration as much as lamentation, but I get the impression you are a chipper group of guys.

Honestly, one day a few of us sat in a damp basement shooting out ideas. I think at the time the band name was farthest from our worries. We just wanted to get songs written and start to record an EP. For just a split second the band was going to be named something horrible like, Not Just Scottsburg, But Towns. I think we chose wisely. We later settled on the more ironic, but still impossible to remember name, Joie De Vivre. I’d say we are a pretty chipper group of guys but when it comes to our music and lyrics I think we like to let lose more of a “downer” side. I’m not saying it’s an act or anything at all along those lines in the least but rather we just like to be more “honest” with our music. Everyone has problems in life; I guess we choose to release it in our music.

The aforementioned genre is emo, of course, which I’m sure you have to defend and discuss constantly. To take things back in time, how did the early days of emo (Rites of Spring, their ilk) influence the lot of you? I’m guessing most of you were not very old when these first albums were released.

I’d say we are more influenced by the third wave of “emo” or whatever wave it may be considered depending on who you’re talking to. The music that was more prominent in the mid to late 90’s with bands such as Mineral, The Promise Ring, Christie Front Drive, American Football, and the bands along those lines, are ones that we tend to draw the most influence from. It is hard to say though on the older bands; we are all still young to that portion. I think most of us worked our way backwards and we would find a band we liked that put records out more recently, then we would see who influenced them. We all understand how the emo-hardcore scene was started in D.C and we know our roots well enough, but the eldest of the emo bands haven’t influenced us much yet, since most of us couldn’t walk yet, or were still just a twinkle in our dad’s eyes.

Of all of the bands to which your group is compared, Mineral pops out more often than any other. Is this band the unofficial favorite of the band, or is it just an artistic coincidence?

We all love Mineral, how could you not with listening to just the first ten minutes of EndSerenading? But everyone in the band just listens to such different music, it would impossible to pick a band favorite. I think we just like a certain guitar tone, and certain writing style. This just so happens to fit perfectly into a “Mineral mold”. As far as starting the band, Chris definitely had Mineral at the forefront of his mind when starting Joie because they pushed forth all this raw emotion and seemed to get the idea of “emo” right- something we all appreciated and something we all wanted to strive for in our music.

You’ve got a six-piece band, which is on the larger side for a rock band. What does everyone do?

Very true- we do have a larger sized group and that’s very possibly because we constantly find things we want to try on our recordings or live and we’re lucky enough to have friends that can make these things happen. We have Brandon who plays bass and does vocals, Chris who plays guitar, Stevie who plays drums, Zach who does our organ and Rhodes stuff, Paul who plays mellophone and trumpet, and Patrick who plays guitars as well.

Joie de Vivre hails from Rockford, IL. What is the scene like there, and what’s one thing we should know about non-Chicago music out of Illinois?

Right now it’s pretty dormant- we’re known for our really fake screamo and pop bands, which is fine if that’s your taste, not ours personally. A few years back and in the 90’s we had a ton of awesome bands that came from here and the surrounding areas, and a few of them still exist. Rockford’s music scene is kind of in this “finding itself again” stage and it’s been getting a lot better lately. A lot of the band’s we are influenced by are from around our general area (northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin) so it’s nice; The Braves, God’s Reflex, Colossal, The Promise Ring, etc. Music from Illinois outside Chicago seems to be a lot more honest and not as (without making a dick comment) “formulated”, not to say that every band in Chicago is like that, there are some really amazing Chicago bands, but the mass product of it seems that way sometimes, but that can really go with anywhere in Illinois, and a lot of areas in the country. But with all that being said, there is a lot of awesome music around here and it needs to be heard, those bands might not dress cool enough or something to get their recognition- who knows.

The Summer Months EP is your first release as Joie de Vivre. How did that come together?

Lots of beer and late nights at a studio- it never really got finished but we put it out anyway. We all knew each other from playing in different bands, playing shows with one another, and going to school with one another. Joie itself started out as a pseudo studio project of Chris, Brandon, and Stevie’s after they got done with their old band. Patrick joined in at the end of 2007 and Zach came in mid 2008, and then Paul just now joined in February, and he will be on the full length this fall. The songs were actually recorded at the end of 2007 into 2008 but we just released them now with Count Your Lucky Stars Records help and we’ve had an awesome response from it- we are kind of caught of guard by how much people are enjoying it, but we’re stoked none the less!

That’s pretty neat that you guys covered a Pedro the Lion song on your EP. Has the band all heard Control? That’s a wild record. What’s your favorite?

Thank you! That was just a spur of the moment thing that kind of happened one day and we all learned it and just recorded it. It turned out pretty neat so we were all very happy with it, especially with the small amount of time we put in- plus it was nice to record something of someone else’s for a change after a year or so of our own recordings nonstop. We LOVE Control but a couple of us personally prefer Achilles Heel, and can’t beat Transcontinental. David Bazan is an amazing lyricist and songwriter, thus making us wish we were Pedro the Lion.

The North End is at or nearing completion. What was different about recording this LP for the band?

We spent a lot more time writing and thinking about each song. With Summer Months it was more of us throwing every song we had at the time down just so we could say it’s done. With the North End it was more of a process of figuring out what worked and what didn’t. We are super excited to release it because it’s a great step forward for us, we’ve had time to grow and develop more, and find our sound.

What do you all like to do when not playing together?

I think half of us drink excessively and the other half stay locked up in their apartments. It is not often the entire band will see each other besides at a show. I know a few of us like to get out and see our friends bands play, hang out, talk about music or get involved in bad relationship. You know, emo stuff.

Last, any plan for a tour at some point?

We are actually planning on doing a bit of touring this summer with our friends in Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely State). As far as when and where we are not sure quite yet but it’s definitely a huge possibility and something we are definitely looking into seriously! We’ll be sure to let you know.