Altsounds - Hit The Lights + Altsounds = An interesting read

Your singer decides to leave and the future of your band hangs in the balance. What do you do? Call it a day or carry on? Nick Thompson faced that same dilemma but he made the move to fill those vacant shoes and Altsounds was there to ask him all about life in Hit The Lights.

Hello there. How are you?

Hey! I'm fabulous, thanks for asking.

What is your name? What do you bring to HTL and what is your shoe size?

My name is Nick, I once played guitar and sang a little, now I sing all the time and I wear size 10 1/2 shoes. The half is important.

I have been a fan of you boys for a long time. For those out there who are not as cool as me, describe your band.

Nooiiice! I would say that Hit The Lights play a brand of heavy pop laced with infectious melodies and grotesque guitar riffs. Sikk.

"Stick Up..." was my album of the summer last year. What is your album of this summer?

Oh man, I imagine I'll probably be listening to the new usher, probably our album. New Found Glory is always good in the summer, maybe some Blink-182, the possibilities are ENDLESS... Ace of Bass?

How has the recent band reshuffle affected things within the HTL camp?

When we got back in the studio to record the new album, we were all just set on making the album, seeing how the songs came together, and taking it from there. We ended up getting offers for tours directly beside our recording schedules and decided that we would just go for it. Our new guitarist Kevin came into the picture maybe 3 days before we left for tour and learned about 9 songs to take right out on the road. It was all sporadic, we didn't know what was going to happen, we were just DID it and honestly things have probably been the best they've ever been. It's weird, we weren't expecting some things to fall into place as easily as they have, but we're having a great time and playing some great shows. It's awesome- that's the best word to use.

If, after Colins departure, HTL had come to an end what do you think you would be doing now instead?

We'd probably be in school, which makes me cringe just thinking about not doing this. It's bumming me, let's talk about something different. How abouts them mens gettin' pregnant nowadays huh? 2008 man, here we are...

Your new album is going to be called "Skip School, Start Fights". Do you actively encourage skipping school and violence or do you believe in a good education?

Yes, we fully endorse skipping school/and or violence to resolve issues. Find the chaos in order, then order the chaos. Rage against the machine, fight your parents, do meth. Trust us, you'll be a lot cooler in the long run!

The old look myspace page had a very comic book feel to it. What is your favorite comic book creation?

Yeah it did! Our dude Abiel approached us about doing a myspace page and asked if we had any ideas. At the time I was working on a new myspace that had some comic book influences in it(it didn't look 5% as cool as Abiel's design mind you) and he dug the idea and went hog wild with it. We loved it, there were a few technical difficulties but you'll always have a few burs in the grain, right? Right. I was actually a huge The Amazing Spider-man fan. It was passed down from my dad who was a huge spider-man fan. My favorite artist was Mark Bagley, and he did AMAZING works, I might get a tattoo. Besides Spider-man I was big into Marvel comics in general. DC heroes are way too dopey.

If you could be written into any comic book as a band, what would it be?

SPIDER-MAN! All the way, no exceptions, Spider-man's my guy. Thanks Stan Lee.

After the unfortunate cancellation of the UK tour last year do you have any plans of tearing up the UK any time soon?

Yeah, that sucked, we actually thought that maybe Colin would do the last UK run with us, which would have been cool for the kids, but it ended up not working out. We'll be headed back to the motherland as soon as Skip School is released and people know that we still can bring it. I'm looking forward to it, kids go off there and are so appreciative, we wouldn't miss it for the world.

Before we say our tearful goodbyes and go our separate ways is there anything I have failed to bring up that you want to say?

It was short, waaaay to short. That's life you know? New album's out July 8th, it's better than Stick-Up, kids will be stoked. Thanks to everyone who has stuck by us throughout these changes and shout outs to the kids that have been coming to the shows to rock; You're the only reason we're still here. Thank you.

"Skip School Start Fights..." is hitting the shelves on July 8th

Out soon on Triple Crown Records