NEW YORK — Hot Chelle Rae, a new band from Nashville, suddenly appeared in the music industry, out of nowhere. After releasing their debut album “Lovesick Electric” last year, they started touring in the United States. As they are actively working, their songs are often used on several TV shows. They are currently touring with Parachute. When they were about to perform in NYC, Blast got a chance to ask the Nashville boys, Ryan “RK” Follese (lead vocals, guitar), Nash Overstreet (lead guitar, vocals), Ian Keaggy (bass, vocals), and Jamie Follese (drums), what Hot Chelle Rae was all about.

BLAST: What does “Hot Chelle Rae” mean? How did you guys come up with the band name?

NASH OVERSTREET: We came up with the band name from one of our fans on MySpace when we first started the group, who was a crazy insane stalker, and her name was “Chelle Rae,” and she looked at half of my pictures, and she gave us lots of drama and problems. And we kind of gave it to her and dedicated the name to her.

BLAST: So, you guys now appreciate her?

NO: She was a lot of entertainment, yeah. (Laughs)

RYAN FOLLESE: She was interesting.

BLAST: How did you guys get to know each other and form a band?

JAMIE FOLLESE: Well, me and RK are brothers, and Nash and Ian have been friends for about 15 years now and RK met Ryan met at a music store and,

NO: RK and “Nash” met a music store.

JF: Sorry. (It was) the wrong version.

NO: Yeah, RK and I met at a music store and we started writing songs together, and Ian and I were hanging out. It had been for, you know, as long as we’ve been growing up. We were kind of like “Sally Rob two sides in” and it all clicked.

BLAST: Lead singer Ryan and drummer Jamie are real brothers. How is it like to be working with an actual family member in the same band?

JF: Um, it’s awesome. We are best friends anyways.

RF: We were best friends before the band so. Having been in the band makes a much more enjoyable experience. If he wasn’t out on the road, I would miss him like crazy anyway so.

JF: I’d probably be just on general principles.

RF: Yeah.

BLAST: Could you guys share about your lives before getting a major deal?

RF: Yeah, our lives consisted of holding up in a studio and recording nothing but a demo after a demo after a demo. But we played a lot of shows around the town as much as we could to totalize. But we just focused on writing songs, we were songwriters when forever being in the band.

NO: Yeah. We averaged about, I mean, before we got signed, we were writing a song every 1 or 2 days just whether it’s good or not. For the matter of good or bad, I think that was pretty good.

BLAST: Who were your biggest supporters in Nashville?

IAN KEAGGY: Definitely, I mean, we have families. They have supported us until today, from the beginning.

RF: Families are definitely number 1, I think. I think number 2 would be, there is a band in Nashville called “Enjoy the Zoo.” And they are probably our biggest supporters.

IK:: And our local radio stations.

RF: Yeah, and one of them was “The River.”

IK:: One of them was “The River.”

BLAST: What was the main music influence on the band?

RF: We all have different influences. It’s anything from classic Beatles stuff to, you know, Prince, Michael Jackson, Queen, any, all the way to, you know, Radiohead, Metric,,,we like everything. Just kind of,,, anything.

BLAST: What’s your usual songwriting process?

NO: Well, it’s different every single day. We can, you know, get together and start from a complete scratch and have nothing going or maybe RK will come in with a lyric idea or come in with a bass part. Today we were driving all the way to New York and I made up 2 song ideas on the computer. So, it’s really like “no rules.” It’s just, it could be completely random like it’s different every time.

RF: I could be something you say to us tonight. If you say something and sounds like a good song title, we could write a song from that.

BLAST: The band released a debut album “Lovesick Electric” in October last year. What was the main theme of the album?

RF: Well, I would say, like, as far as the themes go, I don’t even know if it’s called a theme but the title of the record, we knew it’s gonna be the name of our first album long before we had a record deal. We kind of shaped our sound and our songs around the idea of “Lovesick Electric”, so it kind of came this, um, you know, consistent reminder of what we wanted to be.

NO: I think we wanted to write great songs and have people to be able to relate to them, be touched by them, but at the same time, it’s a very “feel good” record as far as, like, there’s a lot of dance beat songs.

JF: It’s fun.

NO: And if it’s a slow song, hopefully you can move to it.

BLAST: What was the inspiration for the single “Bleed,” which is a great love song?

RF: Thank you! The inspiration of that song, as most ballads go, definitely a lady and a relationship that I was in, it was just, you know, something that we thought everybody, people could relate to. It’s, you know, people have tough time conveying their emotions. There’s no better way of writing it down sometimes. That’s exactly what the songs was to us.

BLAST: Our favorite song is “The Distance.” When you like someone, there might be some physical/mental distance between two people, which might cause something painful at times. That was the message that I got when listening to the song. Can you share what experiences that you had behind the song?

RF: Well, that song for us was, it was written, um, it’s kind of self-explanatory but it’s kind of taking new shapes as we’ve been playing it out and performing. We definitely wrote that song about being away from, you know, family, loved ones, we wrote it about, just you know, being on the road and, you know, kind of being lonely and missing the people you care about. And, you know, as time went on the lyric, it could for anyone, it could a loved one that has passed away or something like that. So It’s really kind of,

IK:: Universal.

RF: Yeah, it’s universal and it’s really grown and even deeper meaning for us as we go.

NO: When we first wrote that, it was right when we had started touring, started leaving home, and started going on the road, and playing shows and not singing for family for a little while. And so, you know, kind of coming back in time, like, sing for friends and [we] tried [to keep] the relationships that you have to maintain or the distance. It’s really inspiring and that’s what we were feeling at that time.

BLAST: “The Hills” member, Stephanie Pratt was in the “I like to Dance” video. How did that happen?

RF: Ah, she liked the song! It was really natural. It happened very fast. And, we were originally going a lot to LA to shoot the video, and we heard that she was a fan and liked the song and it was a really easy thing to do. She showed up and we hung out and she was really like a rookie cool person.

BLAST: Did you guys just run into each other and she said that she wanted to be in the video?

RF: Ah, she, I think, she got to know when we were gonna be shooting it in LA and she heard the music and,

JF: Contacted the right people.

RF: Contacted the right people so, you know, she got a hold of us.

BLAST: Did you guys follow “The Hills”?

NO: We definitely had [followed] at times.

RF: I don’t watch the show!

NO: I think we are kind of a little bit biased, and we switch to whatever show plays our songs.(Laughs) So, it’s gotta be “The Hills” and “Hellcats” and you know “So You Think You Can Dance.” But whatever the show plays our songs at the moment, we are like kind of fans, right?

IK:: Always.

JF: We are royal for a day.

BLAST: So you guys are watching the shows only when they are playing your songs.

RF: Usually somebody with a TV watches. I don’t have a TV that I go back and watch the stuff that’s on, so.

The last time Blast talked to Cobra Starship, they were opening up for Fall Out Boy on the Beleivers Never Die II tour and anticipating the release of their new album, “Hot Mess.” Then, the group was glad to have been able to make the record after complications arose with lead singer Gabe Saporta’s voice. After throat surgery and a brief vacation for vocal recovery, the band tracked demos in the Poconos Mountains and recorded the album in New York City. The CD dropped last August and since then Cobra Starship has blown up. After less than a year, Cobra has gone from “that band that did the Snakes on a Plane song” and a niche crowd earned by months and months of extensive touring to being a radio top 40 staple and performing at the People’s Choice Awards huge venues, thanks to their platinum single “Good Girls Gone Bad.”

“A lot has changed. It was very beneficial for us and a big deal. It was our first platinum single.” said Cobra bassist Alex Suarez during a phone interview on Wednesday. “We’ve been able to go to countries we’ve never been to and play a lot of places we weren’t able to play before.”

The single also gained the band a new legion of fans, which made keeping the intimate relationship they had previously held with the kids that came out to their shows a little more difficult. It was a philosophy of the band that they didn’t want a fan club because they didn’t agree with making fans pay to meet them. Instead, a free membership to “Cobra Crew” came with every purchase of “Hot Mess.” Entrance into the crew means exclusive news and contests as well as pre-sales and early entry or a meet and greet with the Cobras before every show.

“For a while [our fans] didn’t want us to get a fan club. They were all old school fans and were worried about the new kids coming in. It was a sucky situation because we’ve always been really close to them, but it’s actually worked out well,” Suarez said.

“Hot Mess” brought Cobra not only closer to fans, but also had them working with some of the industry’s up and coming heavy hitters. “Good Girls Gone Bad” was co-written by American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi and featured Gossip Girl’s most notorious bad girl Leighton Meester. For “The World Will Never Do,” the band also teamed up with a then somewhat-unknown rapper – B.o.B , who has since blown up on both iTunes and Billboard charts.

“We had the song written and were thinking we should have someone put a rap down. Either Gabe [Saporta] or Nate [Navarro] knew him and he came in and killed it,” Suarez said. “We’re really happy he’s doing so well right now.”

The third single from “Hot Mess” is “Living in the Sky with Diamonds,” one of the slowest songs on the album, debuted last week. For the video, they were approached by Lewis Carter, who they met when previously touring with All Time Low in the UK. Carter suggested the idea of directing the video for free while Cobra Starship was back in England earlier this year. The video stars British socialite Peaches Geldof and has an artsy, old-time movie feel which is a different direction for Cobra Starship, but characteristic of their desire to always think outside the box.

“[Carter] just called us up and asked to do the video and we agreed,” said Suarez. “We set up in the theatre and it was fun. I like the sparkles.”

Currently the boys and keytarist Vicky-T are out on the road co-headlining the Too Fast 4 Love tour with 3OH!3, Travis McCoy and I Fight Dragons which kicked off in Milwaukee last month. Each night Cobra and 3OH!3 switch off for who closes the show.

“We were planning to tour and just weighing our options on who to go out with, and we had met 3OH!3 on Warped Tour [2008]. Then we found out they were looking for a tour and so it just came together,” Suarez said about the choice of tour mates.

It’s not all fun and games on the road though. The Cobras have already started work on their fourth album by installing a mini recording studio in a spare bunk on the bus.
“It’s just so we can get ideas down and then we’ll go into properly recording the album after the tour,” Suarez said.

The demo stage has proven to be pretty close to the end result for Cobra though. Last year when they retreated to the Pocono Mountains to start writing “Hot Mess,” almost all of the electronic tracks they emerged with ended up being the final cut for the record.

“When we got to the studio, all the electronic stuff was kept from the mountains. We just had to re-track drums and vocals – that’s about it,” Suarez said.

With any luck, you can expect a new Cobra album by early next year. In the mean time, you can catch them on the Too Fast 4 Love tour which rolls through Boston thus Sunday, May 9 at the House of Blues. Fangs Up!

• Taylor Swift: Best grace under fire
• Beyonce: Diva with the best video of all time!
• Lady Gaga: Most original resurger of pop music
• Kings of Leon: Best job at making a straight up rock and roll band with no gimmick cool again
• Miley Cyrus: Tween queen 2009
• Owl City: Best “what the fuck is this but we kind of like it”
• Cobra Starship: Best use of a cameo and catchy hook to make you famous
• Blink 182: Best reunion
• Drake: Most awesome transition from shitty teen drama to rap star ever
• Lil Wayne: Most money for being on songs that aren’t his (surpassing Lil Jon)
• Justin Bieber: Best “this would be adorable except you’re 12 so it makes me feel like a creep”
• Glee soundtrack: Best way to make covers totally awesome yet completely nerdy all at the same time
• Jay Sean: Best introduction of Bollywood flavor into American main stream
• Michael Jackson: Best comeback, it just sucks he had to die to do it

Pop-punkers The Maine have been on the road non-stop for about a year and a half. Their single “Everything I Want” blew up in early 2009 as they set out as co-headliners for the Alternative Press tour with 3OH!3. Then they spent the entire summer playing the Hurley Stage at Warped Tour. Currently they are supporting Boston natives Boys Like Girls and Cobra Starship on the Op Presents tour. Guitar and back up vocalist Kennedy Brock talked to Blast for a few minutes before The Maine headlined a show at Philadelphia’s Electric Factory on one of their days off to let us know what the band is up to and their recording plans in upcoming months

BLAST: How is it being on a tour this big? What are your favorite and least favorite things about it?

KENNEDY BROCK: It’s really comfortable being on tour with these guys. We did a tour with [Boys Like Girls] about two summers ago and they really mentored us about what to do and what not to do on tour. Being back is cool with this older brother band. There is a lack of privacy though. That’s not really a big deal at all though. There is just always someone around, somewhere. There’s nowhere that any of the bands go where they aren’t in front of people.

BLAST: You guys have announced that you are going on a break after this tour to record. Have you decided where you’re going? How much about the new record has been decided?

KB: The break is planned to do some writing in preparation for a record and if we have time to record before we head back on the road. As of right now, we haven’t been doing a lot of writing besides what usually gets done on the road. We’re not really sure [where] and it’s not set in stone when we’ll go in to record, but the sooner the better.

BLAST: Does this mean that the rumor about The Maine going on a headlining tour in the spring is true?

KB: That’s not true necessarily either. We have talked about random stuff but nothing has been set up. We’re still trying to narrow down when we’ll go and do stuff.

BLAST: How do you think The Maine has changed since the two EPs and “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop”?

KB: I feel like every time you do something you get better at it. We’ve had a good amount of songs to put under our belt now. We’ve been growing up a little bit. I think everyone is just coming into their own. We are all grown up. There’s not much that’s necessarily changed just more developed I guess. The writing should stay the same. It’s a lot of John O’s [the lead singer] brain and we all try to harness what he does well. Things should stay pretty similar.

BLAST: There’s a journal/diary that you guys did for Warped Tour. Why did you choose Warped Tour to do this?

KB: I think Warped Tour, in itself, is a crazy thing. At the same time, it’s like any normal tour we’ve done. We just wanted people to see where our heads are at during every day. Each of us did journals every day of the tour then mashed them up and added pictures of different things that were happening. I think it’s a cool way of showing everyone the kind of behind the scenes stuff.

The Op Tour featuring Boys Like Girls, Cobra Starship, The Maine, A Rocket to the Moon and Versaemerge will be in Boston November 27th and 28th at Showcase Live in Foxboro, Mass. Order links for The Maine’s Warped Tour diary, “This is Real Life” can be found on their myspace.

When Blast talked to Cobra Starship last spring, the album was untitled with an unknown release date and a rumored collaboration with Gossip Girl Leighton Meester. Now the boys and girl of Cobra Starship are rocking a top 10 Itunes single in good part thanks to that collaboration with Meester, and “Hot Mess” drops tomorrow, August 11th.

All bassist Alex Suarez and drummer Nate Novarro would tell us in May was that Cobras would continue their celebrity bashing ways “" but with an introspective touch considering they themselves were now celebrities.

After hearing the entire album, Blast can confirm that they boys were telling the truth. So before you get any further into this, any person crossing their fingers that front man Gabe Saporta would magically turn the Cobra Starship outfit into “Midtown continued” should grab a box of tissues and cry themselves another river because it didn’t happen. For those who have been sweating their asses off in their purple hoodies and throwing “ËœFangs up’ all summer in anticipation for “Hot Mess”, please continue.

The album kicks off with “Nice Guys Finish Last”, which sets up the “I’m a bad boy” theme that pervades throughout the rest of the record. The first track’s “Womanizer” beat also makes it apparently clear that “Hot Mess” is going to be a wet dream for radio stations across the country.

“Pete Wentz is the Only Reason We’re Famous” was the first song the Cobras released to the public and brings Saporta’s staple tongue-in-cheek lyrics to another level. The title of the song alone goes with the Cobra Starship attitude that you can’t crack a joke on them if they crack it first. Look out for the line “You can ride to the top/but you can’t ride on my cock” which helped earn the first ever Explicit rating for the Cobras.

“You’re Not in on the Joke” (which shares writing credit with Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump) and “Move Like You Gonna Die” follow in the same vein as “Pete Wentz” as far as calling out scene kids who think of the Cobras as a joke. Saporta turns the laugh around with lines like “I’ve just got one side to show you all/My ass is awesome/So smile while you’re kissing it”. The album is full of “stick it to them” mantras, showing that Saporta is more than aware of what the critics are saying but still doesn’t give a shit.

“Hot Mess” also does not neglect to take Cobra’s reputation as a “dance band” to the next level. The already explosive “Good Girls Go Bad” proves the Cobra potential for radio superstardom. If it hasn’t happened already, high school quarterbacks across the country will be throwing up fangs, claiming they know how to make all the girls go bad. The title track of the album follows suit with the first single, with a ridiculously catchy hook and a synth-soaked beat that makes it impossible not to “shake it shake it”. Both songs have the potential to replace “Since U Been Gone” as this generation’s #1 karaoke anthem.

“Hot Mess” turns into a somewhat perfect summer driving soundtrack, with “Fold Your Hands Child”, “Living in the Sky With Diamonds” and “The Scene is Dead, Long Live the Scene” acting as the somber side of the rise and low mixture essential to any good mix. “Fold Your Hands Child” may rival “One Day Robots Will Cry” as Saporta’s most personal song to date, depicting a long-term relationship in the face of haters. “The Scene is Dead” is worth putting on repeat a few times. The medication and hospital references give a little insight to Saporta’s battle with hospitals over the past year, from throat surgeries to broken ankles, and the pressure to be everyone’s “favorite man”.

“Hot Mess” exemplifies Cobra Starship taking their mission to make “scene kids” stop taking themselves so seriously and to make everyone have a good time to a new level. The things old fans loved about previous Cobra records are still there, and amplified. Every song is synth loaded and Saporta’s voice takes some serious doses of auto tune which creates an album full of ultra-pop-dance floor super anthems.

Those that have been following the band since the “Snakes on a Plane” anthem should prepare themselves accordingly because “Hot Mess” will be the album that puts Cobra Starship on the map. Get ready because everyone that looked at your hoodie with golden snakes on it and asked “What the hell is that?” will now be singing “Hot Mess” with empty Solo cups as microphones. But this album will put Cobra Starship everywhere they have wanted to be. You just have to decide if you are going to love “Ëœem or hate “Ëœem for it.

LOWELL – Samuel L. Jackson might have had enough of those motherfucking snakes on that motherfucking plane, but three years later, Cobra Starship (which outfitted the title song for the 2006 summer reptilian thriller) hasn’t given up the party.

Although many people initially thought the group was a joke promotional tool for the film, the boys and gal of Cobra Starship are about to release their third full length album this summer and are currently playing main support for Fall Out Boy on the Believers Never Die Part Deux tour, also featuring All Time Low, Metro Station and Hey Monday.

Blast caught up with Cobra bassist Alex Suarez, drummer Nate Novarro, and Hidden in Plain View’s former drummer and Cobra comrade Spencer Peterson in their dressing room before the show on the 19th stop of the Believers tour at the Tsongas Arena in Lowell.

“We’ve just been really happy since Spencer came out here to join us,” said Novarro. “It’s like the Dow national average went up 7 points. Before that it was at an all time low.”

Everyone shares a laugh before Suarez elaborates, “there are just so many moments where we say, ‘That was awesome. Remember last night? That was awesome.’ There are like 20 of those a day.”

To no surprise, the Cobra attitude is a lighthearted one which could lead some to think that “believers never die” may work as some sort of mantra for the band considering the obstacles they have encountered over the last few months.

They ended a full summer run on last year’s Warped Tour to be confronted with a could-be-devastating diagnosis of lead singer Gabe Saporta’s voice. Because of lumps that formed on his vocal chords, Saporta was sentenced to vocal rest and surgery, but that would impede the upcoming headlining US tour for the New York-based quintet. While the Starship delayed recording of the new record and postponed UK dates, they went ahead with the Sassy Back Tour.

Saporta bumped up his surgery to December and spent the holidays recovering before going to work on the new album at the end of January, though there was some worry if he would be up for the Fall Out Boy tour.

“We just kind of hung out and waited for him to be ready to go,” said Suarez. “There wasn’t really anything else we could do.”

Now the band takes a humorous take on the situation by making skits about Saporta’s surgery for their new weekly webisodes on cobracam.tv.

“Our friend Jack the Camera Guy was available and we invited him out on tour. He just comes out with all these great ideas because he’s such a genius,” said Suarez.

A new webisode will premiere every Monday until the new album is released. The previous escapades have shown backstage footage of the tour and alleged album title meetings.

“Someone starts off, says ‘We should do this,’ and then everyone just throws in there and it all comes together,” Novarro said, explaining how the group drafts ideas for the skits.

The group’s latest episode depicts the after-effects of writing part of the new album in the mountains of Pennsylvania on Novarro’s psyche. The trip was an opportunity for the band to get away from it all and write some new material, but became another filming expedition when the band set up a web cam to film their songwriting process.

“There was lots of snow and red wine. White powder and red wine. Cobra cam. Sweet jams were written up there. We wrote a rap song,” said Suarez of the experience.

The mountain session and later recording in New York City did lead to the first song off the record being released to the Cobra Myspace, “Pete Wentz Is The Only Reason We’re Famous.” The title hints that Cobra is up to their usual celebrity trash-talking style, but not afraid to make themselves the target as well, considering Wentz is the one who signed them to his Decaydance label and they are now opening for him during the BND tour.

“I think we make fun of ourselves more, but ourselves as celebrities,” said Suarez. “So I guess you could say we’re still making fun of celebrities.”

As well as making reference to 80′s Kung Fu supervillain Bruce Leroy, the glowing Last Dragon in the new track, Saporta also gets a little dirty in the first verse when he proclaims, “you can rise to the top/but you can’t ride on my cock.”

The cavalier line took many fans by surprise on the first listen but Suarez and Novarro didn’t seem phased when asked if more of the same bluntness would be found on the record.

“Expect a lot of dick and a lot of cock,” said Suarez.

“Metaphorically, of course,” added Novarro.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of hinting about cock,” concluded Suarez before going into a traumatic story from his childhood in which he was witness to two elephants mating but confused the male elephant parts as a second trunk.

“We went to this, like, drive-in zoo , (Lion Park Safari). I’m just looking out the window, ‘Hey ma, why does that elephant have two trunks?’ and then they started doing it. Have you ever seen two elephants doing it? Not pretty,” Suarez regaled.

LOWELL — The line of teenage girls and chaperoning parents around Tsongas Arena in Lowell, Mass. Tuesday was a quarter of a mile long. Anyone walking to the end of it is a witness to every color in the neon rainbow “" on t-shirts, shoelaces, and even sections of hair. What could possibly have all of these scenesters lined up in a balmy 94 degree day? Only the wet dream of emo rock tours this summer “" The Believers Never Die Tour Part Deux.

As one dad stated while waiting in line with his daughter, “This is what it was like 20 years ago for us lining up for Ozzy and Motley Crue. They are all dressed up and so into it.”

The tour includes five acts starting with Hey Monday, Metro Station, All Time Low, Cobra Starship and is capitalized with pop-rock giants Fall Out Boy. The concert was completely sold out which means approximately 5,000 jubilant fans crammed into the floor pit of Tsongas while 1,500 their parents and the more claustrophobic fans fill out the arena seats circling the stage. Their screams grew louder and closer to pandemonium with each act that took the stage.

Hey Monday, the newest act to Pete Wentz’s Fueled By Ramen imprint label Decaydance, kept things light and exciting during the opening set but things began to get unkosher when Metro Station took the stage. Trace Cyrus (Yes, of the Miley relation “" her half brother) spent more time throwing his guitar than actually playing it (observation: there was never a time when he strummed and sang at the same time). The stands erupted when Cyrus took off his shirt right before the crowd favorite, “Shake It.” The intensity of the reaction caused one girl to be pulled out of the pit (which looked more like a squared off block of human sardines than actual people) unconscious and rushed backstage for medical attention.

Still, the most disturbing moment of the night came when All Time Low front man Alex Gaskarth requested that all willing girls to throw their bras on stage during the Virginia rockers’ set. Before he could finish the first verse there were dozens of undergarments being thrown on stage, which is even more unsettling when you realize that the mean age of everyone close to the stage is 14 and the sex Gaskarth offered for their undergarments is illegal in all 50 states. The ordeal has me extremely worried about the welfare and mentality of the upcoming concert-going generation.

After the All Time Low set there seemed to be a mass exodus of underage (and now unsupported) teenage girls, only to be replaced by a new crowd of slightly older — but still tripped out in neon — fans who seemed to flank from the wings to take their spots in the pit for the headlining acts.

Cobra Starship lead singer Gabe Saporta refrained from asking for lingerie (though one or two were still thrown at bassist Alex Suarez) and stuck to making jokes about swine flu and teaching the crowd the “international Cobra symbol” -”" throwing fangs up before ending with their flagship song “Snakes On a Plane” and fan favorite “Guilty Pleasure.”

It has to be said that Fall Out Boy lived up to their headlining position though. Their performance was decked out with background video, snare drummers in full SWAT attire and even a wardrobe change. The Chicago-based quartet rocked out for over an hour, playing songs from all four of their albums from the first, “Take This To Your Grave” to the December-released “Folie A Deux”.

Bassist Pete Wentz handled most of the between song banter, commenting on everything from political current events to a poster in the front row pleading “DON’T SELL OUT.” Wentz countered that the band never sold out, merely “bought in” “"- whatever that means.

Overall, it felt like two separate concerts where each band performed for their own respective audiences. There was always something to watch, which is all you could ask for from a show, but in some cases it felt like -”" for better or worse “"- the emphasis was more on the spectacle than the songs being presented. At the end of the night, despite a few disturbing moments, Believers Never Die turned out to be a thoroughly entertaining show and I’ll place a bet that it ends up being one of the most successful of the entire summer.

Stick with Blast as we post our interview with Cobra Starship bassist, Alex Suarez next week!