Change Is Good: The Ataris

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PULLING YOUR OLD ATARI out of the closet is a fun time — for a little while.

As a band, The Ataris felt the same way: They'd hit big with 2003's "So Long, Astoria," a collection of straightforward pop-punk adored by high-schoolers. But the band members had grown up when the time came to write and record last year's follow-up, "Welcome the Night"; it had a brooding, sophisticated indie-rock sound.

"Our progression was a bit more drastic," guitarist John Callura said. While The Ataris had taken their music to the next step, fans still clung to the memory of the band's cover of Don Henley's "Boys of Summer" on MTV. The group may have lost interest in the sound of "So Long, Astoria," but they owed their success to it.

"Sometimes an artist or musician says, 'We've succeeded at doing this. Let's move on,'" Collura said.

The lukewarm sales of "Welcome the Night" — which was well-received by critics — shook the band's confidence and muddled its identity: Would The Ataris let their fan base go, and forge a new one? Soon, the group was playing its older material, even while touring to promote the new record.

"What we should have done after 'So Long, Astoria' was continue on that path," Collura said. "People had grown into that sound with our band, so changing that resulted in people not really wanting to listen to the record."

Now, as frontman Kris Roe tours solo, and with the Marymount University show on Friday the only one scheduled for The Ataris, fans must wonder whether the band might pull the plug entirely. Either way, "Welcome the Night" is a positive direction for the band's members musically, as they've outgrown a pop-punk genre they're no longer enthusiastic about.

"I have no interest in being a part of it," Collura said. "There hasn't really been an evolution. None of it has gotten any better."

Get a full transcript of Express' interview with Collura below.

» EXPRESS: What was the reaction among fans to the big changes in the sound after "So Long, Astoria"?
» COLLURA: When you've been a band for as long as The Ataris have been, there's going to be some progression. Our problem was that our progression was a bit more drastic for fans. There was four years between "So Long, Astoria" and our next record, which is a lot. The problem is, you record a record, you've been working on that material for a year and a half before anyone gets to hear it. Then, by the time they hear it, you — as a band or artist — may already be moving on, in your mind, to something else, because you already have that year and a half.

» EXPRESS: Were you guys getting bored with your own material?
» COLLURA: You have the release, and you have to spend another year performing those songs, so, by then, the material, for you or me or Kris or whomever, it becomes kind of old. It's already been two and a half years — you're already moving on and thinking about the next thing. That was our case. After "So Long, Astoria," people had the wrong idea about what we were listening to and what influenced us. When that album was made, there was a lot of pressure on the band — the first major-label debut and the whole nine. We wanted to keep things really simple and have straightforward rock songs.

» EXPRESS: The fact that the album was popular didn't influence the direction the band was going in?
» COLLURA: That record was a small success for us, but sometimes an artist or musician says, 'Well, we've done this. We've succeeded at doing this. Let's move on to the next." Unfortunately, though, it doesn't always work out that way. So the whole change was both: premeditated and natural. It was something we talked about doing: "Let's write songs without any limitation." That's the way the songs were written, and how they came out. If you think too much about what your fan base wants to hear, it's going to be a failure. So although this record didn't do well for us; to me, it was a success in terms of what we had created.

» EXPRESS: Were you tired of being labeled a pop-punk band?
» COLLURA: It fits what the band accomplished, but it doesn't fit the individuals in the band. That's a hard thing to separate. This band, what we should have done after "So Long, Astoria" was continue on that path of writing those particular kind of songs. People had grown into that sound with our band, so, changing that resulted in people not really wanting to listen to the record. Not all the fans, but a good portion of them, were more into the genre than they were into the band. That genre, "pop-punk," we were in it from the late '90s to the early 2000s — we definitely had that sound.

» EXPRESS: Is the current pop-punk scene something you still want to be a part of?
» COLLURA: There are so many facets of that world — the Warped Tour world, with all the screaming bands. To me, most of it sounds the same. Being that I'm probably a lot older than most of those kids, I have no interest in being a part of it at all. There hasn't really been an evolution. None of it has gotten any better, but there was something special about those late '90s-early 2000s bands, when New Found Glory and Saves the Day were popular, along with the Get Up Kids and The Ataris, even Alkaline Trio. Those bands had a foothold in something special. The modern bands may have taken something from those bands, but it doesn't sound at all like it. I don't know if it was a good evolution.

» EXPRESS: What caused the turn toward darker material for "Welcome the Night"?
» COLLURA: It was really just what we were listening to. Lyrically, it was about whatever Kris Roe was going through in his life; I never really touch the lyrics. Musically, I wasn't really listening to the kinds of things people probably thought the guys in The Ataris were into. Kris had really worn on his sleeve for many years that he was a huge Jawbreaker fan and a big Descendents fan.

» EXPRESS: Did others in the band share those influences?
» COLLURA: I'm a fan of some of those pop bands and punk bands, but to me it was all nostalgia. It wasn't affecting how I want to write a song at all. I have been, and still am, heavily influenced by English bands, whether it's the early '90s bands such as My Bloody Valentine of modern-day bands such as a Bloc Party. That's what makes me excited about music or want to write music. That's where that came from. We felt that a song didn't need to be bright and fast for it to be powerful and effective.

» EXPRESS: Were you aware those songs probably wouldn't play as well for the high-school-age pop-punk crowd?
» COLLURA: The fan base that The Ataris had in its prime years are older now. We went and made such a different-sounding record, we lost touch. When we made that record, we took ourselves out of getting any newer fan from a newer generation of bands. An example of that is, we played "Give It a Name," a really large festival in England, in 2006. It had already been three years since "So Long, Astoria," and we may have had some weak songs, but that festival was with all these newer bands — a couple of older ones from the genre, but mostly newer bands - and, as the main support for My Chemical Romance, 20 bands that day, and in front of 20,000 people we had nothing but blank stares. Even when we played our older songs, no one knew who the hell we were.

» EXPRESS: Was that a wake-up call?
» COLLURA: It was so strange. It was cordial, and nice, but people weren't familiar with who we were. A couple years, you take a break, that's it, you're done. You need to rebuild it, and when you make a record such as "Welcome the Night," you're not rebuilding in the same genre. We were looking to move into more of a college-based, young-adult fan base that was more into what we were listening to. After "Welcome the Night," we did a tour in the fall, and eventually we just decided, "Let's play the old songs and just see what happens." It was such a mishmash; some nights some people didn't know any of the old songs and bitched that we didn't play any of the new songs. It was a no-win situation. It was really difficult.

» EXPRESS: Did you feel that you had to abandon one set of fans or the other?
» COLLURA: There was a small percentage of fans that understood what was going on and were totally into it. But most fans wanted the same kind of record again, and there were some that didn't care what we did, like, "Oh, The Ataris, that's from when I was in high school." Even if they were huge Radiohead fans now, and we made a record like that, they wouldn't care. They don't want a record like that from The Ataris, they want that from their new artists and new bands they're into. It was a tough situation, but you see it all the time with bands. I knew the guys from Yellowcard, and they had such a success with "Ocean Avenue," but then they had two records that didn't do anything. It was such a successful record, and then such a huge fall-off for them. Even Jimmy Eat World's new record, it's such a huge fall-off. The record sales just aren't there.

» Lee Center, 2807 N. Glebe Road; Fri., 8 p.m., $20, $12 (Marymount U. students only); 703-284-1611. (Ballston)

Photo courtesy Whiteleaf Entertainment Group