Virginia Beach - When I'd heard that Tip the Van was on Warped Tour this year, I gotta say I was pretty stoked.  I caught the tail end of their set with Reel Big Fish last year at the NorVa and was impressed.  So many times I've gone to see what promised to be a good show and had to endure an opening act rather than enjoy them...thus the late arrival to that particular show.  I only had caught a couple songs, but I had filed them away under “Bands to Check Out” in my mental file cabinet.  The deal was sealed that night when Nicole Oliva, the band's lead singer, joined RBF on stage to do “She Has a Girlfriend Now” and a cover of Poison's “Talk Dirty to Me”. 

After the ordeal of trying to find out who was playing where, Suzy Q and I found out that they were playing the Kevin Says Stage right after Reel Big Fish.  Awesomeness was with us as that stage was a 30 second walk from the Teggart Stage where I would be watching Reel Big Fish.  I would not be forced to sacrifice one for the other, one of the all to often drawbacks of going to Warped Tour. 

After Reel Big Fish was done rocking my face off (see Reel Big Fish article for the full details), I moseyed on down to Kevin Says for a real treat.  I guess I should say first, just to get this out of the way, the one thing that I hadn't noticed at the NorVa (being at the back of the crowd at that particular show) is that the ladies of Tip the Van are, for lack of a better term, pretty damn smokin' hot.  Nicole, Simone, and Steph are super cuties, but that is nothing compared to their talent as musicians, their awesome stage presence and, as I found in the interview, their general warmth as good people and their love of their fans.  “The Brians,” as they are referred to in the band, are also an integral part of all those same qualities.  Well, except the cute part. 

When I got to the stage they were just finishing setting up and the crowd was pretty sparse.  A few cats and kittens hanging around, but nobody was really prepared for what they were about to get.  Fortunately, for the Wolfe, it presented an excellent opportunity to get nice and close to the stage for the show. 

They kicked things off with a couple songs that unfortunately I did not catch the names of, but which started a slow vortex that drew in the people floating around the stage.  With some rockin' guitars, a groovin' bass-line, some pounding drums, Steph's adept and seamless switching between that awesome full brassy sound of her trombone and the deft work on the keyboard, not to mention that awesome two-part harmony of the sisters, Nicole and Simone.  By the end of the second song there were a whole lot a kids skankin' to the beat and clapping along at the undeniable call to arms of Nicole. 

Now that the crowd was into it you could see the band feeding off their  energy and returning it a hundred fold.  They whipped through a set filled with old and new tracks, particularly of note being “Cherry Red” and “Place Like Home” off of their Passion, Love, and Pride EP.  They just suck you in, and you got lost in their particular brand of ska influenced pop-punk.

Well, after all this I was even more excited about the interview to come.  I could tell from their energy on stage, I was in store for a truly fulfilling experience.  And they did not let me down...

Brian Dunnigan: I am Dunnigan, Brian Dunnigan, and I play guitar.
Stephanie Allen: I'm Steph.  I play the keyboard and the trombone.
Simone Oliva: I'm Simone and I play guitar and sing.

33: And that would be your sister over there...
SO: Yep.  Nicole and Howie are both over there.  Briggs is manning the merch table all by his lonesome.  He can handle it. 

33: You guys haven't been a band for too long.  You started in 2005?
SO: We've actually been a band for about 9 years.  2002?
SA: 2002, yeah.
SO: And we started the first year of Warped Tour [for us] was 2005.  We played on the ShiraGirl Stage and '06 was the ShiraGirl Stage and now we're on the Kevin Says this year.  So we've been a band for a little bit over but this is the third Warped Tour for us. 

33: Being a veteran of the Warped Tour, over the years what kind of changes have you noticed in the Warped Tour - in bands, in the crowds, anything in particular that comes to mind.
BD: I think as people's musical tastes change, so does the tour.  'Cuz I remember going to Warped Tour 2000, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones were there, I don't know if Reel Big Fish was there, but a lot of these old ska bands and stuff, but now, flash forward, there are basically no ska bands on the tour and it's a lot of hardcore bands and synth bands...

33: I remember that, Less Than Jake was on the tour that year and...
SO: Yeah, that's right.
BD: Yeah, I think it's evolving into more of a, more electronic...it keeps up with fads, I guess.

33: Yeah, I was actually interviewing some random people earlier, and they mentioned how it's kind of like a band of the day type thing.  The present, up and coming genre of music...
SO: I think it's kind of a mixed bag though.  The people on the main stage there's a lot of the screaming and whatever, all the hardcore heavy stuff.  But if you're looking for new bands you will find things.  I think a lot of people don't know who we are, and a lot of people stop by and are like, “Wow, I've never heard of you but that was really different and cool.”  People come to see the bands they came to see, but they're still very open minded to all the different other kinds of bands out there.
SA: Definitely.  I think, like you said, the smaller bands, this is a really good opportunity for them.  Just to be a little shining star amongst the main stages and stuff.  It's pretty cool.

33: Having been on Warped Tour for a little bit, what is the craziest stuff that happened on Warped Tour?
SA: Yesterday actually, this is really really sweet, it's not like crazy but...we had three fans that saw our show, they were singing along the whole time, they were absolutely loving it.  After our set they came to our merch tent, they wanted a photo with myself, Simone and Nicole.  So the three of them and the three of us we all get together for the photo, right?  As they're about to take the picture, all three boys turn around and face us, they get down on their knees and they each hand us a ring made out of a dollar bill...they had three rings, one for each of us.  And they're like, “Will you marry us?” and we're like, “Yeah.”  They put these little dollar bill rings on our fingers.  It was just the sweetest...
SO: I just took mine off this morning in the shower.
SA: It was so sweet.  They obviously planned it out and thought about it.  It was just an awesome fan moment on Warped Tour.
SO: It was definitely one of the sweetest fan moments.

33: Alright, we've heard about the good and the crazy...what's the worst on-stage moment you've had on Warped Tour?
SO: On stage?

33: Yeah, on stage.  Crazy fans running amok, jumping on stage.  Anything?
SO: Last time we were on Warped Tour '06, I remember someone in the crowd literally taking all their clothes off, except for their underwear and dancing.  I don't know if you guys remember that.
SA: No...
SO: It was a guy, super tall skinny guy, sweaty all over, he was probably drunk and he was...
SA: (gasps) Oh!
SO: He was running around in his underwear.  He literally stripped while we were playing and I'm like, “Am I promoting this because I'm playing?”  It was really weird.  I was so distracted, I was just hysterical, I stopped singing and just continued to laugh.

33: Like I said, last year I saw you guys touring with Reel Big Fish.  What was that experience like?
BD: For me it was like a realization that maybe the band was actually doing something good because I'm playing with my childhood idol.  One of my first records was Turn the Radio Off and then all the sudden to be invited by one of my favorite bands to join them for tour and meeting them it was like, “Oh, my god!  This is amazing.”
SA: It was an incredible experience.  I think what was also so amazing about it was that they were so warm and wonderful to us, and we're friends with them and they're here on Warped Tour this year.  We're all hanging out and they were so wonderful to us and it was such an honor to be part of that tour.  They're really cool people, too, and they like us and we like them so we definitely got friends out of it.  We just really look up to them, they're a great group of people.

33: Yeah I remember seeing Nicole come out on stage for “She's Got a Girlfriend Now”, 'cuz like everytime I've seen them it's been Scott doing falsetto for the female parts...
EVERYONE: [laughing]
SO: Right, right.  We actually did that yesterday, for the first day.

33: So this next one is aimed more towards the girls...are all three guys in the band named “Brian”?  Is it just like an all-purpose thing, you can just say, “Brian, do something!”
SA: We call them “the Brians” actually.
BD: We usually try to differentiate by last names.  Because it's too easy just to say, “Oh, Brian...”
SO: He's Dunnigan, we have Briggs and Howie.  But collectively, “the Brians”.

33: Alright well this one is definitely aimed more towards the females.  Ska, punk, rockabilly, that traditional sub-culture set has traditionally been a more male dominated kind of field.  One of the things I've noticed seeing you guys play, with you and your sister, is the two-part female harmonies.  Any influence from, say, Dance Hall Crashers, things like that?
SO: What's funny is when people bring up the Dance Hall Crashers, they were a little bit before my time, I'm only 21, I'll be 22 in August.  People are like, “Do you know the Dance Hall Crashers?” and I'm like, “Yeah.”  But I was so angry when I heard them, like the sister thing I'm like, “They stole it from me!” and then I realize they were doing it like 25 years before I was even alive.
SA: [laughs]
SO: Yeah, my math is awesome.  I always exaggerate, always.  Anyway.
SA: I didn't know who the Dance Hall Crashers were until...

33: I remember they started in like '93 or '92?
SO: Yeah, '92.

33: With Tim Armstrong.
SO: Yep.

33: Tim Armstrong started everything though...
SO: Side note, Brian Dunnigan in 2005 met Tim Armstrong on Warped Tour, right outside our stage.  That was one of our shining moments as a band for our first Warped Tour.
SA: Yeah, we get compared to the Dance Hall Crashers a lot, and besides the fact that there are girls that harmonize, I don't see really much of a connection.

33: I'm seeing more and more female vocalists...bands like Dance Hall Crashers, Horrorpops, the Barrymores...things like that.  Where do you see this going?  A little less testosterone, a little more estrogen...
SO: I think that even currently with the female fronted bands that are on the tour this summer...Automatic Loveletter, the In Crowd...it's really, really awesome and exciting because instead of being compared to older history women like Madonna, now it's like really up and coming, the girls can do it, too, and this is our new sound.  All the girls that are in these girl-fronted bands have a definitely interesting, different sound.  Some of them are a little more keyboard heavy, some are pretty relaxed, we're a mixed genre.  We call ourselves “indie rock power-pop”...

33: With the occasional ska song...
SO: Yeah, we obviously have ska in our roots for sure but with our new EP coming out, we have a new song called “Refuse the Tide”, and it's been really awesome because out fans are totally into it.  It's still us, it's just a little bit different.  It's real exciting.

33: So the new EP is coming out...
SO: Not released yet.  But soon...

 Not soon enough in my humble opinion.  If you're tired of the same-old-same-old, do yourself a favor and go check out Tip the Van.  They deliver on all levels and their live performances will truly leave you with that feeling that only comes along so often...the feeling that you just got rocked.  In a good way.

TipTheVan.com

MySpace.com/TipTheVan

Facebook.com/TipTheVan

By Director, Genre Lead, and Editor: Andrew Wolfe

The Wolfe was born to a small litter in the mountains of West Virginia and transplanted to suburban Virginia Beach in the iconic year of 1984.  Left to the public school system, he soon became immersed in the varied subcultures of suburbia. Quickly he became a connoisseur of the rich substrata of disaffected youth in post-Reagan America.  Having to leave corporate tool-hood behind, the Wolfe prowls the silent alleyways in search of the next great spark of local music - the incendiary device that will reignite creativity in a music world gone wrong (apparently in the throes of Bieber Fever).

And other fun facts ...

Age: 33
Place of Birth: Parkersburg, West Virginia
Gender: Raoul Duke
Religion: Gonzo
Likes: Good music.  Drinking.  Smoking.
Dislikes: Ignorance.  People who take themselves too seriously.  People who say "I just wanted to touch bases with you."  It's "base" asshole, not a baseball reference.

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