Do you ever wonder how it all happened – people knowing who you are around the world in regards to yourself in general?

I mean, if you look at it from the stand point of like oh my god like I'm sending books to like South Africa, and who are you and how did that happen then yeah from that perspective yeah. It's kind of like those people who see like some band all of a sudden just explode and they're like how did they do it. It's like well you didn't see the 200 plus shows they played last year to rooms of nobody, you didn't see the people who were handing out fliers on the street corners, you didn't see all that stuff. It doesn't happen over night, it's not like somebody walks into somebody's house who's been sitting there scribbling on note cards or playing a guitar and they're like hey we're going to make you famous tomorrow it just doesn't happen like that.

What happened is it was a series of events that managed to make it go from point A all the way to point Z to where it's at now. It wasn't an easy, I'm not saying that I even had the intent of making this what it is now, it was like all little a series of accidents and close calls and opportunities and brought that to where it is now. Do I ever think about it, like think back like at the end of the night, at the end of the day? Absolutely yeah, I mean its crazy but when you look at it in the timeline it makes sense, it makes sense of how it goes from, I just started writing, and a handful of people started paying attention, somebody said they liked what I did, somebody else said that, then I had an opportunity, then I had a bigger opportunity and eventually it gets to the point where it only makes sense that oh I know why people are paying attention oh that makes sense, and I know why that person's paying attention, I know why that city's paying attention, I know why that bands paying attention, I know why that country's paying attention. And so to the person who doesn't know what I do and just sees me, how did that happen? Yeah I can understand that.

But for me I've seen I've gone to speakings, in you know when 6 people show up, when 10 people show up to me trying to get more and more books out and to me trying to put more and more things out there so I can get my, I don't know what to say, I don't want to say my "message" because that sounds super shitty, but to get my, I guess my voice, my art heard.

You've played in a number of bands – How was that experience for you?

Each one was different because we had different levels of success, not that either one was really ever very successful but, I've been in plenty of crappy bands from being in high school up to a few years ago, and being in a band it's not as glamorous as everybody likes to think it is, everybody thinks its as cool as those half hour 45 minutes they see on a stage and its not, the half hour, 45 minutes is the pinnacle of the day that's what it's supposed to be about you don't see the other 23 hours a day when it's no sleep, when its bad food, when no one shows up, when no one answers your phone call, when you don't get paid what they said they were going to pay you, when no one buys merch, when people heckle, and there's a lot of things in between that people don't see they just see the cool shows they see the cool clips on the internet, they don't see the struggle and the time. By that right it's this thing that's so romantic in retrospect, in retrospect when you look back on it these days were awesome, they were wonderful but when they were going on and when they were happening it sucks really bad to be hungry and cold and tired and to know that no one's paying attention. Ten years down the line you say to yourself I learned so much from that I learned humility, I learned how to appreciate things, I learned how to work for things and by that right it's definitely an experience, its something that you're only going to come out a better person from and so I learned a lot, I learned a lot of tolerance, I learned teamwork, I learned something that I'd never learned before really. I learned how to be on a team, I learned how to tolerate very dominant personalities along with my own and to make it work, and to learn how to still have fun with it all because at the end of the day that's what it's about and I think a lot of people forget that.

Knowing a lot of people in the industry you've worked in have you ever been tempted to ask the people you know for a job working with them?

Oh yeah, I have I mean I've roadied for bands for the past 10 years. I started off roadying for some of my friends smaller bands and those bands got bigger and then those bands got bigger and then I worked for this band and it got bigger and it all built up and I got to, again its another one of those things that looks a lot more glamorous than it really is, you're like; oh man I can't believe you get to do merch for this band, Taking Back Sunday or Panic at the Disco man these bands are awesome, I cant believe you get to do merch for My Chemical Romance. I've done merch for a lot of those bands. It's not glamorous its not fun there's, its only glamorous when you get to retell the story of it being glamorous, its only glamorous in the times you get to say yes I worked for so and so band, that's the only time that it's glamorous. Oh and you get free food, that's about the extent of it, that's about how, about all glamorous it gets. It's, don't get me wrong its fun you get to meet a lot of people, there's a lot of cool things that you get to see as far as…

Let me just tell you, let me give you an example. I was, I worked for Fall Out Boy on Warped tour and we were in Detroit, and it was literally the hardest day I have ever worked in my entire life. Harder than the jobs that I had when I was young, when I had to jump into dumpsters and crush down garbage and rats were jumping out, harder when sweat, dude I didn't stop sweating that entire day. I worked for 14 hours straight it sucked. I only had time to run to grab dinner, that's the only time I had, and then I had to run back, we drank so many cans of water, we went through everything, it was miserable, and at the end of that, for ten days I got paid $150. Work that out that's $15 a day. That's that day I got paid a little bit more than a dollar and hour.

Think about that on the hardest and most difficult day I have ever worked in my entire life I mean I was upset, I was yelling at my friends, I was yelling at the kids, I was pissed we kept running out, we had to keep running back half a mile to go grab more merch and bring it back and dig it friggin through the rocks and the gravel on these little trolley carts that kept falling over, that sucked it was a really, really hard day, it was the hardest day I have ever worked in my entire life, but, at the end of the day it looks glamorous cos I can say, I worked for fall out boy, you know.

Everybody thinks it's all glamorous until they actually do it and then you're like oh, now I see. But yeah I've thought about it, I've worked for a lot of bands in one capacity or another and it is what it is, at the end of the day you can talk to any of those bands, any of the people that worked for those bands cos a lot of my friends are friends who work for those bands and they'll tell you all the same thing; yeah it's cool I get to travel everywhere, but I don't get to see anything, cos I have to be up early, I have to work all day, I have to stay up late and then I have to go back I don't really get to see much, I don't really get to do much, so by that right its, again, its not as glamorous as everybody makes it out to be, and what I'm doing now is far more "glamorous" than slinging merch or carrying boxes or going to fetch a certain type of french-fry for someone so yeah.

Do you think your relationship with the people you know have in some way helped you achieve what you have?

Yes absolutely without a doubt. Like I said I've answered this question a few times, and I'm not just going to sit here and lie and say that a lot of people didn't open up doors and opportunities for me because they did. But like I said in the interview that I did with AP.net I read an interview that said that 80% of the people in America have gotten their jobs by someone putting in a word for them you know oh that's my boy, that's my dude, that's my girl, oh that's my friend can you hire them or can you put in a good word blah, blah, blah, he's a good dude, she's a good chick and it happens and I had a bunch of people who put in a good word for me and that's awesome, there's a lot of people that know that they have this, know they have a stage, they know they have clout behind their name and they use that to help their friends and they do, and now that I've gotten a little bit of weight behind my name I use it to try and help other people out as well.

My friends band 2*sweet, I back them because not only are they good dudes, they deserve it and I think they are honestly genuine but I love their music and I back them, and I have a little bit of clout now, a little bit of weight behind my name, even as small as that is, but I do and I push them as much as I possibly can because somebody did the same thing for me and that's how this kind of industry replenishes life and so yes to answer your question.

 You've written 2 books, the first one being 'On The Upswing' how did the concept of that book from selecting the content from your journals, how did it progress from that and did you find it difficult choosing things from what you've written?

You know it's funny is I just wrote those stories because I did and I just posted them and I didn't think twice about it I just though hey I have a funny story, I got some cool stories, and I posted it and then somebody said they wanted me to write a book and I took half of those stories and I put them in a book and I said well this isn't very long I've got some other good stories so I'm going to put those in a book too.

So I kind of threw it together haphazardly, I didn't take it very serious, and I've always said it's just a glorified 'zine, you know it's like a fanzine just with a glossy cover, that cost me a lot to make and it came out and I only hoped to break even on it, which I had to sell 300 or 350 copies and I ended up selling all of them which is 1,063 copies in a matter of 7 months, that was incredible to me, I couldn't believe that I did that.

It surprised me and I was like wow people must find me entertaining, note again that I didn't say I think that they find that they like me, they find me entertaining, and it was a strange way to kind of just come about again it's another thing that kind of fell in my lap almost, and so what happened was for my second book I kind of said okay people find this interesting I want to do, I want to write an actual book, like I want to put it together with the idea and the concept of it being an actual book, and so I put a little more effort into it and put a lot more honesty and a lot more vulnerability into it I thought more about the, instead of just taking, here are these stories lets just put them in a book, I said okay lets put them in an order that I think reads well, and so I put a lot more time and a lot more effort into it instead and it was like going from grade school to high school, its like I wanted to see that progression, I wanted to see you know I took a little chances in some of the things by putting out a lot more about myself than I really intended to and I did little things in there like, I put in those little stories that were like one page long in my second book because I wanted to try a little bit different style, I know it doesn't seem like that edgy  or that unique of a concept, but for me, for a dude who does it all himself it was a little bit you know, I was trying new things so yeah.

 Did you think that the 2^nd book was harder to put together than the first?

They were difficult in different ways. The first one was really difficult because it was the first one and I didn't know where to go, you know, its like the first time I ever played Detroit, the first time I ever went to speak, it was scary because I didn't know where I was going, I didn't know who I was talking to, I walked in the room I didn't know if anyone was going to show up, I didn't know if I brought enough merchandise to sell, I didn't know if I brought enough books, I didn't know people were going to respond to it – I didn't know, so to kind of open the door and walk in, into that room and stand there on that stage with the microphone that was really difficult for me. The 2^nd, the 3^rd, the 4^th time I've been back there, it's easy, its easy now, because I already know I don't have to go over that hump, that initial oh my god this is the first time, so as far as the first book went yeah it was really difficult because I didn't know where to go, I didn't know how to make pdf files, I didn't know how to find a good designer or good editor or a good printer. So in that right that was really difficult, but the second one it was really difficult because now I had expectations. I had people expecting something, because nobody knew what to expect for the first book, they're like oh, oh that's what you do, okay, and now for the second book people are like okay well you've already done this well you need to do at least this well [as well as the first book] kind of thing, and so it was really difficult for me to kind of, they refer to it as a sophomore slump, you know you hit one out of the park the first time, and they expect you to do just as well the second time, so there's a little bit of pressure on it and by that right I was trying to be honest and vulnerable and take risks and at the same time I was still trying to be true to myself, and trying to still hit one out of the park.

You released an audio book called 'Dirt of an Electric Boy'; what made you decide to release a spoken word CD?

I wanted a CD.

I wanted a CD. I went and I took some of my favourite posts that seemed to get the best response from people, I think that's kind of more of my real writing like I tell stories, I tell stories in the book, but my writing is what you see on the livejournal are those really vulnerable posts, that's my writing, and those are the ones that I'm proud of.

 And those are the ones that seem to get a really good response from a lot of the readers and so I said, well, what I like to do is a lot of times, I like to put myself in people who like what I do; in their shoes, you know what if there was a guy that wrote really interesting things that I liked online, what would I want to see him do? And when I said that I was like 'oh I think I'd like to hear that in that dude's voice', I'd like to hear like, because there's only so much passion you can get out of a keyboard and then I think it translates differently when you hear it come out of their mouth.

And the reason why I say that is because I used to love this author named David Sedaris, I don't know if you're familiar with him, he's huge in America. He's this amazing; he's very dry, very witty, like it's technically fiction but its like non-fiction short stories of his childhood, and I loved him, and so I went to go see him speak, and when he spoke and he read the same stories that I was used to, it came off completely different because I wasn't used to seeing him, I wasn't used to seeing him enunciate certain things and I was like wow, it took on a whole new life, its like it was like this different monster, and I was like I think that I can apply that to what I do and so I went and I decided to take my favourite ones and I recorded it and, I can't listen to it whatsoever because, it's like hearing your voice on an answering machine, you're like is my voice really that nasally? And yeah, but basically I just really wanted a CD. So yeah. And then everybody bootlegged it.

Awesome. Yeah whatever, it happens you know.

 You said in the cover of your spoken word CD that people should read a few books; 'You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train' by Howard Zinn, 'Still Life With Woodpecker' by Tom Robbins, 'Get in the Van' by Henry Rollins; Why do you think people should read those books in particular?

I'll tell you why they were important to me, because the book 'Get in the Van' by Henry Rollins, shows you not only what its really like to be touring, but what it's like to be desperate and touring, and to have a dream and to keep fighting and clawing and scratching at the underbelly of America and the world actually, and to make them hear you. And to keep fighting and to keep raging regardless of how many people are in that room. And that's what they did in that thing and you hear and you feel the desperation and how desperate they are to make themselves heard and it doesn't matter when it is there's bands out there right now, there's people out there right now who are doing the exact same thing, who are surviving on ramen noodles and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and going to bed at night hungry because they are so passionate about their art. And that exemplifies it more than any book I've ever read, and on top of it, it happens to be about Black Flag, which is one of the greatest bands in the world.

'You can't be Neutral on a Moving Train' by Howard Zinn, because it completely changed my perspective on social injustice and social inequality. You have an opinion on everything and how do you get that opinion, you know, you get it through what you see and what's fed to you, and here is this guy who was in America and he was struggling for equal rights and whatnot, and it's about his journey through all this up until now and, it opened my eyes to a lot of stuff and I didn't see it from certain perspectives, and he makes you see it from different perspectives so that's why its an awesome book.

And 'Still Life With Woodpecker' because it changed my outlook on what romance is, and it made me understand that romance and love isn't an easy thing and that if anything its, romance and love is for outlaws, and that's kind of what he kind of projects in that book is that love, real love isn't safe, its not easy, it's never easy and that's how you know it's real, because if it's easy its something else. And, so I re-read that book at least once a year.

 You've toured the States giving talks at schools and coffee houses; what is it like being in that situation where there are people sitting there waiting for you to pretty much talk about yourself?

It's still strange to me, it really is, and it's not something that I've gotten used to. And I hope I never do, I hope I never do and, I mean even yesterday, I know that moment when I turn the corner and I'm like is anyone going to be here there's like that spilt second of like, you know you could be doing everything, you could have tons of people around you, they could be talking to you, laughing, blah, blah, blah, but the moment you turn and walk into that room you're all alone, and I'm carrying my suitcases and everything and I'm rolling with my merchandise in tow behind me, and as you turn that corner its like this moment that's almost surreal when you turn the corner and it reveals the people who are there for you.

They're there for you.

They're not there for your catchy songs, they're not there for the other four people in the band, they're not there for the headliners or any of the other bands, its when you turn that corner and you walk in there and it's a completely different feeling from when I was touring with bands, they're there for you. And they're waiting for you to entertain them, and you just have to, and it's scary, it's scary to walk into a room full of people you've never met, in countries you've never been, in cities you've never seen, you walk in and you're like oh my god I hope that I oh man, and sometimes you want to turn and run. But then you have to remember, what I have to remember is like this is what I do for a living, some people think I'm good at it and I have to kind of rely on that, be like listen, I've never, that I know, failed at it, I've never had a time where I walked out of a room thinking 'that was terrible', it's never happened, and armed with that knowledge, I know that I can do this, I know I can walk in this room and make it happen, so yeah.

 What was it like speaking at Warped tour?

It was a lot different, it was more like boot camp, I treated it like boot camp because I figured if I could um, when you're speaking at Warped tour you're sitting there and there are, you're surrounded by stages of bands all playing at once, some of them, very few have good bands, and you're kind of up against other people, and people get to choose between seeing you and somebody else. And a lot of those people aren't there for you, a lot of people are there to go see this band and this band and this band, most people are there to see other bands, and then they're like oh I heard about this Chris character, lets go and listen to him.

And they kind of wander over, so not everybody's there for you, and that's the difference between doing speakings on my tour as opposed to being on the Warped tour, its not my tour its somebody else's tour, and it was hot, it was outside, trying to command someone's attention while three different band's were echoing off of my tent so, I figured if I could speak there and hold people's attention for half an hour, because I had a half an hour set, then there's no place I couldn't speak.

 What did you always dream of doing when you were younger?

I always wanted to be an annalistic psychologist like my mom, and then I realised how much school was behind that, and as I grew up I mean you have dreams when you're like a little kid like you want to be a fireman or a policeman or an astronaut, I don't know, you know I never really thought about it to much I was more about just doing what I've always wanted to do you know, so for me its like I've finally got to live that dream because I am doing exactly what I've always wanted to do.

You're UK tour is almost over, you've spoke in London, Nottingham, Manchester and Newcastle so far, how has it been over here for you with the dates that you've done so far, and just being here doing the tour?

It's almost different than the United States because I think people come at you with a different understanding, whereas in America I think we're so used to having, you know everything is so readily available, all the bands, everybody you know there's always good bands every week, there's always cool shows all the time, there's plenty of times when I'll go and there'll be 5 different shows for 5 amazing bands in one week, so over here I know its not as prevalent, and I think there's a certain understanding and I think there's a better appreciation for things and I think that comes across and you can see that in the audience, and it's a little bit of an older audience and it just comes across that as and I don't want to say that as a generalisation because at the same time there's plenty of people who appreciate it in America, but it just seems like overall it tends to be a little bit more, it's different I really have to think about it before I take it in and go home, go back to the United States before I figure out exactly what that differences are.

From the initial idea of you bringing the tour over to the UK did you ever think is it really going to happen?

I mean yeah like I said, you know you can say yeah I'm going to go to the UK, okay put it all together, okay get the money, okay buy the ticket, okay go to the airport, you get on the aeroplane, and then when you land you're like holy shit I'm in the UK, I'm in a different country, I'm halfway across the world, so by that right it's not real until you step foot on the ground, and you're like whoa, things look different, there's a lot of bad food here, and by that, then that's when you realise wow I'm here, its never real until you're actually there. So you could imagine you're going to write a book, send it off to people and you could pay money, and you can get people to design stuff, but it's not real until you open that box and pull out a book and hold it in your hand. That's when it's real, so it's not real until I'm here.

Aside from giving more talks and doing more appearances across America and hopefully the UK and other places if you can get out to them, what's next for Chris? What can we look out for?

What's next is a really good question; it's a question I always keep asking myself and I don't really know. I just want to keep doing this, if I can maintain this momentum for the rest of my life, I will be doing just fine, and I'll be doing exactly what I want to do. I would love to be able to keep, to be a little bit more, you know reach more people, but yeah I really don't know, I just want to keep doing what I'm already doing, I want to put out more books, I want to put out my DVD, I want to put out more stuff, so that eventually it's easier for me to go from city to city, and not have to worry about whether or not people are going to show up, and I wont have to worry as much if I can keep the lights on and a roof over my head.

and finally...

Would you rather be a pirate or a ninja and why?

A ninja. Because ninjas are way cooler and there's more of a mystique about them and they could easily kick a pirate's ass. Pirates were murderers and rapists, ninjas – they just kicked ass. They just kicked ass. Not that they didn't murder people, but they only did it because people deserved it.