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"My Life Before Today"

You might not expect much from a band who got their name from a refrigerator magnet but House of Fools are exactly the kind of guys who like to buck expectations. The sextet from Greensboro, NC have been laboring over their full-length debut, Live and Learn, for over four years and the result is well worth the wait. With a delicately orchestrated combo of Tom Petty-esque Southern rock, acoustic pop harmonies peppered with straight up metal riffs and singer Josh King’s soothing vocals, House of Fools deliver a perfectly mellow sound for the summer.

These guys are so rock ‘n’ roll they once ran from the law…kinda: On the last tour we were staying at a friend’s house in Little Rock, Arkansas and there was a place being built across the street so Joel (guitar player) and I went over there to carve on the roof and drink some beers. As we were leaving, a cop pulled up with a spotlight on us. Being drunk we were like, “Dude, we can burn him”, so we took off into the woods and I fell on my ass. We were totally surrounded by cops - I guess they thought we were messing up the place. That night, me and Joel stayed in jail. But I flirted with the girl cop so we got out early and were only charged with public intoxication.

We’d go with the artful simplicity of Daughtry’s ‘Daughtry’ but House of Fools lead singer, Josh King, has different ideas about the best album cover art of all time: I’d say Tom Petty’s Highway Companion. But I also really like Beck’s Sea Change. Just his face and it has all those colors going around.

Don’t you just hate it when a song that you despise is all over the airwaves: Yeah, just while we were recording, it was definitely Fall Out Boy. We were trying to find an honest sound, and every time we got in the car KROQ would be blasting that fuckin’ song, the least honest sound you could possibly ever hear. So we really, really all-out hated that boy.