-How do you balance it with any other projects you have going on?
MATT: All other projects have been cancelled.
BEN: Pretty much. It's so busy. Since May, I've been home for two and a half weeks. Hopefully, January Tarrant, Nige and myself will be able to do something with Dive Dive - our old band that we've been kicking around for years getting nowhere. I'm hoping we can do some rehearsals and practice some stuff.

-Well, Dive Dive did the support run for Frank's tour last winter. How was it getting to do some shows with them again?
BEN: It was great. It's such a completely different beast. In a way, I felt that I'd become lazy with Frank. It's so much harder to play the Dive Dive set, just on a technical level, whereas with Frank I can-
MATT: Just concentrate on your dancing.
BEN [laughing]: Yeah, just swan around, and it can be a bit loose and free.

-You mentioned how there wasn't much nerves ahead of the Green Day shows - what about Wembley in April?
BEN: I'm excited. It's so far away - we'll have done, probably, almost a hundred shows between now and then, I'm guessing. I can't really believe it. It's weird, four years ago we were headling the Scala in London.

MATT: That wasn't four years...was it?
BEN: Yeah...a year ago was Brixton...no, it was three years ago! We headlined the Scala, and it was like...my god! We've done a London show that's sold out to 700 people! Now it's like...we're doing Wembley Arena.

MATT: I treated myself, actually, I bought myself a £22 bottle of wine for that show. That's how excited I was. It was good wine, too. But yeah, it's insane - we're now playing Wembley Arena.

-Before that, you're back on the road with Social Distortion. Are you looking forward to being back with those guys?
MATT: It's funny, it's kinda like what Ben was saying with Dive Dive, how it's so much harder and it gets a bit slack playing for Frank. I think, in a similar vein, you have to earn the crowd a bit more when you're doing a support slot, which I quite enjoy.

BEN: It keeps you sharp and focused, you can't just relax. Tonight's, what, 3,000? We'll go out and it's really easy to have a really enjoyable and good show, when you're going out in front of that many people who are all wanting to see you. The whole thing's just a joy, basically.

-It's a different mindset, going into a support show then.
BEN: Yeah, when you do a support tour, most of them probably don't know who we are. We've got to win them, and we've only got half an hour to do that. We need to make sure these people leave going, ideally, "My god, these people were better than Social D!"

MATT: You could certainly see the affect that the two support tours had. A lot of people said they saw us with Social D, or Flogging Molly, that kind of thing. It's clearly working, and Frank's certainly winning them over.

The other interesting thing is that as soon as we finish, he goes straight over to the merch table and literally talks to everyone all night - which is a bit difficult to do when you're playing to three and a half thousand people. It becomes a bit of a security and time issue - it takes a long time, even though he probably would if he could.

-Next year, Frank has his hardcore side-project planned at some point. Are you going to take that time to try other projects?
MATT: I'm in it!
BEN: Frank doesn't want me to play any more guitar for him, ever.
MATT: I'm sure that's not true. We're looking at trying to find time to start rehearsing for it. It's just finding the time.

-Any plans to tour it?
MATT: For now, we haven't even played in the same room yet. It's a little bit early to say yet, but it'll be a lot of fun.
BEN: I'm hoping for a new Dive Dive album next year - that's my plan.
MATT: I'd hope for a new Dive Dive album next year - I thought the last one was amazing.
BEN: Thanks man.

Female First - Alistair McGeorge (Follow me on Twitter @AlistairMcG)

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