Interview: (M. Nagin)
Photos: (J. Scurti & M. Dubin)

Although branded with the stigma that has become "Emo" in the post Sunny Day Real Estate era, Error Type: 11 from New York are one of the few bands left that can pull off poppy, catchy hooks, maintain a harder edge when they feel necessary and, (now here's the catch) not become another collection of four eyed geeks trying to out indie rock each other while attempting to win the cute band of the month contest. Not that I'm saying they aren't cute. Nevermind. This interview took place one September evening after a long day at the office and was conducted on a record shopping spree that stretched from Union Square park down to the corner of West 3rd and 6th avenue. A lot of blocks were covered and a lot of records were browsed. This was what I found on my tape recorder when I returned home on the 7:39 to Nassau Boulevard train station...
Mud: Alright it seems the president may be getting impeached, and now Error Type: 11 is your nation, you have to deliver the state of the ET:11 address.
Arty: Well its actually pretty depressing. The record came out three months ago and its doing pretty well considering the fact that we haven't been able to tour very much. We've just gotten back to what we have always been doing: sitting in the basement drinking beer, writing songs and just having fun. Because once we stop doing that its not fun anymore. We just want to go on tour, basically, so someone give us money...now.
Mud: So did you have an agenda with this band? Was it like, I want to play with these guys or did it come about from you all living together?
Arty: No. Well Phil didn't live with us when the band started. I was playing with Erik. I was actually playing acoustic and writing acoustic songs and playing in coffee houses and being a depressing, miserable human after World's Fastest Car. I was playing with Erik and we were doing metal songs and we were going to call ourselves "Fucked". We were gonna just play and have various people do vocals. I had spoken to Artie Phillie (Milhouse, Indecision) about it and George Reynolds (dayinthe- life) and stuff like that. It was a joke. The stuff was good, it was funny, it was metal...I'm not very good at playing metal but I did my best. And then one d.ay I played MIB, the coffee shop (Garden City, LI) and that night I got home and, luckily only Artie Phillie and Cynthia got to see that, thank God, and I got home and there was a message from Phil. He said that Clockwise had broken up and he wanted to play. And then Artie Phillie called and said he had given my number to Phil...'cause a lot of people

had called and these various people called and he wouldn't give them my number but he gave it to Phil because he thought Phil would be good. So I called Phil and we got together. He came over and went downstairs started play- ing on the amps really loud and Erik just walked downstairs cause he lived with us and laid drums down on it, it was "I Hope All Your Dreams Come True", and it was finished by the end of the night. That was it. I had recently spoke to Scott Martin and he wanted to do it too. It just started with that. We wrote, like, ten songs in three weeks and we played with Silent Majority. It went really well. That was it. That was the way it happened. It sort of just fell together. I always find it weird when I meet people who can't play with (other) people in bands. Every band I've ever got together it usually works out pretty well.
Mud: Where there any hard feelings after Mind Over Matter? Arty: At first, No. I think they all understood why I was doing things. I think some of the members had a few issues. I know Scott was pretty upset.
Mud: Yeah. cause that's what I heard and the next thing you know you guys are working together again...
Arty: Yeah. I think Scott may have put things behind him. I don't know. I don't know why he'd be upset given that opportunity I couldn't see anyone passing it up. He was in a different situation than me. He was graduating college, get- ting a job as a teacher, going to grad school...and I had never finished college and I just wanted to play while I still had the chance: We talked about it, its cool, it doesn't really matter anymore. Its just when you play with somebody for that long and you're friends with them...I've known Scott