When you think of Avail two things come to mind—Catchy hardcore and rabid fans. Life In A Bungalo gave singer Tim Barry a call last week to find out why they’re doing this quick Northeast tour, as well as the latest happenings with the band.

Avail is hitting some pretty small places right now, like Montclair, NJ. Was this planned? Did you want to do a string of smaller venues?
We just wanted to go out and have fun. Our drummer Ed [Trask] has a kid on the way. His first kid is due in December, and we had just finished up five months of touring with Ensign here in the States and overseas. When we got word that the kid was coming we figured we would go out and do one more short tour. We had anticipated leaving in September for a five week US tour, but instead we thought we should hit some new places to do a blowout, and then lay low for a little bit.

What does lay low mean? Your last album, “Front Porch Stories” came out a few months ago. Are there any plans for new music in the near future? Or are you guys taking a real break?
We are always constantly writing. The thing that is a little bit unforeseen about the whole baby thing is, “When do you actually start touring again?” You just can’t tour when you have a newborn.

No Avail maternity leave?
No (laughter). What I think we are going to do is play these shows and finish up the year, and once Ed and his wife Kelly are a little more settled, then we’ll start doing weekend runs for the next six months. Just go up to New York. We have this thing planned out were we won’t go any further then a nights drive home. We’ll go as North as Boston, and as far South as Tallahassee.

On “Front Porch Stories,” and its predecessor “Once Wrench,” the band added some new elements to the traditional Avail sound. There’s a lot more musicianship on the records. Was that something that you purposely tried to do?
Everybody is so contradictory when they talk about these records. Some people think they’re straightforward, so it’s hard to gauge. We simply write by feel, and that’s it. We’ve taken the same approach to being in the studio as we have on every record that we’ve done, except this time we had more of a budget. It’s really simple for us. We start writing songs at home and on the road, and whatever we like we keep, and eventually we have 15 songs and we record them. As far as added elements, there is some slide guitar on “Front Porch Stories” that you don’t usually hear on hardcore punk rock songs.

By new elements, I meant that the songs are fuller and each tune stands on its own. On “4 A.M. Friday” the songs blend into each other after a while, but on “Front Porch Stories” there is definitely a change in tempo and melody between the different songs. These are not minute and a half-long punk rock songs.
That totally makes sense. Our early albums like “Dixie” were much more straight forward; not a lot of layering of vocals. We didn’t really know how to harmonize back then. Albums were recorded and mixed in four days. We spent three weeks on “Front Porch Stories.” Luckily, we really haven’t progressed as musicians over the years, because bands that originate as punk bands tend to turn into metal bands when the start learning how to play better. For us, if a song has a mood, we’re good with it.

At one time, when you guys were on Lookout! Records Avail was the oddball hardcore punk band amongst a sea of pop-punk groups. But you guys lasted a while before leaving the label for Fat Wreck Chords. Why did you leave?
We left Lookout strictly because Fat has better record distribution. When we made the decision to split, we had already been to Australia, Japan, Europe and across the States, and our records weren’t in the places we were playing. I’m talking our hometown. It was really becoming difficult. It was really hard to leave, because Lookout is a tremendous record label, and has always been really good to us. I approached Fat Mike, and he said he would love for us to be on his label as long as we made it clear to Lookout that he didn’t contact us trying to scoop their bands up.

Many bands that often pride themselves on where they came from tend to forget their roots as they get popular. However, Avail is still hammering home the fact that they are from Richmond, VA. Why is that?
All of us grew up outside Richmond, which is a cluster fuck of suburbia, but there is still woods and farms. It’s an odd place that goes through changes just like everywhere else. We watched it turn from complete urban decay to tobacco warehouses that have been abandoned for as long as I can remember, which are now becoming yuppie apartments for $1,500 a month. It’s like a lot of towns in the South, in the sense that the drug war actually worked in the late ‘80s. All the white people had fled the city with all the money, and now they are coming back, and it’s changing.

When Avail plays home what’s it like? Do you guys play backyards?
We try to find smaller clubs to do real shows rather than big rock concerts, kind of like the Bloomfield Ave. show. Our shows here are just fun; they’re a fuckin’ blast. We haven’t done a backyard or a basement in a little while. When we play Richmond we generally play clubs for $5 door price and the money always goes to Food Not Bombs Richmond, which is a substantial organization here in the community.

You had a line-up change with “One Wrench,” what happened?
That was two albums ago when Ed joined the band on drums. It added a complete drive to the band. Erik [Larson], our old drummer, is still a great friend of ours, and he can admit it as well as all of us that he just wasn’t there any more. And there is nothing worse than writing music with a group of people that are really going for it, and one person is just not feeling it. He left on great terms to go make metal music, and we back him on it. He started a band called Alabama Thunderpussy. We’ve known Ed for 11 years and he worked out perfectly.

How about the rest of the band; when did you guys meet, and how did the band form?
There have been so many incarnations of the band. Joe, Beau and myself are the only original members. Basically, everyone in our high school bounced around from band to band. I was actually the drummer for Avail until ’91, when I started singing. I was playing drums at the time and Joe was playing guitar and we had two other people in the band that left us to travel cross-country. When we were 19, Joe and I decided to record our own record; I would be playing drums and singing and he would be on bass and guitar. That was what “Satiate” was becoming. The other people living with us just started picking up the drums and bass while I was singing, and after two weeks we figured we might as well all just form a real line-up. It was a total accident.

When can the fans expect a new album?
I don’t know yet. Let’s just leave it at “we are going to do this short tour, and we will all be writing songs and try to come up with something, while Ed and his wife take care of their kid.” It could be mid- to the end of next year before we have a new record. But people have to remember that as soon as the record comes out, we are going to tour for six months without a break.

When you first started out, Avail was considered a hardcore band, even though your music was accessible to a wider crowd. Today, your style of music would be considered tame compared to the metal-oriented hardcore kids. Where do you feel Avail fits into the present punk/hadcore scene?
I have no idea what punk, hardcore and emo is nowadays, and I don’t even bother trying. In a unique way, when we play shows we are lucky enough to draw a really diverse crowd. We’ve got kids with the latest emo band shirts, hardcore kids windmilling, mall punks and people who aren’t so young and hired babysitters to be able to come out to the show. The energy is still there, and that’s our passion. Although if you are at Joe’s [Banks, guitar] house, he’s probably listening to Lynard Skynard, and Ed’s probably listening to country records. Although we might not listen to much punk rock anymore, that is where our heart is.