Falling in Reverse have come out swinging with their debut album ‘The Drug In Me Is You,’ which has yielded a handful of singles, including the catchy tune ‘I’m Not a Vampire.’

The band recently played on the 2012 Rock on the Range festival and is also set to be a part of this year’s massive line-up for Warped Tour; for a full list of tour dates, click here.

When Loudwire spoke to frontman Ronnie Radke and guitarist Jacky Vincent, they told us why they feel Warped Tour is a lot like high school, gave us the lowdown on the drama with their former bassist, mentioned some of their favorite tattoes (as well as their not so favorite ones) and much more. In addition, Radke told us about how his stint in prison helped shape the band’s music.

Can you tell me about the recent single ‘I’m Not a Vampire’ musically and lyrically?

Jacky Vincent: Musically, it’s Ronnie’s idea from prison, in his head and the first thing we knew about it, he had the drum beat.

Ronnie Radke: We got that from Muse, I got that in prison listening to that hit song by Muse, it’s so good, the shuffle beat. People in our genre don’t do that beat anymore, you never hear that in our genre so I just wanted to add a little flare to it. The lyrics are about drugs and my past problems with drugs and the tongue and cheek way of looking at it like “come see how good I look” or whatever. It’s like a rapper’s way of looking at things.

Ronnie, while you were incarcerated, what kind of music did you listen to?

RR: Katy Perry, Eminem, didn’t really have anything else. It was just pop culture because of our TV’s. We had TVs and the radio, CDs were too hard to get so it was Muse, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry.

From a band’s perspective, how would you describe the experience of a large festival like Warped Tour, hanging out with other bands and things like that?

RR: It’s like high school.

JV: It’s like a cafeteria and you wait in line, but the school kids are other the bands.

RR: You got the jocks at one table, you got the dorks at the other table the indie rockers, you got the gothic punk kids at one table and you got the groupie cheerleaders at another table, that’s Warped Tour all combined. Then you got the metal kids that shoot up the high school at the other table, the Lamb of Gods.

Who are the jocks?

RR:The military, like A Day To Remember fans, they draw military dudes and I started noticing we’re drawing them, too.

JV: With the first tour it was mostly kids and now I started to see a lot of dudes, like military hardcore dudes. My favorite thing seeing is old rockers, rockin’ out.

RR: Or little kids, I never saw little kids before come to the shows but I think it’s because I try to set positive examples so parents are more likely to bring them. I tell people not to do drugs on stage, I don’t drink and I try to promote a better lifestyle or them and I noticed them starting to get younger and younger so it’s a good feeling to have.

What is one band that you would love to go on the road with that you haven’t gotten a chance to tour with yet?

JV: A Day to Remember.

RR: My Chemical Romance; ourselves. [Laughs]

Ronnie, when did you realize you wanted to front a rock band?

RR: I always wanted to. I would play piano a lot and sing, I didn’t really have to practice when I was younger to sing in key but I really started practicing at 15, broke my ankle skateboarding and then I was just like, “Eh, I want to be a Rockstar,” and then my dad was like, “So now you don’t want to be a professional skateboarder, you want to be a rock star, okay.”

JV: I wanted to be a pro skateboarder, too.

What influences the style of Falling in Reverse both in appearance and musically?

JV: It’s everything, hip hop, rock, metal, pop.

RR: When I was in Escape the Fate, we did this album called ‘Dying Is Your Latest Fashion,’ it was an accident the way the songs came together; it would be pop songs and then there would be a really heavy song and our producer would be like “don’t do that, you can’t do that” people will criticize, people would write “they don’t know what their sound is” and I was just like that is the sound. That’s my sound, it’s a collection of different genres of music. I noticed some bands starting to do that they’ll have pop song then they’ll have a really heavy song next. It’s different collaborations of music tastes and styles.

You guys recently announced a lineup change, a new bassist. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened?

RR: I live out in Hollywood, I have an apartment out there, it’s a lot of money a month to live there and he [former bassist Mika Horiuchi] didn’t have a key to get in while I was out to dinner and he called me and he was like “alright I’ll figure it out” and I come home and he got a screwdriver, he broke my door to get in, it looked like a burglar tried to get in.

I confronted him and he said nothing, no apology he just looked down. Then the next night I told him a couple of times not to bring these certain girls over, like these fan girls because I didn’t want them to know where I lived. I don’t want people to know where I live or where I’m sleeping. So he waited until I went to sleep and literally the next night he snuck them into my house. There’s other things that added up like he had a naked picture on the internet, I try to keep this band sacred I don’t want naked picture on the Internet, it looks tacky. It was just a collection of things that added up so I was just like you’re more trouble than you’re worth, you got to go. He was okay about it, it was surprising, no fighting nothing — he just left.

Tell us a little bit about your new bassist.

RR: I feel like an idiot because our last bass player to this bass player is like night and day. Last bass player was more of like “the look” more than the actual playing and this new one [Ron Ficarro] comes and locks up the rhythm, he’s got harmonies for days. He’s so professional, he makes us sound 10 times better than we’ve ever sounded.

You’re still out supporting the first album; have you started to work on the next album yet?

RR: I have so many songs, he has so many songs and riffs, he had a whole 10 song demo.

JV: That’s just the beginning though.

RR: I have about 12 songs in my head that are just ready to go.

When do you think you would hit the studio for this?

RR: At the end of this year, for an early 2013 release hopefully.

You guys are all inked up. What’s the one tattoo you regret?

RR: All of them.

JV: I wouldn’t say I regret a certain one, the thing that gets me is that I’ve wanted to teach music to kids, I’d love to work with kids but I know I couldn’t because of the tattoos on my neck and my hands. It’s not regretting it but it’s the only thing that really kind of makes me think.

Is there a favorite one?

JV: This house is my favorite, it’s from Goosebumps. I used to be obsessed with the art, I wanted to be a painter, that art was amazing. The house was amazing. I have my ’24′ tattoo. I’m kidding, it’s from ‘The Lost Boys’ but I have Kiefer Sutherland on my arm forever.

RR: I have Popeye the sailor man tattoos, oh my God this arm I’ve got a six tentacle octopus, not eight. About a year after I got it I was like “wait a minute one, two, three, four, five six…there’s only six tentacles” it’s a memory. I got “To Fast for Love” the “To” is spelled wrong. I got a tattoo that’s an optimistic way of looking at my prison sentence it says “On Vacation ’08 to 2010.”

You can also check out Falling in Reverse Guitarist Jacky Vincent shredding it up in the Loudwire office and talking about his musical influences here.

Watch the Video for Falling in Reverse, ‘I’m Not a Vampire’

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