Greyhound talks to five-man Florida band The Mission Veo

The Mission Veo is a five-man band from Miami, Florida. Jonny also says that the band name, The Mission Veo, "…was stolen from a character in a Star Wars game called Mission Vao, but we changed it so George Lucas wouldn't sue us. And now that I admitted it, you can come and get us Georgie! All of our negative dollars are yours, sir. Except the ones that belong to our old label - you both can fight over our negative dollars." He continued, "Some people call us The Mission Scott Bayo Or The Malicious Mayo or hey look its that band that New Jersey hates - but I digress."

What? Why?

Apparently, the state of New Jersey hates The Mission Veo because of something they said. Recently, these guys played at the Bank Atlantic Arena in Miami, where the New Jersey Devils played the Florida Panthers. There they played many songs, including the one titled "New York Scum." That day, the band decided to call it "New Jersey Scum," which apparently didn't go over too well with many of the New Jersey fans.

The way they met sounds interesting - for lack of a better word. "Some of us were friends from school, and some of us spoke to palm readers and moved out from Vegas," he says. Sure they did.

The five members that make up this band are Jonny (vocals), Ben (guitar), Ryan (bass), Michael (synth) and JP (drums). According to their MySpace page, Ryan is listed as being "manbearpig" instead of the bassist. When I asked Jonny why that was, he said, "The question should be why is Ryan not listed as 'manbearpig' on Facebook."

On their MySpace, the type of music they play is labeled as indie/electro/punk, but Jonny believes that the sound is still evolving. "We are still defining the sonic pendulum that will be The Mission Veo, so I'll get back to you in a few albums."

Although Jonny thinks that they are a "sonicpendulum" of music (I suppose), other people think they sound like Peter Murphy, She Wants Revenge or Placebo. "We are getting to a point with our new album where we wont sound like anyone," says Jonny. "I love my band mates and I am very proud of what we have… together and that's all that really matters."

Even though New Jersey hates them for their show at the Bank Atlantic Arena, the band enjoyed playing there. It was their first time playing in an arena, which anyone can guess would be a great new experience. "The sound is really funny in an arena, because it bounces around, and if you climb down the stairs you hear yourself delayed a few seconds," says Jonny. "It's kind of like traveling back in time and trying to avoid yourself." While they played, the band had cheerleaders dancing behind them. "I thought it was very much a juxtaposition with how dark our song 'Fuchsia' is, and how happy the cheerleaders dancing behind us where," he says.

The time that they played at the arena wasn't their only strange experience at a show. According to Jonny, "One show, a girl ran up and confessed she almost cried during our set, and that she thinks she loves me. At another show, some skinheads where booing us, and our synth player [Michael] said the louder you boo, the harder I will suck your d- - - after the show. Well, they tried to get on stage and kill us, but fans started to grab them, and a huge fight broke out with us standing on stage in awe of all the chaos." This is apparently a true story.

The Mission Veo filmed a music video for their song "New York Scum," and it was even featured on the FUSE channel. "Seeing the 'NYScum' video on Fuse was really weird. I had to watch it a few times over the next couples of days to really let it set in."

Says Jonny, "The process was our song on repeat for 14 hours, and us playing along. In between, there was a lot of hair straightening and pizza. Someone tried to put a mannequin in the video and then some girls danced."

The Misson Veo was featured in the Nov. 1 issue of AP Magazine. As of current, Jonny hasn't seen the issue yet, but he's "…thinking I may not hate it," which is probably a good thing. As of now, their plans for the future are "not to have plans for the future," but they're working on some new tunes. Check back later when the sonic pendulum is closer to completion.

Find out more about The Mission Veo on MySpace and Facebook!