As Summer Dies hits the stage before ink gets a chance to dry

By John Benson

There is nothing more rock ’n’ roll than conducting a phone interview about your hard-core band while getting tattooed.

That’s exactly what As Summer Dies guitarist Jay Fritzius did recently when talking to The Vindicator about the band’s upcoming tour, which includes a show Saturday at The Cellar. More importantly, he imparted some basic rock ’n’ roll 101 information that many of us perhaps never considered before.

“I’m actually finishing up right now — it’s like my millionth tattoo,” said Fritzius during a recent call. “I’ve been working on a sleeve forever, so I’m just getting more work done on that before we head back on the road. You don’t want to be healing them off when you’re on the road because you don’t know where you’ll be sleeping every night. You’re crashing on a lot of people’s floors and you might not get a shower every day, so that’s not always the best environment to try to heal something.”

Hmm, that’s good to know. As far as what else you should know about As Summer Dies, the quintet formed in 2002 and rose to national prominence with its 2007 effort “Sincerely.”

Recently, the outfit released EP “Ashes,” which features remixes and a few new tracks. Its next album is due out in the fall.

“We’ve always kind of gone our own route, and musically we have so many different influences,” Fritzius said. “Everything from punk to indie to metal and Goth. We kind of meld that stuff together into something that kind of sounds like really, really different. Stylistically, if I had to put what it sounded like, it would be a cross between The Deftones meets AFI or something like that.”

With perhaps a slightly more accessible sound than some of their peers, As Summer Dies is quickly expanding its national fan base. That includes the Youngstown area, where roughly six months ago the act played The Cellar.

“I’m excited to get back there because we met some really cool people,” Fritzius said. “It just seems like the bands we played with from the area were very cool and receptive, so it’s kind of nice to go into a place where there weren’t a lot of egos and bull crap — where people were there because they generally like the music.”

Perhaps the connection or kinship As Summer Dies feels with Youngstown has to do with the troubled times facing both its hometown and Northeast Ohio.

“It’s funny, when we were out there earlier this year it wasn’t that bad, but I heard stories from people,” Fritzius said.

“Economy wise, Buffalo is one of the poorer cities in the country and the weather kind of sucks, but there’s some really good people”

In a perfect world, Fritzius said he’d like to change the national perception of Buffalo from being the home of the Goo Goo Dolls to the home of As Summer Dies.

“I would hope so,” Fritzius said. “We’ll see how that works out.”