Andrew Dost of ‘fun.’ gets Comic Booked!

Comic Booked– You guys have a lot of really great stuff, I’ve really been listening to both of the fun. albums  for a few weeks now and I’ve got to say it’s all great stuff! You guys have very much your own original sound which is pretty cool. I know that you personally were involved with a few other music projects before joining fun, who would you say are your personal biggest influences as a musician?

Andrew Dost– Wow… well The Beatles are pretty indispensable, so I would say that they’re the biggest; although that is a pretty obvious answer. The Beatles really changed my life and got me into music. Other than that, I would say the first couple Weezer albums really were influential to me, and more recently Kanye West and Drake both have played a huge role in shaping what I want our band to sound like.

Comic Booked– You guys actually worked with the same producer as Kanye, right?

Andrew Dost– Yeah, we’re actually working with a couple of the same producers and the same engineering team too so we had a lot of the same team there and it was really inspiring! These guys are really the best and it was cool to not only be inspired by something, but to actually be working with the same people who helped him achieve his vision.

Comic Booked– I can only imagine! Now, we are Comicbooked.com, so I’ve got to ask- do you or any of the guys in the band read comics? If yes, what titles do you read?

Andrew Dost– We used to be into them a lot more than we have been lately. I know Nate (Ruess) talks about how he used to love Image Comics and I used to be really into Superman, and I kind of still am even though I don’t read anything regularly right now. I love stuff like Kingdom Come and I’m a big Alex Ross fan, and really anything Superman related I’m generally into. I also really like Watchmen and I’m a big Chris Ware fan, so I guess most of what I read lately in graphic novel form would be Chris Ware stuff like Jimmy Corrigan. There’s also like an Acme Anthology thing that he did that is just gorgeous. I think I’m more into the artwork than anything else.

Comic Booked– So who would you say is your favorite comic hero?

Andrew Dost– Definitely Superman! I’ve always been a big Superman fan. A lot of different artists have done great Superman stuff, but there was a period in the mid-90’s where like a whole team of the same people did work on the series, like I love the Death and Return stories, and a lot of those artists and writers I thought were just really exceptional. And now some of them have moved on at this point! I think Jeph Loeb was an executive producer on Smallville, which I was also pretty big on. But yeah, anything Superman! I love the idea of a hero that can physically do anything, so the real rest of strength lies in the limitations and the struggle in the story are all tied into the emotional way that he handles it. I just think that’s really interesting, because he’s trying to lead a normal life in addition to his ‘super-life’ and I just think that’s interesting because a lot of the stories are about how the man is just going to do it, but with Superman we already know he can handle anything! Kingdom Come was really cool for that reason, because it just shows somewhere down the road. Like “who is Superman the man, once the Clarke Kent persona is stripped away?” because he’s still the same man. I just love seeing that, because there are a lot of interesting places a story can go.

Comic Booked– Are you and the guys in the band looking forward to any of the big comic book movies this summer? We’ve got The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and Amazing Spider-man all coming within just a few short weeks!

Andrew Dost– I would say Dark Knight Rises is probably my most anticipated movie right now, period, except for maybe Moonrise Kingdom from Wes Anderson. But Dark Knight Rises? I can’t wait!

Comic Booked– I can’t blame you! Moving along, what do you guys like to do to pass the time while you’re on tour? Are any of you gamers?

Andrew Dost– Nate plays a lot of basketball video games. I would say that’s probably it for us, we don’t really game that much. The new stuff was never really my thing, I really liked Super Nintendo and that was the system that really resonated with me so I’ve got like an emulator on my computer so I can play like Megaman-X games or Dr. Mario every once in a while.

Comic Booked– So you’re more like a classic gamer?

Andrew Dost– Yeah! I definitely don’t really keep up with the new stuff. I mean we have Call of Duty on the bus and play that every once in a while, but I sort of lost interest once Super Nintendo sort of faded out.

Comic Booked– I can’t say I entirely blame you! Okay, so one last question- if you could play a gig, like a full tour, with any other band from any time in history, dead or alive, who would you want to tour with?

Andrew Dost– Wow, that’s a big question! I think I would tour with Weezer in… probably around like 1996, right when ‘Pinkerton’ first came out. Those songs are probably my favorite of theirs and when I watch the old live videos there is just so much power there, it’s so cool! Either that, or maybe the White Stripes circa 2005.

Comic Booked– Wow, those are some great choices! Thanks for taking the time away from touring to do this interview!

Andrew Dost– Yeah no problem! Thanks!

So there you have it folks, not only is Andrew Dost a multi-talented musician, but he’s a fan of classic gaming and the Man of Steel! Be sure to check out fun.’s latest album, “Some Nights”, in stores now! Let us know what you think about them in the comments section after the drop!

Don’t forget- You can find fun. on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and their official website! You can also find Andrew Dost himself on both Twitter and Myspace!