Me Talk Pretty was founded in New York City by lead singer UlianaPreotu and guitarist Leon Lyazidi in 2006. Since then, the band has appeared on stage supporting the likes of Alien Ant Farm, Sick Puppies, Adelitas Way and Neon Tress. Timessquare.com had the opportunity to chat with Uliana and Leon during their Wake Up! Tour.

Times Square (TS): Thanks for giving timessquare.com the opportunity to catch up with your band while you’re on tour. You’re a few shows in now: how is the tour going?

Leon Lyazidi (LL): The tour’s going great, some fantastic bands on with us, all great people. This is the fifth show. It’s been snowing and raining a lot as we head out west. But it’s been great! This is our first headlining run, so there are lots of things to think of and take care of, but we’ve been having a lot of fun.

UlianaPreotu (UP): Definitely lots of pressure being the headliner; we didn’t expect anything else, of course. It’s amazing to be at this point in our career and we’re extremely grateful.

TS: As you mentioned, this is Me Talk Pretty’s first time headlining a tour. How is this tour different from your previous ones? How does it feel to be headlining?

LL: It’s very different being headliner than being a supporting act. That kind of atmosphere was plugging in and playing – just doing our thing. This time we’ve had a lot more control over the artwork and the production value of our set and doing some cool little things that we never thought we would be able to do.

UP: What happens when you’re in the position of having your first headlining run, you’re in the position to bring more than just your music on stage.You can bring your opinion across – and we are very opinionated musicians. The purpose for the Wake Up! Tour is to give a voice to all the kids who are coming to our shows to express themselves – that’s why we got “Rock the Vote’ involved. We brought a piano on stage, we have an acoustic song every night that we play on a piano that we will auction off and then we are going to donate the money to a charity of our crowd’s choice. They can go on our Facebook or they can write us and tell us what charity should receive the money. Being the headliner is a great position to have an avenue to speak to our crowd.

TS: You mentioned the message that the Wake Up! Tour is representing. Can you tell me more about that?

LL: Based on a lot of our experiences – both Uliana and I are immigrants, I came here when I was younger, and Uliana only came here only five or six years ago – there are a lot of things that we notice travelling across the country speaking to kids and we just wanted to create a tour where these kids could come and offer them things like Rock the Vote and GetGlue and talk to them about health care reform. One of the things with this band is advocating for change in health care because of how close and important it is to Uliana.

UP: Here’s how we feel about it: going back a little bit on the story, a couple of years back, my mom passed away. She was one of those people who didn’t have health insurance, who didn’t have the opportunity to take care of themselves properly. And there are a lot of people around us like that. There are so many, so we are trying to make a change, trying to raise awareness about it. It shouldn’t happen, everyone should have a chance to life. Things that should be prevented can be prevented really easily. The whole purpose of the tour is to bring good music, positive vibes, but at the same time, to show who we are and what we can do with ourselves.

TS: The lead single from We Are Strangers, ‘Wake Up’ has been featured in several video games. How does it feel to have your music featured in this relatively new but very far-reaching medium?

LL: EA Sports, the video game was NHL 10, as well as the Sims 3. They have been amazing partners in terms of getting our music out and we hope to continue to work with. To be honest with you, that was the spark that started it all for us – having that single in the games – all the doors opened. One of the first things that happened was, not only the fans flocking, writing about us on twitter and Facebook and on YouTube and all that stuff, but bands. We were invited to play with Taproot, which was the first tour of 2011 that we did this year, the lead singer Steven, was a huge NHL fan, he heard the song and was like “I want this band on tour,” next thing we know we’re on tour with Taproot for six weeks. It was definitely a huge spark for this band.

TS: As a band that calls New York City home, are you looking forward to your show on December 18^th at Gramercy Theatre? Is there something special about stopping at home while you’re on tour?

LL; Great question. We’ve played Gramercy about four or five times before as a support act. This is the first time we’ve ever headlined Gramercy Theatre and we couldn’t be more excited about it and we hope all of you that are reading this will come out and support a hometown band headlining that big place for the first time. How it feels for me, coming home? Home is where everything happens for this band, its where we write our music, it’s where we get our inspiration, where we get ready to show the rest of the US what we’re all about.

UP: It always ends up an amazing show and a huge after party. When we come home, we can’t make it just a show and then go home because we have so many friends and there are so many people that come out; we all want to mingle more and party more. I can’t wait. I love the city. I’ve never felt different in New York City, if you know what I mean, if you go by stereotypes and all those things, in NYC, I never feel out of place. I love living there. I love all my friends there. It’s going to be really fun and extremely exciting to be back home. It’ll be a great show and a great after party.

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