Here’s an interview done with City Comma State where they talk about how Mark got involved with the band and so forth. The interview is from tcdcmedia.com

Tyler got a chance to do an interview with Justin Siegel & Joanna Pacitti of City (Comma) State. The band will be heading out on tour this fall with All Time Low & A Rocket to The Moon, so be sure to check them out then, and if not on their Twitter or Purevolume.

You guys just released your first song “City of Dreams” on Absolutepunk.net, with quite a bit of mixed reactions, even some un-necessary hate. How do you think the reaction has been?
Joanna: I think we actually were kind of prepared for it because people knew that
Mark Hoppus was involved. Everyone is so excited for a new Blink record, I mean I was too — so excited. We kind of prepared ourselves, but besides the hate we did receive a lot of positive feedback as well.

Justin: Yeah, I mean — I’m really happy with the response, you know? Positive or negative, the kids are talking about it.

I know Alex Gaskarth and Mark Hoppus co-wrote some of the songs with you guys. How was it working with them?
Joanna: One thing that has happened from day 1 of this whole project is that everything kind of fell into place, we never forced anything. With Mark, we were just in the studio one day and he happened to hear our stuff from the very beginning and liked it a lot, which is kind of how he got involved. With Alex, the same kind of thing happened. We worked on some songs that Mark and Alex started on and finished it with them. One night we were all just hanging out and it happened to be 5AM and we said “Hey, let’s finish that song”. We never really talked about it, it kind of just happened.

There’s been a lot of rumors and people saying Justin did work on All Time Low’sNothing Personal.
Justin: I don’t know where that rumor got started but allow me to put it to rest right now. I mean, I wish I had anything to do with that record — it’s incredible but I had absolutely nothing to do with it.

There’s a 30-second demo out there with Mark Hoppus on guest vocals called “Barely Breathing”. Can you tell us a little about that?
Justin: That song is actually called “You Crush My Heart”. We were just trying some stuff out in the studio, but the version with his vocals will unfortunately not be on the album.

The album is called Shady Lane, is that correct? Do you know how many songs you will be putting out on it?
Joanna: Yeah, it’s called “Shady Lane”. As far as how many songs will be on it, we have 13 songs done right now — we’re still doing some writing. As far as what songs will actually make it on the record, it’ll definitely be a tough decision.

Justin: There will probably be 10 songs on the album.

Have you guys settled with a record label yet?
Justin: Yeah, we wanted to be very careful with where we signed. The industry is really kind of rough these days.

Where did the band name come from? I thought it was one of the better names I’ve heard in quite some time.
Joanna: Oh, thanks! Justin can explain that one, haha.

Justin: Frogs and I during college really loved this website called HomestarRunner.com. We hadn’t visited the site in a very long time and we went through a couple of band names already. We had settled on “Trousdale Press”. But then I saw this cartoon on Homestar Runner, and the name of the film was called “City Comma State”. As soon as I saw that, I thought “that’s such a good name for a band!”. I kind of ignored that for awhile, and over a two-week span I couldn’t get it out of my head or bring myself to leave the thought alone. I finally brought it up to everyone.

Joanna: We kind of eased into it, we were all set on one finally after changing it once, then twice. At first we were sitting in the studio and Justin was like “Hey Jo, you ever been to this website?” and I hadn’t been, so I was watching all these cartoons on this site. We finally came to the last one which was the City Comma State one. He was like “Hey, I’ve been thinking about this. You think this is a good name for a band?” and we all sat there for a second and said “Yeah!”. It tooks us awhile to get into it.

There’s been a ton of rumors that Travis Barker will be appearing on the album. Is that true?
Joanna: No, I wish, haha. Sorry Justin! Justin’s playing drums on the record, but he’s playing bass live.

I know Joanna auditioned for American Idol back in Season 8 but was disqualified. How did that end up going over?
Joanna: The thing is I’ve always considered myself a real artist and I moved out to L.A. when I was 16, by myself — my family didn’t come with me. And so, when things didn’t work with my record deal I moved to Michigan living this pretend life and I really didn’t know what to do. My family had been fans of American Idol and kept telling me to audition for the show. I was like “No, no, no, that’s too easy”. So I finally went and auditioned, they already knew I had a record deal and had been somewhat established and quite a bit of experience. I was kind of happy that it happened and I believe everything happens for a reason. I knew that it would be attached to me if I made it any further on the show. I mean, it sucked, but it would have been a cool opportunity to do the show but I think it was a blessing in disguise. They sat me down and told it me it was against the rules.

Do you guys have any set date for the album yet?
Justin: We’re actually really interested in building up our fan-base the right way currently. We want to get ourselves out there — get some songs out before we plan on releasing anything on a larger level.