Wednesday, November 26, 2003

While their cover of Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" may be poised to stay strong at rock radio well through the end of summer, the Ataris are looking forward to the fall.

That's when they'll release their next single, "The Saddest Song." Frontman Kris Roe wrote the piano-driven number about his relationship with his estranged daughter and his experience growing up without a father around.

"We started playing that song live two years ago and kids were crying instantly at the shows," bassist Mike Davenport said. "It's really emotional but also really good."

The band plans to shoot a video for the track in the coming weeks, but neither a treatment nor a director has been chosen.

"The Saddest Song" will likely be followed by "My Reply," which was supposed to be the second single but was shelved when stations in New York and Los Angeles started playing "The Boys of Summer". The Ataris even shot a video for the song with director Steven Murashige, who lensed the band's "In This Diary."

"That's so far from coming out, but it's really cool," Davenport said. "It's animated, and it's like A-ha meets White Stripes."

The Ataris aren't just going to appear on video channel screens; soon they'll also be in movie theaters. The band recently shot scenes for the slasher flick "Punk Rock Holocaust," which is being created by a division of Troma Studios, the company that brought the world such high art as "The Toxic Avenger" and "Tromeo & Juliet".

After they rise from the dead, the Ataris will return to doing what they do best — touring. In September they'll add a new song to their performance repertoire, and though they'll continue to write, they'll remain on the road through next year, hitting spots in South America, Iceland and Russia as well as North America.

"That's our thing," Davenport explained. "We like to do 300 shows a year. We don't know what to do when we're home. We went home for a year to make the So Long Astoria record, and we lost it. We lost our minds. So we're better on tour than we are at home. We've been on tour for seven years, and that's where we belong."