The Beautiful Mistake is made up of Josh Hagquist on vocals and guitar, Shawn Grover provides backup vocals and additional guitar licks, Jon Berndtson slams on his bass and a friend of the band's who Berndtson named as "Josh" is filling in on drums.

I had the opportunity to sit and chat with Bernsdton at the Metro in Chicago when they came through town on tour with Brand New.

How old are you guys?
I am 23, (looks at Hagquist and asks "Josh, you're 26, right?" "Yeah, but I look about 12," Hagquist replies), Shawn, our guitarist, is 23 and right now we don't have a permanent drummer so right now it's the three of us that [make up] The Beautiful Mistake. We're going to be working it out when we get home.

What's in your CD player right now?
It changes. I can listen to any Failure album. Failure is like one of my favorite bands. Smashing Pumpkins' Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness, Deftones' Minerva, the new Brand New - I love it, it's awesome - Year of the Rabbit. We also like pop stuff too, so we listen to The Starting Line, stuff like that because we tour with those kind of bands and we make friends with them. It ranges from The Starting Line to Blink, from Failure to Jimmy Eat World to whatever, you know? Def Leppard - we listen to tons of old stuff.

How long have you been playing an instrument?
I've played bass for almost six years now.

Honestly, I'm not really too familiar with your music so I asked your publicist what you sounded like. He compared you to Thursday and Thrice and stuff like that...
Yeah, the album that we've had out [for] the past year is a lot like that. I think there's more on top of it. I think a lot of people just compare it to that because there is a whole singing/screaming dynamic. I think if people honestly took a listen to music, they'd realize there is a little more to it. The newer material we're writing is a lot more rock oriented. Like high energy rock songs, like really heavy, but heavy in a different way. Another band we really like is Filter. We're all about that band.

What are some of your biggest musical influences?
Ken Andrews from Failure - the singer and Chino Moreno from The Deftones.

You kind of defined it a little bit, but how do you define your music?
I would say the stuff that we have on our album is like melodic hard rock, I guess if you want to say it has a little bit of hardcore influence, it does. I think with the newer material though; we've been talking about it and we've kind of come up with [our] own definition and we say that our music is post-grunge. (Laughs) Just because we love Soundgarden and Nirvana and tons of bands like that. I think with the newer material people are going to catch that it's definitely got a grunge feel to it.

Do you guys cringe to the Emo/Screamo tag?
Whatever people want to describe is cool. I don't think they would categorize the newer material like that, but with the stuff we have out now they might. bands like Thursday and Thrice get lumped into the same category and if The Beautiful Mistake is being put into that same genre, how would you step away from that? How are you different? If you took away the screaming, I don't think the comparisons would really be there. I think a lot of the songs on the record definitely have a harder edge feel, like hardcore, but there's a couple songs on there that display how we're set apart on our own. I think there is more to us then a singing / screaming dynamic and I think that's why we're going to shy away from that. We want to be known as a high energy rock band that experiments. Like the Brand New CD is totally different from their old stuff. You should always progress. Kids ask me "How is the new stuff different?" And it's like "It's no screaming." And they say "So it's wussier." Dude this is the heaviest stuff we've ever written, heavier in a different sense, like riffs. We're playing music that we finally feel totally confident behind. Everyone of us feels like we've contributed.

Overall what are you hoping to achieve?<'/b>
We definitely want to broaden our audience. This is awesome playing in front of younger kids. Brand New asked us to come out on this tour and it has been huge. We're totally grateful and we thank those guys everyday for it because it's a huge opportunity. On the same sense I think our music appeals to a bigger audience. An audience that would go watch a band like Filter, Smashing Pumpkins or Zwan. I want to play on stages, I want to play in front of rock kids and I think... It's not like we're selling out, we're not. I think we're writing music that's true to ourselves.

So how do you feel about being on radio rotation or MTV?
Totally fine man. Any way that kids can find our music. Any way that we can bring the music to a larger audience - by all means - I don't think it's a sell out thing at all.

You've toured with bands from a variety of different genres. What has been your favorite band to tour with? Or most memorable?
Open Hand. They were awesome. The Hopesfall tour was really fun because we both have the same idea as far as what we want to do.

When you get frustrated or feel like you may not be progressing as you'd hope, what do you tell yourself? What is your motivation?
We've been through a lot as a band and I think through all the things that have happened we've gotten closer. Even though it's only three of us, we're finally on the same page. I think we just realize how blessed we are to go on tour with bands like Brand New. We're a hard working band and we could care less, honestly, if kids like our music or not, but we just want to impact kids. For us it's like, this has been our dream and we're living it out every single day and you always go through another goal.

What is your advice for kids who want to start a band and get on a decent label?
I've ran into a lot of kids who are like, "Yeah, it's really hard and I don't know if we want to tour because we're not making any [money]," and it's like every band started off at the bottom. If your not willing to give it all and get into a van, or whatever you can tour in, and play shows in front of people, no one's going to want to take a chance if they don't see a work ethic. Be real to yourself and be real to the people you play in front of. If it wasn't for all the kids that came to the Metro and bought out all the tickets - there's 1,100 people here - they wouldn't have people to play in front of. Always remember where you came from and never forget that. And just work hard. Work as hard as you can, tour as much as you can. If you don't have a booking agent, don't worry about it, book your own tours. Always be open to people with experience. I know we've toured a lot, but we're always asking for advice.

What would you be doing, say a year from now, if this didn't work out?
I'd either be doing one of two things: I'd either go back to school; I'd want to study meteorology and I want to study weather systems. I always thought it be cool to study how tornados work. Or else, two, I think I'd probably be a booking agent. I understand how bands work and I'm not in it for the money. I just want to be able to help small bands that are just getting started because sometimes it's really hard.

By: Adam K. Zakroczymski III - Senior Editor / Founder