Sierra Binondo is the lead singer of With Sails Ahead, a post-hardcore band out of New Jersey. In 2016 they released the EP “Years in Waiting,” and played a ton of high-energy shows in and around the Garden State. Check out our interview with Sierra below, in which we discuss sushi, Donald Trump, and Queen Latifah.

The name of your band is With Sails Ahead. But what if your sails break and go flying off into the wind, leaving you stranded in whatever ocean it is in which you are sailing? What then?

Good news! We have 5 OARS, we always keep spare oars, because we are The With the Sails Ahead Away™ doing BIG nautical-themed things 24/7 and we paddle ourselves to safety.

If you could have dinner with six celebrities, three dead and three living, what type of cuisine would you choose and what would you order? Why?

The celebrities we would love to dine with, dead and alive would be:

Robin Williams (dead)
Chris Squire (dead)
Steven Irwin (dead)
Eric Andre (alive)
Hannibal Buress (alive)
Michelle Waterson (alive)

We love sushi as a band but our drummer is allergic to seafood so we would straight up order like 200 chicken wings from Local Smoke BBQ in Neptune City, NJ. I would also request that each of us gets a set of wings doused in progressively hotter sauce a la the show Hot Ones on YouTube. They say that when you eat ridiculously hot sauce, like waaaay up there on the Scoville Scale, you get this high- and for some it makes you do or say things you wouldn't normally. So I feel like this would be the best possible time, despite the pain. 

Name three of your biggest musical influences. Then re-name with the names you wish they had originally named themselves, plus provide reasons why your name for them is more appropriate than their actual names.

Our three biggest influences are Saosin, I the Mighty and Dance Gavin Dance. It’s pretty hard to imagine better names but I think I kind of have an idea. So we’d probably rename Saosin like, Los Lonely Boys. I the Mighty, maybe something a little more tongue-in-cheek like Los Lonley Boys (it’s different) and Dance Gavin Dance would also be renamed Los Lonely Boys feat. Santana. Honorable mention goes to one of our guitarist Santino’s favorite bands Blink-182 who almost named themselves Big Oily Men, would have been a good move.

Please describe the first seven weeks of Donald Trump's presidency using only the titles of songs from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

“You Get What You Give” by the New Radicals

“U Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer

“Killing Me Softly” (either the Lauryn Hill version or the original)

Your band is from New Jersey. Other people from New Jersey include Meryl Streep, Lauryn Hill, Chris Christie, Bruce Springsteen, and Queen Latifah. If you could trade places with one of those people for a week or two, in like a Freaky Friday kind of way, but then eventually switch back into being yourself, who would you trade places with and what would you do during the switch? What would you be worried they would do while they were you?

Oh noooo I LOVE Lauryn Hill but I would want to play god and be either Chris Christie or Queen Latifah for a day. If I was Queen Latifah I would just walk into Wawa’s and Jersey Mike Sub Shops and just shout: “HEY GUYS IT’S ME, QUEEN LATIFAH, JUST A REGULAR GUY” with loving praise from everyone around me and this is probably the closest to real fame I will ever get. There will be zero repercussions for either me or Queen Latifah. If she’s stuck in my body maybe she’ll just get some errands done? I think we’ll be good.

If I was Chris Christie I would go door to door and apologize to people for being the WORST governor ever and offer to wash people’s feet as penance for my wrongdoings. I think if he went around in my body saying “hey it is me Chris Christie I am just trying to get some gubernatorial things done please believe me it is I” nothing bad would happen

Please conclude this interview by making up a question for yourself and then answering it.

Question: Can we email your band memes via cybernet?

Answer: Yes via cybermail, or at facebook.com/withsailsahead, just please no more Guy Fieri memes. 

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