Mayday Parade

With their fourth time in the UK, Mayday Parade certainly did not disappoint.

With a great tour line-up, bringing overseas A Rocket To The Moon and We Are The In Crowd and joined by UK’s Blitz Kids – it was a perfect mix for all those attending.

We managed to catch up with Mayday Parade front-man Derek Sanders backstage before the band’s performance at the Glasgow Garage to chat about the UK and US differences, band achievements and of course, the band’s upcoming album release.

For those fans who haven’t seen you yet, what can they expect from your live shows?

I would hope that hey can expect a very fun, energetic live show. We try to have as much fun as we can, move around as much as we can and feed off the energy from the crowd.

What for you has been the best date on the tour so far?

It’s always hard to pick one, you know? Cardiff was awesome for sure, Cologne in Germany was really awesome. All of them have been a lot of fun honestly!

What do you feel has been the band’s biggest achievement to-date?

I don’t know, again it’s hard to pick one. There’s a lot of things, like being on the cover of AP Magazine was really cool, doing Warped tour and being able to do all the overseas touring that’s always really cool. Each time we get to go a new place overseas or even come back here, we’ve been here 4 times now, it’s awesome and those are the biggest things for me!

Do you find there is a difference between UK and US audience reception?

Yeah, I mean in general there are more similarities than there are differences. There’s definitely some things that are different.

I think one of the biggest things I’ve noticed for the times we’ve come here is that at the beginning whenever we came, at first we did the Give It A Name Festival and then we did the tour and then we came with Madina Lake when we were supporting them, you know there weren’t many kids that came to those shows that knew us I guess. There was some, but not a majority. They still would get into it and have a good time, even if they don’t know the band. I feel like it’s different from that in the States – if people don’t know who you are in the states, then more often than not they will just kinda stand there and watch you and won’t really move around or try to get into it as much. Maybe its because we’ve toured the states like 14 times or something?! With the five and half years time we’ve been a band,we’ve been through the states, and most US bands have as well, so whenever you get to go somewhere new I think the fans really appreciate it – it’s really cool to see that.

What is your favourite thing about touring the UK?

I don’t know it’s hard to say. The people are really cool, I love how after every show there’s always like an after party in the venues. It’s a lot of fun and it’s never really like that in States – well not to the same level you know!? [Laughter] They play good music in the clubs over here, a lot better music than clubs in the States in my opinion!

Your third full-length album is complete, what can fans expect from the new album?

Here’s basically what I’ll say about it; it’s done and completely finished and we are beyond excited about it. I can’t wait for it to come out and for everyone to hear it.

From the beginning of the band when Mayday Parade started, the kind of one and only goal for the band – the only thing that we really wanted to do – was to write music, create music, record it and then tour and play it and then keep doing that. It has been the one and only goal of the band and then when we did ‘Anywhere But Here’ it was a little different, because the label wanted us to have co-writers and have a lot more influence on everything and so we kind of didn’t stick to the original plan with that one. I think in the end, I have to be careful how I word this because we all do love that CD and we are proud of that CD, but we were frustrated with it because it wasn’t exactly what we would’ve wanted to do if we could’ve done it ourselves.

With this one, which doesn’t have a name yet, we went back to the original – having no outside involvement. The label didn’t even hear the songs until after they were all finished, so it was just the five of us and Zac and Kenneth who produced it. That was really the only involvement in the CD, we definitely love all the songs a lot and we’re very proud of it and can’t wait for people to hear it!

What would you like to have achieved as a band at the end of the year?

The rest of this year is pretty much planned out for us in terms of what we are actually doing, but I guess the CD is going to come out this year and I just hope it’s gonna have a good response and hopefully people like it. The bottom line is that we all love it and that’s the thing we wanted the most, to make it the way we wanted and hopefully people like it and get it – but no matter how it turns out, we are all really stoked about it!