MAYDAY PARADE

In half an hour the doors to The Garage, Glasgow will open and tonight's capacity crowd will finally be able to escape the biting Scottish wind. Before tonight's show gets underway and ahead of his band's first Scottish date in almost two years, we catch up with Mayday Parade vocalist Derek Sanders in a quiet corner of the lounge bar downstairs to chat about tour, lyrical inspirations and the task of covering Queen...

VLS: Hello! How are you today?

Derek: Doing great, how are you doing?

VLS: Very well, thank you! Did you fall foul of any April Fool's Day pranks this morning?

Derek: No, you know actually I totally forgot that it was even April 1^st. I didn't even realise that so...maybe I will, who knows? Maybe someone will try and do something, but no, I didn't so far.

VLS: How are you enjoying being back in the UK? It's been quite a while! 

Derek: Yeah, it's been a while! It's been like...gosh, you know I want to say two years or something? Almost two years but it's awesome, we're all kinda bummed out that it's taken us this long to get back here because we had so much fun last time. So yeah, we're having a blast.

VLS: How have the crowd been treating you?

Derek: Very good, very, very good. The last show two days ago was in Manchester and that was the best show yet of the tour. It was the best show thus far, so hopefully there are some better ones. But that one definitely was just great, the crowd was just awesome, lots of energy and lots of singing along. It was a lot of fun.

VLS: Your sophomore album, Anywhere But Here, was released last year.  Apart from the obvious move away from shared vocal duties, how would you say your sound has progressed?

Derek: Apart from that it's tough to say. I mean obviously between the time that we wrote A Lesson In Romantics and the time that we wrote Anywhere But Here a few years had passed and we'd all grown as people and grown as musicians and grown as a band in terms of working together y'know? So things are going to be different obviously, but it's still Mayday Parade and it's still us just trying to do the best we can and write the best songs that we can and that's what we'll always be and what we'll always do. We try and write songs that we love, write the best songs that we can. So I don't really feel that it's necessarily a whole lot different, aside from the fact that there's not so much of the dual vocals but y'know?

VLS: What sort of band's do you take influence from musically?

Derek: There's a lot, there's definitely a lot. I would say a lot of the bands like Brand New and Taking Back Sunday, Jimmy Eat World, The Starting Line; a lot of those type of bands and then a lot of classic rock as well. Some nineties rock too - Third Eye Blind for example - and then back to Queen and Guns and Roses and Aerosmith, bands like that. A lot of that stuff we listened to growing up and I think it's for sure an influence.

VLS: Of course you just recorded a cover of Queen's 'We Are The Champions' for the Punk Goes Classic Rock compilation.

Derek: Yeah!

VLS: Why did you choose that song in particular?

Derek: Just because it's one that's a real popular song, everyone knows it and can sing along to it. It was a tough decision because Queen is one of my favourite bands of all time and so it was really hard to pick one of their songs to cover, but it just kind of made sense. We wanted to do one that was kind of like a triumphant anthem that everyone would know and that one's probably one of their most popular songs.

VLS: Did you have any nerves going in to record, knowing you were trying to emulate such an iconic band?

D: Covering a Queen song is definitely a hard task to do because they're such an incredible band but whenever we've do any kind of cover stuff like that we don't prepare for it very well, we just kind of go in and just kind of start and record and just kind of see where it goes. I think it turned out really well but we didn't really plan it out too much.

VLS: I think one of the main factors that sets Mayday Parade apart from other bands is the honesty in your lyrics. What sort of things do you draw inspiration from in your writing?

Derek: Well thank you! It's all just about...a lot of it's personal stuff, y'know? Things that happen in our lives and whatever; a lot of it ends up being about relationships. Not necessarily just relationships like boyfriend girlfriend type thing, but sometimes it's about friends and family. We spend most of our time on the road and because of that we don't really have normal lives. Most of us have had relationships on the road and it's very stressful to try and maintain that, to try and keep that up, so a lot of our songs end up being about that and break ups or whatever.  We just write about whatever we're thinking about and feeling at the time.

VLS: Is there ever a time when you regret bring so open in your lyrics?

Derek: Sometimes it's tough, yeah, and you wonder how much of yourself to put out there, but really I feel that's the stuff that's gonna be the most true, y'know? Emotional things or being as honest as you can in your lyrics - that's what people are going to relate to the most so I feel like you kind of have to in a way.

VLS: Which songs on the new album do you feel personally proudest of?

Derek: I love all the songs on the new record but I think my favourites or the ones I'm most proud of are Kids in Love, Bruised and Scarred and I Swear This Time I Mean It. They are probably my three top songs.

VLS: You and the band all seem to be very active on social networking sites such as Twitter and Tumblr.  How important do you think these sites are in the promotion of music these days? 

Derek: Yeah, that's just kind of the world we live in now, y'know? Being a band nowadays is tough and people lose interest real fast. Bands don't last as long as they used to and I feel like it's important to stay connected to the fans as much as you can and put yourself out there as much as you can and keep people interested. And plus, y'know, I figure just the fact that there's anybody out there that cares to listen to what I have to say is a blessing. Like, it's so awesome that I'm able to write something or type something or say something and people actually care to listen and wanna hear I have to say, you know? That's awesome, so I think we all want to do that as much as we can.

VLS: What do you have planned for the rest of the year?

Derek: It's just gonna be straight touring, touring, touring. When we get home it's pretty much immediate touring in the US up through Warped Tour and then we're maybe going to try and come back over here. Nothings confirmed at that point yet though, but it'll all just be touring for the rest of the year. 2011 - I'm sure we'll start looking at a new CD and figuring out what the next step. 

VLS: Awesome! Thank you! Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Derek: Thank you to anyone who's ever listened to Mayday Parade and supported Mayday Parade! It's awesome, we really appreciate it!

 

--Lucy