Alarm Bells

“I guess there's not a whole lot that's very punk about us, but definitely like that kind of pop-punk idea is a big reason why we're in this band and play the kind of music that we play,” Derek Sanders, lead vocalist-keyboardist-guitarist for America's Mayday Parade says of being regularly linked to pop-punk. “Back when bands like New Found Glory, Saves The Day and Sunny Day Real Estate… started that kind of genre and influenced us towards this style of music, they're a big reason why we are in this band.”

They may not view themselves as remotely punk rock, but they've been strongly associated with the recently reborn pop-punk sound. For one, their cover of Gotye's monster hit, Somebody That I Used To Know, featuring Pierce The Veil's Vic Fuentes substituting for Kimbra, was a successful single from the Punk Goes Pop: Volume 5 compilation, selling thousands of copies inside of a week. “When we're asked what kind of music it is or whatever, I just say pop-rock, because there's so many different genres and sub-genres,” Sanders explains. “I just say pop-rock, but I mean, we're all just pumped to be playing music and doing this, we love doing this. [We're] glad that we're still around seven years later and still able to go to Australia and do all of these things.”

What artists tend to inspire them these days then? “I still listen to a lot of the same. There's a lot of newer stuff that I'm behind on; it takes me longer to hear newer things that come out. But I listen to all different kinds of stuff. Some of my favourite artists are Brand New, Bright Eyes, Jimmy Eat World. There's a lot of '90s rock that I have gone back to and started listening to again just because I grew up listening to a lot of it, like Smashing Pumpkins, Bush, Oasis; going back to listen to all the '90s rock stuff that I used to love. We listen to a lot of different kinds of music and try and take something from all of it, or learn something from all of it.”

It's remarked that this must make for a curious mix of sounds emanating from the band's tour bus. Or not quite, it seems. “I feel like back in the van days, when what you would listen to in the van was like, there was just something different about it because the whole band would be in there, all listening to something together. You'd have to choose what to listen to together and stuff. Now, we tour in a bus where everyone's got their computer with the headphones on, all listening to music in their bunk or whatever. We don't listen to music as a group like we used to as much. It kinda makes me sad too, because there are so many albums that I associate with touring and that we would listen to on the road. It's a little different these days.”

While listening to music isn't the communal experience it once was for the band, having graduated from a cramped van to a (relatively) luxurious bus during overseas runs must have its advantages. “Yeah, there are certainly good things about it… I mean, we're very lucky to have the tour bus; it's super comfortable and convenient. But there's certainly things that I miss about touring in a van, just 'cause ever since I graduated high school, we all left, got in the van and did it for years and years before we ever got to the point that we were in this band in a bus. So there's definitely things I miss about it; having the freedom to go wherever you want, staying at people's houses and meeting different people in every city and crashing at their house, things like that. It was a really special time, you know? But right now, everything's been going good, there's a positive energy in the band, for sure.”

Not long after their Australian tour alongside fellow Warped Tour mob, We Are The In Crowd, and local stars Heroes For Hire (there's that pop-punk connection again), the band will momentarily step off the tour bus to focus on their fourth album since forming in 2005. The vocalist spouts more than his share of clichés when quizzed on their next record, although to his credit he does sound genuinely enthused about the new material that's in the pipeline.

“We're gonna sit down, probably in January we're going to spend the whole month as a band writing, bringing all of the ideas together and writing the next album. Then we'll record it, hopefully by February or March, and then keep on doing the same old thing. We just get together and write naturally whatever we want to write, and then go record it. I mean, a lot of things will stay the same; little things change. We've grown as musicians and we've hopefully grown tighter as a band and how we work together as a band. I imagine that some things might be a little different, but for the most part it's just the five of us in there together, writing songs that we want to write and then going in to record them.”

This polite, likeable, if rather inoffensive ethos extends to the singer's attitude to the music industry's future. “I don't know; it's tough to say,” he muses. “I think the good thing is that music will not die. It's not like people are going to stop creating music, or people are going to stop listening to music. It's certainly a hard time for labels or artists or whatever, but to me, that doesn't really matter as much. It's exciting that you can accomplish so much on your own these days, without the support of a label, and that a song that has no push behind it whatsoever can blow up and become huge, just for being a good song. I think that's a good thing, and the way that maybe it should be. But I think labels will adapt and find a way to move to the digital age, where they're not selling nearly as many CDs anymore and eventually find some way to make it work.

“But it doesn't matter, people are still going to create music and people are still going to listen to music, so it's like everything will be fine and work out, however it does. It's interesting, but an exciting time, kinda for everything; the world is just changing so fast. It's hard to say where it will go, but it's certainly exciting. Hopefully, when it's a genuinely good song and a really good artist, (they) can get themselves heard without a label shoving it down people's throats or whatever. The radio thing isn't a big deal to us and never really has been. If we don't ever get a lot of airplay that's fine, we've kind of built ourselves without that.”

Mayday Parade play the following shows:

Friday 7 December – The Hi-Fi, Sydney
Saturday 8 December – Billboard Melbourne
Sunday 9 December – The Hi-FI, Brisbane