Deborah Remus
03/29/10, 10:21 AM
I had a chance to sit down with Alan Day to discuss their new record and plans for the future after a show they played on the Every Time I Die/Polar Bear Club/Trapped Under Ice tour:
So I read Enemy of the World came in at number 40.
Yes, somewhere around there, yeah. We were really excited about that. Rise or Die Trying sold like 1800 in its first week, something like that, which at the time was amazing. And then we sold like 12000 in the first week so we were just blown away. We were so excited by it.
It also avoided a fairly early leak.
Yeah, this one didn’t leak until a week and a half or two weeks before it came out. But Rise or Die Trying leaked about 2 months before it came out so we are in better shape for this one. I think it’s inevitable these days though. It’s kind of a good thing because you can start playing songs live before the record comes out and kids sing along at least.
Enemy of the World is also your major label debut. Did you feel more pressure?
No, not really. No. We’re still involved with I Surrender and Pete at Decaydance so we stay very involved with everything. It’s not like what people think the typical major label experience is like, we stay involved and it’s cool.
What was the writing process like?
It was very different because Rise or Die Trying was basically a compilation of all these songs we wrote over the years and picked our favourites to make a record. With this one, we had to actually write a record because we didn’t have many songs on hand. It was definitely a different experience, we went into the studio with a few songs and then we wrote a bunch more when we were there. It was different because we had never written in the studio before and some of my favourite songs were actually written in the studio. Like “It Must Really Suck,” that was written in the studio. “Find My Way Back” completely in the studio, that song didn’t exist until we went in there. “On a Saturday” and “Flannel is the Color of My Energy” too, they are some of my favourite songs on the record. It was a different experience and we it hit it off really well I think.
How do you and Dan decide who sings which parts?
There’s no real formula to it. It basically just depends on who wants to start the song, you get this line, then I get this line. It’s honestly very random, we try to break it up evenly and then we do it to see how it turns out. Sometimes it’s based on who wrote which lines but there really isn’t much of a formula.
What’s the inspiration behind “Find My Way Back”?
That song and a lot of the other songs are about us as a band. You know, travelling and working so hard at what we do so sometimes it feels like home. Like usually you have one home and you go on a plane around the world to go on a vacation. Now it’s like being on a plane, being on the road, being in all these different countries is our home while being home in Worcester is like a vacation. It’s like totally swapped. It’s hard because when we write the songs we kind of jump around to different aspects of the band, the whole scene, the business and it can get all over the place. But that’s OK with us because we like to keep it open kind of. Because what I think people like about music is being able to relate to it in their own way. We write from our own personal experience, but honestly the average listener doesn’t really care about what I do on some Saturday afternoon with my friends. They care about how they can relate to the song and how that reminds them of this idea they have. Then they might get disappointed that the song isn’t about what they thought it was too.
Is that similar with “One Step at a Time”?
Yes. Again we wrote it in a way that anyone can relate to it. That song is about losing someone close to you and Dan wrote that song about his brother who passed away from leukemia about four or five years ago now. So it was definitely something that hit really close to him and was really hard for him, but again he tried to write it in a way that anyone can relate to it. Unfortunately so many people lose people who they are close to, people who they love and music is the thing that can help people get through those things.
It seems like a few people thought the song was written about Dominic Mallary.
I’ve noticed that, a lot of people have said that actually. I mean, I get why people say that because it’s obviously about losing someone. But it was written about Dan’s brother.
Would you agree when people say Enemy of the World has a darker vibe than Rise or Die Trying?
I’ve heard that, I guess maybe a little bit. Not really on purpose thinking that we want to go darker, but I mean the way we’re matured, the way we’ve grown as a band. We’ve started taking it more seriously and we have matured. I feel like some of the songs on Rise or Die Trying or earlier, we were so young when we wrote it and we didn’t have a care in the world. Which we still don’t, I can’t really complain about my life because I’m doing this. I don’t think it's darker overall, just that there are some songs that are definitely darker because we wanted to have more of a variety on this record. We were so young when we wrote those older songs and a lot of them were very similar so we kind of wanted to mix things up this time.
What was the deal with the pre-orders this time around?
There are just some bands that actually do that and take it seriously I feel like. We think it’s ridiculous you can do that and charge people all this money for things so we decided to take it 10 steps further. We just kept coming up with ideas and decided to just roll with it. If someone wants to pay us 10 million dollars to break up, why not? With 10 million dollars I can’t refuse.
Has anyone taken you up on any of them?
No, not that one, but people have asked about some of them. I don’t really know because it’s not directly through us, but I know for Smoking Weed with a Non Straight Edge Member, at least someone has asked about that.
What’s next for 2010?
We have a lot of touring plans, well I guess we don’t have a lot of touring plans yet, but we plan on touring a lot. We are doing Warped Tour for sure this summer, that’s huge. We’re very, very excited for that because we did it two years ago and it was a blast. So many of our friends will be on it this year too.
Some people wanted to have an idea of what you’ll be playing.
I honestly have no idea. We’re going to definitely play a lot of new songs, as much new songs as possible. We’ve been playing the stuff off of the last record for three years every night so the more new stuff for us, the better. And hopefully kids will be excited for the new stuff too. It’s been, I won’t say rough, the reaction is actually better than we expected, but we do hope that kids will be asking for new songs when Warped Tour comes around.
Any plans for more covers?
No plans yet, no. Yeah, kids weren’t as excited for that record because they were so antsy for a full-length of original songs. And I feel like it didn’t go over too well, so I think we’ll wait a little while before we try it again. But we loved doing covers so we might still do it, but you can’t overdo it either.
What about acoustic material?
We’ve actually talked about it. The acoustic videos we’re done have been super rough because we’ve been super sick while doing them, but we would like to do an official acoustic thing. I don’t know when we’ll do it, but we’ve talked about it and we have talked about doing some more covers if we do that. But it’s still just an idea. Maybe we’d do four or five songs, then a cover. A mixture of old and new.
Do you know when the “Wasting Time (Eternal Summer)” video is coming out?
No I don’t yet, but it should be very, very soon.
Did anything overly memorable happen on set?
It was just really fun, it was our first studio video. The last video we did was at my house, like a big crew came to my house and my mom cooked for us and we used as much as we could there in the home. So it was definitely a different experience, we did it in LA and a bunch of kids came out to do it so that was really, really cool. Everyone we worked with was awesome. One thing I’ll never forget is we did it on a rotating stage and it was the wobbliest thing I’ve ever been on. It was so hard to stand up and everything was shifting around. It was pretty rough, but a lot of fun and I’ll never forget about that.
Now for some shorter questions. Beard grooming tips?
We trim them every now and then, but we don’t like comb them. You just grow it out and trim it all one length, that’s what we do.
Favourite venue/city to play? A lot of people asked that.
It’s an obvious answer to say Worcester because that’s my hometown. This venue here [The Garrick in Winnipeg] is pretty awesome. We played here once before and tonight was a great show.
Lastly, advice on how to make it as a band?
Let’s see. Well, I don’t really know if I’d consider that we’ve made it. Because in order to make it, you have to be rich, famous, powerful and I don’t think I’m any of those things. But, I am so stoked on where we are right now and I never thought we’d make it this far and to anyone who wants to do this, it’s not easy. My advice is just to suck it up and then deal with it because it takes a long time.
So I read Enemy of the World came in at number 40.
Yes, somewhere around there, yeah. We were really excited about that. Rise or Die Trying sold like 1800 in its first week, something like that, which at the time was amazing. And then we sold like 12000 in the first week so we were just blown away. We were so excited by it.
It also avoided a fairly early leak.
Yeah, this one didn’t leak until a week and a half or two weeks before it came out. But Rise or Die Trying leaked about 2 months before it came out so we are in better shape for this one. I think it’s inevitable these days though. It’s kind of a good thing because you can start playing songs live before the record comes out and kids sing along at least.
Enemy of the World is also your major label debut. Did you feel more pressure?
No, not really. No. We’re still involved with I Surrender and Pete at Decaydance so we stay very involved with everything. It’s not like what people think the typical major label experience is like, we stay involved and it’s cool.
What was the writing process like?
It was very different because Rise or Die Trying was basically a compilation of all these songs we wrote over the years and picked our favourites to make a record. With this one, we had to actually write a record because we didn’t have many songs on hand. It was definitely a different experience, we went into the studio with a few songs and then we wrote a bunch more when we were there. It was different because we had never written in the studio before and some of my favourite songs were actually written in the studio. Like “It Must Really Suck,” that was written in the studio. “Find My Way Back” completely in the studio, that song didn’t exist until we went in there. “On a Saturday” and “Flannel is the Color of My Energy” too, they are some of my favourite songs on the record. It was a different experience and we it hit it off really well I think.
How do you and Dan decide who sings which parts?
There’s no real formula to it. It basically just depends on who wants to start the song, you get this line, then I get this line. It’s honestly very random, we try to break it up evenly and then we do it to see how it turns out. Sometimes it’s based on who wrote which lines but there really isn’t much of a formula.
What’s the inspiration behind “Find My Way Back”?
That song and a lot of the other songs are about us as a band. You know, travelling and working so hard at what we do so sometimes it feels like home. Like usually you have one home and you go on a plane around the world to go on a vacation. Now it’s like being on a plane, being on the road, being in all these different countries is our home while being home in Worcester is like a vacation. It’s like totally swapped. It’s hard because when we write the songs we kind of jump around to different aspects of the band, the whole scene, the business and it can get all over the place. But that’s OK with us because we like to keep it open kind of. Because what I think people like about music is being able to relate to it in their own way. We write from our own personal experience, but honestly the average listener doesn’t really care about what I do on some Saturday afternoon with my friends. They care about how they can relate to the song and how that reminds them of this idea they have. Then they might get disappointed that the song isn’t about what they thought it was too.
Is that similar with “One Step at a Time”?
Yes. Again we wrote it in a way that anyone can relate to it. That song is about losing someone close to you and Dan wrote that song about his brother who passed away from leukemia about four or five years ago now. So it was definitely something that hit really close to him and was really hard for him, but again he tried to write it in a way that anyone can relate to it. Unfortunately so many people lose people who they are close to, people who they love and music is the thing that can help people get through those things.
It seems like a few people thought the song was written about Dominic Mallary.
I’ve noticed that, a lot of people have said that actually. I mean, I get why people say that because it’s obviously about losing someone. But it was written about Dan’s brother.
Would you agree when people say Enemy of the World has a darker vibe than Rise or Die Trying?
I’ve heard that, I guess maybe a little bit. Not really on purpose thinking that we want to go darker, but I mean the way we’re matured, the way we’ve grown as a band. We’ve started taking it more seriously and we have matured. I feel like some of the songs on Rise or Die Trying or earlier, we were so young when we wrote it and we didn’t have a care in the world. Which we still don’t, I can’t really complain about my life because I’m doing this. I don’t think it's darker overall, just that there are some songs that are definitely darker because we wanted to have more of a variety on this record. We were so young when we wrote those older songs and a lot of them were very similar so we kind of wanted to mix things up this time.
What was the deal with the pre-orders this time around?
There are just some bands that actually do that and take it seriously I feel like. We think it’s ridiculous you can do that and charge people all this money for things so we decided to take it 10 steps further. We just kept coming up with ideas and decided to just roll with it. If someone wants to pay us 10 million dollars to break up, why not? With 10 million dollars I can’t refuse.
Has anyone taken you up on any of them?
No, not that one, but people have asked about some of them. I don’t really know because it’s not directly through us, but I know for Smoking Weed with a Non Straight Edge Member, at least someone has asked about that.
What’s next for 2010?
We have a lot of touring plans, well I guess we don’t have a lot of touring plans yet, but we plan on touring a lot. We are doing Warped Tour for sure this summer, that’s huge. We’re very, very excited for that because we did it two years ago and it was a blast. So many of our friends will be on it this year too.
Some people wanted to have an idea of what you’ll be playing.
I honestly have no idea. We’re going to definitely play a lot of new songs, as much new songs as possible. We’ve been playing the stuff off of the last record for three years every night so the more new stuff for us, the better. And hopefully kids will be excited for the new stuff too. It’s been, I won’t say rough, the reaction is actually better than we expected, but we do hope that kids will be asking for new songs when Warped Tour comes around.
Any plans for more covers?
No plans yet, no. Yeah, kids weren’t as excited for that record because they were so antsy for a full-length of original songs. And I feel like it didn’t go over too well, so I think we’ll wait a little while before we try it again. But we loved doing covers so we might still do it, but you can’t overdo it either.
What about acoustic material?
We’ve actually talked about it. The acoustic videos we’re done have been super rough because we’ve been super sick while doing them, but we would like to do an official acoustic thing. I don’t know when we’ll do it, but we’ve talked about it and we have talked about doing some more covers if we do that. But it’s still just an idea. Maybe we’d do four or five songs, then a cover. A mixture of old and new.
Do you know when the “Wasting Time (Eternal Summer)” video is coming out?
No I don’t yet, but it should be very, very soon.
Did anything overly memorable happen on set?
It was just really fun, it was our first studio video. The last video we did was at my house, like a big crew came to my house and my mom cooked for us and we used as much as we could there in the home. So it was definitely a different experience, we did it in LA and a bunch of kids came out to do it so that was really, really cool. Everyone we worked with was awesome. One thing I’ll never forget is we did it on a rotating stage and it was the wobbliest thing I’ve ever been on. It was so hard to stand up and everything was shifting around. It was pretty rough, but a lot of fun and I’ll never forget about that.
Now for some shorter questions. Beard grooming tips?
We trim them every now and then, but we don’t like comb them. You just grow it out and trim it all one length, that’s what we do.
Favourite venue/city to play? A lot of people asked that.
It’s an obvious answer to say Worcester because that’s my hometown. This venue here [The Garrick in Winnipeg] is pretty awesome. We played here once before and tonight was a great show.
Lastly, advice on how to make it as a band?
Let’s see. Well, I don’t really know if I’d consider that we’ve made it. Because in order to make it, you have to be rich, famous, powerful and I don’t think I’m any of those things. But, I am so stoked on where we are right now and I never thought we’d make it this far and to anyone who wants to do this, it’s not easy. My advice is just to suck it up and then deal with it because it takes a long time.