Straight Up Random

Straight Up Random had the chance to talk to Mayday Parade‘s front-man, Derek Sanders, on the phone to discuss their current headlining tour, their new self-titled album, and more. Be sure to check out their last couple of shows on the Noise Tour including tonight’s stop in Orlando, FL at the House of Blues! 

SUR: So you’ll be wrapping up your current headlining tour in a couple of days. How has your experience on this tour been overall?

It’s been amazing. I can’t believe the tour is so close to being done. They always seem to fly by, but it’s been a good time every night; shows have been incredibly – more than we could ask for. And the other bands are just really great to hang with every night. Good people.

SUR: Do you have any tour pranks lined-up for the last day in Jacksonville?

We actually haven’t talked about any of that yet. Which is kind of typical fashion for us – we normally wait until the last minute with a lot of things, but I’m sure we’ll do something. We’ll see how it all goes.

SUR: What’s been your most memorable moment on this tour?

I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to pick one, you know? We were in Vegas. Vegas is always a lot of fun. The west coast was incredible. A lot of the earlier [part of the] tour was a lot of fun.

SUR: So obviously, these shows are in support of your new self-titled album that came out last month. How do you feel the reception has been to the new album from fans and critics?

I think it’s been great so far. You know, we’re doing a couple new songs on this tour, and they’re going over really well live. A lot of people are singing along, and getting into the new stuff, and it’s really great to see.

SUR: And what’s your favorite song to play live?

I think on this tour it’d be “Oh Well, Oh Well.” So much fun to play that song. We actually open our set with that song on this tour. Great way to start things off.

SUR: You recorded the album with Zack & Kenneth who were originally producers for your debut album. What motivated you to work with them again?

We really just knew what to expect with them, and we knew that it was such a cool experience the first time recording with them. It worked out really well, you know, [and] we kind of just wanted to go back to that. And I’m really glad that we did. I think everything we did with this album, I think we made the right decisions. Even like the writing, we got together at the beach house, and got to spend a month writing together, and I definitely want to continue to do that in the future. I would love to go back and work with Zack & Ken in the future.

SUR: Nice, and overall, how did the recording process differ this time around from when you recorded Anywhere But Here?

I mean, it was kind of totally different than doing Anywhere But Here just for tons of reasons. It’s just a totally different thing. You know, when we recorded Anywhere But Here we were on Atlantic Records, and it’s very different being on a major label and going in to record an album than it is than being on an independent label. You know, David Bendeth, he’s a great guy, and he has a wonderful studio up there and a wonderful team. It was a cool experience. It’s just very different working with a big budget, big name producer like that as opposed to doing it with Zack & Ken. It’s like there’s a little more freedom in the band doing things this way with Zack & Ken with the writing, you know, we didn’t do any co-writing or anything like that.

SUR: Now that it’s all said and done, how do you feel about your time on Atlantic and the release of Anywhere But Here?

I’m sure there’s kind of some mixed feelings about it, all-in-all, I don’t think there’s anything too bad or negative. Like I said, the process was weird, and I feel like I think we could’ve done better if we had done things our way, but the album has done well. It’s sold 100,000 copies now. There’s a lot of songs people really love and there’s a long songs that we really love. I think we kind of had to do that experience to learn kind of what we wanted to do with this band, and just who we are. It put us in a good place,and we’re in a good place now so I don’t think we would really change anything or have any regrets.

SUR: Going back to talking about the new album – what’s your favorite song off of it?

I kind of have a couple, but I think my overall favorite is “Without the Bitter The Sweet Isn’t As Sweet.” Track 11.

SUR: Any reason why that one’s your favorite?

I don’t know, I just like it the most. I definitely feel a whole lot when I listen to that song.

SUR: What was the reasoning for naming this a “self-titled” album?

Well it kind of goes back to what I said earlier with how [we’ve] just kind of been through a lot with this band, and done things a lot of different ways. But I think we’ve kind of learned now who we are, and we kind of wanted to make a statement with the album that [this is] who we are now. It’s a good thing, we’re in a great place, and we’re very happy. It feels right, you know?

SUR: Yeah, and so now that the tours almost over, what do you guys have planned next?

We have the rest of the year off, I’m pretty sure, and then 2012 we’ll just be hitting the road pretty hard. Staying on tour as much as we can doing a lot of stuff in the U.S. and a lot of international stuff. Just having fun being busy.

SUR: I read that you were in talks with Kevin Lyman about playing Warped Tour this summer – any confirmation on that?

No, it’s not confirmed yet, but I hope it happens, and you know, we’re definitely excited and I guess we’ll see how it goes, but I hope so.

SUR: Can you give me one straight up random fact about each member of the band?

Alex and I are both vegetarian.

Brooks loves to cook a lot.

Jake loves to work out a lot.

And Cabbage is one of the strangest people I’ve ever met, but I love him.

SUR: Well that wraps up the interview – is there anything else you’d like to add?

Thanks everyone for their support. We’re very lucky to be in this band, and still be able to tour, and do things like this. We’ve been a band for six years, so just thank you for the support from everyone.