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Interview with
JEREMY LENZO
from
MAYDAY PARADE

(30th November 2021)

Interviewer – Brittany Long

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So how have things been? What a hectic 18 months.
Yeah, it’s been very hectic. But now that we’re kind of getting back to everything, it’s nice, nice to be back on the road. Although we’re home now, and two of us had kids over quarantine. So, that’s pretty fun. I’ve got a baby boy.

I did see that, Congratulations! How’s fatherhood been treating you?
Thank you. It’s really fun. I really enjoy it, he’s 4 months old but the pediatrician said he’s at the six month mark now. So tonight will be the first night he moves from the bassinet to the crib so he’ll be able to roam around and roll over and stuff. It’s interesting.

Aww how exciting! Do you feel like becoming a dad has affected anything for you musically, like in terms of your view on the world and that kind of thing?
I’m sure it’ll play a big part in music, because, you know, most of our music is romance related. It’s just kind of what we’ve always done. Normally, when you like, get a grasp for something, and you’re like, okay, I can do romance songs really well, like you tend to stick in that category. You know. But I think now, with more of us having kids, I think that opens up a lot of different avenues we can touch on, you know, in our music, so, yeah, probably, we’ll see more of that in the future.

Awesome. And so what does touring life look like for you guys now that you have families, and it’s not just your wife that you’re leaving behind. it’s obviously going to be a lot harder?
I mean, it will be harder for sure. But, you know, this is, I’m not going to say it’s our number one priority, obviously, our families are our priority, but we started this band, you know, in high school, and we joined two other bands together, because we wanted members that would be able to tour and that took it seriously. So I don’t think we’re going to take it any less seriously now that we have kids, but we’ll just have to figure out how to find a good balance between home life and road life.

Yeah, I mean, I guess at the end of the day, too, you know, as your kids start to grow up, and you know, admire what you’re doing. Like, you want to get out there and show them you know, hey, look, dad’s in a band, and you want them to be proud of that. And you want them to be there as a kid, you know, with the little earmuffs on. And, you know as they grow older being part of that experience and that family. Because from what I believe, you know, Mayday Parade is more than just a band, it’s more like a family.
Yeah, 100% I agree with that. I feel like not only are we a family as the band, but also us and our fans are very connected, we have a very solid group of fans. Most of the people who come to our shows have seen us numerous times. So you know, it’s a very tight knit community that we’re very lucky to have, I’m very appreciative of that. And, you know, yeah we want to show our kids like, you know, you don’t know how much time a band has. As much as we want to continue doing this. Yeah, you know, five years from now, who knows if people are going to want to see us so, like we need to take advantage of this while it’s still available to us.

Absolutely. And I guess you know, the last 18 months, nearly two years has probably just instilled that realisation even more in you.
100%. It’s tough because you know, a lot of bands, one of the biggest things that kills them is time off, like just being forgotten, you can be forgotten very easily in two years. So we’ve tried during this quarantine to release music and just release content, like stuff to let people know “we’re still here, we haven’t gone anywhere”, to kind of keep our band on the radar you know.

And you know, in terms of quarantine and stuff, isolation and all that sort of stuff, have you done the whole bread making thing and those characteristic in quarantine, in lockdown kind of things as well? Obviously having a baby would have kept you pretty busy.
Yeah, we had the baby. Me and my wife like to do a lot of art projects so we’ll do little art things around the house just to kind of keep sane, but we haven’t really gone out. Like over quarantine we did not go out, only to see her parents I think was the only place we visited and for groceries. We had the driving grocery thing where they bring it to your trunk and we didn’t go to any restaurants or do anything like that. We took it very seriously because during the first half of quarantine, she was pregnant and we did not want her to get it and transfer it to the baby in the womb. And the second half,you know, the baby’s born and we still don’t want him to get it, you know, and she was recovering so we didn’t want her to get it while she was recovering. So we took it very seriously. But no, we didn’t do a lot of the like, kitschy things like making bread and stuff, but we just did some art projects around the house and just things to kind of pass the time.

And so in terms of the art, is that something that you’ve pursued over the years, or just, like a side project just for in terms of creativity, like to keep your creativity up?
So me and my wife have like a little side business where we make like enamel pins, you know, for your shirts, or jackets or whatever. And so we’ve always kind of used our art for that outlet. And I just like drawing a lot. I draw on my iPad and, and doodle a bunch of stuff. Sometimes I’ll do like, like the laminates, or like a poster or something for like meet and greet. Like, I’ll just draw that up. And that’ll be what we print for people. But um, yeah, I mean, it’s not, it’s not like anything too serious. But it’s something that we have done for a while, even before quarantine.

Oh, awesome. And obviously, the upcoming new album, congratulations on that. I’ve had the privilege of listening to it for the last couple of days. And wow, like, I’m hooked.
I appreciate that. Thank you. Are there any particular tracks that stand out to you, as, you know, everybody has a different taste? So I’m curious, like, what stood out to you as something you enjoyed.

I absolutely adore Golden Days, I don’t know, there’s just something about that song that just, you know, I get goosebumps even thinking about it, I don’t know what it is. What’s the inspiration behind that one?
Golden days is actually pretty close to being about quarantine. Where it’s just, being stuck for so long, like, you know, in your home, and then kind of reliving those experiences of being able to go out and do things. Like, you know, the golden days of actually being able to socialize with your friends and whatnot, and not stuck inside your house. So that’s where the majority of that comes from; the other small pieces of the song are just more like personal experience things kind of thrown in there. But the general idea is the being in quarantine song.

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Yeah, it’s definitely been an experience, hasn’t it? So I live in Melbourne, Australia, and we were in lockdowns for nearly 270 days all up. At one point we could only travel five kilometers from our house, and even now you can’t still can’t believe it happened. And you know, now it’s like, we’re out. And it’s still like, you know, there’s so much hesitancy because you’re like, well, should I be doing this? Or should I be doing that? Like, I went to my first gig last Saturday. And you know, that was a 4000 cap trial event by the government, in an outdoor venue. And even then, you know just being around so many people again, you’re like, how do I do this social thing again? It felt so foreign.
How did that turn out? Like, did the government get good statistics from that? Were people infected, or did it seem like it was okay?

Well I haven’t haven’t heard anything in terms of infection. I mean everyone had to be fully vaccinated to attend. You know, there’s been nothing released yet. So far, so good I assume. Then on like the 24th of November, we open back up to full capacity.
Yeah, I’ve been very hesitant, pretty much everywhere is kind of back to normal now here in the States, some places more than others. I still try and wear my mask everywhere I go. And we had very strict rules, so we just did like our small US tour, like two and a half weeks to kind of test the waters. And during that time, we all got COVID. Everyone on the bus, over different time spans. Like we had the first case, it was like three people had it. We all went to hotel rooms, separate rooms, quarantined, and had to like move shows around.  Then like five days later, so we left those people there and those of us that kept testing negative after like seven days, like went on. And then five days later on the road, somebody else contracted it and then I think two more people got it. By the end of the tour we all had it. Like the last one I think was our tour manager. He was home for a week and then tested positive a week after being home. So I think a lot of times it could even be delayed. Like, yeah, you can have it but not have symptoms.

Oh wow! And I guess that’s kind of the thing with it, you know, is that people are asymptomatic. And they don’t know that they’ve got it. So you know, they’re going out enjoying their lives and spreading it to God knows how many people.
Right, it’s very rough. We tried to take all the precautions we could and we still got it. I imagine if you’re playing in a venue, and it’s a hot, humid venue, and there’s people in there, that it’s moving in the air, and you know, us on stage without masks, singing and whatnot, it’s much easier to get it. So I do think though, that our immunisation has to be a little bit stronger now, since we’ve all had our vaccines, and then we all just got COVID. When they release the booster shots, we will do those as well, just to try and make sure that we’re as good as we can possibly be. We don’t want to infect any fans, you know, that’s the whole goal is not to like, not to have to cancel shows and not affect any fans.

So, in terms of your recent ‘mini test the waters tour’ were they all vaccine mandated venues or what’s the situation like over there?
Yeah, so a lot of them were. Every state has different rules, and then every promoter for the venue has different rules for what they want to do. So, in some of the states, you had to be vaccinated, I think it was very few that had to be vaccinated. Majority of them were, if you’re vaccinated, or you have a rapid negative test. So you would think that everyone in there would be fine, but, like I was saying, our last person who got it was home for 10 days, and then showed symptoms and tested positive, so you can take a test and it shows negative and still have it.

And that’s the thing I guess, you know, that’s now what it means to just be living with it. It’s part of society now.
Yeah it looks like it’s going to be like the flu shot by the looks of it, you know, you get a shot every year kind of thing.

And have you got any long term repercussions in terms of having had COVID, like have you experienced any of the whole long COVID thing?
No, the only thing that’s happened is I lost my smell for a little bit. But it came back within like a week and a half after recovering from it. So it wasn’t very long. But I do know people who’ve gotten it and who have not gotten their smell back or certain things. It’s hidden side effects that don’t show up until years later. Like we just don’t know.

Yeah, because it’s a new strain of the SARS virus. Like, it’s just, it’s something that, you know, people are going to discover a couple of years later, right, how it’s how it’s affected them long term and that kind of thing.
Well, it’s like, not only is it just tough to deal with, in general, but the virus keeps mutating. So then trying to stay on top of the mutations with different things. It’s such a tough thing to manage, especially when your job is to travel and interact with people. It’s like, how do you manage that?

Exactly. It’s like you sort of get to the point where you don’t want to have to stop doing it, no one wants that. And, you know, you guys obviously, make music so that you can play it live and, you know, connect with those fans and share those experiences. So it’s definitely hard.Now, let’s talk about the new upcoming album, ‘What It Means To Fall Apart’, what’s the significance behind that title? And what did the process look like in terms of writing that album?
So I think the title came from Jake, our drummer who came up with it. I think Derek said something in regards to COVID. And then Jake liked what he said and was like, “let’s change that a little bit and it’ll make a really good album title”. So I guess initially, it had to do with something Derek said regarding being off the road due to COVID. And then we’re like, “let’s use that for a title”. So that’s kind of where it came from. There’s not like a hard descriptor for it. In terms of the songwriting process; so each of us individually write music and, because at this point in our career, we all live in different states, we write at home, pretty much like a full song or a full idea and then we’ll email it to the group. And we do that throughout the year or however long we have. And then at the end of it, we kind of compile all those songs and go through them together, and rate which ones we think are like the top. And then we’ll sort of deconstruct the song as a group and kind of put it back together, you know, like we’ll be like “this part’s pretty good but it could be better if you did it with this timing, or this drum fill, or even change the chords here or whatever.” So we do like a lot of that stuff. But normally, a large part of the song remains intact from the original person who wrote it. We don’t change too much, we just try to like, enhance what the person’s original idea was. And we’ve been doing it like that for a long time. I think, about 10 years ago. I think it started with our self titled record. That’s where everybody started kind of moving across the state and no longer lived in Florida. So we started working in that direction. But yeah, that’s kind of how it works.

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Well that was a brilliant segwue into self titled. So, you’ve just announced an Australian tour in celebration of 11 years since that album was released, how does it feel looking back on it?
I mean, it feels awesome to me, that’s one of my favorite records. So like, I’m really excited to kind of play the record as a whole, because there’s so many songs with all our records that never get played. Because every record you put out your discography gets bigger and bigger. So then you’re like, “okay well, which songs are we going to play and which ones aren’t we gonna play”, you know. So there’s so many from that record that we’ve never played, it’ll just be really nice to like, actually play that full record. And just for myself, just to be able to finally do that is cool. It’s a bittersweet memory of that time I guess. Because we were all so young when that came out, and our lives have changed drastically since then. But it’ll be a fun tour. It will be a very long tour as well, spanning the US for two months, and then doing Europe and the UK, and then going over to Australia, and wherever else they’re booking currently. So it’s gonna be a long tour, but I think it’ll be a fun one. Fingers crossed, no more COVID stuff happens.

Oh, wow. And what can fans expect from your tour. So I’m a person that’s kind of new to Mayday Parade, I’ve never seen a live show. What can fans expect?
We try to bring a lot of high energy to our performance. We pride ourselves in being more of a real rock band where we don’t necessarily have like, a lot of tracks that get played, you know.  It’s like, when you hear us playing a guitar, you’re hearing the real guitar. And it’s not like a false thing. So we try and bring a lot of high energy, like real solid, tight musicianship and just a good time, like, we try to make it a safe space for anyone who comes to the show. Because we are a band who normally does like a lot of all age shows, you know, we have a younger demographic. And, as we get older, we also now have an older demographic that we are playing to, so we try to make it very friendly for each group.

So yeah, obviously, your 18+ Melbourne show sold out in like the space of five minutes! So I’d say the fans are definitely pretty keen to have you back.
We’re really excited to be back too.

I love that you have those underage shows that you cater to your younger demographic, that’s so important. What does inclusivity in the music scene kind of mean to you?
Well, I don’t know. It’s a tough question. I think that the question, the answer is in the question, as well. You know, like, just being inclusive to everyone, like people who like music. If someone likes your band there shouldn’t be any reason why you disallow them to come to a concert. I don’t really like age restricted shows, I understand that it’s sometimes important, like a lot of venues make their money from the bar, and you have to have 18 plus shows in order for the bar to be open. So I understand a lot of that. But, I would personally hate for someone who is a big fan who wants to see the show, and they can’t in their city, because we’re only doing an 18+, or 21+, or whatever. And I don’t know how to combat that. I just think that inclusivity is, you know, it’s for everyone. And we try to be a band for everyone and make it so that, you know, regardless of anything, you can come to our show, have a good time and walk away feeling like you had a great night.

That’s amazing. So erring on that inclusivity side of things. I’m actually a live music photographer in a wheelchair.
That must be hard a lot of the time like to get through the crowd or the barricades and whatnot.

Yeah the tiny little gaps for the barrier, the stairs side stage and the stairs backstage and all that. I actually started a project in 2019 called ‘Stairing Through the Lens’ like stairs, as in, the stairs that you walk up. It’s about raising awareness about accessibility and inclusivity at music venues. And it’s something that I’m really, really passionate about. And I was actually hoping I might be able to get you guys involved when you’re in Melbourne next year. So I’ve got over 140 artists included across multiple Australian venues at the moment. The project is all about, as someone in a wheelchair, stairs are typically, you know, a barrier and an obstacle. And so it’s about, you know, taking back the power and showcasing artists in a different light, and from a different perspective, that being of me in a wheelchair. So, the plan for the project is to publish the series as a book, like a coffee table book with all the portraits. I just want to use my own experiences with adversity to make a difference in the music industry, because I feel like a lot of the time, it’s about, you know, more so ticking boxes, as opposed to actual thought behind, things like what having a ramp means or what having stairs means and that kind of thing.
For sure, I think that’s a great idea, I’d love to be a part of that and have our band be a part of that. In the States, I mean, most of where we tour is in the States. And we already try and make it so that if we have people who come with any sort of wheelchair or just crutches or whatever, like, we have an area set up that they can be at and be able to see the show without having people standing right in front of them. So, like we already try and work on doing those things. So like, if we can do that in further areas, like if we can do that in Australia and other areas, that’d be awesome as well.

Amazing I’m looking forward to having you involved! Now, in terms of the album, going back to that ‘One For The Rocks, and One For the Scary, I believe that you wrote about making the most of the time we have with the people we love. And, to me, like, that’s just a perfect anthem for the past, nearly two years. Do you sort of agree?
I do. I think a lot of these songs are based in that vein, not all of them, but a majority of them are about this time period, you know, these last two years. So I definitely think that song pulls to that for sure.

Yeah, absolutely. And going back to your self-titled album and 11 years of that, which will be 12 next year. You mentioned that you don’t usually get to play the whole record kind of thing. Now obviously it’s going to be like trying to pick a favourite child but is there a particular track on that that holds specific or special meaning to yourself?
Let me okay, this is gonna sound bad but let me look at the song list.

Honestly with your impressive discography, you know, seven albums, I do not blame you.
Back in the day we used to do a lot of long song titles too, that was kind of the theme in the emo world, and at some point we’re like, there’s no way we’re going to be able to remember all these songs, if we keep having really long song titles, so they just need to have acronyms now like you know WWTF. Let’s see here. I like ‘Happy Endings’. The last song in the record ‘Happy Endings Are Stories That Haven’t Ended Yet’ we haven’t played and that will be a fun one to play. And we used to play ‘No Heroes Allowed’, we did it for like one tour. I really enjoyed that one. So it’ll be kind of nice to play that one again. A lot of those ones like ‘Stay’, ‘Oh Well Oh Well’, ‘When You See My Friends’, those have kind of stayed in our set-list, like we kind of shuffle those in and out so yeah, they’re the ones we already know pretty well.

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Now is there anything that you know that you’ve never been asked that you wish an interviewer would ask you you know about life or music or anything I just want to open the floor to you.
That’s tough because I have to go back and think or just think of a question that I have not answered which is tough to do on the spot. I don’t know, I’m drawing a blank right now. I’m sure I can just name things. I have like a banjo I’m trying to learn banjo. I bought a really old banjo, it’s a pre world war two Gibson banjo which in the banjo world that’s supposed to be a very good banjo. So I’ve been learning banjo. Got a little book collection over here. I like sci-fi books. That’s my favorite genre I guess. Orson Scott Card is an author that I really enjoy although his moral values are not aligned with mine, but him as a writer, I can appreciate his work. I’m trying to think what else I’m looking around just to think of things I haven’t said to anybody. I have this pillow my wife made me of my son. So I take this on tour with me, put it in the bunk so that’s something.

That’s so gorgeous. Oh my goodness. I love that.
Yeah it’s a little fun thing. I send her pictures of the pillow like in different places.It’s a way for us to kind of stay connected even when we’re separated.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, like, it’s so important especially with being out on the road for so long.
I know. So Derek, his kids are the oldest, like me and Brooks are just new dads. And I never really asked him how tough it is to be a dad on the road. But I imagine like, I’m going to find out very soon because once he starts to like, notice that I’m not there, then it’ll be a lot more of like having to facetime and do things like that, which I’m totally fine with, but it’s something I never thought about before you know.

Of course I guess it’s sort of a thing where you don’t sort of think about it until you’re in that situation.
Yeah, I imagine I got a little more time before he knows what’s going on. But it won’t be that long though. He’s gonna grow up quick, you know? Time flies.

Absolutely. But you know, like, it’ll be such an amazing experience for him. Is there any point where the kids would get to a certain age where you’d sort of have your wife bring Mickey out to meet you kind of thing?
Oh yeah, we’ve done that before, like I said, me and Brooks are new fathers, but Derek’s been a father for a while. We’ve done that, where his kids will ride on the bus for like, a week, and sleep in his bunk with them. And just so he’s able to spend time with them. And so I imagine I will be doing that as well, at some point where I’m like “come drop Mickey off”, like, you know, she’ll meet me in Detroit or Chicago, or wherever. I live in Detroit, so if the bus is close, she’ll meet me and drop him off, and then we’ll just travel around for a week or whatever, you know, but that’d be fun.

That’s so cool. I love that. And obviously that just echoes that family environment that you guys have, and it’s really, really special.
We’re trying to sustain that, that mentality. A lot of bands, we’ve seen so many bands break up over the years. You know, being a band for 16 years, like a lot of the people we’ve toured with in the past aren’t even bands anymore.

Now in terms of the tour you’ve got Real Friends and Those We Dream coming out with you on the road, how did that come about? Did you have any say in choosing the bands who tour with you? Are you more about, you know, giving young and upcoming bands an opportunity? Or what does that sort of look like for you?
Yes, we do get to choose who comes with us. And we try and normally pick a different group every time, we’ve toured with Real Friends before, but not at this level of going to different countries and stuff. But normally, we send out a request to other managers and let them know we’re looking for artists to tour with us. And then, those managers will send a list back of their artists that want to tour with us. And so we kind of just go through the list and look for artists that make sense for the package.

Awesome. Now is there anything that you haven’t done in Australia yet that you’re looking forward to doing? Do you get much time off between traveling? Obviously it’s not as easy as you know, jumping on a tour bus because you know, Australia is pretty big, you actually have to get on a plane and fly everywhere.
Sure, we’ve done a lot when we’ve been there.I actually would like to go more to the Outback, we’ve never actually done anything in the outback. We’ve always kind of stayed in the cities. But we’ve been to a lot of the zoos and held the koalas and went to like, Sydney Opera House and did all those things, you know, but I’d like to kind of see more of the wilderness, personally.

It’s amazing you definitely should..I’ve been with my family a couple of years ago and we did Uluru and all that. And it’s just, it’s amazing. Like you drive for days, and you’re just in the middle of the desert.
Yeah I imagine looking at the map, it’s crazy that the whole centre is just uninhabited really.

Yeah that’s the thing, you can drive for weeks and still get nowhere kind of thing.
Yeah I guess there’s just no water sources for like building a city or something more out there. And that’s wild. It’d be very cool to see that. Hopefully, one day we’ll be able to do like a couple day tour through, you know, a small section of it or something.

Well if you want a tour photographer for that, I’m putting my hand up right now. That would be incredible!

Dream place to tour?
Japan. We’ve been before, a couple of times but we stopped going because we don’t do well. It’s not a good market for us, so we can’t afford to go over there anymore. We all really love Japan but we just can’t make it work.

Damn. It’s such a beautiful country isn’t it. It must be so hard, obviously you have like a well established fanbase in Australia and Europe and America, but those Asian countries and places where you want to get out and experience the culture and tour, but you just don’t have that established fanbase.
Yeah, It’s wild because like in the Philippines and Manila we do super well, almost better than we do in the US in some locations there. But, in Japan it’s like, they like pop-rock, but they like more fast pop rock, our music is more like more mid tempo, it’s not fast, it’s kind of in the middle and they don’t really vibe with that.

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If you could tour or play with anyone dead or alive who would it be?
I’d say the Get Up Kids, they were the band that kind of got me into the style of music that we play now, so I probably wouldn’t be in this band if it wasn’t for them.

Oh wow, what age was that?
That was probably 16. Before 16 I don’t really know what I listened to to be honest. I think I just listened to whatever was on the radio, and I never really owned a CD or really cared about buying a CD until I got into this style of music and then I started collecting CDs constantly.

Well you must have a pretty impressive music collection now.
It’s pretty big, but it’s all digital now except for the vinyls.

How has digital listening changed the landscape? Obviously you want people to stream you on Spotify and all that. But of course there’s real value in having someone buy a CD or a vinyl.
When streaming services came out, it kind of made things more difficult because before, you were able to recoup expenses on your album by selling CDs, and you could recoup your album and then at some point down the road you’d start seeing money from that album. But now with everything streaming you don’t really recoup as much as you would in the past. So there’s that aspect. But, at the same time I do think it’s great, it’s a way easier format for people to listen to music, vs going to get one CD stick it in a CD player, like streaming obviously that’s the future, so it makes sense for us to try and figure out how to also make money from it.

I mean especially with the rates you artists get paid for a single stream on Spotify etc.
You know what sucks is Apple Music pays more but I like the Spotify experience better. I also think what Spotify could do that would be nice is, the artists that are on their platform that are making them money they should let them have Spotify for free.

Yeah like why should you have to pay to listen to your own music.
Honestly a large reason why I even subscribe to Spotify, is because a lot of times I don’t really listen to a lot of music. But before tour we go “this is the set list, these are the 23 songs or whatever that you need to play” and I go “okay where can I listen to these songs” and then I go and subscribe to Spotify again and download my own songs and listen to them on repeat or whatever and practice to them. But it’s like I shouldn’t have to pay 12 bucks just to listen to my music.

Yeah I guess it’s not just like plugging your walkman in anymore is it.
Kids nowadays don’t even know what a walkman is. We actually used to, before we were a signed band we would follow Warped tour around and sell CDs in the parking lot, we would do that every day of the tour. We’d use those little Walkmans and be like ‘would you like to listen to a song’ and you’d try and sell your EP to a person standing in line. We would do that, I think Warped tour was two months so we did that for two months just everyday waking up iIn the parking lot, we were in our van sweating through the night and then just went through the lines all day and just tried to sell CDs.

Wow, that’s amazing. It’s even hard to fathom that being something that was done. It’d almost be like you get to build that one-on-one connection too with people doing that, like in the physical sense. As opposed to streaming or listening to a song digitally, where you know it’s like ‘How does this make me feel’ and obviously music is so subjective too, rather than making that connection with an artist in a physical sense.
It’s a crazy thing. We still have people every now and then, it’s rarer now, but they’ll come up to us with our original EP like ‘I bought this from you in line at Warped tour’ and it’s like that’s 16 years ago. It is a pretty cool thing to have a physical remembrance of that time, like someone’s like “I remember this moment that you came up, because I have this physical CD here”.

I guess yeah it’s the memories attached too. That person has saved like money from their three jobs or whatnot to go and buy this one CD. Wow.
Yeah it’s definitely a different time period for sure.

I am definitely disappointed I never got to see a Warped Tour because that would have been an incredible experience.
We actually play a small role in a new festival called Sad Summer Fest in the US.

Awesome, how did that come about?
Well, us and another band The Maine, our managers are friends with each other and we’re friends with The Maine, so we wanted to provide something kind of like Warped tour, because we didn’t really want to let that die. Warped tour, like if you play one year you kind of play every other year, you don’t do two years in a row. So we’d been doing that since 2007, so we’d played it like consistently every other year and so had The Maine. So we were like let’s do something together where we can have a festival where we alternate every other year. So like they’ll play it this year and we’ll play it next year and we just get other bands to come play as well. So that’s kind of how that evolved there, but our managers are actually the ones who did all the work. They’re the big heads of everything, we’re just a small piece of the puzzle.

Wow, that’s awesome! Sounds like I need to pop over to the US to come photograph that one at some point!
Yes for sure you should. I think everyone should at least travel once in their life, like to go to another country. I have relatives who have never left their city. Like they’ve lived within 20 miles and lived there their whole life and never left their 20 mile radius, and I’m like “there’s so much to the world that you could be experiencing and you’re just staying in this one little bubble”.

It’s crazy isn’t it! Like it’s so foreign to me because I’ve been travelling since I was a kid, family holidays and all that kind of thing. 

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So in terms of the album art for the new album it features your characteristic ‘man with an umbrella’, what’s the significance behind that?
So the significance is, when we did A Lesson in Romantics, we wanted a cool album cover so we hit up a bunch of people to send us different album art and the one we liked the most had the umbrella man. The creator is the umbrella man, he’s the one who did the art. We thought it was cool that it was kind of like the staple of the cover, we’re like “this should be sort of the icon to bring back on other covers”, kind of like how Iron Maiden have Eddie, and certain bands have a mascot. Like “this can be our mascot”, which we thought was cool at the time. We definitely brought him back, didn’t do it on our last album but we were like “we need to bring him back”. So he’s been on a lot of our covers and in our artwork, and people who are familiar with our music associate the umbrella man, or the umbrella in general with Mayday Parade because we use it so often now. So it kind of did it’s job and did work like a mascot, but there’s no hidden meaning. We just had an album cover that we liked and decided to keep using that person from it.

What about the fragmented appearance of the cover?
Yeah that’s the falling apart part. I’m trying to think like why we went with the paint background behind the silhouette. The paint actually may have been something where there was no correlation to anything; it just looks cool.

What does it mean to you to fall apart? Obviously there’s so much talk within the music industry, especially more recently in terms of mental health and things. Does it have anything to do with that?
I think it can be up to interpretation. There is a song in the album that’s kind of about mental health, it’s the heavier one ‘If My Ghosts Don’t Play I Don’t Play’. That one has a lot to do with mental health. Because a lot of our listeners are a younger demographic that’s kind of a song revolving around not fitting in like with your peers and that kind of thing. It’s kind of a song about telling them “we will be here for you in those times where you’re struggling, you can rely on us to be there for you”. So there are songs that deal with quarantine and songs that are more about your mental health like that one. I think falling apart, there’s so many ways a person can fall apart. So I think a lot of the stuff in the music can be up to interpretation.

I think that’s what makes it beautiful too, that freedom of interpretation.
Yeah a lot of our songs, I mean it depends on the person that writes it because we all write, but I know how each person writes so I can tell you whose songs are about what and things like that. It’s different for every person, but a lot of the time when I listen to someone’s song I think it’s about this and the person is like “no it’s actually about that”. Even for me it’s still an individual interpretation.

Was there a particular song on the new album you wrote yourself?
Yes, ‘If my Ghosts Don’t Play I Don’t Play’ I wrote that one. Then ‘You Not Me’ is one that Alex wrote about him being kind of like a ‘dirtbag’ but the chorus is one I helped work on with him. ‘Bad At Love’ I wrote that one as well and that’s more just relationship based.

What’s the significance between the titles for those two tracks?
‘Bad At Love’ well that’s the hook of the song, it’s in the song so it made sense. With ‘If My Ghosts Don’t Play I Don’t Play’,  we didn’t have a title for it and we were trying to think of one. Then in our past like four records we always do a Calvin and Hobbes reference from the comic strips, so we decided that would be the song to use the reference in.

I love that each song kind of has something different, and I love the collaborative approach in terms of songwriting. What about Angels?
‘Angels’ is a song that Derek wrote, it was originally acoustic guitar and it had an electric guitar solo but then we changed it to be piano, in the studio. Because Derek’s a good piano player so we were like, ‘let’s make it a piano song because we don’t have one. I mean Bad At Love has piano in it, but we were like let’s have one that’s just strictly piano.

So does that mean you’ll have a piano at your upcoming shows?
It depends because this is the self-titled tour so we’ll be playing all of self-titled. Then I don’t  know what other songs we’re playing apart from that and I don’t know if any of those will be piano based. But maybe, one of our biggest songs is ‘Miserable at best’ and it is a piano ballad, so we may bring it for that.

How do you keep your mental health in check whilst on tour? Are there certain things you do while on the road?
I try and stay off social media. That’s my mental health, is not looking at social media. It wasn’t really as popular when I was growing up as it is now, which is surprising that like my parents and that use it all the time, I don’t have any connection to it. I don’t even like opening it, but I will do it because the band’s like ‘you need to post stuff’. But I don’t like it, and also it can get you in trouble too. Anytime someone’s like ‘don’t you want to see what so and so posts’ I’m like if I want to talk to that person then I will text that person or call that person. Like, to me that means more than just hitting a ‘like’ button on a social page.

I 100% agree. Even in terms of birthday wishes and that kind of thing, like I love calling my friends and family and singing a terrible annual rendition of happy birthday. There’s just something about a personal touch to really show that you care.
100%. That’s the stuff that’s getting lost in today’s newer generation. Everything is becoming more just being on a screen and being in front of a screen, so everything is like social based or like you need to make sure you get these likes, or you need to have people commenting or you don’t feel validated if you don’t get a comment. I hate that like we’re teaching our children, our youth that their validation comes from people commenting on their things and not just being a good person, being nice to people and receiving validation through those people you’re interacting with on a day to day basis, not like online. I feel like that’s the detriment, that’s what’s going to have a collapse in the future is all these people that are going to be shut in and not know how to actually have a conversation and communicate.

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Yeah that’s the thing, so because of COVID I’ve been studying online and working from home now for two years and I have hated it. That lack of face to face interaction especially I’m not a fan.
Yeah I wouldn’t be either. Although our guitarist Alex is doing online courses because on the road it makes sense.

Yeah it makes sense when you can’t but when you have to, it’s a whole different thing. I chose to go to uni for the university experience and you know I had one year of it on campus and then the last two years of my degree have all just been sitting in front of a computer screen.
Yeah I can imagine that would be tough, Although I probably would actually enjoy online learning because I’m way more introverted than I have led on. You’d think if you’re In a band and you’re playing onstage that you wouldn’t be introverted but I really kind of keep to myself alot.

I’d say that would be a pretty common thing, there’d be a lot of people out there that would put on a persona on stage and be completely different and more introverted behind the scenes.
Yeah I’m just not good at speaking, normally I don’t do interviews at all. Like other people in the band will do the interviews, so this is kind of a rare thing.

Oh wow, well it means a lot that I’ve had this opportunity to chat with you because this has been fantastic. I’ve loved getting to learn about the journey of you and the band.
I have enjoyed it, but I feel like a lot of the time when I’m doing these I get tongue tied, I start spiraling and what I’m trying to say is not coming out correctly and it makes me hate interviews, this has been very fun though. Normally I tell Josh, our manager, I’ll do any written interview you want to do because I can think through my words and just give all the video or phone ones to anyone else in the band.

Do you have a favourite experience with a fan that’s sort of stayed with you over the years?
We have a lot of fans who are really cool, and we have a group from the UK who come out to all of our UK shows. At some point in our history we started getting people who would just follow the tour, they would just come to every show. Probably the person who has seen us the most times is Cecilia, she’s seen us over 100 and something times now. What’s funny is that we knew her for a long time, she’d been coming to our shows. On one tour with an artist we toured with, their photographer Bridget Craig started talking to Cecilia in conversation, and then a little while later they started dating. So now, Cecilia who we’ve known for years started dating Bridget who’s now our photographer so it’s like how the world works that’s really interesting.

It’s amazing isn’t it. I wholeheartedly believe that everyone comes into your life for a reason.
It’s interesting when you’ve known someone longer than the person they’re with, like she’s a fan but we’ve known her so long she’s like family now.

Wow well there you go, your music really does bring people together.
Yeah, I do think that it does in a way bring people together. Like the UK people they come to all of our tours in the UK, it’s like a group of five and they weren’t a friend group before. They met at our first show and became a friend group, and now they hang out and travel together and go to all of our shows together. I just think that it’s like such a cool thing. Like meeting people at a show and being like ‘we’re friends now, we like the same artist, let’s hang out’ and then they become really good friends, and you can see that you or your music has impacted their life, like literally changed their life and now they have a new friend circle.

The power of music hey that’s really special.
The power of music.

There’s just something about it though isn’t there, that you can’t get anywhere else, people from all walks of life coming together in the same room for that one night for that show to enjoy their favorite band or artist. Nothing else matters, they’re there for the music. There’s nothing else quite like it, the atmosphere is just something else. I think that’s what I fell in love with; the passion, the unity, all of it.
Yeah I think it’s a very powerful thing, just music in general, not specifically our band. Music in general is a very powerful tool.
Going along with groups who kind of find themselves because of a certain thing. When you get older the friends and stuff that you make, you don’t make as many new connections like you do when you’re younger. When you have babies you make new connections, like you get mom groups and there’s all these different connections you make because of a baby. Then the toddlers have to play with other toddlers so you become friends with the parents. So all these new connections are literally made because of a baby.

Fan faves in a minute
Icecream: Chocolate
Movie: Interview with the Vampire
CD vs vinyl: Vinyl
Artist: Billy Joel
Biggest inspiration: My Mum
Disney movie: Tied between a Goofy movie and the Newsies

Are there any Australian festivals you’ve still got on the list that you’d like to be part of?
We’ve played Soundwave, that was I think my favourite festival over there that we’ve done. It was just so good, they treated all the artists so well and I know that’s probably why they’re not doing it anymore, because they can’t afford to. I would love to tour over there with Violent Soho, that might not fit with our music I don’t know, but it’d still be fun regardless. I’ve listened to them for a little while now, especially Covered in Chrome, they’re definitely a good band.

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I’ll make sure I include that in our interview and who knows what will happen. 

Now to wrap it up, do you have a final message for your Australian fans?
We love you guys and appreciate you guys and we can’t wait to come over and get to see everyone, and hopefully you guys will come and see us as well. We’re just excited to be there, it’s been a long time so we’re happy to be back.

Thankyou so much for your time Jeremy, this has been so much fun.
Thankyou, I’ve had a good time as well so I appreciate you doing this and I know we chatted for a little over an hour now, so thankyou for spending some time with me, I appreciate it.

Thankyou I’m really looking forward to meeting you in Melbourne next year. Super keen to come shoot the show and I can’t wait to get you involved with my ‘Stairing Through the Lens’ portrait project.
Thank you. I want to add one last final thing, my favourite show that I’m currently watching with my child is Bluey, it’s like an Australian show. It’s such a good show, it paints such a good message, it’s more for the parent than it is for the kid. It’s like teaching a parent what they should be doing with their kids, like how to spend time with your kid and they do it in a fun way. Like really I aim to be the parent that those cartoon dogs are to their dogs that’s how good of a job they do at making it realistic. I just figured I’d throw it out there since I was literally watching it like an hour ago. It beats anything on American television for kids.

How cute! Well I’ll let you get back to watching Bluey with Mickey and I’ll go back to my exam study. Take care.
Thankyou again, I look forward to meeting you.

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TOUR DATES

Wednesday, April 20: Metropolis, Perth 18+
Friday, April 22: The Tivoli, Brisbane – Lic/AA
Saturday. April 23: The Roundhouse, Sydney – Lic/AA
Monday, April 25: The Gov, Adelaide – Lic/AA (Public Holiday)
Friday, April 29: Croxton Bandroom, Melbourne 18+
Saturday, April 30: Croxton Bandroom, Melbourne – All Ages 2-6pm

Buy Tickets HERE

destroyalllines.com

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Follow MAYDAY PARADE
Web – Twitter – Instagram – Facebook

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Press Release 26th October 2021 (below) HERE

MAYDAY PARADE
Announce Australian Tour
For April 2022

Performing Their
Self Titled Album
In Full + Fan Faves

With Special Guests, Real Friends & Those Who Dream

New Album What It Means To Fall Apart, Out Nov 19, 2021 via BMG

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AMNPLIFY – DB