With the departure of singer/guitarist Jason Lancaster to form Go Radio after their first album, I wondered whether I'd have two great bands or two bad one to listen to. It took a couple of albums for th powerpop indie band to nail it down but with their self-titled new album, Mayday Parade are back. Always touring, always a good live band since 2006 (!)., I got the awesome opportunity to speak on the phone with rhythm guitarist Brooks Betts about their third album (released on major label Atlantic Records -where they've been signed to since 2009), a life on the road, and who else they'd like to tour with…
Why's the new album self- titled?
"Well one big reason is because we wanted to point out the idea that what this was what Mayday Parade is. A lot of bands to self titled records some of our favourite records are self titled and we thought it was appropriate for the timing so we went with that."
Are any of the songs that are on your new album your favourite, or are sentimental to you?
"Overall, there's really great lyrics in 'When You See My Friends' and knowing what's going on there and what's being said, that's a really big song for me."
How do you feel about the buzz of comparison between the albums "A Lesson In Romantics" and 'Mayday Parade" ?
"I don't pay too much attention to a lot of what people say. I hear some things from what other people tell me but I try to not get too caught up in what other people say about it. I think in general, the way that we came into it was with the idea that no album is ever going to be like your last, and I can't think of many bands except for maybe AC/DC where you can go and listen to album after album and have a very similar sound. Things always change and evolve and we're not old Mayday Parade because that was six years ago. So I think people are going to hear some similarities because of the idea that on our last album, there was more major-label influence on it, and on this new album there was none and on A Lesson In Romantics, there was none. I think what you're gonna get is what is true Mayday Parade. That's where you're going to see the similarities."
Are you going to continue touring? You do so constantly how do you keep it energized?
"Yeah, last year we did a ton of touring and I think we're gonna tour every season it makes sense to do so. And now we've got a new record out so now's the time to do that more than before, more than ever. You've gotta go out and support your new record. We're pretty excited to do that and we've got touring plans for this year and even into next year."
If you could tour with any band, who would you tour with?
"I think it'd be awesome to tour with Fall Out Boy, but I don't think that's gonna happen. There's a lot of bands; My Chemical Romance would be an amazing band to tour with. I think that going out with Blink 182 would be an awesome band. And then there's tons of other bands that don't seem so close to our genre just because of the age gap, but Bush just put out a new release pretty recently and that's a pretty huge band for all of us. I'm not sure about No Doubt, but they've been doing touring and that would be an awesome band. If you're asking for one though, I'd have to say Fall Out Boy."
Do you have any current passions or causes that you're really into right now?
"There's no crazy causes that I get too behind. When I watch TV, I don't watch a lot of reality TV or anything like that. I usually just watch Netflix and documentaries. Some of the cool stuff I've been watching recently has a lot to do with water conservation and a lot of it points to the bottled water industry and how that works. And even in our area here there's trying to take water out of our rivers which would ruin some of the really cool lakes and stuff we like to hang out at. If anything people need to look more into the effects of the water shortage and the need of our natural resources on the land for when it comes to water mostly."
Can you describe yourself in as little words as possible?
"I think so. Clean. Stress-free. Yeah."
I'm looking forward to this band coming back to Connecticut and supporting their fantastic new album. Be sure to check them out!