Mayday Parade and our Mary Magpie
Meeting with Mayday Parade was an event that consumed two weeks of my life. I wanted to do it, I heard so much about it from just about everyone as the excitement grew and the show sold out and meet and greet sold out I watched this entire event unfold.
I understand popularity and I certainly understand this genre. So I listened to them and I read about them and I kept telling myself they were just kids, they’re not legends, I mean c’mon they ain’t the Ramones. Their fans cant even drive. In my mind I attempted to rationalize the bats that flapped around in my stomach.
A text to Iman solved the whole issue
‘Why am I so nervous about interviewing Mayday?!!”
‘cuz you like them’
Yup- there’s the reason. Its alot tougher to interview a band you like. Now please keep in mind that the bands I have interviewed I have liked. But I don’t think any of them had songs that dug so deep. Yeah pop tart gum chewing squeal girls….wtf screw that. I’m a grown up. But somehow Mayday Parade RECORDED, played within the confines of my car (where all good listening occurs) made a sound that bore into my heart. I had seen them just a few months ago on the AP Fall Ball and although they were good, I didn’t ‘get it’. I did get annoyed by their fans. Such a cynical elitist cow I can be.
So here we are its 6:30pm and we weave our way through a frozen teen aged line 3 deep to a tour bus ‘the one with the white trailer’ and rap on the door. All eyes are on us..and as we step inside I hear a ‘I fucking hate them’ from the street. the door closes and so it begins
Derek Sanders, charismatic lead singer Jeremy Lenzo, bassist and magazine reading bloke, and Jake Bundrick drums and an absolute doll. Take a seat and we begin.
This current go round is part of the Take Action Tour we ask about ‘touring with a reason’. According to Derek they were not advised the purpose of the charity at first. “at first I did a few interviews and I felt really stupid because they would ask what the tour was this year and I would have to say ‘well I don’t really know yet’ and I felt really bad not knowing. As we got closer to the tour we found out more about Drivng for Donors and bone marrow transplants and were really stoked to be a part of it”
Jake summed it up best when saying that raising money for a cause with each ticket sale is a great thing. “The touring is always fun-the chairty is an added bonus”
Touring whether for Charity or as part of APs production has the same vibe externally. The bands are there to entertain and draw a crowd. The charity is almost along for the ride. By having a booth at each venue, they get their word out. but when all is said and done its not the bands promoting the cause its more the bands introducing you to a friend. “Here’s bob”… now it becomes the charity’s job to keep ya.
So what the heck is a Mayday Parade anyway?
“we needed a name and we liked the sound of it and it really has no special meaning’, stated Derek
Jake interjected saying the name came from our desire to cause ‘mayhem on stage throwing our guitars and stuff’ and that parade came to them while sitting ‘on the rooftops of Tallahassee watching the Festival of Lights parade go by’
‘thats not true’, claimed Derek. We’re going to roll with it though cuz it sounds like a good enough explanation.
Lyrically Mayday can rip your lungs out and although they claim they’re not all ‘sad’ they do write songs cumulatively based on personal experience as well as attempting to have others relate to they lyrics. This is pretty well done considering you really don’t go to a Mayday show to hear the band .Their fans come to sing along- literally that’s all you hear.
As the fan base grows and the sing along get louder you cant help but wonder what ‘aha moment’ came and made them realize they had made it. And with the success must come the unexpected. Working for a major label, Capitol records has added to the reality of being in the big leagues now
“Its like you’re not just a band anymore. You’re a company. Theres the five of us, but there is a whole team of people who are working for and with the band’ Its not like you lose control but its weird to think there are about 30 people who are Mayday Parade now’ ‘ We haven’t lost control but we do have to compromise”
Touring is a never ending situation and one that Mayday enjoys, to Derek, ‘being on the road is more at home than being home. I miss it when were not doing it’ Although Take Action ends at the beginning of March and Warped doesn’t begin until July, the Mayday guys will not be sunning themselves on the Riviera, although ‘unconfirmed’ the band will be touring during that 4 month ”break”. Even during the holiday break of just a couple weeks they missed touring. While writing and recording “Anywhere But Here”, they took 8 months and started touring again. The band has no intention of stopping the never ending tour junket and constantly write and save ideas for when its time to record again, anticipating to do this in late 2010 or early 2011.
At the conclusion of our 2009 interviews we would ask the performer who should be in the rocknyc hall of fame…and got some great answers.
For 2010 our question is (and will be) give us your guilty pleasure song currently on your iPod
Derek is not embarra
ssed by any of the songs on his or they wouldn’t be on it. Although he does have The Backstreet Boys and Celine Dion. Jake on the other hand found a surprise on his that could well have been sabotage a ‘techno version of Titanics ‘My Heart Will Go On’ ”, sabotage indeed.
Through out the entire interview Jeremy said not one word- engrossed instead in AP Magazines article on Gerard Way. Dreams of a My Chemical Mayday Parade Romance tour? Not sure. But in a never ending tour ride it goes without saying that bands will intersect. Im not sure how the two would fit together but its interesting enough to think of.