You Me At Six (Interview)

During our local stop of this year’s Alternative Press tour, we got the oppor­tu­nity to have a brief sit down with a cou­ple mem­bers of one of the most promi­nent UK Pop-rock acts as of late, You Me At Six. During the inter­view, we hit on a num­ber of sub­jects such as the band’s upcom­ing full-length release, Hold Me Down, as well as their state­side shenanigans.

Shawn@RRR: I’m sit­ting here with a few guys from You Me At Six, would you guys give your names and what you do in the band?

Dan:  I’m Dan I play drums.

Josh: I’m Josh I sing.

Shawn@RRR: For any­one who hasn’t yet famil­iar­ized them­selves with you guys, would you guys give a brief his­tory of the band?

Dan: We’re from the UK, from an area called Surrey, and it started out like any band does. Just a bunch of bored friends with a sim­i­lar goal in mind. Things started get­ting big­ger and big­ger for us in the UK and then we came over and did warped Tour and now we’re on our first proper tour proper tour in the US. That was a very quick answer, but yeah.

Shawn@RRR: If you guys have to explain your sound to any­body who has never heard any­thing from you guys before how would you guys explain and it what do you think sets you guys apart from any other sim­i­lar band in your genre?

Josh: A lot of peo­ple say that we play Pop Rock music, but with a heav­ier side to it as well. Even though we have sim­i­lar traits with our con­tem­po­raries, we do have our own kind of sound as well.

Dan: The music scene seems really pop lately. It’s less about the rock and roll and more about the pop, and we are a heav­ier band and hope­fully peo­ple will see some­thing slightly dif­fer­ent in that. And we’re pretty much the only UK band doing it at the moment. So peo­ple may like that.

Josh: Maybe, who knows.

Shawn@RRR: You guys released your debut full length Take Off Your Colours in the States ear­lier this year. What has the reac­tion been like for the album in the States in com­par­i­son to back home in the UK?

Josh: In the UK we’re far, far bet­ter known than we are here. But I think it’s just a sim­i­lar reac­tion, just on a  smaller scale, I guess. We’re a really new band here, and that’s fine, and we’re just enjoy­ing build­ing things here and  try­ing to con­sol­i­date our fan base and try­ing to gain new fans while we’re out here.

Dan: If any­thing I’m kind of sur­prised about how many peo­ple actu­ally heard of us before. I’m really sur­prised that we actu­ally have that com­ing over from the big­ger cities, but when you get down to the smaller cities, you know how it is, I was just really sur­prised about how many peo­ple know our band.

Shawn@RRR: Would you take us through the writ­ing and record­ing process for Take Off Your Colours?

Dan: It was like any band. We just start writ­ing songs and it was only just a year and a half ago when we decided, actu­ally two years ago, we decided that we actu­ally wanted to have an album rather than just a col­lec­tion of songs. So we just started writ­ing more and more songs. Josh writes up the lyrics, and gen­er­ally some­one will come up with some kind of an idea, then we’ll get into the stu­dio and bash out all together as a band and every­one has their own lit­tle mix to it.

Shawn@RRR: So what has it been like for the new album so far?

Josh: Well the new album is done. We’re going to be mas­ter­ing it out in Nashville with the guy who did Kings of Leon. We’ve done every­thing and now we just have to put the tracks in order and just put them on CD.

Dan: Generally it went the same way.

Josh: Yeah, the writ­ing process went the same way, but with a lit­tle more pressure.

Dan: We recorded and wrote it in a shorter time too.

Josh: We only had a few months to write the album.

Dan: The last album we had two years.

Josh: With Take Off Your Colours, we spent 3 1/2 weeks record­ing it whereas this [new] one we spent 8 weeks, which is good because you real­ize that the song takes its own role and allows the song to lead you rather than you lead the song.

Shawn@RRR: Have you guys enjoyed your time on the Alternative Press tour so far?

Josh: Yeah, it’s been really really good. We’ve met some good friends. There’s a lot of pos­i­tive reac­tions, but the worst, by com­par­i­son, would be New York.

Dan: Yeah, New York wasn’t the best, but the night before we were kind of spoiled because we  were in Chicago. I have no idea how, but when we played Warped Tour Chicago we had about 600 peo­ple watch­ing us, which was crazy for that small stage and we had no idea why these peo­ple were watch­ing us. And when we played in Chicago a cou­ple days ago it just went absolutely crazy, so it looks like we’re going to have a really strong fol­low­ing in Chicago which is really cool.

Shawn@RRR: Have any more estab­lish­ments given you dis­counts for being cute English boys?

Josh: No, but I try every time because, why not?

Dan: It worked for me at Panera Bread.

Josh: Yeah, maybe we should try Panera Bread again. But every time we play with a band from the states [in the UK] they say “Awww, we’re from America. We don’t have any money.” They always try it, so I thought I’d try it when we come here. But when I do try it they’re like, “Uh, no sir you have to pay full price.”

Shawn: How was that Penthouse suite?

Dan: It was amaz­ing. It was a crazy $4000/night suite.

Josh: They made an hon­est mis­take when they let out two of our rooms to some­body and they were going to send us to a dif­fer­ent hotel at first and they just said they only have one room avail­able and we said if you must, throw us in there.

Shawn@RRR: I’m going to move onto the new album, which is set to be released some­time in January, correct?

Josh: Early January, but it comes out here late January I think.

Dan: It’s going to be in the UK the first week of January and then it’s going to come out two weeks later in America because appar­ently no one works over the Christmas time.

Shawn@RRR: Is there any other infor­ma­tion that you guys can give us about the new album?

Josh: Right now I think we’re keep­ing every­thing under wraps. But we’re going to start launch­ing more news online in mid-November.

Dan: Yeah, I really like it.

Josh: I can’t actu­ally stop lis­ten­ing to it myself. I’m going to give the generic answer, it’s more mature and that it’s like the first album but better.

Dan: Yeah, bet­ter writ­ten.. catch­ier, and whatever.

Shawn@RRR: With Take Off Your Colours being so widely well received how much pres­sure is put on you guys to put out a bet­ter album?

Josh: Well, we put a lot of pres­sure on our­selves and we’ve seen bands come and go, and we really want to be a sta­ble band and have a career out of this so we know every­thing you’re releas­ing music-wise, you have to be step­ping it up or offer­ing some­thing new to the fan­base. I’ve pretty much had a men­tal break­down dur­ing the process, but I’m glad I put what I did and I’m glad about what every­one else put into it as well.

Dan: Yeah, because we have a great label setup all over the world. And we’ve got it set up now that it’s up to us to just freely come up with the songs and we know that it’s up to us [to pro­duce a great album] as opposed to a half assed album.

Shawn@RRR: What’s the most reward­ing part about being in the band and at the end of the day what do you want peo­ple to take away from lis­ten­ing to You Me At Six?

Josh: The most reward­ing part would be tour­ing the world.

Shawn@RRR: What about dis­count food?

Josh: Yeah, dis­count food and free stuff.

(laugh­ter)

Josh: But you know when peo­ple go and say they were in a really crappy mood and the per­son goes onto say they felt bet­ter after lis­ten­ing to our CD, and it’s stuff like that which I feel can be easy some­times to take that for granted. Music should have that effect on peo­ple but when some­body actu­ally tells you that it does, it juts kind of blows you away.

Dan: We just did a really cool thing in the UK where we went on a small acoustic tour and after­ward we just hung out with the kids and you could see that they do really appre­ci­ate it and you can really make some of their days just by meet­ing them. The trav­el­ing is def­i­nitely bril­liant. Getting to stay in the pent­house is a reward­ing part too.

Shawn@RRR: You guys are cur­rently set to be on the whole Alternative Press tour and then head­ing back to your tour with Paramore, other than the afore­men­tioned tour­ing what else can we expect from you guys in the last few months of 2009?

Josh: The rest of the really will actu­ally just be fin­ish­ing stuff up in the UK and Europe and just hang­ing out with Para more. Like, we’re going to be doing a video for a first sin­gle of our new album in November which will come out around Christmas time.

Dan: Christmas Day I think.

Josh: Yeah, like a Christmas present.

Dan: Christmas day we are going to launch it on YouTube I think.

Josh: I’m sure it’ll get leaked before though.

Dan: But we’re going to have a big count down on our MySpace. It’s for peo­ple who get really bored on Christmas day.

Josh: Yeah, espe­cially when you get older, you real­ize that Santa may or may not be real depend­ing on how young you are.

Dan: But yeah, after you’ve opened your presents and had your food and you’re kind of bored in the evening, you can look at our video and have it be the high­light of your day!

(laugh­ter)

Shawn@RRR: That’s all the ques­tions I have, thank you guys for tak­ing the time to answer them. Is there any­thing you guys would like to add?

Josh: We’ll be back [in the US] in the Spring with our new album.

Dan: Get both the albums, too!

Interview by: Shawn F.