A Day To Remember: Holding it down for the underground

23 February 2012

by Poppy Reid

Jeremy McKinnon views A Day To Remember’s career with both gratitude and animosity; as the frontman and linchpin of the band McKinnon has voiced this dichotomy throughout their ascent, which has been as calculated as it is worthy.

“There’s a never-ending bank of stuff to write from. There’s people who continuously try to fuck us over so I’ll continuously have songs to write about them,” he explains. After eight years, four albums, and a myriad of sagacious decisions, McKinnon, along with Joshua Woodard, Neil Westfall, Alex Shelnutt and 2009 recruit Kevin Skaff have achieved rock star status in every sense of the word – they’ve played the Vans Warped Tour’s main stage, achieved commercial success without one lick of a compromise and this week they’ll tour for the second time with Soundwave Festival - but along with fame has come a thick slew of enemies hell-bent and halfhearted.

“Anytime good things are happening there’s always somebody trying to take it from you,” grants McKinnon down the phone line. “We’ve had plenty of that this record cycle.” The beauty of the last album, What Separates Me From You, is its sound hadn’t wavered from that of albums one, two, or three; a coup that could only be managed by a band like A Day To Remember. Weaving pop, punk, hardcore, rock and screamo means a never-ending musical spectrum to draw from; perhaps this is just the reason for the multiple social media pages dedicated to ridiculing them, or perhaps why a certain website creator fibbed about an incident at Bamboozle Festival, or even why they may not release album five through current label, Victory Records. “That’s still up in the air,” the 26-year-old dismisses, before adding, “Well, let’s just say it’s a misunderstanding. We’ll see how it goes.” The band and Victory have been debating a ten month-long lawsuit ever since an initial allegation last May, where the band hired new management and filed a breach of contract against the label for unpaid royalties. The band’s wish to switch labels has been difficult due to Victory biting back with accusations against their loyalty.

A statement from Victory reads: “[It’s] really about the band’s refusal to fulfil their 5-album contractual commitment to Victory and their newfound desire to move to a major label. Recycled and often apocryphal stories of misguided and unsuccessful attempts by a few Victory bands to jump ship from the label that put them on the map have one common truthful thread; they always end badly for the band.”

Despite legal contention, McKinnon takes the bad with the good and channels the rest into profit; just six years ago, tour buses and sold-out shows were merely the aspirations of an adolescent who bussed tables at a Pilot Arby’s restaurant.

“We were playing to thirty to forty kids a night,” he recalls of the early days. “We are a band that really started from nothing and built to where we are right now, so it’s crazy to think back.” A Day To Remember’s storm onto the scene with the most depreciative of ennui soon spawned into one of the greatest climbs into public consciousness the scene has experienced in the last two decades. For McKinnon though, it was all “really no-brainer type stuff.”

“People are just taking themselves too seriously,” he says. “People don’t want to see a band trying to look cool, they want to have a good time.”

From dive bars to entertainment centres, Mckinnon’s vision has changed with the band’s demand. His decision to turn each show into a spectacle is a direct revolt against the arrogance he sees consuming most acts today.

“I see a hole in all music, I see the majority of bands who are still successful all doing the same stuff… When you become successful I feel like most bands just quit, or quit trying to push the envelope. I really feel like that’s the time when you need to push it the most.

“Nobody wants to sit there and watch you look cool for two hours straight, maybe that works for some bands but that’s not the way we go about things,” he states. “That’s why there are the flash-in-the-pan type bands and then you have career bands, all of the career bands you see are actually putting on shows.”

From balloon drops, to synchronised choreography to climbing inside a giant ball and running across the crowd like a hamster on heat, the band endeavour to secure their longevity by taking on the type of productions that ceased in their genre in the ‘80s.

“That’s how it’s gonna be from now on with A Day To Remember, that’s what we want to be known for. I want people to walk away telling everybody, ‘Hey you gotta see this!’” Most of the talk surrounding them now is whether the next release will hold up against its predecessors; whether the genre-hybrid that bode so well since 2005 will still be deemed relevant,however McKinnon assures TMN the album has been over a year in the making.

“This band doesn’t just shut down for three months and write a record,” he says. “We’re writing constantly throughout the year so when it comes time to write a record there’s nothing but good ideas that we love. I don’t understand just rushing into something, this is your career and I care about what I do,” he adds.

One of the only differences in the approach for the next pool of ‘good ideas’ is the tracklisting. “There’s going to be a lot of tracks on this one,” says McKinnon. “It’s not going to be daunting but it’s probably going to be the biggest tracklisting we’ve put together... I actually think it’s going to be the best mix of everything that we’ve ever done.”

So strong is McKinnon’s belief in the band that to him, irrelevant of any army of haters, it’s actually laughable for me to consider there will come a time when his powerful force could ever be stopped.

“There’s never going to be a time when we fail because we can just do whatever we want,” McKinnon says very seriously. “When other bands have to be stuck in one style of music or change their complete style - that’s not us.”