Mayday Parade release their full-length album, ‘Mayday Parade’ on October 4.
Co-produced by Zack Odom and Kenneth Mount, Mayday Parade marks a return to their songwriting roots; the entire album was self-written in a collaborative effort by the five band mates. The 12-song collection transpired through careful introspection and it echoes the musicians’ maturation over the two years since their second album, Anywhere But Here. The band chose to pen each of the songs themselves, making the album perhaps their most personal to date, complete with relatable lyrics and their undeniable charm.
The band is also set to hit the road on a headlining tour. Kicking off on the East Coast on October 13, The Noise Tour powered by Journeys features support from We Are The In Crowd, You Me At Six, There For Tomorrow, and The Make.
Mayday Parade is vocalist/piano Derek Sanders, bassist Jeremy Lezno, guitarists Alex Garcia and Brooks Betts and drummer/vocalist Jake Bundrick.
Read the exclusive interview with Jake Bundrick here on BandWeblogs.com!
Jenny May: How did the band name “Mayday Parade” come about?
Jake Bundrick: We honestly just stuck two words together that we enjoyed at the time. I enjoyed the word Mayday and we just happened to be up on the rooftops of a Tallahassee building watching a parade when we put the two words together.
Songkick recognized Mayday Parade as the hardest working band of 2010 with 194 logged tour dates – what are your thoughts about touring and being on the road as much as you are?
For me, I have my moments of loving every second of it but the older I get the more I start wishing I could be home more often. Yet, right now I don’t even have a home. I’m 28 years old still living with my parents. I’d love to purchase a house one day but we don’t make a ton of money doing this and we’re only home a few months out of every year. It says we did 194 shows but it doesn’t actually say how long we were on the road. That doesn’t include off days, rehearsal days or travel days. So we’re away on the road much longer than that. Don’t get me wrong, I still love performing every night. I haven’t found anything in life that beats that feeling.
How do you spend your time while you’re on the road (when you’re not onstage)?
I’m the guy in the band that likes to stay in shape. I spend a few hours a day exercising either running or lifting weights. I mostly do that because we all like to hang out after shows. We drink our fair share every night. That’s the fun part of being in a band. You get to hang out with your best friends every night. After 5 1/2 years of touring, we’ve met tons of friends on the road who come to the shows just to hang out. It’s a lot of fun. There’s always a ton of video game action going in the back lounge. We’ve been huge FIFA 11 fans lately.
You guys are from Florida; what is the Floridian music scene like? Do you get a chance to check out bands there? Who have you seen recently?
The Florida music scene is pretty crazy. A lot of amazing bands have come out of Florida from Underoath to Dashboard Confessional to New Found Glory. All bands we grew up listening to and loving. One band in Florida that stands out to me right now is a band called Select Start from Tampa. They’ve changed their sound entirely to something unique and great! At certain parts of their songs, every dude in the band sings a cappella. It’s fresh and worth listening to.
What are your hobbies?
Mine are writing music, playing video games, exercising, going to college football games (FSU) and every once in a blue moon I get to play golf.
If you had to settle down tomorrow, what city would you choose to live in permanently? What is it about the city that you like?
If it were my choice, I would easily move to Bradenton, Florida. Why? Because my friends down there are real, loving people that would stay by your side no matter what. Plus, it’s a beautiful place with amazing beaches and the girls you see in bikinis are worth the visit. 😛
How long did you take to record your new album, ‘Mayday Parade’? Where did you record – and how was recording this album different from your previous albums?
We recorded this record in Marietta, GA (a suburb north of Atlanta). We starting writing songs for it about 6 months before we rented a house in Panacea, FL to rehearse and conform the songs. It took us a couple of months after that to record it all. This album was different mainly because we wanted to go back to our roots and write a record we loved. We told the label (Atlantic at the time) that we wanted to write our own record. On ‘Anywhere But Here’, Atlantic made us co-write for every single song accept one (“I Swear This Time I Mean It”). Although we love the record and think it has great songs, co-writing wasn’t what we wanted to do. We decided to play ball because we saw what the label did for Paramore and we wanted that more than anything. On this record, we said no to co-writes and wrote everything ourselves like we did on ‘A Lesson In Romantics’. We don’t think there is anything wrong with co-writing whatsoever but we just knew it wasn’t for our band.
Gimme Summer Ya Love Tour Blog 2 – watch video:
You have quite a dedicated fanbase! At what lengths will some fans go, to get your attention?
Our fans are awesome! Every once in a while you get the crazy ones haha. But none of them are crazy enough to do something inappropriate to get your attention. Most of them just scream in excitement. Even the dudes. haha
What are some of your favorite movies that you’ve seen in the last couple of years?
Forrest Gump is still my favorite movie to date. Inception was a phenomenal movie to me. Ben Affleck surprised me with his directing/acting in The Town. Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in Black Swan were flat out perfect! I’ve got a thing for Mila.
Have you had songs in movies? What movie genre do you think suits your music?
Hopefully one day we’ll have a song in a movie but as yet, no. I think it’s safe to say most of our songs would fit perfectly in a romantic/comedy or a sad movie. Kids listen to most of our music because it’s heartfelt or sad. We’d fit perfectly in any sad moment in a movie.
What is your idea of paradise?
Well, one T.V. commercial tells me paradise is drinking a Corona on a beach with a beautiful woman. I’d say paradise is drinking ten Coronas on a beach with ten beautiful women who are also drinking Coronas. If Johnny Depp were there that would be sick too. How else would I get 10 beautiful women around me? haha
Photo credit: Daniel Shippey
Buy CDs, MP3s, more:
Mayday Parade Official Website
Mayday Parade Facebook
Mayday Parade Twitter
