The Ramapo News sat down with lead singer Derek Sanders from Mayday Parade before Saturday’s spring concert to discuss his musical influences, performing at a college venue and plans for the band’s new album.
Ramapo News (RN): Is it different to perform at a college compared to other venues?
Derek Sanders (DS): For the most part, no, not really. The only thing that can be a little weird or different, I guess, is usually on a tour, you are in the groove of everything, playing a show every night, going through the tour, where as sometimes these are random. For example, we were just all home yesterday and we’re all going home tomorrow. We just fly in, do the show, fly home or whatever kind of thing. That’s the only thing that can be really kind of different. Most of the time, they’re open to the public as well, so it’s not specifically just students at the college there, so it can be pretty normal [compared] to just a regular show.
RN: Do you have any plans for a new album, and if so, what can fans expect?
DS: We’re actually recording a new album right now. It’s the next thing, it’s hard to say. We’re halfway through recording the next album; we spent a month and half in Atlanta, up until a week ago, and now we have this tour we’re going on and then we go back into the studio and finish.
As of now, we’re all super pumped about everything. It’s coming out great. It sounds like Mayday Parade, but obviously a couple of things are moving along or maturing or whatever. And with each album we try to broaden things a little, we try out new things and try to keep things interesting and new and fresh. From my perspective, I’m really excited about all of it, I think they’re all really great songs, and I think people will hopefully like it a lot.
RN: Did you guys have any musical inspirations for the album?
DS: Nothing in particular. That’s kind of the way it’s mostly been for us. The songs are can be about a bunch of different things, mostly real-life experience stuff, just kind of growing up and it’s kind of hard to explain really.
RN: Who are some of your musical influences in general?
DS: There are lots and lots of bands and artists that we can say, but there are a lot bands that are in this genre, I guess that got us into playing this kind of music, like Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, Jimmy Eat World, The Starting Line, New Found Glory, all kind of bands like that that. I think for all of us in the band, when we were in high school, those are the bands we were listening to and [they] kind of got us into this style of music. It’s a big part of why we play what we play.
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dreed1@ramapo.edu
