Faye: So, how are you today?
Derek: I’m well, I’m a lot better than I was when I woke up. I slept in the van last night and I forgot to take my sleeping bag out, so I slept in 30F weather, so it was fucking freezing, but I’m good. We had a great meal here, some garlic tofu.

Faye: I last interviewed you in April last year, what has Defeater been up to since then?
Derek: We got home from that tour and then we took the whole summer off, and then Andy was gone with Green Vans for Warped Tour and then he came back, and Jay and him started thinking about the record and what we wanted to do with it. Andy was just recording drums at Jay’s studio and then Jay would kind of edit it down. We started the real recording process and then Jay had to go to Australia for a recording thing with Marty from Carpathian. We did a tour around the Fest and that was really, really awesome, it was with All Teeth, Living With Lions and Make Do and Mend, so that was just a fucking blast. It was cool touring with friends’ bands that have a lot of hype about them right now – we love them, so seeing all the amazing reactions they were getting was really awesome. Then we came home and I did lyrics and recorded, and then we started thinking of ideas for the layout and we came up with the idea to do the book with Chris – it’s not a full book, it’s just lyrics and pictures and explanations from my friend Michael who does photography. After we finished the record, it was kind of a waiting game to do this tour and then when we get home from this, we play our record release show and then we flight down to South By South West and do a few shows in Austin, Texas and from there we do Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii, so it’s been a crazy few months, with all the crazy stuff going on with our personal lives and Jay having to record bands all over the country, and Andy doing Green Vans all over the country, me and my ex-fiancé breaking up and Mike’s always gone with Make Do and Mend, so it’s been a wild six months, but we’re all doing really, really well for the first time in the band, everybody is happy and healthy. A lot of the time when we’re away, someone just got dumped or someone was having family issues back home, but we’re at the most mentally stable place we’ve ever been, so that’s really great. Mike and I both met these amazing girls that we just fell for, totally unexpected. Just out of nowhere, these two girls walk into our lives, like I’ve been fucking up for the last five years and I meet someone who gets me, so that’s nice, and Jay’s getting married, so, yeah, that’s what we’ve been doing – touring, getting married, writing a new record. The responses so far have been really, really nice, like we played the Netherlands last night and kids knew lyrics to new songs that just got leaked the night before and that’s fucking wild. Like the first time you and I did an interview, like all the comparisons that you made, saying that kids are eventually going to see us in the same light as our friends’ bands, I was like, ‘Nah, that’s not going to happen, we’re just a bunch of nerds from Massachusetts that got lucky for a little while.’ But to actually be touring this much and having the response that we’ve gotten from the new record is, again, just so mind-blowing. We just try to make something that we would love, like back in our teenage years, and it’s crazy that we’ve gotten this far. It’s just wild that we can tour the way we do.

Faye: It seems like you’re becoming the figureheads of melodic hardcore, since it’s not as popular as it once was, with the New York-sound being the ‘in’ thing now.
Derek: I definitely think that style of hardcore has a place in contemporary hardcore, like that band Born Low from the Albany area, I think they do it better than almost anybody, I fucking love that band and I really don’t listen to much heavy music, but if someone puts it on, I’m fucking stoked. I mean, hardcore’s always gone in cycles, there’s the DC stuff, the Californian stuff and the Boston stuff and then you get the New York boom of the really tough stuff, then bands spring up all over the place that are a little bit different, like Modern Life Is War in the turn of the 2000s, and I think we’re just an extension of that. We pull our influences from the music that got us into it in the first place, even like Deadguy that was on Victory in the 90s, that’s rad, they’re legit, it’s dudes making music what they want to make and that’s what we want to do. Being compared to Verse and Have Heart still though is amazing, because those bands to me are completely untouchable – perfect from start to finish, never put out a bad record, it’s fucking nuts.

Faye: I think you’ve kind of moved past the Modern Life Is War rip-off comparisons now, people just recognise you as Defeater now.
Derek: Yeah, I mean, I could see that at first, because song structure-wise, I don’t know what Jay, Andy, Mike and Gus were trying to do, but sometimes that stuff happens subconsciously and I’ll listen to Witness and My Life. My Way. and be like, “Oh, fuck! Did we rip that off?” We were hanging out with Harm last night and he assured us, “No, you’re not a rip off of my band, I swear to God.” [laughs] I know we’re not reinventing the wheel or anything, but we’re still trying to do something a little bit different, as much as we can. You get so saturated in the genre, you never know where you’re pulling influences from.

Faye: In my last couple of interviews with you, you said that your past two records were pretty rushed, but it seems like with this one, Empty Days and Sleepless Nights, you took more time with it.
Derek: Yeah, the whole process from Andy coming home from Warped Tour and Jay sitting down in the studio and writing off each other, took a lot longer and was definitely more thought out. Like every time, I tell you I did those lyrics in a month or a week,. I kind of did the same thing this time, after when all the music was written, I was just at Jay’s house like every day and my girlfriend would come drive up from Connecticut for a few days and I’d be in the studio for 10-hours a day, trying to bust stuff out and get creative, and come up with a story as we were doing it, but it was definitely more thought-out this time. Jake and I wrote the acoustic stuff together in one night, which was a lot easier than what we thought it was going to be, but we recorded that stuff in September and ended up recording the heavy stuff in November, so it was a little longer and more tedious than the last few records – with the vocals though, I’ll just wait to the very last minute.

Faye: Does the story carry on from the last two records?
Derek: Yeah, this one’s about the older brother from Travels and, again, it starts and ends at two of the focal points from Travels, which is what Lost Ground did, where it ends with meeting another character from Travels. Everything’s just one big puzzle, if you can figure it out, that’s rad, if you like our band enough to figure out who’s who. It’s not just words on paper, it’s more of a story that’s what we’re trying to get at. Mike put it really well in another interview, saying when you hear Travels, the older brother is just some fucking dickhead and you see him as some asshole who beats the shit out of his own brother, and this record definitely de-demonises him, you see the world from his perspective and why he’s so spiteful towards his little brother and resenting him for killing his father, and then he stays at home and works a blue-collar shit job to make ends meet. He falls in love, gets married and then his wife gets killed, and you just kind of see how everybody’s life can fall apart at any time. Every record, we just try to convey that life isn’t a fairytale at all. You think you meet someone who’s going to be there forever, but they’re not, and supporting your family, but getting nothing out of it. Not that any of us have killed anybody, but it’s kind of an elaborate way of putting it, that life can just fall apart at any time. The story ties in and the acoustic songs are just another way of showing the older brother’s story and that he’s not just a shit-bag that had nothing to say, because he’s a legitimate warm-hearted guy.

Faye: The acoustic song I Don’t Mind seems really personal, like it’s a song from your own personal experiences and perspective, and not-so much from the story.
Derek: To be totally fair, I don’t know, it’s tough to talk about, I wrote that after me and my ex fiancé broke up and it was in the time of my life when I was drunk from when I woke up and drunk from the time I went to bed. I was fucked up. We were writing the record and it mirrors my life a lot. I don’t know, it’s weird; it’s tough to talk about. It is a metaphor, but I feel like an asshole because I’m dating someone who I met through the band, like through a mutual friend, we met at a show and all that stuff had been written and recorded, and I hate having to put her through the song knowing that I wrote a song about my life in a different time, when I got dumped by my fiancé. It is personal, but it does tie in with the storyline. Every record has in its own way, like reflected our lives, not, again, like we’ve ever killed anybody, but there’s things about Jay, there’s things about Mikey, there’s things about me that we’ll be going through and I’ll just weave into the story. Like Lost Ground is about my grampy, to a point. The acoustic stuff, I don’t know, it’s just weird to talk about. It’s personal, but it’s not personal at the same time, like I can remove myself from it, where I know I’m just singing about a character, but I also did it at a time where I wasn’t, but now I’m past that point in my life and life goes on. We all grow up and we all meet those people that surprise you and turn out to be more important than you think they actually could be.

Faye: The first time I interviewed you, you weren’t that keen on your acoustic stuff, but has the positive response to the acoustic part in Prophet In Plain Clothes gave you a bit of confidence?
Derek: A little bit, but I still don’t do anything with it. I’ve played one acoustic show. It’s something that I want to do, but I just never take the time and sit down with my guitar and actually play, I’m just lazy, I think. And again, the lyrical content, writing a song about when I was in a different place in my life, I don’t want to play it out of respect of myself or other people involved. It’s hard when you write a song that’s so personal at the time and then you look back on it, and you’re like, “Well, that was a lie.”

Faye: Is that why you prefer concept albums, so you don’t directly relate to those feelings every night?
Derek: Yeah, and I know that people don’t ‘get it’ like why we write the way that we do, and that’s fine, we would all rather make art the way we do than do anything else. Nothing against any of our friends bands, but if I was writing about day-to-day shit, then we’d just be like any other band and we’d be lucky to get to where we are now, if I was just singing about just being sad or break ups or friends and my family, it’s the same thing as any other hardcore band. Again, I’m not saying anything bad about it, I’ve related to that since I first got into hardcore and punk rock, that’s what you identity with, because that same person you idolize is singing about the same shit that you go through every day and we still try to do that, but try to put it in a story and it’s not to try to be different, but it was the easiest way for me to do that, if that makes any sense.

Faye: This 64-page booklet that you get with the CD, what’s the deal with that?
Derek: We were doing the layout and Michael had a bunch of pictures, and we had such an amazing photographer, my friend Steve, he does scratchboard art, and Jay started talking about doing something a little bit bigger than a normal CD, and we decided to just go for it and make some tangible art that you could hold in your hands, so you could relate the pictures to the story. Jake and I are huge literary nerds and kind of bringing out a book is always what we’ve wanted to do, we’ve always wanted to be writers. I don’t know, we just wanted to have one more little piece in Defeater’s history where we took a little chance and did something that not a lot of people get to do in their lives, but it ties the story in more. I read back on it and I kind of hate the way I wrote the narrative, it’s a little bit repetitive and it’s not as cohesive as I’d like, but I also did it at my old apartment where I was still living with my fucking ex-fiance and I had to do it in a day. It’s not as good as I’d like it to be, but we just wanted to make something else pretty and another piece of art that we could put. Like Steve, who does the scratchboard stuff, he did a hoodie for us and he’s my tattoo artists too, so we kind of just wanted that everyone who’s had a hand in our artwork from the get-go had something in this book, because they’re the people who got us to where we’re at now. Like the front cover is one of the most beautiful pictures to me and it’s a fucking dilapidated house, but the way Michael saw it was just perfect for us.

Faye: Is that why the CD’s £15 on this tour? That’s pretty expensive for a CD here.
Derek: I know, I’m sorry. It ended up costing us more to bring over than what it has to break even, so, yeah, I feel like an asshole, like we got to Europe and it was 20-fucking-euros for an LP, it’s insane, but there’s two records, you get the booklet and everything. We were walking through the airport in Frankfurt and we were walking through customs and they were like, “What are all those boxes?” and we were like, “Nothing…” and they were like, “Do you have papers for them?” and we were like, “Erm, no…” They let us go, but just the amount of weight of stuff that we had to bring over and it turns out we’re selling them a lot less than what we should be to make money. I don’t know, the kids that have spent their money on them, I’m so grateful for because they can just get them on the Internet for free and I’d much rather kids get it on the Internet for free anyways, because they can and even if just half the kids who downloaded it come to a show, then we end up having an amazing night and kids are singing along and we’re all ecstatic and maybe they buy a t-shirt, it’s fucking rad. It’s not the nineties anymore where you had to wait for a CD or an LP to come out, you can burn things, you can put it up on Tumblr. I’d much rather kids enjoy what we create, we’re not concerned about making money, just thank you for being in the same room as us at a show, thank you for liking our band and liking us enough to come out.

Faye: You’ve said before that Defeater’s more of a part-time thing, but since you’re so happy with Defeater right now, are you wanting it to become a full-time thing? Or is it hard to balance with Mike being in Make Do and Mend as well?
Derek: It’s pretty much had to balance with everyone, because Mikey has his priorities with Make Do and Mend but he also has them us. Like there’s a Fireworks/Make Do and Mend tour coming up here, which he had to sit out on, so he could do a tour with us and he had to teach a fill-in for that tour. I’m bummed out for him, because I think that tour’s going to be amazing, both bands are fucking amazing, they’re flawless. I definitely slept on Fireworks for a long time because I feel I’m so out-of-the-loop that I don’t pay attention to contemporary bands and we both played a Polar Bear Club release show, and Fireworks played and I was just blown away, contemporary pop-punk/hardcore done like what I used to listen to in high school, and Make Do and Mend has turned into one of my favourite bands. I think it was the second show of our first tour, Make Do and Mend played and we all got in the van to the next show, and we were all like, “Holy shit, that band is going to explode. They’re going to be huge.” Then they all became friends of ours and Mikey ended up joining the band, it’s such a nice tight-knit family, we can depend on each other, not only for Mike to be in both bands, but Mike O’Toole and the Carroll brothers, I know that if I called them in the middle of the night for moral support, they’d be there. They’re just like brothers.

Faye: I saw the two-page spread in Rock Sound about your little clique with Make Do and Mend, La Dispute, Touche Amore and Pianos Become The Teeth that goes by the name of ‘The Wave’, can you tell me about that?
Derek: We were joking around, it was probably about a year-and-a-half ago, maybe two years ago, and this goes back to where we idolize our contemporaries like Verse and Have Heart to a point, like they took hardcore to a point where we didn’t know it could get, and untouchable bands like Terror and Madball, where in 10-years time, people will be like, ‘Remember when we were at that Terror show in 2005?’ People are going to remember those moments forever and we were talking about how we want to make our friends, like our closest friends’ bands, like our tight-knit little family and I think we were on the west coast, and Mike was like, “Let’s call it ‘The Wave’, like ‘catch the wave’!” Then someone ended up running with it and we don’t even know how the bands got lumped together, I mean, we love all those bands. I met Pianos at the last Ruiner show and I felt like such a dick, because I was the last person to meet them and I was fucking wasted, and was like, “I fucking love your band!” But we all really love and respect each other as bands, but we also love All Teeth, Former Thieves, Comadre and all these over bands, the ‘next generation’ of hardcore. Like it’s not some stupid exclusive club, it started as an inside joke that went too far and, all of a sudden, Rock Sound is printing fucking interviews with all of us, it was pretty much like an ad, like ‘listen to these bands, they’re ‘The Wave’. It’s like $9.50 at home, but I made sure that I got one because there was going to be two pictures of Mike Poulin on the same page. [laughs] It’s weird, Mike either looks really pissed off and upset, or high out of his mind, or someone you don’t want to meet in a dark street corner, even though he’s like one of the nicest and kind people you’re ever going to meet, but you’ll see him in a picture and you’re like, “Is he high?! Is he pissed?!” It’s cool to the point where we’d like to do a ‘Wave’ tour, we’ve talked about it, whether it’s the five of us over here or in the States or something, it’d be super fun, because we don’t get sick of each other. It’d be the type of tour where every band would be watching every band each night, because those songs mean so much to us. The last La Dispute full-length, sometimes I can’t even listen to it, because it’s too emotional and too much sometimes, they relate to things you never thought you could, and Make Do and Mend remind you of touring and having a blast, and Touche Amore is my pissed off, angsty, teenage side and Pianos is the band I tried to do 8-years ago and failed miserably at, so it’d be a really fun tour.

Faye: Touche Amore and La Dispute are touring here in July, and it’s causing a bit of commotion on the Internet with their £1000 guarantee when it’s only their second time over and it seems that people are still hung up on the Touche Amore drama from their last tour here.
Derek: I mean, it depends on what they’re travelling in and what they’ve had to do for merch. It’s weird how touring it is now than it was a few years ago, like with my old band, I toured over here and our merch and equipment was in a normal van, and we didn’t have to worry about anything – the driver drove us, we loaded in, if we had enough merch to sell, that’s fine, if we don’t, whatever. But now, I feel like everything has to be so much more tightly organised and there’s more kids into this style of music than there ever has been, and 8-years ago, if there were 50 kids at a show, then it was fucking rad and now we’re playing shows like this at the London Underworld, selling it out, that’s insane to me. I don’t get why there’s 500-kids wanting to see our band, I appreciate it, but it’s just weird. For a package to be that amount of money, there’s a lot more time and effort that goes into than you think, and you only realize that when you’re on this side of the spectrum. We pay certain taxes in different countries, we have to pay ferry fees, booking agents, it’s all one full circle, that money’s not going into one person’s pocket. Also, those bands are two of the most humble bands ever. That Touche Amore thing, that was so out of character for them to do that, they don’t ask anything from anybody. They got offers from so many labels to put out their record and turn them into this big hype machine – and they are, they’re fucking huge – and they went with Deathwish, and that’s probably not the biggest label they could have gone with. If they waited out longer, they could have got a major label deal, fucking Thursday and Alkaline Trio turned into major label bands. It’s just weird to think about that whole thing because it’s so out of character for everybody.

Faye: What’s next for Defeater after this tour and the Australian tour?
Derek: After Australia, we do Hawaii for like a week and then we go home, and we do a tour in the States with one of our friends bands in May, and that’s going to be on the east coast to the mid-west and Chicago, and then we’ve got offered another weekend with a band we all used to listen to back when we were younger, so we’ll do that and I think we’ll pretty much be done because Andy has his stuff with Green Vans, I’m sure Jay is going to be super busy in the summer in the recording studio, Make Do and Mend is going to be on the road, I’m going to be absolutely burned out and sleep all day, and then Jake and I are going to try to do an acoustic tour, and I’m sure we can talk about this, with my solo stuff and the Sleepless Nights part of Defeater, and then Jake’s in a band called Dreamtigers and another band called The First Annual, which is Steve and Greg, who’ve played in Guns Up!, so it’s all sad, bastardy, we-all-grew-out-of-our-youth-music. Then that kind of brings us up to October, to do a little Fest tour and hopefully we can bring a bunch of our bands down there.

Faye: Change The Record, who should we be listening to?
Derek: All Teeth, definitely. Living With Lions, they have a new record coming out, one of my fvaourite bands. They’re another band, like Make Do and Mend, we played with them and I had no idea who they were, and the first show, I was hooked. They just do that style of music differently than any other band, they’re not trying to put fucking poppy breakdowns in, they’re just playing legit, 90s-influenced pop-punk and they’re all incredible musicians, and Stu, their new singer, his voice is fucking amazing, like flawless. It’s just incredible what they’ve done as a band. Moving Mountains, Balance and Composure, the last Tigers Jaw record, the new Hostage Calm. My girlfriend lives in Connecticut and that’s like 3-hours away from me, and I went down there for a long weekend and we went to go see Tigers Jaw and Hostage Calm in this university, and Defeater played there a year prior, and it was ok, it was weird, it was outside and it was really cold like today, and there was a barricade with a 15-foot high stage, no interaction with the people, but we went to see them in a small room, half the size and I’ve never seen a crazier reaction for either band, especially Tigers Jaw. It’s so good to see a band that is really far removed from punk and hardcore, playing just beautiful love songs and heartfelt music getting a reaction from the same kids that would go to a fucking Have Heart show. And as always, The Clash, I don’t care about anyone else.

Faye: Is there anything else you want to say?
Derek: Thank you, Faye, as always.

- Faye Turnbull.

From A Day To Remember-esque, to A Day To Remember-esque…with synth. Local boys Headlights! Headlines! carry on their trend of a revolving door of members by recruiting new vocalist Seb Pickersgill – this is his first show, and for a first attempt, it’s not half bad. The breakdowns are pretty blistering, the singing is a little off, the screaming is powerful, maybe even a little too heavy-handed for a band like this, but it seems to get people moving, which is more than any other act tonight can claim. Again, it’s been done before – but this is slightly better.

Post-metalcore brooders This Is Divine stick to a heatier amount of newly written material tonight, and with a well-established set, image, and live show behind them, it’s brilliant to hear how they’ve progressed – their new licks sound darker, a hell of a lot more mature, and have an almost Devil Sold His Soul-ish quality to them. Granted, vocalist Chris Baty stumbles on some lyrics in places, but the band are still an immensely tight act. So it raises a massive query – why is nobody digging it? A polite round of applause at best is all the 5-piece get tonight, which is somewhat disheartening – a quick rendition of Dear Armourer fades out a little sadly, and it all ends pretty abruptly. It’s quite the robbery, as This Is Divine have without a doubt shown up every other band here tonight, and in some style.

Local bafflers In Oceans are back for another round in Trillians, and it’s simply a case of “more of a good thing” – the band have proven time and time again that they’re shaping up to be one of the North-East’s gems, and tonight their arty indie/spazz/core/thing they’ve got going down is once again nailed to the cross tightly. While it confuses the audience tonight more than engages them, the band seem to be enjoying themselves – they’ve managed to knock on the head the transition between heavier, more energetic parts and mind-boggling melodies, and a new track or two thrown in sound very promising indeed – it’s a case of now perhaps going into hibernation, and throwing these new tunes down into recorded form for the world to enjoy. Strong set, once again.

Flood Of Red have established themselves well and truly into the UK spring of talent in recent years, and although they may have lost countless fans and even their website along the way, the sextet just don’t seem to want to call it a day. Their uber-melodic wall of sound fills Trillians, even if vocalist Jordan Spiers sounds a little weak tonight. Paper Lungs sounds absolutely massive, but unfortunately that’s as “rock” as it gets, with key tracks like The Harmony and I Am The Speechless left out in the cold. Like Elephants still provides an oral orgasm, as it’s long, looping coolness engulfs the room, even if it doesn’t encourage any movement. New tracks sound like a big step in the right direction, and surprisingly contain some harsher vocal chords – a strange revelation considering the massively un-harsh step the band have taken in the past few years. Nobody really seems massively impressed with the band’s work tonight, which is a massive shame, but their set ends almost too abruptly with Little Lovers getting an outing after only around thirty minutes onstage. Flood Of Red are a band with massive potential – it’s just how they use it, that will count between taking a leap in the right direction they should (and hopefully will) be going in, and fading into UK Musical history’s books forever.

It’s almost like turning up backstage to a school production when arriving at the Islington Academy, with 500 hyped-up fans all dressed in their killjoy outfits for a piece of musical history, and as doors open at 7pm, there’s a massive scram to get that all-important barrier position.

Before business gets underway, we are treat to a 30-minute set, comprising of new material from Vampire Money to oldies from their back catalogue such as Our Lady of Sorrows, and of course, the obligatory anthems of I’m Not Okay (I Promise) and Teenagers.

It’s absolutely surreal knowing that these emo superstars have just wrapped up an arena tour and are now playing such an intimate show – by their standards – and it’s clear that none of these fans are taking it for granted, as they rabidly chant, “Let’s go fucking mental!” and sing Teenagers a ccapella while waiting for the shoot to commence.

With props giving out in the form of oversized animal heads and toy guns, it’s action time, and although, we have to endure the song two times with the band and three times without, it’s an experience no one will forget, with the band returning for an ultra rare performance of Vampires Will Never Hurt You to top it off. Incredible night.

- Faye Turnbull.

For a hardcore band, starting a set off with an acoustic song is probably somewhat unorthodox, but as frontman Derek Archambault walks onto the stage with his acoustic, this is fairly typical Defeater fashion, and that’s what makes them special. You can hear the heartfelt sincerity of I Don’t Mind and while this song has only been around for two weeks, the entire room is still singing along to every word. The rest of the band soon join for The Red, White, and Blues, with The Underworld erupting in mass amounts of stage dives and shout-alongs; a rampant energy that lasts throughout their set. The encore of Prophet In Plain Clothes really adds to an already incredible set as they instruct the confused soundman that no mics are needed and it all becomes clear why, with what’s left of the room ending the night on the most incredible sing-along.

This band are just going to get bigger and bigger, and I think everyone can see that, bar the band themselves, as they remain completely unpretentious, thanking friends and fans for their support at every given opportunity. It’s a really humbling thing to witness. Not only are Defeater writing the most interesting and intelligent hardcore records right now, but also providing the best live experiences. The new Converge of our time.

- Faye Turnbull.

Keep an eye out for our new interview with Defeater!

I last saw Apologies, I Have None almost two years ago, in the very same venue, supporting Broadway Calls. Back then, this newly-formed duo seemed to catch the attention of everyone in attendance while dishing out free demos. Fast forward two years, with a couple more releases to their discography and a line-up change, the now four-piece still have all eyes on them with their insanely catchy punk rock melodies and humble attitudes.

Newport’s Save Your Breath follow to a fuller room, playing their hardcore-lite inspired pop-punk. Having toured with tonight’s headliners in the past, there’s a good number of kids up at the front singing along and new frontman Kristian Richards seems as comfortable as ever, but it doesn’t really kick off until single Stay Young, with The Wonder Years’ Soupy being this evening’s Sean Smith substitute.

While there is a lot of hope of The Wonder Years playing The Upsides in full, these dreams are shattered as soon as Logan Circle kicks in, but this is shortly forgot about with the entire room going nuts from the off. Of course, the benefit of this not being an Upsides show is that we get to hear Keystone State Dude-Core and Solo & Chewy: Holdin’ It Down, which gain just as much response as favourites Melrose Diner and This Party Sucks. Frontman Soupy delivers his obligatory, “If you’re not happy with your life, do something about it.” speech and although, this is said every night, it’s voiced with just as much sincerity, before Washington Square Park and All My Friends Are In Bar Bands, providing epic sing alongs. The encore of Mike Kennedy Is A Bad Friend and You’re Not Salinger, Get Over It is a nice touch, with sweaty kids straining their vocal cords and probably all sorts of ligaments while stage-diving and crowd-surfing. This is a real Wonder Years show.

- Faye Turnbull.

This evening’s lone support act Such Gold is a nice addition, playing their first ever UK show, and while it’s a sound that’s becoming all too popular these days, hardcore-inspired gruffy pop-punk, the band sound a lot more rough-around-the-edges live than on record. Frontman Ben Kotin confidently commands the stage, belting out tunes from their records Pedestals and Stand Tall, but it’s their Saves The Day cover of You Vandal that probably gains the best response, doing a fine job in hyping the crowd for tonight’s headliners, the sole reason why everyone came.

The time has finally arrived, and as soon as the church bells of The Take Over kick in, the entire room surges forward for those all-important mic grabs. Hearing typical closer Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die so early on in the set, is just as odd for the crowd as it is for the band as they continue powering through anthem after anthem, including golden nugget If He’s Here, Who’s Runnin’ Hell?, which hasn’t been played since 2006. It’s clear that Four Year Strong are having just as much fun as the lucky few with speedy Internet connections, while attempting to drag their set out with hilarious banter, due to the aforementioned album only lasting around 30-minutes. The encore of It Must Really Suck To Be Four Year Strong Right Now, with the first verse humorously played in slow motion, and sing-along central Wasting Time go down an absolute storm. Bruised and battered, this was something really fucking special.

- Faye Turnbull.

Faye: How are you today in your drunken state?
Josh: I’m fucking good.
Joe: This tour’s been fun so far, everyone’s been pretty sweet.
Josh: Yeah, pretty much everyone likes to be maniacs with us. We haven’t gone to bed earlier than 4 o’clock in the morning yet.
Joe: It’s ridiculous, even I’ve tried a couple of times and it doesn’t pan out, because I’ll go in there and just sit and here everyone talking.
Josh: The only problem with that is the random surprise wake-up, you’re like, ‘I want to go to sleep, but everyone’s awake at 6am, so fuck it, I’m going to stay awake and hang out.’ Then in the morning at like 9 o’clock, we’ve got to get up for some random stupid reason.
Joe: When I was trying to sleep one time on this tour, the bus parked next to a field and I woke up at like 8am to these tribal drums, there was like a festival going on. I had such a headache. It was crazy.

Faye: The last time I interviewed you was in June, what have you been up to since then?
Joe: Oh man, that seems like an eternity ago.
Josh: Yeah, I was probably 25 back then.
Joe: We did Warped Tour over the summer that was an excellent time. We toured with Comeback Kid, The Wonder Years and Mountain Man, that was a really good tour as well.
Josh: We’ve toured with The Wonder Years so much and now we sleep next to them, it’s like our two vans became one shitty van.
Joe: It was sweet to tour with Comeback Kid because I had been listening to them for so long, and they are literally the chilliest people.

Faye: Yeah, I interviewed Jeremy from Comeback Kid in November.
Joe: He is hilarious! That guy is the man. He’s always so pumped no matter what the situation is. I want to hang out with them in Las Vegas, because Comeback Kid is putting on this party in Las Vegas and has invited whoever to just go, and I’m temped to, but I’m sure we’ll be on tour doing something.
Josh: There was like a punching thing that recorded how hard you punched it and watching Jeremy getting so stoked and bashing the shit out of it was awesome. Although, our merch man took it down and got the highest score.

Faye: Did you ever imagine yourselves touring with Good Charlotte?
Joe: No, I didn’t ever picture it and I’m so glad we’ve had the chance.
Josh: They’re really nice people.
Joe: And I guess, I never really thought about how many hits that band has, I didn’t think I’d know too many of their songs.
Josh: But you can’t listen to them four like 4-minutes straight without hearing something that you know.
Joe: Yeah, they have so many hits from what I had remembered, and they are the nicest dudes.
Josh: And we’re not just saying that, they really are, usually if someone asks and they’re not, we’re like, ‘Yeah, they’re ok.’ But they’re actually really fucking awesome, really fucking awesome.
Joe: Watching them on TV when you were a kid and now touring with them is hilarious, it was the same with New Found Glory and The Starting Line, it’s like, ‘Oh shit, this is kinda crazy.’

Faye: So, do you feel like rock stars touring with Good Charlotte?
Josh: If anything, I feel like less of a rock star because we’re in the presence of actual legitimate rock stars. I feel more poorly dressed, perhaps.

Faye: I heard you’ve been partying like rock stars, though. Didn’t Good Charlotte hire Lillie’s Bordello in Dublin for a night?
Josh: [laughs] Yeah, we clearly did not fit in. I think we were being chill as fuck, we were hanging with people and dancing, we were living it up, but I think the dress code included not wearing dirty t-shirts.
Joe: It was all guys in suits and women in dresses in stuff
Josh: That was where the Norwegian girl was, who I go into an argument with. She hated America, which is fine, plenty of people do, but I had an American flag patch and she grabbed it, and was like, “This means you’re ignorant!” I was saying, “Go on… I’m not saying I’m not ignorant, but continue…” and she was like, “I went to LA once for a weekend.” Ok. I remember like 10-people giving us the finger.
Joe: Yeah, that place sucked.

Faye: So, being on a massive tour like this and hearing the entire room sing back to you, do you feel like you’re getting somewhere?
Joe: It is weird, I would say.
Josh: To look at where we are now, it’s kind of been like the frog in the boiling water when you turn it up, you kind of don’t notice things changing, but if we look back now and the first tour I ever done with this band, this is insane, comparatively.
Joe: Just even coming over here or going out of the country to tour, minus Canada.
Josh: I never thought I’d not been able to not go to a not done Indonesian tour.
Joe: Say that one more time…
Josh: It was nice to know that we almost went there. Sorry, Indonesia, I wanted to be in you a lot.

Faye: You’re playing at The Fighting Cocks in Kingston in a few days and it sold out in 11-seconds, did you ever expect there to be a mass scramble?
Joe: It’s going to be insane, I think, and really, really sweaty. We’re gong to be playing Rise or Die Trying and there’s one song on that record, If He’s Here, Who’s Runnin’ Hell?, that we’ve only played one time ever, in 2006. It’s going to be fun.

Faye: Four Year Strong’s sound is pretty current, pop-punk with breakdowns, where do you see it going?
Joe: I don’t know, maybe a little more rock as well as the same thing we’re doing. In the way that Foo Fighters is rock. I don’t know, we’ll have to see, we’ll be recording soon.

Faye: Do you feel restricted with your sound, especially with the synth, just so Josh has something to do in the band?
Josh: [laughs] It keeps me awake at night.
Joe: No, I wouldn’t say that at all, it’s just like any instrument in the band, everything adds something to the band. We’re not going to force stuff, just like I wouldn’t force a bass solo into every song.
Josh: Although, I think we should. [laughs]

Faye: Josh, you’re also in a hardcore band called Foxfires too, what made you want to have a band on the side?
Josh: It wasn’t really to have a band on the side, it was just me and my friends playing, it wasn’t supposed to be anything crazy. We’ve only played one show at this point, it’s just when Four Year Strong isn’t touring, we’ll play a couple of shows now and again. It’s definitely a lot of fun and more serious.

Faye: So, you’re obviously into hardcore, who’s your favourite Boston or Massachusetts hardcore band of all-time?
Joe: That is a really hard question, but remembering old shows, I’d say either Bane or The Hope Conspiracy, Blood For Blood was also awesome.
Josh: I’ll say Last Lights, because they’re awesome, but going further back, I’d probably say The Suicide File or American Nightmare, that was a really awesome era.

Faye: Blood For Blood seem to have a mass appeal, even people who are straight edge love them, despite their lyrical content, what is it about them?
Josh: I think it’s just because they’re such a bang-your-head-like-a-wild-man band.
Joe: They’re a sick band.
Josh: It kind of makes me want to listen to them right now.

Faye: You’ve got a tour coming up with Rise Against and Bad Religion, do you think the punx will be into you?
Josh: I think there’s a good chance people will not be into us. Personally, I won’t give a shit, it’s Bad Religion. [laughs]
Joe: I honestly have no idea what to expect, I picture the Bad Religion fans being like, “What the fuck?!”
Josh: Yeah, I have a pretty good idea that the Bad Religion fans won’t be into it.
Joe: But we’re just going to do it, fuck it and choose songs carefully, we don’t have that long of a set anyway.
Josh: We’re just going to fucking hang out, put umbrellas in our drinks and just cruise.
Joe: Or we go camping.
Josh: Tell her the plan.
Joe: I’m a sci-fi movie guy, but one of my favourite movies is Fire In The Sky, it’s this random alien thing and they go camping in the woods, and now I sound like a ridiculous tool-nerd, so we’ll leave it there, but hopefully we’ll go on a camping trip with some aliens.
Josh: You don’t say that, because someone’s going to fuck with us in the woods and get murdered, but I guess that might be part of the experience.

Faye: You said you were going to be recording soon, so have you been doing some writing?
Joe: We’ve been doing a lot of touring, but definitely been doing some record stuff, we definitely still have a lot of work to do, so I think after this tour, we might get on it at some point.
Josh: Yeah, we have a lot to do, but it’s in the works, we’re greasing the gears.

Faye: Change The Record, who should we be listening to?
Josh: The new Mountain Man record when that comes out, so people should listen to that.
Joe: Title Fight just put up a new song, I’m very, very excited about their new record. Super, super pumped to hear that, that band’s so good.
Josh: The Foxfires 7” comes out pretty soon.
Joe: I Am The Avalanche is going to be putting some stuff out and A Loss For Words, besides that, I sort of just listen to the same stuff as always.

Faye: Is there anything else you want to say?
Joe: Watch the first season of The X-Files, do yourself a favour – great characters, great dialogue.

- Faye Turnbull.

Faye: We last interviewed you in January 2010, what have you been up to since then?
Sam: Flipping hell, we’ve been up to a lot, we did that Get Down Tour and then we did two kinda small-half tours for our single, Worlds Apart, released that, which got to number 72 in the charts and was one of the top indie singles that week, then we did an October headline tour to finish off the year and released a live DVD as well, that got to number 4 in the charts as well.

Faye: So, how’s this tour been going for you? It’s a bit of a weird one for you.
Sam: Yeah, and you know what? It’s been going really well, obviously, it’s a pop tour and it’s with a band where their fans probably won’t have heard of us, but it’s going really well. Honestly, we’ve been on stage every night and it’s really fun, and everyone seems up for it. They’re taking to the music really well, and before the tour, we weren’t really sure how well we’d be perceived, but everyone seems to really like us, so it’s great.

Faye: Have your own fans been coming out? Or did it sell out before they even had a chance?
Sam: It was really annoying, because we got told a few days before it was announced that we were doing it and, obviously, we’re not allowed to say anything, which I don’t think made a lot of difference, since a lot of it was already sold out. I think a few of our fans managed to get tickets, but we feel really bad, that’s why we’ve been doing meet and greets outside, because it’s only fair if we’re in their city, they can come and see us.

Faye: Are you personally fans of The Saturdays? Have you had the chance to hang out with them?
Sam: Yeah, well, obviously, they’re really busy girls and they’ve got lots of stuff to be getting on with, and we’ve said hi to them, but, yeah, they know us.

Faye: You’ve always said you’ve maintained a somewhat DIY ethic, so how did you manage to get on this tour?
Sam: Yeah, well, we’re on the same label as them now, so it probably came about from that.

Faye: What do you want to get out from it?
Sam: It’s just like any tour being a support band, to get more people to hear your music; it’s just an outlet. It’s a different type of tour for us and more people get to hear our stuff, and, obviously, it’s good promotion and we’ve got a single coming out as well, we’re playing that on this tour and just trying to get more people to know more about the band, really.

Faye: Is it your aim to break into the mainstream?
Sam: Yeah, I mean, it’s funny because a lot of people think it’s a weird tour because it is very mainstream, and especially in the last year at least, we’ve always been a very out and out band, we’ve never kind of stopped ourselves doing anything. We’ve played festivals, we’ve supported McFly, Scouting For Girls, The Sugababes and stuff, so we’ve always done from when we first started out, and I suppose this is kind of like that, but, yeah, it’s a good platform for people to be able to hear us.

Faye: The last time I interviewed you, you said you were working on an album, what happened with that?
Sam: [laughs] It’s always really tricky, we had a load of songs recorded and just like any band – anyone in a band will know exactly what I’m talking about – it’s the most nerve-wracking process, because there’s always the fear you haven’t recorded the right songs or you haven’t done this and you haven’t done that right, so we just kept on writing, really. Now, we’ve gotten to a point where we’ve stopped recording for a little while and we’re happy with what we’ve got at the moment, so, hopefully, we’re going to have something recorded in the next couple of months. I think we’ve just got a few tails and ends of little recording bits to do in March, but apart from that, it’s done. We literally spent the whole of October and November in the studios in London, pretty much recording and writing.

Faye: Do you write your own music? Or do you have co-writers?
Sam: We do everything, really. Jack, Sonny and I will do some writing sometimes and we get put in a lot of co-writing sessions. Mainly though, we work with producers who work with bands similar to us – for instance, our first single was co-written and produced with a guy who did McFly’s Motion in the Ocean album, so he was a producer, but he was there with a lot of ideas as well, taking it from a raw base into a sculpted song.

Faye: On your last tour in October, there was a bit of drama with one of your support bands, Ten Second Epic, who got kicked off, what happened there?
Sam: I think it was nothing more and nothing less than a misunderstanding. Honestly, they’re the nicest guys in the world and I think it was above and beyond each of the bands, and I think it was more of a managerial position problem. Honestly, they’re the nice guys and they’re a great band too, like seriously, really talented guys and were a great support band on the times they supported.

Faye: What do you think about their claims, saying they disagree with your ethics as a band?
Sam: I think, when you’re in the industry, sometimes it works out and it doesn’t. We obviously don’t have anything against the band, and we and our management have a say in who we want to support us, so we invited them over from Canada and, obviously, agents are involved as well, but I really don’t know, I think it’s just more of a professional misunderstanding. But, honestly, they’re great guys and we still listen to them as well.

Faye: How did you feel about bands like You Me At Six slating you on Twitter over the incident? Do you think you’ve kind of kicked yourself in the foot?
Sam: I think it’s just it is what it is, I think it would be unprofessional if anyone got wound up about it and everyone’s entitled to their own opinions, that’s just the way it is, and You Me At Six and Kids In Glass Houses came out to our Cardiff show and they’re still bands I listen to everyday, they’re great bands. We definitely don’t have anything against any of them.

Faye: What’s next after this? Do you have any other tours planned?
Sam: We haven’t at the moment, to be honest, I don’t even know what we’re doing at the end of next week, really. Obviously, there’s a lot of wheels in motion with this single that’s coming out and album release later on in the year. Basically, the next few months is all about promotion for us, so you’ll probably and hopefully interview us again, closer to the release of those.

Faye: Are you doing a music video for the single?
Sam: I think we’ve got something planned, yeah, but I don’t know the details of it yet, but hopefully that’ll be coming out soon.

Faye: Change The Record, who should we be listening to?
Sam: I don’t know, really. I generally have a very broad mix, I’ve been listening to a lot of Taking Back Sunday recently, but then again, I generally listen to everything. I listened to Finch the other day, a love of mine when I was about 16, plodding around school, but then, Katy Perry, her album’s great, and Jessie J, she’s probably my new favourite artist of this year, she’s great. The Saturdays, obviously. Just kind of everything, really.

Faye: Would you prefer to tour with proper bands like Taking Back Sunday and Finch?
Sam: Don’t get me wrong, I grew up listening to those bands from the age of 13 onwards, in the same way some people find it different to us touring with The Saturdays, I think it’d probably be the same. Like if we toured with bands like You Me At Six or Taking Back Sunday, you might find some people wondering what we’re doing with them, because we’re not too rocky, but we’ve always been a poppy, fun-loving kind of band.

Faye: Is there anything else you want to say before we finish?
Sam: Go get our single on the 3rd of April, Love To Life, so keep an eye out for that, hopefully, you’ll hear it on the radio and different places soon, and, obviously, we’re still there for our fans and stuff, and thanks for interviewing us again.

- Faye Turnbull.

Kicking off with the title track single, things sound massively promising – Young Summer is a punchy dose of mass appeal to both fans of “traditional” pop-rock of the times, and those who like their music with a bit of beatdown à la Me vs Hero. It’s the definite highlight, even so early on – the only problem is, guitarist/vocalist Dominic Ganderton, who provides by far the best part of the song, showcasing his range on the finale, has since left the band – it’s yet to be seen whether new recruit Arthur Walwin can live up to his talent.

That’s not to say frontman Lewis White should be understated; he delivers his lines brilliantly, but from then on out, the EP tends to get a little stale – there’s only so many times a band can sing about “good times on the road” or girls, and let’s be fair, Paige did all that on their last EP. Not to say these aren’t good tracks produced; Circles is a solid pop song with a great chorus – something the band have developed a knack for now – but there’s absolutely no progression from previous effort If You Say So, a record they’ve put out three years ago now. It’d be fair to say only the production on Young Summer beats the aforementioned – the tracks are nowhere near as good, to put it very honestly.

Paige have a heap of potential – they know how to appeal so well and can deliver a piano-driven tune just as well as any other UK band doing the rounds, but they’ve had far too long to be able to write and record an album, and something this sub-par questions their time and effort in making the trip across the Atlantic. It’s not bad, but it’s not very good either.

- George Cannings.

Anyone in the know about the Essex quintet will recall that frontman Renny Carroll has an incredibly powerful voice; the band’s influences ranging from Michael Jackson to Machine Head gives him a very strong edge in being able to perform these songs very, very well – the sharp cover of the late Jackson’s Dangerous classic Who Is It? in particular sounds vocally, almost as strong as the original, with the obvious rifftastic twist. A cheeky appearance from Skindred’s Benji Webbe is brilliantly executed, if not a little cliché, as he teams up for a rendition of Shaggy’s Boombastic, and it makes for the definite highlight of the record.

As far as cover EP’s go, there’s never going to be a real record breaker, and the ‘metal band-come-pop stars’ approach is one that has tried (and failed) many times (step forward August Burns Red and Baby One More Time), but within it’s boundaries, this is really worth a listen. If you can broaden your mind past the metal, Forever Never are guaranteed to get some smiles with this record. Please, though – record another proper album. Soon.

- George Cannings.