New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Virgin) The fans
When we first meet
Mayday Parade's Derek Sanders, it is as if we have been friends for years. The lead singer is easy-going, and never holds back to wave at fans calling his name on the horizon.
"We try to be as relatable as we can, as personal as we can, go out after every show and talk to kids, and connect with people. And we have a wonderful fan base," he says.
On Social Media
Sanders admits that social media has been influential on his band from the very beginning of their career. He says it's crazy that people in
America were listening to their music even before the band was signed.
"We started getting buzz on Myspace page, I remember the first time we got a thousand plays in a day and how stoked we all were," the front man recalls.
It's been the whole eight years, to be exact.
"It's actually pretty crazy having four albums now, it seems a lot. And a lot of bands that I love never put our more than three or four albums. I think we are really lucky to be able to keep doing it," says Sanders.
On new album, Monsters in the Closet.
And yet to write their fourth album "Monsters in the Closet", the guys chose a beach house in Florida as their getaway to embrace creativity.
"Everybody had a lot of ideas before coming in to it that we kind of took, brought together and wrote basically the whole album," the front man says.
"Broadening different styles of music, we take it step by step. Some bands would jump drastically from one album to the next, and we wanted to keep people happy that liked us before, but keep expanding at the same time."
On the cover
"We wanted to do something that was cool and go along with that. I think Cabbage, our bass player, came up with the idea having the door on it.
The guy with an umbrella was a big part of the art work, and we still liked the idea of having it on it, but much smaller, not the main focus. You can see him reaching the door knob. We thought it was a darker, mysterious thing," Sanders reveals.
Image from
Mayday Parade's official Facebook
On music downloads
When our conversation turns to the discussion about whether buying music or downloading it is the way to go, the front man says the music is alive and well and people will always listen to music whether they are buying it or downloading.
"It's been a long time since I downloaded any stuff illegally though. Most of the stuff these days I buy!"
Check out
Mayday Parade tour dates across the globe in 2014: the band will be playing in Europe, Australia, and South East Asia.
Whilst you're at it, you can follow the band on all the usual suspects, Twitter, Facebook, and their official website.
