You Me At Six have kicked off 2017 in style by releasing their latest album, ‘Night People’. A true album that has to be listened to with respect. Max from the band speaks openly about how important it is to the band to finally release the LP, how important it is to support your favourite bands and also raises concern about the Surrey music scene!
‘Night People’, has been released and is actually 3 years since your 2014 LP, ‘Cavalier Youth’. What have you been up in this 3 year break?
We toured from 2014 to June 2015 on the cavalier youth cycle which ended at Isle of Wight festival. From the summer of 2015 all the way up to the start of 2016 we were working hard at Dan’s home studio writing the record, for us we have never had this much time to write a record so we took it to the best of our advantage.
We had about 50 songs and ideas and condensed them down to around 15. We took 8 of them on our first trip to Nashville in February 2016 when we started to record the LP with Jacquire king ( kings of Leon, James bay, Tom waits ) at blackbird studios, and we spent 3 weeks in nashville and came home to carry on more writing.
This was the first time in our career we had recorded a record in 2 stages, I think we can look back on this as probably one of the best things we have done. The second trip commenced in May 2016 and we spent a month again in Nashville to finish the record with 4 more songs and perfected all 12 of them.
The record was mixed by Andrew Schepps (Black Sabbath, RHCP & Jay – Z) over the summer of 2016, and once we had the finished product we released the song ‘Night People’ a week before our first gig back on the cycle at Reading and Leeds festival. Since then we have played shows in the UK and Europe at the back half of 2016, we released the album ‘Night People’ on the 6th January 2017.
Your album, ‘Night People’, comes as the 5th studio album. What sets the album apart from all the other material you have released?
I think the song quality is the best we have produced ever as a band, having the time to let songs naturally form was really beneficial instead of sometimes rushing writing songs. We also recorded a lot of the record live as a band for the first time in our career which gives the album a real good flow and groove between the songs.
You’ve never failed to release killer tracks on all the other albums you’ve released. Do you see a killer track waiting to be let loose on ‘Night People’?
I think there are a fair few stand out tracks but we are all really excited about “Take On The World”. It has been getting a lot of good reactions from our fan base but also from new audiences being exposed to it on playlist on Spotify.
You are taking the album, on a 28-date UK & EU tour. What is the greatest aspect of being on the road?
I think one of the greatest aspect is hearing songs you have spent a long time working on connecting with the audience. We will find out no doubt which songs people prefer on the tour by the reactions, but also just seeing people having fun and enjoying themselves is just as important to us. We take great pride in putting on a performance that people walk away from knowing they have got their money’s worth and enjoyed every second of the evening.
Many bands have little traditions or memories that they associate with being on tour, have you obtained any over the years?
We have a group huddle before every show we play, it’s become a ritual for us now. I don’t think we will ever play a gig again in our lives without doing this. We normally hype each other up or we sing the fresh prince of bel air theme tune. That normally works well!
Within 2016, Jack Garratt, Zayn Malik and Blossoms were all pipped to the post by Bradley Walsh, who won highest selling British debut artist. What do you think of this?
For me this is just a personal view, but it shows where the music industry is at right now in modern times. Massive artists such as Zayn who’s had massive success with One Direction can be out sold by Bradley Walsh who’s a TV entertainer. I have nothing against him at all by the way, but it shows that if you want to support an artist, go out and buy a physical copy of a record. I love Spotify and Apple Music as I use both of their platforms, but when I love a record I make sure I go out and buy it. The reason why Bradley Walsh was the highest selling debut its because an older generation went out and bought a record. The way the generation I’m from consume music these days is by streaming, so not many people really go out and purchase an artists album anymore.
In today’s music society, we consume music in many ways, Streaming, Downloading, CD’s, Vinyl, Live Performances. Please could you rank these in order of importance to you and explain the reasons?
I think everyone is going to have different views on this but my order would be Streaming, Live performance, vinyl, downloads and then cds.
The reason I have picked this order which might surprise people is that the way the music industry is going everyone is going to have streaming. It’s a great way to find out about artists new and old that you may have never checked out before for a fixed price per month.
Live performances are important to me, for myself and the rest of the band. This is what we would call our “bread and butter”. We started being in a band by performing to people because we like to entertain and playing is part of being in a band. I can’t imagine a world without live performances or gigs, so it’s a crucial part of the industry.
Vinyl was the next because in my opinion, this is the more pure sound for quality of listening to a record on how it was made. I am also a sucker for owning records because I love the artwork and actually reading lyrics and people who were credited on the record.
Downloads was next because if you don’t own a record player you are most likely on the move, so you would buy online from providers.
Then CD’s was the last pick because sad to say I think this is becoming an area that will be fizzled out over time.
Your hometown is Surrey and we are approaching the 10 year anniversary of your music career. In comparison, how has the music scene in Surrey changed since when you were starting out 10 years ago?
The music scene has totally changed around Surrey, most of the venues we used to play have now either been knocked down, or you aren’t allowed to put on gigs there anymore. If anything it’s making it harder for new artist starting up to play live shows. We have been part of Independent Venue Week before to help these establishments stay open to help the future musicians/bands/artists to have an opportunity, and I think it’s my duty to mention it again to people that may not know about this organisation and to read into what they do.
