Jeremy McKinnon - A Day to Remember
A Day to Remember (commonly abbreviated to ADTR) is a five-piece hardcore/ pop punk band from Ocala, Florida, signed to Victory Records. They are often said to have influences in many other genres other than post-hardcore, including pop punk, metalcore, and even melodic death metal. The band's music has been described as "mixing death metal grunts with the brash melodies of pop-punk," and a cross between "bouncy pop punk [and] chugging metalcore."
Chris- How’s the tour going so far?
Jeremy- The tour is going great. Everyday has been sold out so far. We just got the new ticket levels. It looks like most of them will be sold out. I’m pretty excited about that.
Chris- What are your plans after this tour? Do you guys plan on doing some festivals?
Jeremy- We are trying to get on the lead in UK, and Germany. We are going to come back and do download. We will be doing the Warped Tour. After that we plan on doing a headliner later on in the year.
Chris- On your new cd, you guys have a bunch of guest vocals on it Mike from Devil Wears Prada, Vincent from Acacia Strain, Sierra from Versaemerge. How did that come about? Did you guys become friends while touring?
Jeremy- Yeah, Mike, we did a lot of preproduction of Homesick with Chris from Devil Wears Prada. We were always working with Chris, and mike was always around and stuff. He’s been a good friend of ours anyways. He likes our band so; it kind of makes sense for him to have his own part. He comes out and sings with me all the time anyway. Vincent, I just really enjoy his vocals. I think he’s great and I really wanted him to be on the record for sure, than the acoustic song was meant to be written with a girl singing the second verse. We are pretty good friends with Versaemerge, and they are from Florida. It kind of worked out that way.
Chris- What are some of your influences?
Jeremy- You know bands like NoFX, New Found Glory, than we have heavier bands that we are inspired by like Bury Your Dead, Unbroken Wounds.
Chris- Do you listen to other bands’ vocalist and listen to their screaming? (Like Suicide Silence)
Jeremy- Well, Vincent from Acacia Strain, I have a lot of respect for him. Front man Guy from The Red Chord. Those are two of my favorite front men. Mike is wonderful at what he does. You tour with different bands. We toured with Suicide Silence. Mitch is great. You learn little things when you tour with different bands. You just got to make it your own.
Chris- Have you guys tried to get on any heavier festivals? I saw The Red Chord last year at Mayhem festival.
Jeremy- We are up for anything pretty much. We are pretty much booked till the end of the year right now. Like last year we went from doing New Found Glory to straight into Suicide Silence, Acacia Strain. So, we can go both ways. That definitely helps us.
Chris- You guys did a cover of the Kelly Clarkson song ‘Since you been gone’ how did that come about?
Jeremy- It was really mainly just a joke. We were just at home you know it was a down time in between a tour. It had been a year since for those who have Heart came out. It had been awhile. We didn’t want people to get tired of waiting for our new stuff. We were thinking what if we did an off the wall cover that no one would be expecting? We just did that. In a way we were thinking a lot of our newer stuff was getting poppier, but heavy too. We kind of used that song. We put it out, and people were so stoked about it. It was kind of similar to what we were writing.
Chris- Some of your songs seem to have poppy lyrics but a heavy twist to it.
Jeremy- Yeah,
Chris- Like you did a cover of the Frays song on Pop goes Punk or Punk goes Pop.
Jeremy- Actually I get that mixed up too. I think it sounds better the other way. But yeah I’m really stoked on that cover. We went into thinking the other cover went over so well lets just try to do a good job with this, you know just have fun. In the long run I am so much happier with The Fray cover. On our end, and I’m actually a real big fan of The Fray.
Chris- On the Punk goes Pop, do you guys get to pick the song you cover?
Jeremy- It was like a huge list of all these songs that you could go through and choose. We just went through and listened to a few songs. When I heard that I was for sure. I’ve got to do that.
Chris- I know Alessana did a cover of Justin Timberlake’s ‘What goes around’
Jeremy- Now, see that’s a challenge. Stuff like that is harder to work with because especially with newer more poppier stuff right now, I think The Fray song, out of every song on the list, is such a strong song. When you hear the first ten seconds of that song on the original song, you know that’s The Fray. That’s this song, you know it automatically. Everything about the song is catchy. It was like a no brainer to make that song sound good.
Chris- Do you ever hear from the artists that you cover?
Jeremy- No, but I would definitely be excited to hear from them.
Chris- It would be cool to hear what they think. Whether they feel like they are being honored, or on the other end, if they feel like they are being mocked.
Jeremy- Now see I like the Kelly Clarkson cover, I think it was good for what it was. I’m actually more proud of what we did with the Fray cover. I would be more inclined to hear from them to hear what they would have to say. I actually thought we did a pretty good job. Like the screaming part, flowed better than on the Clarkson cover. I can just see Kelly Carkson being not to comfortable with our version.
Chris- I just think it would be cool to get the other aspect of things, Even if you just sent a link to your song on myspace.
Jeremy- I would love to hear what any of them would have to say.
Chris- How was your European tour you just came off of?
Jeremy- It was Amazing. Almost everyday was sold out but two. It was a good surprise. We hit mainland Europe. It was the biggest show we ever did in our lives.
Chris- What size venues were you playing? Around this size?
Jeremy- We were selling out 900cap venues in Germany. Things would get bumped up because they sold out so fast. We thought we are never going to sell this place it is huge, than we get there and its just nuts. To be honest I would get there and I would think I was in New Found Glory or something.
Chris –Were the crowds in Europe different than the crowds in the states?
Jeremy- To be honest, just comparing two tours, we got a way better response in Europe and the UK. Not to knock here, because we have been killing it every night. But the kids over there are crazy.
Chris- Maybe they are just more comfortable letting go.
Jeremy- Than again you think we play in the US and people see us play a lot more over here. It was our first time there. It may have been a bigger surprise there, or something more to be anticipated.
Chris- Do you guys get to hang out with the other bands when your out touring like Devil Wears Prada and such?
Jeremy-Oh, yeah we are really good friends with those guys. We toured with them a bunch so we hang out with them all the time.
Chris- Have there been any pranks so far this tour?
Jeremy- Not so far on this one, but I’m sure we are going to get into them soon.
Chris- Do you guys instigate or is it them that instigates?
Jeremy- They actually started but we did it on the same day so they got a hold of some of our first recorded stuff, like before we were even a serious band. We were a local band, like any other local band where you record like ten songs in a day. They got a hold of one of these and they played it on the PA system at one of the shows. They have a bass drop they use, we changed it to a cat meowing. They didn’t even realize it for two songs. Than on top of that Josh and Tom got in their underwear and jacked it up like it was a thong. They got on top of their guitar cabinets while they were playing, and they were like dancing and stuff. They had no idea they were on top dancing until the end of the song. Its actually on youtube you should check it out.
Chris- What’s a good search to pull it up?
Jeremy- (Day to Remember pranks Prada )
Chris- You guys have some whacky looking band shirts do you have someone special that puts them together?
Jeremy- Actually I am pretty involved in all that. I get different people to do different ideas. I would have an idea than go to the guy I think would do it best. So, I work with a bunch of different people.
Chris- Yeah, it just seems you go to a bunch of shows and you see the same type of thing as far as band shirts go. Your shirts all seem to have crazy colors, beasts, and other silly stuff.
Jeremy- Yeah, that’s what I try to do. To be honest with you a lot of people don’t really put a lot of thought into it. They just go to one guy and say I want 6 shirts for this tour. I try to think a lot of times, of cool ideas, and I get people I like working with, people that I respect. I think you put work into stuff you get stuff in return.
Chris- It definitely shows. So why that name for your band ‘A Day To Remember’? How did that name come about?
Jeremy- Uh, funny story. We were looking for a band name. Our drummer kind of forced this guy to be in the band. Not our drummer now, but our original drummer. We were trying out guitar players and this kid came up, with all his stuff, played. None of us like him, but he left all his stuff in our practice area. Our drummer had told him he was in the band before he even got there. We were like why did he leave his stuff. Our drummer said oh, I told him he was in. We were like oooooh, cool, because we don’t want him in the band. We were talking about what we wanted to be called, because we hadn’t come up with it yet. And he was actually going to name a band A Day To Remember. His girlfriend came up with it or whatever. I was like hey, I kind of like that. We should just use that name. Why don’t we just use that? Everyone was like yeah I’m cool with that.
Chris- Its got a nice ring to it.
Jeremy- Exactly! Yeah, A Day To Remember, I can see that on a sign somewhere, banner, shirt, billboard.
Chris- How did you guys come together as a band as the lineup as it is now?
Jeremy- The lineup as it is now, we were just in different local bands around the area. Us four Tom, Me, Josh, Neil were in local bands. Alex was too, but he was way younger than us, he was like 15 when we were all 19 and 20. We lost our drummer, he just quit randomly, out of nowhere just before we were starting a tour. We were looking for someone to fill in. Neil and Josh and this side metal band with Alex. We were asking hey Alex want to go on tour with us? He was like, yeah sure let me go ask my mom. For real, he was like 15 years old legitimately. Josh went over there with him and they talked to his mom. She eventually said yes, and the rest is history. That was actually a big attraction for our band for awhile. People were like there this 15 year old drummer in this band you should come see this. It was really awesome. He is actually the tightest drummer I ever played with. Even when he was 15, he was that good.
Chris-Did he take Drumming lessons?
Jeremy- He taught himself. Not even been playing for two years when we got him. He is absolutely outstanding in drums. I’m sure you will see tonight. He is a great drummer. I am really excited to be working with him.
Chris- How do you guys decide what song to promote?
Jeremy- Like singles and stuff?
Chris- yeah
Jeremy- Well, actually that was really hard on this new cd. We like a lot of the songs on this, and think a lot of them have the potential to be singles. It was really hard to pick the first one, because its important. Its all about timing and stuff like that.
Chris- The first one kind of introduces everyone to the rest of the album.
Jeremy- Exactly! So, you have to pick something that still represents everything as a whole, without trying to seclude this fan. We have way poppy songs, and we have way heavy songs. So we have to work somewhere in the middle and find a song that represents both. It was really going to be NJ Legion Ice Tea, which is track 4. That was literally going to be the single until a few days before we were going to shoot the video.
Chris- What made you guys change your mind?
Jeremy- I just didn’t feel right about it. There was just something like telling me that this isn’t the right move, the right song, not that I don’t think it s a good song. I think its great, and down the road maybe it will be a single. But the second everyone got to hear the new cd (because it leaked on the internet) they were talking about ‘The Downfall of Us All’. You just automatically know it by the way it starts.
Chris- Is it something that the band decides or is it something the record label decides?
Jeremy- We decide amongst ourselves. It’s kind of hard, trying to change peoples minds because some of the band were pretty stoked on that one, and I felt so weird about it, I don’t know. I just really had this gut feeling it was the wrong move. I just had to explain that to everyone.
Chris- How does the songwriting process go?
Jeremy- Well, me and Tom do, well its been different with every cd. This one was written on the road so it was done a different way. I and Tom wrote 50/50 when it comes to the music. We would get together with our ideas and make a song. We would bring the other guys in and they would make changes, as a group that I and Tom worked out. I always work on music first. Usually when it comes to song writing I can usually hear like a hook or what im going to say immediately once we start playing it or working on it. Its weird, it literally just falls out of the sky. I go with the music, than write around whatever hook came to me.
Chris- What do you base your lyrics on?
Jeremy- We base our lyrics on everyday stuff that people go through. We had been on tour for the last 2 years on this record so naturally that’s what we wrote about, because that’s what we were going through. I think that’s why a lot of people can relate to our band, because we write about everyday stuff that happens to everyone.
Chris-Hey, Thanks for your time. I look forward to seeing you guys play live tonight!
Jeremy- Cool, thanks for coming, see you out there.