I spoke with Derek Sanders, frontman of Mayday Parade after their gig at Vibrant Music Hall in Waukee, Iowa. A conversation spanning much more than the 20 years of the band, he told me about his latest trilogy release and all the way back to his very first autograph he signed.
Logan Melia: Derek, how are we doing?
Derek Sanders: Oh, doing very well. We’re halfway through this tour and having a pretty good time.
Logan: That’s awesome. Now you’re on the road with All Time Low, The Cab, and The Paradox, a phenomenal combination. You’re kind of one of the pillars of the scene, bringing The Paradox along, getting The Cab back together. How is this combination of new and familiar faces?
Derek: It’s been so cool. I mean we go way back with All Time Low. The first time we toured with them was in 2007 and we’ve toured with them many, many times in between. We love those guys to death and always appreciate them bringing us out on the road. The Cab, it’s been so sick to see them come back. We’ve also known those guys going back a pretty long ways. They actually just dropped off the tour and Four Year Strong hopped on. Their first show was in Toronto 2 days ago. And same, yeah, Four Year Strong. toured with those guys back in 2007 for the first time and just loved them to death. And we all are huge fans of their band. And I mean, The Paradox has been so cool because we had kind of seen and heard the buzz about them. They work with the same producers, Kenneth Mount and Zach Odom, that we work with. So, we’ve heard a lot about them from those guys and it’s been great to get to know them. And they’re just such a fun band. They have so much energy and it’s always refreshing to have younger guys. They’ve been a band for just a little over a year so everything was super new and exciting and it’s just it’s refreshing to see and it’s been really great.
Logan: You have brought so many cool bands on tour with you. Earlier this year, you brought out such phenomenal opening acts for yourself. Grayscale, Like Roses, Microwave is an insane live act to see. How do you come across these bands that you choose to bring along on your tours?
Derek: It’s a whole process between our team of booking agents and management. There’s a lot of that is brought to us from these are the bands that have submitted, and then we kind of throw out our thoughts as well. Microwave is an example of a band that We toured with a couple of years ago and we are just big fans of. So whenever we were trying to put together that tour, we kind of reached out and said, hey, we’d love to see if Microwave wants to do the tour. And with Grayscale and Like Roses, they had submitted as potential opening acts and it’s kind of tough. It’s always difficult because you’ll get a lot of bands that submit and you’re trying to kind of curate the best experience possible. That one I think worked out really well. It feels like that was a really, really strong tour.
Logan: The tour was a celebration of 20 years of the band. You guys have come a long way. I saw you guys, you played a sold out when we were a young crowd a few weeks ago and you started out in basements. Do you still get a little jittery at all?
Derek: You know, I’ll tell you, if it’s like the first show that we’ve done in a while, like usually the first show of a tour, I’ll be a little nervous, but most of it’s kind of, for example, right now we’re on this tour. We do the same set every night. Once you kind of fall into the rhythm of it and the pocket of it, then it’s just like, I can do it without even thinking about it. But whenever it’s that first show or the first show in a while, it feels like I’m kind of in my head a little bit about making sure I don’t miss anything or forget any lyrics or cue points or whatever. So if it’s the first show in a bit, maybe I’ll have some nerves. But once you kind of get that one out, it’s like, okay, we got it.
Logan: Yeah, you’re at home on stage.
Derek: Yeah, honestly. Yeah and it doesn’t really matter whether it’s for, you know, 300 people or 50,000 people. It’s just kind of the sort of the same just getting up there and doing it, you know?
Logan: Yeah, 100%. You’re home on stage and home in the studio recently. You’re releasing 3 albums this year. You released “Sweet” in April, “Sad” just last month. You’ve got so many songs, are these songs that just fall out of the sky for you? Or are you toiling over them for a while? Is it a laborious process for you?
Derek: Yeah we’ve been between, I guess, basically since things kind of opened back up with touring and everything after COVID. We’ve been just kind of staying real busy and, it feels like there’s, kind of a moment happening right now with emo music or really just sort of, I don’t know, like sort of a resurgence of the nostalgia of the early to mid, late 2000s and everything that was going on then. And so I don’t know, it just kind of feels like it’s there. We always kind of joke about the fact that we don’t ever say no to anything and so the more these offers come in to do festivals and tours and just stay active and busy, it’s like, well, you know, it’s we’re we may as well do it while we can. And so, yeah, as far as the music that just kind of came together, the plan originally was to go record our eighth full length album. But we kind of realized as we were getting started with that process that this was last year, that the music we were recording was going to be coming out in 2025, which is our 20 year anniversary as a band. And we just kind of started thinking, what can we do to celebrate that? And after some brainstorming, figured a sort of a three-part release. It’s a hefty amount of music to put out over a longer period of time and just felt like a way to kind of keep the whole year impactful. And so yeah, it’s been it’s been really neat so far. I’ve really enjoyed the process.
Logan: Yeah, you mentioned saying yes to pretty much, has that gotten you into playing any gigs in some weird places? Any out of the ordinary slots?
Derek: For sure. I mean, not so much these days but early on, I feel like all the time. It was kind of a weird thing in the mid to, 2005, 2006, I feel like, where there were really heavy fucking bands and then there were like emo bands. And a lot of times those shows would get lumped together. We did a short tour, a short run of shows with Maylene and The Sons of Disaster. And they’re sick, they’re amazing, but their fans, I don’t know how much patience or tolerance they had for our, whiny emo stuff. But so, I feel like that used to happen sometimes back early on, but not so much these days, I suppose.
Logan: Now I did some digging through some set lists of some of your older gigs and I’ve seen “Fat Lip” and “Cute Without the E” and even “Don’t Look Back In Anger” by Oasis. Do you have any recollection of playing these and do you have any songs that you would want to cover? Any songs you want to bring into your setlist?
Derek: Oh, for sure yeah. We’ve definitely done a handful of the covers throughout the years. And what’s interesting is that there was a moment for me where that all changed because before that, I had always felt like playing coverss in the set was just not something I was very interested in doing and just wasn’t excited about the idea. And then I forget what year this was. This is going back probably at least 10 years ago, maybe further. We did A Day To Remember’s festival that they used to put, I think it’s Self-Help Festival. I think this was in the LA area. And Papa Roach played before Day to Remember. I remember watching them and they were so good. And then at one point they played Song 2 by Blur, the “woo-hoo”. And the crowd just goes bonkers, like everybody just loving it, jumping, having a great time. And I feel like that was like, I had kind of a shift in my viewpoint where I was like, if they can play this and everyone here just loses their minds having a great time, that’s beautiful. That’s amazing, you know? So I feel like since then, I was more sort of open-minded to it. But yeah, I love throwing in the covers every now and then. There’s, man, there’s a bunch that I’d love to, it’s kind of hard to, Think of like, you know, the one on the spot. I mean, I’m a huge, you know, for a lot of us, we grew up, you know, I was I was born in 1986. I grew up in the nineties and I loved, you know, all of the alternative rock stuff, all of Nirvana and Bush and Oasis and Red Hot Chili Peppers and, you know, Stone Temple Pilots, all that. So that’s the kind of stuff that like I think would be a lot of fun to play. for our sake. I don’t know that the audience would love it as much, but yeah.
Logan: Creating like your set list and stuff like that. You throw in some great songs. I think not everyone would expect a kids in love peace of your heart. How do you kind of decide on more of these deep cut songs and which ones you want to bring live to the stage?
Derek: Yeah, it’s tough. It’s a difficult process and it gets harder every year as we put out more new music. But at the same time, you know, we’ve done it long enough that we, have a pretty good understanding of, which songs are going to be the crowd favorites and which ones kind of work well live, which ones don’t work as well. So you kind of just take all that knowledge and just do your best to curate a set list. And it kind of, I feel like it’s a balance. it’s a balance between you’ve got the obvious sort of banger songs that you’re always going to play, Jamie Allover, Jersey, probably, oh well, oh well, you know. And then you kind of You want to round it out a little. You want to have a little bit of something, you know, deep cut in there or something that rotates where you’re not just doing the same set every tour and, you know, maybe a balance of a little bit of new and some old and in between. And you just kind of have to do your best to put it together. And I think we’ve come to a pretty good spot with it.
Logan: Yeah, and you yourself, you’ve put out some music under your own name, some solo stuff. “The Heavy Box” in 2023, which I was a huge, huge fan of. How do you kind of decipher what songs maybe lean more towards yourself and your own sound versus the Mayday Parade sound?
Derek: Yeah, that can be tricky. But basically, it’s mostly been songs that I had brought in, whenever we get together in the studio. We’ll all bring in a lot of songs and there’s a lot of songs that don’t get picked and don’t get recorded. So, for the most part, I think all the songs on that EP were songs that we just didn’t track with Mayday Parade. Obviously, it’s more acoustic based, not as full band so kind of the songs that lend themselves to that. And then just songs that I like that we never did anything with.
Logan: When you’re writing songs, do you write on acoustic off the bat?
Derek: It depends. I do a lot of writing on acoustic, but not always. Especially the further developed we all kind of have some level of home recording studio situation. And the more advanced that gets, I’m able to do more. But I guess going back before that, before I had really as many capabilities there, most of it was on acoustic. A lot of it’s on piano as well. That’s kind of the fun of that creative process is I might grab the acoustic and mess around for a little bit. If it doesn’t take me anywhere, I can sit at the piano a little bit. If that doesn’t take me anywhere, I can grab a bass and start messing around or grab an electric guitar or whatever and just kind of keep going until I find something that takes me somewhere.
Logan: Yeah. Do you remember the first guitar you got?
Derek: Yeah, I don’t know specific. I know it was a Samick acoustic guitar. I don’t know the model or anything. It was probably a pretty cheap acoustic guitar, but I mean, yeah, as a ten year old, I loved it.
Logan: That’s the coolest thing in the world is getting a guitar. Was this always kind of the plan for you when you first got that guitar where you were like, okay, this is it?
Derek: I mean, honestly, it really was. Ever since I was 10, it was all I really wanted to do. And, I feel like I put so much time and effort into it, even as a 10 year old, far more than school or anything. I used to play guitar with my brother and one of my cousins. And we would have family get togethers where we’d set up on my grandparents pool table and perform songs, cover songs, and some originals for our family members. And then when I met Brooks once I got into middle school and I was desperately looking for friends that played music as well and wanted to start a real band. I met Brooks when I was 12 and I don’t think I would be here today if I hadn’t met him. He really is a really talented dude. I feel like he has a drive where, even as 12 year olds, it was like, okay, well, let’s be proactive, let’s call around different venues and see if we can get added to shows. Let’s try to raise some money, let’s get paid to play birthday parties and raise some money to buy some recording equipment and let’s get some merch press and all this stuff that I just think I never would have been able to figure out. But once I met Brooks, we kind of clicked on all that. And then all through middle school and high school, the focus was on the bands that we were in and music we were making. And we started touring immediately after we graduated high school and eventually found our way into this band.
Logan: Do you remember like the first paid gig that you had?
Derek: Not 100%, but I could tell you in 7th grade, there were a couple that we did. There was a school event that was like a, like an ice cream social, like an honor roll, after school event thing that we got paid to do. I probably got paid 100 bucks to play. And then there were a handful of our friends’ birthday parties where their parents would pay us 100 bucks to play. So, I forget which of those kind of came in there first, but there would have been in 7th grade the first time any of that happened.
Logan: That’s a nice way to start right there. A good, you’re building the community fan base.
Derek: Absolutely. Yes. You got to do it.
Logan: Going to my friends different basements and backyards to see their shows. I saw a Halloween cover set where a band was entirely Mayday Parade. Do you feel the impact you’ve had on the kids coming up here? Are people knocking on your door, thanking you for what you’ve done for the scene?
Derek: Obviously when we’re out on the road, we meet a lot of people and see a lot of fans. And it’s, I mean, it’s like the coolest thing. Especially since we’ve been doing this for 20 years, there’s a lot of people that have been with us for a real long time and now either have kids of their own that they bring to shows or whatever. It’s just, it’s incredibly humbling to meet people and hear stories of how we’ve been able to help them or affect them or whatever. I mean, it’s one of the greatest parts of doing this.
Logan: Do you remember the first time you signed an autograph for someone?
Derek: I do remember the first time I signed an autograph for someone; I was in high school. I would have been probably about 15 years old and had just started a new band with some friends that we started honestly, almost as a joke. There was a high school battle of the bands and a buddy of mine was like, let’s start a band just to play the battle of the bands. And then, because we were in other serious bands at the time, and I was like, yeah whatever. And this was right when I was kind of first getting into emo music so it was kind of the first, like, let’s do like an emo band. I think we wrote one song and then we were at this party and two of my friends were there that were in the band. We were like, let’s play this song we wrote for everybody, and so we played. I sat at the piano and played piano and they had the acoustic guitar, played the song. The people there like loved it and were asking for autographs. I remember I couldn’t wait till the next day to see Brooks, because Brooks wasn’t in this, every other band I’d been in, Brooks had been in. And I was like, dude we got to get you in this band. Like we played last night and people were asking for autographs. Like this could be like a real thing, you know. So we made-up a position. Brooks didn’t even play piano or keyboard at all, but we added him to the band as the keyboardist just because it was like, if this is going to be a real thing, Brooks has to be a part of it.
Logan: Do you remember what the song was?
Derek: I do. It was a song called “Voice in the Darkness”. It was an old the band Defining Moment. It was one of the bands that split to form Mayday Parade. That was the very beginning of that band, Defining Moment.
Logan: That’s so, cool. I want to thank you so much for sitting down and taking the time to talk with me. I really appreciate it.
Derek: Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me.
Mayday Parade is currently on the road with the “Everyone’s Talking” tour supporting All Time Low. Sporting color coordinated outfits under the glow of stage lights that have been home for almost two decades, All Time Low played selections from their brand new album “Everyone’s Talking” that cracked the Billboard Top 200 and hit 28 on Billboards Top Independent Albums. Split in to two acts, with an encore as a cherry on top, ATL gave us 6 tracks off their latest album and tracks touching 7 other albums in their discography. Mayday Parade played new tracks off of “Sad“, “Sweet“, and hit the fans with 4 tunes from their debut LP “A Lesson in Romantics“. An unstoppable night from the scenes pillars at Vibrant Music Hall, you can find tickets for the rest of the “Everyone’s Talking Tour” here.