Interview: Derek Sanders of Mayday Parade

Derek Sanders of Mayday Parade. All Rights Reserved.

On Saturday, Oct. 23, Mayday Parade headlined The Noise Tour at Bogart’s in Cincinnati, Ohio, pleasing fans who had been aching to see the group for over a year.

As the show began, lead singer Derek Sanders could not have been more excited, as Mayday Parade and four other bands were forced to cancel a show at the same venue in October of 2010 when a stormy day lead to a leaky roof over the stage.

“We’re so excited to be back and ready to play for you guys,” Sanders said.

On this tour, Mayday Parade was promoting its most recent album release: its self-titled album came out on October 4.

“With this album, we were able to get back in the room with just the five of us and create songs that we love and music that we absolutely care about 100 percent,” Sanders said. “That was kind of the main focus for this CD, just to go back and make it a CD that we love first. As long as we did that, I think that’s what people will see the most and find the most real.”

The group has come a long way from its days of following Warped Tour and selling CDs outside the venue.

“When we started the band, we all loved writing music and creating music and playing it and that’s why we started doing this,” Sanders said. “We wanted to give it a really good try and tour as much as we could and promote our album ourselves.

Early on, then-lead singer Jason Lancaster left the group (later starting Go Radio), and the fivesome went from there.

“We did our second album we kind of strayed from the path a little bit,” Sanders said. “We had just signed to Atlantic Records and they wanted us to do all of these co-writes and go with a big producer and experience that world which is very different. When you have a whole lot of people who are involved with the creative side of the band, people are telling you what your band should be and what your band should sound like. I think we learned a lot from that experience.

Fans also enjoyed performances from We Are The In Crowd, You Me At Six, and There For Tomorrow.

“We’re very lucky to be where we are, Sanders said. “We’re very fortunate to do tours like these.”