“I’m not going to let someone sit on my career and ruin our album”- Jeremy McKinnon on ADTR's return

One-thousand thirty. At the time of publication, that is how many days it has been since the release of A Day To Remember’s last album What Separates Me From You. Although it’s been nearly three years since a proper release, you’d be a fool to believe the band have been sitting around idly since then. After revealing a new album title (Common Courtesy) and releasing the first track (“Violence”) in late 2012, many fans expected the full release to follow shortly. Alas, that did not happen. In this AP-exclusive interview, vocalist Jeremy McKinnon breaks the silence and explains the unusual circumstances in which the new album transpired, how their current lawsuit with a certain record label may “crush” them beyond repair, and how he is legitimately terrified of the band’s upcoming House Party arena tour.

You guys released the first couple episodes of Common Courtesy: The Series, which documents the recording process for the new album. You’ve done “webisodes” like this for the past couple albums, too. Being completely honest, how much do you guys rehearse those before filming?
I mean, it’s just meant to be funny. We started doing them way back on the For Those Who Have Heart DVD. We were talking about doing our first DVD thing, showing [fans] who we are as people, and we just asked ourselves, ”What did we want to see from bands, what did we like when we were younger to see?” The answer was always just “Let’s have a good time with it, let’s try to make people laugh.” So that’s always been what we try to do- make people laugh and make it something that people can watch over and over again. And then sprinkle things that are real in there. As time has passed, we’ve started to make fun of whatever is happening publicly with our band. We just put out our third webisode for Common Courtesy, and the whole joke was how long it took for us to make this album. When you make a joke about what’s going on, it helps make people “get it.”

The webisodes seem so thought-out.
We usually just show up and do it. There’s never a rehearsal, we just wing it.

Both former guitarist Tom Denney and producer Andrew Wade are back on board again for the new record. What went behind the decision to stick to your guns and keep the recording process “in the family”?
We actually also had Chad Gilbert [of New Found Glory] come in and work with us, too. He co-produced the album with Andrew and me. That’s just the team of people that really started what we are doing here. Andrew has been recording us forever. His touches on the songs are really a part of this band. Tom is the same; his signature style is a part of what our original sound was. We don’t ever want to lose that. If we’re making an A Day To Remember record from this point on, forever, I plan on having Tom, Chad and Andrew involved in it, if they want to be. It just doesn’t seem like it would be A Day To Remember without it.

Did the thought of shopping around with other producers ever cross your mind?
I’ve just never been really interested in that. I just have such a clear vision of what A Day To Remember are to me, and the dudes in the band have always trusted me to be that overall producer. They’ve always trusted my opinion when it comes to stuff like what the album will sound like at the end. A Day To Remember are a very specific thing and I think a lot of people don’t get it. We started working with Chad Gilbert in the first place because he got the heavier side of things, but he was also involved in pop-punk. He was the perfect person to have come in and be that extra opinion. He’s never been the guy who is holding the reins; it always been what we think. It’s cool to have his perspective though because it’s completely different from ours, and a lot of times, it will make us completely rethink songs. A Day To Remember is its own thing, and we don’t need any outsiders, to be honest.

To say fans are anxious to hear Common Courtesy might be a bit of an understatement. What can you tell us about the new songs and the overall vibe compared to your previous records?
To me, the record is a lot more upbeat, which is cool. The last record was sort of moody. It was a darker record. I think this record is a good mix between that and the vibe on Homesick. Homesick was a little more happy-go-lucky, swinging-for-the-fences kind of vibe. I was in a better headspace for this new record. There are still those few songs where you’re dealing with some shit, but for the most part, the record is a lot more upbeat. It’s a lot faster. In my opinion—and hopefully people don’t take this too extreme—there is more of a metal influence on the heavy section of this record. I think there is more of a metal influence on this album than any of our albums since For Those Who Have Heart. I don’t want people to think that it will be a straight heavy album like For Those Who Have Heart, because it’s not. But the heavy section of the album is a lot more aggressive and metal influenced.

Was the metal influence a conscious decision?
Well, it was kind of a conscious decision. In my head, I just knew that I wanted it back. I felt like we kind of lost that along the way. When we went to write parts for the record, those heavier parts really stuck out to me. With A Day To Remember, the way that we write music is that every part drives the song. I don’t want to write a solid chorus with a boring song around it. I want every part that I put on a record to be memorable. I want kids to know all the words to every single section of a song. If I feel like a part doesn’t cut it, or isn’t good enough, we’ll just take it out a completely write a new part until I’m happy with it. The guys trust me to do stuff like that. They trust my opinion on what’s catchy and what’s good in the long run. I think because I wanted a metal influence, that’s guided what parts we ended up picking.

Did having so much time to write allow you to really delve into each part and make them the best version of A Day To Remember?
We think so. That’s all going to be opinion for kids. If you think about it, when you hear an album and it’s a new band, it’s that first album you pick up on your own. If it’s a good album and everyone likes it, that’s just going to be the album that you always say, “Yeah, this was their best album.” Why is that? To me, in my opinion, it’s because it was new and it was fresh. It felt different. You’ll never get that feeling again. People think A Day To Remember is Homesick or For Those Who Have Heart or What Separates Me From You. I guess it depends on the person. I know as a writer, I could not have written a better record for A Day To Remember right now. We stuck to who we are and our core sound. There are a lot of songs, and there are some times where we branch out a bit. I’m proud of it, and I really mean that. We took a lot of time and wrote the best songs we could. We had about 40 song ideas, which is why it took so long to put this album together. We took our time because we had nobody breathing down our necks. We were in a lawsuit, so we decided that we would just go into a studio and take the time that we always wished we had.

This is hands down the truth—I don’t think we’ve ever put out a record where everyone, including Tom and Andrew, was completely confident about actually getting the music into our fans’ hands. Usually when we finish, there are a few of us that say, “I don’t like this or that about the record.” This time, we’re very happy with the mix. It’s almost like we’re kids again. We’re giddy about this thing, and we can’t wait to get it out.

You revealed in Episode 1 of Common Courtesy: The Series that the record will be out October 8. There are rumors circulating that the album will be self-released. What can you tell us about how the record will be released?
I’ll be honest with you, I don’t really know. I see all over the internet and music sites, people are saying, “Oh, this is going to ruin their career, there’s no preorder up, they’re stupid, they’ll never be the big band they could have been,” etc. How about this: I’m not going to allow someone to sit on my career and ruin what may be our best album for people. Fans want our music.

As of last week, we got the final master. I was telling people forever that the record wasn’t finished, wasn’t mastered and wasn’t mixed. It’s finally done. They’re going to start pressing it pretty soon. We’re doing it ourselves, that’s all I can say. We have a system set up where we will distribute the record when we’re allowed to, but someone is trying to stop us from doing that. We announced that we were going to put out the album, and immediately, someone tried to take that from us. We knew that we had to, though. If we don’t put it out, it could end our career.

People move on and I don’t blame them. The situation is what it is. For us in A Day To Remember right now, it isn’t about what everyone else is thinking in the public. It isn’t about our first-week sales. It’s about how many we sell in the long run, how much people care and how much people like this album. That’s what it’s about. We don’t give a shit about being the biggest band in the scene with the big first week. We’ve sold a good amount of records and had good first weeks before. We have a loyal fanbase that supports us and, in our opinion, all that matters is getting the people who care about our music the new record. We’re going to do that in any way we can. We don’t care if we have to put out an album the day of October 8 and it’s only available digitally. Whatever we have to do to get these people this music, we will do. We want to put our music out, and we want to go out on the road and tour on it.

The way that people react and support a record should matter more.
It does! And there is no one right way to do this. It’s music. Our situation isn’t ideal, but all we care about it getting the album out. We’re going to do that as fast and in the best way that we can. Like I said, it’s definitely not ideal for us. We self-funded this album. We built a studio in my house because we weren’t given our allowance for this album. We’re in a lawsuit. [Victory Records owner Tony Brummel] owes us a lot of money, and he stopped paying us what he owed us. We were completely cut off. We were off of the road for almost a year straight. Think about what that would do to you, if you were out of a job for a year and bleeding money because you were spending tons of money on building a studio. You’re also putting all these people to work to make this record with you—and it lasted for eight months. That’s not cheap. We paid for all of this out of our pocket. Then there is this guy sitting somewhere who is just trying to ruin our career. All we care is about getting our fans this record in any way, shape or form. Hopefully, they’ll like what they hear. If they do, we believe that they will support us through this album cycle. After this album cycle, all this crap will be in the past and we can move forward like a normal band. At the end of the day, if the music speaks for itself, and we really put out an album that people care about, then none of this bullshit will matter. All that matters is the music.

Maybe people will think we are cool because we didn’t try to sit on our album and make a bunch of money. I hope people understand that when this comes out, we will be in a weird position as a band. That doesn’t matter to us. All that matters to us is just playing music! We never started playing music to make money. We never started any of this for any other reason other than we love the music and we love what we do. We love this band that we created, and we love playing shows. We love to make people laugh and not take ourselves too seriously. People can actually find meaning in our songs, and that is so much more important to me than money. I think that is why we’ve been so successful. People need the realness in all of this stuff and to see that it’s genuine. I don’t think any of this will matter if people like the music, and hopefully, they do. We’re going to get it to them as soon as we physically can.