The Summer Set is nearly at the end of
their
Est.1987 headed to the final tour date
in Manchester
 |
| The Summer Set at Manchester's Deaf Institute |
Heya Brian. So, it’s the last date of
the tour tonight, first things first, we have to ask have you run out of clean
clothes yet?
[laughing]
I got to do laundry the other day so I’m ok, oh and I’m a compulsive
over-packer. We’ve a girl in the band and I somehow manage to bring more than
her, so I’m not sure if I should be impressed of embarrassed. I have this
mentality that I’d rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
So I bring like a suit on tour, just in case; I’m prepared for every occasion.
It’s your headline tour and so many
sell-out dates. How’s it gone, you must be pretty pleased?
It’s
amazing. It’s hard to come half way across the world and expect a show to sell
out; it’s still a surreal idea to me. But the shows have been amazing and all
the crowds have been great; we’re finishing on a definite high.
 |
| Front-man Brian Dales |
And Slam Dunk Festival as well last weekend- did you enjoy it?
Absolutely
we enjoyed it. We played 2011 which was the first time we ever came over here
and just the Leeds Slam Dunk in a tiny little basement; there were like ten
people. And two years later we got asked to open the main stage. You wonder, are
kids going to come and watch and have a lot of energy, or are they going to
save it for the seven hours later that they have to stand there until All Time
Low headline it? But they were nuts, it was great. We had the best time; I
really can’t imagine Slam Dunk going any better.
So the new album “Legendary” has been out
a month or so; is it nice that fans know the new songs and sing-a-long now?
We’re
playing sixteen songs on this tour; including a handful of old ones. But the
new ones are just as loud if not louder crowd participation wise. To have the
reaction and response to the new record that quickly is amazing. We’ve been
playing the song “Lightening In A Bottle” for the first time ever; we didn’t
even play it on the US
It’s often said bands really come into
their own on the third album – do you feel stronger than ever? You’re the band
you wanted to be?
Absolutely.
This is the one we’ve been trying to figure out how to make for a long time. It
took us two albums, and one b*****d child of a second album to really figure
out how to get it right. All of a sudden it feels like our first album, I
feel like we’re a brand new band. We’re on a new label, a great new team and a
record we are really proud of. It sounds like the way we’ve always wanted to
sound. Four years ago I don’t think we realised it. We approached the writing
and recording of this record really differently.
 |
| Guitarist John Gomez in Manchester |
With
the first two albums we wrote a bunch of songs and then went in the studio with
one producer for like three of four weeks, and just banged it all out and that
was it, pretty quick; very, I guess, traditional. But with this new record we
wanted to take it very slowly, so we took time off and approached it with the
mentality that it doesn’t have to come out any time soon, we can just work on
it. We had like fifty songs and worked with a lot of different producers.
Some of the demos we recorded were basically the final version the way the song is on the record. I always knew that there was a certain magic moment when you’re writing but I never noticed that when it does happen don’t f**k with it [laughing]. We used to over analyse production and convinced ourselves we needed to make changes and refused to believe that the first try was the best.
Some of the demos we recorded were basically the final version the way the song is on the record. I always knew that there was a certain magic moment when you’re writing but I never noticed that when it does happen don’t f**k with it [laughing]. We used to over analyse production and convinced ourselves we needed to make changes and refused to believe that the first try was the best.
Do you have a favourite song from the new record?
I
actually don’t and that’s really cool. My favourite songs are all twelve out of
the fifty that made it [laughing].
 | ||||||
| The Summer Set's bassist Stephen Gomez |
It
was a definite benefit growing up there, where a lot of bands that we played with went off doing lots of tours, bands like The Maine and Anarbor, and
we grew up on bands like Jimmy Eat World. Also there’s an
impressive hardcore scene in Arizona
I guess next for you guys is Warped Tour are you looking forward to it again and what are your survival tips
for getting through it?
We’ve
done it before, yeah, so I feel like a seasoned veteran. It’s a very hard tour
but very rewarding. Three tips? A solar shower so you don’t have to go figure
out where showers are everyday, sunscreen
and drink a lot of water.
 |
| Josh Montgomery on stage |
It
was an idea that spawned when we were living in a house together when we were
first making this record, and we were calling ourselves the half moon kids. The
name always stuck around and we had an idea that we wanted to start this
community where fans of our band, of any band, could go and meet people just
like them. And the fan community could share their own artwork and music and
their passions. It’s more impressive than anything I could ever come up with, I
think our fans are more talented than us. It’s a place where people can go and
not be scared to follow their dreams. We’ve a lot of plans and are really
excited to see where something like this can go. I really hope Half Moon Kids
becomes an entity far beyond and bigger than I could dream of The Summer Set
being, so we’ll see.
Want to know what happened when The Summer Set took to the stage? CLICK HERE
