Est.1987 headed down to the sold out Manchester Academy 1 show to chat with front-man Brian Dales about life on the road, Christmas and rapping in the shower…
Heya Brian, how’s the tour going so far?
We
jumped on the tour in Germany and we’d never been there before, so that was
really cool and we got to go to Switzerland which was awesome. We’ve been in
the UK for a few days and the shows have been incredible.
Last time we saw you on a headline
tour and now you’re supporting Sleeping With Sirens. Do you like taking on that
challenge of playing to a variety of crowds who haven’t necessarily seen you
before?
It’s
been good. This is the first time in a while some people at the shows have
never seen us before. I feel like we’ve won over a lot of people. The music’s
very diverse; we’re the furthest from heaviest band on this tour, probably, but
it’s working.
You guys are over here in the UK quite
a lot, do you feel like it’s your second home?
Yeah,
it’s definitely getting there. We were in Edinburgh the last two nights and
we’ve spent a bunch of nights there, just because our tour manager lives there. And
I found myself walking around yesterday knowing exactly where I was going, not
needing my maps or anything and that’s really cool.
What’s your favourite thing about being over here?
It
would be cliché for me to say the shows, but I do love the shows out here.
There’s a different energy and I love the accents too. I’m also a big fan of
the English breakfast, Costa coffee and Wagamamas too; things we don’t have in
the US.
Last time we caught up with you, you were
telling us how you packed clothes for every occasion on tour; have you brought
your suit with you this time?
It’s
worse this time. Of course the suit has come [laughing]. I think I’ve packed
even more, if that’s possible, than the last time we spoke. I’m a good packer
so haven’t gone over the luggage limit. We go straight from this tour to a tour
in the US and then straight to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York.
Then it’s straight to Australia, so we’re not going to go home for a second
until mid-December. And, it’s summer in Australia right now so everyone had to
pack for multiple climates. Luckily I get to go home for three days after this
tour because I live in a different city, I mean I still packed a lot, but it
could have been even worse.
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Warped
is always something that is a lot more enjoyable looking back at it [laughing].
It’s grueling when you’re in the midst of it then. But we had a really great
summer; our crowds were astronomically better than what we thought they’d be.
The album ‘Legendary’ has been out
quite a few months and been received really well; is now the time to enjoy
it?
Yeah, now the
weight is off my shoulders and people seem to love the album, it makes me
happy, because it’s the proudest thing we’ve ever released. ‘Boomerang’, as of
a week ago, in only five months, is now our most popular song ever, which is
really cool.
And we heard you’ve been working on a
collaboration with 3OH!3?
Yeah, well we go straight onto a tour with them in the US and a hip-hop-pop band called Wallpaper, who I’m a really big fan of, and a band called New Beat Fund. Everyone’s sound is very different, so we’ve done a little tour collaboration track and we’re going to release that along the tour and play it on the tour too. The song is either called ‘Drink, Sleep Repeat’ or ‘Turn The Night On’ we haven’t decided yet. There’s a lot of rapping on it, I’m not doing it [laughing]. I only rap in the shower. Some people sing in the shower; I already sing, so I rap in the shower [laughing].
You’ve been very busy because you’re also on ‘Punk Goes Christmas’ and you’ve done a cover of ‘This Christmas’?
I hate Christmas songs [laughing], but I’m proud of this one. I love Christmas but Christmas songs are just usually not very good. I suppose I’m over-analyzing Christmas music now, it’s just meant to make you happy [laughing]. I like the song ‘This Christmas’ by Donny Hathaway so we decided to record that, and Stephen our bass player produced it, so that was really cool. I think it’s probably going to sound drastically different to everyone else’s on there.
Yeah, well we go straight onto a tour with them in the US and a hip-hop-pop band called Wallpaper, who I’m a really big fan of, and a band called New Beat Fund. Everyone’s sound is very different, so we’ve done a little tour collaboration track and we’re going to release that along the tour and play it on the tour too. The song is either called ‘Drink, Sleep Repeat’ or ‘Turn The Night On’ we haven’t decided yet. There’s a lot of rapping on it, I’m not doing it [laughing]. I only rap in the shower. Some people sing in the shower; I already sing, so I rap in the shower [laughing].
You’ve been very busy because you’re also on ‘Punk Goes Christmas’ and you’ve done a cover of ‘This Christmas’?
I hate Christmas songs [laughing], but I’m proud of this one. I love Christmas but Christmas songs are just usually not very good. I suppose I’m over-analyzing Christmas music now, it’s just meant to make you happy [laughing]. I like the song ‘This Christmas’ by Donny Hathaway so we decided to record that, and Stephen our bass player produced it, so that was really cool. I think it’s probably going to sound drastically different to everyone else’s on there.
It’s never too early to talk about Christmas, so what’s on your Christmas list?
Well,
I need to get myself a new computer, but no-one’s going to get that for me, so
it might have to be a gift to myself. I do a lot of stuff on there and I’ve
been working with this Mac Book Pro since 2007 and at this point it looks
ancient. I’m really good at updating new software and it’s always run fine, but
now it’s at the point where it’s not moving anymore. It’s been dropped, there’s
a burn mark on there, the disk drive doesn’t work and now I can’t even update
the software; even Apple’s rejecting me [laughing].
And finally what’s next for you guys?
We’re breaking up.
[Laughing] Kidding. We’re going to the US to do the tour and play the
Thanksgiving parade in New York, which means nothing to anyone here in the UK,
but it’s the second biggest televised event in the US after the Super Bowl.
That’s really cool, I was told it was like 50 million people, which is really
scary and it’s going to be miserably cold playing on a moving float for hours
[laughing]. We’re all from California where it’s warm even in December. Then we
go to Warped Tour Australia and then more touring next year. In like a week
I’ll pretty much know what we’re doing all the way through till August next
year, which is really crazy to think about, so we’ll find out soon enough. And
we’ll definitely be back over here.
To read a review of The Summer Set's live show and the entire tour CLICK HERE
