You Me At Six.

BY KELDA MANLEY.

 

The streets around Manchester Academy are heaving. Girls squeal excitedly, boys try to resist the temptation to squeal and there is the odd parent staying suitable distances away from their offspring. You Me At Six have come to town and brought along mass hysteria.

The reaction is not something that seems to affect guitarists Chris Miller and Max Helyer in the slightest. The Record Journal met up with the pair shortly before they took to the stage for their sold out Academy show.

‘[The crowds on this tour have] been very loud, they’ve been very active’ grins Max. ‘Been getting sweating, been getting involved. They look like they’re having a good time and that’s what we feed off. If they’re having a good time going nuts and singing our words then that makes all of us go nuts.’

The last 12 months have sped past for the fivesome from Surrey. Beginning the year as a support act for Paramore and Fall Out Boy they grabbed the music world by the throat, with their album charting at 25, selling out the Astoria, playing storming sets at Reading and Leeds before eventually getting a rest at Christmas.

‘Over the Christmas period, it was nice to have [time] off and think [about] what has actually happened this year,’ admits Max ‘[to] see what you’ve gone through. For us, though, we don’t think “[we’re] rockstars, [we’re] famous.” Our friends came to the show last night saying “it’s so weird you having to sign stuff for fans.”
‘It’s just a job’ Chris bluntly finishes the sentence.
Max continues, ‘we’re just normal people, hanging out. We love to play music, it is our job. We love doing it.’

 

 

Max is clearly the talkative joker of the band while Chris would most probably be considered as the shy one. However, throughout our interview it becomes more apparent that he simply prefers to speak when he has something to say and as bluntly as possible. They make a perfect pairing for interviewing, something they both consider part of their jobs. ‘[Interviews] can get a bit tedious when you’re doing like four hours of it but from time to time it’s amazing’ admits Chris ‘and once you start doing the first one you get into press mode!’ Max nods agreement with his bandmate, ‘it’s cool to see what people have to say as well, the questions they have for your band. You can get some quite funny questions and answers out of them.’

The fivesome don’t seem hugely bothered by negative press either. Like many bands they find it easy to differentiate between an opinion and somebody simply wanting to be malicious. That goes for music press and fans. ‘I had someone on the Never Say Die Tour’ laughs Max ‘I was just outside having a smoke at the London forum and some guy comes up to me and says “you’re in You Me At Six aren’t you?” I go “yeah” and he goes “your band’s fucking shit.” I was like “dude, thank-you so much. That means the world to me” and just walked off. I’m not fussed. If that one person doesn’t like my band there could be three or four people who do. And if they don’t like it that’s fair play, everyone’s got different tastes in music so you don’t have to like everything.’
Some of the criticism aimed at the band has come from their sound. Blending in well with bands such as Fall Out Boy and Panic At The Disco the band are keen to stay clear of the infamous ‘emo’ tag.
‘It’s difficult’ admits Chris ‘I kind of think of our sound as more like pop punk/rock. There’s definitely some “emo” in there.’ Max is quickly responds, ‘I don’t like to be considered emo, so rock/pop lets just say.’

Their reluctance to be considered within the genre is understandable. Chris begins ‘I think emo’s just been pushed from a genre of music into like...’ ‘A brand’ finishes Max ‘like saying you’re an emo, you must be miserable and upset and have a long emo fringe. I used to have long hair, I used to have an “emo doo” as some people would say but it’s didn’t make me emo. It’s just you get branded. I don’t think it’s cool. Everybody’s an individual person, you should never judge a book by it’s cover.’

Not that You Me At Six need to worry about what the press have to say. Their fans are a dedicated bunch. Putting in early mornings, late nights and probably many evenings to come and support their new favorite band.
‘We love to hang out with our fans’ smiles Max ‘because at the end of the day five minutes with a fan can make them the happiest person in the world. It’s good to have fans that are so dedicated to come down to the shows and wait outside at 6 in the morning, with their sleeping bags… the least you can do is go and hang out with them. We’re very tight with our fans, we’ve made a lot of friends from just hanging out.’

 

 

The fans will have to wait until next year to hear new material from the band. They will be setting out to conquer the world in 2009 playing on the Warped Tour, releasing ‘Take of Your Colours’ worldwide and touching down in all areas of the world.

During this time they will also working on new material something they are not revealing too much about. As Max explains,
‘We’ve just been sitting down and writing. I mean we’ve done quite a bit but we don’t want to give it all away, we want to keep it a bit more secretive cause we always say we’ve got this going on, we’ve always made everybody involved in but this time we want to have the album recorded. We don’t want to name when we’re recording it, where we’re recording it. We want to keep it all a little under wraps, little bit quiet and be like (claps) yeah albums done, here’s a song for you, this is the release date, be ready for it. Should be good fun, the songs have definitely got a maturity to them. It’s not like completely the opposite to ‘Take Off Yours Colours’ but you can see that we have grown up and listened to a lot of different styles of music and just trying to branch out the bracket a little bit.’

While doing this they hope that they can push the boundaries of the opinions surrounding them. ‘We don’t want to be known as the understated Fall Out Boy because we have, I think, something a little bit different’ adds Max. They also hope that, very soon, they will finally break through the Indie domination that has taken over the UK mainstream music scene.
‘[Indie]:that’s going to end’ laughs Chris.
Max: ‘Please end it now.’
Chris: ‘The ones that are out now isn’t indie it’s just…’
Max: ‘The same’
Chris: ‘Shit… If I I’m being honest’
Max: ‘Just being honest’
Chris: ‘Sorry Indie people’

'Take off Yours Colours' is out now.

Review of Manchester Academy show.

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