You Me At Six stehen mit „Truth Decay“ in den Startlöchern und haben Bock, 2023 so richtig aufzudrehen und den Clubs und Festivals dieser Welt mit Album Nummer 8 einzuheizen. Kurz vor Weihnachten durften wir Sänger Josh Franceschi in Berlin zum Interview treffen, um mit ihm über die neuen Songs, die Renaissance der Emo-Szene und den perfekten Weihnachtsbraten zu sprechen.
Frontstage Magazine: Nice to meet you! How are you? Are you enjoying your stay in Berlin?
Josh: I love Berlin and Germany obviously. But it has been a fleeting visit. We go off to Paris in a couple of hours. We did some cool radio stuff yesterday and had a bunch of interviews today. So we haven’t had too much chance to do too much but it has been nice.
Frontstage Magazine: On a scale of 1 to 10: How good did it feel to be back on stage? I mean after the pandemic?
Josh: We were lucky. We did a bunch of stuff in September 2021 as well as we did a UK headline tour and we went out with the tour with Bring Me The Horizon in England as well. That was cool. And this was the first year of international touring to the bunch of festivals… we just went out to America for five weeks over there which was cool. So I would probably mark it eleven. It has been really beautiful to be back on stage and have that kind of connection with our fans again and feeling fulfilled again. So yeah… it felt really, really special to be back.
Frontstage Magazine: It is almost Christmas time. Do you look forward to that or are you more like a Grinch?
Josh: I am not the one or the other. I am not a Grinch. But I am not like super stoked about Christmas. For me it is about seeing my family. But I won’t putting up the tree until December at least. Mid December probably. My mum, my dad and my sister are coming off to our place for Christmas. And then on Boxing Day we are flying to Mexico to spend New Year’s Eve in Mexico. That will be cool. But yeah… for me Christmas is just like spending quality time with my family.
Frontstage Magazine: When it comes to Christmas one of the most important topics for Germans is: food. I mean the Christmas dinner. In Germany many people eat sausage and potato salad. Do you have kind of a typical Christmas dish in the UK?
Josh: Yes, basically a roast. It is like potatoes, carrots, vegetables and then depending on what you would like to eat a turkey or something like that. I guess we will have some sort of vegetarian turkey because I don’t eat meat. So yeah… Christmas meal is always the best part of the day.
Frontstage Magazine: The new year will start amazing for you guys, because you have a brand new album that comes at the beginning of 2023. It is called „Truth Decay“. So what kind of You Me At Six version can we expect when it comes to the new album? Will it be kind of a decay of the old You Me At Six stuff?
Josh: Truthfully it is kind of like when we got together as a band and we are talking about like putting some songs together for the new album we kind of question ourselves like… who are we, what are we, what are we saying, how are we saying it and what’s our identity? And I think we have tried quite a few things in the last years. Records were challanging for us as songwriters, as musicians but also like for our fanbases. It just felt like we where missing like… oh, You Me At Six they are that band, you know. So that was what we spoke about and then we kind of land on the fact that we do Emo-Rock and Pop-Punk. And we wanted to do like a 2022 version of old school You Me At Six. That’s kind of where we started with… and yeah, that’s kind of were it all landed. So yes… it was a very easy record to A. write and B. record. Because once we knew what we will gonna try to make it was easy. I think if you like You Me At Six between „Take Off Your Colors“ through to like „Cavalier Youth“ to the „Sinners Never Sleep“ era then you should really like „Truth Decay“.
Frontstage Magazine: What about songwriting? I mean you said that it was quite easy this time. How does a typical day in the studio look like?
Josh: Honestly we don’t have a typical process for a song. But I mean what was interesting about „Truth Decay“ is that the majority album… or 90 percent of the album was written before we went to the studio to record it… like my lyrics and I had melodies and stuff for the songs. I guess it really depends on who is writing what sometimes… for the last two records we wrote bunch of stuff like in transit on laptops or whatever. But this time it was all fun. It was writing it together in a room and just kind of like… having a couple of hours here and there and just playing arrangements and jamming which was cool. So if „Suckapunch“ is like a bit more experiments. It is more like five musicians in a room jamming. And you feel the energy on the record.
Frontstage Magazine: You had an acoustic gig last night. How did it feel to play the new songs for the first time on stage… I mean even if it was a small stage?
Josh: Yeah, it was good. I mean it was still acoustic. So it wasn’t like the full band but I think that was the thing that freaks out a little bit. Yeah… it was good fun and we enjoyed it. And I think people liked it as well which is cool.
Frontstage Magazine: When going on tour do you sometimes change your setlist after some shows? Because then you notice which songs are good or not so good to perform live?
Josh: That definitely happens sometimes, yeah! But I mean we have been putting the setlist together so far already and just trying to get a sense of what old songs we should play and how we could move and how the set could feel. So we gonna see when we start rehearsing what feels good. It’s not uncommon for us to pull songs out and put other ones in if they are not feeling right. I guess that will be work in progress.
Frontstage Magazine: Is there a song on the new album that you are most looking forward to play live?
Josh: We have got a song on the record that is called „Breakdown“ which is definitely a good live song I think. The chorus is very much like a crowd song. But truthfully that was kind of the mindset when we were making the record: How do we put a record together as like an abundance of energy that when it’s live it feels good straight away. And then there are some sort of songs that sound good on the record but just don’t really hit the sweet spots live. That was just like a school of thought of how can we have an enthusiastic record. So I think any of them could fit into the set quite nicely. At least that’s the plan anyway.
Frontstage Magazine: What do you think of the development of the Emo scene? Because I think it feels like there is kind of a renaissance…
Josh: I think there is definitely a renaissance that is happening. And I feel like that has been something that has been locking in the Alternative scene for a while… that sense of community. And that sense of all the bands are working in the same direction the same time and cultivating a culture around the scene. It felt for a while like this is very territorial like… this is my band, this is my thing… and I think a festival like „When We Were Young“ shows and reinforces the point that the strength of numbers and also how quick that festival sold and that there is a real appetite for that genre of music. So it is just meant to be embraced I think and just meant to be enjoyed. And there is a whole host of like twelve to twenty year olds just discovering bands like My Chemical Romance for the first time and I think that’s great. And I think if you are a band between the late 2000s and sort of like the last 8-10 years… there is a whole audience that will love that kind of music because it has been part of the mainstream pop-culture. For the last ten years it is kind of got a bit forgotten about. But now I think it is definitely having a good moment for sure.
Frontstage Magazine: What are your plans for 2023 so far?
Josh: Just the album and tour… I haven’t got a plan yet for the summer. But I imagine we will be doing some festivals in Germany for sure. So yeah… I think hopefully we will have a great tour and yeah… see where else we can play then.
Frontstage Magazine: Thank you for your time! Can’t wait to see you in Germany again soon!
Josh: Thank you! See you soon!
Fotocredit: Freddie Stisted
