Alternative rock outfit You Me At Six are a London-based quintet on a fast-paced ascent in popularity in the U.S. Having already mastered the industry within the UK, the group have set their sights on musical domination of the radio waves Stateside, beginning with a cross-country tour this fall. The band spent the summer performing throughout Europe for festival season and already have a Wembley Arena show under their belt.
The favorite and more recent single, “Room To Breathe,” off of 2014’s Cavalier Youth, has been doing just this, further solidifying their cause. Drawing upon rock inspiration of past and present day, You Me At Six reinforce their lively instrumental work with positive messages via lyrics on their latest album. This one being their fourth full-length release, the guys have taken their time allowing for proper maturity of their musical style. Thoroughly grounded band member and drummer Dan Flint took a moment to break things down for me as far as goings-on for You Me At Six. The following is what he had to say:
You have just kicked off your American tour cycle. Which stops along the way are you most looking forward to?
We’re big fans of the East Coast—the Boston area, New Jersey is great, of course, always New York is incredible. I think Chicago will be one of our favorites as well. We’re excited to get back out and play some towns that we’ve never actually been to. I’ve never been to Spokane, so that will be interesting. Heading up to Montreal, getting Canada, things like that, it will be good to head back into places that we haven’t been to for a while.
Among the dates, I saw that you are performing at Irving Plaza and Starland Ballroom. Both are great venues.
Both of those we are really excited about, especially Irving Plaza. New York, obviously, is a very cool place to go to. We like visiting there. We’re from London, so it sort of reminds us of that a little bit—very fun to go to. I think just because it’s a big city, it reminds me of that feeling that I get when I’m in London.
How does your presence as a band in the States differ from how you are received in the UK?
We’ve been touring the UK for many, many years. We’ve done a lot of festivals, we’ve done a hell of a lot of tours, a lot of support tours, things like that. We’ve been slugging away for a long, long time now. We get played on the radio a lot over there, so our presence in the UK is quite big. We can play big shows. Like I said, we headlined Wembley Arena.
It’s mainly the case of how many people know about us. Coming over to the States, it is sort of starting over again. It reminds us of how it was a few years ago in the UK, where you start getting a little bit of buzz or people are coming out to the show and singing along. The radio is starting to play us a bit over here. I think America is just sort of catching up a little bit. It’s simply because we don’t live here, we haven’t toured here as much, we haven’t put in as much work. I think we’re all just excited to work at it pretty hard and see how far it can get.
I had first heard the single “Room To Breathe” on SiriusXM Radio.
Oh really? Cool. It’s always cool to hear where you are being played. That’s good to hear.
Why did you choose to record Cavalier Youth in Los Angeles?
We lived in Griffith Park, I did the drums with Studio City, and we did the rest of it at [producer] Neal Avron’s house. It was absolutely amazing. It was very much a family vibe. We were in and out of his house, chilling with his kids and his wife, cocktails on a Friday, things like that. It was a very relaxed atmosphere; it was a really enjoyable thing to do. L.A. is just an awesome place to make a record, especially when we’d written songs that were quite positive sounding. L.A. almost feels like a bit of a bubble, it’s a completely different time zone. When I’m waking up everyone at home, all my friends and family, they are all going to sleep. You’re kind of secluded and you can really focus on what you need to do to make an album. There’s not really a better place to make an album, I don’t think.
How has the sound of You Me At Six changed with the latest record?
A lot of the sound is different due to the fact that we took a lot longer to write the album. We’re still quite young. We used to just go into a practice studio for a few hours and end up writing as many songs as we could, then just go into a studio and record them. This time, we took a lot more care over it. We took a lot more time. We lived in a house together and we did it for as long as we liked. There were no pressures. We’re a lot older. We feel way more mature.
We’ve been on the road nonstop, so we just headlined Wembley Arena in London. We sort of used that energy, the excitement and the energy of that show. The week afterward we got straight into a house and used the buzz of energy coming from Wembley to write the new album. That’s why I feel the album is quite positive. There was nothing negative going on at that time. We were all pretty happy.
What were your primary musical tastes or influences growing up?
I grew up, first off, loving things like Led Zeppelin, the Chili Peppers, stuff like that. That’s how I got into rock music. As a 14-year-old, I found bands like Blink-182, Thrice, Taking Back Sunday, so I started getting into more niche music. Now, I’m back the other way again, listening to older sounding bands like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin. At the moment, I’m loving a band called Band Of Skulls. Absolutely love those guys. My music taste has taken different turns over the years. I think it’s probably broader now more than ever. It’s sort of about the song. If it’s good, then I like it.
Any other bands particularly that you are into right now?
I’ve been obsessing with the Band Of Skulls album, Himalayan, their latest one, especially. I’ve been listening to the Jack White album quite a lot. I’ve been listening to so much music because we’ve been traveling around a lot. I went back and listened to the Kings Of Leon Mechanical Bull album the other day, which I think is an absolutely brilliant album. Things like that, all over the place, really.
After you wrap up the shows in the U.S. and the few dates you have back in England, what does the band have planned?
We’ve been doing festival season the whole summer. We’ve been away, all over Europe, from Latvia to Poland. We’ve just done Asia, we’ve just done Australia, now we’re out here for six weeks. We’ll have been touring for a long, long time, so I think we’re going to have a little rest at home. We very much like being home; we’re going to enjoy a few weeks at home. Then, obviously, it’s going to be Christmas, we’ll spend that with our friends and family. Then, we’ve got the arena tour next year. After that that’s when we will make the decision, do we go back to Europe, do we go back to America? We’re going to see how things are going over here and see where the best place for us to go is. We’ll see how things are going after that, really.
A little rest sounds like a good plan. You guys need it.
Yeah, I think we’ve earned it, especially after the six-week tour in America, I think we’ll all be looking forward to a couple weeks at home.
How do you keep morale and energy up when you are playing shows so consistently?
I think all of us get excited because there is always a reason to be excited. When you’re in a new town, excited for the show, we genuinely just really enjoy playing. There’s always days when you think, “Oh, I’m exhausted,” but if someone is having a down day, everyone else tends to try and pump them up, get them into it. Even if you’re not, by two, three songs in the show, the music is so energetic that you’d be getting into it anyway. It’s not hard for us to get pumped for a show really, we’re quite energetic. Especially when you’re going to be traveling around so much, if you don’t have a positive attitude, then you’re going to want to go home straight away. We all realize how lucky we are to be able to do this kind of thing, so we want to make sure to appreciate it, you know?
You Me At Six will perform at the Theatre Of Living Arts in Philadelphia on Oct. 17, Irving Plaza in New York City on Oct. 19, and Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ on Oct. 26. Cavalier Youth is available now. For more information, go to youmeatsix.co.uk.
