Tim Hughes meets the frontman of a US band whose partying has mellowed but who stay close to their fans

If most of us fancy a drink in a club, we walk to the bar and ask for one.

That wouldn’t do for rockers Mayday Parade, though, as frontman Derek Sanders (centre above) explains.

“I once crowd surfed all the way from the stage to the bar, had a shot, and surfed back,” he says nonchalantly.

Not only that – he was competing against two Olympic-standard crowd surfers – David Schmitt from Breathe Carolina and David Ryan Strauchman from Every Avenue – who piled into the audience at the same time.

“It was a race between three of us,” he goes on. “The first one back was the winner. I came last!”

I caught up with the Florida pop-band band as they started their tour at the end of last week in a rainy Stoke-on-Trent. But a bit of grim weather certainly wasn’t dampening the Tallahassee boys’ spirits.

“The weather’s not the best, but it’s not so bad and we knew what to expect,” says Derek. “We’re happy to be here and are having a good time. It’s fun to be in a different place and to be travelling.”

The tour, which reaches Oxford on Wednesday, follows the release of their album Monsters in the Closet – their fourth in eight years and their liveliest yet.

Hook-heavy but heartfelt, it is an ‘emo’ statement of intent for Derek, bassist Jeremy Lenzo, guitarists Alex Garcia and Brooks Betts and drummer Jake Bundrick who first came to our attention with debut A Lesson In Romantics and went on to tour with the likes of Plain White T’s, Pierce The Veil, All Time Low, The Maine, We The Kings, We Are The In Crowd, and Set Your Goals.

But while no strangers to big city arenas, for now they are focusing on smaller towns and cities like Oxford.

“We’ve done these tours every year and the smaller shows are the best ones,” he says. “They are so much more energetic.

“It blows our minds it has come as far as it has,” he goes on. “It’s wild, and it keeps moving. What we do is amazing. We are so lucky and just want to continue.”

Derek is hanging out on the tour bus with his bandmates. So how rock and roll is it on the road with Mayday Parade? Well, not very, if the serious and sincere sounding singer is to be believed. “We all hang out together, have some food, do a little shopping and go out at night. The touring life has the potential for partying after every show, and most nights we’ll have a few drinks but not really party.

“We used to party a little bit harder but we have calmed down.

Yet they remain close to their fans. “It’s incredible that we are able to come this far away from home and have so many fans. It’s really humbling. They keep coming even if they don’t know all the songs.”

And how do we compare to their fans at home? “They are a little more energetic here,” he smiles.

The band, and Derek in particular, come across as committed to their craft. There is little of the rock bravado one might expect from a young bunch of alternative-rockers from the laid-back Gulf Coast.

Derek agrees. “There’s a perception that we are more introverted,” he says. “We have fun and joke around, but when we started our goal was to make a band we could dedicate to making things happen 100 per cent.

“If I wasn’t in this band I have no idea what I would be doing, but it certainly wouldn’t be as exciting. It’s what I’ve wanted to do for so long. It started off as something fun after meeting the guys at school and has ended up as something we all love. There is still no back-up plan.

“We’ve come a long way over the four albums and have tried to push ourselves. We had such a different mindset when we started and are now at a totally different place in our lives. “We’ve hopefully grown a lot and mellowed a bit. But this is my favourite thing we’ve done.”

Is he still a fan of crowd surfing. “I sure am!” he says cheerfully. “I used to love it. It’s tricky as I know people can get hurt, and others just want to watch the show, but I try to encourage it.”

Though, he admits, he doesn’t have to dive into the audience for rough and tumble. He is nursing a bruised behind – and an even more dented ego – after a less likely hazard: a malfunctioning stool.

“As part of the set I play the keyboard, but when I sat on the stool, it collapsed on stage and I wiped out.

It was a pretty embarrassing thing to happen on the first night and it’s hard to shake something like that off. “There were probably lots of people filming it. I hope they thought I meant to do it!

“One thing’s for sure though: I’ll be checking that stool from now on – and giving it a good push to make sure it’s good to go.”

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Mayday Parade play the O2 Academy Oxford on Wednesday. Support comes from Man Overboard and Divided by Friday. Tickets are £14.50