Jeremy McKinnon is the lead singer of American post-hardcore band A Day To Remember, a gutsy thrust of punk and metal all wrapped up in emo chic. His band is being touted as one of the highlights of this year’s Soundwave Festival and with just cause too: they are still riding high on the smash success of their 2009 release, Homesick.
On the phone from Gainesville, Florida, McKinnon spilled the beans on what audiences can expect and shared the secret to achieving the perfect moshcore voice.
Can you describe your sound? We try to mix pop punk music with heavier hardcore stuff, like mosh music. So we kind of mix two things t hat don’t really mix. But we try, you know.
How the success of Homesick been? It’s been really great. When it came out, it did… I don’t even remember any more, it was like twenty two thousand, I think; twenty one, twenty two thousand. We were twenty one or twenty two, on the charts. Actually, that might be wrong. I know we were twenty two or twenty one on Billboard’s top forty so that’s awesome. But I don’t really remember the number that we sold, first week. It was between eighteen and twenty one, I think. It did way better than we ever expected it to and that’s all that matters, y’know?
Is there anyone in particular that you’re looking forward to seeing or hearing? There’s a lot of hardcore bands on there that I want to see, like Comeback Kid, stuff like that. And I’m really excited about seeing The Get Up Kids, because they just got back together, so I’m pretty excited about being able to watch them, and there’s bands like Paramore. I’m pretty sure My Chemical Romance is playing, too and they pretty much haven’t been playing shows, either, so you guys are getting it good.
Is there mosh pit etiquette that you think people should be aware of, or is it just a free for all? At our shows it’s pretty much just a free for all. It’s all about where you’re standing so if you don’t really want to be a part of something like that, I would suggest being in the back or on the sides, because if you’re in the center or up the front, you’re probably not going to have that great a time unless you’re expecting it. You’ve kind of got to watch A Day To Remember and expect the unexpected.
When you do all of your lyrics, how do you get the best out of your voice? How do you keep your voice maintained? Well, that’s a good question. I think it’s kind of different for everybody and what’s kind of worked with me is over the years I’ve kind of learned from doing things the wrong way. I’ve tried all these vocal warm up DVDs and that works for a lot of people, but to be honest it didn’t really work that much for me. I mean , it helped a little bit for warm ups but other than that… I mean, I’d blow out my voice every other week or so and I got to a point where I kind of just got into the swing of things and found out what worked for me and what it was is I chew gum while I play. Like when we’re onstage and singing and stuff, I chew gum and what that does is it keeps my throat where it doesn’t dry out and I’m never singing or screaming on a dry throat, which can really hurt your voice. That really helps me, especially when it comes to screaming, because I’m always screaming and singing at the same time, so it helps to have a little bit of moisture there when you’re doing that so you’re not just screaming dry. Before we got in-ears I actually wore one earplug in one ear and then one was open so I could hear the rest of the stage volume and stuff. That’s what’s really helped me; having an earplug or in-ears and chewing gum while I play. Literally it helps me night and day; I’m way better than I used to be just for those things.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
