Australia holds a special place in the hearts of Mayday Parade, and fans similarly embrace the band with open arms. This September the beloved Tallahassee quintet will return to play a career-spanning set on their biggest headline tour to date with ‘Three Cheers For 20 Years’, a celebration of their storied, two-decade career.
Since their debut album A Lesson In Romantics was released in 2007, Mayday Parade were quick to create a groundswell and become one of the most iconic cult classics in the scene spawning seven studio albums including hits “Jamie All Over,” “Miserable At Best,” “Kids in Love” and “Stay,” to name just a few.
The band have travelled Australia a number of times, and have made countless memories playing shows and performing at some of Australia’s favourite alternative festivals like Soundwave Festival and Good Things.
We sat down with Mayday Parade vocalist Derek Sanders to recount some of his favourite moments down under, and got excited for their upcoming September stint.
Let’s cast our minds back a little bit and talk about the first time you came to Australia. When was that and who were you touring with? What was your first experience like?
Derek: So the first time that we came to Australia was with Paramore, which is, you know, super lucky! It was kind of right when they were blowing up. Riot had been out for maybe a year. It was with Paramore and Hot Rod Circuit. Now what was crazy about it was we got the offer to do Australia with them. […] Then they also offered us Japan, which was before Australia. […] They flew from Japan to Australia, but we couldn’t change our flights […] so we had to fly from Japan back to LA, turn right back around and fly from LA to Australia, which is like two 14 or 15 hour flights back to back. That was exhausting.
And then I remember we landed in Brisbane, went to the hotel and dropped our stuff and I just wanted to crash, but we were told that we had the opportunity to go to the Lone Pine Sanctuary, the Koala Sanctuary. And I was so close to being like, “No way I can’t do it.” But I was just so excited. It was my first time leaving the country. It was our first international experience and I didn’t want to miss out on anything […] we got to feed kangaroos and take pictures holding a koala and it was just a really beautiful experience. And I remember being so grateful that I decided to go instead of staying behind and resting. That whole tour really was just such a cool experience. I mean, we were so green, we really didn’t know what we were doing. But Paramore was very cool to us and Hot Rod Circuit was very cool to us and the shows were amazing and it was just a great first trip over there.
Did you guys have any preconceived expectations or ideas of what Australia would be like and how did they compare when you actually did arrive in Australia?
Derek: Yeah. Well I don’t know if this is common or not. But I really only knew Sydney for the Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Those were really the only things that I knew of other than the Outback and things that you see movies and cartoons. I always loved The Rescuers Down Under as a kid! I remember on that tour with Paramore going to Sydney for the first time, we went to the Opera House and we walked across the Sydney Harbor Bridge and we went and got dinner at this restaurant on the rooftop of a building while the sun was setting. I loved that so much. At the time, I didn’t really know a whole lot about the rest of Australia but pretty quickly fell in love with Melbourne actually. I don’t want to leave out anybody but that’s probably the city that I’m most excited about going to now in Australia.
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With the ‘Three Cheers for 20 Years’ Tour in Australia coming up, are there any cultural landmarks, delicacies or staples that you’ve still yet to try or see? Is there anything that you’ve still yet to cross off your list?
Derek: I’ll tell you this, I’ve still never done a shoey. And it’s funny, because the first few times we went over there, that wasn’t really a thing. And then I remember encountering that. And now the last couple times we have come over there, the crowd is chanting it, and they want it so bad. I don’t know, maybe I will. But gosh, that’s pretty vile to take off your shoe and have to chug a beer out of it. But other than that, there’s definitely places that we go to, there’s a spot in Melbourne that we go to after every Melbourne show, every time. There was a time that we were there, our guitar tech got kicked out. And we were like, “All right, it’s probably time to call it quits.” But that’s a place that I always look forward to. I’m sure we’ll be back there when we come later this year.
For you, what do you find to be the biggest difference with coming to tour around Australia compared to touring around the States?
Derek: Well, I mean obviously Australia is massive but we only ever do the five cities, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, so I wish that was different. I’d love to explore more of what’s there because there is so much there. […] it’s a market that for us that’s up there with one of our best places to play as far as crowd size, participation and sing-a-longs, ever since we did that Paramore tour. The next time we came back with Soundwave, and I remember being blown away by some of those crowds and how much they knew our music and just how much love they showed us so early on. For whatever reason the Australians have always shown us a lot of love and we’re super thankful for that.
You mentioned Soundwave. Have you gotten to play any of the other Australian music festivals over the years? What’s that experience been like compared to headlining a tour around Australia?
Derek: We did Soundwave twice and we did Good Things once […] the first time that we did Soundwave was up there in the top five experiences in this band for me. You know, we’ve been all over and we’ve done so much. But that first time we did Soundwave was just like magic – that would have been probably 2008 or 2009. We were all pretty young in our 20s and there were a lot of bands on it that we had done Warped Tour with and had toured with and were friends with. It was just a party nonstop for the two weeks we were there. You know, you’re staying at these nice hotels just raging with everybody and then getting to the airport and all these bands are there and Slash is on the plane with you guys. And it’s just wild.
I remember towards the end of the first time we did it, I think we were in Perth or maybe Adelaide and AJ the promoter took out all the bands for dinner. And there were like three places you could choose from. We went to this Thai place, it was a really nice restaurant. And myself and our drum tech – and a lot of folks really – drank way too much. He and I both drank a bottle of wine before we even left the hotel to go to the restaurant. And we get there and they’re bringing you wine and mai tai’s and I ended up getting up on the table – again this is a really, really nice restaurant – and I took my shirt off and was waving it around in the air and just making an absolute fool of myself. Obviously some questionable choices there, but I remember just having such a good time.
Do you have a favourite or fondest moment from all the times that you’ve been to Australia?
Derek: There’s one thing I haven’t mentioned. I’m fairly certain this was in Melbourne as well, this would have been probably around 2016, I want to say. We got asked to DJ an emo night, and this was back when we had done a handful of those […] I remember we were very reluctant. And I wish that there was a time lapse of it because when we first went up on stage, we were just kind of playing songs and standing around and the energy was not there. And somehow by the end of it, I feel like us and everyone in the room were just having the time of our lives and jumping around and singing and people were crowd surfing and had this energy that was insane. It was kind of the first time I realised like, “Oh, these things can be so much fun”.
I just had such an incredible experience and was not expecting it. I went into it very much like, “I guess I’ll do it, but I don’t really want to.” and then had the time of my life. It’s hard to say if that’s the top or one of the top experiences, but that’s something that comes to mind for sure. But we’ve been there so many times and there’ve been so many amazing things. I’m sure there’s a lot of things I’m forgetting but it’s such an incredible place. And I have an amazing time every time I go over there, and can’t wait to be back this September!
Along with Jack’s Mannequin and The Home Team, Mayday Parade will play Margaret Court Arena in Melbourne on Friday September 12th, Hordern Pavilion in Sydney on Saturday Sept 13th, Fortitude Music Hall in Brisbane on Sunday September 14th, Hindley St Music Hall in Adelaide on Wednesday September 17th and Metro City in Perth on Friday September 19th.
Presented by Destroy All Lines, tickets are on sale now.
