Four Year Strong is definitely making strides with their chaotic blend of pop-punk, emo, metal and hardcore mashed together and flung at listeners with little reserve.  Lead vocalist / guitarist Dan O'Connor, vocalist / guitarist Alan Day, bassist Joe Weiss, drummer Jake Massucco and synth extraordinaire Josh Lyford wouldn't mind being international rockstars, but don't want that title until they have gone up through the ranks.  FYS is a band that seemingly hasn't forgotten where it came from, but know where it is going.  The coming months with give the Massachusetts-based band and opportunity broaden their horizons as they embark on an across the pond tour as part of the Give It A Name tour, followed up by a slot in summer's punk rock day camp Warped Tour.

 

We had an opportunity to catch up with Alan Day during a recent tour stop in Milwaukee on which the band was supporting Bayside and The Starting Line.

 

Popular Underground Magazine: So how has this tour been going?

 

Alan Day: I don’t know if you heard about it; the other singer of the band got super sick and had to drop off the tour.  We were actually thinking about dropping off the tour because we didn’t think we could do it without him, but it was only going to be the second day of the tour and we had only done one day of the tour.  He did the first day of the tour with us and after we played he had to get rushed to the emergency room.  He was in real bad shape.  I guess we have to keep going.  It’s a really cool tour.

 

PUM: So you’re picking up for Dan?  What’s that like?

 

Day: It’s tough because we have a lot of words in our songs and I never really realized it until he was gone and I had to cover for his and mine and I had to rework some of the guitar stuff to combine what he does and what I do at the same time.  When we’re up on stage my mind just freaks out because I have to remember words that I’m not used to singing, guitar parts that I’m not used to playing and it’s going surprisingly well.

 

PUM: Yeah, I was going to ask, how has the fan’s response been?

 

Day: It’s been awesome actually.

 

PUM: I’m sure kids are excited that you decided to stay on tour.

 

Day: Yeah, we make sure to tell the kids every night that the only reason we are still out here is because of them.

 

PUM: How long have you guys been together?

 

Day: Seven years.

 

PUM: When I first heard the record, I was pretty floored by all of the elements combined in each song.  Each song has punk, emo, metal and hardcore elements to it.  How did you guys bring that all together?

 

Day: We’ve been doing it for a long time.  We started doing it mainly because that’s what we listen to.  We listen to all different kinds of music and we just wanted to combine different elements of all the kind of shit we all listen to.  Oh, I don’t know if I’m supposed to swear.

 

PUM: Doesn’t bother me.  I’m not one for censorship.

 

Day: Cool. I mean we all grew up listening to similar, but different stuff.  We all listened to hardcore bands, pop-punk bands and it was like, “Why do we have to pick and choose?  Let’s just combine what we like and try to make it one thing.”  People like it so far.

 

PUM: Have people ever tried to say it’s too much or it’s too chaotic?

 

Day: Oh yeah.  Luckily it hasn’t happened as much as it should. 

 

PUM: Recently you guys have joined the Decaydance team.  Tell me a little bit about how that came to be.

 

Day: It was weird.  It kind of just sprung about abruptly.  Through management and friends through friends and we know everyone at Decaydance because the work in the same office as our management and everything.  They kind of wanted the same things that we wanted and we were looking to take a big step and we didn’t want to go somewhere with some dude in a suit we wouldn’t trust.  We knew that [Decaydance] were people that we trust, we knew that they wanted the same things that we wanted; they wanted us to end up where we wanted to end up.  It kind of just felt right.

 

PUM: What will that do for you as a band?

 

Day: Hopefully, get us a little bit more exposure really.  Nothing has really changed.  It’s not like we’re millionaires now.  We just hope we can gain some more fans that maybe we wouldn’t have if we didn’t do that.

 

PUM: The other thing I recently read was that the record, Rise or Die Trying is being released overseas.

 

Day: I know the date just got announced because my dad actually called and told me.  It’ll be really cool because we’re going over there for the Give It a Name festival and the record will be out at that point so that will really help.

 

PUM: Have you guys been overseas before?

 

Day: Never.  This is going to be sweet.

 

PUM: What do you hope to get out of that?

 

Day: Gain some fans.  We’ve been asked to go over there by fans a lot through Myspace and stuff.  We’ll get to please those people.  They’ll get to see us and buy some merch.

 

PUM: In your opinion, what is the number one reason you are where you are as a band?  How have you built this up?

 

Day:  We’ve lost so much.  We’ve been touring for four or five years.  Every time we stop at a gas station each of us has to take a twenty out of our wallet…  It’s been more recent that we’ve been touring full time.  Basically how it is, is just doing what we want to do and no get rich quick schemes.  We don’t want miss out on [anything].  If we wanted to we could be the hugest band in the world, but we would never want to go from playing to a couple kids every night to arena shows.  We love small intimate shows to a couple hundred kids.

 

PUM: So you want to be able to go through the ranks?

 

Day: Definitely.  The whole thing is an experience and it would suck to miss out on any of this.

 

PUM: So talking about the fact that you’ve had a lot of out of pocket costs throughout the years, what do you do during the day when you’re not on tour to keep this thing rolling?

 

Day: At that time I was still in high school.  It hasn’t been for a while.  I missed almost an entire year of school.  Somehow I still graduated.  I don’t know how that happened.

 

PUM: What would you be doing if you weren’t in the band?

 

Day: Because of doing this for so long, I feel like if I have never got into it, my life would be totally, totally different.  I decided that if I had never gotten into music, I’d probably be in the army.  The majority of my family was in the army.

 

PUM: Have you ever though about what you would do if the bottom fell out or do you try not to?

 

Day: I think we’ve all come to the point now where we all know we need to do something in music.  I’d like to do anything.  Basically, I’d like to do producing and engineering one day.  Not anytime soon.  It would just be fun; producing a record for a band.

 

PUM: Tell me a little bit about Rise or Die Trying?

 

Day: Seven years of writing.  It was our first, real full-length record, kind of like we’ve been working our whole lives on it. 

 

PUM: How did it feel when it came out after so long?

 

Day: It felt good because we’ve recorded so many things in the past.  We even technically recorded a full length way, way, way back when I was like 14 and it was not good at all, but anyway.  This record that came out felt like, we’ve been trying to do it for the past seven years was the full effect.  We were all really happy about it.  There were small little things that we freaked out about when we got the final copy because we’re picky, that no one would ever notice except us.

 

PUM: What about the artwork, where did that come from?

 

Day: (Laughs).  This guy Mike Bukowski did it.  We just wanted something crazy that no one has ever done and the only way we could think of doing that was doing the stupidest thing ever. 

 

PUM: What are some of your long term goals for the band?

 

Day: I guess everyone, somewhere in their mind wants to [be the biggest band in the world].  I don’t really ever expect to be the biggest band in the world.  That’s a pretty big feat.  I’d like to get as big as possible.  The more kids you play for, the more fun it is.  Every show we play, more kids come out.  It gets more and more fun for everyone, the kids [and] us. 

 

PUM: I looked at your tour schedule and it looks pretty rigorous for the next five months.  You’ve got this tour, another couple things in the mix and then Warped Tour.  What’s the key to getting through these tours?

 

Day: A million small little things that keep the band going.  If you’re walking down the same hallway as me, you have to turn, face the wall and you’re not allowed to speak to me until I’m through the hallway.  Naw, I actually heard that about Prince.  I heard that he has 126 people in his crew and only 12 are allowed to speak to him about nothing personal, only business [and] only two people are allowed to speak to him personally.

 

PUM: What else is on the horizon for you guys?

 

Day: We’ve been starting to think about writing.  We haven’t gotten to start writing or thinking about writing.  We’re just starting to think about writing.  We’ve been so busy touring and the couple weeks that we have off every now and then, if we’re lucky, we just want literally sit around and do nothing.  I don’t get to just sit on my couch and watch TV all day.  It’s hard, the week and a half that we actually get off, to get ourselves together to work on something.  We spend so much time together than when we finally get a chance to get away from each other.  We have been trying to jam out with some stuff while we’ve been out [on tour].

 

PUM: For people who have never seen Four Year Strong show, what can they expect to see?

 

Day: We just like to go as crazy as possible.  We just like to have a good time and get kids to have a good time with us. 

 

PUM: So what’s with the beards?  You all seem to have them.

 

Day: Personal choice.  We all just happen to all like growing beards.  Everyone thinks it’s like some gimmick.  I haven’t been clean shaven for years.  I think the closest I got was [when] I worked for UPS as a delivery man and you can’t have beards, you can only have above the lip mustache so I had a weasel mustache everything else was shaven.

By: Adam K. Zakroczymski III - Senior Editor / Founder

Photo Credit: Kyle Holmquist

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