You’re Welcome

Vocalist Jeremy McKinnon said the following in an interview for Kerrang! magazine:

I needed a hoodie for a show. It was our first show back from this massive time that we took off. Me and my wife had our first kid, the band was cool, and we pretty much took the whole year off to just be home, so I could be a part of that first year and help out. In the downtime, whenever I could, I’d be writing. So that’s really why we’ve been gone for so long. But for the first show back, I put on this outfit and was like, ‘Oooh, I need a white hoodie with this.’ So I went to the store and bought a white hoodie, and it said in red, ‘You’re Welcome’, and the colour matched my shoes that I was wearing, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is perfect!’

There was a photo that was taken of me at this festival that we’d played in Mexico where I’m singing, and I pull my hoodie and it says, ‘You’re Welcome’. I got tagged in the photo the next day, and the first comment said, ‘Calling it now: the new A Day To Remember album is called You’re Welcome!’ And because I read it online, completely unguarded, it kind of hit me like I was told the A Day To Remember record name for the first time. I sat there, and it kind of had me stunned (laughs). I was like, ‘I think I fucking love that.’ So it was named by a fan.

I’ve got a screenshot of it. It’s crazy. I just put it in my notes, and we had a bunch of other names that kept getting thrown around, but we felt like nothing was better than that. It fit. And it’s our whole brand: not taking ourselves too seriously. It’s also a gift, you know what I mean? We wrote so many songs for this record, and we’re so excited and proud of it, that it’s like, ‘Here, you’re welcome!’

The band told Kerrang!

The whole point of this, for me, was like, ‘Let’s use the A Day To Remember formula – the same thing that everyone has always known and loved about us – but let’s take on modern influences.’ Let’s take on modern structure with the small chorus into the big drop part, and let’s do that as a band, instead of electronic stuff. Let’s use some of those elements to make cool sounding stuff as we go, but keep it that A Day To Remember sound here, and let’s mess around with new song structure, and a modern production take, but keep that heaviness that is us. It’s just crazy.

Talking about the direction of the album they said

It wasn’t on purpose, you know. I wanted to collaborate with as many people as I possibly could. There was just something about that, and I just wanted to start writing. That’s a world I want to get into more: writing for other people, writing for other genres, whatever. I just love the process of actually making new material. And in the process of that, working with a lot of very fucking cool, creative people, we would get in a room and it was like there was no rule book. It’s just, ‘Let’s write what we’re inspired to write today, and we’ll worry about what we’re going to use it for later.’ Whether it was for A Day To Remember, or something else, the goal was to just write good songs. That’s where everything started, and we ended up with something like 42 demos, fully fleshed out, that all sounded great. For the first time in our lives, we were actually prepared to go in and track a new record! And then the real hard part – and still to this day – is what actually makes the cut. It’s very painful to make some of these cuts because of how far along they were, and how strong the material feels. We’ll see what happens! But it was a very creative and inspiring record.

Jeremy told Kerrang!

Anything and everything. There are songs on this record that make me feel like it could be a Tom Petty song. Tom Petty’s a massive influence on me and [guitarist Kevin] Skaff, too. We all grew up listening to classic rock – and I know how that sounds here! – but there’s all sorts of stuff that’s all over the place when it comes to influences. It’s crazy. You’ll see (laughs).