It may have been a few months ago now, but there's no denying that Fireworks' most recent UK tour was a pretty unforgettable experience for anyone in attendance. Returning to the UK for the third time, the five-piece from Detroit laid to waste venues all over the country with their meaningful yet insatiably catchy brand of rock, whilst bring along friends Make Do And Mend and rising British act Save Your Breath.

Sat in the empty and echoing main room of Leeds Cockpit a few hours before their set, Organised-Sound chatted to guitarist Chris Mojan and bassist Kyle O'Neil about the tour itself, what we could expect from their second album 'Gospel' and the importance of doing things on your own terms.

OS: How are you guys doing today?
Chris Mojan [guitars]: Good.
Kyle O'Neil [bass]: Good.
Chris: Me and Kyle are great.
Kyle: Yeah, I'm having a great time with you.

OS: How has the tour been so far?
Chris: Awesome. 10 out of 10.
Kyle: Awesome. Make Do and Mend is great, Save Your Breath is great, the shows have been fantastic. We're getting into the last four or five here.
Chris: We have five shows left.
OS: Are you going to miss us when you´re gone?
Chris: Yes.
Kyle: Always. We love the UK.
OS: It's your third time here I believe?
Kyle: Is it?
Chris: Third time!

OS: You supported Set Your Goals in December 2010, and then you did the Slam Dunk run last year, but what does it feel like to be headlining this time around?
Chris: Good, yeah it's awesome!
Kyle: We played a lot of kind of unfamiliar areas for a second there, which is great. Now we´re kind of getting into the more familiar Leeds... Manchester, London, Kingston; that whole thing. Which is just as awesome, but it was really cool - I thought - to be able to play places like Newcastle and Dublin even, and Bournemouth. We played so many places we've never been before. Really cool places, and we were really happy to be able to go and check them all out!

OS: What's it like when you turn up at a place like Newcastle? Fair enough there were only thirty kids there, but they were thirty kids who were so into it!
Kyle: Right. You can't judge a show by how many people turn up.
OS: No, definitely not.
Kyle: Because, Newcastle, I can honestly say I would put it up in the "upper" shows on this tour. There was 30 kids there, but they were all having a good time, and all singing along and having fun, and we had fun.
Chris: And we had never played anywhere close to there, honestly.
OS: That's the thing with Newcastle. It's such a strange place because it's between... it's like technically the only place between Glasgow and Leeds, so it's quite easy to miss out on tours.
Kyle: Yeah it's cool. I talked to some kids there, they were saying that they were sorry there weren't more people there. I´m like "you don't have to apologise!" - you know what I mean!? This is great. I'm glad anyone's here. They were just saying like, they listen to a few bands, and it's always the same, like thirty, thirty-forty people at every show. But that's awesome. I wish I could say there was the same 300 people at every show. You know what I mean?
Chris: Sometimes, you know, it´s not the amount of people that makes the show. Like, we've played shows in front of 1000 people, and it was like, super awkward. And we've played shows in front of like, fifty kids, and they're all going crazy, and it´s awesome.

OS: What is it you like about coming to the UK?
Kyle: Everyone is so great. Everyone´s so nice.
Chris: You´re all so free-spirited.
Kyle: It´s just a little more relaxed.
Chris: More excited about music in general.
Kyle: Show-wise, everyone's more excited and there's more energy. People... I dunno. I just feel like everyone here is just so cool. Everyone's just down for a good time and down to hang out.

OS: That's what I like about this tour. It's kind of... DIY's not the right phrase, but it's kind of like, you're turning up to things and you're crashing at strangers houses. I like that romanticised version of touring.
Kyle: It's almost like we're doing a more real tour. We're on a more personal level. We're kind of mixing the best of both worlds. Sure, we're playing some Academy shows, but we're playing the small bar rooms, and we're still all hanging out and having a good time. It's cool. I don't think we ever would, but if this band ever got to a point where we had a tour where we were actually not enjoying ourselves, we wouldn't do it - you know what I mean? We honestly have a blast, not just playing but just hanging out. That's why we take bands like Make Do and Mend and Save Your Breath on tour. They´re great guys, they do it for the right reasons. We're hanging out and we have fun with them.

OS: You've brought Make Do and Mend over, but they might not necessarily look like a band that you would  pair together with yourselves. Obviously you two have toured together in the States, but they seem to be a bit more part of this hardcore 'wave', whilst you guys are more associated with New Found Glory, Four Year Strong, those kinds of bands.
Chris: I think when it comes down to it, labels, it's just kind of dumb. They pigeon-hole bands. I mean Make Do and Mend put out one of my favourite records of last year and I think they're a swell band. I definitely listen to more bands like them than I do to New Found Glory or whoever. It doesn't matter. They come from the same background and are definitely around for the same reasons.
Kyle: That's how we became friends with bands like Make Do and Mend. We played shows together. We grew up listening to the same music and going to the same shows. Everything is so specific, and almost clinical now. Bands themselves are like that. Everyone has this association with "this kind of sound"  and "this kind of sound" and if you actually stripped down these labels and looked at everything from a grown-man view, us and Make Do and Mend sound pretty similar. We´re in the same vein of music. More "driving rock". Now it needs to be broken down further. It's like "Oh, Make Do and Mend's a little more post hardcore-aggressive".
OS: That's the thing. A lot of the labels don't make any sense. What does 'post-hardcore' even mean?!
Kyle: Another question we get a lot of is the whole "pop-punk revival thing" and to us, we just wrote music!
Chris: What is pop punk? Because The Ramones and Screeching Weasel are considered pop-punk. It's such a huge, huge, music genre. If we said "oh we're a pop-punk band like Screeching Weasel", they'd be offended.
OS: And at the same time, bands like All Time Low and Mayday Parade are classed as pop-punk, and you don't sound anything like them.
Kyle: We just call ourselves a rock band. I don't get this whole thing - I'm glad you asked - but this whole thing always just makes my head hurt. People in bands now are like, "I don't want to be associated with this" because of the labels.
OS: It's like the whole "emo" thing all over again.
Kyle: It really is! I don´t think people realise - I mean, not that we don´t like this type of music - but we don't listen to it. We don't get in the van and blast Four Year Strong or Set Your Goals. We don't do that. Those bands are great and they're friends of ours. We think they´re great bands but we listen to them as much as we listen to Make Do and Mend, bands in that realm, because to us it's dumb that anyone even places different names on these scenes. Realistically, we're all friends and everyone´s in the same mindset and doing the same thing for the same reason. So I think if anything, people need to stop with that because it's going to start really breaking things down. It's going to be really obnoxious.

OS: I love this tour, purely because you are three totally different bands. I love watching Make Do and Mend, but that's a totally different experience to watching you play. Yet, you both give incredible performances. It worries me a little bit that people are far too cliquey.
Kyle: When I was younger, my first show I ever went to was H2O, Saves The Day and Kill Your Idols, and Kill Your Idols came on, totally fast hardcore and I was like "okay". Saves The Day came on, and as a kid - I was about 13 - I was confused. I was like "wait... what!?". And then H2O came up and every band was talking on stage, like "oh, we wanna thank this band... such amazing dudes"- they were on stage for each other singing along and hanging out and having fun, and that´s when I actually realised that these people are all doing the same thing, just a little bit differently. It doesn't change much though.
Chris: That's just how shows used to be, though. It was like a hotch-potch of bands. Three bands that sounded like completely different styles. Different, but kind of under the same realm of why they´re here and where they come from. It makes the show more interesting when not every band sounds the same.

OS: You're going to release your second album in May. What can you tell me about that?
Chris: It'll change your life!
Kyle: I think it's just really real. It's really what our band wanted to do. Songs came naturally, we just kind of wrote them and were stoked on them. And then we recorded them and we got even more stoked on them. We spent a lot of time in the studio just pushing every song to its absolute limit. We really had time to just break down each song, knowing what to do and compared to the last record that's a world of difference. On the last record it was like "here are the songs, let's record them as fast as we can! Come on, come on!", and we didn't actually get to record all the songs we wanted to for the last record. We recorded the last record in like, ten days. This one was more like five weeks. So the difference I think is going to be quite pronounced. Hopefully you'll be able to tell the difference between our rushed album and the time well spent record.
OS: Well, you'd never really guess the first album was rushed.
Kyle: Oh, thank you.
Chris: Thank you.
OS: It is incredible, and all the songs are ridiculously catchy. Are you still pushing the whole catchy element? I mean, I almost hate saying that songs are catchy because it's almost become a negative thing.
Kyle: No, we love pop music.
Chris: I think that´s always been a thing as well. Catchy choruses. We try to do catchy stuff. Yeah. 

OS: Yet, the songs are still so... real, for want of a better word.
Chris: I think we definitely take a lot of pride in our lyrics as well as our music, and I think that's probably something that goes hand in hand.
Kyle: Why can't bands make rock music that's equally catchy as it is real, and meaningful. Because that's the songs I credit for making me who I am today. The Replacements, that kind of stuff. All that stuff is catchy as hell. It's definitely considered pop-rock music. It has a pop element to it, but it's equal parts as real life as it is catchy. People think pop and they think Katy Perry. Sure, that is pop music on the radio - The Beatles were like a pop-rock band, The Beach Boys were a pop-rock band. I think people get kind of afraid of that term, too, you know, going back to labels. The Fireworks motto has always just been to write rock music we like and make it equal parts catchy and fun.

OS: Why is it called 'Gospel'?
Kyle: Gospel's always been a thing that people have used and sung to help them get through a rough time, so that's part of this record for us. Really, as shitty as stuff has been and could have been for us for the past year or two since the last record... touring and stuff, it´s really kind of been broken. We've just been having a rough time in general, and that record is what we basically released... that´s the payoff for us. That's our gospel.

OS: A lot of bands find that second album is the difficult one, I guess because the first album is the culmination of your life up until you're a band, and then your second album is your life onwards in the band, to the next album. When you're on the road and if everything is plain sailing - which it normally isn't - you might not necessarily have anything to write about.
Kyle: The first EP we wrote, some of the songs on there are literally like melody wise at least, and riff wise, songs Dave maybe even wrote when he was 16 years old. For real. And that was just that time. The year before it and like everything leading up to it was that EP. The full-length, was basically any random thing we could get our hands on. For us, the full-length was the harder one. And then this record, because we did get a decent amount of time at home; we were on the road a lot, but we had about two years between records really. So, one year we were definitely gone nine months - we were gone a lot. Then the next year, we were gone still an amount, but we were home like a month here, a month there, two months. We were only gone about six months in total that second year. I agree with you completely, because a lot of times I'll write lyrics and I'll be like "I can't really do this on tour". Being home and being around the things that influence me personally help me along. So yeah, I do get worried about that aspect. On the road, you can still get a good viewpoint of your life and where you´re at and where your relationships are with people are at and where your connection with the outside world is at to write about. You don´t necessarily need to sit down and think "I'm on tour, I guess I should write about this gas station and this van." The answer to your question I guess is that for us, the second record was actually easier.
Chris: Yeah. I think it was easier. I definitely understand why there's a lot of pressure - especially if your first record did well - that there's a lot of pressure to top that or at least make something that's as good and keep going. I think this record just came to us - more so than the other one. Maybe some people won't like it but I think personally it's a more well thought out record. It just came to us. It wasn't super easy, but the pressure of making this second album that's way bigger, wasn't there. We just wanted to make a good record.
Kyle: This wasn't make or break for us. The reason we started this band was to write songs with each other and have fun. It was a therapeutic thing for us really. For all it is having fun that we get to write music, and even playing it live, it's all very therapeutic and we really feet that is what makes good records. That's what people like about your band and what they gather from your songs, so why struggle to try and change something, and try to sound a certain way. You should just be natural, and if you lose people in the process - oh well, but I think there are people that grow with you, and to me, a few people growing with us as a band is better than writing some random crap that anyone can like, because I'd look back on that and say it sucks.
OS: It's just the idea of honesty.
Kyle: Right, yeah. And I can honestly say that I think most records that are good and I love, you can tell the people were straight up being honest. They were just writing the songs they wanted to write, writing the lyrics they wanted to write, and that's how it ended up being good.
OS: And then at least no one can turn round and say "well, you fucked up on that, didn't you...", because you've got the right to say "at least I was honest about it."
Kyle: Exactly. You say "well I wrote exactly what I wanted to write so I'm not really concerned about it."
Chris: Even if there's some things that we write that we feel differently down the road about, you know, that's what we felt then. There's a story line, you know? I mean, the past still happened, regardless of how you feel now.

OS: What are the plans for the rest of the year? Do you think you'll be coming back to the UK at all?
Chris: Yes. I do think we'll be coming back. I can't say when, but we definitely want to come over again. I mean, there´s festivals coming up, there´s always support tours going. We're still trying to figure out our year.

'Gospel' is available now on Triple Crown Records.