Saves The Day have been one of the most influential bands in their genre, but do they still feel connected with music the way they did eight years ago? Organised Sound sat down with them before their headlining show in Newcastle to find out about their new album ‘Daybreak’ and the efforts it has taken to get them to where they are today.

Organised Sound: So to start off, you played a show in Milton Keynes last night. How did that go for you?
Chris Conley (Vocals and guitar): Yeah, it was a great gig. We played a small room behind a pub…Maybe it was attached to the pub? But yeah, there was a good turn out! A bunch of people seemed super excited the songs. It was a blast! It was a total punk rock show. It was a little bit different to shows in the US.
OS: I think perhaps the difference in crowd plays a large role. It seems that Americans grew up surrounded by you, whereas in England, that perhaps wasn’t the case.
CC: Yeah, I mean we haven’t really been here consistently…But we’re trying to change that. We really want to be able to play overseas more so we can continue touring more frequently. There are only so many times you can tour the states before you have to wait for new material.
OS: Do you prefer the smaller “punk rock” shows to the larger shows? CC: I do! I prefer the smaller venues as I feel you can really feel the energy from the audience – it’s more intimate. It’s kinda like we’re all doing it together.
Arun Bali (Guitar): I’d say the same thing. I think the word ‘intimate’ gets thrown around as a cliché but it really is true having someone so close that I can see the expression on their face, or have the ability to reach out and touch someone, is a huge difference to if there’s a large barrier eye level with you.

OS: Would you prefer the larger venues for sing-alongs though?
CC: I love it when people sing along, but it’s cool that even last night people were singing along. It was just great coming from such a small room.
OS: How do you feel about your shows over here in comparison to the shows you’ll be playing with Yellowcard?
CC: I think the only difference is that we play longer when we headline whereas it’s only forty-five minutes with Yellowcard. I mean we’d like to be able to play longer but going up onstage is relatively the same. I suppose there will be more people for the Yellowcard shows so that’ll be different and it’ll be cool to play bigger places too. Really, we just enjoy getting up there to play music.
OS: ‘Stay What You Are’ was released over ten years ago now, how does it feel playing songs from that album, or even that era, alongside songs such as those of Daybreak?
CC: Y’know I really like it actually ‘cause the songs sort of change over time, like the meaning is evolving constantly. So a song like ‘Cars and Calories’ seems like it should have been written in this modern world because it’s all about the “over image obsessed” culture and that seems so true now and at the time it wasn’t as true, in the States. It wasn’t like celebrity worship was so big when I wrote the song so that’s kind of cool and interesting. But no matter what, the songs are always comfortable to play ‘cause I feel like they were true when I wrote them and so there’s nothing superficial about it. It doesn’t feel like hollow and I enjoy feeling how the words mean new things as they grow. So I love it, I love playing the old stuff. Even older than that, even the first album to me is true for what it was at the time. So those lyrics still resonate. I dunno, it’s fun.

OS:Do you think any of the newer material is just as well received? There are several upcoming bands at the moment, such as Balance and Composure - who you’ve just announced a December New Jersey show with – who are seemingly so inspired by that album, according to the Internet.
CC: Well I know there’s a phenomenon where people latch onto the music that they hear as they’re going through their formative years and really becoming themselves and that music will always mean the most to them. But the new music is just as real and from my point of view, when we were going through those albums – changing from album to album, what I remember is that people would say “Oh, it doesn’t sound like the last album” and then five years later, it’s their favourite thing that they’ve ever heard. But at the time, they were complaining about it. So I have to remember that sometimes and I have a five-year rule where I try desperately not to care. It’s impossible not to care but I try desperately not to care about people’s reactions for five years after an album is put out and then I wait to see. Because I mean, when we put out ‘In Reverie’ – that’s an album I’m really proud of – it was different enough for people to be put off by it at first, like a large amount of our fan base was. Now, we get people saying that it’s one of the better albums so we just sort of wait for it. The album after that, ‘Sound The Alarm’…
OS: Which is probably your darkest album…
CC: Yeah! People were like “Wow, you’re so angry” and I’d say “I’m just being honest” and then five years later, sure enough, people love it and they react to it the same as they will for other songs. One of the songs which is getting one of the best reactions here, overseas, is a song from ‘In Reverie’, people jump around and sing and dance and stuff, so that’s cool. So I have to trust the five-year rule because I am affected by people’s opinions because I am just human.
AB: I’d also like to say that I think we’ve been lucky in that a strong group of our fans have kind of changed with the albums, which has been essential in sustaining us. We’re just human beings who put so much into every album and there is kind of a relationship between the artist and the audience and that has to be sustained, or understood. We’ve been very fortunate that there has been a core group of people that have loved every album and when the sound changed or when a new chapter came about in a record, that’s where they were at in their life. It’s pretty cool.
CC: That’s like a lifeline. We gotta hold onto that.

OS: Definitely. So with ‘Daybreak’ being the end of the trilogy (Including ‘Sound the Alarm’ in 2006 and ‘Under the Boards’ in 2007), do you feel that with each album being different, you have accomplished what you set out to in the beginning?
CC: Yeah, definitely. It was quite ambitious as a project but it was something I needed to do for myself, to pull myself out of that dark place. What I do to cope with things is I write lyrics and music and that is just how I do my thing. So fortunately, I let it all out that way before I have a chance to think about what I’m doing because I’m just writing it, singing it, recording it. Then people start to react to it and I realise it’s something that is out there in the public and there’s very little self-awareness as I’m creating the music. So thinking about it now that it’s all finished and people are hearing it and responding to it, I’m really happy that it came out the way that it did because I feel like some of our fans have been in that place, that dark place, too and are sort of ‘at odds’ with their surroundings. Whether it’s the culture they’re coming from, or a difficult time with their peers or their family or something; they sort of needed to get out of that place too or it was just gonna be an angry life forever! That’s what I realise, the world is what it is. It might change and it might not. But sure enough, if I’m angry about it, I’m gonna be angry about it for the rest of my life. We have so little control over the bigger evolution of the world, the larger scope of humanity, is what it is. I was so angry about it so I needed to get myself to a place where I could live here. Live in the world and not just be totally angry. I think for some of our fans, they really needed that too so I’m thankful that the trilogy turned out the way that it did and I think our core group of fans are finding that it’s sort of a relief to hear what’s on the other side of that war with yourself, or the world.

OS: With the headline London show earlier this year, did the crowd’s reaction come as a surprise? The length of the setlist surprised us more than anything!
CC: That’s true; we played like thirty songs or something! It’s up there with one of the longest sets we’ve ever done in the history of the band.
OS: Did you feel it was necessary to play such a long set? CC: Yeah, having a special headlining show in London after having not played the UK in seven years meant it was important for us to try and play as much as we thought we could and we were definitely pleasantly surprised with the crowd response and I still talk about it in interviews as being the best show that I’ve ever played and that’s the huge reason why we’re here – back in the UK, touring the whole country and that was a relief for us, feeling that excitement from the fans.
OS: The whole time we were thinking the crowd was one of the craziest we’ve ever seen. Everybody sang every single word. It wasn’t even just the well-known songs; people went crazy for the songs off Daybreak that they would have been hearing for the first time. CC: It was nuts, yeah! So cool. I think I definitely needed that. Playing the states for so many years, sometimes you lose perspective. The scene of music is all about the leading trends because it’s much more about consumerism and the fans are just trained to like the new “fresh” music. Over here, it seems that people just appreciate good songs from bands that play with their hearts. So that was a turning point for me, that London show. I started to realise there was a much deeper connection over here between the fans and the band so that’s why we’re here! Hopefully we can make this our second home.

OS: I’m sure the UK will be fine with that! So where does it go from here? Are you going to constantly tour ‘Daybreak’ or are you going to begin producing another record?
CC: After this tour, we go home for the holidays and then we’re gonna try and plan a tour in the spring which we can’t talk too much about because it isn’t set in stone. Then we’re going to do another tour in the states and then hopefully in the summer, we’ll come back for the festival season. Then maybe we’ll get offered a tour with the Foo Fighters (jokingly laughs)! Nudge nudge wink wink. We’ll have to get the word out there. We’re perpetually waiting by that phone. Then, just onward and upward as we’ll hopefully start working on new material in earnest, by next fall. Maybe we’ll even record a new album in the winter. I feel like the first decade of the band was tumultuous and now I feel like we’re standing on firm ground and we’re ready to go so we can just continue to make new music more frequently. Hopefully we’ll be back around once or twice a year.
OS: That’s good to hear! Hopefully we’ll see a lot more of you.
CC: Yeah, hopefully we’ll be back over! All these good bands are coming over at the moment; The Swellers, Against Me!, Balance and Composure, Hostage Calm, I am the Avalanche. All of our friends are here!