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For their first trip to the UK, most American bands tend to play it safe, stick with a comfortable spot playing a few sold out rooms, on a friendly act's tour. However, when it was announced that Emarosa would take on the challenge of opening for You Me At Six's sold out UK run, you could say it came as a bit of a shock. However, the band - who never really did anything the easy way - simply plunged into the deep end, playing to a few thousand people a night as though they were tiny clubs. The real definition of do or die.

As a stunning band, hailing from Kentucky, the sextet took this trip as an opportunity to start over; introducing audiences nationwide to a new band, that feels like it could only ever have been fronted by the strangely enigmatic Jonny Craig. Long gone from their past, and the criticisms they had previously faced in the US, they were embraced into open arms by fans, old and new, convinced and persuaded. Watching their final set wrap up in London's Roundhouse, and the front man throw himself among the crowd, you can't help but wonder if they've found themselves a home away from home.

We were lucky enough to get an exclusive interview with the band to talk about everything from lookalike competitions, to the currently troubled US scene, and how the band have dealt with the major hurdles they've faced in the past year and a half.

OS: This is your first trip to the UK. What were you thoughts as you looked forward to coming over?
Jordan Stewart [keyboards]: Well, it was his [ER White, guitar] first flight, so he was thinking, "don't die."
Jonny Craig [vocals]: I was thinking, "I can't wait to get a snakebite."
Jordan: He's been wanting a snakebite. .. We were pretty excited to come, but we didn't expect the tour to be this awesome.
Jonas Ladekjaer [guitar]: For us, at least.

OS: Did you expect these shows to be so big?
Jordan: We had heard, but...
Will Sowers [bass]: We expected it to be big, but we didn't expect for us to get this kind of reaction, since it's our first time in the UK.

OS: As you stepped onto the stage in Bristol on the first night, what was going through your mind?
Lukas Koszewski [Drums]: "Wow, we haven't slept in fourty-eight hours, I hope this goes well."
Jordan: "We don't know any of this gear! It's all brand new and we've had twenty minutes to set up. We haven't slept. Just got off a plane. Wow, these people talk funny." But, it was good!
Will: It was a crapload of people.
Jordan: Then, the second night, everything kinda came together and we had our time, got some sleep. Then we had American night and it was awesome.

OS: I heard about American night! [After the show at Birmingham Academy, there was apparently an American-themed club night, at which Emarosa found themselves right at home]
Jordan: Yeah! There was an American lookalike contest and he [Jonas] entered.
Jonny: He won something.
Jordan: Did he? No, he lost.

OS: So, how have you found the actual tour so far?
Jordan: Awesome.
Jonny: It's amazing.
Jordan: The best tour we've ever done. We wanna come back tomorrow... well, we are but...
Will: We wanna go away, but then we'll come back!
OS: Punktastic.com have already started posting rumours about your next tour over here.
Will: Yes, I like that!
Jonas: It's insane. I've never experienced anything like this.
Jordan: The kids are just... beyond cool.
Will: People are excited about music.
Jordan: And they're open.

OS: Jonny talks about that a lot on stage, about loving music and respecting it. How important is that to you as a band?
Jordan: It's extremely important.
Jonas: It's all we care about.
Lukas: In the States there's a huge craze right now, if you weren't heavy, kids didn't care. We get thrown in that heavy category a lot, but kids are like, "if you don't play a breakdown, we don't care about you." But here, everyone just wants to watch music.

OS: I mean, you came from pretty heavy origins anyway, with Corsets Are Cages..
Group: Ooooh!
Will: You don't wanna bring thaat up.
Jonas: Can I just say that that was before my time as well.
Jonny: Me too!

OS: Well, how do you feel about it being Jonny's arrival that 'marks the end of the era'?
Lukas: We really don't care, as long as it's gone.
Jonas: The strongest way we could possibly mark it was by bringing in the most opposite and strongest [vocalist] to what we had had.
Will: We had been a band very little time when we had written that record, and we were just immature as musicians and writers at that time.

OS: And you were so young then, because it was around high school time.
Will: Yeah, it was where we were at the time musically and we're just glad that we've progressed from it in the short time that we have had.

OS: It is refreshing to be in a new country, where people aren't necessarily aware of your history; almost being able to make a new name for yourselves?
Jordan: Oh yeah. We wanted a fresh start. We were a band July 8th when ''Relativity'' came out.. Or was it June? July?
Jonas: We wanted to be represented as Emarosa with ''Relativity''. We don't want people to look back and go, "Oh they were Corsets Are Cages once" you know?
Jordan: We were growing, and for some reason we were growing in the public spotlight, which kinda hurt us. I mean, it didn't hurt us, but, we needed time to grow. We hadn't gotten to where we wanted yet, and it hurt.

OS: I guess, traditionally, most musicians would have their bands in high school etc, then leave to start new projects. You just stayed closer to the original formation?
Jordan: Yeah, but all of that was kinda in the public light.

OS: There is quite a lot of controversy over it all though. How does it feel to have kids come up at shows in the US, wishing that you were that old band again?
[Lukas punches his hand with some aggression... I'm not entirely sure how else to describe his action. The group laugh.]
Will: No, but, it's okay because that was us at the time.
Jordan: We still like the songs.
Will: I mean, we wrote the songs.
Jordan: They're not 'us' anymore.
Jonas: I was a fan before I joined the band, so when I came out to see them, it was those songs they played and those were the songs I wanted to hear so, I don't really mind. I prefer to play the new stuff obviously. It's what we are now, with Jonny.

OS: Have you ever played the older songs with Jonny on vocals?
Jordan: Yeah, we've played two of them. We might actually do a one tomorrow [at their first UK headline show in Leeds]. We've seen the videos up from when we've done then, but it's not the strongest way to utilise his talents or our talents.
Will: We have 'Relativity', we don't have anything else so that's what we are as a band today.

OS: How did you go about picking your setlist for this tour?
Jordan: We didn't even have any time to do that!
Jonny: It was the same set that we've been playing in the States.
Jordan: Yeah, the same set we've played recently in the States. It works, and we had no time. We've been on such non-stop touring that we don't really have time to go home to practice new songs and get them ready.
Will: We picked the songs that we have most fun playing live.
Jordan: Yeah, we picked energy. We picked songs that, even if you don't know them, you can still have some fun feeding off the energy.

OS: You recently toured in the US with Funeral For A Friend and The Sleeping. How was that?
Jordan: It was good!
Lukas: Yeah, we made good friends with them, which was really cool.
Jordan: We definitely started to see the result of our touring.
Jonny: We fucking killed it! We set it off....
Jordan: Ohhhh [shakes head]
Jonas: No, it was awesome. We were really excited to be taken out by Funeral, because it's a band that I think most of us listened to when we first got into harder music.
Jordan: Yeah, we bugged them about playing old songs all the time.
Jonas: And they ended up doing it too! The last two shows they played our favourite song.
OS: What's your favourite song of theirs?
Jonas: 'Red Is The New Black'.
Jordan: A longgg time ago.
Jonas: Played the song and dedicated it to us..
Jordan: But I guarantee you, when I was a freshman and I bought that CD, I never thought I'd go on tour with Funeral For A Friend. It was pretty awesome.
Will: And they're amazing people; it was great to share a stage with them every night.

OS: Were there are particular members that you got along with especially well?
Jordan: Ryan!
Jonas: Ryan, the drummer, was really good to us.
Jordan: Matt [Davies], the singer. The crew!
Jonas: Yeah, they were all great. We got really close to the crew.

OS: Going back to 'Relativity', there's obviously a huge transition musically between this and your last record [This Is Your Way Out]. Would you pin that down to the fact there was such a big change in the line up?
Jordan: No, we wanted there to be the change. It wasn't like .. It had kinda happened but it was more like we wanted..
Will: Jonny joined the band at the exact same time as we were changing that direction.
OS: Did you find that he had become a catalyst for that change?
Lukas: Jonny and Jonas. The thing is, Jonas came in first and we started writing more melodic stuff, which helped Jonny. Then when Jonny came in, we evolved further and said, you know, "with a good vocalist, what could he sing over?" We're still working on that, you know? We've added two new members and had to write an entire album.
Jordan: We had just a few months to write the album, so definitely on the next album, it'll show that we've been together longer.
Jonas: When I joined the band, that change was already happening.
Jordan: Yeah, ER had already written three or four songs.
Jonas: The stuff that they were writing is what is on 'Relativity' now. 'Set It Off Like Napalm', 'What's A Clock Without The Batteries?', 'Pretend. Release. The Close' were all pretty much done when I joined the band.

OS: In that respect, was it frustrating to have fans question the change since it was actually a more natural progression to begin with?
Will: I mean, we understood where they were coming from..
Jordan: But, we were gonna do it regardless.
Jonny: We said, "Suck it up. Rough it out."
Jordan: As well, we knew it was gonna be rough. We didn't think, "oh yeah! Everyone's gonna love it." We knew we were gonna have the naysayers, but we didn't care because this is the music we wanted to make.
Will: We knew we could prove to them.
Jordan: And a lot of them are coming back to see the live show; coming back and saying, "I'm sorry I left".
Will: A lot of the people that left, after they finally got over the change and gave the album a listen, apologised.
Lukas: This is why Jonny likes to say respect music: for some of the old fans that come to the show, whether you like the old stuff or the new stuff, respect it.

OS: There does seem to be so many genre divides and scene politics at the minute that produce a lack of respect for music. Yet, if you look at tonight's line up [also featuring You Me At Six and The Spill Canvas] each band is completely different, yet it still manages to work.
Jonas: But that has a lot to do with the UK too. The kids are, I forgot who said it, but they're so open to music, it's amazing.

OS: Would you say that that was the main difference between UK and US crowds?
Jonas: Yeah, definitely.
Will: Kids in the States have an idea of what they like
Jordan: They'll go to a show and talk through the other bands without watching them.
Will: And here people just watch your set and keep an open mind. That's the most important thing in the world to us. They have fun.

OS: In a scene that does have such negative views and stigmas, how do you stay positive enough to continue with your music?
Jonas: We're probably making it sound worse than it actually is.
Jordan: Yeah, they're still good!
OS: But, there must be days where you really wonder why you're still trying?
Will: There are. There are definitely the days: I mean, there's been tours that have been like that.
Jordan: But, there's awesome days too.
Will: I think most of the time we know we can push through. We know what we're capable of, we know what we love to do. This is what we love to do, and what we want to do.
Jonas: It's nice to have just a couple of kids that appreciate it.

OS: On a different note, 'The Past Should Stay Dead' is a particularly powerful song on the album. How did that song come about?
Jordan: Which part? [laughs] That song, pretty much, it was the last song we wrote before we went into the studio. We actually wrote one in the studio. But the whole time we were struggling with how to start off the album. We knew we just wanted it to start! [clicks fingers] We didn't want to put an intro, we didn't wanna do some electronics, which were kinda getting popular in the States. We just wanted you to put the CD in, and it goes. I mean, it definitely has that effect at the start.
Will: It kinda knocks you back a little bit.
Jordan: It's got a good feel to it.. It's got every piece of a song.
Jonas: That was the only song that was written with a specific purpose on the CD. We needed an opener.
Jordan: You know, we had ideas for other songs to keep variety, but at the end of the day, we needed an opening song. That was the important one to us and it came fairly easy.

OS: So it wasn't difficult to write?
Jonas: It just felt natural.
Jordan: Towards the end of the writing process, things sped up and became a lot easier.
Jonas: We got a lot more comfortable with each other and the new sound.
Jordan: Yeah, we had to figure it out, for us. Jonny had the idea of starting it with him, went into the studio and did it. And we loved it.

OS: Where do you draw inspiration from in regards to writing lyrics?
Jonny: It depends what song it is really. I really just go off the feeling that the song gives me and mash it up with things that are happening in my life.

OS: What are you favourite songs from the album?
Jonny: My favourite songs would probably be two songs that we don't play. It's 'A City Called Coma' and 'I Still Feel Her'. They're my favourite songs. Hopefully one day we'll play them.
Jordan: We just haven't had time. We don't wanna play a song and have it not be up to its full potential. We don't wanna play a song and be like, "That was sloppy, but let's do it." We wanna execute it right. We just haven't had time! We've just not been home. We finished recording, released it and have been on the road ever since.

OS: Does the constant routine of touring ever take it's toll?
Lukas: It can be tough, but like we said, on this past tour with Funeral For A Friend, we saw results. That just keeps us going.
Jordan: It's a lot different touring in the States, there's a lot more downtime.
Jonas: Longer drives!

OS: Has it been nice to have drives that are so much shorter, in the UK?
Jonas: Yeah, and we have a driver! [laughs]
Jordan: It's weird.
OS: Do you take turns driving in the States?
Jordan: Oh yeah, we drive in the States. It saves money.

OS: Finally, what have you got planned for the future?
Jordan: Non stop touring!

OS: and back to the UK?
Jordan: That's the first thing that I'm doing as soon as I get home! To all our agents and everyone, we're saying, "Alright, let's find the money and let's go back." Basically with 'Relativity', we didn't make any money off it, because we got our cheques and said, "We're going to the UK." And we're here! And now we just wanna come back..

Emarosa look set to return to the UK in September alongside Funeral For A Friend and Thursday. Stay tuned for confirmation!