From now the anticipation will be high for the return of one of UK’s most successful modern rock bands, YOU ME AT SIX, to Australia. As part of their Truth Decay Tour with special guests Los Angeles-based trio SET IT OFF and Australian alternative outfit BETWEEN YOU & ME.
The Truth Decay Tour will see YOU ME AT SIX play their first Australian headline tour in five years in support of their highly successful eighth studio album, Truth Decay. YOU ME AT SIX have a laundry list of accolades including amassing over half a billion streams across all digital platforms, while also gracing the covers of global magazines and have scored two UK Number 1 albums & 5 x Top 10 records. In the years since their last Australian visit, YOU ME AT SIX have completed multiple sold out tours across UK and Europe, including a massive 2023 European tour alongside The Hunna and supported by Australian pop-punk favourites Yours Truly. Josh Franceschi speaks to Hi Fi Way about the tour.
Congratulations on your new album Truth Decay, you must be really stoked with how it’s resonated with fans?
Yeah, it feels good. I feel like it’s an album that we very much had on our radar was how do we give our fan base a quintessential You Me At Six record. So how do we take everything that we think, or we believe that we are good at doing and how we put it all on one record, which reflects the whole lifespan of the band. We kind of went backwards in terms of the genre that we tapped into and all that sort of stuff, but used all our experience of making a more progressive solidly sounding record of the last two or three to bring that old sound we had and dragging that into the present day. It’s a lot of fun to do. It’s probably the most fun we’ve had as a band making a record for many different reasons, but for a long time it just felt like we’ve gone back to why we all fell in love with being in the band and being in You Me At Six making music.
I was reading some interviews where you said that Sucker Punch might be your last album. What was the catalyst that that changed your mind? Was there quite a bit of soul searching on your part in terms of what you want to do moving forwards?
Honestly, I think it’s because that’s where my head was at and that would be a nice way to leave it. Having gone to Thailand had this amazing experience as a band doing that and then during the release of Sucker Punch we left our management company, we’d been quite unhappy with for a while and we went back to our first managers we ever had. The manager there was like, give me a record and if you still feel the same about the band and the reasons why you want try something else in life or whatever else afterwards, then we can explore that and I’ll help you navigate that next phase of your life as well but give me a You Me At Six record and let’s see what we can do. I think for us it was really important to go home right back to where we know the culture of the company, where we know the people in the building and we trust them inherently and make a record with them. That has been another reason why it’s been such fun for us to do as it felt like a homecoming with all those guys. So yeah, it’s been great. I think the most rewarding thing has been reading comments from our fans about the music where they feel like they got their band back and stuff like that. That was the mission statement of the whole record was how can we give our fans a record that they instantly feel attached to and familiar with if that makes sense.
With Sucker Punch and I guess even on VI we were basically challenging them to join us on this phase of our band. Some did and some didn’t. That’s kind of how it works, I guess when a band puts out a record, especially if you’re trying something a bit different there’s no guarantee that just because those fans have loved your band for X amount of time that they’re going to accept this new sound or this new version of you to be something they want. That’s why Truth Decay was equally important for us to get doing that side of our band right because I felt like if we put out a record that felt like old school You Me At Six but sucks, then that wouldn’t be pretty tough for everybody involved. I feel like we’ve made a really good modern day You Me At Six record. That’s been really great to see the fans being quite vocal about the fact that they thought, oh yeah, they’ve gone back to the old You Me At Six.
As you were working on these songs did you start to have that sense that these were a really special group of songs?
I think the only way that we’ve ever been able to measure that has always been how do us five and Dan the producer feel in the room as we’re making it. If the mission statement is right and if we are not all jumping around the room or not all singing the words after the first time of listening to the song, then it’s probably not that great. Equally, I started sending some stuff to my mates who play in bands, whose opinions I value you and trust and know they give to me straight. If you share something and they go, yeah man, that’s really good, but that’s the end of the conversation, you know that’s them politely trying to swerve having to give too much more feedback than that.
When somebody really dives in the deep end, extracts and pulls apart the song in a good way going in to why they like it or why they think it’s a payoff in this part of the track or what their favourite part is, you get a sense that you know you’re doing something right. There was a combination of things that made us feel like we were doing something that even if our harshest critics, including ourselves, family and friends, were all giving super positive and in-depth feedback that I had the sense that we could be on to something good. I think you know when a band’s not feeling under pressure, you can hear it on a record. We were very much in a comfort zone, but in a really healthy way, not in a complacent way. We felt good in what we were doing and therefore we just were able to enjoy making the record versus drowning and anxiety as to whether anyone was actually going to like it.
How was it collaborating with Lou Reynolds?
It was great. That situation can sometimes be quite difficult actually to land and it altogether in terms of diaries. There’s got to be a significant amount of interest on both sides to make a feature work. We’ve known Rou for a long time, and we had this song which we could hear his ferocity knowing he could elevate it to the next level where we want to take it. I sent it over to him and he loved it. I think we came back with something in twelve hours. He was in the studio himself making his own Shikari record, he took the time out to get this right for us and put something together that would be cool for us. I think in decades to come, I think we’ll look back at this era of British alternative music and British rock music. I think Enter Shikari will be renowned as one of the really important ones, the ones that actually did move the needle and did provoke conversation outside of just a song. They’ve actually got something really quite important to say, they deliver it in in a way that I think is very compelling and earnest. I think they’re a great band.
How, how much are you looking forward to touring Australia?
We’re buzzing! We wanted to come like early in the cycle before the record was finished. We were in here in 2019 Bring Me The Horizon and had a great time. We wanted to be back after Covid as soon as possible. It feels like we’ve been waiting for ages to come and do this tour. The shows are doing really well. We love touring Australia and I think we are lucky enough this is our tenth or eleventh time. It’s pretty rare! It’s pretty extraordinary!. We’re looking forward to coming back.
Interview By Rob Lyon
Catch You Me At Six with Set It Off and Between You & Me on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…
