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Bayside<\/strong> are an emo juggernaut, not afraid to experiment or reinvent their sound. With 14 years of touring and six albums under their belt, it\u2019s an understatement to say that they\u2019ve continued to thrive while over bands have risen to the top only to burn out.<\/p>\n Sixth album,\u00a0\u2018Cult\u2019,<\/em> saw its UK release in February of this year, and has been met with an\u00a0overwhelmingly response from critics and fans alike. Refining their unique sound and pessimistic\u00a0lyrics to a perfect point, \u2018Cult\u2019<\/em> summarises the band\u2019s work to date, while continuing to push their\u00a0sound forward.<\/p>\n We caught up with lead vocalist Anthony Raneri at the London date of their extensive EU tour for a brief chat about new album \u2018Cult\u2019<\/em>, signing to Hopeless Records<\/strong> and trying to win over A Day To Remember\u2019s fans…<\/p>\n Already Heard: So you\u2019re coming to the end of the UK leg of the EU tour, how\u2019s it been going so far? Already Heard: And this is the second time you\u2019ve toured with Alkaline Trio in 18 months (they previously embarked on the same tour in the US), what made you decide to bring the tour over? Already Heard: Aside from a support stint with A Day to Remember in 2011, you haven\u2019t really toured the UK since 2008 – would you say your fanbase has grown since then? How has it evolved? Already Heard: Was it challenging? Already Heard: You have quite a cult following, which you\u2019ve already acknowledged with the album title \u2018Cult\u2019\u00a0<\/em>and it\u2019s bird logo cover, what do you think makes your fans so passionate about you? Already Heard: What\u2019s the best part of being a cult leader? Already Heard: You\u2019re really famous for your cutting, cynical lyrics, would you say with the new album you\u2019re acknowledging this with songs like \u2018Stuttering\u2019<\/em> and \u2018Hate Me\u2019<\/em>? Do you play with that status? Already Heard: But on the flipside of that you\u2019ve got \u2018Transitive Property\u2019,<\/em> which is your most romantic heartfelt song yet; was it nice to try something different?<\/strong><\/p>\n Anthony: Yeah it was so nice. It\u2019s really cool to do it, and that\u2019s the perfect example of how cool it is to have the fans we have because that\u2019s so outside the box of what Bayside does and it\u2019s one of the most popular songs on the record. It\u2019s cool for me because when I write the next record, I know I can take chances like that because the fans are going to be there for me. <\/em><\/p>\n Already Head: On \u2018Stuttering\u2019<\/em> you also mention “making cash for heartless fucking crooks who prey on all your failures”<\/em> \u2013 is this a dig at the music industry in general or something more personal? Already Heard: You signed to Hopeless Records \u2013 Already Heard: What made you choose them? You obviously trust them. Already Heard: So what\u2019s next for Bayside? Already Heard: Any final thoughts? ‘Cult’<\/i> by Bayside<\/b> is out now on Hopeless Records<\/b><\/p>\n Bayside<\/strong> links: Facebook<\/a>|Website<\/a>|Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n Words by Jay Sullivan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bayside are an emo juggernaut, not afraid to experiment or reinvent their sound. With 14 years of touring and six albums under their belt, it\u2019s an understatement to say that they\u2019ve continued to thrive while over bands have risen to the top only to burn out. Sixth album,\u00a0\u2018Cult\u2019, saw its UK release in February of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,8181],"tags":[62,10145,3152,5769,246,5878],"class_list":["post-22983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-post","tag-already-heard","tag-anthony-raneri","tag-bayside","tag-cult","tag-hopeless-records","tag-interviews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
<\/strong>Anthony: Ahh it\u2019s been awesome, it\u2019s definitely been our most successful UK tour for sure.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>Anthony: They asked us! They were coming over and I think this is their first tour here since the new record came out<\/em>, they\u2019re still on their cycle and our record just came out a couple of months ago so we needed to get over here to help support the record. They\u2019re a great band for us to support, there\u2019s not a lot of bands that really work for us to support, not a lot of bands that we necessarily fit in with. With them we certainly share a lot of fans, we\u2019ve been compared to them since the beginning, playing for their fans has been great and we feel it works for a lot of people.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>Anthony: It\u2019s been growing. The A Day to Remember tour, while it was cool to play places like Brixton, it didn\u2019t go over very well for us. If Alkaline Trio were the perfect support for us then A Day to Remember were the opposite.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>Anthony: That\u2019s like, a total understatement. It was challenging, it was hard \u2013 for one thing, the kids coming out to the shows listened to heavier music, they don\u2019t listen to our kind of music really and also at that time A Day to Remember were just starting to really break here, so I think the people coming to the show were so excited to see A Day to Remember. I mean with Alkaline Trio, most people have seen them before, but with A Day to Remember they just could not wait another 45 minutes for A Day to Remember to go on.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>Anthony: I think it\u2019s our honesty in our lyrics and in our music too. We like to try new things, we like to stretch the boundaries of punk rock and that isn\u2019t always the best for mass appeal, but it does work for us. We\u2019ve been a band for 14 years, have 6 records out and are at our biggest now, the US tour we just finished a few weeks ago was our biggest ever and it\u2019s cool that even after all these years, we\u2019re still an upward trend.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>Anthony: It\u2019s cool, it\u2019s like I have an extended family \u2013 that\u2019s my favourite part. The fans, I know they trust me and if I try something new on a song or on a record they\u2019re going to come with me and as a songwriter, as a musician \u2013 if you were to ask 10 other songwriters about that, if they could have the comfort of knowing their fans were going to trust them and go wherever they take them then that\u2019s the best thing you could have because everyone is so nervous about losing fans. Once you get there then you\u2019re afraid of losing it.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>Anthony: Definitely, I like to make fun of myself a lot. I try not to take myself to seriously but there\u2019s definitely still a lot in the record touching on the legacy I\u2019ve created for myself, and in some ways, I feel like I\u2019m in a box with the song writing, but then like I said, deep down I know the fans are going to come with me so that\u2019s why it\u2019s stuttering. For instance, in one verse I say about how I\u2019m in a box and I\u2019m trapped in writing a certain kind of song, but in the second verse I say, well, no I\u2019m not – I\u2019m putting that on myself.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>Anthony: That\u2019s sort of a cheeky, sarcastic dig at the music industry in general because the music industry survives on people exploiting others. You have managers and agents and promoters and club owners and record labels and radio stations who are going to squeeze everything they can out of a band because they know the band is going to do it because the band loves what they do. They know those people won\u2019t say \u201cFine! I won\u2019t play anymore shows or make anymore records\u201d, no musician who loves what they do will ever say that. They know that, so they take advantage of that sometimes, there\u2019s definitely good ones, there\u2019s good club promoters and owners, there\u2019s good labels.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>Anthony: Yeah they\u2019re the best.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>Anthony: With Hopeless, where we are in our career, we\u2019re very happy where we are, we\u2019re very comfortable with what we\u2019ve accomplished. If we got bigger that would be cool but that\u2019s not the goal anymore.\u00a0 When we were younger it was all about writing songs that will appeal to people, about opening the biggest shows possible. For instance, we went out with A Day to Remember and there were 5,000 people a night at those shows because we wanted to try to gain new fans. We could go and do that again, we\u2019ve turned down tours that are going to have 5,000 people there because we know that we\u2019re not going to have fun playing to a room of people we don\u2019t fit in with. So we\u2019ve come out on a tour like this, I mean Alkaline Trio are certainly bigger than we are, so we come out to play to 2,000 people instead of 5,000 because we know we can possibly connect with those 2,000 people. So that change of mindset is where we are at this point in our career, and Hopeless is perfect for that because their goal is not like our last label [Wind Up Records], they were pushing for the radio stuff, they wanted songs to be on the radio. They want the band to sell million records, it\u2019s like no \u2013 let\u2019s make a good record, let\u2019s connect with some people, let\u2019s make a few people\u2019s lives better and everything works itself out. We\u2019re big enough, if we got bigger it\u2019d be cool, but we\u2019re big enough.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>Anthony: We’ve got a month off. We\u2019ve got two weeks left on this tour, then we get another month off, then we do the Warped Tour for 6 or 7 weeks. We might come back here again this year.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>Anthony: This has been our most successful trip over here, so it\u2019s cool to know that we\u2019re finally making a little progress. We definitely want to come back here \u00a0more often if the lovely people of England will have us!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n