Beloved St. Louis post-hardcore veteransStory Of The Year will return to Australia later this month for the first time in five years, as part of the stacked Knotfest Australia lineup. When the band arrive, they'll be packing a brand new full-length Tear Me To Pieces (out March 10th on SharpTone) and an insatiable desire to make up for lost time with them. The combination of these two factors, and the current groundswell of fan nostalgia surrounding the 20th anniversary of their landmark debut Page Avenue seems destined to ensure their sets will be among the most memorable of Knotfest Australia.
The band's trademark mix of massive singalong choruses, uplifting perseverence, raw emotion and punk rock energy has long found favour on these shores, since they broke out with Page Avenue with some of their earliest visits living in infamy due to their wild onstage antics. They've been similarly warmly received with every visit, establishing themselves alongside the like of My Chemical Romance, The Used and Taking Back Sunday as mainstays of the early '00s post-hardcore/emo boom.
Fans have grown up together with the incredibly tight-knit group comprised of Dan Marsala (vocals), Ryan Philips (guitar), Josh Wills (drums), and Adam Russell (bass) as they've evolved across a five-album-run featuring Page Avenue (2003), In the Wake of Determination (2005), The Black Swan (2008), The Constant (2010), Wolves (2017), making the release of Tear Me To Pieces and their run on Knotfest Australia, a natural opportunity for both the band and their fans to bask in nostalgia and party like it is 2003.
Ahead of their arrival in Australia, we caught up with Story Of The Year frontman Dan Marsala for a chat about the upcoming release of Tear Me To Pieces, early tour memories, the great emo renaissance, the challenge of being the 'softer' act on Knotfest Australia and how it feels to have survived long enough to see themselves and their contemporaries become part of a nostalgia scene.
Story Of The Year are about to hit Australia as part of the first-ever Knotfest Australia.
How are you feeling about finally hitting these shores again?
"I'm excited. We've been there a bunch of times, but I always love it and it never fails. It's one of our favourite places to go."
Not only are you set to tear up stages on Knotfest, but you’ll be bringing a brand new album with you, Tear Me To Pieces. Can your fans expect to hear any tracks off the new record at Knotfest Australia?
“We don’t know just yet. We’ve been working on the new songs and playing them again. Anytime you have a bunch of new songs, it can take a while to get them down to a point where you feel natural playing them. For the festival, we’ll stick to playing the big songs, playing the hits, but I’m sure we’ll play at least one or two new ones. For the sideshows, we’ll definitely play more of the new record.”
“[Knotfest] is going to be a little bit weird because we’re not the heaviest band on the planet, so we stand out a little bit on that one, so we kind of have to cater to that too.”
You’ve been playing a lot of these nostalgia fuelled shows and festivals of late, I’m curious, what is it like to have reached a point in your career where your music which was once the current thing is now considered to be heritage?
“It’s weird. I don’t remember those 20 years going by so fast. But 20 years have gone by since Page Avenue came out. It’s awesome though because there were some downtimes in the middle years where, you could see that it just, wasn't connecting as much with a lot of people. That our fans were getting older and didn't have time to go to shows and stuff. So it's cool to see this resurgence happening in what's called emo now. Even though I don’t consider us an emo band necessarily. I just think we play rock music. I'm just happy to still be doing it. And I think anything that helps me be able to play music still, I'm down. I love it.”
You just released a new video for the single 2005 which was quite fun to watch. I got to be honest, it reminded me of a pretty special time in my life because I too am of this ‘emo’ era and that video just brought up so many fun memories. Was it a fun project to look through all the archives and revisit these formative years in your career?
“Yeah! Most of it is footage from our old DVD that we put out in 2004 or whatever. But then there's a lot of it that pre-dated that. It was from an EPK video thing that we would give to labels and to bands and stuff when we were just starting out in maybe 2000-ish, you know? John Feldmann from Goldfinger got a lot of that footage, and that’s why he wanted to make our record with us and ended up getting us signed to Maverick, so a lot of that footage is responsible for a lot of our success in this band. So it was really cool to go back and visit it all and Ryan our guitar player actually edited it all. It really is just fun to look back sometimes.”
As a band, you’ve gone through a number of changes in terms of the scale of the band and your label affiliations and touring audiences. Do you feel like you’ve now settled into a sweet spot between the heights of the Page Avenue, Maverick Records era of the band and your more DIY origins?
“I do. We’ve always had that DIY mindset. I grew up loving ‘90s punk rock, and it was in that DIY scene that we came up in. So we did everything for ourselves for years, initially, and so we’ve always kept that idea alive in our brains. When we got onto Maverick, that was under Warner Brothers, so that was a major label and things got kinda crazy for years. So we didn't have to do a whole lot, and our records were still getting pushed like crazy”
“But, then for our third and fourth records, we went back to Epitaph records. And, you know, everybody was like “oh wow, you guys like to work on things yourselves? And you have opinions? Most bands don’t really care about doing any of this!” And I'm like “yeah, we care!” “This is our band. This is our life”. So that's always been something that's in our minds. It is good to have help, but we are not scared to do it all ourselves if we have to.”
Ryan has gone on record as saying that Tear Me To Pieces is going to be a defining moment in your career, do you agree with him?
“I think so. Working with Colin Brittain, who produced the record, was just so awesome. He brought us back to the right mindset and helped steer us in the right direction. He was like, “This is what Story Of The Year, should sound like, at this time.” He's like, don't do this prolonged stuff, really bring the energy back, but still show that you’re progressing as musicians as well”. He did a really good job of balancing that.”
“So yes, I think that this is some of the best work we've done. Hopefully, it is a defining moment for our band, and it solidifies our future for the next 20 years. But you never know. But I know that we're really excited. And there's great energy to the record, and we're happy.”
Now a lot of Australian fans still have fond memories of your first trip down under for the Taste Of Chaos. One of the things that made your performances so memorable on that tour run was the chaos and energy of your live show. To this day people still comment on the guitars being thrown into the air and across these massive arena stages. Is that chaotic energy something that you feel you’ve been able to maintain at this stage of your career? Can we expect more guitars to be thrown at Knotfest?
“That’s the ultimate payoff for writing all the songs and doing all this work. I mean, the recording process is super amazing as well, but the live show is just when you get to have fun with it. Obviously, we like to have a lot of fun and we just run around and act like idiots and try to play our songs at the same time. It’s definitely about putting on a good show and having high energy and having fun.”
“Now, I don't think anybody's thrown a guitar like that in a while. Because yeah, they would throw it across the whole stage, nobody ever dropped a guitar either and they did that for like 300 days a year, you know? And yeah, I haven't seen that in a while, but maybe I can convince them to bring that back. That was cool.”
Looking back at that time period, did you ever think you’d still be in a situation where you and many of your contemporaries were still kicking around making musical contributions and touring together 20 years later?
“I did not ever think that far ahead. In the early days, I would not have ever guessed that 20 years later, we would be sitting here talking about this right now, about a new record and the 20-year anniversary of our first record. When you're in your early 20s, you have no vision that far ahead, you know? I'm super happy that that is how it played out. I always thought that when I was 40 years old, I was going to be like, just some old guy that doesn't rock at all. But no, I'm still the same dumb 16-year-old kid in my brain. I still just want to do exactly the same stuff that I did then. So I'm happy. A lot of bands didn't survive through all the years, and a lot of great bands broke up, but a lot of our friends are still doing it. And it's always great to be able to tour together and see some people you've known for 20 years. It's crazy. It's awesome.”
So how do you feel about being the softer band on the Knotfest Australia lineup?
“Oh wow, tell me how you really feel man! No, I think that it is pretty obvious that we stand out a little bit, but we've never been scared to do that. We have heavier songs, we have not-so-heavy songs and a lot of things in between. So we can kind of put together a set that's going to work either way. And I kinda love to be the weird band on the tour. That's like, we have to prove something and everybody's gonna be like, “on no, they can do it, that's cool.” “I think it's gonna be awesome. And I like challenges. If you just go out and play the same songs to people that you know, are gonna love them, it’s cool but to have to win somebody over again, it’s been a while since we’ve had to do that and I like that challenge.”
Two quick questions before we let you go. The first one is what would your pro wrestling entrance theme be? What song do you want to play every time you enter a room to loudly and proudly announce your arrival?
“Oh man, oh my god! Ahhhh! Oh I got it! Youth Gone Wild by Skid Row!”
That’s a god-tier choice. The combination of those guitars and that huge Sebastian Bach wail, that’ll get people’s attention for sure!
I can’t believe that just popped into my head. That’s really what it would be. Skid Row are one of my favourite bands of all time and Sebastian Bach is one of my favourite singers of all time.
Now, Story Of The Year have to cover Youth Gone Wild, sorry we just spoke it into existence!
“Oh man, we’ve done it at practice but I can’t sing as well as him, so it’s hard.”
If you want to get the Knotfest Australia crowd on your side, that’s how you do it. Open with that!
“That’s actually a great idea!”
One last one before we leave you be, carrying on with the nostalgia theme, what was your MySpace profile song?
“Oh man, it was usually our songs, because, around that time, we were always promoting something. But at some stage, there would likely have been a Taking Back Sunday song on there, or a Bad Religion song or h20 or NOFX or something, because that was my go-to stuff and still is today.”
Story Of The Year will also play three headline shows while in the country performing in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
Listen to Story Of The Year
