Any band worth their mettle nowadays knows it is not just about the music anymore. You need to be able to connect with your fans and share your deepest thoughts with them. Our recent discovery Sadderday has found the best way to do this within their punk with a purpose sound.
We caught up with the band to get behind the noise and into their minds. Enjoy the interview:
We know that you went by another name in the past, what prompted the move to Sadderday?
When we started out as By Any Means, we wouldn’t take a lot of things too seriously outside of our actual music. When it came to song names or anything like that, we would come up with jokes or references. Sadderday was an inside joke among our circle of friends where we would use it as a day for us to be drunk and sad one day out of the week. When we started the band, I focused my writing on really personally sad topics and we started saying we were “By Any Means- LA-based Sadderday Pop/Punk”. It sort of just stuck with us that just as we were ready to move on from it, the whole issue with the name “By Any Means” came up. It just happened to be the only name that felt like we weren’t really changing at all. We went through hundreds of names and nothing felt more like home than Sadderday.
How would you describe your sound (without boring genre descriptors)?
Our sounds is a hard-hitting, gentle melody.
Which bands have had the biggest influence on Sadderday?
We have many bands and artists that have either influenced or inspired us to pursue music. The Ghost Inside, For The Fallen Dreams, The Wonder Years, The Color Morale, MXPX, Blink 182, New Found Glory to name a few. All which have left a mark in their own way. Whether it be through musical inspiration or positivity and optimism. We also admire what other local bands are doing and it’s always great to see these bands grow and make a name for themselves out here. That is truly inspiring mainly because we can relate.
The Los Angeles music scene is quite a whirlwind. How do you see yourselves fitting in?
We tend to portrait all of our personalities through our sound, and we all come from different backgrounds in regards to music. Yet, we’ve seen some positive feedback from our fellow fans, so maybe standing out rather than tryna fit it might be just what we need within all the talent within the LA music scene.
What do you hope your listeners take away from a Sadderday song?
A Sadderday song is a glimpse through all emotions not able to explain at times. I hope listeners can relate and realize we can come together as we are not alone. We want our listeners to know that we all go through these same daily problems and that most of us don’t know how to handle them well either. Just like most people, we look to music as an outlet and it means so much more when the artist writes meaningful relatable music. That’s what we aspire to do with our music.
Your new video for “Fake Winters” really gives the viewer an inside look. Tell us about putting together that video?
That was such an amazing experience. It was actually filmed on our first trip out of LA as a band. We drove up to Stockton, CA to a house venue literally called “The House Show”. We had a great time playing with so many good bands from the bay. The kids out there were wild man, they made us feel at home. We had our videographer Yakshini Guerra (Yoshi) with us and he took some really good footage and was able to capture not only the show turns out, but how we spent our time away from home for the first time. The video turned out so much better than we pictured it and all the credit goes to Yoshi. Shout out to the kids in Stockton, Tino, Till I Fall, 7th State, Six Years Today and Knocked Down!
You guys seem to be really tight. What advice would you give to other bands trying to stay together in the tough independent music scene right now?
It helps to do things outside of music. Luis(drums) and I (Jose/vocals) played in a band prior to Sadderday. We began to hang out outside of music so we got to know each other personally and now he’s one of my best friends. Jose (guitar) and I started to get to know each other a lot better after we started Sadderday although he played guitar for us once for the last band we had. I’ve known Alex (bass) for more than 10 years so I hate that guy now. (Just kidding, nothing but love) We’re really different people but for some reason, we also happen to have a lot of similarities. There are no egos. Communication is crucial. Don’t take constructive criticism the wrong way. We don’t always agree and tempers flare a lot of the time but it is never taken personally. In the end, it helps to build a friendship with the guys. When it’s all business it’s easy to let go and find something new, but you can feel when you have something good going.
Sadderday recently hooked up with Disengaged Media. What is the next step in the roadmap to success?
So many things that we want to accomplish with Disengaged Media. We are actually in the process of writing and recording an EP which we plan to release soon. Hopefully early 2019 if everything goes right. We’re anxious to get music out there but it is also something we really don’t want to rush. We want this to take us to a completely different level so we’re going to take a reasonable amount of time to write. Perhaps a couple of tours? Some merch? Acoustic music? We want to keep busy and we want to keep releasing music for our listeners to have as we write towards an EP. So perhaps we can work on something acoustic. Our goal is to write our best material yet, record, and tour our new music. We’re confident that we can make some noise and accomplish a lot with the help of Disengaged Media.
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