A DAY TO REMEMBER Guitarist On 'You're Welcome' Album: 'Every Song Could Live In Its Own World'

A DAY TO REMEMBER guitarist Neil Westfall spoke to Kerrang! magazine about the band's upcoming album, "You're Welcome", tentatively due later in the year. Asked if any one of the three songs we've heard so far from the LP — "Mindreader", "Resentment" and "Degenerates" — is the best reflection of the record, he said: "Honestly, no. I mean, this thing is all over the place. I think this album probably touches more genres than any other A DAY TO REMEMBER album, and I feel like every song could live in its own world, which is kind of amazing. I don't know if any one [song] that has been released represents the album as a whole, but I think that if you take a step back and look at all three of them — and maybe even a little bit of [Marshmello collaboration] 'Rescue Me' as well — and combine all of those elements into one song, then that kind of could do it. But, even still, there are things that will come out that everyone's just going to be, like, 'Wow, I didn't even know that they did that.'"

Westfall also talked about the "You're Welcome" songwriting process, saying: "'Bad Vibrations' was us locked in a room, and we wrote, like, 40 songs, and then the best ones became 'Bad Vibrations'. But with this one, it was more like, 'Let's work with as many people as we can and then bring it together and make it A DAY TO REMEMBER.' And so it was very collaborative, and written all over the place with a ton of different people, and a ton of different inputs. And I think it really shows: it's a very diverse album that still feels like A DAY TO REMEMBER, which is what our goal was. We wanted to push the boundaries as much as we can with it still feeling like us."

On the topic of whittling down the the song demos and shells into the tracks that will become the album, Neil said: "I feel like that's the hardest part; you do a lot of the heavy lifting in the beginning, and then at the end of the process it's these small things that can make a really big difference. This is something we do every record: everybody will bring stuff that we've been working on, and it all comes together and we end up with, like, 50 demo ideas, and 60 parts, and all this stuff. It's really hard, because there's so much good stuff on here, and so much stuff that's also good that isn't quite done yet… there's a lot of material, as always!”

Earlier in the month, A DAY TO REMEMBER released a music video for "Mindreader". The clip was animated by Awesome, Inc. ("Aqua Teen Hunger Force", "Squidbillies"). Last November, A DAY TO REMEMBER unleashed the "Resentment" single. The band also shared an official music video for the song, directed by Jeb Hardwick. "Resentment" followed "You're Welcome"'s lead single, "Degenerates", which was released in August ahead of A DAY TO REMEMBER's main-stage performances at the U.K.'s Reading and Leeds festivals. Prior to the release of "Degenerates", A DAY TO REMEMBER surprised fans when the band was featured on Marshmello's single "Rescue Me", marking the group's first new music since 2016's acclaimed "Bad Vibrations".

A DAY TO REMEMBER is: Jeremy McKinnon (vocals),Alex Shelnutt (drums),Kevin Skaff (guitar, vocals),Neil Westfall (guitar, vocals) and Joshua Woodard (bass).