You Be the Anchor

Recently it seems that pop punk has grown more popular in mainstream music. Pop infused punk band Mayday Parade hail from Tallahassee Florida and have been taking the music industry by storm. Vocalist and keyboardist Derek Sanders, bassist Jeremy Lezno, guitarists Alex Garcia and Brooks Betts and drummer Jake Bundrick make up this unique band of great talent that formed from the merging of the bands Defining Moment and Kid Named Chicago.

They have a great romantic sound with lyrically captivating songs. Performance wise they are stunning. I've had the great privilege of attending some of their shows and I've never been disappointed. Their amazing ability to perform makes them captivating to watch. The emotions in their songs are visibly and audibly apparent and their draw you in. The tickets to most of their shows do not exceed $30, and their merchandise is rather reasonably priced, making any show WORTH IT!

A Lesson in Romantics is their full length debut album that was released on July 10, 2007 on

Fearless Records. There is hardly a song that I don't love. I know this seems to be the theme with my artist posts, but I am just unloading on you the insanity that is my music preference. I digress, A Lesson in Romantics is characteristically cliche of their genre, in that most of their songs are love ballads either praising or condemning love. Their genuine passion is evident in their epic lyrical emotional cries:

And you dropped the note and we changed key
You changed yourself and i changed me
I really didn't see us singing through this
Then you screamed the bridge
And i cried the verse
And our chorus came out unrehearsed
And you smiled the whole way through it
I guess maybe that's what's worse (from "If You Wanted A Song Written About You, All You Had To Do Was Ask")

The lyrics are pared with the bands highly harmonized vocals, dramatic instrumentals and heavy drumming. Songs to take notice to on this album are "You Be the Anchor", "If You Wanted A Song", "I'd Hate To Be You", and "Black Cat."

Currently, they are promoting their Major Label debut Anywhere But Here. The bands vocalist is quoted on their website refering to the album and touches on the recording proccess saying,

In fact the biggest challenge while making Anywhere But Here seems to have been Mayday Parade's monumental task of determining which of the

50-odd songs they'd written over the past few years would make the cut. "Some of the songs we all agreed on, but other ones were more difficult because people had different tracks that they loved and it was hard to narrow it down," Sanders elaborates, adding that the band wrote many of these tracks during last year's tour with All Time Low. "We just ended up taking a vote and I think we chose the right songs.

After being together for years who could blaim them. Each artist has their own favorite songs that can be found on their band website along with other information on each member as well as all information for their band.

The band is currently on their Take Action Tour with We the Kings, There For Tomorrow, and A Rocket To The Moon.