Providing a sense of hope and inspiration with their 2014 release, Cavalier Youth, English alternative rock band, You Me At Six have achieved world-renowned success with stellar tracks such as “Lived A Lie”, “Cold Night” and “Room To Breathe”. Good news for Australian fans as the band are coming back to our shores in April/May to do Groovin’ The Moo festival as well as a bunch of intimate shows for those wanting to feel more in touch with their rock music. To have watched them leap forward since their early days of Take Off Your Colours and Hold Me Down is no surprise as the band have taken every opportunity they can to get to where they are now.
Rhythm guitarist, Max Helyer, talks about the journey of Cavalier Youth, the band’s sound progression and what he has learnt through the collaboration of working with different artists outside the alternative rock genre. It’s a challenge itself to diversify a band’s sound but that doesn’t make it any less boring to try something worth risking for.
So the band released the record, Cavalier Youth last year and it showed more of a sentimental side to the band. How has the journey been with this album so far?
The album journey has been obviously one I won’t forget because it’s brought a lot of success to our band in terms of what it has achieved on being a number one album in the UK. It’s the first time it really grabbed the attention of a lot international countries and it got a lot more recognition in Australia as well. Hence, it’s the reason why I think we’re doing Groovin’ The Moo; it’s kind of opened up our band to a whole new world and new audiences. Through America, we’ve finally gotten some radio play and we’ve actually had a proper release over there. We’ve had a lot of positive responses across the world so that’s definitely something we can all look back on. The album has really been a success in our eyes because it has achieved more than we thought it was going to do and it’s actually opened up to a lot more people.
Yeah it has because I was looking at your discography and your first three albums received mixed to positive responses from fans to music critics and then with Cavalier Youth, everyone just liked it a lot and that’s why it managed to top the charts.
Yeah, I think it had a bit of a new approach as well. I think one thing about You Me At Six is that we’re trying not to re-create the same album over and over again and I think people at home expected us to do the same thing. When we were writing this album, we were trying to push ourselves and not be in our comfort zones; it took us out from what we used to do and really try and experiment and find sounds that really work with our band.
Excellent. Compared to Sinners Never Sleep, it showcased a “seize the day” type of momentum. What opportunities have shaped the band’s success and do you believe in the term ‘carpe diem’? I believe that’s one of the song titles off the album as well.
Yeah, I think it’s a well-known saying around the world and it’s pretty much used everywhere and I think with Cavalier Youth, it had a lot of metaphors in saying it. The one thing that Josh is really good at is creating lyrical content that has different meanings and it might not appeal to everybody you know. To certain people, it might mean different things but the opportunities have really been a lot more vast. We’ve been looking at it in a different light this time round where I think before we were kind of pinholes as a band. I think in this record it shows all sorts of sides to our band; we don’t just write heavy, rock music – we can write slow songs, we can write acoustic, chilled-out music as well, especially in our special edition in Cavalier Youth as well. We stripped that all back and we changed all the songs around.
I think it’s really just us showing off; not showing off in a big-headed kind of way but trying to push our musical capabilities to not stay the same. I think it’s left the door open for our band, now that we can go anywhere really when we start writing new music again and I think that’s the exciting part of being a musician. You don’t really know where it’s gonna end up right now so I think the opportunities have left us quite a lot for the future that we can progress forward and try a lot of new things.
That’s awesome, because I’ve been following the band’s music since Take Off Your Colours and you guys were such a small band back then and now, your fan base has exploded and I feel so privileged to see how fast the band has grown as well.
Thank you so much. It’s nice to see people that have really listened to the band over the years as well because there’s always a lot of people that sometimes complain that a band has changed a lot. For me as music lover, when I was growing up a lot of my favourite bands changed their sounds and some of it I liked and some of it I didn’t like, you know. I think as long as we’re making the right steps in making music that people still like, it’s not alienating what we’re doing and that sort of matters really.
Yeah, cause the first record was so heavy. I think Josh was experimenting so much with his vocals and it was much more hard rock-ish. Now you guys have turned more upbeat but at the same time you still have that same essence as you had originally as a band.
Yeah, that’s something when it comes down to what you were saying in the last question, is what opportunities does it really bring for us and our band as well and it’s not that we’re walking away from that, it was just that kind of place where we were writing Cavalier Youth that our heads were in that mindframe and there were certain songs that we really connected with. “Room To Breathe” was one of the first songs written for Cavalier Youth and that’s essentially one of the heavier songs but it wasn’t just the end product, you know – we didn’t want to stick with that; we wanted to try and push our boundaries and see how far we could go.
That’s why we have songs like “Forgive and Forget” and it really took our band right out of our comfort zone. It was listening to music that we loved and really try and digest a lot of things that helped us become a band that really leaves an imprint as well. It’s not just leaning into one style of music, it’s how we can progress forward as well and it was nice to do that. It was all down to the help of Neal Avron as well who produced the record. He’s done so many amazing records from mixing Linkin Parkto Aerosmith to working with Fall Out Boy; he’s worked with a lot of great artists and for us to work with him was a great experience. He definitely brought a new dynamic to our band.
Following up on that, do you feel like each record is a depiction of your past selves or is it more towards the maturity and progress you underwent as individuals?
I think it’s a mixture of both, really to be honest because as you were saying, you’ve been a fan of our band since Take Off Your Colours. When we started writing that record, that was over 10 years ago; that was our first time writing music and for me, I was just 15/16 and in that age, your mind frame is gonna be very different when it comes to writing music; you have a lot of different tastes and you’re a bit more naive to the world. I think that’s why you see progression from Take Off Your Colours, Hold Me Down, Sinners Never Sleep and Cavalier Youth because it does come down to maturity as you get older and you’re kind of exposed to new horizons; you start listening to different styles of music and you start digesting a lot more things in different ways; things you wouldn’t have thought of doing beforehand and that comes in when you write music as well. I think for us we’re all massive music lovers but we don’t just like rock music; we like hip-hop music, we like every style of music.
You could have pop music, rock music, metal music, hip-hop, rap, dubstep, dance music, house music; we’re a very open book in our band, as long as it has a good beat and a good groove and has parts of it that make it memorable and stand out, that for us is our goal as musicians. It’s writing music that doesn’t only just please us but pleases other people as well and I think with that it always takes time. When you’re writing it out and finding the sound that you’re going for, you really start to work, elaborate and develop it, you know. Where we’re left now is that a lot of people compared Cavalier Youth to Sinners Never Sleep and found that there was a bit of difference. I think when we go back and start writing again for another record, we’re gonna digest it all and take the best parts of all the records that we’ve done and find something new to incorporate with our band. I think that’s the exciting part really, and I think that being a musician, you always don’t know where you’re gonna be. Honestly, we don’t know where we’re gonna end up but I think we’re all excited to see where the future takes us right now.
Yeah because I felt like as a band, you guys were just winging it and just simply going with the flow. I found it interesting that you collaborated with rap artist, Chiddy in “Rescue Me”. How was that?
I think we did that in 2011/2012. Working with someone like Chiddy, it comes down to being able to broaden your horizons and really work with different musicians in different sorts of genres and you learn a lot from working with different people. I really liked Chiddy, we all got along really well. He was a pretty nice guy and he’s got a real good pick as a hip-hop artist. I think he’s a bit under appreciated but I still think what he does is incredible and he’s got a very talented way of putting words on to paper and it was nice to work with someone outside of our rock and roll field. It was working with somebody in a totally different field of music and it brought a new kind of sound to what that song was all about. To be honest with you, we’re really open towards working with other people. I think you learn and I think that’s the best thing about musicians; you can never meet enough musicians and learn how they deal with things because we learn something new from them.
That’s so true because rap artists do things differently. Not that I’m saying all musicians do the same thing, it’s sort of like they have their own unique way of just making and producing music. It’s interesting to see different musicians work together as a team and have it work out so well.
When you look at people right now, especially with hip-hop and rap artists, lots of them have achieved real, big success and just looking at the latest [single] with Kanye West [“Only One”], even with someone like Paul McCartney from The Beatles, they can go sit down and work with him and that’s from two ends of the spectrum. This will probably bring Kanye a lot of success in his next record because he’s got a different outlook and a different ear compared to the usual people because you can work with people in the same area of music for a long, long time but having that fresh ear and having somebody else’s different opinion come in, challenges you and I think that’s why you should strive towards doing something differently as it’s quite refreshing and it always brings something new to the table as well.
That’s so true because you’re basically sharing different kinds of energies and experiences to one another.
It definitely does, it falls back to the work of musicians because it might be something that you play and you don’t think it’s very good and maybe someone will pick up on it and encourage you to keep playing. It’s one little idea like that, that could turn into something you know and that’s the best thing about music. Everyone has their own way of listening and digesting things so I think you could look at that with a lot of music at the moment and how people are working together with certain producers and musicians who aren’t exactly the same and I think that’s why it’s working. People are liking different styles of music and it’s opened up many doorways for people.
Also, I find it interesting that you have your own clothing line called Becoming Antique. Being both a musician and an entrepreneur, how do you balance both roles?
It’s just having a healthy balance. If you love something, you’re gonna work hard towards it and you’re basically going to make things work. For me, it’s a bit difficult because obviously when touring with the band it’s very hard to be on top of everything that goes on but I’m lucky because I’m doing business with one of my best friends at home and I’m always talking to him and I’m always finding out what’s going on so we can work and develop towards what we’re trying to do for the future. We’re having a bit of a new structure to our business this year and we’re trying to look at everything in a different light and how we want our business to stand for. I think it’s the same for You Me At Six as well because it’s about pushing the boat and it’s not just being safe and sound and just floating along and doing the safest option. I’m quite a risk taker myself and it’s about pushing the boundaries really and just trying to find different ways of doing different things that might excite people but it’s also important to keep things exciting for yourself.
I checked out the clothing and I think you started the project in 2011 and as a business, it’s grown. I think you, Matt, Josh all have your own clothing business and that’s really cool.
A few of us do it and it’s a nice thing because when you do music all the time, it’s nice to have something else on the side that you really enjoy as well because if you get engrossed in one thing, you sometimes get into a roadblock. When you’re trying to write music, you might have a block where you can’t write something and you’re just stuck. It’s about how you can go find new things and enjoy the other parts of life so for me, I try not to be just a guitarist; I try and do other things like go for walks, going to art museums, looking at art and trying to find new things that provide inspiration so then I can go back and make progress to what I was working on originally.
Cavalier Youth is available now.
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