We had the honor of talking to Chris Conley of Saves The Day while they’re on tour with New Found Glory. Find out all about the secrets and mysteries in their new album, Daybreak, and about the future of both Saves The Day and Two Tongues after the cut!
Right now you are on tour with New Found Glory, Hellogoodbye and Fireworks right? How has it been so far?
Yes! It’s been a lot of fun! We haven’t toured with New Found Glory in ten years so it’s neat to be back with them. They’re our old buddies from the road and it’s also sort of nostalgic for some. They’re playing songs from their first album on this tour. It’s really bringing back great memories, we’re happy to be back with each other.
You have the close to your three album trilogy Daybreak set to be released this year, do feel sad or nostalgic that after this it’s almost like a clean slate?
Um no, I’m really excited to be finishing up this trilogy because I think that Day Break is a really solid album and it means a lot to me. I’m really excited about it and the best part about Saves the Day is we have people that keep on coming to the concerts. As long as we continue to have fans we’re going to continue to keep working and making new music.
Your lineup changed rather recently, would you say this has affected your approach to performing? Would you say it will affect the album at all?
Every body that has been in the band has had their own kind of playing style. We’ve had some of these players that play more traditional, complementary parts than us, some bass players play melodic grunge. Everybody contributes bringing out the character of each song. Having Rodrigo and Spencer involved is cool because they’re such different players from Manny and Durijah. I think they’re gonna bring out different qualities of the song, where as Manny and Durijah played with a more aggressive edge. Spencer and Rodrigo are a little bit more melodic and I think that suits the songs on Daybreak quite well. I think I’m more excited than anything about having new members get to play on Daybreak, I think they’re going to bring a lot of good things to the songs.
Aside from the obvious release of the album, do you have big things planned for 2010?
Well we like to call 2010 the year we make contacts. I don’t know if that’s referring to us meeting the world or the world being invaded by aliens. Maybe it’s one in the same. We just plan on touring as much as we possibly can, following the release of Daybreak. As long as people are creating a demand we’re just gonna keep coming.
Do you have a set release date yet?
We don’t have a set release date but we’re recording it right after this tour starting April 1st. It should be out by late summer.
Tell me about the title track from the album, its split into several parts, what’s that about?
The song Daybreak is eleven minutes long and its made up of five songs that are all woven together. Really Daybreak is the beginning of trying to make a positive message out of all the negativity and darkness on the first two albums. Daybreak is this long physcadelic pop song that’s sort of like a suite in a movie. Its’ like a scene that also makes sense in the movie but acts as a transition into the next scene or the next evolution of reality in a movie. So Daybreak is entirely theatrical and it also brings back themes and elements from both Sound the Alarm and Under the Boards. It starts tying together all the loose ends of the trilogy and connecting the dots. Really the song Daybreak is an extension of the last song on Under the Boards which is called Turning Over in My Tomb, which is the song where the decision is made to carry on with life, not succumb to the darkness. Daybreak is the beginning of trying to make the most life and coming back to life essentially. You can tell in the lyrics that it’s a positive change.
Would you say it sets the tone for the rest of the album?
It does, but it also wraps up and starts to make sense to the first two albums. Sound the Alarm and Under the Boards are so intensely melodramatic and based inside of my head. They deal with primarily difficult emotions. Daybreak makes sense out of that, so that it’s not all endless drama and endless darkness. The song Daybreak is about starting to put pieces back together knowing that you want to carry on, knowing that you want to be a good person, a better person and not a force of negativity in the world. It definitely set the tone for the rest of the album but at the same time the reason it is such a long strange song is because it’s sort of the strange physcadelic sweep out of the darkness and into the light of reality. I like it because it ties up Under the Boards and Sound the Alarm in a nice way.
There are four other tracks on the album that all have single letter titles as opposed to just a different title, what are those geared towards?
Each of those songs is incredibly significant symbolically. Without giving too much away there are important realizations made in each song. They’re sort of like the thematic, sort of like the bookends to the record. The other songs are filling in the details. Those four songs, when you hear them, are statements. Each one of them is either lyrically or musically something different for Saves the Day. I think the song titles needed to be totally brand new and strange.
How would you say you’ve advanced lyrically, and I’m guessing it’s really visible on this album?
Yeah it is! Saves the day has always been about sort of exploring the darker elements of life and trying to cope and process the difficult times. On Daybreak, the entire trilogy leading up to this is all about turning the hard times and the lessons learned in the midst of all that misery into positive change and coming back to life and living in a very healthy wholesome manner and really embracing life instead of rejecting life. I think it will be quite different for our fans to see me trying to make light of situations rather than dwelling on them.
Since it’s completely different since you’ve been used to exploring the darker elements, do you think your fans will still react to it positively?
I think so…I think everybody has identified with Saves the Day lyrics identifies with them primarily because they’ve felt their own measure of pain and there comes a point when life’s just too painful and there has to be a better way, there has to be a more positive way to deal with life and to accept life. We spend our entire life fighting and rejecting reality. I think anybody that has identified with the lyrics will find relief and a break from the pain and turning the pain into something valuable that we can all grow and learn from.
Seeing as it is a side project, would you say that this year Two Tongues is going to take the back seat?
Well I guess Two Tongues has always been a secondary project, cause Max and I are first and foremost interested in Saves the Day and Say Anything. We do Two Tongues for fun when our schedules permit…the only reason we could really get together to make that album was because we each had a month off a couple years ago. The scheduling just kinda worked out. We haven’t really found the time since then to get together, but we want to! Because it is a side project, it’s always sort of second priority.
This was asked by someone from Long Island, who wanted to know how you got “casted” as Toba the Tura in Forgive Durden’s Rozia’s Shadow?
Thomas called me up and asked if I would sing on their record. They said they’d written a character, was the idea of me playing the guy. It sounded pretty interesting so I agreed to sing the song, it was only one song. And the only other thing I really had to do was take a picture for the layout. It was sort of a friendly project.
Was it at all different seeing as how it was like a musical and not just a regular song?
It was interesting because they had a specific voice that they wanted me to hit. Initially when I did the track for them and sent it to them, they called back and said you know we were thinking of this character, more along the lines of this protector, savoir guy not this really angry wrathful guy…so I did it again with their notes and direction and it was what they were looking for. It was interesting for me, rather than just going in and singing as kind of whatever came out, I had to consciously try to fit what they were looking for so that was kind of an interesting learning experience.
In about three to five years from now, where do you see yourself and the band? Would you say this is still only the beginning?
Well I don’t see myself ever stopping, I love it so much. I’ve been the only original member of Saves the Day since 2001 when Bryan and Eben quit. I’ve been doing it for almost ten years since being the only original member. So I can’t imagine stopping. I can only pray that I’m allowed many more years of writing and touring because I love it so much.
