A Day To Remember: “We’re always chasing that moment that connects with people on a deep level”

You would have thought that Jeremy McKinnon would know better. This is not his first rodeo, after all, and the frontman is all too aware how these things usually go.

Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe, in some weird way, he was seeking motivation, fuel from which to feed, a stick with which to poke himself. Whatever it was, he did the one thing you’re never supposed to do.

He read the comments.

Released as a standalone track in the summer of 2022, ahead of the band jumping into an epic run of shows across North America that would keep them out of trouble from July through to October, Miracle bore all the hallmarks of classic A Day To Remember. It was being positively received as such, too, by a fanbase still squabbling over the left-turns taken on the band’s seventh album, You’re Welcome, released a year prior.

“You had all the people who do the online content, the reaction videos, they were all having fun with it,” Jeremy says today. “But if I’m going to be real with you, there was this one comment on the music video that said, ‘It is a Miracle… that they wrote a good song again.’”

He pauses, a wry smile on his face, followed by a laugh.

“And I was just like, ‘Guys… alright, challenge accepted.’ And the next record was born.”

Big Ole Album Vol. 1 marks the start of a big ole year for A Day To Remember. Their first collection of new material in nearly four years to the day, it also comes with a promise, as its title suggests, that the wait won’t be so long next time round (“We’ve got quite a bit done for Vol. 2, but it’s not quite finished,” Jeremy says). Shows in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America already sit on a rapidly filling calendar. And so too, of course, does the band’s return to the UK and what promises to be a monumental headline billing at the stacked Slam Dunk Festival this May. In 2025, A Day To Remember will do well to remember what they’re supposed to be doing on any given day.

We’re getting ahead of ourselves, however. Before all that comes the business of Vol. 1 – which is not only a return to form, but a re-embracing of some core fundamentals that have come to define who ADTR truly are…

Jeremy McKinnon’s home office – “A little place to get away, you know how it goes” – is replete with gold discs and other such trappings that tell the story of what is, remarkably, now a two-decade-long career. As he sits down to talk with Kerrang!, to his right is perched one of the more recent additions: a chunk of sandstone carved from the Red Rocks Amphitheatre, awarded to the band to commemorate their sold-out show at the iconic 10,000-capacity venue last summer.

“I look at it every day, and some of this other stuff, and it’s just crazy. I never in a million years would have guessed that…” He pauses in search of the right words, and seemingly doesn’t find them. “Pop-punk and breakdowns, man…”

He laughs again. “We only ever just wanted to have a good time.”

Theirs is a journey that began 80 miles up the highway from Jeremy’s current Orlando home, in nearby Ocala – the place that ‘Made us who we became’, as they sang on City Of Ocala back in 2013. The Sunshine State – which three-quarters of the band still call home – has shone through consistently in A Day To Remember’s writing throughout the years, and it’s no different on Big Ole Album.

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All My Friends was Jeremy McKinnon’s bid to write a “modern sequel to Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back In Town”; a nice, big, thick slice of pure ADTR pop-punk that serves as a dewy-eye ode to lost nights and lasting friendships, in which the frontman ‘Got a text from the crew in my hometown / It said be ready to roll, I’m ride or die’. If nostalgia seeps from its lyrics, so too does it in its sonics, harking back to the feel-good pop-punk that – alongside gargantuan mosh-call breakdowns (My Life For Hire’s ‘This is a battleground!’ or Right Back At It Again’s ‘Brace for impact!’) – long ago became the band’s calling card.

It’s a sound that in recent years they have seemed reluctant to embrace. You’re Welcome, as anyone who laboured through its 14-song tracklisting would attest, saw ADTR not so much move through their tried-and-tested gears as burn out the clutch in search of something else.

“What was cool about [that record] is that we tried all these new things – half that record was completely different influences from anything we’d done in the past,” Jeremy says. His easy demeanour conveys an unspoken agreeable acceptance of the mixed reception to those efforts. But if that particular YouTube comment stirred something in him, so did the other swathes of positivity around Miracle’s heavier, breakdown-spotlighting sonics.

“I have always hated the idea of being too predictable, and this time out it just felt like the most unexpected thing for us to do now was to lean back into a heavier direction,” Jeremy says. “‘You want it? Okay – we’re gonna give it to you…’”

Big Ole Album certainly does that, restoring in equal parts ADTR’s effervescent bounce and the pummelling post-hardcore and metalcore leanings. It’s not a return to those cookie-cutter early days – its differing natures and faces, the dark and light duality, are more delineated, more progressive, more exploratory – but it speaks to a band playing further to their long-established strengths once more.

If Jeremy is at pains to point out the impulsive, inspired nature of the creative process – “The album is simply the result of a feeling, what we were inspired to write, what we thought was cool at the time” – he’s also quick to pay tribute to the forces that helped them unlock it.

“Right out of the gate, Kevin [Skaff, guitar] and Neil [Westfall, guitar] wanted to work with Zakk Cervini and Drew Fulk,” Jeremy explains. Having collaborated with Bring Me The Horizon, Architects, Beartooth, Knocked Loose and Spiritbox, Zakk and Drew have made themselves two of the most in-demand names in the scene.

Writing sessions – a couple of weeks here and there, largely out of Zakk’s LA base – were carved out to best fit everyone’s schedule and avoid holing up for months on end “banging away until everyone hates each other”. It was an environment that allowed for a free flow of energy, zip and instinct.

“I’ve found over the years that I’m a better songwriter when things are done quick and I’m not sat around too long,” Jeremy says. “Zakk is so amazing because he works and makes things sound awesome really fast, and Drew was the perfect partner – especially when it came to crafting stories in these songs.”

Big Ole Album wears its inspirations on its heart and, quite literally, its sleeve – the National Lampoon-inspired illustrated artwork boasting caricatures of everyone who collaborated on or influenced the record. Tucked away in the corner, the eagle-eyed will spot one Oli Sykes. If Die For Me echoes the recent output of Bring Me The Horizon, it’s because the song originated from Oli himself. BMTH’s frontman, upon learning of ADTR’s presence in the studio with mutual collaborator Zakk, sent the producer a short voice-note of a half-formed idea to pass on to former touring mate Jeremy to develop, if he so liked it. “Pretty much the beginning of the song you hear now is the same as the first time that I heard it,” Jeremy says. “I thought it was badass.”

Jeremy McKinnon has never been one for revealing too much about the motivations behind his lyricism, instead preferring fans to apply their own understanding and relationship to his writing. What he will broadly state, however, is that Big Ole Album rakes over “life, and everything we’ve been going through”.

What’s immediately apparent is its willingness to bare its teeth. Straight out of the gates, Make It Make Sense draws a certain line in the sand. ‘Everybody’s tryna rain on my parade,’ Jeremy sings. ‘Lotta talk but not a goddamn thing to say.’ The breezy LeBron calls for ‘all you half-ass critics’ to go ‘have the day you deserve’, spitting ‘what I do for real you only do for pretend’. ‘It’s us against the world, just my brothers and me,’ the track closes, ‘Nothin’ more that I could say to make you believe, so fuck what you think.’ The Gojira-channelling Silence opens with ‘a thank you / for everything you haven’t done’; a caustic To The Death elects to ‘leave you with something genuine, from the bottom of my heart’, before signing off: ‘Fuck you.’

It would be easy to read these as a response, in part, to the reception afforded to You’re Welcome, and the spiky assertion from certain corners that ADTR had fully lost their way. It didn’t take a genius, people said, to figure out what 2024 single Feedback – which is included on Big Ole Album – was about.

“I saw the response [from fans] to that, and it’s funny because that song was actually originally written for You’re Welcome, but we just never ended up finishing it,” Jeremy shrugs. “Honestly, these songs are simply based on the world feeling a lot more negative in general. It feels like there’s this really extreme juxtaposition right now, between love and hate. It doesn’t feel like the most positive time, and some of the writing reflects that energy. Like, why do we do this to each other? The chorus to Make It Make Sense is asking that question. Why are we like this to each other? Why can’t we have disagreements without the world falling apart?”

Time has evidently been on Jeremy’s mind, too, whether the frontman knew it or – as he attests after some consideration when we put the notion to him – not. In Miracle, Jeremy calls, ‘To hell with all the someday, somehow, I’ve waited long enough,’ while the saccharine-sweet Flowers ruminates on how, ‘Suddenly the years are feeling shorter / Nobody wants to hear but we’re getting older.’

Jeremy playfully declines to thank us when we remind him of his impending 40th birthday this year, and the ever-passing sands of time.

“We did talk about that [as a band], in ways,” he says. “It’s definitely something I’ve been reflecting on: my age, the place I am in life. You pick out Flowers as an example, that’s a song about communicating with people that I care about before it’s too late.”

Jeremy says the song is one of the most personally meaningful on the record.

“It’s about appreciating a person in the moment, rather than waiting until they’re gone, or the moment’s over,” he begins. “It’s a reflection on things that really matter in my life, and when somebody did go out of their way to say something kind instead of saying the terrible thing that everybody else says. I’ve always struggled with giving someone a call and telling them I love them, just because. I don’t know why I don’t do that. I want to do it more. Because I feel it. So why don’t I do it? And how do I step it up for the people that really mean a lot to me? I mean, as a parent, I would want my kids to call me! It would crush me if they didn’t.”

No topic illuminates Jeremy’s face like that of parenthood. The father of two reflects on that journey as transformational for him – as “exactly what I needed at that point in my life, when I felt like I was just spinning my wheels. It brought a sense of fulfilment and purpose. It’s definitely something that changed the way I view time. When you have kids, it just changes you. It’s instantaneous.”

Closer Than You Think, Big Ole Album’s curtain-dropping endnote, was written from the perspective of an imagined future about the first time Jeremy’s daughter faces heartache. It takes the form of a conversation of comfort and love through a locked bedroom door. ‘I know your heart’s still hurtin’, you can take it out on me,’ he sings. ‘There’s a light up ahead, a little closer than you think.’ It serves as Big Ole Album’s most poignant and heartfelt moment.

“Zakk told me that he heard a song about grief [in there], and that rings true, too,” Jeremy adds. “It’s ultimately a song about being there for someone in their time of need, whether that’s losing a first love, or a parent, or a friend, and wanting to help them but being somewhat powerless to do so. It’s something you have to live through and hope you come out the other side.”

Much the same could be said of life in a band in 2025. This year’s significant markers aren’t just restricted to Jeremy himself; this coming May will mark the 20th anniversary of A Day To Remember’s debut album, And Their Name Was Treason. He’s under no illusions that the bucket-list milestones of life in a band become fewer and further between as you progress through the ranks. They are replaced, however, by a deeper appreciation – of the passage of time, of the connections forged by art, of the sheer act of survival in a landscape that makes it harder to do the fundamentals of writing, recording and playing music for a living each year.

That’s not to say the landmarks don’t exist anymore, however. And Their Name Was Treason’s anniversary comes two weeks ahead of the band’s first headline appearance – in fact, their first ever appearance full-stop – at Slam Dunk Festival.

“It’s crazy to think about, and we can’t wait,” Jeremy enthuses.

Moments such as this, he nods, are a vindication of the journey – and it’ll be treated as a show-stopping celebration, too.

“It’s so fucking cool [to be asked]. We love putting on a show for people – give us any excuse to spend a ton of money on a sick live show.”

Their booking comes after a years-long campaign from fans to see the band follow in the footsteps of Fall Out Boy, Sum 41 and Good Charlotte atop the festival billing.

“We were recently told that we were the most requested headliner by fans in the festival’s history,” Jeremy says as a point of pride. “We had no idea that was even a thing, until we’d said ‘yes’ to this year and they told us the story! We had no idea people wanted it this much.”

He lets out another laugh.

“Why didn’t anyone tells us before?” he grins. “It would have been a great pitch!”

“I heard the fans a long time ago, and have tried many times over the years to book them,” says Slam Dunk head honcho Ben Ray when we mention this to him. “As everyone says, A Day To Remember are the perfect artist to headline the festival, as they cross the different genres we have [at Slam Dunk]. It’s always been a case of timing, but thankfully this time it worked out. It’s going to be very special indeed!”

Twenty-plus years at the coalface means ADTR have seen the scene’s every high and low. It’s perhaps better than ever, Jeremy argues.

“There are so many rock bands that are doing bigger and better things than they’ve ever done,” he smiles. “There are more bands from our world playing arenas and stadiums. There’s Sleep Token and Bad Omens happening, and an awesome new wave of bands coming through. It’s such an exciting thing to be a part of.”

As A Day To Remember settle into their role as elder statesmen of the alternative scene, their ambitions are clear.

“The goal is Green Day,” Jeremy says. “They wrote all these records in the ’90s that were some of the most meaningful albums ever for a whole generation of people, and if they had just stopped there, they would still have been a band who mattered for life. But then years later, out of fucking nowhere, they put out American Idiot [2004], their biggest album ever.

“That’s what you’re always chasing: that moment that connects with people on a deep level again. That’s my passion, so it’s always meaningful to me regardless of how it’s received. Writing will always be a means of expression, how I get past stuff in life, how I get through the day.

“But there’s always the motivation of, ‘What if?’” Jeremy adds. “‘What if this next song is our biggest song ever?’”

Big Ole Album Vol. 1 is out now Fueled By Ramen / Parlophone. The band headline Slam Dunk Festival on May 24 – 25, and play London’s O2 Academy Brixton on June 24 – 25.

Get the Kerrang! x ADTR capsule collection now.

This interview originally appeared in the spring 2025 issue of Kerrang!.

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