SIX OF THE BEST
YOU ME AT SIX FRONTMAN JOSH FRANCESCHI TELLS JEN THOMAS HE POURED EVERYTHING HE HAD INTO THE BAND’S NEW ALBUM, THINKING IT WOULD BE HIS LAST
IT WOULD be all too easy to just stick to what works, churning out the same album time after time and following the script. But You Me At Six aren’t what you’d call a predictable band – and are looking to prove it once again with a new album, SUCKAPUNCH, out in January, and a huge new tour. Yet, until a ‘healing’ period, it looked like the band was all but finished.
You Me At Six recorded the album, their seventh, in Thailand, and it sounds like a transformational trip. ‘I’m gonna try and say this without sounding like I’ve just taken LSD in the 1960s, but it was pure,’ laughs frontman Josh Franceschi.
‘I think that’s the word that really sums it up. We look to that recording trip as kind of a musical rehab. At least three of us were going through trauma in whatever capacity that was. Being able to unplug from the world and just be fully immersed was invaluable. It sounds maybe a bit OTT, but there’s a lot of healing that went on there, I think music was the vehicle for that.’
They recorded in the middle of nowhere, and it was in the small hours that things really came to life. ‘We would sometimes be recording until five, six o’clock in the morning. It’s my favourite experience making music with the band by a country mile and that’s saying something, considering we’ve had some unbelievable experiences with some incredible people over the years.’
The Surrey rockers have gone from pop-punk, to blues-inspired rock, to dance-influenced creations and everything in between. Yet somehow, it all makes sense.
The band had just performed an incredible headline set at Gunnersville Festival, when they set off to record SUCKAPUNCH. They had big plans, not knowing the pandemic was about to hit, or that the festival was to be the last show they would be playing for a while.
‘We used that show in Gunnersbury Park to then go off to Thailand and record as we were really charged up. We were so excited!’ Josh says ruefully. ‘We didn’t even have a lot of the songs written. Our management and our label were a little bit like, “Are you sure you’re ready to go to the other side of the world to record music when you don’t have the songs?” We were like, “Yeah, don’t worry about it, we’ll deal with it!”
‘I wish I had done more touring at the back end of last year. Honestly, I think the hardest thing has been was having experienced Gunnersville – that high, an incredible show – and now nothing.’
Many people have posted highlight reels of their lockdown experiences, making banana bread and looking serene at home. Josh has a more realistic perspective and stresses the importance of honesty. ‘I don’t have the metabolism that would support a banana bread habit, I’d be in a lot of trouble,’ he laughs.
‘When you could first start going to your local coffee place again, every Sunday, I bought this massive sourdough. I need to not eat an entire loaf of bread on a Sunday afternoon, I just like walking to and from the kitchen, just dipping it in whatever condiments were about.
‘I think there were days where I’d be sitting there at one o’clock in the afternoon, having just cracked open the bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and watching a documentary,’ he says candidly.
‘I had a moment of realisation that I was wasting my time, sorted myself out and started writing every day – whether it was poetry or songs. I’m in a position where I’m fortunate enough to do this, I’m not a key worker… I think actually if you’ve managed to keep your s**t together during this time, then you’ve won.
You don’t need to have a list of all these things you’ve done. If you have managed to get through it, that’s enough. Some of my friends are like “Yeah, I’m on day 18 with Rosetta Stone”. F*** off, honestly, I’m just happy I got out of bed today. There’s physical fitness, but mental fitness is just so overlooked sometimes.’ And there was a point when Josh was prepared to quit the band. ‘On the first night, I sat down with [producer] Dan Austin, “I just want to let you know, from the jump, that this is my last You Me At Six record.”
‘I felt like I needed to have an ending to this story before somebody else tells me it’s over…’ He pauses.
‘I just felt like I’ve done everything that I could do with You Me At Six at this point. So I went into every single song thinking there’s no room for mistakes. I listened to each take for hours and hours. This record literally has everything I could give. I love it.’
Fans will be relieved to know that Josh has had second thoughts. ‘I’m 100 per cent sticking around, I’m on this journey with four other people. We’ve got the same line-up, coming up for 15 years. I think that’s a testament to the love that we have.
‘It’s not always f*****g champagne and roses or whatever, but it’s honest and it’s real. I feel like SUCKAPUNCH is the culmination of our learning over the last 14 years; all the right turns we’ve made and all the wrong ones, too. So I’m looking forward to the future, especially to people living inside this record. I’m incredibly excited and grateful for what we have and what could be to come.’
■ You Me At Six will be touring nationwide in May 2021, youmeatsix.co.uk