“What do you think?” Matt Barnes, laidback, approachable and quite possibly the coolest bassist in the biz, asks for thoughts about VI, the sixth studio album from his band You Me At Six.
On approaching VI, it’s best to remain open to the completely unexpected. It has a lovely rock‘n’roll lick that’s still typical of You Me At Six, but also sees the band branching out into new areas. “That’s what we were trying to do,” Barnes says. “You can always tell it’s our band but you’ve got to move forward with the times – no one wants to create the same album more than once.”
A chat with a member of You Me At Six can’t happen without asking about the video for ‘3AM’, the first of three singles released from VI. In it, the band act out two contrasting segments – the highlight being the full dance routine performed at the song’s climax. It’s inspired, but the direction You Me At Six took with the video has split opinion down the middle. “To start off with the negative people, I tend to switch off from the internet,” Barnes says. “‘3AM’ – we did 15, 20 takes of that stupid dance and not one of them was perfectly in time. At the end of it they cut them all together.
“We’re always looking to have a laugh and we don’t really give a shit. We knew there’d be some people online like, ‘Oh my god, this is more of a pop song, they’re not like an emo-pop-punk band anymore,’ and it’s like, well no, we’re not, because A) we don’t listen to that sort of music anymore and B) we’re nearly 30 years old now and times change – we’ve moved on. When you’re a musician you play music every single day, your tastes are going to change. It’s just what happens.”
Lucky for those fans who are still a little emo at heart, VI offers a nice balance – the growth and maturity is evident, but there’s also a nice dose of nostalgia. “Especially with all these streaming services these days, we can push the genres a bit further,” Barnes reasons.
“Whereas back in the day, it was like, someone likes pop music, someone likes drum ‘n’ bass, no one liked everything in between but now, because you have the access, it’s different genres for different moods – people are way more open to it. We can push the boundary more.”
Pushing boundaries or not, 2018 marks the ten-year anniversary of their first release Take Off Your Colours, a fact Barnes has a hard time believing. “It’s absolutely bonkers,” he says. “My life feels like it’s been a period of four years, but it’s actually been 11 in the band, so I still feel so much younger than I am.”
Nevertheless, it’s a cause for celebration, and celebrate You Me At Six will. What began as a three-date anniversary tour, quickly blew out another ten dates across the UK.
“It’s gonna be so fun, I can’t wait.” You can practically hear Barnes bouncing in his seat. “No one is going to be as old as they used to be,” Barnes says. “Everyone’s probably going to be 26 [years old] to 32, so it’s going to be a really funny boozy evening. We’re pretty much going to get hammered and sing some amazing tunes.
“It’s incredibly humbling. People say, it’s like pop-punk used to be an American thing, apart from a few select British bands, and I think people hold Take Off Your Colours very close to their heart as one of the big UK pop-punk records and that in itself is amazing. What an amazing thing to have.”
