Justin caught up with Dan from We Are The Ocean back stage at the Academy in Birmingham to talk about the current tour, their latest album and much more.

So Dan, How’s the tour going so far?
Really well, it’s been long but great fun. Though it’s gone quite quickly actually, some of them tend to drag but we’re going out to Europe straight after so we’re only half way through really. We’re really looking forward to co-headlining with Hawthorne Heights and it’s our first proper trip out there, it’s gonna be a great experience. But we’ve been so overwhelmed with how the tour has sold, like this time last year we played here and it was only half full and now tonight there was only a few tickets left on the door. It’s been incredible in that respect.

Looking forward to getting out there and mixing with a few European bands?
Yeah there’s gonna be a few local bands thrown into the tour opening up the shows which will be cool, and “Our Last Night” who are with us on this tour are gonna be doing some dates out in Europe with a band called “Hopes Die Last”, an that tour kinda joins with our tour for a couple of shows while we’re going through Italy. Which is a nice coincidence!

Every tour must have great stories and memories, has anything really stood out for you on this tour so far?
I feel like there’s already been so many big stories on this tour but man, I just can’t think! One that’s fresh in my mind is like last night in Manchester, our merch guy got stuck in the loading lift at the Academy and he was livid, totally going mental. Security, the Fire brigade and everyone was gonna get involved until our sound guy just took a pole and jarred the doors open!
Liam walked into a door right before we came out during our intro on one of the nights and that was absolutely hilarious. We all walked on in fits of laughter. But we have had some bad luck though on this tour, like 3 nights running we ended up stopping a song like halfway through. For various different reasons, the first time a fight actually broke out and I jumped down to try and sort it out so the guys stopped when they realised what I was doing. We’ve had a guitar just die and a power-cut halfway through a song. Wasn’t the same song each time though, would have been weird, almost cursed or something if it had!

So it’s been a while since your last release, what have you been doing with yourselves?
Well since our last EP which we released 2 years ago, we’ve just been touring that like crazy, we toured it so much. That whole time was really just about us taking the time to get the album together really, to find out when, where and who was gonna record it and to be honest to also get the money together to record it.

Are you pleased with the outcome?
Yeah totally, very pleased with it. It came out great and since it’s release in February we toured that at the start of the year like mad, loads of support tour and then a bunch of festivals, throughout the summer and then we’ve just re-released it with like a bonus disc on it with some new tracks and some off out old EP’s.

Who’s idea was it to re-release the album?
The label wanted to re-release it for this tour so that we had something to promote, but we really wanted to give kids something to buy, we didn’t just wanna be like “please buy the album AGAIN” so we just wanted to make sure it was a decent enough package so that people didn’t feel like we were just trying to get money out of them. So we thought we’d record like 4 brand new songs and add on the old EP which was only ever limited edition, especially as so many people we asking us where they could get hold of some of the songs. And as much as you could probably just download it- which we don’t mind if you do, some fans were really like “no we want it, we wanna buy it” which is great, it’s so nice to have fans like that, who care enough about our music to actually want to buy it.

Now you guys have so many really strong, decent songs, Are there any in particular that you really enjoying playing?
Well, I think really just all the ones that the crowd love. when you get that reaction and involvement from the crowd that’s really what it’s all about. It’s what spurs us on.
New songs are always fun to play cos as much as the crowd don’t know them and don’t get as involved, they’re fresh for us and at that time, they’re our favourite songs. Cos let’s face it, if you’re enjoying the older stuff more then you’re doing something wrong. But the old stuff never gets old just cos of the reaction you get from playing it. It really makes it worthwhile.

With you guys going from strength to strength at the moment, where do you see yourselves this time next year?
Well as soon as we finish this UK and European tour we’re heading straight in to record the new album already which is pretty sick. So we’re gonna be doing that in December in the hope of releasing it sort of April/May kind of time so we’ll just be touring again around that release and we really want to try and focus on Europe and trying to get out to the states as well, which is something we’ve always really wanted to do but never quite had the money or the backing from out there to do but that’s changed now. We’re working on getting an agent out there and a label to release our next album out there. We’re really gonna give it a crack next year.

Thanks for taking the time to talk about everything, have you got anything you’d want to say to any fans reading this?
Yeah just thanks for the support really! As cliche as it is, we literally wouldn’t be able to do what we do if people weren’t buying the music and mainly coming to see us live, that’s what we’re all about. Obviously record sales are important but ultimately we don’t care how people listen to our music, we just want them to see us live, in our element, we’re a live band and we want to share that with everyone.

And one last random question which we ask every band, if you could be a Zebra or a Giraffe, which would you be and why?
I’d definitely pick Zebra, they just look awesome. I mean the Giraffe’s neck could come in handy, but nah I’ll stick with a Zebra.

Interview By Justin Andree