Ben caught up with Dan Flint from You Me At Six to talk about their success so far, their future with a third album on the way and Blink 182 support slots on the horizon and much more.

Firstly, where are you and what are you up to?
Dan (drums): I’m just in my dressing room in Doncaster Dome getting ready to play tonight’s show!

I’ve heard that Josh is ill, is he okay/going to be able to complete the rest of this tour?
I think he’s faking it to be honest! I’m not sure what’s up with him, I think he just has a bit of a chesty cough kind of thing. I think he’s just taking it easy, we’ve got a day off tomorrow, so hopefully he should be okay to play the shows in Manchester.

How has 2010 been for You Me At Six?
Yeah, it’s been a really good year. We’ve had two massive UK tours, we did the whole of Warped Tour and played loads of festivals. It’s been really good for us, we’ve had a top five album, so it’s been pretty incredible.

Any highlights that you could possibly name?
I think playing Reading and Leeds were the main highlights for us, our shows just seem to be getting bigger and bigger, so that’s really good for us.

Any lowlights?
I can’t think of any, it’s just been a pretty good year all round

You’re currently on a UK tour, how are things going?
It’s going great, it’s the fourth show tonight, we’ve done Wolverhampton and Bournemouth last night and now we’re in Doncaster. It’s going really well, the crowd reaction has been great, we’re playing songs that we haven’t played for a while and some that we haven’t even played before.

You’ve taken your friends Set Your Goals and Canterbury out with you, does being surrounded by your friends make touring easier?
Yeah, it’s so much better. Being in a band you’re constantly surrounded by the same five people, but if you bring friends from other bands you can always go and hang out with them. We get to spend most of the day with them and after the shows too.

You seem to spend most of your lives on tour, what’s your favourite thing about touring?
You get to play your songs in front of a lot of people and that’s really special, I love seeing the way crowds react, it’s really good fun.

What’s your least favourite thing about touring?
I don’t get to sleep in my own bed! I woke up this morning with a really, really bad back! I really do miss my bed!

Do you have a favourite place to tour?
We just went out to Australia and played some headline shows, which we never thought we’d be able to do. It was great to go out to the other side of the world and play to so many people.

How do you like to spend your time when you’re not on tour?
We’ve had a bit of time off in the past few weeks but we’ve just been working on the new record and stuff. I’m going out to Kenya soon, so I’ll get to spend some time with my family, it’ll be nice to just get away from everything. When we do get time off we just go and see our friends and family, just that kind of thing.

You played Warped Tour earlier this year, how did you find this?
It was great, some of the places we went to it was our first time playing there. America is a country where you really have to tour it to start getting any kind of recognition. We did half of Warped the year before, so we definitely saw a progression this year, we were playing to a good amount of people considering the amount of time we’ve actually spent out there. It’s really good fun, it’s like a rock summer camp!

You hear a lot about it being a gruelling tour, did you find this?
Yeah, it’s like the most intense thing ever. You have to wake up early because you don’t know what time you’re on. I could have our tour manager waking me up saying that we were on in half an hour or that we weren’t playing until seven in the evening, then you don’t know what you’re going to do all day. You wake up in a different city and you’ve got no idea where anything is, it is quite a stressful tour to do. When you’re on it you’re thinking, ‘oh my god, let’s go home’, but when you get home you really miss it.

How does it compare to playing the UK festivals you also did this year, other than the length etc?
When we did Reading and Leeds there were loads of our friends playing too, like All Time Low and Paramore, but each band has their own area. You don’t really get to spend any time with any of the other bands which is a shame, the site’s just so massive you don’t get to see them.

You’ve recently announced that you’ll be supporting Blink 182 throughout July, how did this come about?
It was weird, we met Blink’s PR at Reading and Leeds and became quite good friends, so when they planned the arena tour all of their press and management turned around and just wanted You Me At Six. It’s going to be a great experience, I got to meet Travis at Reading and Leeds, it was awesome. So after that, they just agreed to take us out with them, it’ll be really good for us.

How did it feel when you heard the news, I’m guessing Blink 182 have been a big inspiration to You Me At Six?
It was a dream come true to be honest, they’re a band that we’ve all looked up to since we were like, thirteen! It’s just really awesome to think that we’re going to go on tour with them.

You have toured with pretty much every band, but is there one ideal band that you’d love to tour with?
It’s weird, we’ve done Fall Out Boy, Paramore and we’ve got Blink coming up, so we’ve almost played to all of our childhood heroes. I reckon we’d all love to go on tour with Bob Marley!

I’ve heard that you’ve started writing material for a new album, how is the process going?
It’s going great, we’ve got about twelve songs so far, we’ve demoed quite a few and they’re sounding really good. Next year we’re just going to carry on and hopefully by March time we’ll be ready to go and record them all.

How do you think it’s going to differ from Take Off Your Colours and Hold Me Down?
I don’t think that it’ll be massively different, we’re not going to go off and do something crazy, but almost like the progression between Take Off Your Colours and Hold Me Down, there will be one between Hold Me Down and this one. We’re a bit older and we’ve been touring for longer, our taste in music has changed, so I’ve got a feeling that we’re going to go for a more straight up, rock sound rather than a pop-punk kind of sound.

I also heard a rumour that Hayley Williams might be supplying vocals for the record, is this true?
I keep hearing this rumour, but there’s nothing planned at the moment, it would be great if it was true. I know her and Josh speak a bit, but who knows? It would be great if she could do, it would be an amazing experience for us, but nothing’s confirmed.

Are there any other collaborations planned?
We’ve got a few wish lists, but once again nothing is confirmed. We had Sean Smith from The Blackout on ‘The Consequence’ off Hold Me Down, and we’ve got a few friends in mind, so something could happen.

Do you have any exciting plans for the Christmas period?
We’re all just going to take a couple of weeks off and spend some time with our families. I’m heading off to Kenya on safari, so that will be an amazing experience.

Any New Years resolutions?
I thought of one earlier, I think I’m going to try and not swear as much! When I’m trying to be nice and polite I’m fine, but if it’s a general conversation with people in the band or something I think, ‘God, I didn’t actually need to say the word “fuck” that much’! I think I can get my point across without swearing, so I’m going to give it a go! My mum will be proud!

What does 2011 have in store for You Me At Six?
We’re going to go off to write and record at the beginning of the year, there are plans to go out to Australia in April/May time. We want to jump on as many European festivals as we can over the summer, we’re not going to go to America next year, so we just want to do as many festivals as we can. Obviously we’ve got the Blink 182 tour and then around September we want to have the new album out and then we’ve got plans to do a really long UK tour. We basically want to every city in the UK that we can think of, but keep the shows really small and play some of the smaller towns that we did when we first started. I think it’s going to be a really exciting year for us.

Interview By Ben Connell