Ben caught up with Dan and Jordan from Set Your Goals in Leeds to talk about supporting You Me At Six, plans for 2011 and much more.

You’re currently on a UK tour with You Me At Six, how have these shows been going?
Daniel Coddaire (Guitar): Great, it’s really good. The shows have been awesome, huge and sold out for the most part. Those dudes are good friends of ours, so it’s been really good fun so far.

How are you finding that their fans are taking to you?
Dan: They’ve been pretty receptive, some shows have been a little better than others, but it’s definitely a little better than we were expecting, so we’re stoked!

Even on your days off you’re playing shows, such as the one in Leeds this evening, do you ever give yourselves a break?
Jordan (Vocals): We take more time off than we used to, but we’re happy doing this.

Dan: We like playing our own shows, playing to new people is obviously great seeing as there are thousands of them, but we like to bring it back to people who just want to see us too. These kind of shows have a really cool vibe, we definitely want to hold on to that.

How would you say that 2010 in general has been for Set Your Goals?
Dan: It’s been a good year, very successful. We’ve started work on our new album which is exciting, so 2011 will probably be even better.

Any particular highlights throughout the year?
Jordan: Soundwave was pretty solid…

Dan: Definitely the highlight for me. We played with Faith No More, Janes Addiction, Sunny Day Real Estate, we played a side show opening for The Get Up Kids, all of that was pretty much a dream come true for all of us.

Jordan: We love being in Australia, that festival is just too ridiculous. We were all like fan-boys all over again! There were tonnes of bands that we love, it was crazy, I don’t think anything like that will ever happen again. Ahh Australia, the land of dreams!

You’ve mentioned that you’ve begun work on the follow up to This Will Be The Death Of Us, how is that going?
Jordan: It’s good, we’ve tracked the drums for the album and we’re going to go back after the holidays and start tracking the rest of the instruments. I’m doing quite a bit of writing still over the course of this tour and probably still while we’re in the studio, but it’s sounding really fun. I think it’s a good blend of everything we’ve done on our two previous records, but we’re coming back to a more kind of pop-punk feel, but we’re still trying to remain some aggressiveness. I think a lot of people are going to hate it just because they will…

What makes you say that?
Dan: That’s just the way it is, people are fickle. I think it’ll be a little less polarising than the last record for sure, I think a lot of people will be able to get on board with this record and we might even pick up some new fans too, but there are always going to be detractors, it happens. Nobody’s ever completely satisfied, they want every album to sound exactly like their favourite album, you can’t give everyone what they want.

Is it more of a case of so long as you’re satisfied, that’s all that matters?
Dan: Obviously we do it for fans too, but we can really only strive to do it for ourselves, simply because if we’re not completely happy with it, nobody will be.

On the last album there were several collaborations (Vinnie Caruana, Hayley Williams, Chad Gilbert) are there any in the pipeline for the next release?
Jordan: We don’t really intend to, there might be one person who we’re really good friends with. With the last record we went through loads of stuff so we could actually put the album out and be in a safe zone, so we just drew from all the bands and the people that we’d met over the course of that cycle to come in and play a part on that record, which was like the trophy at the end of the race. With this record we just want to take it back to when we were just in our own little world. If we do have a collaboration it will just be really subtle, but otherwise it’s just Set Your Goals.

You played Warped Tour this summer, how did you find it?
Jordan: It was fun. It was really hard, just as it was the last time we did it, but we had a lot of friends on it this year. It tends to get easier every year, it’s just the amount of time and work that it takes.

Do you ever think that the intensity of that tour draws away from the excitement of it?
Jordan: It’s hard to say, I think it kind of adds to it a little bit.

Dan: There’s definitely a lot more stuff that the record company throws at you just to make sure you don’t go crazy or your brain blowing up! They do take into consideration that it is a gruelling tour, it’s two months in intense heat, but they really do their best to mix things up and make sure you aren’t losing your mind with fatigue or whatever!

Jordan: If all the venues were in big cities and not forty miles outside of them then it would be better. All you’re surrounded by every day is deserted land for miles with no means of getting to a city. It’s a really good festival, but that’s your community for months, you don’t see anything else. If they had it in cities or whatever, you could just go for a walk.

Dan: I’d just go home!

There’s a rumour that you’re going to be playing Slam Dunk again next year, is this true?
Jordan: I think I jumped the gun a bit with that one!

Dan: We’re in talks, there are other things that we want to be doing around that time next year, but we’re going to try and fit it all in.

Jordan: We’ll definitely be coming over here without a doubt. There are a few festivals that we’d like to try and get on over here.

So what is it about playing over here that keeps you coming back?
Jordan: The crowds are awesome, also, the biggest festivals we’ve played are over here. We played Reading and Leeds last year and they were insane. Slam Dunk this year was crazy. Reading and Leeds were probably the biggest crowds we’ve ever played to, people are just way more appreciative of music over here because you might not get it as often.

Do you have any exciting plans for the Christmas holidays?
Dan: We have a week off after this, but then the plan is to go back into the studio the day after Christmas.

Jordan: We had three months off after Warped Tour, so we’re excited to get back into the studio.

Dan: Yeah, that was the largest chunk of time off we had off in a very long time, so now after this tour the main focus is to get the album ready. But for the week off we’re just going to chill, spend some time with the family and that’s about it.

Jordan: I’m going to spike my family’s eggnog! Yeah, we’re just going to hang out for that quick week.

Finally, what does 2011 have in store for Set Your Goals?
Jordan: Really good tours.

Dan: Yeah, none stop what we’ve been doing this year. We want to get the record out, we’ll be back here of course because we love it over here.

Jordan: It’s the same old album cycle all over again!

Dan: Hopefully we’ll take it up a level though, that’s the hope.

Jordan: It’s all about travelling and going to see cool places.

Dan: We’re going to South East Asia, that’s already been confirmed. We’re going to play Indonesia, Singapore and a couple of dates in Japan, we’re really excited about that. Apparently the Indonesian shows are going to be nuts, apparently a lot of kids are getting excited about that, we get hit up on Twitter and Facebook all the time, we’re very excited.

Interview By Ben Connell