Miss May I chats Deathless and their agenda for 2016!

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Last week,  we headed out to the Drop Your Gloves tour where we caught up with one of the biggest acts in the scene, Miss May I! Over the years including this interview, I’ve steadily chatted with lead vocalist Levi Benton and during that time I have seen them grow so much. With their latest record Deathless dropping last August right after they killed it every day on Warped Tour, they are poised to break to the next level with an extensive touring schedule for the rest of the 2016! A little bit of that has been announced with the band playing Slam Dunk and touring with Memphis May Fire and We Came As Romans in the UK! They’ll even be back in the Northeast area next month when they play with those same two bands on another US run with this tour hitting close by cities like Providence and Hartford. The band never stops and we are incredibly grateful to speak to the band as they continue their journey. Read our new one below!

Deathless came out in August, currently you’re main support for Blessthefall. How do you think the songs have been going over? 
It’s been awesome. I was actually just doing an email about how the songs are in this set because I think starting with the Parkway Drive tour, it was the first time ever that we’ve had a record go over so well that we can predominately play it. So this tour, we were like okay we just did it on Parkway so let’s do it some more. We literally play ten songs and eighty percent of it is our new record. It has been just insane. So it’s been going really good. Like I said, we usually only play singles and that’s how we’ve always been a band and this is a totally different situation with this record. Which is a really good thing but yeah, it’s been awesome. We’ve been touring non stop, we were just off for the holidays. Then we tour non-stop until the end of the year basically.
For this year?
Yeah! A lot of stuff’s not announced yet but yeah we’re going non-stop.

Then like you said, this record is going over really well but you did something where you put two records out in a very short time span. Because the record is doing so well, are you kind of waiting it out to write? 
Oh yeah! Well we write all the time. Like we already have seven songs done for whatever we’re going to write so we write literally like every day. If we’re bored, we’ll start writing. I just moved to the west coast so I’ll be near by a bunch of cool producers so I’m excited to mess around with some other people. Just add to Miss May I’s sound but I think we’re going to wait till 2017 to do something. Like you said, this record’s doing so well. We did do the two back to backs. We’re sort of on like a double release. That’s how we feel at least. We did Deathless so fast because of Warped Tour that we didn’t have a chance to do a Rise of the Lion headliner. So at the end of the year, we plan on doing a headliner as like a double record tour. It’s been a while. It’s been busy.

And were they written in sessions close together or were they like two separate song writing sessions, like one for Rise of the Lion and Deathless? 
They were definitely super separate because the producers definitely made it a whole different thing. Joey(Sturgis) did the new one and Terry (Date) was more of like an old school legendary producer. So he had like an older beautiful studio. Just stuff that we’re not used to but it was awesome. So definitely it was two different environments which makes the records sound completely different. And we had a different mindset for each one. I’m happy we did it like that so it wasn’t like a continuous twenty songs of the same thing.

Maybe how was it to work with Joey Sturgis again. I know he did the first two records but you guys have been a band for so long now. Maybe how was it to go back to him? 
It was awesome. It was so cool because since we’re close friends with him, we started writing the first day. It wasn’t like getting settled in or picking his brain or seeing what he wants to do with the band. We showed up, we gave some hugs then we hit record and we just started recording. We actually finished the song, Deathless, in the first day. So the first single, we finished in the first day. So we were like, wow okay this record is going to be sick. Then we had two months of that. Then we polished everything up. It was awesome but yeah working with Joey is just really awesome because he just gets our band. I think it’s from him being in the same area. Like he’s a little close to our age so he had the same influences of local bands which is weird to say because I feel like it’s not like that nowadays. A lot of our influences were local awesome metal bands like he listened to being from Indiana. So we all had like the same influences. He just gets what we want to be. He’s like the sixth member when we get together so it’s pretty cool.

Then I wanted to ask you. When we last spoke, I believe it was ten years that you guys had been together so now you’re in your eleventh year which must feel crazy and you’re still so young. Maybe something that you know not a that you would have told younger Miss May I? 
Oh man. What I would have told younger Miss May I. I would have told younger Miss May I to not sell any rights to anything because it’s really stupid. Actually there’s not a lot of stuff I regret. Basically the rights to stuff and it’s so fully because the Glassjaw DVD says that. Like don’t sell the merch rights and we still did it and it’s really stupid. So yeah, don’t sell your merch rights. That’s what I would tell us. Other than that, I think all the records and everything we got to do has been awesome. I wouldn’t take any of it back.

Then you talked about just now that it’s not announced but you’ll be on the road pretty soon. Is that kind of the plan to just continue to ride this Deathless train and do these tours?
Yeah like the radio festivals we’re already announced for, like Rock on the Range and all that and we’re doing some really cool shows in between. Well, we have a couple weeks off in between tours and it’s nice because we just tour so much. We’re finally at the status where we can take some time off and not just tour to like pay the bills. We’re going back to the UK for Slam Dunk and then some other shows with Memphis May Fire and WCAR. Which is cool because we haven’t been over there in a while.
You probably have a lot going on but you just can’t say it. Very sensitive material. 
Yeah, it’s going to be good though. There’s a lot of really cool stuff happening this summer for us that we’re announcing soon. It’s a big change for Miss May I and I think it’s going to really put us to the next level. So I think it will be cool.
Like different people that you’re touring with? 
A whole different infrastructure. I think it all gets announced in June. I think it will take us from where we are now to like out of the bubble. I’m happy right now. Like we’ve done main stage of Warped Tour. We’re where we want to be but there’s a bubble to really burst and I think in June, we’re going to do it. So, it should be cool.
That’s awesome, you guys work so hard. 
Thank you! I appreciate that.
And obviously like you said, you’ve done big things. Only more to come!
We’re excited it should be good!

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Colleen

Colleen has been writing about music since 2009. Interviewing bands since the glory days of Warped and has continued to do so for now over fourteen years. As well as doing freelance for other publications, the love for everything rock continues today.

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