Mayday Parade – vocalist Derek Sanders, drummer/vocalist Jake Bundrick, guitarists Alex Garcia and Brooks Betts and bassist/vocalist Jeremy Lenzo – will be celebrating 20 years together in 2025. As they welcome this career milestone, the Tallahassee, Florida, five-piece is set to release perhaps their most aspirational and ambitious effort yet: a three-part album showcasing their prolific, emotionally resonant songwriting. The first entry, Sweet, arrives 18th April, 2025, and is led by the effervescent bounce of “By The Way,” a pitch-perfect blend of what’s made Mayday Parade a genre mainstay for decades: a tender, piano-led groove ultimately giving way to a crush of stereo guitars, ascendant melodies, and heart-on-sleeve lyricism.
“Being in a band for this long, sometimes you feel like you’re getting it right and sometimes you feel like you’re dancing around what you should be doing. This song feels locked in as a step in the right direction. It’s a song about trying to stay optimistic as the world and everything you know is changing around you. We hope you all enjoy it.” – Derek Sanders on “By The Way”
Sweet succinctly showcases just how far Mayday Parade has come in the past two decades featuring the trademark sound that’s transformed them from genre newcomers to torchbearers for a new generation. Recorded with longtime producers, and multiplatinum engineers Zack Odom and Kenneth Mount (All Time Low, Jimmy Eat World), the trilogy of releases will serve as Mayday Parade’s eighth full-length studio album and first LP since 2021’s What It Means To Fall Apart. The new three-part album is also the band’s first self-released collection since 2006’s Tales Told By Dead Friends EP that Mayday Parade sold in parking lots across the country as they followed that year’s Vans Warped Tour.
“Being a band for 20 years feels big and we wanted to do something big to match that. Our next release will be a large album split up into three different parts. It feels like a challenge and an exciting step forward for the band. Our goal is to take the things we’ve learned and the ways we’ve grown and apply them towards an ambitious release. We’re incredibly thankful for the opportunity to continue to create music and we cannot wait to share Part 1 – titled ‘Sweet’ – with the world.” – Derek Sanders on Sweet
Mayday Parade release Sweet on 18th April 2025. Pre-orders available – Here