Take a chance on Days Difference!

In spirit of a new project I am starting with the record label known for boy bands (ahem NSYNC and Backstreet Boys) with Jive, I bring you the next band Days Difference! You never know what you're going to find here and this is just another example. One day I'll be interviewing a screamo rock band and only hours later I'll be with a pop artist but that's something that I love about what I do. I try not to stick myself in one box of music coverage and hopefully it has been something that has been enjoyed so far.

They may not be too common of a name yet but Days Difference is quickly moving as a band on the cusp of dropping their sophomore album and having shared the stage with Paramore and Jacks Mannequin along with recently performing at Popcon with the likes of Justin Bie ber and Selena Gomez. The band is composed of two sets of brothers that came from Texas and Virginia to meet in Virginia when Jeremy and Johnathon stepped in for a band performance that Micah and Jeremiah were doing at their school's talent show. The boys only officially met on stage and since then in 2004 have come amazingly far!

Recently I got the chance to sit down with Jeremy who provides the lead vocals for the band and we talked about everything from the craziest place they've ever played to the back story behind how two boys from Texas got to Virginia and became who they are today.

What's the craziest place you have ever played or recorded in?
We've played so many like hole in the wall places. There was this one place we played. It's called the Sandbar, it's kind of close to where we live now. It was this smoky, gross bad. The crazy thing about it was the fact that like six months earlier, a car had like ran into the side of the building and like caved the well in. Instead of putting up a new wall, they just kind of like put up some hardwood so like that's where the stage was. Right behind us was just the hardwood between the outside and where we were. The place was like the most crazy and seedy place I've played in my life. It was pretty nuts!

I know you're playing PopCon on February 20th and the headliners are Justin Beiber and Selena Gomez, two pretty big names. What are you most excited for?
I'm excited to finally get back on the road and play to a show, to be able to kind of meet people and meet our fans. We had so many people that are coming out to the show who just want to hang out with us and meet us. So we're excited about that and we want to get out there play in front of people getting to hang out afterwards. Also, I'm so excited to see Selena Gomez play and Justin Bieber as well. I just want to be able to see them live because they're really cool, even Push Play and Sean Kingston too. I'm excited for that!
Sean Kingston is playing?
Yeah! I'm second guessing myself now. I mean maybe not. I thought that he was. I'm excited to sing along to that song (starts singing) 'Shorty fire burning on the dance floor, woahhh' For sure.

I know you've opened for a lot of big bands like Paramore and Jack's Mannequin when they came to Virginia. If you could could on the road with any three acts, who would they be and why?
Oh man, okay bands we would like to tour with. We would like to tour with artists like Justin Bieber or Demi Lovato or Selena Gomez or Miley Cyrus, The Jonas Brothers, bands like that that just have those huge audiences. I think that would be incredible. And then more like guilty pleasures like Coldplay or U2 or Muse. Those would just be incredible because those guys are our musical heroes.

I always wonder, your brother is in the band and its another set of brothers. How did two brothers from Texas and Virginia come together. Did you meet each other when you were young?
Yeah, my brother and I were born in Texas and lived in Ecuador for six years after we were in Texas. Our parents were missionaries there so we lived there and then we moved from Ecuador to Virginia. I'd say five years after we were living here, we moved to a school where Jeremiah was in a band and the piano player and drummer didn't show up so John and I covered for them. We actually met on stage!

Oh wow, you didn't know each other before you started playing?
No, we had never met each other. We were like 'hey my names Jeremy, nice to meet you'. We had like five minutes to prepare before the show. It was crazy.

I read somewhere that you're kind of the chief songwriter of the band so how do you guys go about the songwriting process? Is it sometimes collective or is it normally just one person?
In the past, I usually wrote everything like the lyrics and all the elements, the important stuff then the band and I got down and figured out how it should sound and everything. Mostly though, I was doing everything by myself. Now I like collaborating with people with really great writers, it's so much fun! I'd sit down and have an idea and then we would just do the song from there so I loved it.
And you worked with the former bassist of One Republic for a few of the songs.
Yeah he was incredible. He and I wrote about half the album together. We really connected together and it was incredible.

Awesome! I know when your first album 'Numbers' came out, you did some pretty extensive touring for it and through the experience there were broken collarbones, a promoter even got hit by a car. What's the craziest thing that has happened to you while you were on the road?
The craziest thing that has happened has to be our trailer tire falling off a trailer and the axle breaking. We were driving on the road and the right tired just flew off like side to side. We were like 'oh man have to pull over soon' because the tire is about to fall off and when we finally pulled over, the whole tire just slammed to the ground. There was like this tank full of gas and it just cracked open. We were completely bummed because we had to buy a new one while we were on the road. It was crazy!

That's insane. We kind of went over this before with the new album release, but when you did 'Numbers', it was more on your own and then now you had cowriters and you were signed to a major record label when you got to that second album. So, was it incredibly different or was it the still same basic process?
It's funny, when you're on a label everything is rushed and the situation is rushed. You have to meet deadlines to make you finish the stuff, everything moves quickly and then you wait a year. But with 'Numbers', when we made that album, it was all self produced. We wrote everything ourselves. It was pretty 100 % me writing and then us just putting together what we could. On our most recent album, we really got to do work with people in the industry who really knew what they were doing, which I just loved. You know that was much more of like a collaboration with other people and I think it really shows on the album.



I know you've been kind of involved with the Disney Channel. You, Michael and I believe your brother were in the Hannah Montana movie as the backing band. Do you feel that some might have a prejudice against your music because of the disney stereotype. Do you feel that from some people and how do you react to that?
I think our demographic is like 14 to 24 year olds which is what you want to go for anyways and it's mostly female (laughs). Like on our facebook, we have statistics of like the numbers and stuff, like 95% are female. It's kind of what we appeal to from what we've been doing but for the most part, really people haven't been giving us too much beef about it. I think the people that do are just jealous and a ton of people that just hate on people that are successful. It's like we opened for Owl City at a college show, and the audience was completely all of college age like there was no one really younger at all. Kids would be watching, and they just loved it. We had the same reaction from them that we had gotten from people that would be watching the disney channel. I feel like our music definitely has a broader appeal then Disney, but we definitely do well with that, so like why not you know? The bigger, the better.

For sure, and one of the last ones is do you ever find it hard working with your brother so closely a challenge or is it different because he's going through the same thing?
Oh it's a great thing! My brother and I are best friends. We're actually like taking boxing together and stuff like that. We have a lot of camaraderie between the two of and us and we work on vocals and harmonies and things like that so I love it, I wouldn't have it any other way. I really enjoy having someone like that. I feel like we're really like minded so it just feels like you're in a group of people in a band, it's really like you're a family. I mean, my brother is my family but I mean even Jeremiah and Michael. We all are similar in the same way, we just all like come together in that sense. We do get on each other's nerves once in a while but really rarely. My brother, man, he can annoy me but knowing him like no one else, we work it out. It's just little stuff.

Besides PopCon, what can fans look forward to in 2010? Will you be back on the road?
Yes, our first single Sunrise will be releasing in mid February to top forty radio and from there we're working on a lot of tours. So touring in March, April, May to the end of the year really. That's really our goal. So, radio in February and touring from March to beyond. Thank you to Jeremy from Days Difference for taking the time to do this interview and get your fix from the band here on their myspace.
Since our interview, the band has been announced as support on the new Jordin Sparks tour and hopefully we see a lot more of this band on the road this year!