New Years Day, the U.S. metal five-piece lead by powerhouse Ashley Costello, made their debut Aussie appearances hitting Download’s Avalanche Stage in Melbourne and Sydney last March, immediately setting about performing a killer set and forging plans for a return tour. Most recently touring North America with the likes of Halestorm and In This Moment, New Years Day will kick off their debut headline tour in Australia in March 2020, we chatted to Nikki a few days before the tour was officially announced while the band are on a headliner tour across North America in support of their latest album “Unbreakable” to discuss the big news as well as get a little background on the band’s history.
Andrew: We had one of our writers catch you at the Rocklahoma festival so how was that?
Nikki: Oh Rocklahoma Festival was awesome! Oddly enough a little scary, actually it was a lot scary now that I’m remembering everything! We actually had our new drummer LP who used to play in Yellowcard fly out and play the show with us and he’s our current drummer on the tour and it’s crazy because we never got to practice with him at all before that show. It was pretty much, ‘You learned the song? OK let’s play it’, and it was awesome. It was so much fun and just to be on tour with the rest of the bands like our family In This Moment, some of the Ded guys were there, Korn, such an insane show. And then we pretty much had to fly out a couple of hours after we played, we drove pretty much through the hurricane that was tearing through Oklahoma, made it to the airport, came home, it was a wild Rocklahoma that I’ll never forget even if I can’t remember half of it at the same time!
Andrew: [laughs] Speaking of festivals we actually caught you here for the first time last year at the Download Festival so how did that go for you guys?
Nikki: That was insane! This was our first time in Australia and being invited to play Download at the same time? Oh my god a dream come true! It’s always cool like when you’re traveling to a country you’ve never been to and playing one of the biggest festivals in the world, it still blows my mind. It was so much fun, it’s always so crazy that people want to see you and the music and the things you’ve done has reached that far around the earth. It was insane, it was so cool and the crowd seemed to have loved us so that’s what really matters, so much that they wanted us back to headline. So I would say it went pretty good!
Andrew: Yes we just got the news, first time headlining so it’s exciting stuff. So obviously you must have made a really big impression at Download last year.
Nikki: I’m guessing so! But hey I’m ready to prove them right and prove why they picked us.
Andrew: So obviously a festival show and a headlining show are two different sort of beasts, do you cater a show to different situations like that or is it the same show no matter what?
Nikki: It’s a little bit of both. No matter what, I always go into these brand new shows, especially with a brand new audience who has never seen us, I always have the mentality like I’m going into a fight in a sense and that’s probably why I hurt myself so much on stage. But I’m going to be fighting for people’s attention, I’m going to be fighting so that they remember us and that they never forget us. It just creates this energy and I explode with it on stage, like most of us do on the stage. We feed of of that, it’s like this nervousness, a bit of fear but at the same time there’s an excitement and confidence like an explosion, boom on that stage.
Andrew: Yeah a different type of show obviously at a festival, bigger crowds and everything but there’s something about the club shows. Something about the intimacy of being right in the crowds face, that’s gotta be a very cool aspect to see.
Nikki: Yeah it is, I definitely like to go into the crowd any way I can and rock with them and if we get up on the bar, who knows. It’s definitely a different beast and I love that intimacy like the no barricades setup. I remember one time we played this show at Strummers in Fresno, California where the crowd was just so chaotic, kids were falling on my pedal board and turning my distortion off. I’m playing this song totally clean but the most hard rocking song but I can’t tell, all these kids were just swarming up at ya but it was one of the craziest, coolest, funnest things that you would ever see.
Andrew: Awesome well looking forward to it! You have a new album that was just released right, about two months ago, “Unbreakable”.
Nikki: Yeah “Unbreakable” just came out about a month or so ago.
Andrew: So what has the response been like so far?
Nikki: The response has just been insanely awesome! It’s so crazy because this album we definitely took some steps in different directions, you can hear different influences. We tried new things, vocally musically, anything sonically and kids have just loved it. But it was very funny when we first started putting out teasers of songs because the first thing that got released was “Skeletons” which at first I was like, ‘I don’t know, is that strong enough?’ But everybody loved it and then we gave them “Shut Up” and everyone was like, ‘Oh that’s it, New Years Day is a pop band now’. But it was like, ‘Hold on, hold on’, and all of a sudden we gave them “Come For Me” and ‘Oh my god this is awesome!’ So just give it a second, we got you. But yeah it’s been awesome, it’s been so much fun getting to play these new songs and experience the energy it creates within the audience itself so it’s been awesome.
Andrew: So obviously with a new album you have to change the setlist a little bit, take out some of the old ones, put some new ones in. Now with a few albums under the belt, is that process starting to get a bit harder now or are you still able to manage it quite easily?
Nikki: It’s still easy but there’s always so many other aspects like how we move during the show. We do like choreography, we like to have these punches not just in the air but for the eyes too. There’s so much more and we really just love playing and experience it on a stage but there’s nothing like the excitement of playing a new song too. It’s almost like stepping on the wild side like, ‘Ooh is this sound right? Am I going to get in trouble for this?’
Andrew: [laughs] But that’s an exciting thing, busting out a new song and especially in front of a new crowd like coming to Australia for the first time. I mean is that really the height of the excitement of being in a band?
Nikki: Well I guess one of the hardest parts is picking out what’s the songs we’re going to play, how do we do the order because everything in the beginning is kind of slow. I mean I don’t know, I guess it’s easy and hard at the same time, just depends really on how you look at it. I guess we try to make ourselves so insanely busy that we don’t have to worry about the fear of it.
Andrew: So just to give the Aussie fans a little bit of an insight as some may not be quite familiar with the band, tell us a little about the background of the band, how it started, some of your influences and things like that.
Nikki: Absolutely. As far as the history with the band, Ash (Costello, vocalist) pretty much first started this band in 2007. It was very much pop-punky at the time and they were starting to ride a big wave of success but then the record label folded and oddly enough the same record label that Pitbull was on and one of the songs even talked about the record label, the same record label that tore down New Year’s Day at first. New Year’s Day weren’t around for a couple of years and Ash wanted to bring it back but with more of the person that she was then which had this very horror, theatrical kind of vibe to it and it pretty much picked up right where it left off. Just it was darker, it was more mature for the band at that time. They did the Warped tour and they were feeding off “The Mechanical Heart” EP and that’s when I joined the band and I came in late 2011.
Ash and I just clicked musically, artistically in every which way and we started feeding off of each other’s ideas and I saw this strength that this band needed and so I started pulling that out too and it’s pretty much the best way I can describe it is that Ash came back for this band and resurrected it from the grave. You see exactly how the band looked at the time, it just looked like a bunch of dirty monsters and so we came out with “Victim To Villain” and then we got darker with “Malevolence”. You could see this darkness taking over and after “Malevolence” things just really turned around for the band, because “Malevolence” came from a really dark time. But from that point on to this point we fought our way through all the no’s and jumped over all the obstacles and just turned this morale around and you see that we’re coming from a more positive area. We still have that annihilistic, explosive energy rock n roll that we play on stage but this is the time to be paying attention and if you’re a New Year’s Day fan, you know what’s coming up, if you have it, buckle up your seat belts, this ride is just getting started.
Andrew: How did you and Ash meet? Did you know each other before you joined the band?
Nikki: Yeah so I was in this other band at the time, I was working in 2 jobs and I got dragged to this little label party and it was at this shitty golf club in L.A. and Ash was dragged there because she was [inaudible] at the time and I guess they were trying to get on that label. So in rebellion of going to this place, Ash dressed in all white and oddly enough I was rebelling too and I kinda looked like this 1970’s Tron meets Pee Wee Herman. Still with a whole bunch of makeup and hair just really greasy, combover with these really giant, thick glasses and a ruffled shirt and everybody around us is all in black and leather trying to dance and here I am with this giant bow tie and you see Ash in this shade of white just come out of this group and be like, ‘You, you look like I need to know you’. We started talking and found out we were in two different bands and then we started watching each other’s bands. I remember they were watching me play and I still had that same energy and Don Robertson who was a CEO at the time comes up to Ash and be like, ‘You need that guy in your band’ and once they had an opening, I just jumped right in. What they were doing at the time was exactly what I wanted to do, that kind of horror-esque vibe but still pop and fun.
Andrew: And the rest is history I guess. So it’s been a great run for you guys and obviously exciting for everyone involved. So between now and the Australian tour, what do you guys have planned, will you just be on the road the whole time?
Nikki: Pretty much, I think we maybe only have a month or a month and a half break for the rest of the year. So currently we’re on a headliner right now with Rivals and Savage After Midnight and then we’re working our way to Godsmack for a couple of weeks and then we resume our little headliner on our way back home and then we’re home for a little bit and then we go out with In This Moment, Motionless In White, DED and Hellzapoppin for September and October and then November we go back to Europe with Halestorm and In This Moment which is going to be absolutely insane doing these shows over there. I heard a couple more things that sounds super exciting but not confirmed but I wish I could blab about them but you know the rules, they’ll take my tongue if I do.
Andrew: Yeah we’ll get to that when the time comes but in the meantime it’s exciting to see you coming to Australia again, looking forward to it. Thanks for your time, really appreciate it and we will see you in 2020.
Nikki: Absolutely man! It’s been an absolute pleasure and an honour talking to you man. I can’t wait, I’m ready to rock it!
TOUR DATES
LIONS ARTS FACTORY, ADELAIDE – THURSDAY MARCH 19*
170 RUSSELL, MELBOURNE – FRIDAY MARCH 20
FACTORY THEATRE, SYDNEY – SATURDAY MARCH 21*
THE BRIGHTSIDE, BRISBANE – SUNDAY MARCH 22
TICKETS ON SALE 11AM THURSDAY JUNE 27
Live Nation pre-sale: 10am June 26 until 10am June 27
*All Ages
For complete tour and ticket information, visit: nydrock.com & livenation.com.au
