A Day To Remember have been one of the best live bands on the planet for a long, long time now. Despite a “mortifying” first show all the way back in 2003, Jeremy McKinnon reveals – through 10 key gigs – how they’ve shot straight to the top.
From smashing Florida sweatboxes and having overstuffed gigs shut down by the man, to founding Self Help Fest and getting the keys to Ocala, A Day To Remember have grown over more than two decades on the road. Frontman Jeremy McKinnon reflects on the shows that shaped him…
“It was in the cafeteria of a church called The Mission in our hometown of Ocala, Florida. There were maybe six or seven local bands on the bill and about 10 people in the audience. The only members in the band at that point that people might know, other than me, were our old guitarist Tom [Denney] and drummer Bobby [Scruggs]. I remember that Bobby had kinda forced this other guitarist in at that point. He came over to try out and we were like, ‘Why did he leave his stuff behind?’ because the rest of us were going to say, ‘No!’ But Bobby had already told him he was in. So he came to play this show – at a church, where we were just a random band playing to a handful of people – and he did the thing where he put a bunch of water in his mouth and spat it in the air. It was mortifying! But that was the show where we met our current guitarist Neil [Westfall] who joined when that other guy was out of there!”
“The majority of the craziest shit that happens to you as a band is in the ‘van-and-trailer’ days. That’s when you find yourself in the weirdest, most unique situations. After West Palm Beach in Florida, the first place that blew up for us was Augusta, Georgia. We were coming back at the end of a tour to play this old hole-in-the-wall laundromat, a long, narrow venue called Sector 7G. It was sold out, with 300 to 400 people in this tiny venue that could realistically only fit a little over 100. As we were about to go on, the Fire Marshal shows up and tells us we’ve got to shut the show down. It was about to be the sickest show of all time and I was like, ‘We’re kickin’ into Fast Forward To 2012 and they can stop me if they want to!’ Then they came up to me and told me that if I played one note he was going to arrest me for inciting a riot. I didn’t want to go to jail, but I knew that would be the hardest fucking charge to have on your record: inciting a riot in Augusta. I didn’t do it in the end. Honestly, to this day, I look back like, ‘I should have done it!’”
“It was a huge deal. We had a UK tour manager who took us walking around the site, looking at the countryside and all the people camping out, which was something I’d never seen before. I knew already, but he really explained what a special place it was, with so much history. Our first day there was the first time I ever saw KISS. That night, we were wandering around and found the village full of fairground rides. Neil and Jeremy [DePoyster] from The Devil Wears Prada just disappeared into it. The next day rolled around – show day – and Neil was fucked-up. We didn’t know if he could play the show, and got as far as practicing with Chris [Rubey] from Prada in case he needed to fill in. But Neil mustered. In the middle of it, I decided to make this speech about how much it meant to be at this place that’s so important in rock history. Then it hit me what song I was introducing: our cover of Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone…”
“Our [breakthrough] Homesick cycle really started in the UK. The album had leaked two weeks early, which was a big deal at a time when no-one was buying records, but there still weren’t streaming services to trace how it was doing. We were kinda bummed about it. But two weeks wasn’t that big of a deal and we were caught up in the chaos of Tom deciding he didn’t want to tour anymore, and Kevin [Skaff] having to learn our whole set in 24 hours so he could fill in. The first show of tour was at the Manchester Roadhouse. We were all sitting backstage, feeling nervous. Then, all of a sudden, we hear the crowd starting to do [The Downfall Of Us All] chant. We were looking at each other like, ‘What the fuck?!’ But they were so fucking loud, getting to the ‘Let’s go!’ part then starting over. We went out there and the show was absolutely insane. Manchester was really Ground Zero, the place that launched this all for us!”
“The first half of our House Party tour was rough for us. We were struggling with this massive production every night, we had been playing the same music for four years, and we were in the middle of a court case with our old label Victory Records, where they were trying to stop us releasing anything new until the proceedings were over. We didn’t know if we had ruined our career. But right before the show in Sterling Heights, just outside Detroit, we got the call to say the judge had decided in our favour and we were able to put out Common Courtesy [four days later]. There’s a video of me going out there to tell everybody the news. It was such a massive moment because it felt like we had really stuck it to the man. I’ve got a framed photo of me backstage at that show calling my mom to give her the good news!”
“Self Help Fest is basically named after our fanbase. The first time our manager came to see us, I remember him telling us how it was like people were having some kind of religious experience, working through some stuff, like a form of self-help. But my memories of the first festival in San Bernardino was how we were trying to get all our friends together and create a backstage environment that was like an American Download Festival. At Warped Tour it was hard: a parking lot, no amenities, lucky if you can get a shower, using a [portable loo] that everyone else has been using all day. At Download you had catering and a room and bathroom and space to hang out. We put the same effort into all the bands feeling welcome, with cool food trucks backstage. I’ll never forget all the other bands coming up to us telling us how much they loved being there. That felt so good – on top of the show being incredible, with 15,000 fans turning out.”
“Our 2016 U.S. tour with blink-182 felt like a pivotal moment for us. They are maybe our main influence as a band, and although people say you should never meet your idols, blink were incredibly kind to us. Mark Hoppus would come in our room and crack jokes every day. Travis [Barker] was always there with his kids. And right in the middle was Matt Skiba [who was blink’s former frontman after the departure of Tom DeLonge]. We’re all massive Alkaline Trio fans, so we asked him whether if we played Private Eye one night he might get up and do it with us. It was one of the coolest things ever to finally get to do it at the Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre in his hometown of Chicago. It was funny, too: Alkaline Trio are very much one of our drummer Alex’s [Shelnutt] favourite bands, and when we got to the end of the song it was like he was having an out-of-body experience. He just kept playing. We kept playing with him, but had to turn round to get him to finish. By no means was it a train wreck, but we still tease him about that time we got to play with Matt Skiba and he didn’t want to stop.”
“Being given the keys to our hometown was really fucking cool. They set up in Tuscawilla Park, a place where I grew up playing with my cousins as a kid, then later as a band. There were about 7,000 people there to see the show, as well as all of our families and the mayor. And the keys themselves looked rad. But the day before the show it made the local news that the owner of this tattoo shop had lost a super-rare, extremely dangerous cobra that was almost certainly out there in the park. People were combing the entire place all day long. We responded by making a limited tee with a made-up ‘mugshot’ of this crazy looking snake. That was a pretty sick shirt!”
“I had joined Linkin Park at the 2014 Warped Tour to sing A Place For My Head. When Mike Shinoda hit me up to ask if I would do it again at the [Linkin Park & Friends: Celebrate Life In Honor Of Chester Bennington] show at the Hollywood Bowl in 2017, of course I said yes. But there is a big difference between singing with Chester and singing for Chester. I took it very seriously, watching every video I could find and working his little bits into my performance. When I turned up for soundcheck, the rest of the band noticed immediately. I think it made them more comfortable. But I was petrified because I sometimes blank if I’m singing other people’s songs. I was horrified by the idea of that happening there. So I listened to the song constantly: in bed at night, in the aeroplane, in the car to the hotel. I screamed it into a towel for hours in the hotel. I played it every minute while I was on-site – I was still listening to it as I walked to the stage. But as soon as I came off I knew it had been such an honour to have been part of that tribute.”
“I’d never even been to Red Rocks in Colorado before we played it. Turning up and standing onstage for the first time was so cool. You see it in pictures, but when you’re there in person you realise the stage is at the bottom of this mountain rising up in front of you. The seats are carved into the rock and it looks like they go on forever. I was actually pretty nervous about it because we’re a band with a bunch of breakdowns but that venue is all seated. I was anticipating that it was going to be a special night, yet mentally I was ready for it to be a struggle. But I was wrong. It felt like people were still really connected, jumping around and having a good time. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t a pit. To be able to sell that out, with 9,000 people on a mountain outside Denver, at this point in our career, is crazy.”
A Day To Remember play the O2 Academy Brixton in London on June 24 and 25. This feature originally appeared in the summer 2025 issue of Kerrang!.
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