“It’s definitely a one-off for Australia,” he says of the upcoming An Evening With Anberlin Tour. “I guess it could be done in other places too, like here at home in the ‘States, but we wanted to do something extra special for Australia because our fanbase there is like no other. Per capita, it’s actually the biggest in the world for Anberlin. I can’t explain it and I don’t know why it’s turned out to be that way over the last ten years, but we’ve developed an amazing bond with the Australian people, which is the reason that we come back so often. We’ll come back once a year, and sometimes we’ll tour twice a year, which is geographically a very long way to go for your fans!”
As the ultimate dream-come-true live experience for any Anberlin fan, An Evening With Anberlin sees the band mix things up and step out of the box as far as the typical concert performance is concerned. Featuring rare songs and B-sides, Young says the band will also be putting a new spin on fan favourites and an acoustic twist on the heavier tracks.
“Crowd interaction is important, of course, especially when you’re doing such a fan-dedicated show like this,” he points out. “We’re thinking about taking questions from the audience, I don’t think there’ll be any kind of order to it, just whoever gets in there first I guess! I’m excited about the chance to play around with some of our songs, maybe add some electronic parts here or there, strip it down to acoustic, maybe change the percussion… I think it will be just as much fun for the audience as it will be for us, too. I mean, we’ve been doing this now for a decade and after a while it can turn into a formula where it’s just not fun anymore. I think we’ve got some good songs in our catalogue and you always want to serve them justice.”
And while Young and the band are looking forward to putting a new twist on their classics, the drummer says he is just as much still looking forward to belting out some newer songs too, especially from Anberlin’s latest offering Dark Is The Way, Light Is A Place. A darker, less poppy side of the band, Young says the fifth record marked both the beginning and an ending of an era for Anberlin.
“Stephen [Christian, vocals] was talking about how the album felt like we were on the brink of something and that’s very true,” agrees Young. “We’ve been a band for ten years now and that’s kind of bound to happen, it’s almost like a coming of age. It’s the start of a new cycle in many ways, and I don’t necessarily mean changing our sound or anything, but for us as people and as members of this band, it’s inevitable to go through personal change and that’s going to impact your music. Yeah, this album sounds a little bit less poppy than what we’re known for, but we still had a lot of fun making it. Personally, I don’t think it’s that much of a departure or anything, it’s just a bit of a new twist on the way we make music.”
A daring move for any band that has established itself as an uplifting pop-punk juggernaut over the last ten years, according to Young. Add to it all the ever-changing, fickle nature of the music industry as it is, the drummer claims that Anberlin has luckily managed to come out on top yet again with the new offering.
“We’re lucky that each year seems bigger and busier in retrospect. I know that’s not a case for all bands, unfortunately we hear about it a lot. At the same time, what is ‘success’ anyway? The definition of it will change depending on the band you ask. You can’t judge it based on record sales anymore, those days are long, long gone. For us personally, the fact that we’re releasing albums and touring places like Australia – that’s true success to us. We’ve had an incredible year touring with 30 Seconds To Mars and Linkin Park, some really great bands, and there’s plenty more of that to come. For me, it doesn’t get any better than that, so in my own mind, I’m the most successful person in the world! Of course, there would be other bands for whom that’s just not enough and they have to be making millions of dollars I guess. Success is such a personal definition.”
For now, Young is particularly stoked to revisit some of Anberlin’s lesser-known tracks on stage during the upcoming Australian tour, as well as to play around with some of the better-known classics.
“There’s always a debate about what makes an album and what stays a B-side, you can’t please everybody. There’s always at least one song that you love which doesn’t make a record, so a show like this gives those songs a chance to shine after a long time. Sometimes it’s a label issue, sometimes it’s a collective band decision. If the label pays for you to include ten songs but you’ve got a lot more than that, then you kind of have to cull them down. So the B-sides that you get to hear on this tour, they’re not like some afterthought or any lesser than the songs that made it on the original albums.”
