The Early November are an American band that conjures up memories of early 2000’s emo nostalgia. Fast forward to recent times they delivered a solid 2015 album that showed both maturity and familiarity. The band will be soon be returning to Australia touring with Mayday Parade. We caught up with vocalist, songwriter and producer Ace Enders ahead of their return down under.

SCENEzine
How’s 2016 been for you so far?

Ace Enders
It’s been great. We’ve been pretty busy doing Taste of Chaos with Dashboard Confessional, Taking Back Sunday and Saosin.

SCENEzine
Has there been a bit of a kinship between yourself, Chris, Adam and Anthony during the tour?

Ace Enders
Yeah its cool because I’ve never done a tour with so many people who come from the same place musically it’s a really cool vibe. You can definitely see the connection between us it’s all great.

SCENEzine
We are huge fans of your album Imbue that came out last year. Looking back a year on are you proud of how it turned out?

Ace Enders
I absolutely am. I think that one we were trying to just make something cool and not worry about how it was going to be received so much. I’m very happy with how it all ended up collectively it’s probably our favourite thing that we’ve done.

SCENEzine
How did you decide on the cover art for the album?

Ace Enders
The most important thing was having an image you could just wonder about. Not being too heavy with a logo or a work of art. Rather to just have an image that you could just wonder what it is for a bit. We landed on that.

SCENEzine
You recently released a video for “Narrow mouth” was it therapeutic to be able to let out some aggression during filming?

Ace Enders
You know it actually was great. I had never done anything like that before, definitely very cool. I hate breaking things but it was fun.

SCENEzine
Personally you are one of my favourite vocalist. It seems like your voice gets better with every record. Is there any secret to how your voice has been evolving?

Ace Enders
Firstly thank you I really appreciate that. I feel like it’s just not stopping is the main thing. Like not being done with it. I think that has been my main motivation and always trying to reach for a little more. A lot of times people see their ceiling of what they can do and say they can sing within a range from here to here where they are comfortable. Whereas I have never had any type of rules, that’s probably it. People say what key do you like to sing in and I say I really don’t know I don’t care what key it’s in.

SCENEzine
Do you get a chance with Taste of Chaos to see the other bands warm up techniques?

Ace Enders
It’s really cool because we are pretty much together all the time. This is definitely the tour where the bands have hung on the most out of any tour I’ve been on. We all pretty much watch each others set every time we can. It’s funny to see the different styles that everybody has as far as how they prepare. We all come from the same school of thought so there’s some similarity there.

SCENEzine
Can you tell us a bit about your motivation behind writing “Digital age”?

Ace Enders
I actually wrote it and recorded it in a couple of hours and did it all live. I sort of just wanted to go against what the recording process has been or what the standard is now. There’s pretty much no manipulation to it. Just a guitar and a microphone. It’s also about how people interpret music and what they want out of it. People right now want something very different out of music than they did ten years ago.

SCENEzine
The Early November is also synonymous with Drive-thru records era. Do you think back then it was a better time for people to be able to easily discover new bands?

Ace Enders
Yeah I think there’s just so much now that it’s a lot harder. Now days because there’s so much people might only listen to one song so must bands don’t get a chance. It’s a weird place for music right now. I think for the past ten years people have been saying it will work itself out and everybody’s still waiting for that to happen.

SCENEzine
You guys got tagged heavily as an emo band. How do you feel knowing you were a band people turned to through relationship break ups or hard times?

Ace Enders
A lot of people now days come up to us and say what our music means to them or how it helped them. That’s really what it’s all about. I’ve always said I want to make it so our music can be helpful to someone to give you something positive for your life. Seeing how people still react to our songs and bands like Dashboard’s songs is pretty crazy.

SCENEzine
You’ll soon be back in Australia touring. Do you have a favourite Australian memory?

Ace Enders
I’ve only been there twice I can’t really narrow it down to one thing just being there in general is always amazing. I feel like every time we land there it’s wild that we get to come and do what we do. The ability to be able to go there is probably my favourite thing. Everything is awesome there. I don’t know if you know but everything is awesome there (laughs)

SCENEzine
Your coming with Mayday Parade have you ever toured with them before?

Ace Enders
Never toured with them before besides Warped tour and stuff like that. We are very excited to make some new friends.

SCENEzine
One of my favourite The Early November songs is “Ever so sweet” do you remember how that song came about?

Ace Enders
I remember writing it between two places. In the van and my bedroom at my mums house. It was one of those things where I was starting to learn how to really write songs. That was my first song where I learned how to use metaphors properly. That song seems special to a lot of people. I’m gad you like it.

SCENEzine
Can you leave us a last message for your Australian fans?

Ace Enders
We are very appreciative of everybody who even knows who we are. Thank you for being patient because we don’t get there very often. We are really excited, when we get there we are definitely going to go all out. Best shows of our lives for sure.

(interview by Christian Ross)