Story Of The Year Reveal Their Fave Songs To Play Live

More than two decades after unleashing their scene-defining debut Page Avenue, Story Of The Year are still bringing the same explosive energy to the stage that made them one of the most beloved bands of the 2000s post-hardcore explosion. And with their brand-new album A.R.S.O.N. now in the mix, the Missouri heavyweights have an ever-growing arsenal of anthems to choose from.

Ahead of their return Down Under next February for the Camp Screamo Australian Tour, co-headlining alongside fellow emo legends Silverstein and special guests Point North, we caught up with drummer Josh Wills and bassist Adam Russell to find out which Story Of The Year tracks they love playing live the most.

From the nostalgia-soaked singalongs of 2005 and the enduring emotional punch of Until The Day I Die to the fresh adrenaline of their newest material, the pair take us behind the scenes of their current live faves – complete with unicorn masks, unexpected musical Easter eggs, ageing-musician realities and some surprisingly heartfelt reflections on their band’s legacy. Take it away, lads!

Josh Wills’ Current Favourite Story Of The Year Songs To Play Live

1. ‘2005’

“With 2005, it’s been rad because we’ve had the video walls at the shows, and it plays the 2005 video that we made. It’s so much fun watching the crowd when that happens, they’re not even watching us when we’re playing it, they’re just watching the screens. But it’s fun watching them watch the screen! Plus I usually put a unicorn head on or a horse mask for that one too, so that makes it more fun.”

2. ‘Into The Dark’

“This one’s from our new album, and I just love that song. It’s one of my favourites from A.R.S.O.N., it has such an awesome groove to it.

When we first made that song and I heard it recorded… not that it’s doing this yet, but hopefully it will in the future… if I close my eyes, I can picture an arena singing the chorus. That hasn’t happened yet, but that’s what I think of when I hear it.

And it’s fun to play live because obviously whoever’s there with us is usually singing it too. It just has that arena vibe to me.”

3. ‘Gasoline (All The Rage Still Only Numb)’

“This song just rips! We’ve been opening our set with it, and it’s been so rad.”

4. ‘Falling Down’

“Falling Down‘s just fun, it’s a little punk song! It’s been in the closet for a few years now. We haven’t played it in a long time, and it’s been fun to be playing it again.

When you haven’t played a song for a while, sometimes some of the cobwebs need to come off, and sometimes it’s muscle memory. I think it depends on the song. If it’s a song that we used to play a lot, it’s not as bad.

With Falling Down, the muscle memory is there, but the muscle endurance is what has to be worked on.

But generally speaking, if it’s a song that we played a lot back in the day or over the past 20 years, it’s pretty easy to get back into it. If it’s something that we only played for a tour or two, that’s when it becomes a little more like, “okay, now I have to play along with the actual record to remember it”.

I think it just depends on the song. With our song The Black Swan: muscle memory is there, but which drum fill goes where and that kind of stuff, that’s what I have to go back to revisit.

I try to play everything live like it’s the record because that’s what I want to see if I go see a drummer. I appreciate people that take artistic license with their own music and they do all kinds of crazy shit live. I appreciate that, but that’s just not what I like to do.

And as I’ve gotten older, I can’t do some of the stuff I used to be able to do, so you’ve got to work with that too and make it kind of like it used to be.

Sometimes it’s just like, “hey, my body doesn’t work like that anymore!”. But you always find a way.”

5. ‘Dive Right In’

“And lastly Dive Right In is definitely a favourite, it just has such a great energy live. If you know, you know!”

Adam Russell’s Current Favourite Story Of The Year Songs To Play Live

1. Tear Me To Pieces

“Tear Me To Pieces is definitely up there for me because I feel like it embodies every element of Story Of The Year across our 20+ years. Musically and stylistically, I think it kind of has everything.

And that’s something we recognised very early when we made the song. And also, it’s just a great song and people sing the shit out of it.”

2. ‘Into The Dark’

“Into The Dark from the new album is another one of my favorites, Ryan [Phillips] feels the same!

The tempo and the feel of it just feels good to play. It’s got that swing-iness to it and it’s in a tempo that just really moves your head.

Lyrically, there’s a bit of an Easter egg that I put in that song when we were writing the lyrics together as a group. It was one of those things where I thought, “ooh, this would be cool”.

And then when I stepped back, I realised the whole song kind of actually fits the larger picture relative to the Easter egg. There was a point when I was listening to it months later and it brought me to tears because I realised how it all just happened, just by the will of the force.

So, I love that song and it’s heavy as shit in certain parts. All of that stuff is so fun.”

3. ‘2005’

“I also love 2005 from Tear Me To Pieces for all of the reasons that you would guess: the nostalgia.

It’s also just a catchy, fun, chill song to play. It’s not a ballad and it’s not too soft. It’s just like a feel good, chill, head moving, “damn, remember that? Remember back then?” kind of song.

Audiences really, really connect to it despite it not being a single. They just gravitated towards it. It’s great to hear that, a song that we didn’t push on anyone, they still gravitated towards it.”

4. ‘Until The Day I Die’

“Until The Day I Die is another one. I mean, having a song like that, it’s a song that I feel so lucky to have, which is maybe a little bit ironic given the fact that we actually rebelled against our success in the early days.

Having a song like Until The Day I Die, we felt pigeonholed at times, like we wanted to do more. We were kind of lumped into this Warped Tour scene and we didn’t appreciate it.

But we didn’t realise how special it was.

And then after enough time goes by, you realise: damn, not many artists of any kind have something that is such a tent-pole, such a foundational piece of art like that.

I feel like it was one of a dozen or so songs from the beginning of this emo/screamo era that are foundational.

To close the show with that every time and hear people sing it is the most special thing ever.”

5. ‘War’

“And lastly, I’ll say War from Tear Me To Pieces.

It’s a song that I didn’t enjoy playing at first, it kind of took me a while to settle into it physically because we don’t write songs like we used to.

We don’t play them all as a band and then go record it all as a band. Ryan makes a demo, we chop it up in the studio with a producer, everything’s straight into the computer and we can sit back and listen and see what it needs and add to it and piece it together.

So when it comes to playing it all together, you’ve got to do it a few times before you really get the feel. And War definitely took me a while.

Once I started to really find it physically, it had also gotten to a place with fans where it’s become now our third or fourth song on Spotify or Apple Music or anything of all time.

A song this far in our career doing that well and resonating that much with fans and hearing them sing is the best feeling ever.

So it’s all come around. It went from, “oh really, that’s the single? Okay, well, whatever you guys say,” to, “oh fuck. Okay, this is great. This is beautiful. I feel this”.