History of Tomorrow, or Autobiography as it’s called in Mandarin, is a sonic repository of the band’s career featuring songs that detail the passage of time, love, and life based on the experiences of the five members.Īll 15 tracks on the album are single-ready, each drawing on what it means to be Mayday and putting the band’s story front and center on tracks like “Almost Famous,” a dramatic progressive rock track that paces itself to their career, emulating their early days with a slow, angst-driven melody before eventually building to an upbeat rhythm reflecting more recent days. Though they started out as a garage rock band and became known as representatives of Taiwan’s students in their early years, Mayday’s known nowadays for expressive pop rock that appeals across a spectrum of listeners. “We make fun of our younger crowds sometimes, saying, ‘This is a song from when you weren’t even born yet.’” “Every time there are new people joining the Mayday experience,” said Ashin. That’s why I think people love to see them every time, regardless of age and who you are.” With such a wide-reach, concert attendees span generations, and often Mayday will see parents bringing their children. Afterwards you just feel warm, you feel strength, you feel the energy that you got. “You experience the laughter, the touching moments, you cry at the same time, you experience the same thing. “Going to a Mayday show is like entering a different dimension, but everybody is there together,” said the band’s manager, Julia Hsieh. Epic concerts are the backbone of the band’s career, and Mayday’s relationship with their fans, with each show becoming a major event their 20th anniversary concert in Taipei in March drew tens of thousands of listeners and caused major security concerns in the Taiwanese capital city. Mayday’s fans are young and old, long-term and new listeners who look to the band’s anthemic songs for inspiration. “We just have to work through those issues and work them out.”

“The biggest obstacles we face are during the creative process while making music,” added Monster. Their longstanding friendship has ensured that Mayday’s members never fight, the members insisted. “If it’s not Mayday, we don’t know what we would do.” According to Monster, Mayday’s existence in their lives isn’t even a question anymore. “We were friends from high school so the last 20 years has been more like, ‘Oh, I spent 20 years with these family members,’” said Masa. With the casual air of friends who have spent far too much time together - and admit to knowing every one of each other’s little secrets - the three admit that all five share a bond of familial kinship. stops of their Life tour, and to see U2’s Joshua Tree tour, Ashin, Masa and Monster spoke to Billboard about their extensive career. In the States to prep for the upcoming U.S. Sitting on a ledge with his feet dangling behind him, Masa, the youngest member at 40, radiated enthusiasm as he took in the view of the lower Manhattan skyline. While they’re on the cusp of middle age, the band members have a boyish charm to them that attracts both new and old listeners to their music two decades in. The same album took home the best Mandarin album of the year award at this year’s Golden Melody Awards in June, the most prestigious music awards ceremony in the Chinese-speaking world. (For reference, 2016’s top-selling album in the U.S, Drake’s Views, racked up 4.14 million equivalent album units that year, according to Nielsen Music.) Though their fame is limited in scope primarily to the East Asian music market, Mayday is one of the world’s best-selling bands: According to Alibaba’s Ali Music Group, their latest album, last July’s History of Tomorrow, saw more than 200 million digital sales in Taiwan and China alone, proving that time is doing nothing to minimize the band’s success. Five former high school friends, they became emblematic of Taiwan’s youth culture in their early days and have a career propelled on intense concert experiences and inspirational rock music that blurs the lines of alternative and pop. Multiple generations of music listeners have bonded with the five men: lead vocalist and primary songwriter Ashin (Chen Shin Hung), band leader and guitarist Monster (Wen Shang Yi), bassist Masa (Tsai Shen Yen), guitarist Stone (Shi Chin Hang) and drummer Guan You (Liu Yen Ming).

Twenty years in, Taiwanese band Mayday is a phenomenon on par with the rock acts of bygone eras.

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