Runaway-A-Day: Three Years In The Making

Initially perceived in 2017, Runaway-A-Day recently released their debut single “Reflections.” The band consisting of founders; David McGroarty and Christian Johnson, Samual Tucker, and Brayden Derfie combines a nostalgic early 2000’s pop-punk aura with a metal sound. Recently, Salt Lily Magazine sat down with David McGroarty and Christian Johnson to discuss their new single and upcoming projects. 

How did you guys start playing music together?

Christian: David ended up sending me a message. I was at work at the time. He's like, ‘Hey, is there a time we could just meet up and talk?’ This was probably my Sophomore year of high school. The last time he and I talked was like the beginning of my Freshman year. He came up to me on my break at work and he pitched this whole plan about a band. I've always been into music. Ever since then I was practically in it with Sam and Braden, our other guitarist and our drummer. David and I ended up writing our whole EP. We had it all prepared and everything and then we hit up other members so that no one was scared to come into this and be willing to put their all into it without having backup evidence. That's,  practically how everything turned out. 

David: I knew he was a guitarist. I had no idea how old he was until like, a year later

Christian: I'm actually the youngest one.

David: Now it’s okay. He was sixteen I think when we started.  I was like, eighteen or nineteen, or something like that then. So it's kind of weird when I found out but like, yeah, that's fine. It worked out.

How did you guys meet the other members of your band? 

David: A friend of mine told me about our guitarist, Braden. When I met him, he was very finicky. I guess  the right word is, ADHD. 

Christian: ADHD kind of vibe.

David: So I was a little nervous when I met him. He said yes to the band, which usually you have some convincing to do, but he was pretty much on board from the start. So that was pretty cool. With Samuel, I did put out an ad to say we're looking for a drummer because you know, our last drummer quit. When we did tryouts for him, he forgot his cymbals. He only had his snare and stuff and did his trial like that. But just based on how he was handling it without playing with the cymbals just kind of showed me he was pretty decent.

What inspired the band's sound? 

David: We didn't have a sound in the beginning, because he's a metal guitarist and I was wanting to do a pop-punk type of thing. I tried to do it with Christian and he was like, not about it. He was writing these metal riffs and stuff. I was like, oh, gosh, ‘how do I put up with that?’ ‘How do I approach this?’ And then we met Pablo Viveros, he's the drummer of Chelsea Grin, a big band in their genre. He just kind of gave us a direction which is more of this rock post-hardcore type of vibe

Do you guys have any bands that inspire you? 

Christian: We both have different types of music we like. I think everyone in the general in our band has different inspirations.

David: When we were writing the EP, Five Seconds of Summer was a huge one, vocal wise. I just really like their sound. I kind while writing the Ep I kind of transitioned into the metal core area. It’s interesting because before then I would not have liked bands like I Prevail or Wage War and stuff like that. But now I'm literally gaining inspiration from them. So it's great.

Christian: I'd say instrumentally back when this originally all started, it was probably like Killswitch Engage and Trivium were the biggest instrumental inspirations and then we started like he said, moving more towards like a Wage War and I Prevail type of thing.  I already loved those bands at the time. So I was like, Alright, I could deal with that. And the Wage War ended up becoming just one of my favorite bands now because of it.

David:  I honestly think I did like kind of influence your taste a little bit because like, now you went from complete metal core into like, kind of like a metal pop punk type of vibe

What is your usual songwriting process like? 

David: Usually Christian comes up with a riff. Then I’ll either like it or hate it. There is no in between. But if I like it, I'll go over this house and we'll kind of build on that. Then we'll take it to our producer problem. He'll take the song we wrote and perfect it,  so it'll sound completely different at the end of the whole writing session. Then he'll send me an mp3 file, of what we just did. After that, I'll try to figure out a melody and write lyricist. i usually have to figure out what kind of vibe the song is giving me as well.

Christian:  We'll sit on the mp3 for three days up to two weeks. Honestly, just sitting there trying to think ‘alright, what do we feel from this song? Like the last song that we wrote, we sat on it for like, almost two weeks before we got a the vibe for it.

David: Like Reflection, I remember sitting on that song for like, a month. I just kind of had to because you guys were no help. I was like, ‘What do you guys feel from this song?’  They're like, ‘we don't know. You're the lyricist. Why don't you go write it, man? ‘And I'm like, ‘Okay, ‘and so, yeah, just took a minute.

Christian: Over time, we've been able to work together. At first, we were all more like, ‘Oh, no, that's your part’. But now it's more, it's more like me, David will come over to me and be like, ‘Hey, what do you think of a melody?’ Like, ‘what can we do melody wise, here, I'm dry right now’. Then we'll come up with something or not come up with something or have a good idea. And then just keep building off of that. The teamwork has definitely greatly improved since ‘Reflection’. 

Do you have any messages or questions that you're trying to get through the audience?

Christian: I think one especially between me and David, coming into making this band, both of us are self-taught. We haven't taken coaching or anything. We just do what we think is good. For like, our message for our audience is based on that. I feel like we want to be like, ‘hey, if we can do it, you don't have to be trained. You just have to do what you like you feel is right. And don't be scared to just show off your true colors to be able to do what you think is right’. That way when you make something you're proud of it. That's the bottom line is if we made our song Reflection, and we weren't proud of it. We wouldn't have cared if it popped off and got a million followers. The message-based off of that is you don't need help from other people to be able to succeed.

David: Speaking as a band, we want to prove ourselves that we're a legitimate band. We've worked on five songs for three years. Yeah, it was a rough three years. But um, yeah, I think, you know, we just kind of want people to come to our shows and join the music and be there in the moment. I mean, that's kind of what our name means. Runaways-A-Day,  forget the world.

What feelings do you want your audience to have from your music? 

David: I feel like all of our stuff is based off of stories.That's basically how we get to writing the lyrics. 

Christian: Reflections is a song about breaking free from a hold that someone might have on you. Whether it's love or like, hate or something. In this case, it was love. But you can, you know, interpret it how you want.

Do you guys have any advice for other bands who are also starting out? 

David: You're not always in the writing mood .Sometimes you could go weeks without being able to come up with something. If you have the opportunity to just immediately pick it up. Don't just be like, ‘Oh, I'm already doing something right now.’ Don't hesitate. You have that opportunity right then and there to pick it up. And if I did that, three of our songs would have been written a lot quicker.

Christian: There’s  a 10,000 hour rule where if you do something for 10,000 hours you'll become a master at it early. So practice, practice, practice. And try to write a song a day. 

David: The first hundred, even three hundred songs are gonna be crap. But you'll hit that golden one where it really sounds great.

Runaway-A-Day is set to release their debut EP early next year. Meanwhile, you can listen to their single on Spotify, and visit their website.