Pop-punk powerhouse Four Year Strong has been a driving force in the scene for nearly two decades. With their signature blend of high-energy instrumentals and introspective lyrics, the band has cultivated a dedicated fan base worldwide. As they make their long-awaited return to London’s iconic KOKO, we sat down with Alan Day and Dan O’Connor to talk about the tour, their creative process, and what’s next for the band.
You're playing KOKO London tonight —how are you feeling about this London show?
Alan: I'm so excited. Yeah, I haven't done it in a long time.
Dan: Yeah. The last time that we headlined in London was at KOKO in 2017.
Alan: Yes. It's insane.
Dan: We’re really excited, it's gonna be fun.
How does the energy of a UK/European crowd compare to that of a U.S. crowd? Are there any noticeable differences in how fans react?
Alan: Different parts of Europe and UK are different from each other even. I'd say overall, it seems like people in the UK and Europe people are like really appreciative of the live music. Maybe because they don't take it for granted. If you're someone who wants to see “Four Year Strong” live, you get it maybe once every couple of years. In this case it's been like five years. Yeah. So yeah.
Dan: And in the States you have the possibility of seeing us once a year five times. So yeah, for sure.
Is there a particular city or venue on this tour that has stood out so far?
Alan: I mean tonight, we're excited to play KOKO tonight.
Dan: We only have one show left after tonight.
Alan: Yeah.
Dan: We're playing Brighton tomorrow.
Any crazy crowd moments?
Alan: Honestly the whole tour has been really great. Like, with the crowd and playing new songs.
Dan: Yeah. I think that's one of the coolest parts about this tour is that all the new songs are going over so well. Like, they're going over better than some of the old songs, which is always awesome.
Four Year Strong lyrics often blend introspection with high-energy delivery. Are there any songs in your catalog that feel particularly personal or cathartic to perform live?
Dan: We have a song called “One Step At a Time” tha usually when we play that song, it feels personal to me. It’s a song about my brother passing away but it’s like a little bit more open than that. Then there's a song on our new record called, “How do I let you go”.
Alan: We haven't played that one.
Dan: We haven’t played that one yet, but I'm excited to play that one because that one's like, I don't know. That'll be a fun song to play. A lot of people, a lot of people have said they like that song.
Do you have a favorite lyric you’ve ever written, one that really stuck with you or took on new meaning over time?
Dan: On the new record “I want to see you dance”.
Are you more of a lyric kind of band or instrumental first?
Alan: I mean, yeah, definitely focus more on the instrumental. We focus a lot on the lyrics but instrumental…
Alan & Dan: Comes more naturally.
I think also that emotion doesn't necessarily need to be told through lyrics. I think it can also be told through instruments.
Alan: Yeah. Absolutely.
You just put out a new record but are you guys currently working on any new music?
Dan: We started playing around with some ideas recently, but nothing solid yet.
Alan: Yeah, we're trying to start thinking about being ahead of the curve. We typically release new records every like 4 or 5 years. Yeah, that's just a bad idea these days because of people's attention spans, you need to keep their attention. So, we want to start working on new music, but we haven't really gotten into it much.
What can you tell us about the direction it's taking?
Dan: I just kind of want to keep going the way that this new record went.
Alan: Yeah.
Dan: We just really focused on making sure that the whole record felt very fun, and we gave ourselves a lot of opportunities to explore different styles and different things that we might not have done in the past. And yeah, just being as creative as possible.
Alan: We try not to wildly overthink stuff, when we are writing and just kind of go with our instinct, and some of those things were a lot further outside the box than we typically would have gone. And it proved to be a lot of fun and people seem to like it. So just keep doing that. Just have fun with it.
When making music, do you have live shows in mind?
Alan: Always, especially on this record was like almost the top topic of conversation.
Dan: Like every song we're like, all right, what's going to happen next? What do we want? What is the crowd doing here?
Alan: Like, are we jumping? Are we moshing? Like, are they singing? What's kind of like the actionable moment?
That is the vibe I got I when I was listening to uncooked, I was like, this is, this is the song for the live show.
Alan: Oh yeah totally, when we play that song, it goes over well.
Any artists or bands inspiring you right now, either within the scene or outside of it?
Dan: I mean yeah, we get inspired by a lot of, like, outside of the box. Like outside of our genre.
Alan: There's almost to be fair, there's probably nothing directly related to the genre that, like, inspires us to write music. But I think one, that's being old and jaded. And two, I don't know. What makes music interesting is when you find places you wouldn't expect to pull inspiration from and inject it into something that otherwise would have just been the same as everything else. Like, I'm really into that McGee record. It's like I'm kind of obsessed with it. And Dijon, and Fontaines DC, IDLES, Magdalena Bay. I had a really great 2024 of new music.I feel like there's just so many records that came out. It was a really good year for new music.
How do you approach writing new material now compared to your early days? Any differences?
Dan: Oh yeah. We used to try to just fit everything that we could into every second of every song.
Alan: Yeah.Our older music is very much like on level ten all the time, like there's a thousand words per second being songs.
Dan: Two different guitar riffs going on at the same time. Everyone's going crazy the whole time. I mean, relatively for music that we play. Now we try to make sure that each, each element has its moment as space for it to actually be heard and enjoyed, because we put a lot of thought into all these intricacies, and then we bury them with tons of other stuff. So yeah, we try to make sure that…
Alan: We're shining a spotlight on each moment.
Let's look backwards a little bit. Do you think there's any song that, has marked your band or feel like defines the band?
Alan: I feel like “Wasting Time”.
Dan: “Wasting Time” is probably…
Alan: Well, “Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die”. There's a couple, like, older songs that kind of solidify that are in our set every night, no matter what. And are like fan favorites and kind of like, kicked off our brand. I think “Heroes Get Remembered..” and “It Must Really Suck To Be Four Year Strong Right Now”. Those are two for sure.
Alan: But to be honest, I feel like their songs on this record that are already kind of paving a lot of that spotlight, like “Uncooked”. I think it's one of those songs that since we put it out, you know, everyone's been very excited about it. I always mark in my brain songs that I think are important to the band when, as soon as we start playing them, we don't say what the song is called and after the very first note, you see the crowd react with excitement and “Uncooked” is one of those songs that just is doing that.
What’s next for Four Year Strong? Any big plans for the rest of the year?
Dan: We have some tours lined up for next year, we have a lot of festivals in the summer, in the States. And then I think just working on new music like Alan was talking about. I think we want to try to be a little bit more…
Alan: Prolific.
Dan: Prolific with our writing. And you kind of have to be these days. You have to be.
Alan: And also, that's honestly that's the fun part, you know, it's like putting out new music into the world and seeing how people react to it, playing it. I mean, I think I'm saying that because we're lucky enough right now for it to be going well, we're playing new music and it's like a highlight of every show, is playing these new songs, where that hasn't been the case sometimes. We've put out new music before where like, the crowd just sits there bored. Because they wanna get through the songs until they get to their favorite old song.
Dan: Which is an exciting place to be for a band, but I think that also, we get inside of our heads a lot. So that's what makes a lot of the records take a long time. Like maybe we start thinking about making a new record like three years after. But then by the time we actually figure out what we want to do and how we want to do it and we get songs together, all of a sudden we've got a record and it's been five years. So I think we're just trying to get our heads wrapped around continuing the writing process now so that we can just keep the ball rolling.
Alan: Yeah, we want to keep things on the up instead of like, you know, going away for a couple of years and then having to do more. But like, you know, that's what everyone's trying to do. So nothing special for us. Everyone is fighting for everyone's attention.
How do you find that balance of having your creative freedom and putting out music that you like, but also trying to listen to the fans and trying to make music that you think they'll like?
Dan: Well, what's cool about nowadays is that fans are more receptive to creativity, because there's so much music and so much noise and so many things going on that the things that poke through are the things that are a little bit more unique and a little bit more kind of left of center. Which is an awesome place to be as a songwriter, but as far as like, maintaining a social media presence and like trying to play that game. We hate it so much
.Alan: And we're fucking terrible at it.
Dan: Well, that's what we hate about it. I don't hate social media as a whole because it's an amazing tool that we can utilize, but we're just so bad at utilizing it correctly.
Alan: We just, we have not harnessed the power of it yet. I mean, we are very fortunate, obviously, to have existed before that was a thing. So we have some amount of like roots in the real world that are continuing to grow. But I know that things would only be better if we could figure out how to use it.
You have fostered quite a nice community that will stick with you.
Dan: I like to think that.
Alan: Yeah, that's the hope.
With a high-energy approach to both music and performance, Four Year Strong continues to evolve while staying true to their roots. As they reflect on their journey and look ahead to new music, one thing is clear, their passion for the craft and connection with fans remains as strong as ever.
Article & Photography by Ines Barny
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