Next Sunday (4 August), American rockers Story Of The Year begin their epic Page Avenue 20th Anniversary Australian tour, and, to celebrate, lead guitarist Ryan Phillips and drummer Josh Wills have shared their favourite Page Avenue songs with The Music.
Page Avenue, produced by Goldfinger‘s John Feldmann, is remembered thanks to its immense sound and singles, including Until The Day I Die, Anthem Of Our Dying Day, and Sidewalks. The band’s debut album, Page Avenue reached #1 on the US Heatseekers Albums Chart and #51 on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart. Almost 21 years later (originally released in September 2003), Story Of The Year’s first album remains a staple of emo and post-hardcore.
In an interview with The Music last year, Story Of The Year singer Dan Marsala hinted at the band’s plans to tour for the 20th anniversary of Page Avenue, despite 2024 marking the album’s 21st birthday.
“We wanted to focus on the new record [Tear Me To Pieces] first,” he said. “Because the COVID thing pushed everything back – we were trying to get this out last year. But you know, the timing! We were like, ‘Okay, 2022 can be about the new record. 2023 can be about the Page Avenue celebration, but things didn’t work that way.”
But they’ve worked out fine in 2024, with Story Of The Year heading on a national tour with special guests Senses Fail (playing their 2004 album Let It Enfold You in its entirety) and Melbourne’s own Behind Crimson Eyes (best known for their 2006 debut album, A Revelation For Despair).
To celebrate the impending tour, Phillips and Wills have honoured their favourite moments of the band’s debut album – check out their thoughts below.
Josh Wills’ Favourite Page Avenue Songs:
For my favourite songs from Page Avenue, I’m choosing: And the Hero Will Drown, Dive Right In, In The Shadows, Falling Down and Anthem Of Our Dying Day.
Those would be my top five. I do like playing Until The Day I Die, but it’s for different reasons now. I like it because I like the crowd aspect of it; that just makes you appreciate everything more. And that song is why we’re here now. That song has brought us to this point. So I like it for that aspect. But as far as playing and listening, those other songs would be my five favourites for sure. And I don’t know if I have a specific reason as to why; it’s more that those are the songs that I like to listen to on Page Avenue.
I actually listen to our records all the time. If I was the singer, I think it would be different. But I love our band. I listen to our stuff all the time, it’s like I’ll go through different phases where I listen to a one record for days on end. It might be narcissistic, I don’t know? But I mean, we aren’t going to write and play music that we don’t like. So, really, just because I’m in the band shouldn’t mean that I can’t listen to my own band! Who gives a shit! If you like the song, whether it’s yours or not, who fucking cares? That’s how I feel about it.
You have to like it, and it has to be fun, especially this far into our career and being in our forties – it’s got to be fun! We’ve got to like what we’re doing; we got to like what we’re playing. Sure, there’s some songs that you don’t like more than others, especially live. Some songs are just boring live. But if you’re doing an album play-through, you kind of have to play ‘em (laughs).
If I’m being honest, I’m not a particular fan of playing Burning Years or Sidewalks live, but we’ll do it for these tours, and then I don’t necessarily have to play those songs live ever again! Until maybe the 30th anniversary? But overall, I wouldn’t be in the band if I didn’t like it. We don’t make that much money (laughs).
Having good reactions to our early works and our most recent album, too, has been a nice kind of relief because you never know what’s going to happen when you put a record out. And with Tear Me To Pieces, it had been so long, it was hard to know! I mean, we knew we loved it. Even now, I haven’t looked in a while, but as of a month ago, in our top five on Spotify, three of the songs were Tear Me To Pieces songs. And over the last 90 days, War has done better than Until The Day I Die, which had never happened in the history of our band. Until The Day I Die is always usually number one! But like I said, that’s the song that got us here, so I’ll always like it too.
Ryan Phillips’ Favourite Page Avenue Song:
I hope I don’t sound terrible saying this, but I hated playing Until The Day I Die for ten years. I hated to play it. I was just so sick of it, and I almost kind of resented that song. It was like we caught lightning in a bottle, and then you’d spend your whole career after that chasing that success and the impact of that song. I was like, “We have all these other cool songs. Why did everyone just like this one fucking song?” you know? But enough time has passed, and on the Page Avenue tours recently that we’ve been doing – man, I’ve come full circle.
This song is a love letter to our band. It’s about brotherhood, “I spill my heart for you”. That song is literally about the relationship of our band. It’s the ultimate bro song, which is funny because people use it for their weddings. I’ve heard so many people say they’re getting married, and it’s their song or whatever – which is cool! At the end of the day, it really is about love. But just looking out and seeing all these people singing along, and I see the lyrics tattooed on people…people still talk about how much that song’s impacted them. And at this point in my career, it’s just the most amazing feeling.
I don’t know, I get all sappy about this stuff, but the fact that my friends and I just picked up guitars and this song came out and 20 years later it has just as much impact, if not more…I mean, that’s the dream. And eventually I grew up and realised that, I’ve come around!
STORY OF THE YEAR
CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF PAGE AVENUE – AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2024
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS SENSES FAIL (PERFORMING THEIR ALBUM ‘LET IT ENFOLD YOU‘ IN FULL) AND BEHIND CRIMSON EYES
SUNDAY 4 AUGUST – METROPOLIS FREMANTLE (VENUE UPGRADE – SELLING FAST)
TUESDAY 6 AUGUST – THE GOV, ADELAIDE – SOLD OUT
THURSDAY 8 AUGUST – THE FORUM, MELBOURNE – SOLD OUT
FRIDAY 9 AUGUST – ROUNDHOUSE, SYDNEY – SELLING FAST
SUNDAY 11 AUGUST – THE TIVOLI, BRISBANE – SOLD OUT
Tickets: Destroy All Lines
