You Me At Six’s forthcoming sixth album ‘VI’ sounds like "The Weeknd being smacked in the face with rock music".
The ‘Underdog’ hitmakers previously said they hope the record will be "career-defining" as they admitted to feeling "underwhelmed" by 2017’s ‘Night People’, and now they’ve revealed they weren’t afraid to mix their hip-hop influences, including the ‘Starboy’ rapper, with their guitar roots with the encouragement of producer Dan Austin (Biffy Clyro).
Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz, frontman Josh Franceschi said: "Dan Austin is one of the most remarkable people we have ever worked with.
"He just elevated our confidence and desire.
"He became the sixth member of the band.
"You could turn around to him and go, ‘This song is essentially our R&B song on the record, how do we do it and not make it feel like we are a guitar band?’
"He wasn’t scared and was like, ‘Yeah, let’s f***ing do that.’
"Whereas some producers are like, ‘Stay in your lane’, and we are like, ‘Nah, man.’
"Dan has been doing a lot of work on Logic (software) and this album has a lot of dance songs.
"Like The Weeknd being smacked in the face with rock music.
"I think that Dan really encouraged that."
Josh previously admitted the band felt they needed to swiftly make another record because they didn’t connect to their fifth album, despite it reaching number three in the Official UK Chart.
He spilled "We felt underwhelmed by our own record so we wanted to make another one quickly, and a good one.
"Being a number three album doesn’t mean it’s any good.
"[Sir] Cliff Richard had how many numbers ones at Christmas, they were all crap so that doesn’t mean it’s any good."
The 27-year-old singer compares the band’s transition from ‘Night People’ to ‘VI’ like the Arctic Monkeys’ journey from 2009 LP ‘Humbug’ to 2013’s ‘AM’, arguably their best record to date.
He explained: "I still stand behind ‘Night People’ because it’s something we’ve done.
"You know how Arctic Monkeys had ‘Humbug’ as a stepping stone before ‘AM’, that’s how I feel it was like for us.
"It’s a record we had to make and the only record we could have made at that moment in time.
Ultimately, it’s what shaped us to make this one, it served a purpose."
‘VI’ is released on October 8 and features the singles ‘3AM’ and ‘Fast Forward’.
You Me At Six fuse The Weeknd with rock music on new album VI
