Day 26 Talks Reunion, August Alsina At The BET Awards And Diddy

Remember tuning into MTV’s “Making the Band” every week to see what was happening with Diddy’s soulful R&B group Day 26?

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After a brief hiatus from one another, the original five members of Day 26 are back together and have just recently released their latest EP “The Return.” We sat down to talk with Mike and Willie from the group to pick their brains about the current state of R&B and how they decided to get back together.

Check out what Day 26 had to say about August Alsina, TGT and more.

So you all broke up about 3-4 years ago, what sparked the reunion? Did Danity Kane reuniting happen to impact your decision?

Mike: No, not at all. I think that one thing I’m tired of and I’m probably sure they are as well, is I know we came from a reality show and we were all staying under one building- You know, we got so much love for those girls and I’m sure they got the same amount of love for us but we are two different groups, two different entities with two different styles of music. We were actually in the process of ourselves getting back together before they announced it. We didn’t know anything about it, we didn’t know anything about them having a reunion at all. When we saw them we were like “Aww, okay. Cool.” But there’s had nothing to do with sparking ours. We were already in talks of doing it. We were trying to decide if we wanted to go on tour or record music first. But Rob made that call to everybody and basically asked what we thought about it and individually we all said yea and by the next day we were all on the phone discussing the details of it and how were we going to make sense of individually and collectively for everybody.

It seems as if there are a few other R&B groups reuniting as well. What is different about you guys reuniting as opposed to other male R&B groups doing the same?

Mike: Man the difference between us and everybody is that we’re just us! We just different from everybody. Our music and what I think we bring to the game is entirely different because of the fact that all five of us- any one of us can survive this game alone. The fact that we have all five of us that can hold down and carry leads and you know when we put all of this together and also the choreography, songwriting- You know we just have a lot of different variables that put us ahead of other groups.

What’s your take on the feedback you all have been receiving in regards to hooking back up together?

Willie: I think the feedback has been great. I think the fans are definitely there. They’ve been loving tracks one through eight which is everything they got, you know, so that’s really a great feeling. I think we’ve even touched people who we haven’t reached before as well who have been chiming in and hearing how other people felt about the EP and checking it out themselves. You know it’s growing wings on its own and we still have to put together the radio single together. There’s going to be a whole new level of growth from there as well as we’re getting ready to start shooting the video for “Bullsh*ttin” so the visual is going to do a whole new level from there. And everyone should know we put a lot of hard work into this project so it really feels good that we’re seeing the fruits of our labor.

There’s rumors that we should be expecting a tour soon. Any details on that?

Oh yea, well most definitely. We’ll be setting up a tour coming to a city near you but as Will was saying before we just really wanted to get the music out there so that people could really have something more. You know, we didn’t want to do a two-hour concert doing all of our old music, we wanted to do something new for out fans and now that we got that out of the way, the tour can happen.

You all were handpicked by a pioneer in the music industry. Does it still feel surreal looking back on your journey as a group? Are there any parts of the show that you would erase from TV?

Will: Man… It was definitely a journey and to be handpicked by someone like Diddy is always a great thing. Basically, I just feel like anything that was shown on TV gave all the fans and any inspiring entertainer direct insight on the game- what groups go through when dealing with labels and stuff like that. It’s sort of like a study guide that people could use for their own life so no, I wouldn’t take anything back. Everything that you saw was real emotion and things you saw were just real reactions to how real people act in real situations. I don’t think that I would take it back because it’s educational to a lot of people- not to take for granted that it did jumpstart our careers and got us to where we are right now to even make music even after our journey at BadBoy and Atlantic.

Has Diddy reached out to you guys?

Willie: We talk to him aon a more personal level. Not as in business but it’s all love there- that’s how it’ll always be.

What was it like to get back in the studio to record your new EP?

Mike: Going back to the studio was easy. I mean the first day was a little different because you know everyone was coming back together but you know we kept the jokes coming. It was lke any other studio time. For the most part it was easy because we just click, when it comes to music we just click. That’s why I say theres no other group that could do it like we do it just because of how good we click when we go into the booth to get this music done- no matter if we were right there besides each other or if we were in five different states.

Who do you all look forward to working with?

Willie: Well, I think the big thing right now is that we’re in a good position to show the world right now who Day 26 is. I think people seem to fail to realize that our journey as artists started way before “Making the Band.” So like me, I was already in a band before even joining the show, so you have to think about that journey that people didn’t get a chance to see. So now I feel like we’re excited for people to see how challenging we are versus everyone saying “Yo, Diddy did this or that.” Now its time for the world to really see who Day 26 is. It’s not like we’re not excited to work with anyone else, but right now we want the world to see us for who we are vocally, dancing wise, as far as writing and producing, and executively producing projects, directing videos, writing books as authors- you know, just different hats. These are hats that we wear that people did not even know that we wear. On the show, none of this was a part of it, it was just “Oh, they can sing” but that’s what we really want people to understand. We can take this and do it ourselves. Let me school you on this a little bit more… Even like what Mike was saying about how easy it was for us to record in the studio, the hardest part was that half of the EP was done when we were not around each other. We had to do half of the EP with just internet and pro-tools, so people in five different states recording their parts and sending it back to the hub where they’d finish it up and send it to me. It’s harder to do that because you really have to find the chemistry on the record, then you have to really find the blend of the notes- everything has to be there- and there’s nobody there to coach you so you’re really doing it yourself. The perfect example of that is “Lose Control,” because with “Lose Control” we hadn’t even saw each other and we discussed how dope that record was when we saw each other the next time which was in LA recently. It’s crazy because now it’s out and people are loving it and they don’t even know the background behind it and how strongly determined we were to do this and that we did it in that form.

The 2014 BET Awards just aired this past weekend. What was your favorite moment from the awards show?

Mike: I just really enjoyed watching everybody come onstage doing what they love-you know, just showing off their craft. I just really enjoyed the award show period.

Will: I agree with him. I enjoyed the BET awards as well. I liked all of the great performances. When you see people like August ALsina, a new guy, come on stage and show emotion it just reminds you- you know, we were there. It’s rare that artists share those emotions but no one knows what you’ve been through so when you get a chance to enjoy a moment like that it’s just a real moment. I think those are the experiences everyone should be keen to because you really don’t know somebody’s story. All you know is that you enjoy their music but you don’t know how hard it was for that person to get to where they are now.

In 2009, Day 26 won the BET award for “Best Group” What do you all think of Tank calling BET hypocrites for giving the “Best Group” award to Young Money when they aren’t an actual group?

Willie: I never been in the position to ever throw shade, however, I do understand where he’s coming from but it comes from the acceptance of groups. If you put TGT in a category with Jagged Edge, Day 26 and then a couple more and now you have a R&B group category and that makes more sense. You see what I’m saying? But then when you start to put “Best Group” and then it’s like… Well, TGT is a group, Young Money comes together every now and then to do something and then you have everyone else. So now the category is so large and diverse, you don’t know who could win out of that bracket really. Yea, so it gets kind of hard so I understand where Tank is coming from because there’s not a lot of groups out here to make that an actual category.

How do you all plan on changing the current state of R&B?

Mike: We not really trying to change it, we just want to give the game our end of it. We just want to do what Day 26 is good at and in doing us we’ll hopefully bring R&B back to a place where everyone appreciates R&B. That’s the biggest thing for us, just bringing R&B back to the forefront because nowadays it gets pushed to the back because of hip-hop which I’m not knocking but a lot of people feel like R&B is missing. We just want to bring that soulful sound and that same feeling you used to get when you would hear a good R&B song.

Will: Even to go off of what Mike was saying… The blueprint of R&B has always been there, it’s just that people are scared to tackle it and tap into it. The majority of people who love R&B listen to the music of the 90s and the 80s and that was it. That was the essence of R&B and I think that what happened was that people tried to mix and match it and move it to different directions to the fact that it starts to miss the essence. I think that the easiest thing with Day 26 is that we try to stick to the essence so that when you feel it, you feel it straight in your heart. The essence never changes with us.

Mike: Yea! What Willie said!

[Brian walks in]

What can we expect from the new and improved Day 26?

Brian: Hey! This is Brian Angel, the one and only aka Mister… whatever you want to call me, but don’t tell me I can’t sing. Ayee. No but what you can expect from Day 26 is a lot of great music and a lot of growth because you know we grow daily. I’m not sure if the guys explained to you but we put this whole project together ourselves, without anyone’s help- no labels, no anything. A lot of the time, we didn’t see each other so you can see a lot of growth from us. Like I can predict that you all will see a whole lot of Day 26- especially on the creative side as far as filming, directing, writing, producing- just a lot of great music from here on out.

Got it, well thank you so much for your time.

Brian: You sound so sincere when you said that “thank you sooooo much.”

Hey, I was! Best of luck with touring and your new EP

Willie: Thank you and God Bless.

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