Post-hardcore mainstays, Senses Fail, are releasing their “Best Of” collection today entitled, Follow Your Bliss: The Best of Senses Fail. The record, which is dropping via Vagrant Records, has sixteen tracks spanning the quintet’s decade-plus career. Yet, what most are stoked for is the four new songs Senses Fail are releasing withFollow Your Bliss.

In a recent interview with AbsolutePunk.net, Senses Fail discussed their rationale behind the songs they chose for Follow Your Bliss along with an explanation of the four new songs that are also being released. Take the jump to read an excerpt of what the band had to say and to take a listen to one of the new songs called “Vines.”

You guys are putting out a ‘Best Of’ with a bonus EP. How did the idea of doing a record like that come about?
Buddy: We were originally going to do some sort of thing where we play Still Searching and Let It Enfold You with the first EP front to back for the ten year anniversary. The idea was ‘Ok, if we did that, what could we release around that? What could we put out?’ Nowadays it’s difficult to go on tour without promoting something. It just goes hand in hand, it helps. We were planning on doing an iTunes box set which we are actually doing which is where you can find all of our music in one place and they put up a nice picture of the band and so the idea kind of came from that since iTunes was interested so we thought ‘Why don’t we just put a collective CD together of songs that people tend to like more than other songs?’

Dan: I always say that when anyone asks to clarify it to just say ‘Best Of’ and not a ‘Greatest Hits’ because I think there’s a huge difference between the two. I think it made sense timing wise, the band has been around 10 years, we’ve got 4 full lengths and an EP out so why not take the handful of songs that seem to be the most popular from each record and put them on something and get all the best songs in one place.

Buddy: The other thing too is that just like with some other bands that we’ve been around with that have spanned a couple generations of teenagers so I think if you were a 14 or 15 year old kid getting into music these days and you heard us somehow you’re looking at a catalog of over 80, 90, or 100 songs. I definitely found out about bands and definitely got into bands through ‘Best Of’ or ‘Greatest Hits,’ that’s kind of where I started. That’s kind of why we did it. I know people can get offended by bands that put out ‘Best Of’ records but there’s no other reason for us to do it for any other reason except “What can we put out around some tours where we’d be playing our older records front to back?” That didn’t end up happening timing wise didn’t work out and it seems like a lot of bands are doing it but I’d still like to do it at some point but we kind of came to the conclusion that we could probably only do 1 or 2 shows like that. We didn’t want to turn it into an entire tour of us playing all around the country doing that. With the idea of only doing 1 or 2 shows, we said “Why don’t we wait?” but we had still already put into motion we’re going to do a ‘Best Of’ record and we already confirmed Warped Tour so we said “Ok, let’s just put it out with Warped Tour” and then we wanted to put some new music on it because I think any time you release something old or something that people might already have you need to give a reason for someone to buy it who already has it so we put a little EP with it.

How did you go about choosing the track listing? Was it fan generated, working things out with labels, your own input…?

Buddy: We pretty much knew what songs were going to get put on it.

Dan: It’s pretty much similar to picking a set sometimes and especially on a set like Warped Tour where you have a limited time you want to play the songs where people are going to have the most fun or know the most material. I think it’s the same concept for picking the record. Pretty much any song we ever made a video for, anything that’s been a considered a single, and then there’s a couple of fan favorites. We consulted with the label for opinions but I think we have a pretty good idea of what songs the fans like.

Also, take a listen to one of those new Senses Fail songs called “Vines” and be sure to pick up a copy of Follow Your Bliss: The Best of Senses Fail today.

• Author
• Recent Posts

Michael McCarron

Michael is the Founder and Director of the Philly-based LGBT+ non-profit, Punk Out. He enjoys moshing endlessly, forgetting his karaoke performance from the previous night, and pushing that Big Gay Agenda.

Latest posts by Michael McCarron (see all)

• UTG PREMIERE: Kat Hamilton – “Reminders” - October 28, 2015
• OP-ED: Take Back the Microphone - October 16, 2015
• Mayday Parade Stream New Single “Letting Go” - October 1, 2015