EMAROSA may have achieved the highest first-week sales of their career with Versus, but the path to get there was plagued with potholes. The most trying of obstacles was losing precious years to finally find themselves a new frontman in Bradley Walden. AP spoke with Walden for his first-ever online interview on how his association with the band came to be and how it's everything he wanted it to be.

Let's start at square one with Emarosa's search for a new vocalist. How did your name come up?

BRADLEY WALDEN: As it started out, I was in a band called Squid The Whale from Detroit and every now and then I would put up some YouTube cover; anything I could just to get the music and my voice out there. This dude Stefan—who is Emarosa's merch guy over in the U.K.—actually saw one of the YouTube covers. I don’t know why, but he saw it, and he actually sent me a message on Twitter that said “Hey, I want to pass your video along to some of my friends who are looking for a singer. Would you mind?”

I don't remember the specific conversation, but I was like, “I'm in this band, but feel free to spread it. Sure, go for it.” He did and I was literally in rehearsal with my old band when I got this e-mail from Jordan [Stewart, keyboards]. It was like “Hey, it's Jordan from Emarosa.” As soon as I read that, I just felt like… I don't know the feeling. It's kind of like when your heart drops, but in a good way. I was a little blown away. [He said] “We got your video from our friend Stefan and we're very interested in talking to you. What's your current situation?” And I was like “Yes. Wow. This is awesome.” At the time, I was so overwhelmed by the offer to come jam, that I took it. I told my band that I was gonna jam, so I went down to Lexington, Kentucky, and it was fun, it was cool, and I accepted the position. Then I got home, met up with my band and got back on tour. I felt like I wanted to stick it out with Squid a little bit longer. I felt like I owed it to them.

You weren't going to try and do both at the same time? That was never an option for you?

It kind of was. The option came up for me to do both. I knew that one way or another, one of them was going to suffer. If I needed to do one of them, I needed to do one of them wholeheartedly. Especially during that time, Squid was up-and-coming and they needed all of my attention if they were ever going to happen. Emarosa had been, for lack of a better word, pretty dead for the past four years. So I knew that was going to take all my attention. But there was no way I could see myself doing both and being true to either one completely. So I ended up doing this tour with Squid, I contacted Emarosa, I said “You guys are great, but I have to stick it out with Squid. I owe it to them, they're my friends.”

Fast-forward a year, and Emarosa's booking agent [Dave Shapiro] contacted me and asked to reconsider. I was on tour with Squid, we were just not vibing; things were not going well in the band. I told Dave, “Yeah, I'll definitely reconsider.” I jammed once again, and I know they were skeptical because I had backed out—and rightfully so—but it was about from that point on where I was like, “Okay. I'm going to finish this tour with Squid and that's it. I'm going to go do Emarosa.” That's the story. It was a long time. Lightning doesn't strike twice and when I got the call from Dave that made me reconsider. I definitely felt like there's a reason this is happening.

How big of a fan of the band were you before you joined?

I was only a fan of the self-titled record. I had never really gotten into Relativity and This Is Your Way Out; it just wasn't my kind of music. Honestly, I love the instrumentals on the self-titled one. I'm a fan of that record and coming in, we would try writing songs and then they'd practice some of the old songs just to jam. I'd be pumped, like “I already know this one!” But also, that's why it took so long after I joined to actually put the record out, because I wanted to make sure that all the novelty of being in that band was gone.

I needed to take the time to actually get to know the dudes and be in the band, rather than just some guy they picked up and is now singing for them. I needed to build a relationship with them before we started writing our own music. It took a lot of patience. Obviously, I had been in the band a long time before the record even came out. There was a whole year of just being in this band and writing. It was a huge test of patience and perseverance, especially for them. I love this band, and being a part of this record, I'm an even bigger fan now watching the people in this band come as far as when they went on hiatus. It’s so memorable they didn't give up. They didn't do a Kickstarter or ask for money: They worked at Jimmy Johns and kept writing music until the right thing came along. I'm just thankful that I was the right thing.

Did you have to move?

I actually went and lived in Lexington while we were writing, so I did relocate. Now, since there's a little more freedom with the record out, I spend a lot of time in Nashville and in Northern Indiana getting family time in between tours.

You're kind of a nomad.

I really am. I can live out of a suitcase, no problem. My parents were military, so it doesn't feel normal for me to be in one place for too long.

Another thing about whenever you officially joined—there was no announcement. People eventually figured it out. Jonny Craig outed you on Twitter, but that was something you denied at the time.

If I remember correctly, when he said that, I actually had not accepted the position at that time. I think that was maybe during the time when I wasn't singing. I don't really remember; I have the worst memory. Maybe. I really wasn't worried about it. I'm a firm believer the music will speak for itself. All these people who were skeptical, worried or had something negative to say—even people who were excited—I just knew eventually the music was going to speak for itself and I didn't need to say anything. I didn't need to boast about it.

My concern going into this band was, “Okay, there's a huge shadow over this band. We need to break through that.” It's essentially a new band. People are like “Well, why didn't you change your name?” It's like, did you change your name when you went through puberty? It's the same thing. This band is just growing up and maturing. I didn't bother me that I couldn't be like, 'Oh, I sing for Emarosa now.' It wasn't about the attention or exposure at that point in time. We buckled down, we wrote songs, we recorded them. We're a band. We're not a reality TV show. The most important part was the music.

You take being a frontman seriously. How do you take care of yourself to be in this band?

Over the past couple months, I really got into yoga, Crossfit and nutrition, because tour takes a lot out of your body. I actually give voice lessons while I'm out on tour so I'm always practicing. I warm up every day. I cool down every day, before and after shows. I put myself on a real no-soda, no-sugars strict [regimen]. I take it very seriously because at the end of the day, it's a career. Don’t get me wrong: I love it, but you need to put in the work. It's not just showing up onstage and putting in work there. There are other areas people don't understand as far as being in a band. It's definitely a lot of taking care of your body—and mentally, especially with this band. [Laughs.] I personally don't handle the online criticism well, but there's a lot of mental stress you have to break through also.

How do you adjust to going from a band like Squid, and being in this position right now where all these fans want a part of you?

I take a couple tips from a couple people on Twitter I enjoy. I see the way they handle it, like Stephen Christian from Anberlin. He does social media really well. Hayley Williams from Paramore, she does it. Also, I like CM Punk. I love the way he handles it, because if someone's a jerk online, those people are just trying to get a reaction out of you, so just block 'em. There's always going to be people that try to just get to you for the sake of getting their attention. I'm slowly getting better at adjusting and handling that.

I meant it in a positive manner, because you're there for these fans. Not everyone in bands of Emarosa’s size is doing that.

I'm still pretty new. I mean, I don't have hundreds of thousands of followers. I really am glued to my phone. My family is like, “You're always on your phone!” It's hard to not be when I really just want to talk to all these people.

Like you just said, they're your career now.

Exactly. They're my lifeblood. These are the people that are going to be supporting the record. Sometimes I need space from it, so I take it. Day to day, people listen to our record and are like “Man, this song really made me feel something.” What am I supposed to do, just ignore that person? I want to talk to everybody. I have a feeling I'm going to burn myself out eventually, but until that happens, I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing.

The vocal lessons aren't your typical side hustle, when everyone wants to do their own clothing line, you want to teach people. When did this idea come about?

I took two years of lessons and it was great for me because I hate the whole scale of classic singing. I try to take the more realistic approach. Each person is different. There are kids that are trying to learn how to sing—or even grown ups—who I'm giving lessons to. They don't want to sing Phantom Of The Opera; they want to sing stuff that's in the scene. There's different things that I teach, like don't sing from your nose. It's something cool I can do on tour to help support myself. Everybody knows even at the level we're at, you're not exactly making a house payment. It's something I'm good at. I'm not good at selling t-shirts.

Are you anything besides a frontman?

Oh, yeah. I play piano. I play guitar.

I don't think a lot of people know that.

I don’t play live—yet. I write a lot of melodies with piano, actually. I'll transpose our songs to piano from guitar and it helps me to write my melodies from there. I don't think a lot of people know. I can't drum for shit, so you can put that in there.

Let's talk about Jonny Craig. Was there pressure to replace someone who worked so well with the band, vocally?

To an extent—I don't want to down the guy or speak ill of him. We're different people and different vocalists. I was definitely cautious at first about it because I could have came in as Whitney Houston and people still would have been like “This isn't as good [as Jonny].”

I think people misrepresent what good actually is and they really attach music to a time in their life. Music is nostalgic. It helps them feel good or whatever. Their last record with Jonny came our three or four years ago. Sometimes people don't want to let go and they misrepresent what's good for what is comfortable.

In my honest opinion, after really sitting down with the record and really listening to it and going across the board, I 100-percent believe this is the best Emarosa record. This isn't me being confused, this is looking from a musician's standpoint, from a songwriter's standpoint, especially. I feel like it's just better. I feel like the vocals are better. The musicianship is much more honed in. The old records, they just wrote a bunch of parts, threw it together and Jonny would just mumble over it. Then ER [White, lead guitarist] would write lyrics and they'd have a song. This is much more an actual band.

As far as Jonny goes, I don't worry about what he does or his bands or the past anymore. Because [we] literally just had the biggest first-week sales ever in the history of this band. That speaks for itself. This band hasn't put out a record in four years; they were dead for three years. We come in, we drop this record and it does the biggest numbers they've ever done? That's it. Game over. There’s nothing else to be said. There's no comparison anymore. I'm not worried about it anymore. I was before, because it was the unknown and there was an uncertainty. I don't love everything I write. There are things I don't like on the record. Overall, I'm super-proud of it. I don’t stress about the past of the band.