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For a good while now, some people would have you believe that pop punk is dead, but The Wonder Years are set to prove those wrong. With their latest album 'The Upsides', the Philadelphian sextet breathed new life into the genre with their incredibly positive brand of 'realist pop punk'. Heading to the UK for the first time with their second full-length, we were privileged enough to speak to frontman Dan 'Soupy' Campbell about the album, what music means to him, and the incredible line-up at this year's Slam Dunk Festival.

OS: You've just come off stage. How was tonight?
Dan 'Soupy' Campbell [vocals]: Great! It was a lot of fun. I decided recently that I should smile more when I'm on stage.

OS: I noticed you were smiling a lot, which is unusual to see.
Soupy: I took note from Craig Finn from The Hold Steady. He's one of my favourite vocalists in the world and he put out a DVD/Live CD called 'A Positive Rage', but he talks about how nobody smiles on stage and I realised that I don't smile on stage, and I should because I'm happy. I'm joyful and I like to be able to give that energy out.

OS: That definitely came across, and added to how the crowd felt.
Soupy: Yeah, I had fun.

OS: I'm glad! What's it like coming to the UK and playing these kinds of small shows [tonight's held about thirty people] whilst, in the US, you're playing much bigger shows?
Soupy: It's grounding sometimes because like, last week we played to 600 people in Boston and Philly, then we come over here and play a show in Southampton and there's like thirty, fourty people there. You just take a breath for a minute and you think, "yeah, there was 600 kids but it's in your home town. Now you're seven hours away on a fucking plane, you're across the fucking ocean." I just count myself lucky that anyone wants to see me over here and that I get to come over and play for you fine people. No one gets that opportunity in life. Growing up I never thought I'd have that chance, so just the chance is enough for me.

OS: You've said before in interviews that the band started as a joke, yet when you're on stage and you're singing those songs, they're really quite serious. How did you transition that?
Soupy: Yeah, the band was started as a joke. That transition came when we were touring on 'Get Stoked On It!'. It got harder and harder to put on a performance with any sense of passion when I was singing because I was singing songs that didn't have any meaning. And so we decided to start writings songs that meant something to each other, to ourselves and to other people. It's a lot easier to know that I'm singing something that has substance.

OS: What did you want to achieve with 'The Upsides'?
Soupy: The goal was to make a record we were proud of. With our first full length, we rushed it and we didn't do it right. So, we worked tirelessly and we all poured every ounce of ourselves into it ['The Upsides'] to make it the best record we could and that was the goal; to make sure we had a record we could look back at and say we made no mistakes and we made it exactly how we wanted to. These are the exact songs we wanted to write and I'm glad it came out that way. I'm very proud of it.

OS: Is it hard to put so much of yourself into the lyrics, before having to go on stage and sing the songs, reliving break ups. Is that a difficult experience?
Soupy: No, both my ex-girlfriends and I are friends. 'Melrose Diner' is about a girl, it was written prior to the rest of the songs on 'The Upsides' and the girl I wrote 'Hey Thanks' about is a girl I was living with. For a little while it was hard for me to play that because sometimes at shows in the US, kids will ask for 'Hey Thanks' and I'd prefer to play it afterwards in the parking lot; I'll play it with my ukulele. And for a little while it was hard. But, I came to realise that 'Hey Thanks' is a remembrance of a happy time in my life and that I should not take that for granted, and smile when I sing it because Jessica was my best friend and I was lucky to have her for two years. Even when there are songs about things that you miss, you miss things because they were good, and so I like to remember that they were good.

OS: That's true. Is there any difficulty in being a band that are so positive and want to have a positive outlook, whilst being involved with the current scene and music industry?
Soupy: It's not hard at all, everyone's so great. Whenever we go on tour I just get to spend so much time with so many great people; we just finished touring with the guys in Comeback Kid, Set Your Goals, This Time Next Year, and every night was just so much fun. Even the crew on that tour - Bobby Morris, he's the on the cover of 'The Upsides' and he's This Time Next Year's merch guy, and our guys Johnny and Justin. Everyone that was on that tour was just amazing to be around and it's not hard to be positive at all, because I'm surrounded by positive people and all of who I'm lucky to have in my life.

OS: As a whole, how important is music to you?
Soupy: Music's one of the more important things. A lot of people take note from a lot of different things in life; religion etc. We're a very strictly atheist band, to an effect anti-religious, especially as an extremist, anti-absolutism, so obviously I don't get anything from that. I base my life completely around straight-edge and that's a very important thing to me. But, outside of that music is all we've had for a long time. It's not to say that we don't have great friends or family but when you're looking for something to relate to, you get that a lot of the times in songs. I was talking to someone last night about how even sad songs can make me feel happy if it's the right sad song. There's a song by The Mountain Goats called 'Woke Up New' and I saw them play it live and the introduction that was given to the song and the way it was played: the lyrics are sad but it made me feel so much less alone, and that's the kind of power music has.

OS: How strange is it to have people to come up to you from the UK or anywhere else and to just say that your lyrics connect with them in that same way?
Soupy: It's so weird, but it's so rad because I never thought of myself as an important person. I'm just a kid with a stack of problems and 'The Upsides' wasn't like a self help book. I wasn't trying to give anybody any advice. I was just sad and looking for my own kind of sanctity from that. So, it's awesome to know that these lyrics can connect with people because then I know that I'm not alone and that's a nice feeling. I'm glad that they feel like they're not alone either.

OS: It's an incredible album and I think it's a pleasure listening to songs with so much to say, when there aren't many bands out there willing to say anything with their music.
Soupy: Thank you so much. There are some bands who are devoid of a substance, but I feel like a band devoid of substance has a substance within themselves. I really like pop radio because there's a chance for me to listen to music without having to think and that's nice sometimes. I love to listen to really complicated lyrics, serious stories, things that take me a little while to unwind; I love bands like The Hold Steady and Frank Turner; lyrics that have some sort of weight, but I also love putting on The Black Eyed Peas and not feeling anything.

OS: You seem like such a positive person!
Soupy: Aww, I'm not all the time but I try to be. There's no sense in giving up.

OS: So, how excited are you for Slam Dunk Festival?
Soupy: Slam Dunk Festival is like a fucking reunion! Never have so many of my friends been in the same place since my high school prom. It's just gonna be so cool. Every band that's playing I'm friends with and I love, I'm so excited to spend time with everybody all weekend.

OS: Have you got any plans after Slam Dunk?
Soupy: Well right after Slam Dunk - I mean right after - we're gonna tour with Four Year Strong and Fireworks and then we go back to the US, where we're recording some new songs. We're re-releasing The Upsides in the fall with the new bonus material; it's gonna be a big reissue, new artwork, everything, the whole works and we're doing a tour with Streetlight Manifesto and then we're touring with New Found Glory before going to Australia.

OS: What would be your parting words?
Soupy: Stay up.

'The Upsides' is out now on Hopeless Records.