picking apart date("Ymd")

[skdzines]

With the following select statement, how do I pick apart the date stored in 'startdate'?

$ID=mysql_fetch_row(mysql_query("SELECT ID, startdate, cycle FROM customer_info WHERE ID='".addslashes(trim($orderID))."'")); 

If I just wanted to store the day of the month part in the variable $recurring_day, how would I do that?

I tried doing this but it doesn't seem to work:

$recurring_day=date("d", $ID[1]);

Thanks

[LordShryku]

$recurring_day=date("d", strtotime($ID[1]));