Spring King Two years on from the release of their debut record, the
I feel like on this record we have a lot more moments where
Manchester four piece return with another riff filled mosh
I wish now in retrospect we had a bit of a break because the
pit inducing record, ‘A Better Life’, due to be released on
new live set is just gonna be ridiculous; it’s just non-stop
17th August. We sat down with drummer/vocalist Tarek
with a couple of little breaks here and there.
Musa and guitarist Pete Darlington to talk about what to expect from the band’s second album, how the band has
Tarek: I think this time around we wanted to bring the
changed it’s approach since the release of ‘Tell Me If You
manic nature of the live set into the recording a bit more
Like To’ and why Pantera and Papa Roach helped shape the
to try and capture that live energy. I think the first record
new record, kind of.
was a bit more of a studio record but this time round there’s more voices on the record and there’s more harmonies by
Are there any new influences that have come in to this
the band and it’s been more collaborative. Songwriting wise
record?
I think it captures the live sound which is something we aimed to do and it’s definitely upped the energy across the
Pete: For me personally I was listening to a lot of heavier
record; we all need to get pretty fit in order to pull it off
music, not that you’d be able to tell necessarily, but bands
every night.
like Pantera and System of a Down, not because I wanted to make guitar sounds like that but I wanted to get an idea
How do you feel this record has changed the band’s
on how they put riffs together and I think ‘Animal’ was the
sound?
first time where we captured the new energy that we wanted to capture and the guitar lines are influenced by the heavier
Tarek: It’s definitely a much more defined and crafted
stuff I was thinking about at least.
sound, I think the songwriting on this record is way above the first and it reflects the maturity that we’ve developed
Tarek: For me I was listening to a lot of heavier tunes as
over the past few years. I think we’ve achieved something
well when we started writing this record, maybe not as
that when we were in the writing room maybe none of us
heavy as Pantera but indulging in the old days of listening
expected we would have done, it’s a really good moment
to the likes of Papa Roach and Foo Fighters, but then I was
for us because it’s something I didn’t think we’d do and I’m
still also listening to the new Arcade Fire record and a lot
really proud of it.
of pop music so my head was kind of a mix of both worlds. It was like trying to keep it heavy but also doing something
Are there any specific ideas you wanted to express?
that’s quite catchy; I like writing songs that are poppy and Pete: The overall thing that we wanted to get across was
hooky but heavy.
that the world’s in a strange place, there’s a lot of negative Your live shows are always manic, did you see that as a
shit going on and there’s a lot of bands writing about that in
priority when writing the new record?
an angry way but we wanted to flip it on it’s head and take all that negativity, write about it but try to present it with
Pete: When we write a lot of the time I’m thinking about
a positive spin on it, in a kind of idealistic way. It was like
how it’s going to translate live, if it’s going to be worthy of
the world’s fucked but here’s a crazy positive record that
a mosh pit.
you sing a long to, jump to and have a good time and lose yourself in.
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Words by Callum McCormack, illustration by REN
