Upset, July 2017 by Upset

upsetmagazine.com Editor: Stephen Ackroyd (stephen@upsetmagazine.com) Deputy Editor: Victoria Sinden (viki@upsetmagazine.com) Associate Editor: Ali Shutler (ali@upsetmagazine.com) Writers: Alex Lynham, Danny Randon, Jake Richardson, Jasleen Dhindsa, Jenessa Williams, Jessica Goodman, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Photographers: Danny Payne, Ryan Johnston, Sarah Louise Bennett Cover Photo: Sarah Louise Bennett All material copyright (c). All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of The Bunker Publishing Ltd. The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of Upset or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions. Distributed nationally. P U B L I S H E D F RO M

THE BUNKER W E LCO M E TOT H E B U N K E R.CO M

IN THIS ISSUE... RIOT!

ABOUT TO BREAK

04 PV RI S

26 YO N A K A

08 K A M I K A Z E G I RLS 09 WAT E RPA RKS 10 STO N E SO U R

28 Z E A L & A RD O R

FEATURES 30 H EY V I O L ET

13 RO C K DJ

38 R AT BOYS

14 C O LO R F I L M

40 RI S E AG A I N ST

15 S LØT FAC E

44 ROZ W E L L K I D

16 T H E O N E H U N D RE D 18 FA N G C LU B 19 A RCA N E RO OTS

RATED 46 PA R A M O RE 49 S I N G L E M OT H E RS

20 D O N B RO C O

50 ROYA L B LO O D

22 NOTHING BUT THIEVES

51 T RI C OT

24 P L AY L I ST

52 S L A M D U N K 2017

EDITOR’S NOTE The last month has seen a multitude of difficult challenges for our community, but if any message has come through, it’s that we can get through anything as long as we stick together. Live music is brilliant, and nothing should stop us enjoying it. As long as we watch out for and respect others, nothing’s going to stop us embracing it. Since our last issue came out, we were shocked to hear the allegations regarding our previous cover act, PWR BTTM. We stand with all victims. Our scene can make no exceptions.

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

PVRIS ‘DO’ LONDON!

BIGGER BETTER BOLDER

PVRIS ARE BACK. AS THEY LAUNCH THEIR NEW ALBUM ‘ALL WE KNOW OF HEAVEN, ALL WE NEED OF HELL’ WITH LIVE SHOWS IN LONDON, THEY’VE STEPPED UP THEIR ALREADY IMPRESSIVE GAME. WORDS: ALI SHUTLER. PHOTOS: SARAH LOUISE BENNETT.

ands like to shock. And heck, we like to be shocked. The first taste of a new album is the perfect landscape to toy with expectations, but sometimes a band is more concerned with story than single. Sometimes a band comes back like PVRIS. Subtle and with plenty of space, there’s a relax to ‘Heaven’ that sets things up rather than burning them down. “We were just thinking of what would make the most sense with the record,” starts Lynn Gunn backstage at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire fresh from offering us a handful of skittles. “We have been calm and confident,” she offers. There’s belief in what they’re doing and for good reason. “You have to. If you don’t, you have to invent a gimmick to make it work, and we don’t want to have to do that. The music speaks for itself.” The band, as always, know more than they let on. They know there’s a joy in the discovery and they’re never out to spoil that. At one point Lynn accidentally reveals the band will be returning to the UK for a big headline tour (“oops”), but apart from that, their secrets remain between the three of them. They want everyone to experience the adventure. They’ve been watching the reaction to ‘Heaven’ - a song that “felt so good to put out because we had no clue what to expect” - carefully. “I try not to expect things,” admits Alex Babinski, before Lynn adds: “But you always want to hope. It’s all been so positive. We’re all super proud of this record. We’re stoked, and I’m hoping it can translate to other people. I have a feeling it might,” she adds with a glint in her eye and a knowing smile. After years on the road trying to keep up with the whirlwind their debut ‘White Noise’ created that left the band with “no time ever to collect ourselves or just exist as humans,” PVRIS now feel replenished and rejuvenated after taking a step back. They saw family, friends and unwound. “I had a hard time adjusting, but I’m in a good place now,” explains Lynn. They haven’t returned empty handed though. As always, PVRIS have been scheming, and there’s a new album ‘All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need Of Hell’ on the horizon. Created in two and a half months in a renovated church in Utica, the band spent every day making use of the grand pianos, the organs, the hundred of amps and pretty much anything you can imagine. “It was the opposite of what the recording experience for our first album was like,” explains Alex, and

PVRIS

“that space translates in the music. Whereas ‘White Noise’ is very compressed, it’s still big, but it’s boxed in, this record breathes, and it’s open and big.”

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

While ‘White Noise’ built a world in between the songs, it already feels like ‘All We Know Of Heaven…’ is larger than that. “Perhaps,” teases Lynn. “I don’t fully know yet. The story is very subtly in there, but there are some underlying themes and lessons and secrets. I feel like they’re a lot more subtly placed as well.“ The band have already released an album teaser that “transferred people into the next world. We wanted to transition from the end of ‘You and I’ to the next record. We need to end the ‘White Noise’ record and that whole cycle and start new. Start again,” and it saw Lynn break the mirror that’s defined everything the band have

done up until now. “It felt so good smashing it. It felt like a release.” No holding back, “We just went for it.” There were conversations between PVRIS and their video director Raul Gonzo about continuing or expanding on the mirror but “we definitely both wanted to smash it at some point.” It almost happened at the end of ‘Mirrors’, then again at the end of ‘You & I’, but it didn’t seem

right just yet. Then they came up with the treatment for the transition video, and everyone agreed “Mirror smashing? That’s the spot for it.” It’s that attention to detail that makes PVRIS, and their second record such an exciting prospect. Everything is deliberate. They broke cover by sending fans mysterious letters, “It was us going to our fans and giving them inside information before anyone else,” and the video for ‘Heaven’ has a lot of touching, a lot of contact. “The pushing, pulling, tearing and everything going on in that video is because it’s cathartic to watch, and cathartic to be doing. That was a big intention with it. It has that energy to it.”

L I V E RE P O RT PV RI S , S H E P H E RD’S BUS H E M P I RE , LO N D O N , U K

t’s the first proper PVRIS show in a hot minute, but there are no cobwebs to blow off here. From the start, this is a band raring to go and make up for lost time.

Backed by Narnia lampposts and plenty of shadow play, the band toy with their darkness but remain firmly in the spotlight throughout. Every corner of PVRIS has been revamped, from the newfound grit of ‘Fire’, all big guitars and screaming want to a stripped back ‘White Noise’ that still channels a heavy atmosphere to the world’s end of ‘Smoke. The crowd is king for ‘Ghost’, providing the backing vocals while all the jangly polish disappears as the band pause for a moment to hang a rainbow flag on the drum kit, gaffer tape and all. Yeah, it may be upside down, but only for a moment. “We all get really excited and anxious when things happen, and then we fuck up,” grins Lynn. “We call them happy accidents.” Intentional or not, tonight is backed with a purpose. This is the grand unveiling of a new world, and the band are determined to make the first impressions count. A new song from their upcoming album is given its live debut, all playful knife-edges, childlike

excitement and plenty of movement. It sees the band unfurl, their tightly wound direction now offering a choice, a room to breath but no time to admire the view. Later on ‘Heaven’ opens the encore, Willy Wonka tunnels and chanting walls introduce the powerhouse. It’s already beloved, walking that fine line between personal and powerful, and once again sees the band lose themselves in their new shapes. ‘White Noise’ saw the band make worlds between their songs, but this already feels so much bigger. The band have gravity, they demand an orbit. Onstage, it feels like a weight has been lifted from Lynn, Alex and Brian. Time away has let them play catch up, and they’re no longer trying to be the band everyone says they could be. Fully realised, this is the phenomenon. This is the promise. Directed by confidence and driven by desire, there’s new life in old bones and the fresh wounds offer nothing but a motivation to continue. If you thought PVRIS were good before, they’re now a whole lot better. They’ve taken back the reigns, and they’re charging forward with a glint in their eye, a devil on their shoulder and a wicked sense of what’s to come. P

PVRIS

That said, the band “don’t really” think about their fans when writing new music. They’re too focused on the things they can control. “I don’t know if that’s selfish or not,” admits Lynn. “There are always parts where I know things are going to make a good crowd part when we play it live, but we aren’t going to make it specifically for that,” explains Alex. “We never really think about it, but the next record is going to translate live well. That’s something completely unintentional. It just happened with the bigger studio space. There are going to be a lot of cool moments live, and that’s something that happens very naturally. If you’re just honest with yourself, and you’re real with yourself, that’ll translate to other people, and they’ll pick up on that much more than someone saying ‘I’m going to write this, for this type of person’. It’s a lot closer and a lot more meaningful if it’s the closest to you. And that’s about being vulnerable and releasing that.” “Someone asked me is it weird being vulnerable with people and basically releasing a diary,” continues Lynn. “I think a lot of people might see it that

way or be intimated by it, but I think the biggest thing a lot of us learned this year is that being vulnerable is ok. Being emotional and being transparent about that is okay. It’s much more important than closing things off, putting on a face and pretending it doesn’t mean anything. It feels good to share and release.” It’s not all open books and beginning, middle, end narratives though. “There’s a good balance between being vulnerable and letting people into it, and stepping back enough for them to create their own stories, draw their own conclusions and try and guess. It’s fun to surprise people.”

play with dynamics and expectations. “There’s a lot of duality on the record,” offers Lynn. “Duality, balance, contrast and anything pertaining to that kind of dynamic has been super apparent in the past three years.” ‘Heaven and Hell’ sees the band looking at what’s important and how you straddle the two. “You’ve got to have both. I feel like that’s very apparent in a lot of the songs, in a very subtle way though. There’s a lot of interesting middle ground where there are some paradoxes, and you don’t know what is pertaining to what, especially in some of the videos. It’s a weird purgatory, and you don’t know what’s going on, or where you exactly are, or if you’re in heaven or hell.”

“THERE ARE A BILLION DOORS ON THIS RECORD.”

“It’s an actual release,” adds Brian on sharing new music. “You’re giving it to people to hear. It’s still yours, but then they’re building off it.” “My favourite thing is hearing what people got out of it, their stories and how they perceived the song,” continues Alex. “I love hearing different variations of that.” ‘All We Know Of Heaven…’ looks set to inspire all over again. The title seems straightforward enough but PVRIS are always going to

THE NEW ALBUM

09.06.17 RISEAGAINST.COM

PVRIS have always had a broad palette to draw from, but ‘Heaven’ sees the band with new colours to toy with. “There are a billion doors in this record,” beams Lynn. “I think there will be a lot of cool moments in the live show. Well, I don’t think, I know. Everyone will get to showcase their abilities. On ‘White Noise’, it wasn’t as apparent. There’s a lot of cool moments for everybody,” she promises. “We’re trying not to give away too much with these comeback shows, but we have a lot planned.” P

KAMIKAZE GIRLS

A A A

SEA OF SEA OF OF CHANGE CHANGE

KAMIKAZE GIRLS - AKA LEEDS DUO LUCINDA LIVINGSTONE AND CONOR DAWSON - HAVE SERVED UP AN INTENSELY PERSONAL AND HONEST DEBUT. Hey Lucinda, how’s your tour with Gnarwolves going? So far so good? Hey! It’s great, thank you. We’re currently on day ten. We have three shows left, and it’s been sweet. It’s been really nice getting to watch Gnarwolves play every night. Everyone on this tour is super chill, and the shows have been wild.

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

Your debut album ‘Seafoam’ has just come out - congratulations! What are you doing to celebrate? Why thank you! We’re going on tour. In June we have a co-headline run with Nervus from down south. If you’ve not heard them, go listen to their album ‘Permanent Rainbow’.

That sounds fun. Does it feel as though the release has been a long time coming? Yes and no. We’ve been playing music together for eight years now, and the fact we’ve never done an album with any of our music projects seems a long time coming. With this album, it’s only coming out nine months after the EP so maybe for people that are just getting into us it seems quick, but really I think we owed people an album for the amount of time we’ve been a band. How did you come to sign with Big Scary Monsters? We approached Kev from BSM about our last EP called ‘SAD’, and at the time he passed on it. When ‘Stitches’ came

out later on a few months before the full record did, he messaged me asking for the full EP, to which I replied, ‘You already have it!’ They told us that if we made a good enough record, they would put it out… so then we went home and wrote and recorded one. How would you describe the album’s vibe? The songs are bigger, and we’ve enjoyed combining fast riot grrrl with grunge and shoegaze vibes. It’s just anger and angst, anxiety and bravery through an overdrive, chorus, and reverb pedal. You touch on some super personal themes; it must be tough to revisit difficult times? Yes definitely tough at points, but somewhat therapeutic. I wrote ‘One Young Man’ the opening track before I had written anything for ‘SAD’. It didn’t make it on because I don’t think I was ready to have to commit to singing about that. I learned from ‘SAD’ that letting off steam and playing personal songs really helps me get it all out of my system. Past events will play on my mind for the rest of my life, but turning them into songs brought me closure in a way. How did you find your time in the studio? Did you learn any new tricks? I learned a lot about pedal order, and how pedal chains can be manipulated

to make them sound exactly like you want. With drums, we played around a lot with different snares and tunings for each song because we had a bit more time to figure that out this time around. Does ‘Seafoam’ sound like you thought your debut album would? I’m not sure what our plans were for it to sound like, but it mixes all the things we loved about our sound and what we liked to capture playing live. For me when I listen to it back to back with ‘SAD’ I see so much difference in it all, but it’s a difference that I like, and these songs are so fun (and hard/exhausting!) to play live. What about the album are you most proud of? Some of the vocal takes. I did ‘I Don’t Want To Be Sad Forever’ and ‘KG Go To The Pub’ in one take in the middle of the night on the last day. We were all stressed out and tired and kind of angry at ourselves for not being done already. Literally the perfect time to scream my lungs out. Although people may not realise how we were feeling from the music, I like that the three of us know. I’m not proud of those vocals for being particularly great; I’m proud of them because that was the last thing we did on the record. P Kamikaze Girls’ album ‘Seafoam’ is out now.

CASE STUDY

EVER WONDERED WHAT YOUR FAVOURITE BANDS TAKE ON TOUR? NOW YOU CAN FIND OUT!

THIS MONTH... AWSTEN FROM WATERPARKS!

PEBBLE I bring this pebble my girlfriend gave me on all the tours because I’m the cutest thing since baby fingers, now bring me your puke.

BO O K I always have a book, so I can stay sharp since I’m not in school anymore. Also, I wanna lord over everyone and pretend I’m intellectually superior since I’m the only one who brought a book.

WATERPARKS TOUR THE UK FROM 21ST SEPTEMBER.

THEONE HUNdred C H A O S+ BLISS New album out NOW CD/DL/LP (with LINK TO bonus track) 12 new songs including ‘Monster’, ‘ D a r k M at t e r s ’ & ‘ C h a o s + B l i s s ’ w w w . fa c e b o o k . c o m / t h e o n e h u n d r e d b a n d

ORANGE JUICE I always stock up on Heb orange juice and then since they’re only in Texas I get Whole Foods OJ pretty much every day after unless we’re in like Nebraska, then I just cry all day.

OT TO Lastly, I bring Otto for drum beat reasons and drum beat reasons alone. By album three he’ll be replaced with a drum machine though, so stay tuned.

“WE’RE

STO N E SOU R

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

HERE,

WE’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE.” AND

COREY TAYLOR AND JOSH RAND ARE A TESTAMENT TO WHAT YOU CAN ACHIEVE WITH REALLY GOOD MUSIC AND REALLY GOOD MATES. THEY RETURN THIS MONTH WITH A NEW STONE SOUR ALBUM. WORDS: STEVEN LOFTIN.

STO N E SOU R

ack in 2013 Stone Sour released not one, but two careerdefining albums. ‘House of Gold and Bones I & II’ were completely new territory for the band. Fronted by one of the most enthused people in rock, Corey Taylor, as the winds from these dual releases died down, they soon discovered they’d reached a point where they could pretty much do whatever they wanted - which is where ‘Hydrograd’ comes into play. Stone Sour’s sixth release is one that stands on its own, or as Corey exclaims: “This album was like... death to dead music!” The album’s second track, ‘Taipei Person / Allah Tea’, holds no qualms in absolutely obliterating listeners. “That song kind of sets the tone. It’s an anthem; it’s almost like our Elton John ‘I’m Still Standing’!” Corey laughs. While it may seem like serious business on the surface, really the overall idea is just to have fun. “It’s us drawing the line in the sand and going, ‘We’re still here getting stronger, you can take your best shots at us, but it’s not going to dent the armour, we’re killing it’. “That song, in particular, is such a good barnburner, just stormer. My favourite line from that is ‘We’re running out of road / but I’m still doing 75’. It’s like, where are you heading? Are you heading to the cliff, the wall? It’s cool because it’s kind of us. We’re trying to find a way to define what we are as a band, and the only term we’ve been comfortable with is just Stone Sour. We’re so many different types of bands in one, and we refuse to settle, we refuse to compromise, we refuse to be lumped into a category. It’s a good song that sums us up, for me. It’s our way of saying we’re here and we’re not going anywhere.” Corey and guitarist and co-founder Josh Rand, who have known each other since they were fifteen, have lasted Stone Sour’s nearly twenty-year timeline. They’ve weathered lineup changes and various successes, as well as the expectations cast upon them, which Corey addresses. “We’ve been fighting against that our whole career, people look at us like we’re crazy with the stuff that we do. We are going to show you what live music feels like and sounds like, and can make you feel again. That’s what I’m most proud of, the fact we’ve been able to marry that kind of energy, and also with the fact that we’re fuckin’ really good at what we do, and we write really good songs,” he finishes with a burst of sarcasm. “What a fuckin’ concept, you know?” Josh adds: “I feel like we’ve always done that since the beginning. Go back to the first album [2002’s ‘Stone Sour’], and you have ‘Get Inside’ and ‘Bother’. Those are totally different from

STO N E SOU R

one another. We constantly expand as far as what this band can do. We’re just fans of music, so slowly over time, we mature as listeners and become more interested in different styles.” Their tenure means they’ve developed a thicker skin than most, allowing Stone Sour to not care about impressing the masses. It’s a right they’ve more than earned. “Y’know the cool thing when you stop standing on what people expect,” starts Corey, “is that you start to get cool with the fact it’s like, ‘Hey we can do whatever the hell we want, so let’s stop caring about any of that bullshit’!” Backing him up through laughter, Josh says: “I guess from that standpoint we’re very fortunate to be old!”

slogging porn; I’m making music for the rest of my life.” He pauses before roaring with laughter. “Not gonna lie though, slinging porn is a pretty good gig.” All joking aside, Corey continues: “Honestly though, I’m not going to dog anyone about complaining [about] the way it is. It’s up and down. Today I’m not too bothered; tomorrow I might be furious. It is what it is. This is music, man, if you’re not into it, don’t play it, straight up.”

“WE’RE REALLY FUCKING GOOD AT WHAT WE DO.”

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

“[If] you sit there bitching about the old, you’re just spinning your wheels in the mud and you’re not doing anything, and before you know it, your moment’s gone.” With a finger snap for the ages, Corey explains. “For us, it’s about just getting on with it, this what we want to do. I’m not going to go back to doing dishes or

There’s a clear, fresh air to Stone Sour in 2017. While they aren’t genre-bending and creating obscure sounds out of nothing, being different for different’s sake, they’ve found more energy. There are no formulaic proceedings here, it’s all done with conviction and ideals in mind. It’s not hard to spot those bands who have found their forte and stuck to it, and Corey stands firmly behind this approach. “It’s like, why? Fuck that. First of all, it’s hard to make an album. A lot of people don’t like to talk about that; it’s difficult, even when you’re into it like we are. It’s hard to make an album because

it’s tedious hours, you’re away from home, you have all these things that you’re agonising over to try and make perfect, and you’re trying to capture something. So putting yourself through that when you’re not into it... I can’t even imagine, screw that.” The longevity they’ve found is a rarity. A personal and professional relationship that has lasted, it’s something Josh doesn’t take for granted. “To still be doing this... this process started in 2000, six albums later, continuing to reinvent ourselves and not necessarily put out the same record.” Stone Sour ultimately boils down to whatever it is that bonds Corey and Josh. Something Corey highlights earnestly: “It’s cool to know your friends have your back when you go on stage. You get that same joy [that you had] from your first local gig. You look around and go, ‘We get to do this!’ It’s a cool fucking feeling.” ‘Hydrograd’ is rife with this atmosphere - from beginning to end, it’s filled with a feeling of, in Corey’s own words, “This is so awesome!” He explains: “I know rock is kind of a dirty word for bands these days, so it’s like ‘Shove that up your ass dude’! We’re a fucking rock band, and we’re not gonna apologise for doing this, especially when it’s with your friends.” P Stone Sour’s album ‘Hydrograd’ is out 30th June.

ROCK B L AC K FOX X ES V S D E A F H AVA N A

veryone thinks they could be a superstar DJ. Everyone. Even your nan reckons she’s in with a chance of having it large behind the wheels of steel. But not everyone has what it takes. We’re putting some of your favourite bands to the test. We’ve given two musicians five categories. They pick a song for each, we decide who wins each round, and who takes home the trophy overall. There can only be one victor. This month, it’s a 2000trees special as two acts from the line-up face off: Mark from Black Foxxes vs James from Deaf Havana. Let battle commence...

ROUND TWO

T H E S O N G Y O U ’ D P L AY A T A 9 0 S T H E M E D PA R T Y.

Black Foxxes: T-spoon - ‘Sex On The Beach’. Funny story. I got thrown out of my own party when I was a child for recreating the dance moves to this song. Got a bunch of my mates chucked out too. Apparently, parents were not stoked that I snuck that onto the playlist... Rock and roll. Deaf Havana: I was never really into 90s pop, so it would be grunge I suppose, ‘Lithium’ by Nirvana I guess. ‘Nevermind’ is one of my favourite records of all time, cliche I know but it’s undeniably one of the most important rock records of all time.

ROUND ONE T H E S O N G Y O U ’ D P L AY A T A

WINNER

Nirvana is Nirvana. 1-1.

SC H O O L D I SC O.

Black Foxxes: Wham - ‘Club Tropicana’. You simply don’t groove as hard as Wham do. What a banger! You can’t not be happy listening to this song. Deaf Havana: ‘Fill Me In’ by Craig David I suppose, still a great song, always was a great song. I must have been a bit old for school discos when it came out but I think it is still very appropriate, I remember learning the guitar riff when I started playing years ago. Craig David for life. It’s undeniable that Craig David is a legend, but c’mon. Wham! ‘Club Tropicana’! That doesn’t just win this category - that’s a song big enough to win an entire continent. 1-0 to Black Foxxes. WINNER

ROUND THREE T H E S O N G Y O U ’ D P L AY TO M A KE PEO PL E TH I N K YO U ’ R E S U P E R C O O L .

Black Foxxes: Toto - ‘Africa’. I grew up working in my local pub for years, and there was one Devon barman that would only ever play Toto’s ‘Africa’. The sheer joy in his face every time it came on would make my night, he never got bored of it. This doesn’t explain why I’d choose a song to make people think ‘I’m cool’, but just saying that felt lame anyway. So enjoy my Toto story with absolutely no relevance to the question. Deaf Havana: I don’t think it’s physically possible to convince people that I’m super cool, haha, but if I had to I would probably choose ‘Heart Attack American’ by The Bronx because in my opinion, it is one of the coolest songs ever written and The Bronx are the coolest band on planet earth, fact. W I N N E R This is a hard one. On one hand, The Bronx are indeed one of the coolest bands on the planet. On the other, Toto! You can’t vote against Toto. Both cool in their own way, it’s almost impossible to choose between. Score draw. 2-2.

BY A L I E N S A N D YO U H A D TO CONVINCE THEM THE HUMAN R A C E W A S W O R T H S AV I N G .

Black Foxxes: Maybe we don’t need saving? Unless David Attenborough and real life Sandy Cohen are still alive, I don’t see much reason as to why aliens would save us? In which case, Slayer - ‘Reigning Blood’ It Is. Deaf Havana: I would play anything by The Smiths, probably ‘That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore’ because the lyrics are genius and the juxtaposition between their morose words and jaunty music was basically invented by that band. I guess The Smiths are quite a lot like Marmite, so this would only work providing the aliens in question were fans of slightly depressing music and could speak English. W I N N E R It’s likely aliens would be into The Smiths. After all, sometimes Morrissey doesn’t seem to be from the same planet as the rest of us. 3-2 to Deaf Havana. ROUND FIVE T H E S O N G Y O U ’ D P L AY F O R M O T I VA T I O N

Black Foxxes: Shania Twain - ‘Man! I Feel Like A Woman!’ I’ve recently taken up running and when Ant suggested this track I had to download it to test out just how motivational it would be. The answer is very. In fact, it was too motivational. I couldn’t stop running. Deaf Havana: ‘Magnolia’ by Gang Of Youth. I only recently discovered this band, but that song, in particular, is so uplifting and makes me want to write music and be productive with my life which is extremely rare, haha. WINNER

Shania! Wonderstrike!

ROUND FOUR T H E S O N G Y O U ’ D P L AY

AND THE WINNER IS...

I F T H E P L A N E T WA S I N VA D E D

IT’S ALL SQUARE! 3-3!

COLOR FILM

IN COLOUR GLASSJAW FRONTMAN DARYL PALUMBO AND EX-MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST RICHARD PENZONE HAVE TEAMED UP FOR COLOR FILM, A PROJECT THAT SEES THEM EXPLORE THEIR LOVE OF SYNTHS.

So Daryl, you guys have been making music together for a few years now what was it that sparked this project? Whose idea was it? I had always wanted to make music with Rick since we had met when we were younger. We were both from the same place in NY, shared the same very specific musical tastes and had toured together a bunch when we were in other bands, so it was only a matter of time until we got the opportunity to write some material.

period, much of which makes up the full-length that’s finally being released now. We definitely had a sound in mind when we first got together which still defines what we’re doing. It may have solidified itself since then, but what we currently do is where our heads have been at the entire time. Achieving certain styles, sounds and techniques we loved was a goal early on. Playing together, we felt that we’d finally be able to achieve some of these far out concepts.

What themes do you cover across the album? Musically, the record touches on a lot of sounds. There’s a lot of electronic elements, and just as many smaller, organic sounds. We’ve tried to maintain including both the odd, upbeat material as well as the large and denser, slower pieces.

Has your idea of what Color Film is evolved since its conception? Yes and no. I think the “sound” has overall become more focused and a bit more specific perhaps, but generally, it’s still the same vision I think we had in the beginning. However, it feels as if we’ve gotten better at achieving particular sounds and concepts, which I’m sure has affected the overall sound.

What held up its release? We had tracked an abundance of material pretty quickly at the beginning with not much in the way of assembling a specific single record. After tracking a number of songs, we put together a cohesive selection for an LP. Since that time, we toyed with the idea of selfreleasing some of the material as an EP and later releasing our first LP, but managed to find the right partnership to release an LP’s worth of music with. We were quite happy with the way the music had turned out, so partnering with the right label for a release was important to us.

What’s the absolute best thing Color Film has allowed you to explore, or enabled you to do, so far? Color Film has allowed us to experiment heavily with sounds and concepts that we enjoy. As simple as that sounds, it’s a priceless and not all-too-common thing. Being able to play to this extent with Rick is also a beautiful and inspiring thing that Color Film has granted me.

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

When did you start working on your debut album, and did you have anything specific you set out to achieve with it? 2012 perhaps? It’s been quite a long time. We wrote and tracked quite a lot of material immediately in that early

Do you have a favourite song on it? Not particularly, though live I enjoy playing the song ‘We’d Kill Each Other’.

Will there be a second Color Film album? Absolutely. And then some. P Color Film’s album ‘Living Arrangements’ is out now.

S L ØT FAC E

PANIC AND FREAK OUT! SLØTFACE HAVE ALREADY RELEASED A CLUTCH OF 5* BANGERS AND EPS: NOW IT’S TIME FOR THEIR FIRST FULL-LENGTH, AND IT’S WELL WORTH GETTING EXCITED. WORDS: ALI SHUTLER.

ry not to freak out, but your new favourite band are releasing their debut album this September. Following a handful of EPs, four in their native Norway, two in the UK, Sløtface are finally about to make the step up into the big leagues. And if ‘Magazine’, all big hooks, lipstick on the mirror and pointed finger assertions, or the superhero confidence of ‘Nancy Drew’ are anything to go by, it’s going to be brilliant. “It’s time for it to come out now,” explains bassist Lasse Lokøy. “I feel like we dared to do a bit more than we’ve done before on this record. We have our first song that’s over five minutes, which feels like a big thing for us.” “We moved back in with our parents for six months to write the album because we couldn’t afford to pay rent and just write every day,” continues vocalist Haley Shea. With the four-piece writing everything together, there’s a lot of back and forth over every movement. They spent a long time writing because they wanted thirty songs to play with. They ended up with 25, “which is a lot for us.” Hacking it down to ten brand new cuts saw the band get rid of songs they loved a lot, but just didn’t fit with the rest of the record.

A big part of ‘Try Not To Freak Out’ is about dealing with anxiety. The record’s title is the band “telling ourselves not to freak out,” not to worry. “It’s a lot about the anxiety of such a big project and that thing a lot of people feel in their twenties where you don’t completely know what’s going on. You don’t have a plan, and you’re a little bit lost. Being back home makes me question ‘Am I doing the things I wanted to be doing? Is this how I wanted my life to go?’ A lot of those feelings came out.” There’s also a tongue in cheek grin alongside it. “As if people would freak out because we’re releasing a record, it’s super cocky,” grins Haley.

it because we just wanted to write the ten best songs we could. We didn’t spend much time thinking about ‘Is this going to be our pop punk record, or our rock record?’ It has all the different sides to us.” The songs have a bit more fizz in their glass, and the lyrics aren’t holding anything back. “I wanted to tell all of the stories that your favourite indie rock bands that are all male have told, and been really good at telling,” starts Haley, referencing both Arctic Monkeys and Los Campesinos!. “College rock has this bad rep for being a misogynistic genre, so we wanted to turn that on its head and tell those coming of age stories from the female perspective. We also wanted to show people that we’re more versatile than we may have had the chance to be in the past.”

“IT’S TIME FOR IT TO COME OUT NOW.”

The band’s debut is less plug in and play than everything that’s come before. They had time in the studio to redo bits they weren’t happy with, play with the song a little more and add extra textures. There’s apparently a little bit of everything, from trumpet and cello to one song recorded completely live. “Even the vocal take is live in the same room,” explains Haley. “The album has a lot of directions within

“We enjoy being in the studio but the type of music we play, it’s supposed to be onstage,” adds Lasse. “It’s where we belong.” P Sløtface’s debut album ‘Try Not To Freak Out’ is out 15th September.

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

THE ONE HUNDRED

“THE “THE ROCK ROCK SCENE SCENE HAS HAS BEEN BEEN MUNDANE MUNDANE FOR FOR THE THE LAST LAST TEN TEN YEARS.” YEARS.” THE ONE HUNDRED’S DEBUT ALBUM HAS BEEN “COMING SOON” FOR A FEW YEARS - AND NOW IT’S FINALLY HERE, YOU WON’T FIND ANOTHER QUITE LIKE IT... WORDS: STEVEN LOFTIN.

ince The One Hundred released their debut EP back in 2014, they’ve been on headline tours around Europe and supported the likes of Papa Roach and Mötley Crüe. But it’s 2017 where The One Hundred will finally hit their stride with debut album ‘Chaos + Bliss’, which was in fact completed two years ago. Not that you can tell. Its sound is a fresh take on every twenty-something’s beloved past: nu-metal. But this is no run of the mill reimagining, it’s exciting and unrelenting, and the voice behind it all, Jacob Field, is every part the frontman. He relishes his position as the voice behind this new barrage of music, and he’s also well aware of how much time has passed since their debut EP. “It’s weird. It seems like we’re an old band, we’re not considered a new band now, but we haven’t done enough to be considered old. We’ve just been around, but we didn’t do anything, we did two tours last year, and they were both in Europe, so it’s like, we haven’t done a lot. We’ve not travelled and done lots of different things with lots of different people. We’ve been extremely lucky, but it all happened so early that we didn’t benefit from it as much as we would have now. As grateful as we are, and as amazing as it was, and as much as we learned from it, we’d probably benefit more if that happened now.” Jacob shouldn’t worry too much. The queue outside of tonight’s headline sold out show in London is a testament to their draw, not that he’s actually all that

worried. “Without sounding arrogant, I feel like we’re already a step ahead of other bands. We know what we want to achieve and we’re confident with the sound we’ve got. I don’t think we would sound dated across a couple of months or even a year.” And that is all a part of their larger plan. “We wanted to appeal to a variety of people and captivate everyone. I think that’s why our music sounds the way it does. We’ve got so many influences from modern genres, and we pay homage to old school nu-metal. We do it instead of using old-school hip-hop. I think that’s where we get that fusion, that blend of the whole thing, and I think that’s why it doesn’t sound dated.” The nu-metal resurgence has almost certainly helped in The One Hundred’s campaign. “It’s almost like it was a tainted thing,” muses Jacob, “like it was uncool to like that if you’re a metal fan, so it’s like ‘Oooh is there a stigma attached to that?’ where you’re considered not cool or a sell out, and we’re like, we don’t care, we’re easy.” You could be forgiven for thinking ‘Chaos + Bliss’ is a political album. The lyrics are rife with sentiments that soundtrack the recent political unrest perfectly, but it’s not their intention. “We get ‘Are you a political band?’ a lot, and it’s not like that at all. We are not a political band. None of us cares about politics; we don’t care about either/or, we stay out of it because that’s not what we want to represent. “I can see why bands do it because they use it as a platform, but for us, it’s just about the music… and to get me millions,” he says through laughter. “I want to be mega famous, be on the front of Now and OK magazine, GQ cover, that’s my aim, I don’t even like the band, I just

do it so I can fund my own fashion label. I need a platform, I need people who are musicians, and I’ll just shout and rap over it, and then I’ll just use all that to channel my future job. You can quote me on that!” Now they’ve finally initiated their future, The One Hundred are more than prepared for what lies ahead. “We’re just one of those bands who want to see where it takes us naturally. If this gets us somewhere then wicked, if it doesn’t we’re not gonna cry about it - we’re gonna release more music, and then the fans that are on board are going to be happy. That’s what we do it for. We do it because if we weren’t in this band, we’d be looking for a band that sounded like us. That is a pretty bold statement for us, but as a band, collectively, that’s our outlook on it.” Taking a look around them, Jacob does have something to say about the world he and his band mates have entered. “The rock scene, in my opinion, has been mundane for the last ten years. It sounds like all I care about is the commercial aspect of it, but you ask, say, any white van driver, ‘Have you heard of Limp Bizkit ‘Rollin’?’ and they’ll say ‘Yeah!’ Then ask, ‘Do you like it?’ They might not like it, but they’ll know it, they’ve got an opinion on it. I’d rather be one of those bands.” Which is what it all boils down to for The One Hundred: making their mark. “I’d rather give something a go and it doesn’t work rather than go, ‘Yeah, we did it, we blended in!’ You’re never gonna be remembered for that, so we’re happy to take that challenge!” P The One Hundred’s album ‘Chaos + Bliss’ is out now.

FA N G C L U B

“IT’S “IT’S BEEN BEEN 20 20 YEARS YEARS IN IN THE THE WORKS.” WORKS.” DUBLIN-BASED TRIO FANGCLUB GIVE US THE LOW-DOWN ON THEIR UPCOMING DEBUT ALBUM.

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

Hey Steven, you guys have just announced your debut album - has it been a long time in the works? Are you relieved it’s all done? Yeah. Exciting stuff. It’s been about 20 years in the works, so yeah we are pretty relieved.

That’s a very long time. Do you have any stories from ‘in the studio’? The studio was a blur for many reasons. I don’t really remember much, other than the occasional visit from ghosts ‘cause the studio was haunted. Spooky. It was the happiest time and best experience I’ve ever had. And it was before we had anything else. It was just me, Dara, Kev and our producer Tadhg living in a house in Kerry and recording every day, morning to night. We lived our of each other’s pockets and had no prospects of anything.

Pretty carefree and I think you hear some of it on the record. Did the album evolve much during its creation? Not really to be honest. It’s just a jampacked record of gut feeling songs. We were afraid of over thinking a rock record with tricks. So it is what it is from start to finish. What themes do you cover? I guess general frustration, paranoia, boredom, excess, death and reincarnation. I keep coming back to being your own worst enemy and how powerful your mind can be. I can’t get past it, haha. There’s no one theme. My personality can shoot high or drop low extremely fast. Which kinda leaves you with a collage of different themes in songs. Songs like ‘Common Ground’ and ‘Better To Forget’ kind of play around with chasing oblivion and

liking it. That kind of thing. Do you have a favourite song on it? We recorded like 25 songs, so these are my favourite 11. If I had to really pick one song, I think it would be ‘Dreamcatcher’. People scream that back at us at shows. It’s taken on a life of its own. Have your friends and family already heard it all? What do they think? No. I trust no one. Are you going to do something fun to celebrate the album’s release in August? We are gonna be gigging a lot, and I think we are throwing a listening party with our fans and friends. That’s gonna be fun. P Fangclub’s self-titled debut album is out on 4th August.

NEED TO KNOW “WE KNEW “WE KNEW “WE KNEW EVERYTHING EVERYTHING HAD TO EVERYTHING HAD HAD TO TO BE BE PERFECT.” PERFECT.” BE PERFECT.” ARCANE ROOTS DROP ‘MELANCHOLIA HYMNS’ THIS AUTUMN - BUT THE ALBUM FEELS LIKE IT’S ONLY JUST BEGUN, SAYS VOCALIST ANDREW GROVES.

Your new album is due in September - is it all done and dusted, ready to go? Haha, no. It’s been nearly two years in the making, but it’s only in the last few weeks that the songs have truly come to life, and there’s still a little way to go. For this record, we really endeavoured to abandon any conventions or approaches that we were familiar with or had ‘learnt’ over the previous records. This was about removing any expectations from our music and focusing purely on whatever would produce the greatest musical outcome. It has taken quite some time and effort to craft it into something as grand as our original intentions. How are you finding getting it over the finishing line, is it a difficult one to draw a line under? With each of us facing such a steep learning curve to even competently express our ideas, the record naturally arrived at a point where we had to decide on whether to stop or push on even further with the writing. Especially after the incredible reaction to [new single] ‘Curtains’, that really helped reassure us that we were doing the right thing. Suffice to say, the other songs went straight back to the chopping board after that. It’s a novel problem to have, but the album genuinely feels like it’s only just begun and that there is so much more to discover when once they come to life on stage. You’ve said before that you’ve been listening to a varied bunch of musicians during the record’s creation - do you think those new influences are apparent?

I often find that the influences I expect to surface in reviews and social media etc., never do. So I’ll certainly be interested in the lines drawn from this record! I’d even go so far as to say that this record is half electronica and classical/jazz/score, so, if anything, I’d say it’s mainly been an exercise in not turning any influences off. What themes do you cover? Originally, I intended to steer our music away from the very personal lyrics of our previous records, and concentrate on writing something that encapsulated more universal topics. Like a snapshot of life as I see it now. It was only upon commencing the writing that my every effort seemed as if it was entirely engulfed by the weight of the world. Some days, I would only have to accidentally glance at my phone to be hit with such intense sadness and exasperation at the situation unfolding. It soon became a seemingly unavoidable obstruction to the writing process. Almost entirely against my usual sensibility, the record unwittingly became a commentary on the world as it stands in 2017 and its hymns of rejoice and melancholia. Were there any lessons you learnt during debut ‘Blood & Chemistry’ that you were able to put into practice on this one? It’s okay to reach that place where you have no idea if it’s any good, if it’s what you wanted, or if you even like it anymore. Trust yourself; you’ll come out the other side soon enough and love those decisions. P Arcane Roots’ album ‘Melancholia Hymns’ is out 15th September.

DRIVE AROUND THE UK

SWMRS are heading back to the UK this autumn for a tour. The dates follow their support slot with Green Day at BST Hyde Park in July, and will see them wrap up latest album ‘Drive North’. “And finally at last we announce our return and our final trip to Europe on the Farewell Drive North Tour,” says drummer Joey Armstrong. “Let’s spread the gospel of Rock n Roll one more time before we pack up Drive North and begin our next chapter.” Catch them in the UK from 29th September.

IN SEARCH OF A NEW ALBUM

The Movielife are set to release their first album in fourteen years this Autumn. Having recently signed with Rise Records, they drop new full-length ‘Cities In Search Of A Heart’ on 22nd September. It’s their first album since 2003’s ‘Forty Hour Train Back To Penn’.

HAPPY DAYS

Bellevue Days’ new EP ‘Rosehill’ - the follow-up to 2016’s ‘Sad Boy’ - is due for release on 4th July. “Each song is based on a few very significant events in each of our lives,” the band explain, “without which we highly doubt the songs would have even come about. We’ve drawn from some of the more shitty times in our lives, whether it be over-indulging on booze, drugs or religion – it’s a reflection on, and homage to, our youth.”

DON BROCO

“WE JUST WANT TO GET THE ALBUM OUT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”

DON BROCO ARE BACK WITH NEW MATERIAL, AND PLANNING THEIR BIGGEST HEADLINE SHOW TO DATE. WORDS: JASLEEN DHINDSA. edford lads Don Broco have just finished off their first ever tour in America supporting State Champs, and if fan videos from the shows are anything to go by, it seems like attendees didn’t go just to see the headline band.

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

“During [support] shows I find it quite interesting to do a quick shout out to get a feel if people have heard of us before,” frontman Rob Damiani explains. “It’s a pleasant surprise that people seem to know about us in the US now. We didn’t know what to expect when we came out, we thought maybe it’d be like it was in the UK when we were first playing shows;

playing to this crowd who have no idea who you are - but people do, which is awesome. There have been a lot of people who discovered us years ago when we were doing our first album, so it was great to meet all of them.” As well as being a relentless touring band, the four-piece constantly churn out new music, releasing at least something every year since they started in 2008. Their latest release is the gargantuan ‘Pretty’, featuring their signature lyrical style of problematic love mixed with humour, but sonically the track steers away from the funk driven indie of 2015’s ‘Automatic’, and focuses more on the post-hardcore roots of their first two EPs. Paired with a music video featuring the band cutting off each other’s faces, and wearing them as masks at bassist’s Tom Doyle’s fake wedding, the track is

Don Broco at their finest. “We worked on [‘Pretty’] towards the end of last year. We got off the Bring Me The Horizon tour in November, and we kind of just started writing over Christmas, working on the next album. We just wanted to get as much headway as we could over the holidays, and it’s pretty much one of the first songs that we wrote, and recorded it straight away. When we were coming out to tour, we thought rather than waiting for the full album to finish and going through the whole process of that, that it would be cool to shoot a video and get music out to play on the [US] tour. I’m glad we did because it’s been a lot of fun, we’ve been playing it at the last few shows, and it’s just been one of the most fun songs to play live. “We didn’t think about the video too

DON BROCO

much at first to be perfectly honest. It started with [previous single] ‘Everybody’, we wanted to make something different to our other videos, something we hadn’t done before. We put out this vague email to a load of directors, saying: ‘Do you want to make something fun and weird?’ and like, ‘Surprise us’. We got ‘Everybody’ back [directed by Dominar Films], which was this weird cowboy cult dance move weird as fuck video, that reminded us of Twin Peaks or The League of Gentlemen. We just loved it. “After that video and having such a good experience, we went back to the same guys, and we said, ‘We’d love to create another video within this weird world where no rules apply’. It doesn’t have to make sense. We wanted it to be a little bit shocking. [‘Pretty’] came back pretty much as it is now, and we just loved it from the start. It was our goriest video and our darkest, but it’s got that sense of fun and humour to it that we really liked.” ‘Pretty’ is the first single from the band’s upcoming album, a concoction of posthardcore and R&B; it’s the weirdest and heaviest material that they’ve put out since their EPs released nearly a decade ago, most comparative to the infamous fan favourite ‘Thug Workout’. “I’d say yes and no,” Rob says about whether the rest of the album follows the same suit as ‘Pretty’. “What we’ve done so far [on the new album] is still quite a wide ranging eclectic mishmash of everything we love

about music, and we try and wrap it all up and turn it into an album. “Every song has a distinct vibe, so I wouldn’t say there’s going to be ten other ‘Pretty’ sounding songs on the record. It’s got a heavier feel; I think it just came about from touring loads last year and the year before. We’ve definitely been the busiest as a band; ‘Automatic’ was the album that allowed us to get out and tour the world and see loads of countries. We’ve pretty much constantly been on tour since it came out, and we just enjoyed playing so much; it’s the most fun part of being in a band, there’s no doubt about it. The louder and heavier you play, the more fun it is, especially for us, so when it came to writing the music, it was the first time we ever thought, ‘Oh I wonder what this would sound like in a live environment’. “[With] ‘Automatic’ we wrote it as a studio album, and we would consciously do what we want in the studio, write the best songs we can and worry about it later. A lot of the live versions can tweak and change which is cool as it brings it to life in a different way. But with this record, we were like, ‘No, what do we want to hear? You’re at a show you want to mosh, what’s going to make us feel good?’ “It’s hard to say, but I think we’re only a few months off [finishing the album] really. After this tour we’re spending a little bit of time in New York when we’re

finished, to chill out and do some touristy stuff and relax and wind down. Then basically for the rest of the summer, we’re going to be doing European festivals all over the place, during that time is the time we’re planning on finishing off the album and getting everything wrapped up so we can have new material as soon as possible. “We hope to be bringing out new stuff and having an album at the start of next year or sooner. We just want to get it out as soon as possible; we probably will follow a similar line of ‘Pretty’ and ‘Everybody’ in the sense that if we’ve got a song were digging, we just want to put it out and get a video done, not worry too much about deadlines. If we’ve got music, just get it out.” The band are playing their biggest headline show to date at Alexandra Palace later this year. “We wanted to do something special in London, London being not quite our hometown, but almost like a hometown show for us. It feels like it’s been a long time coming since we’ve done a proper Don Broco show, I guess the last time was Brixton Academy two years ago. We wanted to do something special; we wanted to wait and do the full tour once our album’s actually out. It’s for our fans, a big party blow-out before we start the new album cycle properly.” P Don Broco play London’s Alexandra Palace on 11th November.

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

N OTH I N G BUT TH I EVES

“THERE’S “THERE’S ALWAYS ALWAYS HOPE.” HOPE.”

NOTHING BUT THIEVES ARE AT BASICALLY EVERY FESTIVAL THIS SUMMER, THERE’S NO AVOIDING THEM: COMMUNITY, 2000TREES, VILLAGE GREEN, TRUCK, Y NOT, STANDON CALLING, KENDAL CALLING, VITAL - AND THAT’S JUST THE UK ONES. THEY’RE WORKING THEIR WAY TOWARDS THE RELEASE OF ALBUM NUMBER TWO, DUE OUT IN JUST A FEW MONTHS. Hey Conor, what’s up? Currently feeding ducks, so life isn’t all bad. You’ve just announced your new album, ‘Broken Machine’ - that’s not a super cheery title, are you guys okay? We’re fine thank you, but 2016 was a shit year for everyone. We had personal problems, and the world had personal problems, so we had

to comment on them. There’s always hope though, which is always the underlying message for us. I guess we’re a little deeper and darker than our cheery boyish faces perceive. How is this new album a development from your first? Firstly we’re older and wiser (somewhat), which has helped us become the band we didn’t know

we were on the first album. The overall songwriting has stepped up a gear; the sound had progressed and toughened. We just knew what we wanted this time and think we have achieved it. How do you feel about your debut now you’ve had a bit of space from it? Is there anything you would have changed in hindsight?

N OTH I N G BUT TH I EVES

Not at all. It’s a recorded memory of who we were and where we were in that moment of time. Wouldn’t change that for the world. Some songs I listen back to and cringe at, thinking why we would have settled on that or been happy with that? But it’s just a learning curve; we get better as a band with every day. Was the response to your debut as you thought it would be? It seemed to spark a lot of opportunities. Being so young when we started the debut I didn’t know what to expect, but it’s opened so many doors for us. We’ve played to hundreds of thousands of people all over the world and have had so many crazy experiences already. We have this thing where we look at each other and say, ‘We have weird days don’t we?’ Today is the anniversary of when Donatella Versace invited us to play at her party and was loudly singing the words to our songs. Doesn’t get much

weirder for five guys from Southend. What was your starting point when approaching ‘Broken Machine’? In a way there was none. It was a continued work ethic and songwriting ethic that hadn’t stopped since releasing the first record. The album, as any art should, took form over experience. We wrote the majority of it on the tour bus in America. Two month tours back-toback with each other in middle America can have a toll on the psyche; then there’s also everything you experience and hear when you’re out there. How was recording in California? What else did you get up to while there? It was good I guess. I mean, if I’m honest, we didn’t get much free time. We’d start in the studio at 10am and finish at 11pm every night in the week, the weekend would just be about doing as much recovering as possible.

Recording takes so much out of you; it’s unreal. The amount of heart and concentration it takes. We were there for six weeks so the odd weekend I’d make sure I saw a beach or had a little bike ride in the hills. It’s a beautiful place to be. Is the record completely done and dusted now? Completely. Comes out 8th September and we can’t fucking wait. It feels like you’re playing every festival over the summer - are there any you’re particularly looking forward to? Yes, we’re everywhere and it’s gonna be amazing, festival season is what every band lives for. It’s just so much fun. I’m really excited for Shanghai, never been to China and have always wanted to. P Nothing But Thieves’ album ‘Broken Machine’ is out 8th September.

PLAYLIST THERE’S A WHOLE UNIVERSE OF MUSIC OUT THERE TO LISTEN TO. HERE ARE TEN TRACKS YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING TO THIS MONTH.

ALLISON WEISS

ENTER SHIKARI

‘Runaway’ is co-written by Tegan Quin: it’s a match made in synthy poppy heaven, resulting in a sweeping, brilliant banger that raises Weiss’ game yet another level. From nothing... yet?

Bosh. That’s Enter Shikari landing, straight out of leftfield. ‘Supercharge’ feats Big Narstie and sees them blasting into new worlds with influence from grime, electronica and all sorts. From nothing... yet?

RUNAWAY

SHEER MAG

JUST CAN’T GET ENOUGH

This album preview track is “a straight up and down rock ballad about ACTUALLY being in love,” the band explain. Nice one. From Sheer Mag’s debut album ‘Need To Feel Your Love’ out 14th July.

TIGERS JAW

TO T

ESCAPE PLAN

“I tried to imagine a bad-ass super hero who crushes the music industries boys club and the patriarchy with one punch,” enthuses Haley Shea. From Sløtface’s debut album ‘Try Not To Freak Out’ out 15th September.

Continuing their march into the lush landscape of hyper-emotion and shoegaze discomfort, the band are making us all ‘Suffer‘ with their new track. No, not really. From Hundredth’s new album ‘Rare’ out 16th June.

SUFFER

DANCE GAVIN DANCE

CAPTAIN WE’RE SINKING

While that Sheer Mag track up there may not be a Depeche Mode cover (boo), this one here, this is definitely Bruno Mars. From ‘Punk Goes Pop Vol. 7’ out 14th July.

According to the band, the track “comes from a deeper, more art-rock angle.” Right up our street. From Captain We’re Sinking’s new album ‘The King Of No Man’ out 23rd June.

GET CAPE. WEAR CAPE. FLY OPTIMIST / NATIONAL HEALTH

Didn’t see this coming, did you? Get Cape returns with not one, but two new tracks encouraging fans to stand up for what they believe in. From nothing... yet?

HIS

“This record is a return to the way the band started,” says Ben Walsh of the duo’s Will Yip-produced offering. Can’t wait, guys. From Tigers Jaw’s new album ‘Spin’ out 18th August.

HUNDREDTH

THAT’S WHAT I LIKE

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

LIS TE N

SLØTFACE

NANCY DREW

SUPERCHARGE

WATER

MUSE

DIG DOWN

“I was looking to counteract the current negativity in the world and give inspiration, optimism and hope,” says Matt Bellamy. Nice thought, bud. It doesn’t sound like you’re singing “Dig down”, though. From nothing... yet?

THE INCREDIBLE NEW ALBUM

IN STORES 30 JUNE FEATURING ‘FABULESS’ & ‘SONG #3’ CD • DIGITAL

PRE-ORDER NOW 29 NOV BIRMINGHAM Barclaycard Arena 30 NOV LEEDS First Direct Arena 1 DEC BRIGHTON Centre 4 DEC LONDON O2 Brixton Academy 5 DEC CARDIFF Motorpoint Arena 8 DEC GLASGOW SSE Hydro

STONESOUR.COM

ROADRUNNERRECORDS.CO.UK

ABOUT TO

BREAK THE BEST NEW BANDS TH E H OT TEST NEW MUSIC

YONAKA BRIGHTON-BASED FOUR-PIECE YONAKA ARE DOING THINGS A BIT DIFFERENTLY... WORDS: JASLEEN DHINDSA. PHOTO: DANNY PAYNE.

onaka frontwoman Theresa Jarvis grew up in a small town in Kent, which didn’t exactly cater to her burning desire to play music. “It was ridiculous. In my [music] class there were four of us, I don’t know how we made it work really. It was shitty; no one was even good,” she laughs. “I was always writing music, I had 26

this little songwriting thing with my friend when I was younger, and we started doing covers, but we wrote like two songs! Then I moved to Brighton, and it helped loads because everyone’s doing music and everyone’s really good. It was great to be surrounded by people who wanted to do the same thing. None of my friends were into music.” “We’ve all been friends for about seven years,” she says of her fellow bandmates. “Not good friends, but we met and were all doing our own thing,

doing our own projects, but nothing was clicking. Then we got together, and it was weird how good it was. We were like, ‘Wow this is it!’ So we’ve been together for about three years now and gigging for two and a half.” “The best thing [about being in Brighton] is it’s a very small place; it’s easier than London to get your name around the town a bit. Everyone knows what’s going on. The bad thing is that there’s a type of music in Brighton, and I think everyone’s doing the same thing, so it gets a bit samey.

It’s rocky, grungey, psychy kind of music; there’s very little dance music.” Yonaka meanwhile have a distinct tribal dark pop sound. “It just happened,” she explains. “We all have different influences; I feel it was a mashup of that. It’s quite tribal and a mixture of pop… we just sat down and started playing, and the sound happened, and we were like, ‘Wow this is really good!’.” This summer, Yonaka are set for big festivals, including Reading & Leeds, despite only having a handful of singles out. “[We’re] so excited about that,” she says. “We’ve got three songs out, but we’ve got so much recorded. It feels great and playing with [bands like] Drenge… we’re really good friends with them now. It’s nice making the connections and friendships through it. “We feel like we’re a bit of a slow

burner,” she laughs, “but we feel like it’s a good slow burner and collecting the right fans for the right reasons. We don’t want to be a quick buzz band; we want to be there for a long time, we’re in it for the long haul! I believe in it. I’ve never felt like that in anything else I’ve done.” “We’ve been recording so much; we’ve got like fifteen songs already,” Theresa continues. “We’ve been working with two different people, Ross Orton who does Artic Monkeys, and we’ve recently started working with someone called Rodaih McDonald [The xx, Savages, The Horrors], and he’s awesome. They’re both different ends of the spectrum with how they work, but they’re both incredible. “Before we went on tour [with Berlin’s Gurr], we did like four weeks in the studio, and we’ve been back and forth from Sheffield recording with Ross. We

want to do a music video as we’ve never done one before, getting all our artwork together. It’s a progression. ‘Ignorance’ was one of the first songs we wrote, and then ‘Drongo’, and ‘Wouldn’t Wanna Be Ya’ is more recent, but it still keeps a theme throughout. There are lots of different sounds, it all works together, but they all sound like their own thing.” And as for the future: “I hope that we achieve success, we want to do this for a living, and we are so passionate about what we do. It’s been so weird on this tour, the people that have been coming, they’ve been singing along to the words, and it’s such an incredible feeling; you’re just so in love with every person in the room. It’s so lovely that all these people are there, and they believe in what you’re doing. We just want to get an album out, want to get more songs out, we want to be doing what we can and living the dream.” P

ABOUT TO

BREAK

ZEAL ZEAL & & ARDOR ARDOR MANUEL GAGNEUX HAS HIT ON A UNIQUE FORMULA FOR ZEAL & ARDOR: FUSING BLACK METAL WITH EVERYTHING BUT THE KITCHEN SINK. IT’S SEEN HIS BAND WELCOMED BY ALMOST EVERY AUDIENCE THEY PLAY TO. WORDS: ALI SHUTLER.

eal & Ardor started life when Manuel Gagneux was at a bit of a loose end. Turning to the internet for inspiration, he asked people for suggestions about what type of song he should make, and then stuck them together. Some of the results were horrible. Gabber meets tango. Anti-folk with trance. But there was something about black metal crossed with spiritual music that struck a chord. “I’ve been doing that ever since.” “First of all, I like both components a whole lot. There’s also this weird connection about Norwegians being opposed by Christianity and the American slaves. That was enough to spark the interest,” he continues. The first couple of songs were “pretty fucking horrible, but by iterating and trying new stuff, I wound up with a lot of material and thought I’d just put it on Bandcamp and see what happens.” The only person Manuel was expecting to hear it was his mum. Maybe. Manuel’s expectations were wrong. The full album has been out a few months, and Zeal & Ardor have already sold out The Underworld in London. They’ve played slots at The Great Escape, perhaps the only metal band on the line-up, this year, and have shows at both Reading & Leeds and Best Kept Secret. By the time you read this, they’ll have played Brixton Academy supporting Prophets of Rage. For a band that started on a whim in a shitty basement, it ain’t too shabby. “It’s insane, it doesn’t make any sense but I’m happy, and I’m not going to question it too much,” he explains. “I haven’t the faintest [idea why it’s connecting]. I’m really shitty at predicting how people react to certain music, so I’m not going to make any statements now.” Taking to the stage because of an invitation to play Roadburn Festival where the full band were among the softest on the bill, to The Great Escape where they’re by far the heaviest, Zeal & Ardor have been allowed into places that

would normally remain off-limits. People have taken to their music. “We’ve been embraced by both ends of the spectrum quite warmly, which is surreal. Metal is a very tight-knit scene, and they’re very protective of what they like - to a certain degree, there are people who fucking hate it - but to be welcomed like that is an honour and super sweet. I don’t know why it is, maybe it’s a fluke or a hype thing, but I’d be an idiot not to ride it out.” Despite everything, there’s a relaxed attitude to the way Zeal & Ardor are pressing forward. There’s no urgency to it; they’re just taking everything as it comes. “Seeing as how the album wasn’t forced, it doesn’t make sense to try and do that now. Maybe I’m just making a really big mistake, it’s possible, but it’s worked out so far, so I’m going to keep going like this.” Debut album ‘Devil Is Fine’ is an eclectic blend of everything, even by 2017’s standards. There’s black metal and spiritual music, obviously, but there are also little dashes of everything from dubstep to arena rock. Somehow it’s not jarring. There’s a powerful wave below everything as the record switches from dream-like escape to nightmarish confrontation. It sparks with excitement. Inspired by walking around alone - “that sounds super cliché,” he sighs - and “friends who call me names on a regular basis,” there’s both distance and intensity to the record. He also draws a lot from books. Everything from James Joyce and Phil K. Dick to stories about slavery, the occult and folklore have a place in the makeup of ‘Devil Is Fine’. “I heavily borrowed, which is not say stole, from Tom Waits. He just makes lyrics and songs that immediately transfix you and put you in a different place. That’s something I strive to do.”

Manuel, which explains why he doesn’t spend much time researching festivals or looking into what other bands are playing. “It’s this whole dark spiral, so I treat every gig as just a gig and every day with a fresh coat of paint.” It’s an attitude he’s employing with the future of the band. “fucked if I know,” where he takes it from here. “We had to write a lot of new material to make a whole set, so there are new songs, but I’d like not to paint myself into a corner. I’d like to have some experimental elements in it still, what those are though, I do not know yet. If I go, ‘Let’s just do black metal now’, I wouldn’t be happy with that. If I were to settle on something, that would be lazy. [That said], it can’t be forced. ‘Oh fuck, okay, let’s add tango.’ I don’t know what to do yet, but I’m trying out stuff. Some things are good, some things are horrible. We’ll see. I think I’d like to do a second album very much, but I don’t know what the timeline looks like on that. There’s an abundance of material that I’m eager to release though.”

“I’VE ALREADY FAR EXCEEDED ALL MY EXPECTATIONS.”

“I tend to get nervous about something if I know too much about it,” starts

Zeal & Ardor are a bizarre band. An anomaly. What they’re doing, can’t be replicated. They’re unique in the most wonderful of ways. “I’m in this situation where I’ve already far exceeded all my expectations,” smiles Manuel. “All I want to do is make music and have people listen to it, so if this is the way I can achieve that, I’m just going to carry on. I know loads of very good bands who have been working their asses off just to be in a situation like mine now. This was a fluke and just to be fair to them, I have to ride this out to the best of my capabilities. I see the interest in this band as something very temporary because people lose their interests very quickly, so I take everything with a grain of salt. While I enjoy how it is now, I know it’s not going to be like this forever.” P Zeal & Ardor’s debut album ‘Devil Is Fine’ is out now.

GENRE BOUNDARIES ARE DEAD. NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR DEATH EATER STYLE PURE BLOOD TENDENCIES, GRANDAD. THE REST OF US ARE MIXING THE STREAMS, FINDING SOMETHING NEW AND EXCITING. ARE HEY VIOLET STILL ROCK? WERE THEY EVER? WHO CARES. THIS IS A BAND WHO

BANG DEAL IN ONE CURRENCY. HUGE, GIGANTIC...

GERS ... AND WITH THEIR DEBUT ALBUM ‘FROM THE OUTSIDE’, THEY’VE HIT THE MOTHERLODE.

WORDS: ALI SHUTLER. PHOTOS: SARAH LOUISE BENNETT.

here are far more interesting stories to be told than the one asking if Hey Violet are a rock band. For over a decade the likes of Panic! At The Disco, Fall Out Boy and Linkin Park have been taking a little bit of everything the love and making it their own. More recently, Twenty One Pilots and PVRIS have been more focused on the art, than what colours they’re allowed to use. It’s 2017, and anything goes. Hey Violet aren’t wasting their time worrying about how the rest of the world views them because they’ve got stories of their own to tell. Questions of authenticity are shrugged off - “Any artist getting up on stage and doing their own thing is authentic if they feel their music” - and instead, a sure-footed confidence reigns. The core trio of Rena and Nia Lovelis and Miranda Miller have been in bands together for nearly a decade. “We’ve grown up together. Miranda was twelve when I first met her,” starts Nia. “Rena is my sister so I couldn’t really avoid that one.” They’ve always shared a similar idea of where they wanted to go. “Miranda, Rena and I are on the same page, and we’ve always taught each other things. I know I’d be a completely different person without them.” Alongside Casey Moreta and Ian Shipp, all five of them are very similar people. “We’re different ends of the same soul,” continues Nia, with Rena adding: “Everyone adds something special. In the beginning, we were these lost kids not knowing how to connect. Being friends but not really understanding each other’s emotions, and in the process of this band, we’ve got closer and gained a lot more understanding in each other. We’re really solid right now.” This isn’t overnight success or easy riding though. It’s been a hell of a trip. First came Cherri Bomb, a snotty rock band with arena ambitions, that saw Rena, Miranda and

Nia joined by vocalist Julia Pierce. They shared stages with everyone from Foo Fighters to The Smashing Pumpkins and put out album ‘This Is The End of Control’ in 2012. The following year Julia left, Casey started filling in on guitar, and Rena took her place at the front. “We were still going by the name Cherri Bomb while Casey was in the band but we should have changed the name then. We were hanging onto the name because we were afraid of change.” The name stuck around for a few years while the band figured some things out, but Cherri Bomb was dead. Hey Violet was alive from that moment on. “When we parted ways with the other member, that’s when it was a complete change. It was a new era. We were trying out different things, and that’s when we were a different band. It took us a while to get the name change going, but in our hearts and souls, we knew this was different. This was a new band. We needed a fresh start.”

the band down a path that leads to their debut album ‘From The Outside’. “There have been ups and downs musically, there have been some weird moments, our mid-band-life crisis, but now we’ve got to a great place and can confidently say we stand behind it. There was just such a long period of trying to find our sound,” offers Rena. “Even at the beginning of Hey Violet when we were a different band, we knew we wanted to go more pop, but we were lost in the fact that we didn’t know how to do pop. It’s a whole other animal you have to tackle.” Refusing to take the easy route of staying in their lane, ‘From The Outside’ sees Hey Violet branching out and not making any apologies about it. “We were doing that whole pop-punk thing, and then we asked, ‘Well, where can we go now?’ It’s more about pushing yourselves than seeing where the destination is,” explains Nia. “Let’s see how far we can go to the left, or how far can we go to the right, and then figure out what feels best to us.” It turns out what feels best is a little bit of everything and a whole lot of heart.

“THIS IS US. THIS IS THE MOST US THAT IT’S EVER BEEN.”

After a couple of years of moving the puzzle pieces around, Hey Violet broke cover in 2015 with debut EP ‘I Can Feel It’, signing to Five Seconds Of Summer’s Hi Or Hey Records and supporting the Australian band on their arena tour. The ‘Brand New Moves’ EP followed in 2016 alongside the addition of Iain Shipp on bass, freeing Rena up to focus on the microphone.

Over the course of the past few years, the band have moved from the sort of primary-coloured pop-punk that you’d expect, to something less obvious. While ‘I Can Feel It’ is all power chords and bubblegum punk, ‘Brand New Moves’ takes that attitude to the dancefloor. Elsewhere the tilted-head truth of ‘Fuqboi’ and the dark euphoria of ‘Pure’ started

“Somehow we ended up in a comfortable spot for us, and yet, uncomfortable at the same time,” laughs Rena. It was important for ‘From The Outside’ to see the band “outside of our box”, without seeming like they’re trying too hard. “We’re not going to do something different just to show people we’re unpredictable; we’re just doing it because we loved it.” “The funny thing is, talking about doing what other people say instead of doing what’s in your heart, we’ve definitely been there,” adds Miranda. “Now we’re coming out of it; people are like, ‘Now you’re just not being yourselves’, but this is us. This is the most us that it’s ever been.” ‘From The Outside’ is a record about falling in love. It’s about heartbreak and heartfelt discovery, being in control and not being afraid of how you feel. “We used to write a lot of songs about not being in control. We wanted to turn that around and see what it was like from the other side,” starts Nia. “The record does that. When we’re singing about having

a broken heart, we want you to break our heart. We want to feel next level. We wanted to take an average story, all these different love stories, and figure out different perspectives. That’s why we named it ‘From The Outside’, we want you to take a step back and realise there are all these different ways to look at love and experience love.” “It gives you a different view of your life and the different ways that you can see it,” adds Rena. “I overthink a lot of things, but with the record, it just came from the heart. We let it be exactly what it wanted it to be. We let the songs do their own thing.”

through the roof, to put my journal on the line was a very nerve-wracking thing for me and for a long time I felt like I was a guinea pig because I was going through all these medications. I was happy being onstage but apart from that; I felt messed up.” She took that turbulence and ran with it: “That’s a flaw in my human design because I tend to make things a lot more difficult than they need to be.” But taking the expected route was never really an option. “On one hand, we do take the easy route because the songs are coming from our heart and we don’t need to make anything up, but it is a lot more heart-wrenching and difficult to talk about. The easy way was never an option. You really have to mean what you’re saying. Audiences can call out a fake really quick. They can tell when you’re BS-ing. We’ve always tried to stay authentic in the way we talk about what we believe in. We’re very opinionated, we don’t talk about things that we haven’t experienced, or we don’t believe in. I feel like an audience could

“AUDIENCES CAN TELL WHEN YOU’RE BS-ING.”

“When you spill your guts, they don’t go back in,” sings ‘My Consequence’. “That’s me in a nutshell,” laughs Rena. The band surrender to the vulnerable across the record, without submitting or bowing down. Instead, they find power in the truth. At first, it was daunting, but now - “I’m a pretty open book about the shit that I’ve gone through. I’m open about the fact I suffer from anxiety and depression. My anxiety is constantly

tell straight away if we started singing about something we didn’t feel in our hearts.” Their power is real. Rena might be happy onstage but getting there is scary. In spite of this, she overcomes, and Hey Violet performs like proper stars. “It’s about taking your movements and making them bigger. The confidence just comes from feeling our songs. I don’t have to think about selling a song onstage to the audience because these songs mean a lot to me. It’s going to sell itself. It hasn’t always been like that. I definitely used to get stage fright, but I just found the confidence in knowing I love the songs we’re playing. The empowering aspect comes from feeling empowered myself in the new music we have.” It’s a power they want to share. Despite the obvious rainbow-drenched celebration and desire for a good time, the band’s music isn’t just about having fun. “It delves deep into love and love lost; being vulnerable and feeling like you’re a little bit fucked up. I think the album has something special to offer people.” ‘O.D.D’ kicks back with the line, “I’m the girl in the back of the class, fuck bitches, get money, blow cash,” which dances with the idea that you should just do you. “Do whatever you want to do, and if that means being different or weird, that’s cool.”

The song also starts with the admission: “I was raised by a mom who told me I should never listen to another voice but my own.” It’s a lesson that dictates everything Hey Violet are. “We have such supportive parents who have really shaped us as human beings in a way that helps us cope with ourselves and the things that go wrong in life,” explains Rena. “I feel like there are a lot of artists who are told to be something and that’s never the way to be because it’s never going to be authentic.” “One of the best things all of our parents ingrained in our heads was always to ask questions,” continues Nia. “If you’re not sure about something, or if you don’t really want to do something, ask why. Get an answer back from it. I always thought that was important.” There’s a distinctive energy across ‘From The Outside’. Songs about love see the band taking back control. “Strong female energy just comes from what we stand for as a band. It’s just not in our nature to come across as damsels in distress.” It’s something that comes from “who I am as a person,” starts Rena. “We’re all feminists in the band. We stand up for women’s rights. It all comes across naturally because it’s who we are as people. There was no intentional ‘let’s write a song about girl power’ because then it’s just going to come across as insanely fake. I’m a supporter of our fans being inspired to do the things they want to do. A lot of our fans are girls and if they want to pick up an instrument or sing songs, we’re their biggest supporters.” “Growing up with a lot of strong women has helped,” continues Nia. “Our mums are incredible. We all support each other. We also really want to inspire girls and boys to grow into their own and be as amazing as they can be. We never set out to be a revolutionary or whatever; we’ve always just tried to inspire people who didn’t believe in themselves.” Hey Violet are a lot of different things. There’s fierce determination

to everything they do, from the swelling messages within their storytelling to their vocal dreams about headlining the likes of Madison Square Gardens and Red Rocks in Colorado. (“We have a live DVD at home of Incubus playing there and I remember watching that a lot as a little kid.”). They’re also “a pretty playful band.” Give them balloons and experience the chaos. “Even when we’re super serious, there’s a silliness about us. I hope it connects to the fans because that’s what really brings us together. Even though we can get serious and deep, we still have that lightness to us. We don’t take ourselves too seriously.” They refuse to be told what they can or can’t do. Back when they were Cherri Bomb, “Rena, Miranda and I were always told ‘You play okay for a girl’. That’s not really what you want to hear. We got a lot of people telling us we didn’t play our instruments.” Not that they’re out for your approval. “All the criticism and the doubt made us better musicians and better performers. We don’t have to listen to this. We can just show them that we’re way better than they think we are. Whenever someone tells us we’re not able to do something, we’re going to

try our best and do it. Just to prove everybody wrong. It’s that teenage angst thing; it still hasn’t died out here. Whenever something’s against us, we’ve tried to prove it wrong. We have that complex that as soon as someone tells us we can’t do something or we’ll never be this, we’ll show them. It’ll be nice to show those people who don’t believe they can get anywhere, that if they go up against it, or use it as motivation, they can get anywhere they want to go.” Despite the outsider leanings, there’s a sense of belonging to ‘From The Outside’. There’s connection in their live show. “I’ve always felt in our band and with our fanbase, we’ve been a unit,” starts Nia. “If you feel like an outsider, you have somewhere to go. We’re trying to create a little home for each other, in our shows and with the music we put out. It’s why we tell the stories we do with the songs we have. People might feel like they’re going through something completely alone and no one has ever felt this before, and even if you feel like that, it doesn’t mean it’s true. We’re trying to create a safe space for people and for ourselves.” “If they do feel like outsiders, there’s a home for them in our little Hey Violet family,” continues Rena. “We belong on stage, we belong home sometimes, but we’re travellers. I love the sense of belonging and not belonging anywhere because we travel so much. I feel like if you’re an outsider, you can still relate to other people because everyone feels different and everyone feels a little messed up sometimes. We constantly talk about this in our song ‘O.D.D.’. It’s about being weird. It’s about being different but that being okay because it

makes you a fucking human being. Even if you feel like an outsider, it doesn’t mean you’re disconnected from the world.” There’s heavy reality across ‘From The Outside’. Despite the bright hues and the sunshine bask, there’s no sugar-coating the lyrics or hiding meaning behind thinly veiled metaphors. Hey Violet have a younger fanbase than most, but they never talk down to them or try and shield them from what’s going on. “Even though a lot of our fans are young, they’re definitely mature enough to handle everything we have to say,” states Rena, as Miranda explains that: “A lot of them came from when we toured with 5 Seconds Of Summer. We didn’t really know what to expect. At first, we weren’t really sure if they were going to be into anything we had to say, but as we’ve grown and as they’ve grown, we’ve realised they’re really open to all these perspectives and it’s really nice.” “I think people dismiss them as younger girls who don’t know what they want, but it’s not true,” adds Casey. “They’re very intelligent, they know what they want, and they can smell bullshit from a mile away.” “They’re smart,” grins Nia. “These younger kids, they’re going to be the next generation and you want to be supporting them using their voices and telling you when they like things and when they don’t like things. I’m happy we’ve got a generation that can smell bullshit because I think we’re pretty much done with it.” It’s a group that can get intense “They’re passionate, intense, determined and what more could you ask for in a fanbase?” - and turn towards Hey Violet for guidance. “When we were younger,

I looked up to people who I thought always knew the answers,” continues Nia. “I looked up to Gerard Way. When he did an interview or he did something I thought, ‘Wow he definitely knows everything’, but I’m sure there were times when he had no idea what he was doing. Having people look up to us is great but I don’t have all the answers. The one thing that makes them comfortable is that we understand where they’re coming from. There are certain things they tell us, that maybe we haven’t gone through, but we tell them it’s completely normal to feel this way, it’s not going to last forever, it’s going to be okay and that’s maybe what they need to hear. Maybe they don’t need answers; maybe they just want someone to understand where they’re coming from.”

go musically and presence-wise,” says Nia. “We’re always going for more. We don’t want any limits. We like the fact it’s all over the place. The album is cohesive but we have so many avenues we can continue down, we’re keeping those doors open. We’re very much enjoying what we’re writing about and the stories we’re telling, it’s like a fantasy and a dreamland.

“DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO DO, AND IF THAT MEANS BEING DIFFERENT OR WEIRD, THAT’S COOL.”

For all their confidence, their control and their commitment to their own desires, the band are “still figuring it out.” They’re happy in the moment, but “there are still a bunch of different places we want to

“As we go on, I think it’ll go deeper in meaning. Maybe we’re going to explore different things, but right now we’re having fun singing about pleasure and having fun. I don’t think we’ll ever settle on one thing. We have so many influences between the five of us; we’ll always going to be a little all over the place because that’s what we are.” That belief in who they are, individually, as a unit and to their audience, is total and unshakeable. “We’ve been through a lot of phases just by being in this band. Phases that last or don’t last, but we’ve started to come into our own now.” “We’ve accepted that we’re always going to change,” continues Miranda. “At some point, you realise, ‘I’m going to get to a point where this is what I look like and this is what I sound like, but it always changes’. As we’ve grown up, we’ve realised that just saying it is so much better than trying to please everyone. People are going to dislike it whatever you do.” There’s a joy in the selfdiscovery. “A lot of that on this album was due to my age and the experiences that were happening around me,” explains Rena. The battleground of late teens and early twenties is where everything starts to make sense, but you know less than ever. One thing that remains firm throughout though is the belief that: “I’m being authentic to myself, and that’s all that matters. This is my story. Take it or leave it.” P Hey Violet’s album ‘From The Outside’ is out now.

YEAR OF THE R AT EVERYONE’S LOOKING TO FIND THEIR PLACE IN THE WORLD; SOMEWHERE TO CALL HOME. IT’S A TOPIC CLOSE TO JULIA STEINER’S HEART, AND ONE SHE TAKES TO UNEXPECTED PLACES ON THE NEW RATBOYS ALBUM. WORDS: STEVEN LOFTIN.

atboys’ Julia Steiner has opened her life up to the band’s fans. Using her past and various internet rabbit holes to help craft rough-edged yet delicate tracks that deal with all aspects of life, from touring (‘G M’) to 18th Century lost boys (‘Peter The Wild Boy’), she knows they may need an introduction. “I have this habit, when we play live, of giving a very brief intro to most of the songs,” she explains. “Just saying what or who they’re about. I like to talk a little bit, but I also think it’s kind of fun for everyone to know what went into the song in the first place and to try to unpack that as the song goes along.” Being so honest and open with the world is scary, but Julia does so with aplomb. Taking her family’s history and cementing it in lyrical form comes both with courage, and needing the proper clearance. “I have talked to my siblings and made sure they’re cool with me using their names in the songs,” she chuckles. “I just want to be respectful of them. It’s fun to just kind of experience the memories all over again and share them with people.” Turning these stories and events into an accessible format for both current and soon-to-be fans is a talent all of its own - not over or under sharing, battling with fact and fiction. Julia’s approach to this is, as you’d expect, the perfect balance. “I’m just trying to toe the line between honesty and poetics,” she says. “Trying to paint a picture that’s a little exaggerated to make it a bit more interesting, or beautiful, or dynamic or something. I do think it’s important to try to include some details that are concrete. “I prefer to use real people’s names how were there in the story because it feels more authentic to me, and I love my family - I want to honour them and include them in what I’m doing.” The lives of touring musicians, from those doing club tours to packing out stadiums, are fraught with instability along with leaving your loved ones. “I live here in Chicago, but my folks live down in Kentucky, and my siblings are all over the place, so I don’t get to see them very much. When I do get to play these songs, I get to feel close to them because I do mention them by name.” One of the major themes you’ll hear

throughout new album ‘G N’ is the idea of home. More specifically, where do you find it? Julia is currently at her house in Chicago; she’s been practising for an upcoming tour with fellow Chicagoans Pet Symmetry, but, once Ratboys leave on this tour, where is it then? Julia mulls over this conundrum. “I’m fascinated by the idea of where we find home; maybe it’s a place, maybe it’s a time, or a memory, or a person. Living life on tour - is it the van, is it the places we sleep each night? It’s a transitory thing that can be hard to pin down, so when I mention a place or a person in a song, it’s me trying to say this is home, or was home, for me at one point. This testament to that will live forever in the song, which I think is just so cool.” What may not be strikingly obvious is the exact extent to which Julia, along with Dave Sagan on guitar, are honouring these parts of their life. The album’s title is an acronym for “good night”, something which harks back to early 2016. “We were on tour with a band from Chicago called Island of Misfit Toys, and on that tour, we would always greet each other with ‘G M’ for good morning, or ‘G N’ at night. It made us feel like a family, and a unit, so we ran with it and still greet each other with it to this day. “I chose that title as a nod to our friends who started using it,” she explains, “and also as a tribute to our lives on tour and that idea of trying to find home when your lives are so transitory. You know when we end days in all these different places, it kind of makes each day and each place that we’re in feel like a single home, even though we’re travelling all over the place. It keeps us grounded and helps us to let our relationship stay strong; it represents our friendship in a weird way.” ‘G N’ has an unexpected relevance, too. “For some reason on the record, there are a lot of lyrics about sleeping and dreaming,” she continues. “I don’t really know where that came from or what it means, but it kind of fit with that as well.” With Julia’s family taking centre stage on ‘G N’, it was only fair that they got a hand in its presentation, too. “The drawing on the front by my sister Molly is me with my eyes closed, and it just all fell into place. It’s pretty goofy.” “It’s just all trying to create a world in the song,” she concludes, “or at least honour, a world or a time that I did actually experience.” P Ratboys’ album ‘G N’ is out 30th June.

J U L I A TA K ES US T H RO U G H A F E W O F T H E A L BU M ’S T R AC KS , I N C LU D I N G A B R A N D S PA N K I N G N E W O N E T H AT D I D N ’ T Q U I T E M A K E T H E C U T FO R ‘G N ’, BU T T H AT W E S H O U L D H O P E F U L LY H E A R SO O N . C RY I N G A BO U T T H E P L A N ETS ‘Crying About The Planets’ was the fifth song on the album, and I’d had that riff while we were recording our first album back in 2014. I have a voice memo of it, but I hadn’t fleshed it out but I knew I wanted it to be about the story of this guy named Sir Douglas Mawson who was this explorer in Antarctica. This insane survival story that I’d found in Wikipedia. I was like, this, number one, should be a movie, I don’t know how this hasn’t been turned into a movie, but in the meantime, I’m going to try and tell this story.” C O N T RO L “I had always in the back of my mind said that I want to make a song about this time my brother almost got hit by a train. The first stanza of this song - ‘I almost got hit by a train wreck’ - those are just random lyrics that I’d written when I was 17.” G L “It’s more of a rocker, and it’s a little bit more negative. It’s about having a toxic friend. That song’s pretty intense, it probably won’t be out for a while, but I’m excited.” P ET E R T H E W I L D BOY “It’s about a person named Peter The Wild Boy, who I also found on Wikipedia, who was a feral child roaming around the woods of Germany in the 18th century. He got discovered by King George from England. I just kind of took that story and ran with it, I didn’t do too much research, but it’s this fascinating idea of this wild person living in the context of royalty and luxury in this developed nation so yeah that was a fun thing to think about. I’m glad we put it on there, I think it’s perfect, I’m glad that last minute decision came to be.”

T H E E L ECT I O N O F D O N A L D T RU M P G AV E RI S E AG A I N ST P L E N T Y TO G ET ST U C K I N TO O N T H E I R N E W A L BU M , ‘ WO LV ES ’ . F RO N T M A N T I M M C I L R AT H I S A N G RY A N D U PS ET AT T H E E L ECT I O N RES U LT, BU T H E ’S FA R F RO M F E E L I N G D E F E AT E D… WO RDS : JA K E RI C H A RDSO N . P H OTOS : SA R A H LO U I S E B E N N ET T.

n 2nd May, Rise Against released a statement detailing how their planned video shoot for new single ‘The Violence’ had been cancelled. The band were due to film in a field in Virginia which contains giant concrete busts of previous presidents, but as the band outlined, ‘… the permit to shoot the video was initially granted, but subsequently pulled by the board of directors who oversee the location. The reason? They decided we were anti-government.’ You could understand if frontman Tim McIlrath reacted angrily at this u-turn, but the vocalist/guitarist’s response to this revelation was one of triumph. “My initial reaction was this weird sense of pride, because Rise Against is my baby, and I’m always working on our goal of being a band that ruffles feathers and creates friction,” Tim begins. “So when we accomplished that, it was like, ‘Fuck yeah! People are noticing!’ There are times when we do stuff and it goes by unnoticed, or people just say, ‘Oh, cool; you’re a rock band – I get it,’ and then you don’t feel like you’ve done enough. Sometimes, if people aren’t angry with what we’re saying, or if we do a song and the label is just like, ‘Oh, cool – go for it,’ I’ll be like, ‘Fuck! We didn’t do enough! We didn’t piss people off!’ And so when something like that happens, it reminds me that this band is still identifiable as a force to be reckoned with, because this board of directors saw what we were going to do and thought it’d be a threat to the government or whatever. I take it as a badge of honour. “Here’s a little secret: we weren’t going to celebrate presidential power in the video! We were not going to cast those things in a good light, so I don’t blame them. It’s their right to do that, but it does let you know what we’re up against, and that freedom of speech is something that people can control, and watching this happen was just another example of that.” Rise Against have always been a politically-charged punk band, but Tim takes issue with the reasons behind the ‘anti-government’ phrasing used against the Chicago four-piece in this

instance. “I’d say Rise Against is a band which has always been very critical of government,” he explains. “And ‘critical of government’ to me is a good thing; the idea is to point out when they get it right and when they get it wrong. That’s what we’re always going to do, and I think that’s common sense – I don’t see that as something radical. I’ve always been suspicious of people who use the phrase ‘anti-government’ and people who use phrase ‘un-American’ – I’m not sure what the difference between ‘unAmerican’ and ‘pro-American’ is. What does being ‘un-American’ entail? I’m always suspicious of people who throw those terms around, and I feel like they tell us a lot more about the people who use those words, rather than the people they’re accusing.” Speaking of accusations, Rise Against are throwing plenty of bile in the direction of the new Trump administration on their new album, ‘Wolves’. A record born out of the rise to power of a man many consider to be a legitimate danger to not only Americans, but people the world over, this collection of eleven songs are united in their defiance against President Donald John Trump. “‘Wolves’ was an interesting record to come into, because we started making it before the election,” Tim recalls. “We were in the studio on election day, and we watched the shape of our country change, almost overnight. The Trump election was not just this man becoming president, it was also symbolic, as it let you know that there is an underbelly of America that

people weren’t tapped into – they were either worried about it, ignoring it or forgot it existed. These ideas of racism, sexism and homophobia were all going round in this election, and Trump gave them wings. These are all things that, for a band like Rise Against, we think of as monsters that we’re always trying to put into cages, and through a lot of the last decade it felt like we were making progress. The election was like all these monsters getting out. It made us realise that there are still a lot of reasons for a band like Rise Against to exist; there are still a lot of fights to be fought.” Rise Against continued to record ‘Wolves’ in the days after the election, but they sensed very quickly that a change in mentality had occurred amongst the anti-Trump population – and they decided to document and combat this mood shift on the album. “I feel like there was a defeatist attitude in post-election America; everyone had their tail between their legs. This grieving process was happening as we were continuing the record, and there’s songs like ‘Mourning In America’ that were tapping into that grief. But I was also thinking that I didn’t want the record to be sad. I didn’t want it to be a process of grief – I want the record to embolden and activate people, and get them back in the fight. I want this record to turn people into

the wolves at the gate and take back control, and that’s where the song ‘Wolves’ came from. The whole idea behind the record was that the wolves are the good guys. We are the wolves, and our community of fans are the wolves, and we’re not going away, we’re not at home crying about the election; we’re in your faces, and we’re ready to do something about it.” While some on the left were licking their wounds post-election, Rise Against sensed an opportunity; with Trump now the centre of the world’s attention, they had a target, a bogeyman who stood for everything they despised, and they set their sights squarely on their new president. “What’s interesting about Trump is that there is a silver lining to this election – and I hate that it had to get this bad in order to get better, but I do think that is what’s going to happen,” Tim says. “Every time he opens his mouth he turns somebody off; every action that he’s taking in the White House is converting people against him. And not even so much people my age, but the next generation, the people that aren’t even voting yet, young kids; people are growing up under a Trump administration, and he is explaining to people what the Republican party is. He’s explaining to people, ‘Here’s what the right-wing is; here’s what we care about and what we don’t care about’. He’s letting those people know, ‘We are the right-wing, and we are okay electing a guy who insinuates that his celebrity gives him permission to assault women’. When that’s the young generation’s introduction to the right, that’s going to influence them. It’s like, ‘We are the right-wing, and we don’t believe in climate change, and even if we do believe in it we’ll never admit that, because we’re being paid so much money by the oil industry that we won’t get elected if we admit that’. This is a

party that’s engaged in racist and sexist policies and is represented by news networks like Fox who have a history of sexual assault. “It’s like when you’re a parent and you’re having a conversation at the dinner table, and someone reminds you, ‘Hey, the kids are listening to everything you’re saying!’ All this noise we’re seeing in the news, and the conversations we’re having – the next generation is listening; they’re not so naïve. 12-year-old kids are listening, and the effect of this may not come to light overnight, but I think long-term we’ll see it. So there are some silver linings with Trump; people are realising that politics is not something we can take for granted, and fights for justice are never ‘won’, because the person on the other side is always waiting for you to turn your back so they can gain more ground. That’s something I think this generation is starting to learn.”

supported him would still exist, and so I was talking about these ideas that people are latching onto, and how dangerous that was. This idea that if you have a big wall and a lot of guns you’ll be fine – there’s just no endgame to those plans. They look at it like, ‘Well if we have a wall we’ll be safe,’ and no one is bothering to look at the real detail, like how immigration into the States is almost net zero. So it’s not a problem that we have, but they’re trying to find a solution, and when you realise that immigration isn’t a real problem for America, you discover that ‘the wall’ is rooted in racism and the idea of this Other. That’s the scary thing.”

“I’M ALWAYS WORKING ON BEING A BAND THAT RUFFLES FEATHERS AND CREATES FRICTION.”

If Trump’s presidency is a lesson in how not to voice your anger with the establishment, then ‘Wolves’ is the textbook. It’s an album that reminds us we’re stronger together, from the rallying cry of ‘Far From Perfect’ to the anti-exclusionist ‘How Many Walls’, Rise Against want you to know that fear and division are not the answer to the world’s problems. “’How Many Walls’ was written way before the election, actually; just watching someone like Trump gain power, and whether he got elected or not, I saw the momentum he was gaining as a threat,” Tim says. “Even if you defeated him, the people that

Tim is right – what’s happened in America is scary. But Rise Against aren’t going down without a fight, and neither should you. The defiance evident on ‘Wolves’ is proof that good sometimes does come from bad. “I want ‘Wolves’ to be a record that emboldens people and activates people. I want it to be an album for people who are grieving for the state of the world, or who are stuck in a defeatist attitude, and I want it to turn them around. With this record, the wolves are the good guys – they’re us. They’re a community of fans; we’re wolves clawing at the gate, trying to get in, and trying to take back control of the narrative of the world we live in. With the rise of the right-wing across the world, we want to shed light on what a dark thing that is, and have some transparency with what that means. That’s where ‘Wolves’ comes from – it’s a call to action.” P Rise Against’s album ‘Wolves’ is out now.

have this idea for a screenplay,” Jordan Hudkins starts. “It’s about these kids growing up in the late 80s. They come from different backgrounds, and they bond over their mutual obsession with the Batman movie with Michael Keaton in it.” With songs about everything from growing up, cutting loose, or feeling lost, to wishing they could be a dog or expressing appreciation for caped crusaders, the world that Rozwell Kid create through their music is one that can resonate with anyone. “These kids are obsessed with this movie,” Jordan continues. “They decide to run away from home and hitchhike across the country to Hollywood, just to tell Michael Keaton that they liked the movie.” Such enthusiasm is something that can be found in everything that Rozwell Kid create, and it’s never been more apparent than on their latest album.

Rest assured, it doesn’t disappoint. Coupling introspection with bravado and well-timed humour, combining sweeping melodies with distorted refrains, ‘Precious Art’ is exactly what it says on the tin – though the band are quick to make jokes. “I think it’s ridiculous and funny for a rock band to call anything they do precious art,” Jordan comments, before justifying, “it is precious art - for me.” The product of almost three years of anticipation (the group’s last album ‘Too Shabby’ was released in 2014), ‘Precious Art’ presents Rozwell Kid at their most realised. “We were able to be in the studio for two weeks straight, which is the most time by far that we’ve ever had to work on anything in the past,” Jordan enthuses. “We were able to have our station set up, to bounce ideas off each other and then try them and hear them in real time.” The result is a record that portrays life, and the experience of it, through every ounce of monotony, confusion, and wonder it offers. Whether searching for its place or letting childhood dreams take flight, breaking out of routine or settling into the everyday, ‘Precious Art’ is every bit the treasure that its title suggests it is.

“I HOPE THAT PEOPLE COME OUT FEELING BETTER AT THE END OF THE RECORD THAN THEY DID GOING INTO IT.”

“I wanted to write a screenplay based on that, but then I remembered that I don’t know anything about writing movies,” Jordan grins, “but I do kind of know how to write songs…” And so the aptly titled ‘Michael Keaton’ was born, a five and a half minute sprawling epic that closes the group’s latest album, showcasing them at their cinematic and captivating best.

The excitement that Rozwell Kid thread through their music is very much a part of who the band are. “This all came from when I was a kid,” Jordan explains of the track. “I literally tried to find Michael Keaton in the local county phonebook so I could call him up and tell him he did a great job in Batman,” he laughs. “I just wanted to let him know.” It’s an enthusiasm too genuine to be forced, and one that the group continue to inspire in seemingly everyone who listens to them. Search their band name online, and there’s an endless series of comments referring to them as the best rock and roll band in the world, stating how much of a blessing their music is, and expressing how exciting their new record is going to be.

“I was thinking a lot about ‘What is art?’ ‘What do I do?’ ‘What is music?’ ‘What is a good song?’ ‘What is a bad song?’ ‘Why do people have these opinions about things?’ ‘Why do I have these opinions about things?’” Jordan questions. “I thought it would be interesting and funny and right on the nose to just say ‘Here’s the record we worked really hard on, it’s ‘Precious Art’.” Described by the band as “a high contrast dynamic indie rock and roll experience,” ‘Precious Art’ is as polished as it is punk, a finely tuned venture through the greatness that Rozwell Kid have always been capable of. “I feel like we’re way more cohesive as a unit than we ever were,” Jordan considers. And it shows. This is a record that flows, with themes that echo and an energy that rises and falls with potent measure.

“We wanted it to feel like a really cohesive record from start to finish rather than eleven songs we wrote,” Jordan portrays. “We had the time to think about the flow, and we had the time to construct the album, rather than ‘We’ve got two days to do it: let’s go in at midnight and get six songs done then go in at midnight the next night and do six more.’ It was more like ‘We’re here to work, let’s give it our all.’” So that’s exactly what they did, and now, they’re ready to share it all with you. “We’re excited to have this new record done and to be able to do the whole tour cycle all over again and play these new songs for everybody,” Jordan enthuses. “I think we’re all tired of waiting for the record to come out,” he laughs. With the origins of some of the songs stretching back three years, this record has certainly been a long time coming. “We did the instrumentals for [‘Michael Keaton’] when we did ‘Too Shabby’,” Jordan recalls. “When we were tracking it I just remember feeling so happy and excited that we had finished this thing that we started before we’d done anything really.” It might’ve been a long time in the making, but the time of ‘Precious Art’ is finally here. “It’s been so long since we put out a record, I’ve kind of forgot what it feels like to put out new music,” Jordan states. “I’ve forgotten the excitement about putting out new material. At the same time I forgot how exciting it is to start writing new stuff the moment you record the slightly less new stuff,” he chuckles. “I’m just going to be writing and writing, and we’re just going to be touring and touring.” Simply put, ‘Precious Art’ is the essence of who Rozwell Kid have grown to be. Through highs and lows, chaos and boredom, and an irrepressible passion for everything they do, it’s the sound of a band wearing their hearts on their sleeves and inviting you to do the same. “This is a big part of our lives,” Jordan expresses. “If someone listens to it and they hear one song that they relate to, or it makes them happy, or it pumps them up...” he trails off. “I hope that people come out feeling better at the end of the record than they did going into it, and want to take another trip.” “I’m really proud,” he adds. “Who doesn’t love a story, right?” P Rozwell Kid’s album ‘Precious Art’ is out 23rd June.

THE

KIDS ARE

ALRIGHT FOR ROZWELL KID, MUSIC ISN’T ‘PRECIOUS ART’ - IT’S A WAY TO HAVE FUN. WORDS: JESSICA GOODMAN.

D E T A R THE OFFICIA

ING. N EVERYTH L VERDICT O

PA R A M O RE A RE M O RE T H A N J UST A BA N D N OW.

PARAMORE AFTER LAUGHTER

eeeee

TH E O F F I C I A L VE RD I CT

“Oh please, don’t ask me how I’ve been, don’t make me play pretend.”

hat, right there, is the thread of Paramore’s fifth album, ‘After Laughter’. After years of internal shifts, line-up changes, allegations and legal disputes, it’s no shock that they’d find themselves feeling more than slightly shook up by this point. What’s remarkable is how they’ve used it to make what in many ways is their best album so far.

Because there’s absolutely no doubt about it, that’s what they’ve done. You can split Paramore’s history into two distinct halves. Their first three albums, up to 2009’s ‘Brand New Eyes’, are packed with youthful rebellion, raging against the growing pains. Even though that third album saw relationships breaking down, the fire burned hotter than the sun. They were the torchlight of a scene shining bright. But by the time 2013’s self-titled record came round, they were different

people. Some of that DNA remained, but it was replaced by the invention of a band realising their horizons were as wide as they wanted them to go. Dealing with the damage of losing the Farro brothers in a messy divorce, rather than drill down, they looked up to the stars. Unusually for a band in their position they reached them too, on their own terms. To suggest even four years before Paramore would have written a song like ‘Aint It Fun’ would to be laughed out of town. With a Grammy win behind them, it’s them who got to wear the knowing smiles. And then it all crashed down again. With bassist Jeremy Davis leaving in another messy (but thankfully marginally less public) breakup, Paramore were down to two. It’s that dynamic that colours the underbelly of ‘After Laughter’. That, and the way

they found their way back from the brink. ‘After Laughter’’s defining character isn’t the breezy, 80s pop vibes that run throughout. It isn’t a change in sound which manages to be both evolution and revolution in the same note. It isn’t even the fact that, despite all the odds, Paramore may have found themselves as the most important rock band on the planet, while not really playing traditional rock music as they grasp that crown. Instead, it’s the energy that’s kept the wheels turning that defines a remarkable record. The opposing poles of lyrics and music that run throughout don’t just repel, they spin. Fast.

turmoil bubbles away. Working as both a brilliant pop banger and a statement on the modern condition, it’s the calling card for Paramore’s ascension to the very top.

MORE THAN EVER BEFORE, WE ARE PARAMORE.

While on first listen lead single ‘Hard Times’ sounds like a tropical, Talking Heads informed bop, under the surface it’s a muddle of darkness, all awkward feelings of revenge and defiance built on selfdoubt. While their peers sing about platitudes and cliché, Paramore are different. We know what they’ve been through. We know that this is painfully real. Much of the album carries a similar theme. “For all I know the best is over and the worst is yet to come,” Hayley Williams ponders on ‘Told You So’. Her doubts about reforming the band for another record are well documented, but committed to record that juxtaposition stops being a downer. Instead, when coupled with guitarist Taylor York’s sparky invention, it turns into a strange form of defiance. With a determination to force that smile and drag themselves back up, the new Paramore don’t really know their own strength. They don’t just find their feet, they break the stratosphere. The album’s most immediate moment is a different beast entirely – but if it’s a sign of where Paramore go next, it’s impossibly exciting. ‘Rose-Colored Boy’ is a salted caramel – a place where the twin peaks of ‘After Laughter’ crash against each other. Carefree on the surface, underneath its

That suggestion that Paramore might now be the most important band from their scene possibly doesn’t go far enough. It’s also one they’re actively rejecting. ‘Idle Worship’ spells it out in forthright terms. “Be sure to put your faith in something more,” Hayley pleads, but in claiming not to be superhuman what she highlights is exactly why she has been placed on the pedestal in the first place. This isn’t simply about Paramore producing what feels like the best pop album of the year. Sharing everything, it’s hard to think of another band on this scale who offer such honesty on such a grand scale. Those thoughts within, they’re not alien to the rest of us. They’re not worries about shifting units or hard life on the road. They’re the same struggles we feel just with the plot lines on a more public stage. Imposter syndrome, relationships, the constant internal warfare of a self-doubting mind – they’ve all been lived through too, not written to create an impression of something else. That’s why Paramore matter. They’re not up there because we expect them to be perfect. They’re there because they’re most definitely not, and yet still, with everything seemingly out to get them, they’re trying to do the right thing. If we get the heroes we deserve, it’s a reluctant crown Paramore will have to get used to, safe in the knowledge that pillar isn’t made of stone but rather the well placed faith of a whole legion of fans who feel a part of something bigger. If they happen to fall on occasion, we’ll catch them, because we understand. With Paramore, we can identify. We’re the same. In their own words, Paramore is at least Hayley, Taylor and Zac, but in the same breath, it’s not just three people. It’s all of us. More than ever before, we are Paramore. Stephen Ackroyd

COLOR FILM

LIVING ARRANGEMENTS

Epitaph

eee

An absolutely epic ride through what could only be described as the mind of an 80’s fanatic, Color Film’s ‘Living Arrangements’ is more than a bit manic and more than a bit brilliant. Not quite the output you’d expect from one-half of Glassjaw, but the realised ideas that have been sat around for a while are unleashed in a way that’s filled with fun and sincerity. There are moments that feel like they impede proceedings slightly (‘Ambush Bug’ doesn’t appear to serve any real purpose), but if you’ve heard and loved the two early singles, ’52 Minds’ and ‘Bad Saint’, then you’ll have no problem getting lost in this beautiful chaos. Steven Loftin

KAMIKAZE GIRLS

SEAFOAM

Big Scary Monsters

eee

Kamikaze Girls are finally here with their debut and they’re taking less shit than ever. The raw edge of duo Lucinda Livingstone and Conor Dawson has found itself in a more developed, strengthened sound that proves they’re far from done with the world. Opener ‘One Young Man’ gives you a glimpse of the power to come, while reverbsoaked, aggressive guitars and lines such as “Touch my hand again, I’ll knock your fucking lights out!” really hone their point. ‘Seafoam’ is an onslaught you’re happy to be a part of. Steven Loftin

BLEACHERS

GONE NOW

Columbia Records

eeee

At this stage in his career, chances are you know a lot more about Jack Antonoff than you think you do. With former band fun., and a roster of songwriting credits for the likes of Lorde and Taylor Swift, he has become something of a purveyor of pop royalty, a feat that delightfully bleeds into his latest work as Bleachers. His second solo record following 2014’s ‘Strange Desire’, ‘Gone Now’ displays the same Midas touch making that made the likes of Swift’s ‘1989’ such a pop delight. 80s inflexions are in abundance - even the weaker songs hold a certain charm thanks to Antonoff’s knack for a big fist-pumping climax. ‘Don’t Take The Money’ could soundtrack any coming of age movie conclusion with its Cadillac chorus, while ‘Hate That You Know Me’ is the epitome of a millennial love

RATED

song, earning extra hip points for its shimmying backing vocals from Carly Rae Jepsen. Just as Vampire Weekend did with ‘Modern Vampires of the City’, ‘Gone Now’ manages to sound totally American in the best possible way – a melting pot of stadium rock (‘All My Heroes’), soulful autotune (‘Goodbye’) and cheese-free fun. It’s no mean feat. Jenessa Williams

WACO

DEATHLESS EP

VENN Records

eee

W H AT H A P P E N S W H E N WO RL DS C O L L I D E

HEY VIOLET

FROM THE OUTSIDE

TH E O F F I C I A L VE RD I CT

T 48

eeee

he worlds of pop and rock aren’t the opposing ideologies they once were. It’s not that the goalposts have moved, it’s more the whole game has changed. Without tribalism, bands like Hey Violet can shine in glorious multicolour. And on their debut album, the band sparkle. Mixing a straight-talking, no-nonsense fairytale with jagged attitude and plenty of euphoria, ‘From The Outside’ is a glittering example of freedom and selfbelief. Cherry-picking a little bit of everything they fancy, the record moves quickly but confidently. Opening track ‘Break My Heart’ is an invitation to come and have a go, ‘Brand New Moves’ dances with empowering independence and

‘Guys My Age’ is all uneasy truths and knowing what you want. Despite the ever-shifting shuffle of influence, there’s a powerful sense of self throughout. Every track has its own personality, but they stand together, full of belonging and backed by the same heartfelt truths. Love sits at the centre of this anthology, with new perspectives brought to old tales as Hey Violet toy with expectation, flip the norm and reclaim the heart. Despite taking the road less travelled, ‘From The Outside’ refuses to enforce limits or second guess itself. Full of conviction and following a visceral need for entertainment, it’s both vulnerable and vibrant. Smart but never taking itself too seriously, there’s an embrace to every big movement as the band refuse to listen to anyone but themselves. Ali Shutler

Prog-punk four-piece WACO share their name with a city in Texas, and the dashes of Americana and stadiumrock that permeate the tunes found on their latest EP suggest musical roots that lie in North America, rather than their North Yorkshire (via Coventry and Jersey) heritage. Don’t let that fool you, though; this is a band with one of the largest musical melting pots out there. After all, there aren’t many acts blending punk-rock with gospel vocals, as WACO do on ‘Mother Mercy’. Said track also contains echoes of Bruce Springsteen and sees the band briefly dabbling in a capella vocals. If you hadn’t guessed, there’s rather a lot going on here. This band are bonkers, brash and bullish, but they’re also bloody brilliant. ‘Deathless’ might be a bit much for some, but if you’re intrigued by a band who label themselves as ‘cosmic prog-punks’, and think you can handle a bit of punk-rock complexity, they’re well worth a listen. Jake Richardson

RISE AGAINST

WOLVES

Virgin

eeee

Unsurprisingly for a band with Rise Against’s politically-motivated trackrecord, ‘Wolves’ is an album born out of the frustrations of post-Trump America. What may come as a surprise to some, however, is the fact that not once does the Chicago punks’ eighth LP come across as preachy. ‘Wolves’ is undoubtedly a political, anti-Trump, anti-Republican album, but it’s one in which social protest collides with themes like love and self-worth, meaning that unlike previous Rise Against records, this feels like more than a political statement. This is punk-rock at its purest, and it’s almost perfectly executed. Music like that found on ‘Wolves’ is more vital now than it ever has been, and when it comes to politically-driven punk-rock, Rise Against remain the leaders of the pack. Jake Richardson

SINGLE MOTHERS OUR PLEASURE

Big Scary Monsters

eeee

Three years on from the release of their debut album ‘Negative Qualities’, Single Mothers are back (Back! Back!!) with a brand new follow up. Coming about after frontman Drew Thomson spent a year or so flitting between odd jobs, ‘Our Pleasure’ is the sound of someone

ROZWELL KID

PRECIOUS ART

SideOneDummy

eeee

Kings of the riffs and witty one-liners, West Virginia’s Rozwell Kid have been one of the more interesting US breakouts of the last few years. They’re certainly a huge amount of fun, even if their recorded output to date displays the awkward growing pains of a band trying to find the right voice. There are no such problems on ‘Precious Art’, which dazzles from start to finish thanks to some trademark over-the-top riffing, killer lyrics, silly hooks and bizarre cultural references. Opener ‘Wendy’s Trash Can’ is a whirlwind of big riffs, guitar solos and semi-nonsensical lyrics that possibly hide a deeper meaning, but which work as a throwaway sing-along. “I’m on a lightning bolt of cosmic selfexpression,” muses vocalist Jordan Hudkins as the song gallivants to its conclusion. It’s a line that feels like Rozwell Kid’s MO. And they adhere to it rigidly. Packed with personality and charm – not to mention some gargantuan riffs – ‘Precious Art’ is a stylistic and character-driven triumph that delights throughout. It’s also Rozwell Kid’s finest moment to date. Rob Mair

grabbing hold of something they really want and making it happen. Take opener ‘Undercover’. Under three minutes in length, it’s a flat out assault of spit-balled lyrics, an unrelenting beat and sweeping, urgent guitar. There’s no more time for messing about. Simple Mothers are here, both for our pleasure and theirs. Stephen Ackroyd

SINGLE MOTHERS’ NEW ALBUM SEES DREW THOMSON AND CO. TEAM UP WITH ALEXISONFIRE’S WADE MACNEIL FOR AN ALBUM THAT WAS PRETTY SMOOTH SAILING, FOR ONCE. So Drew, tell us about your new album - when did you start work on it, and what was your frame of mind like at the time? We started work on it last summer, and the frame of mind was “Well, I guess we’re doing this”. It just kind of magically all came together. Were there any specific topics or themes you wanted to tackle? I don’t think so. I just write about what’s going on around me usually. What were some of the challenges you faced in the studio? I quit drinking halfway through recording, which was a huge change for me. The other guys in the band were all really supportive about it

though. Other than that, things were pretty smooth - for once. Do you think you create better music in the face of adversity, or would you rather it was all plain sailing? I don’t know if ‘better’ is the right term. I love this record and had a great time making it. ‘Negative Qualities’, our last album - I also like, but was a nightmare recording and writing. I love them both for different reasons, but I don’t think one is really better than the other. The band has a fairly changeable line-up, does that have much impact on the feel of what you create? Definitely - each person that comes into the band leaves their mark. This was the first Single Mothers recording with Ross Miller on bass, and he doesn’t play like anyone that’s been on bass in the band before. How did you team up with Wade MacNeil, and what was he like to work with? Wade is friends with the engineer at the studio we booked to record ‘Our Pleasure’, and I guess through the grapevine heard we were coming in. We have a bunch of mutual friends, so he just hit me up and asked if we wanted help producing. I jumped at the chance to work with him, and it was the right choice. He’s great. Do you have a favourite lyric or moment on the album? I like the line “Rundown and rolling around town”, it’s pretty much all tour feels like. Brandon likes a moment in ‘People Are Pet’s’ where I sing the word “Star”, and he hits his ride cymbal bell. P

ALPHA MALE TEA PARTY

HEALTH

Big Scary Monsters

eeee

When they’re not busy fending off ultra-right-wing American Twitter bots, Alpha Male Tea Party are at the heart of a bustling UK experimental guitar scene that’s birthed and supported bands like Black Peaks, TTNG, The Physics House Band and Three Trapped Tigers, and with ‘Health’ they hope

A SHORT Q&A WITH...

SINGLE SINGLE MOTHERS MOTHERS

RATED

ROYAL BLOOD HOW DID WE GET SO DARK?

Warner

eee

TH E O F F I C I A L VE RD I CT

On ‘How Did We Get So Dark?’, Royal Blood find themselves in a position not many bands have before. The Brighton duo’s debut album was an extraordinary success, catapulting Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher onto festival main stages and daytime radio, even spawning a Brit award in the process. But with such notoriety comes huge pressure; some bands would crumble under the weight, others rise to the challenge. ‘How Did We Get So Dark?’ sees Royal Blood occupying the space between those two outcomes. This album is not as good as their debut, but it’s by no means bad. They’ve clearly tried some new things for album number two, and at times it works, but ultimately ‘How Did We Get So Dark?’ sees Royal Blood taking a sideways step. Maybe the novelty is starting to wear off, or perhaps the band have simply struggled to recapture the magic of their unshackled debut. Whatever the reasons, it’s a bit of a disappointment. Jake Richardson

to take their place among those bands in the experimental pantheon. Tracks like ‘Some Soldiers’ show just how far the band have come. Transitioning from technical sections which show some of guitarist Tom Peters’ most ambitious playing to date to sparse, post-rock influenced sections and back, all while skewing time signatures and feels seemingly at will is no mean feat, but Alpha Male Tea Party deliver over and over. ‘Health’ is probably Alpha Male Tea Party’s best album to date, and a spirited tilt against the math-rock windmill and all its twinkly, tappy, masturbatory excesses. It’s timely of course, as the saturation in the British scene has never been greater, and many of the bands that shaped it have now bowed out. AMTP have always been one of the most interesting instrumental bands in the UK, both melodically and technically, and ‘Health’ is a welcome reminder of what separates the, ahem, Alpha Males from the also-rans. Alex Lynham

STONE SOUR

HYDROGRAD

Roadrunner

eeee

“Hello, you bastards!” It’s a warm welcome into the sixth Stone Sour album, which is swiftly followed by a series of powerful chords that don’t quite go anywhere - but that’s the point. That’s what real opener ‘Taipei Person/Allah Tea’ is for; a thundering,

precocious track that serves as a reminder that Corey Taylor and co. aren’t here to lie down and let time pass; “Everybody’s dying baby, I’m still doing 75”. Stone Sour are simply doing what they do best - hard rock. Covering the spectrum from the heavier end all the way through to country soaked ‘St. Marie’, lap steel and all, ‘Hydrograd’ is Stone Sour finding themselves and pushing that to the next level, one where they’re bigger than they thought they could ever be. When Stone Sour released the twopart epic ‘House of Gold and Bones’ it left an air of where do they go next? It turns out, wherever they want. ‘Hydrograd’ is a necessary album for any rock fan. Steven Loftin

RATBOYS

Topshelf Records

eeee

Chicago’s Ratboys have been DIY heroes of the indie/emo scene for a few years, thanks largely to 2015 sleeper hit ‘AOID’. Now, the group – led by vocalist/ guitarist Julia Steiner and guitarist Dave Sagan – have returned with their most rounded set of songs to date with ‘GN’ (short for goodnight), an album filled with lilting textures and wry observations, but which is deceptively deep, if a trifle impenetrable. “This is a record of my life,” sings Julia on standout ‘The Record’, and it’s hard to disagree when so much of ‘GN’ is

clearly autobiographical – or at least influenced by personal events. Take the gorgeously arranged and poetic – albeit comically bleak – ‘Elvis in the Freezer’. It’s a song about Julia’s dead cat who was kept in a frozen state. It’s something of an outlandish premise, yet works thanks to the filter of time and distance and perspective, making it a heartfelt love letter to a dearlydeparted pet. Like recent efforts by Hop Along and Pinegrove, ‘GN’ is an album that rewards investment, allowing the songs to reveal themselves as they become more familiar. Favourite songs are likely to change over time – but it shouldn’t be dismissed if the hooks don’t come instantly. Rob Mair

THE ONE HUNDRED

CHAOS + BLISS

Spinefarm Records

eee

The One Hundred have come a long way since 2014’s ‘Subculture’ EP. Their debut record ‘Chaos + Bliss’ explores huge landscapes, the band throwing you in as soon as the record starts with ‘Dreamcatcher’. Vocals are far more scathing than ever before, and lyrics are spat with a balance of grime and rap. What The One Hundred nail on this record, is being able utilise gritty hardcore, grimy rap and the ethereal pulsating electronic; all of which are hugely dynamic, especially on ‘Hand of Science’ and ‘Disengage’. ‘Blackjack’ is an anthem that stylistically fits Bring Me The Horizon’s arena-made choruses. While some the lyrics give off a numetal The Midnight Beast vibe that feels to veer dangerously close to parody - such as the questionable rhyming on lead single ‘Monster’ - The One Hundred have achieved everything they intended with a debut filled with a magnetising attitude. Jasleen Dhindsa

TRICOT 3 Big Scary Monsters

eeee

tricot don’t muck about. Japanese math rock may not be quite a mainstream concern in the UK (yet, anyway), but with their third full-length album in five years, they’re looking to change that. From opener ‘Tokyo Vampire Hotel’ onwards, they’re going at it full-throttle, and there’s no chance of them letting up. Though ‘3’ may shift in approach,

TRICOT TRICOT

A SHORT Q&A WITH...

JAPANESE THREE-PIECE TRICOT - IKKYU NAKAJIMA (VOCALS / GUITAR), MOTOKO “MOTIFOUR” KIDA (GUITAR / BACKING VOCALS), AND HIROMI “HIROHIRO” SAGANE (BASS / BACKING VOCALS) - ARE GAINING A CULT FANBASE HERE IN THE UK.

How long have you guys been together, and how did you meet? Ikkyu: Myself and Motoko have been friends since high school, and we met Hiromi at a local venue when we were in local amateur bands. Then we started tricot together in 2010. How did you decide what kind of music you wanted to make? Motoko: We didn’t have a clear image of what we wanted to be at all. We just enjoy playing what we think is cool and interesting musically, which resulted in our current style.

it’s never confused or overwhelming. Instead, it’s engaging fizzing with something way more exciting than mere technical ability. Vibrant, infectious and vaulting any language barrier with a hop, skip and a jump, tricot prove that some things are truly international. Stephen Ackroyd

What topics do you most enjoy writing about? Ikkyu: I like to write about some quite mixed topics. It’s usually some situation that exists, or that I’m hoping for in daily life, or some feeling that’s either in my heart or missing. And what’s your new album ‘3’ about? Hiromi: We are three piece band, and this is our third album. That’s it! How has your sound developed during your time in the band so far? Motoko: I think the complexity of the rhythms has definitely increased. But on the other hand, the degree of freedom we all have is getting higher. I think that the fun side of our music is becoming way more conspicuous now. You’re a very hands on band, what’s your favourite part of running your own record label, Bakuretsu Records? Hiromi: It’s really fun because everyone shares ideas. We’re always trying to think of something interesting and new to do, and we love having the freedom to do whatever we want. You’re in the UK soon for ArcTanGent - are you looking forward to the trip? Motoko: I’m really looking forward to the tour. I get to come back to Europe for the first time in a year and a half! I have more free time to spare than last time, so I’d like to go to looking for delicious food and nice restaurants. P 51

RATED TH E O F F I C I A L VE RD I CT

THREE DAYS. HUNDREDS OF BANDS. ITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S...

SLAM DUNK 2017 B I RM I N G H A M , L E E DS & H AT F I E L D

WO RDS : A L I S H U T L E R , DA N N Y R A N D O N , J ESS I CA G O O D M A N . P H OTOS : RYA N J O H N STO N , SA R A H LO U I S E B E N N ET T.

A S H O RT Q& A W ITH E N T E R S H I K A RI E N T E R S H I K A RI F RO N T M A N RO U REY N O L DS T E L LS T H E STO RY B E H I N D T H AT C O L L A BO R AT I O N , A N D L I F TS T H E L I D O N T H E I R N E W A L BU M P L A N S . Hey Rou! You’re currently celebrating ten years of ‘Take To The Skies’, but that hasn’t stopped you releasing new music. It must be nice to be in the position where you can just drop a song with Big Nastie? Yeah, it’s what we do. If this was ten years ago and we did that, it’d be weird. But I don’t think people seem to be so het up on genres, and there are all sorts of collaborations these days. It’s not something we’ve done a lot of, but when it’s real, we had lots of mutual friends anyway, it felt genuine, and we’re both into each other’s music anyway, it was really fun to do. And where did it come from? It’s a weird one, I think I started writing it early 2016 and Nastie did his vocal in November, so we’ve been chipping away at it. It’s been a long process, but we’re really happy with the final result. We’re not playing it at the shows or anything; it’s just a random ‘Here, have this.’ It’s a bridge, maybe, because we’re working on the album at the moment. We’re almost there. It seems almost pointless to ask you what direction you’re going in because you’re always going in every direction. It’s all over the place. It’s a typical Shikari album. It’s got all sorts of vibes on it. There was a concentrated effort to make something more simplistic. A lot of our songs can feel like they’re five songs in one, they just go off down garden paths, so we’re trying to concentrate on the song, the melody and making it one entity which has been really fun. Sometimes I’ll wake up and want to be Dillinger Escape Plan, other days I’ll want to write a fucking symphony. There was always a lot of pressure I put on myself to be this, be that and try to be everything, but now I’m more concentrated on writing good songs. Is keeping it simple harder to do? It takes a bit of self-restraint. I was

trying to write in lots of different ways, and one of the things I would do was start off a project by trying to write something that was as far away from Shikari as possible. There’s a track that possibly won’t make the album but started off with the mindset of writing a house tune, pure dance music, and then develop it from there. That was interesting. And what about lyrics, what’s inspiring them? Lyrically this album is all over the place. There’s so much going on. I found that harder than the music because it’s overwhelming. The thing I try and do with lyrics is step out of the day-to-day onslaught of the world and try and get some perspective, then write about a more overarching thing than specific events. I just had to do that again. You’ve got a massive UK tour coming up, and you’re sticking to those big ol’ rooms which is exciting. We learnt so much on the last tour we did, so this one is going to be even better. We’ve got the quadrophonic speakers again, and we’re so happy with the bill, Lower Than Atlantis and Astroid Boys, it’s going to be great. We’re not doing your typical sterile arenas that feel a bit corporate, Ally Pally and The Warehouse in Manchester; they’re just big rooms. You can create your own environment, your own atmosphere and really make the venue your own. With the last tour we really concentrated on the production, it just added another outlet for creativity. And do you have those shows in mind while you’re working on this new album? Not really, when we’re recording music, we’re very much just thinking about the music and not thinking about it live. I’m definitely guilty of singing in the mirror when I’m writing a song though, imagining playing it live but not to the extent of planning. My cat just looks at me like I’m a dickhead. We keep them separate, and then we work out how it’s going to translate live afterwards, which is probably the harder, more convoluted way of doing it. P

H E RE ’S N O DENYING IT: SLAM DUNK H AS B EC O M E ONE OF THE M OST V I TA L F EST I VA LS OF THE S E ASO N . PAC K E D W I T H T H E M OST E XC I T I N G BA N DS AC ROSS T H RE E L EG S A N D M U LT I P L E STAG ES , H E RE ’S J UST SO M E O F W H AT W E N T D OW N I N 2017.

9 : 45 With the Main Stage bathed in blinding white light before Enter Shikari’s headline show, the atmosphere is palpable as everything goes dark and those unmistakable juddering synths that open ‘Take To The Skies’ ring out. Ten years on and this foundation-shaking debut album has lost none of its wit, its edge or its vitality. If anything it’s become alarmingly more relevant, even when the long-awaited zipthroughs of ‘No Sssweat’ and ‘Jonny Sniper’ - the latter being a song the band swore that they ‘would never play again’ before tonight - have tongues planted firmly in cheeks. Of course, Shikari would never stoop to playing the songs as they were recorded a decade ago; as he warps and twists the already demented final breakdown of ‘Sorry, You’re Not A Winner’, Rou Reynolds lurches over his keyboard with all the personality of a mad scientist. An acoustic cover of Oasis’ ‘Half The World Away’ - a lump-inthroat display of solidarity in the wake of the Manchester terror attack - gives way to a performance of Adieu so euphoric that the crowd are roaring out its final refrain long after the band leave the stage. The truth is, this show was never going to be merely a phoned-in retrospective. Such a forward-thinking band would never let it be so. Unrelenting and unpredictable, Enter Shikari took Slam Dunk on an interstellar trip back to the genesis of one of the most important bands of the 21st century. Reach for the finger lasers. (DR)

RATED

end monumentally on ‘Laika’, it becomes clear that this is not merely your average second shot at Slam Dunk glory: it’s a coronation service for Boston Manor as they stride into the big leagues of British pop-punk. (DR)

TH E O F F I C I A L VE RD I CT

1:20 It’s riffs for lunch as Puppy open things up in more ways than one. Chugging one moment, charging forward with agile bounds the next, the band move in their own, unpredictable ways. There’s a technical prowess that’s hidden in plain sight, but it never outshines the sheer, unadulterated joy the band conjure. There’s weight behind every grinning step forward but ‘Arabella’, ‘My Tree’ and ‘Entombed’ come with their own radiant light. (AS)

2:15 Nobody screams ‘conviction’ louder than Sorority Noise main man Cameron Boucher when he cascades into the frantic spoken word crescendo of ‘A Portrait Of’. One minute he’s introverted in his own charming way and pulling off criminally catchy tunes like ‘Using’ and ‘Car’ ever so coolly, the next he’s the contorted embodiment of pure catharsis, screeching and squirming his way through bursts of painstakinglycrafted alternative rock. When Boucher signs off by telling the crowd, ‘You’re important, you can get through it, you’re worthwhile, and there’s nothing worse you can do than taking your own life’, there’s a feeling of bittersweet victory amongst disenchanted souls. (DR) 3 :20 Although this is their Slam Dunk debut, Milk Teeth saunter onto the stage like they own the place. Then again, when you open your set with a song like ‘Brickwork’, you

have every right to do so. ‘Owning Your Okayness’ - also getting its first live airing at the travelling festival - stakes a ballsy claim for the anthem of the summer; it’s a sunny burst of intensely poppy goodness, but it’s pulled off with the snot-nosed attitude that we’ve come to love so much about the Gloucestershire punks. The rest of their set sees the band at their golden best. Emotional, vulnerable and fiercely defiant throughout, the band tap into something special and share it with every person present. (DR) 4: 20 Appearing for the second consecutive year, it’s taken a while for Boston Manor to come into their own live. Judging from their time on the Key Club stage - and the frankly massive crowd they draw - the growth of the Blackpool quintet over the last year is no small feat. The way frontman Henry Cox darts around and commands the stage in his inimitable style has translated seamlessly to the bigger stages. As they

5 : 05 With the release of ‘Peripheral Vision’ Turnover were heralded as heroes. Sure, the album might be two years old now, but as ‘Take My Head’ and ‘Humming’ echo from centre stage it’s instantly evident that these are songs that have lost none of their sheen - and the band performing them shines brighter than ever. Playing a set heavily centred on that most recent album, Turnover are every bit the sensation anyone would expect. Sounding deliciously woozy in the heat of the sun, in front of an audience that sing along to every word, the band captivate their audience with a characteristically effortless charm. (JG) 5 : 30 As ferocious as Counterfeit are, the simple idea of “this space belongs to you” reigns. With debut album ‘Together We Are Stronger’ finally out, the band’s message is clear. It’s a unifying idea and one that can be felt as the band rage through the likes of ‘Addiction’ and ‘Enough’. Frontman Jamie Campbell Bower spends a bulk of the set in amongst the crowd, the band’s fervent admissions given more weight with spit and venom. (AS) 6 : 10 Combining introspective songs with a freewheeling delivery, Citizen were always destined to impress. Melodic and dynamic in equal measure, this is music to cut loose to. And that’s exactly what the audience do. In next to no time the floor is in chaos with fans singing back every word, rocking out to the rhythms, and crowdsurfers soaring and dropping overhead. Turbulent one moment and transfixing the next, the band revel in their time under the stage lights. With a sense of control that doesn’t falter once Citizen give their all to the moment they’re in, and as everyone in front of them does the same the result becomes something particularly magical. (JG) 6 : 20 “It’s just like last time, but

A S H O RT Q& A W ITH T H E M OV I E L I F E T H E M OV I E L I F E A RE BAC K W I T H A “ F U C K I N G AW ESO M E ” N E W A L BU M - A N D SO O N W E ’ L L A L L G ET TO H E A R I T. Hey Vinnie, it’s day three of Slam Dunk. How’s it all going? Very pleasant. A day of doing press but also running into every one I haven’t seen yet. It’s awesome, I know everyone is busy but I’m running into people I toured with 15 years ago or a year ago or worked with, or put records out with. There’s been lots of hugging. You’ve announced a new The Movielife album is coming this September and so far, all we know is the name. Pretty soon everyone’s going to hear what it sounds like. I know we’re going to be debuting a song pretty soon. I feel incredibly positive and inspired and rejuvenated and excited. Needless to say, it’s a new chapter for the band and the record came out fucking awesome. I’m not saying that with any hesitation or any sort of bias whatsoever. I’m not sitting here thinking, ‘Oh I hope they like it. I hope they don’t hate it’, we’re sitting here saying, ‘Oh, they’re going to love it’. It took us a while to figure out what the hell The Movielife sounds like now, but we did it.

Was there always going to be new music? We didn’t have a plan beyond lets play shows because it’s fun. Brandon and I being in the same room together again, travelling together, it almost immediately started feeling like, ‘Why aren’t we holding guitars right now?’ It was just Brandon and I getting in the same room, just writing with no pressure and here we are. The record’s done, which is fucking crazy. The only bum-out right now is that we have to wait the whole summer to release it. A lot has changed in the fourteen years since the last album. Brandon and I have grown as songwriters. We have different things to say, different lives and the world is a lot different. Everyone is used to the older songs, but we put this job on ourselves. We would write twice a week for about six months. Most of the early stuff we wrote doesn’t have a place on the record, we tossed it out or took some of the good parts. I want it to be The Movielife, but it needs to be current, and it needs to be coming from us right now. We’re still The Movielife, it’s just grown. It’s still got the energy, the melody, that sincerity and earnestness. I don’t know what we are, but whatever we are, it’s got it. So once we hit that groove, we ploughed through and wrote the rest of the record. P

there’s a lot more people!” blurts Waterparks frontman Awsten Knight halfway through their short but syrupy sweet set. That much is certain as the crowds grow both in size and erraticism towards the day-glo Texans, and since making their UK debut one year ago in the substantially smaller room next door, the three-piece have put their name to some of the best pop songs this side of *NSYNC’s ‘No Strings Attached’. There’s no denying the catchiness of ‘Stupid For You’ and ‘Royal’, and Knight is such an infectious personality that he even has the security dancing and clapping along with not a shred of reluctance. (DR) 7: 15 Backed with his incredible second record ‘Parachutes’ and a new band attitude of patience over distraction, Frank Iero’s set is a no-nonsense ripper. Leaning heavily on the idea of love and the rejuvenating power of today’s shared experience, it hits hard. The opening tear of ‘World Destroyer’ creates the foundation for jagged acceptance and the snarling ‘Veins! Veins!! Veins!!!’ gets things pumping. ‘I’m A Mess’ is Frank at his very best, his heart on sleeve honesty connecting on every level while an amped up ‘Joyriding’ finds the party in the shadows. (AS) 8: 0 0 Don Broco’s fourth time in the Slam Dunk court is business as usual: firing off round after round of suave pop-rock bangers, and looking like they’ve come straight off a catwalk while doing so. Broco transform the muggy surroundings of Hatfield into a tropical paradise. The opening bounce

RATED AG A I N ST M E !

L AU R A JA N E G R AC E A N D ATO M W I L L A RD TA L K SKYDIVING, MAD MAX AND T H E E N D O F T H E WO RL D.

A TH E O F F I C I A L VE RD I CT

gainst Me! are always busy but last year was busier than most. Not content with releasing the excellent ‘Shape Shift With Me’, Laura Jane Grace also put out a book. “That time between when you finish something and when you put it out, that waiting is the hardest part, to quote Tom Petty. So to have a double one, you aren’t able to fully relax for ages. It wasn’t until December where I was like, ‘Okay, I can mentally reset now. While on tour,” laughs Laura. “There was a real moment where finishing all that, I realised ‘I am mentally exhausted and I need a break to just take stuff in as opposed to put stuff out’, but you get that when you put out a record anyway.”

“Once it’s finished and you can’t mess with it anymore, it shifts,” explains Atom Willard. “There’s this time of settling, then it gets released and it’s settling again and then you start again.” There ain’t no rest for the wicked, or the wickedly good though. There’s been “lots of amazing shows, lots of touring with bands I grew up listening to and are friends, good adventures, good travels. We were just in Australia for the past two and a half weeks and that was fucking

awesome,” and their seventh album has done exactly what they wanted it to by, “creating a bunch of songs that are always fun to play live and have people react to.” As you’d expect, Against Me! have fully booked their 2017. The diary is stacked up until November, with plans still coming together beyond that. “We never have a shortage of things to do,” smiles Atom. “It’s a weird dichotomy to have because we’re workaholics, we want to tour, we want to tour hard, but wait, ‘We booked a two month tour with only four fucking days off, why did we do that?’” There’s no hint of exhaustion though or desire to slow things down. Instead the band are bubbling with excitement. “I’m trying to have a positive outlook on life in the face of a lot of shitty things happening,” starts Laura. “My daughter excites me, my family excites me, my band excites me, making music excites me, writing excites me, reading excites me, listening to other bands excites me. We went indoor fucking skydiving with my daughter before leaving for this tour and that excites me. It was incredible.” Laura fishes out her phone, assures us that she’s not checking Instagram and shows us a video. “That’s my kid floating around, fucking flying around like a bat.” There’s no video of Laura because

she found the camera and gave it the finger, which probably rules that out for a future music video. For the time being anyway. “I’m going to befriend the indoor skydiving people and get them to help me,” grins Laura. “Someone who worked at Houston iFLY said we could come when we’re in Houston and do indoor skydiving for free.” The perks of being a rock star. “Forget about the sex and the drugs, it’s all about the indoor skydiving.” Free-flowing and following what feels rights, being creative is something Against Me! can’t force. “We don’t do schedules,” says Atom. “When it happens, it happens and it just always seems to happen.” As you’d expect though, so much excitement leads to inspiration and moments earlier, Laura tells Atom she’s just written a fucking good new song and he should hear it. “I feel like I want to be the band playing at the apocalypse,” starts Laura, with Atom adding” “It’s imminent, so…” “That’s where I want to go musically,” continues Laura. “I want to write songs and I want to play songs that are fitting for the apocalypse. You know in the new Mad Max, there’s that person with the guitar in front of the thing, I want that to be us. With a nicer rider and a better dressing room. I want to be singing celebratory, defiant songs in the face of the end of the world.” P

of ‘Everybody’ proves more of a party-starter than an explosion in the popper factory, while an otherwise customary runthrough of the novelty fan favourite ‘Thug Workout’ is given a bellowing boost with a helping hand from Bury Tomorrow frontman Dani Winter-Bates. Now a funk-fuelled machine firing confidently on all cylinders, this affair gives Don Broco’s looming elevation to arena status - and potential future Slam Dunk headliners - the green light. (DR) 8 :4 0 It might be the tenth anniversary of debut album ‘From Them, Through Us, To You’ that brings Madina Lake here, but their performance offers so much more than a simple nostalgia kick. With a set built heavily around their first two

has died out. (JG)

records, the group have barely begun the first song before the growing audience are throwing themselves forward to the music. Screaming along to every word as frontman Nathan Leone dives barefoot on top of the crowd, Madina Lake bring a whirlwind of energy, pent up angst, and live in the moment sentiments that continue to ring in the minds of those who dive head first into the fray long after the final note

9 : 40 There are few bands that can stoke up a fervour quite like Against Me! There are no fanfares, no pomp or circumstance or tricks up their sleeves, just a band preforming honest rock songs that can resonate with anyone and that’s all they need. “Do you remember when you were young and you wanted to set the world on fire?” Laura Jane Grace sings on ‘I Was A Teenage Anarchist’. For the time they’re on stage, Against Me! Invite their audience to set the night ablaze. Screaming along to every song, throwing themselves into every riff and hooking rhythm, there isn’t a person present who doesn’t feel the heat. With a ceaseless energy and a raw power that can’t be shaken, the band present a sense of celebration that rings out long into the night - and really, what more could you ask for? (JG) P

9 : 30 Tonight Alive have always surrounded themselves with a touch of the spiritual, but ‘Limitless’ has seen that swell into glorious focus. While their set at Reading Festival was sleek, a band moving and thinking in perfect harmony, tonight’s headline outing is a little more fluid. Taking a little bit of every chapter so far, every journey’s twist is given room to breathe. “Tonight Alive stands for personal power and emotional freedom,” explains Jenna, as frank and direct as she’s ever been, while later on, a spoken word poem finds the urgency of self-belief. They’re messages found across every move the band have ever made, but it’s the first page of a new story, ‘World Away’, that says it best. Forward facing, asking questions and encouraging the entire room to aim to be the best version, it’s a euphoric and blissful moment that lasts beyond the evening’s close. (AS)

Wha t ’s

EXCITING WE ASKED THE BANDS WHAT WAS FLOATING THEIR BOAT THIS MONTH. “The new series of Twin Peaks and House of Cards, going to see Kraftwerk in three dimensions in Liverpool in June and SelfAssessment tax forms.” Mark, Gallops “FINISHING OFF ALL THE ARTWORK AND VIDEOS AND THINGS I CAN’T TELL YOU ABOUT YET BUT WE’VE BEEN WORKING ON THEM FOR YEARS NOW AND MAKING THEM SO BLOODY SPECIAL AND THEN STARTING MORE STUPIDLY UNREALISTIC PROJECTS AND THEN JUST SMASH THEM OUT AFTER AND TEASE EVERYONE TILL THEY HATE US FOR A BIT AND THEN DROP THE

ALBUM LIKE LOLZ AND THEN EVERYONE CAN SAY THAT WE STILL SOUND LIKE BIFFY AND THEN OH WELL MAYBE WE’LL… PUT TOGETHER A LIVE SHOW LIKE YOU’VE NEVER BLOODY SEEN!” Andrew, Arcane Roots (Alright mate, calm down! - Ed) “My newborn child.” Daryl, Color Film “If I’m honest it’s the simple things. We toured for two years straight on the last campaign, so the last few months have been about replenishing and relaxing so we can do it all over again. So for me it has been

You, ‘ The b and s’? amazing to rekindle with family and loved ones. I need that!” Conor, Nothing But Thieves “I think I have the most fun when I’m drawing, taking pictures, and making things. I’m quite crafty.” Ikkyu, tricot “The explosion of alternative artists and illustrators across the world. It’s awesome. I see something new and amazing pop up online everyday.” Steven, Fangclub “The Gnarwolves tour. It’s very exciting for us and we’re having such a lovely

time. It’s making us even more excited for our June co-headline with Nervus in June. I hope people come! Aside from band world I’m very excited about the new Tigers Jaw record, as well as the new Now Now and The National songs that came out. Also I’m flying to Amsterdam really soon to have a break after this tour and that’s exciting too right?!” Lucinda, Kamikaze Girls “We have some great tours lined up, I’m really excited to get back to the UK/EU and see all our old friends again.” Drew, Single Mothers