Upset, December 2021 / January 2022

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Can’ t Swim

72

Volume s

DE ’ WAYNE

Me et Me @ The Altar

Delaire the Liar

upsetmagazine.com

** Plus **

Se eYouSpac eCowb oy

Like Pacific

+ loads more

Mayday Parade.

Yard Act. Boston Manor.

MAMMAMIA!

THE V ERY BEST ALBUM S OF

2021 The 50 album sy hear fr om the ou need to las month t twelve s

DECEMBER 2021 / JANUARY 2022 Issue 72

RIOT 4. BOSTON MANOR 8. SEEYOUSPACECOWBOY 12. CAN’T SWIM 18. WEAKENED FRIENDS 22. LIKE PACIFIC 24. ORCHARDS 26. LAURA MARY CARTER ABOUT TO BREAK 28. DELAIRE THE LIAR FEATURES 30. MANESKIN 38. MAYDAY PARADE 44. YARD ACT 48. VOLUMES 52. THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2021 58. MEET ME @ THE ALTAR

Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Scribblers Alex Bradley, Dan Harrison, Jack Press, Jasleen Dhindsa, Kelsey McClure, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Snappers Adam Parshall, Cal Spicer, Christopher Sherman, James Brown, Jessie Morgan, Jordan Knight, Krissy Marie, Lindsey Byrnes, Nia Garza P U B L I S H E D F RO M

W E LCO M E TOT H E B U N K E R.CO M U N I T 10, 23 G RA N G E RO A D, H A S T I N G S, T N34 2R L

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. Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure the information in this magazine is correct, changes can occur which affect the accuracy of copy, for which The Bunker Publishing Ltd holds no responsibility. The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of Dork or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions.

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HELLO. Bloody hell, eh? We’ve finally made it to the end of 2021? While it might be easy to bid the last year a loud and proud good riddance, there’s been good stuff too. Twelve months of great music, amazing albums and the best bands - in this issue we celebrate the past, present and future of louder music in the best possible way.

Most obviously, you’ll find our round-up of what we consider to be fifty of the best albums of 2021. The winner especially is well deserved - someone who is pushing forward rock music without ever being so chained to it he’d need to confine himself to a tiny, genre-labelled box, they’re exactly what we’d expect the future

to be.

And if we’re talking about excitement for what comes next, we can’t really avoid this month’s cover stars. Maneskin may not have arrived in what we’d consider a conventional style, but the Italian firebrands are showing just how exciting rock music can still be.

Genuine sensations, we’re honoured to have them.

S tephen

Editor / @stephenackroyd

Riot.

Desperate Times.

Desperate Pleasures.

THIS MONTH >>>

EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK

Back with a new EP - Boston Manor are working off some frustration in the best possible way.

Words: Sam Taylor.

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From dark times can come brilliant music. SeeYouSpaceCowboy are getting some cathartic release with their second album, ‘The Romance Of Affliction’ p.8

Always open to sharing the heavy stuff, Can’t Swim are proving honesty is the best policy with their latest. p.12

Life isn’t always easy for DIY bands, but in a world fueled by debt, inequality and a capitalist society which often only serves to preserve inequality, Weakened Friends refuse to quit. p.18

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“I felt like I no longer could identify with my fellow man” Henry Cox

A

t the start of the pandemic, there were a few instances where it felt as though everyone was pulling together, arranging shopping drop-offs (lovely) or livestreamed workout classes (no, thank you). But, as with any very stressful situation, it didn’t take long for the cracks to start showing.

“I saw a lot of appalling behaviour over the last 18 months, and it made me feel quite depressed,” Boston Manor vocalist Henry Cox reflects. “As soon as people are placed under difficult circumstances, they should come together, not start lashing out and taking everything for themselves.”

It was from this frustrated spot that the Blackpool favourites’ new EP was born.

‘Desperate Times Desperate Pleasures’ showcases what’s perhaps some of their best work yet; a heavier, beefier iteration of the band, but one that still retains all their previous charm and rawness.

“It was a really great opportunity to exorcise all of the frustration and pent up emotion of the previous year and really process those thoughts and feelings,” Henry continues. “It felt so refreshing doing an EP, with no expectations placed on us.

We really just fell back in love with being in a band.”

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Hello Henry! How are you doing, what are you up to today?

Hi there! Today I’m in the studio! I’ve just ordered an extra spicy Phõ, and I’m about to lay down some vocals.

It’s an exciting time for you guys, with a new label deal and a new EP - how have you found the past few months?

Have they been busy?

Yeah, they’ve been super busy, actually. After Reading & Leeds and Slam Dunk, we went into a bunch of writing sessions. We’ve spent the last two weeks working in the studio on some new music as well as rehearsing for our upcoming US tour. It’s been really fun; it feels great to be back at it.

When did you start work on the EP, was it all penned during the pandemic?

So we tried to write all last year; it was the first time we’d had an extended period off the road in about four years. But I think with the uncertainty combined with just not seeing each other, we really struggled to write anything. I think everyone was struggling mentally, and nothing was really coming out, which probably made it worse. In January this year, though, we just suddenly sprang to life and started

writing loads of songs. We first went into the studio in April this year to record the EP, then after a month or so at home. Then the Download Pilot event, we decided that the EP was missing something, so we wrote ‘Carbon Mono’ one afternoon and then went straight back into the studio to record it.

Were these songs always going to be released in this form, or did the idea for an EP come later?

Yeah, I think after the ‘WTTN’ cycle going straight into ‘GLUE’ with no break and then the breaks being thrown on so suddenly, we didn’t feel like diving straight into an album. We were also working with a new producer and on a new label, so we thought an EP would be a great way to test the waters. It was so enjoyable to make, partly because we were back together doing it for the first time in a year and a half but also just because the songs were so fun.

Do you have a favourite track on the EP? ‘I Don’t Like People (And They Don’t Like Me)’, partly because the name is a bit silly and also because it’s such a cheeky song.

The EP talks a lot about alienation, in part due to

recent events. Has that feeling eased with lockdown ending?

Yeah, it has somewhat. To be honest, a lot of the alienation I was feeling wasn’t in the physical sense. It was more in the sense that I was so disappointed with how people in this country behaved over the pandemic that I felt like I no longer could identify with my fellow man.

You’ve already got a tour booked in for early next year, are you ready for it?

What else have you got coming up?

Yeah, I’m really excited to headline again! We’re bringing production that we’ve never been able to do before, playing loads of music we’ve never had a chance to play and playing some cities for the first time in almost four years! We also have a big US headliner planned and tours in Australia and Europe.

Anything else we should know?

Go stream our EP, share it with a friend, and if you like what you hear, get tickets to our UK headliner next year!

Hurry, though, because a lot of the shows are gonna sell out. P Boston Manor’s new EP ‘Desperate Times Desperate Pleasures’ is out now.

ew N R

omantic From dark times can come brillia nt music.

SeeYouSpaceCowboy are gettin g some cathartic release with their seco nd album, ‘The Romance Of Affliction’ Words: Sam Taylor. Photos: Krissy Marie.

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cs.

T

he second album from San Diego “sasscore” foursome SeeYouSpaceCowboy documents a dark period for frontwoman Connie Sgarbossa. Saturated in themes of addiction, obsession, finding beauty and redemption, ‘The Romance Of Affliction’ is a struggle through adversity that very nearly culminated in tragedy with a drug overdose not long after they left the studio.

“Writing music is cathartic to me,” she explains. “Getting things on paper is the only way I know how to deal with stuff. So to have that happen two weeks later almost backed up why I wrote the album – it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It reinforced that I wrote the album that I needed to write.”

As bold and uncensored as you’d

expect, it’s an exorcism of sorts - and the start of a whole new chapter.

Hello Connie! How are you doing? What are you up to today?

I am doing okay, currently doing some creative director work for the visual aspects of the band’s release while simultaneously trying to get ready for tour, haha.

You’ve got a new album about to land, when did you start putting it together? Were you having to work remotely at the time?

We started working on it when we realised that it might be quite a bit until we could tour again around the beginning of the quarantine stuff in April 2020. At the time, we were going through lineup changes, but most of us were living in San Diego, so we did remote but the three of us at the time (me, Ethan, and Taylor) also met up to work things

out or do pre-production for vocals and such.

Did you have any specific aims going into it?

We wanted to bring back the mentality that kinda drove SYSC in the beginning, which was the idea of just kinda putting every thing that we liked or wanted to hear into a blender and making it work somehow.

So we really wanted to bring back the sassy and weirder parts that were absent from our last LP but felt essential to us and also merge them with the more emotional side and melodic as well as pretty aspects we wanted to play around with like clean singing and more atmosphere to create something that was true to the point of SYSC as well as pushing ourselves and

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our sound.

response to the tragedy that had just happened in my life.

This album was done in the aftermath... More so while I was struggling to put my life back together and deal with the fallout, my addiction, mental health problems. It serves as more of a diary of what it was and has been like to come to terms with myself and what has happened since my world seemed to shatter.

How I have treated myself, how I have treated others, and how there really still isn’t a resolution to it all to this day.

How did putting this one together compare to working on your debut? It sounds like you were going through a lot personally?

This LP was definitely made in a vastly different way than ‘Correlations’ was. First off, we worked on writing this thing for like a year, versus the two and a half weeks we took to write ‘Correlations’. On our debut, we were working hard to try to make enough music to justify an LP, whereas, for this one, we wrote 30 songs What is it about making and had to try to figure out music in which particular should go that you find on and so cathartic? which I honestly shouldn’t. don’t know This LP how to was also explain it. way more There is of a group something effort; in that just feels the past, good about it was writing and usually screaming just one into the void. person Something Connie Sgarboss writing, about being and that able to express myself in a was what it was. But this one, myriad of ways... from anger to we went over every song sadness, to sassy, to loving, to together and pretty much sexual, to confused, whatever each contributed to every I may be feeling, I can just put song with ideas and such. it into this form of expression When it came to writing the that lifts the weight off a vocals for ‘Correlation’ it bit. It’s not a cure-all by any was very much a reactionary

“I was struggling to put my life back together”

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means, but it’s something when it feels like you don’t have anything.

Have you dabbled in other art forms too?

Yeah, my entire life, I have done visual art as well.

Being a graphic designer/ creative director for other bands is how I pay my bills, so doing cover art, vinyl layout, aesthetic development, merch designs, conceptual work for music videos and such. I consider myself more of an artist than a musician cause I really don’t know much about music other than how to be obnoxious, haha.

How did you approach curating the album’s tracklisting?

That was something that our producer Isaac Hale from Knocked Loose helped immensely with, since like I said earlier, we went to him with 30 songs and had to figure out how to make an album out of it. For me personally, my biggest thing was I just wanted to make sure it ran the gambit of the emotional spectrum, and really kinda showcased the variety that we had because that variety represented our lives and what we were trying to express.

You’ve got a few notable guest appearances across the

release - Keith Buckley, Aaron Gillespie and the like. How did they come about? At what point in the songs’ creation did people get involved?

All the guest spots were all done super last minute except for the If I Die First one, which was conceptualised and recorded right when we started writing. They just came about from someone throwing the idea out while we were doing the final pre-production with Isaac or while we were in the studio.

Some parts we wrote for the individual, and some we just gave them a section and the theme of the song and said, “have at it”.

What else are you working on at the moment?

As a band, we have something cooking up that I am really excited about, that I can’t really talk about... Mostly, we are just getting prepared for all the tours we have lined up and kinda getting back into the swing of things. For me personally, I am playing around with some collaborations and the possibility of a little side project and then just doing what I love, which is art for projects/bands that aren’t my own, haha. P SeeYouSpaceCowboy’s album ‘The Romance Of Affliction’ is out now.

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A change

is as good

as a rest...

Always open to sharing the heavy stuff, Can’t Swim are proving honesty is the best policy with their latest.

Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Nia Garza.

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I

But I think it’s more a personal t’s no secret that Can’t Swim goal. Personal enjoyment is are a hefty band. Laid like a the main motivation for why I breadcrumb trail throughout continue to do it. It doesn’t make their discography are titles me a millionaire; it’s certainly that lead even further into the not making me a rich man!” dark forest. For instance, there’s he chortles. “There has to be debut outing ‘Fail You Again’ something to motivate you to do and its follow up ‘This Too Won’t it for another reason, and I would Pass’, not to mention early EP say that it makes the day go by ‘Death Deserves A Name’; hardly a lot easier putting my art into PMA fodder. the world.”

For their third, it’s equally as This is why ‘Change of Plans’ chunky, but with an extra dash of is a more intimate version of intimacy. ‘Change of Plans’ is still the same Can’t Swim that, for the Can’t Swim. When success last handful of years, have offered doesn’t fall into consideration, not on any detrimental level at themselves up in the name of helping the masses exorcise their least, it changes up the focus. demons. Fronting this catharsis is Not necessarily wanting to Chris LePorto, who acknowledges “become the best shredder, or the best, you know, crazy R&B this fact with a blasé aplomb. singer” for Chris, it’s simply “I’ve always used Can’t Swim honesty is the best policy, and as this personal diary,” he says. there’s no doubt that as Can’t “A couple of topics on this album Swim progress, that honesty are way older than a year or two, keeps on flowing. like growing up in a religious environment that I’ve always not understood, but I think that’s just the nature of the beast for our band. The subject matter isn’t, IF YOU CATCH Can’t Swim you know, rainbows and pizza. It’s live, you’ll notice the New Jersey usually dealing with some pretty band are having a great time. serious stuff that I think people They’re a band who thrive in that can relate to, and this record is raucous live fray. However, those maybe some of the most personal songs they’re toting with that stuff yet.” lethal dose Turning of reality and his band into introspection a conduit are all still for his inner present, workings is which does akin to how present itself “some people as some kind run in the of overload morning, of conflicting which I emotions. Is probably that something should start Chris has doing, or some picked up on? people do “I don’t yoga, or some know. It’s a people buy good question; fancy cars.

I struggle with Whatever gets that too.” He you through sits ruminating the day.” He while his dog Chris LePorto lightly shrugs, dozes on the reclining in backseat of his the seat of his car over Zoom. car. “Do I have to be like the weird However, this idea does load on guy, you know, in the cafe with a certain question of healthiness the notebook? This tortured soul when your band is your by-proxy persona to make good art? Or do therapist. Since bands rely on I have to relive these moments success to exist, shifting that of my life that were emotionally personal weight in that direction intense and then write about could be seen as a dangerous them? game.

“I always say that I do write “I love when people enjoy about a lot of negative stuff but it, of course; I love when a tour in a positive way like it’s just the does well, if magazines say essence of putting it into art positive things about our music. and putting it into something

“I’ve always used Can’t Swim as this personal diary”

14 Upset

that people are going to enjoy seeing from a negative to a positive. So, yeah, even on tour, right? I’m going out there, singing all these sad songs, but it’s a blast. It’s hysterical, and it’s goofy. I think you’ve got to be careful because it’s every emotion a human could feel probably, at the same.”

‘Change Of Plans’ is also chockfull of potential tracks ripe for the live arena.

Unsurprisingly he has a penchant for penning oneliners, especially given the quips Chris fires out during our interview. One such line that echoes the unloading task at hand is ‘10 Years Too Late’’s “If the good die young, I guess my time is up”, which it turns out is one of the more personal cuts.

Dealing with the reality of growing old, but from the perspective of being someone in a band, a career that generally doesn’t offer the safety of most careers as you age. Mentioning a New Found Glory show he caught a couple of days before our interview, it’s not long before the maths comes out.

“They’re on their 25th or 27th year of pop-punk; I can’t remember the tagline exactly.

That guy is 38; I’m like, jeez... that guy started the band when he was 16 years old!

That is crazy. When I started doing the math for myself, I was like, ‘Jesus, if we even do a 10-year, I’ll be 35; if we did a 25-year, I’d be in my fucking 50s! So it’s like this notion of I let the insecurities of my youth prevent me from starting this band.”

Admitting that he was too nervous to start the band, even though it was something he’s always dreamed of. It wasn’t until Chris hit his mid20s that Can’t Swim began its journey from laptop project to becoming a fully-fledged beast helping crowds deal with their inner turmoils.

“That line specifically is like yeah, geez, if the good die young, I’m almost up, baby!” He says with a shrugging chuckle. “Like, I’m only 32, I’m not 70! But that is what happens when you let insecurity get the best of you; life will pass you by. So, a negative song, but also a very positive message where

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it’s like if I was talking to a kid at a Can’t Swim show that’s 17, and he’s got his weird haircut, and he’s nervous, I’d be like, ‘Dude, don’t fucking wait!’ like, I waited, don’t wait.”

Though it’s certainly wrapped in that sad subject matter, the positive attitude is undeniable. It’s cold, hard truth.

This reflection certainly brings up the question of, is Chris a believer in things happening for a reason? After all, had he started his project when he was that kid at 17 with a weird haircut, would Can’t Swim still be serving the purpose they are today?

“I don’t know where I fall on that,” he admits, “I do think that I’m happy I became more comfortable with myself before I started this because it would

I had the confidence I had at 21. Let’s say we got the record deal; I would have never been able to do it. Some silver lining there.”

Which brings the conversation around to faith. Something that’s also touched upon in ‘Change of Plans’, along with smatterings of religious references, including the razor-sharp, “Even Adam didn’t listen as he took a bite” from ‘Deliver Us More Evil’. All such influences stem from Chris’ said upbringing in a religious environment. Though his processing of it is a little more complex.

“I believe in the whole faith thing.

I think some people use that as an excuse,” he says. “It’s like no, I waited until I was 40 to get off my ass because this is what God wanted, you know?

to the best degree that I can now. I don’t think regret is necessarily a bad word; I think you can use it positively. Like, I regret starting later in my life. Now I’m going to do it for longer or whatever, you know, let it motivate you to make it into a positive for sure.”

There’s still a lingering obsession with it, mentioning that he still watches religious documentaries in the same way people consume David Attenborough wildlife films: “It’s just so fascinating to me, it’s like a car crash.”

“With this faith, and I think a lot of comparisons in life, I think a lot of people use drugs, a lot of people use sex, a lot of people use, you know, being in a band and constantly being on the stage.”

No matter how much time passes by, it’s all simply relevant to how you conduct yourself. Be it stringent religion or by toting some deep titles in your back catalogue, it’s all serving a personal purpose. Even as this magazine goes to print, those leathery pieces of rock furniture The Rolling Stones are still touring well into their 70s. Time waits for no man indeed, but similarly, as Chris says: “It’s the age-old, you’re only as old as you think you are. That I do believe. That is a common saying that I’m like, ‘Yeah, I can see that’. I’m 32, and there are times that I’m doing my thing up there. I feel 17, you know? Or, my back hurts, and my hair needs a little bit more, sure do I feel 32! You take the good with the bad.” P Can’t Swim’s album ‘Change of Plans’ is out now.

“The subject matter isn’t, you know, rainbows and pizza” Chris LePorto

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Friends like these.

Life isn’t always easy for DIY bands, but in a world fuelled by a capitalist society which often only serves inequality, Weakened Friends refuse to quit.

Words: Rob Mair. Photos: Adam Parshall.

M

oney makes the world go round’ might be an old and established adage, but Weakened Friends’ Sonia Sturino has some strong views on what it means for creativity in the 21st century.

After dismantling its meaning on the song ‘Spew’ – “Money makes the world go ‘round, until we all spew,” she blasts – she’s now mid-point in discussing what it means for a DIY band to exist within such a failed economic model, and more broadly, what it means for wider society.

“It’s a social commentary on how capitalism and the capitalist society has fallen on its face,” she says when exploring the theme of the song. “In the States, there’s so much student debt and credit card debt it’s obscene. You’re trying to live your life day-to-day, but you have this immense weight of all that debt and this feeling that you will never be comfortable with it.

“Twenty years ago, even if you had a standard blue-collar job, you could own a house and get married and have two cars and go on vacation, and you could do all that pretty comfortably. And I grew up in that middle-class reality of

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administrators, they faced the task of the 90s. going massively into debt to rebook “But there’s a line in that song which tickets or face cancelling some highsays, ‘All that you own is all that you profile shows on the other side of the owe’, and I feel that’s so true. We don’t Atlantic. At the time, really have ownership Sonia saw the decision of anything, but the to rebook the tickets world judges you on the as an investment in material things you own the band’s future – but and tells you that’s who nevertheless, with you are.”

‘Spew’, it’s clear such a Within this, there’s a bruising encounter has complicated discussion left its marks. about art, artistry and Yet, the pandemic how this is allowed to has also served as an thrive in a capitalist opportunity to reset world. Weakened and get things back Friends have certainly on an even keel. For been bitten by the hand example, Sonia took that feeds on more than on a 9-to-5, which one occasion. allowed her to clear her While van troubles credit card debt and are par for the course do some long-overdue for most bands of their renovations to the stature, Weakened Sonia Sturino house she shares with Friends (completed by her spouse Annie (who bassist Annie Hoffman herself has seen her profile in music and drummer Adam Hand) have also production rocket since the release of had to contend with the collapse of 2018’s ‘Common Blah’). the airline Wow Air on the eve of a And amidst it all, the trio has had to European tour. With money tied up with

“The entire album is based on this idea of burnout”

Upset 19

the group, validating their decision to sit on ‘Quitter’, an album about the life of climb back in the van at the earliest a DIY band on the brink, and which works through the thorny issue of whether all the opportunity was the right decision.

Indeed, the night struggles are worth it, before this interview, or whether it would be the group played in better to give it all up for Boston, Ma – essentially a quiet life and a comfy a hometown show for the 9-to-5.

Portland, Maine group – “I’m lucky to have and it’s clear that Sonia a nice DIY band,” says enjoyed the experience Sonia. “But the song enormously.

‘Quitter’ – and the entire “The show last night, album, really – is based people were coming on this idea of burnout. up to us and saying I love being in a band, how much our music but I know many of my means to them and how triggers and anxieties special it was to see us come from that world, live. You can’t replicate too. Like, I love this that feeling of being on thing, and it’s what I’m stage and connecting compelled to do, and I’ve with people. So yeah, invested so much in it, financial stability is great, but there’s always this but I don’t know if that feeling that you’re on would make me happy in shaky ground. my life. I think, for me, it “And that feeling of would get redundant and instability beneath the boring,” she comments. surface can transcend And while ‘Quitter’ is to other facets of your very much preoccupied life as well, whether it’s with the anxieties of relationships or your job DIY band life, there are or your health. That’s my moments of light that personal experience, but reflect Sturino’s current when I speak to friends Sonia Sturino mindset. This clarity of and peers, it seems like thought comes through a common thread – and brightest on the ‘The Last Ten’ – a bona I guess it just found its way onto the fide indie-rock banger for the ages, and a record.” rousing call-to-arms for all those who’ve While Sonia admits that there was poured blood, sweat and tears into their a temptation to stick to the 9-to-5 and passion project. embrace the security that comes with it, “That’s definitely the pep talk on the getting back on the road as support for indie-rockers microwave has reinvigorated record,” laughs Sonia. “I think most of my

“All the good things in my life stem from the fact that I picked up a guitar when I was 11”

writing is self-deprecating about how my mind is attacking me, but ‘The Last Ten’, I wrote on my last day working at this really shitty job in a grocery store. I had a full-on panic attack. I got home, and I was like, ‘I am never setting foot in that place again’.

Why be somewhere that constantly drains your energy and which doesn’t give you a smidge of happiness?

“And it made me realise that I’d spent so long working on the music thing, and writing songs and being in bands, that if you step back and look at it, it’s so worth it. And it matters. All the good things in my life, other than my family, stem from the fact that I picked up a guitar when I was 11 and decided to be in a band. So, even if we never play stadiums or live in million-dollar homes or any of that shit, I was able to play music and meet and connect with all these people who matter to me in my life.”

Ultimately, the life of a DIY band is about these connections. Stadiums might provide spectacle, but there’s no question it becomes harder to replicate the intimacy of a pub or club show. In the wider discussion, Sonia’s grounded response is telling; she may never hit the arena tour or sell out stadiums, but to judge that as success merely reinforces the capitalist worldview.

Like many of their DIY peers, Weakened Friends sit aside from that idea of commodified art, building their reputation through personal connections and smartly-constructed collections of songs which speak personally of their experiences. As ‘Quitter’ ultimately attests, the fact they’re still here is an accomplishment in itself, and for that, Weakened Friends should be lauded. P Weakened Friends’ album ‘Quitter’ is out now.

TRACK BY TRACK

LikePa

22 Upset

acific.

Control My Santity Photo: Christopher Sherman.

T

oronto’s Like Pacific are back with their new album ‘Control My Sanity’, a record that sees them playing around with their sound of old and battling to create through the pandemic via video chat and iPhone demos. “In the last two years I’ve been going through the worst depression I’ve ever experienced,” singer Jordan Black explains. “This was very helpful for me and the band as a whole. Looking forward to people emotionally connecting to this record. Our best yet.” Here, Jordan talks us through the record, track by track.

KETAMINE JESUS

The song title itself is kind of harsh, but I think it sets the mood for the rest of the record. I dated someone who would just get me high on drugs, so I was complacent. Our relationship was just him saying the right things but never being there for me. Just shushing me with substances. I thought it would be cool to have an intro track, and to be honest, it may be my favourite track off this record.

Originally meant to be a short intro and only one chorus, but we extended it because we liked it so much.

LOVE THEM AND LEAVE THEM

Not to be confused for the song by the best Canadian metal-core band(the Gorgeous). This song is just about random hookups and how romantic some people can be with strangers, how hookup culture is for some and not for others—seeking out partners while intoxicated in hopes of feeling some sort of dopamine rush.

The bridge “breakdown” was originally the chorus in our demo of this song. We called this the EA Sports soundtrack song.

CONTROL MY SANITY

I think it was Tay and Greg that loved this as an album title. It’s for sure a common theme on the record. Manipulation, selfworth and gaslighting. I felt extremely uncomfortable at first when I first

recorded the lyric ‘you’re the reason I don’t wanna live”. Thoughts on paper are different when they come to fruition but, I’m very open about my mental health. It definitely helped to write this track.

Second, of the first two songs, we wrote as a band in the writing session in December 2019. Sounded like a soft song at first, but it changed a lot within a few hours.

HOLLOW TEARS

I love the pre-chorus hook on this song.

It reminds me of ‘Locket’... which is fitting since Brad wrote most of this amazing song. It’s hard-hitting but also following the melodic theme of this record. This song is about making the decision to leave someone but always unsure about your decision. Why does lonely feel so cold? I wanted this Used acoustic guitar in parts throughout this song - even the second verse “mosh beat” part. Something we haven’t done much of before.

WASTE OF BREATH

There is a man who goes to a certain bar (in Toronto) that is miserable and overly rude and thinks he paved the way for my friends and I. Embarrassing.

This was a guitar riff Luke would soundcheck with every show for the last three years. Also, the first song we attempted to write for this record, but we didn’t think it fit at first.

We got together in Tay’s basement to write the last two songs for the record and revisited it. We upped the tempo/made it more driving sounding, and it ended up one of our favourites.

CATCH YOUR EYE

Self-explanatory, I think. Becoming close with someone who you look up to and realising that they don’t see you as an equal. Break up song(they mostly all are, who am I kidding).

ADORED

One of the last songs we wrote for the

record. We got together in Tay’s basement and decided to make a fast/heavy Like Pacific song for fun.

The bridge was originally in ‘Control My Sanity’, but it fit better in this song.

We wrote this one last, I’m pretty sure.

A nod to our older stuff (‘Sedatives’, ‘Richmond’), I feel. Everyone wants to be wanted, wants to be adored. Is that too much to ask? Also, this song has a panic chord which I pushed for, I’m sure.

FAIL TO SPEAK

The first song we wrote during a 3-day session in 2019. It sort of solidified the direction for the newer sound we were going for on this record.

Hard to be around someone who’s naturally confident and smarter than you.

Harder even when you’re in love with them, and it’s not reciprocated.

REST IN THE DIRT

Wanted to try our hands at an acoustic song - ended up with this. Not acoustic, but different than anything we’ve ever done. A super impactful-sounding song.

I have been on medication for a few years now, and while it has changed my life for the better, I still have days. When I wrote this, I was binge drinking while on SSRI’s.

I didn’t want to be around anymore.

Something I deal with often.

TIME WON’T HEAL

I love when you know a song is going to be an album ender. Sam killed it with this idea when he came to us with it. Wrote this song in response to a close friend. Two work in progresses trying to be there for each other when you know you just don’t want to be alone. Also has a guitar solo.

Insane.

I joked that this was the “Papa Roach Rock” song. Wanted a huge sounding rock chorus. I knew this would probably be the album ender when we finished it. P Like Pacific’s album ‘Control My Sanity’ is out 3rd December.

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e r ’ e W “ s d a e h l meta at hear t” After a whole load of upheaval from 18-months of worldwide turmoil, Orchards are back - and they’re not shutting up now.

Words: Sam Taylor. Photos: Jessie Morgan.

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N

ew music from Orchards is pretty much always a nice time.

Upbeat, fun and angsty in a we’ve-been-here-tooisn’t-it-blah kinda way, the Brighton alt-pop group excel in creating bops readymade for brightening up grey afternoons.

With their new EP, though, they’re feeling it.

‘Trust Issues’ is no less relatable (as if), but it’s the product of a period that’s pulled the rug and sent everyone spinning.

“This EP is an angry (yet happy, we’re still on brand!) call out to all the things that have given us trust issues in the last year,” singer Lucy Evers explains. “We’re not keeping our mouths shut now.”

Hi Lucy! What are you up to today?

Currently drinking hot chocolate and watching Sky Sports News. How else would you spend an afternoon?!

So the past couple of years huh, they’ve been a lot.

Are you guys coping with everything ok?

It’s been difficult. Not just personally but musically.

We thrive off live shows, it’s where we feel most at home, and like a lot of musicians, it’s where we can really let loose and shake everything off, which we could have definitely done with these past 20 months or so. We’re soldiering through!

Your new EP feels quite angry, does that stem from personal stuff, or the wider’ state of everything’? Or both?

A little of both. The EP is called ‘Trust Issues’, and it’s truly because the last year has given me more trust issues than I even knew possible. The state of the world has definitely angered everybody, and it’s rubbed off on us in this new record. There is anger in not being able to do what we love, at the wider impact

of the last year, at the state we all find ourselves in and at the trials of modern life.

We’re normally a wholesome bunch (which we still are, always on brand), but we’ve channelled this pissed off energy into five absolutely banging tracks. Wall to wall ceiling punchers, as always!

Were these songs always intended to be released as an EP? How did you curate the tracklisting?

Absolutely. We wanted to put together everything we’d worked on over the last year. Whilst not being about to tour or ‘be a band’ in the traditional sense, we wanted to have something to show for cooped up creative minds. We spent lockdown dusting off our laptops and getting back to grips with recording ourselves; we would send each other ideas / demos / riffs constantly.

When we could finally start getting back together, we spent lots of evenings huddled over laptops creating these songs. We came up with about ten demos and sent them over to our producer, spent an evening going through them all and whittled them down to these five. They perfectly represent our last year.

We also worked with a bunch of independent artists we love to create five remixes which also feature on the vinyl of ‘Trust Issues’.

We wanted to print the EP and the remixes on vinyl, but we already had a tour’s worth of ‘LOVECORE’ vinyl printed and ready to go for our initial 2020 album tour.

As there has been a vinyl shortage industry-wide for a while now, we didn’t want to reprint. So the A-side of the new vinyl will hold these brand new tracks, and the B-side will house the five incredible remixes. Being the little eco-warriors we are, the ‘Trust Issues’ record will be printed on recycled vinyl, so each one is going to look a little different, and we’re saving precious vinyl

that would otherwise go to waste.

Is this ‘a bit pissed off’ vibe something you’re going to take through to your next album, do you think?

I suppose it depends on what the world throws at us!

I always say I’ll never write about something I’ve not personally experienced; to me, that’s selling a lie, and I don’t want to do that. My lyrics reflect whatever state I’m in; I use it as a form of therapy. We are all fans of angrier / heavier styles of music; we’re metalheads at heart. It’s for sure something we are still bringing to the table while we write currently; our songs always tend to be a little angsty. I guess we are holding back a little less than before.

How have you handled not being able to play live, has that been tough? Are you having to do anything extra to prepare for your upcoming tour?

It sucks. Seriously sucks.

Our live show is not only something we pride ourselves on but something we thrive off of. We did a load of virtual shows and sessions during lockdown, which were great fun, but they just aren’t the same as being on a hot, sweaty stage at all. When we started to play shows again back in August and September, I think we didn’t realise how much of a physical experience it is for us all; we were shattered! Cannot wait to get back on tour to get back to being a well-oiled machine!

What else are you working on at the mo?

Writing, creating and getting back to being us. Finding our feet and our place again in this industry and within ourselves. Suppose after this history-making year, we’re really working on ourselves. P Orchards’ EP’ Trust Issues’ is out 26th November.

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Riot.

Everything you need to know about

Laura Mary Carter’s debut solo album

‘Town Called Nothing’ for a while.

I HAVE TWO VERY DIFFERENT SIDES OF ME; I love really heavy rock music, and then the other side loves stuff like Elliott Smith, where the words really tell a story.

ALONG WITH THIS RELEASE, THERE ARE PHOTOS THAT VISUALLY SOUNDTRACK THIS RECORD. I am really into photography. I would say it’s my second biggest passion after music.

I spent four years travelling around the States, taking photos of stuff that maybe other people would just think of as ugly. I realised I like places that are run down and mysterious and random, and I think there are lots of parallels in my songs. I sing a lot about abandonment and the fear of being alone; you can be in a place with loads of people but yet still feel lonely.

Blood Red Shoes’ Laura Mary Carter has finally decided to take the limelight under her own name, delivering her debut solo album ‘Town Called Nothing’. We asked her to tell us everything we needed to know about it.

I WROTE AND RECORDED THIS RECORD ALL OVER THE PLACE because I can never really stay in one place at a time.

THE TITLE-TRACK, ‘TOWN CALLED NOTHING’, WAS THE FIRST SONG I WROTE ONE EVENING IN LOS ANGELES. I was subletting a friend’s studio for a while, and there was this beaten-up guitar in the corner where the strings were so far off the fret I could only play really standard chords, which is not really my style. The song just kinda happened, a bit like it came from the universe and wrote itself. It has this Americana feel, and I was singing differently, then the words just came out: “A town called Nothing”. After I finished

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the song, I Googled “Nothing” just in case there was a place, and right there, I saw Nothing Arizona! I immediately went, and all that’s there is a rickety old sign and some rundown buildings. I camped out there a few times to try to find the two people who are allegedly living there, but I have yet to meet them.

THE FRONT COVER PHOTO WAS TAKEN OVER LOCKDOWN IN LONDON ON BILLIONAIRES ROW, WHERE ALL THESE MANSIONS ARE JUST LEFT TO GO DERELICT. My boyfriend and I drove down bored one day and broke through a fence into the grounds of a mansion, and there was this outhouse shed full of crap, and he took the picture right there.

You can see the sky through the holes in the roof. I felt it summed up the record because even though I wrote most of it in the States and it has an Americana feel. I grew up in London, and it proves you can find a ghost town no matter where you are.

I WROTE A LOT OF THESE SONGS QUITE A FEW YEARS AGO, but I just wasn’t able to release them because I was busy playing with my band Blood Red Shoes, and then Covid happened, and no one was putting any records out

I AM RELEASING THIS RECORD ON VINYL, CD AND TAPE ON MY OWN LABEL JAZZ LIFE that I co-run with my bandmate Steven from Blood Red Shoes. We have released other artists such as Circe, Queen Kwong, Tigercub, Marthagunn and Jackridesthesky. The name Jazz Llife comes from essentially a tour joke about how every day you just never know what is gonna happen, and you are just living life like the Crystal Maze or something.

I AM KNOWN FOR PLAYING ELECTRIC GUITAr. In 2019 I was voted best alternative guitarist in the world today on Music Radar, so with this solo project, it was quite different for me to have my voice as the focal point and not play my usual way.

I REALLY STRIVE TO NOT BE ONE DIMENSIONAL WITH MUSIC AND EXPERIMENT OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE; I think people like Beck are a good example of how you can try different things and mix genres but still sound like you. P Laura-Mary Carter’s debut solo album ‘Town Called Nothing’ is out 3rd December.

About Break. to

NEW TALENT YOU NEED TO KNOW

DOFLAME Teen Canadian artist Mateo Naranjo’s mantra is “think big, go hard, destroy”, something he channels through FIDLAR-esque no-holds-barred punk.

LØLØ Having just got off tour supporting New Found Glory in the US, Hopeless Records signing LØLØ is making her mark with new EP ‘overkill’.

DEADLETTER The latest instalment in Nice Swan Records’ introducing series, London post-punks Deadletter have just dropped single ‘Pop Culture Connoisseur’.

DELAIRE THE LIAR

With a new EP coming, and a new label under their belt, London’s Delaire The Liar are building up to something exciting.

Words: Sam Taylor. Photo: Cal Spicer.

L

ondon four-piece Delaire The Liar have spent the bulk of their 2021 building towards something big: a new EP release. With three taster tracks already out there on their new label Rude Records, and a UK headline tour not long wrapped up, frontman Ffin Colley stops by to tell us more about what they’re up to.

Hello Ffin! How are you lot at the moment? How’s the tour going?

We’re doing swell, thank you. Honestly, we couldn’t have asked for a warmer welcome back to live music and touring than this run with (the absolute loveliest) Vukovi and Press To Meco. The crowds have been super engaging and have shown us a huge amount of support every night. It feels amazing to be back at it.

everything to come. Our aim is to create a cohesive, common thread throughout these releases that ties a knot at the end. A place to cling on to, or release from.

They’re quite dark, aren’t they? What is it that drew you to those feelings?

There’s a line in The Chariot’s ‘In’: “We are all capable of love, we are all capable of cancer”. Whilst not a direct influence in the tracks, it really spurred an interest in the nuanced dynamic of human emotion and the depth of its capacity.

The things we choose for ourselves and the things that are chosen for us aren’t separate; they’re inextricably linked.

What interests us is exploring that and looking introspectively, how we have been affected and affect others with these choices. With as much honesty/ objectivity as possible, trying to accept the darkness and light as something that resides in everyone: two sides of the same coin with unlimited potential and not necessarily something to shy away from.

“Lyrically the EP is pretty fucking sharp”

Is that vibe present in a lot of your music at the moment?

Yeah definitely, it’s something we’ve been sinking our teeth into and developing for Ffin Colley a while. This coming What else have you record is particularly been up to lately? focused on it, though.

You’ve not long released a few new singles, ‘Halloween’, ‘Furnace’ and ‘No You’ve got an EP coming up, right?

Thanks’?

What can you tell us about it?

We’ve certainly been busy. Since It’s called ‘EAT YOUR OWN’. The title signing to Rude Records and the rollout itself has a few different interpretations, of those singles, we’ve been keeping whether it’s protecting what you have or our attention on the art surrounding sacrificing it despite yourself. Which all

feeds back into the idea of duality that runs throughout the record. Lyrically it’s pretty fucking sharp and can be a little abrasive, but that’s not necessarily from a negative place. It just tries to be reflective without so much sentiment.

Musically it certainly still falls under the umbrella of emo/punk, but we tried to challenge ourselves with its delivery. Each song performs its task in a targeted manner, but as a whole, we’ve tried to showcase our versatility and dynamism in our writing practice and our influences.

Were the featured tracks always intended for an EP release? How did you approach curating the tracklisting?

Yep yep! We had time over lockdown to really hone in and develop our writing style. Focusing on creating a body of work where we feel all of its moving parts are complimentary of one another.

It took a little separating the old wheat from the chaff in our demo folder, haha, but we’re all super proud of the final product and its consistency.

What makes for a good Delaire The Liar song?

It’s got to be evocative and impassioned.

The dynamics of the music and lyrics have to marry, sometimes in a way that involves compromise but ultimately for its benefit. and it will almost definitely involve me exasperated, face down and screaming into Chazzy’s floor for about a month until finally a good idea for a hook comes, haha.

Is there anything else we should know?

There’s plenty more to come; 2022 is looking very exciting. P Delaire The Liar’s EP ‘EAT YOUR OWN’ is out 10th December.

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Chances are, the first thing you heard of Måneskin was when they conquered Europe. One thing’s for certain, though. It won’t be the last.

Words: Ali Shutler.

Live photos: Frances Beach.

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T

and sat down in Simon Cowell’s old office here’s been no shortage of at Sony HQ, they’re just four kids who live guitar bands over the past for loud music. decade, but few have achieved When she was younger, Vic fell in love the level of cultural and with Metallica. Thomas grew up listening commercial success as Måneskin. The to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, while morning after their last-minute headline Ethan moved on from progressive fusion show at London’s Islington Academy, we jazz to The Police. Meanwhile, Damiano ask the Italian four-piece how they’ve was drawn to rock’n’roll singers because done what so many other bands have only “they just seemed more powerful. The dreamt of. Bassist Victoria Angelis leans connection with the crowd and the energy over to vocalist Damiano David and half they inspire, it’s different from anything whispers, “because we’re good”, as the else.” Like many music-obsessed teens, rest of the band crack up. they started a band, and Måneskin was “No joking, I think that’s the main formed in 2016. reason,” says Damiano a moment later.

In the UK, the next step would be to “We really believe in this band, and we put start gigging at pubs and venues around a lot of effort into everything we do. This the country, but in Italy, “it’s much harder,” isn’t just a job for us; it’s a passion. People says Damiano. can relate to us because they can see it’s “It was really cool to play that venue possible to make it with your own ideas in London yesterday, but we don’t have and your own values. Most importantly, spaces like that in Italy. though, we make good There’s no scene,” adds music.”

Thomas.

Damiano and Vic, “We really struggled along with drummer to find places to play,” Ethan Torchio and continues Damiano. guitarist Thomas Raggi, “There are a few clubs are tired. In the past in Rome, but nobody two weeks, they’ve wanted us to perform played radio shows in there because as a band, Paris, Sweden and the you take up too much Netherlands, as well as space and you make too that London headline much noise. That’s why show. The next two we started playing in the days are full of press, streets.” where they’ll defend Looking back now, their rock credentials, Damiano David he knows busking their choice of outfits gave Måneskin the and all the newfound opportunity to “train our attention. Then they’ll stage presence. We got used to having to return to Italy before heading to America. grab people’s attention because you don’t Once there, there’ll be appearances on have a crowd; you have pedestrians. Our The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and style of performing definitely comes from the Ellen DeGeneres show alongside a there. But it was a lucky shot.” couple of headline shows in New York and “Growing up, it was normal to think Los Angeles, more radio performances, there was no real chance for a band like and a stadium support slot with The us,” says Vic. “No one took us seriously, Rolling Stones. Then it’s back to Europe not even our parents. They always for the MTV EMAs, where the band will supported us, but when a 16-year-old perform and pick up the award for Best comes to you and says they want to Rock Act (beating out the likes of global play with their band for the rest of their titans Coldplay and The Killers). There life… it’s not seen as something that can hasn’t been a single performance where happen.”

Måneskin haven’t looked and sounded “Luckily, we really believed in what we like they’re having the time of their lives. were doing, even if no one else was doing “We put our guts into the music,” says it,” Vic continues. “We enjoyed what we Damiano. were doing and didn’t really think about Their schedule has been this hectic the fact there was no real future in it.” since Måneskin won Eurovision back in Though, she’s quick to admit that doing May with the lusty rock’n’roll stomp of that for years would probably have seen ‘Zitti E Buoni’. Still, the four members are them lose that passion. “We lost a lot of funny, engaged, and attentive for the money,” adds Damiano. duration of our chat. They’re all doing The band appeared on the eleventh “good” after their “amazing” show. “Last season of Italian X Factor, not as a fast night was not work. I think we had more track to fame and fortune but because fun than the audience,” says Damiano, but they had no other option. “It was the only we’ll have to agree to disagree. Despite way” for Måneskin to survive. “We never the expectations and the attention that saw X Factor as a goal, but as the start for Måneskin now contend with on a daily everything else,” says Damiano. basis, they’ve never tried to be anything The experience was tough. Because they’re not. Onstage at Islington Academy

“This isn’t just a job for us; it’s a passion”

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Tom, Ethan and Vic were all under 18, they weren’t allowed to work after midnight, leaving Damiano to spend many nights alone on stage, pretending to play guitar, bass and drums to work out lighting cues.

“It drove me nuts.”

“You’re essentially fitting three years’ worth of industry experience into a couple of months,” he explains. Their own European tours post-X Factor felt relaxing by comparison. The experience also taught the band to stick to their guns.

34 Upset

“Obviously, it’s a TV show, so they want specific things, but we quickly learnt to say no and to do things our own way.”

They came second in the competition, and their ‘Chosen’ mini-album was released soon after – featuring covers of The Killers, Ed Sheeran, The Black Eyed Peas and The Four Seasons alongside a couple of original songs. They followed it up with debut album ‘Il ballo della vita’ (The Dance Of Life) in 2018, which saw the group toy with pop-rock and indie,

but it was second album ‘Teatro d’ira: Vol. I’ (Theatre Of Wrath) that really saw the band come into their own. “We grew up listening to the biggest bands of the 70s and 80s, and we take inspiration from that, but also we’re a band from today. We listen to modern music, and we’re influenced by many different things,” explains Vic. “It’s natural for us to redo that classic style of rock in a more modern way.”

They were a successful band, touring Europe and selling out shows, but they

“No one took us seriously, not even our parents” Victoria Angelis

still decided to enter The Eurovision Song Contest at the start of 2021. “We knew things could go really bad, but we just saw it as a great chance. We had the opportunity to share our music with a huge, international audience,” explains Vic, who was very aware that Italian artists weren’t all that successful outside of Italy.

“So we did what we always have done. Go there, be ourselves and play our music.”

“The rest will follow,” adds Damiano.

According to Måneskin, they’ve always been underdogs. Growing up, no one thought they were going to achieve anything and years later, sat backstage in Rotterdam, nothing much had changed. “People were telling us it was impossible for us to win Eurovision,” says Damiano. “They were saying we’d never win playing this kind of music. They said no one wants to listen to rock music nowadays. Even on the last night, they

were saying it’s impossible,” says Vic. It explains their acceptance speech, with Damiano telling the whole world that “rock and roll never dies”. Today he warns that “it could sound cocky, but we feel like we deserved it.”

“It was really fulfilling to be appreciated by a huge audience outside of Italy,” says Vic. “Winning? It was the perfect way to tell those people to fuck off.”

“Every plane we take, it reminds us of what we proved,” adds Damiano.

“We hope that we can be an inspiration for others. We’re already seeing fans buy instruments and start bands, which is amazing,” he continues.

Måneskin want their band to represent the fact “you don’t have to conform to what’s mainstream, or what others tell you to do,” says Vic. “You can just be yourself, both in music and in your own private life.

Just be who you are.”

Songs like ‘I Wanna Be Your Slave’, ‘MAMMAMIA’ and ‘Zitti E Buoni’ deal in self-expression, self-belief and sexual liberation and the band are advocates for LGTBQ+ rights.

“Our generation is starting to feel that things are not going well,” starts Damiano.

“We are stuck in this old-fashioned culture that our parents and their parents built up.

Throughout history, there have been these moments of revolution, and we just want to be part of the change.

“We feel like we can make a difference with our music and the platform we’ve got.

We can inspire people to speak up about what they believe in and encourage people to be themselves. Of course, it’s easier for us to talk about it because we’re white, European and privileged. We know that.

But we want to use our privilege to help those who aren’t.”

“There’s such a stigma around sexual expression, but it’s an important part of life, so we talk about it, despite the fact we get criticised by people who find it vulgar or inappropriate,” says Vic. They never set out to blur gender norms either, “it just came naturally,” says Damiano. “I like feminine clothes, and I want to be free to wear them. I believe everyone should be

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free to do that.”

Vic’s “honestly surprised” their genderfluid style of dress has become such a talking point. “I don’t get why people make such a big deal out of it, but because they do, I think it’s even more important to try and have these discussions and open some minds.”

“But also, you should be able to be comfortable in your own clothes and not have to explain yourself to anybody,” says Damiano. “It’s empowering to look in the mirror and like what you see.”

Vic agrees, saying, “We get a lot of older people commenting about what we wear or how we act. They ask us what we’re trying to prove, but we’re not doing it to prove a point. We think we look good, and we don’t want to limit ourselves.

Basically, we want to be who we are without anyone breaking our balls.”

It’s “very important” for Måneskin that their shows are safe spaces. “It’s just a moment to feel free, enjoy yourselves and not have to worry about life in general,” says Vic. After a summer of playing festivals and their own shows, they’ve found they’re attracting “a very respectful crowd. The people who enjoy our music know what we stand for. If there were ever any dickheads though, we’d kick them out,” she says, without a moment’s hesitation and a clenched fist.

There are a lot of people who’ll passionately tell you that Måneskin aren’t a rock band because of how they found success. “People expect us to be drunk or doing drugs all the time,” says Damiano.

After their Eurovision win, he was accused of snorting cocaine in the green room, but a voluntary drugs test proved otherwise.

It’s something he pokes fun at on new single ‘MAMMAMIA’ (“I swear that I’m not drunk, and I’m not taking drugs”). The first track released since things went stratospheric for Måneskin is a joyful, playful, rock’n’roll romp.

“Everything was so serious, and the whole world was watching us, waiting for us to make a mistake. We just wanted to make fun of everything and show people we’re having fun doing what we’ve always wanted to do,” says Damiano. The band try and live with a carefree attitude, and if they’ve felt any pressure ahead of the release of ‘MAMMAMIA’, they’re not admitting it today.

“The hard part was that we didn’t have much time to write,” starts Vic before explaining that they “never have much time. That’s the thing that makes me feel a little bit of pressure, but when we’re in the studio, we forget about the schedules and everything else going on and just focus on creating.”

Somehow, the band have managed to find time to write more music inspired by the hectic few months Måneskin have been through. “We’re playing lots of new places to a lot of new fans. We take the energy from those situations and put it

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“The whole world was watching us, waiting for us to make a mistake” Damiano David

into our music,” says Thomas. The only difference the band have noticed in their crowds since Eurovision is that “they’re getting wilder.”

“We have a few new songs, ready for an emergency,” says Damiano, who’s also enjoying being busy. “The worst moment for me as a lyricist was lockdown because the only thing I saw was Netflix and my

cats. I wasn’t really on fire; I was just fucking bored and angry. Now though, we are living through a crazy moment in our lives. We’re in a different city every two days, and that can give you a lot of inspiration. You just have to be able to catch your emotions, then translate them into music. Though that’s easier to say than do.”

Musically as well, Måneskin are taking influence from all over. “Every day, we discover new music. Sometimes we get inspired by a song that sounds nothing like us, but something just clicks. We’re really open with music, as long as a song has a personality,” explains Vic, who believes Måneskin are connecting with so many people “because we make rock music in a modern way. Even if it’s rough and hard, it’s very catchy. It’s enjoyable, even if you’re not into rock music.”

Måneskin are the first guitar band in almost twenty years to really cross over into the mainstream. Does that make them feel like the saviours of rock’n’roll?

Vic says no instantly, but Damiano isn’t as reserved. “Maybe we’re the saviours

of music in general,” he laughs before explaining how the band just think about their own path. “We just want to make our music and see where it takes us.” Despite all the success, “we’re still aiming for something more. We don’t want to stop.

We love what Måneskin has become, but we want to keep doing it for as long as we can. We really believe in it.”

But are Måneskin rock stars? “For sure,” starts Damiano. “We’re rock stars, we’re pop stars, and if we wanted to do hip-hop, we’d be rap stars. We can be whatever we want, just like everybody else.”

Still, Måneskin aren’t letting other people’s opinions bother them. “We naturally don’t give a fuck about expectations. We know what we want to do, and we’re not affected by bad comments from stupid people. Maybe it’s cocky, but it helps us. Anyway, while they’re commenting on Facebook, we’re on stage, so I think we win.” Damiano hopes their not-giving-a-fuck-attitude is contagious. “It’s a good way to live your life.” P

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FALL FO 38 Upset

Mayday Parade may have been there for us during the dark times, but when the world stopped and time was suddenly there to work on something new, frontman Derek Sanders found himself hitting a wall. Eventually, the waters started to flow once more - ending up with a new album that proves that, even when things do fall apart, they can still be put back together again.

Words: Alex Bradley.

Photos: Jordan Knight.

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F

been going and how limited we have or the late-night drives, been with not being able to tour,” Derek heartbreaks, friendships begins, detailing the band’s decision blossoming and wilting, growth, to get back into the studio with only love and lessons in romantics, a handful of demos but seemingly an Mayday Parade have been a band to endless amount of time to work on a lean on for 16 years now. Singer Derek project.

Sanders has always found the right Pretty quickly, though, that words for those moments. Similarly, their frustration and the indeterminable live shows are life-affirming events, a nature of such unprecedented times chance to share a space with others who turned into writer’s block for the singer. have needed this outlet in the same way.

In turn, their music has created a thriving “I hit a block and had a really hard time moving past that, and it took finally community with the band and fans in accepting, ‘this isn’t going anywhere, and equilibrium. this is the way things are for now’, before And when it all fell apart last year, I was able to get past that,” he explains.

Mayday Parade were there for us.

Eventually, it started to flow, and with Their livestreams were a lifeline as the collective mentality of “well, there’s we locked ourselves away to be joined in not much we can do, but we can go into our living rooms, bedrooms, bunkers or kitchens by the band just playing games, the studio and record,” it went from some singles to another EP, and when chatting, hanging out and occasionally they returned earlier this year, the album playing some music. For The May Day came into focus.

Show, the annual celebration of Mayday In truth, once they Parade, the band spent got started, it was as eight hours answering routine as any album questions and talking could be for Mayday with friends in State Parade. They aren’t Champs and Four Year strangers to recording Strong to keep us in different sessions entertained. months apart, with Looking back at ‘Sunnyland’ taking that time, singer Derek shape in a similar way Sanders remembers: but with the added “It was stuff we bonus of that album wouldn’t normally do featuring some sessions necessarily, but it was in California with the to let people know we’re legendary John Feldman still here and we’re too. That time they all in this together. It had worried if all the was really important different sessions would and continues to be make for a disjointed important.” sounding album, but, And even as Mayday nope, this time around, Parade released the it was some seasoned three-track ‘Out Of professionals knowing Here’ EP last October, Derek Sanders that they do well and Derek explained at the what their fans like. time, “There are so The outcome was an many things we can’t album that has the feel of a single broad do right now, but we can put out some paint stroke. Vibrant and bursting with new music, and maybe that makes some energy opening with ‘Kids Of Summer’ people happy.” before that early optimism gradually It’s all about the fans with Mayday Parade, and it’s been that way for a while fades away to the hopeless and dark space of ‘I Can’t Do This Anymore’, which now. Somewhere along the way, these Floridian outsiders are no longer working closes the album.

“It’s weird because it wasn’t the way I for themselves but representing the intended,” Derek admits, considering the outsiders everywhere. arc of the album, “but it’s one of those And that’s how we arrive at Mayday cool things that just happened that way, Parade’s seventh album, ‘What It Means and it works. I’m not sure if there is some To Fall Apart’. With nothing but time on underlying subconscious reason for that their hands during summer 2020, the or not, but it’s a neat thing.” band headed to Atlanta to team up with Conscious or not, it’s got every base their go-to guys Zack Odom and Kenneth covered, ticks every box for what we’ve Mount, who have worked on more than come to expect from Mayday Parade half of the band’s full-length records, over the years. including their debut classic ‘A Lesson The pandemic is certainly under In Romantics’ and their last album the surface of the opening two tracks ‘Sunnyland’. with ‘Kids Of Summer’, the lead single, “We were all disheartened and throwing it back to the “best summers of frustrated with the way everything has

“I hit a block and had a really hard time moving past that”

40 Upset

our lives”, as Derek describes when he went to Warped Tour as a fan, returned to sell CDs in 2006 and then played the smaller stages after that as Mayday Parade started to break out.

It’s a real nostalgia ride, and the pounding pop-punk rhythm of the track helps that, and Derek can’t help reminiscing, more so as just two sets at Slam Dunk and an ill-fated US tour that saw all of the band but him get struck down with COVID, have been the only taste of live music they’ve enjoyed in over two years now.

“There is nothing like the beginning,” he smiles. “It’s such a funny thing because you don’t realise it at the time, and it takes years of touring. I remember being younger thinking, ‘I’m never going to be jaded’. I’m not saying we are jaded, necessarily… but there is something about those early years of touring when everything was new and exciting. You’re going to cities for the first time and countries for the first time; there’s this magic there that doesn’t quite feel the same on your tenth time back to a place.

“Those first years of touring in a van and roughing it and seeing the progression of last time we were in this city there were 50 people, and now it’s 150 people and just seeing everything grow and build was such a cool thing.”

Despite the rose-tinted glasses for those early days, he concedes that touring in a bus is more comfortable than just a van and the grind isn’t as hard for a band preparing to release their seventh album.

“But that’s what was exciting about it in a way,” he continues. “It was putting everything on the line and living off of hardly anything and some people looking at us like, ‘you’re crazy, what are you doing living like this?’ But we believed in it and had goals, and it was so cool to see it all happen.”

There’s been a lot of hard work and live shows to get Mayday to where they are now and, when touring was taken away, it’s where songs like ‘Golden Days’ comes to life. There is nothing subtle about “Somewhere out there / I see blue skies clear of the storm / Where the road is calling, and it’s everything we’ve been waiting for”. It’s a hopeful outlook and certain to be a cathartic moment when it comes to being able to play live shows regularly again.

“I was feeling it pretty good when I wrote that song and just tried to put it all in there,” Derek comments, considering how to make a global pandemic fit into just one song.

He adds, “It’s one of the happiest songs we have recorded even though it’s about being sick and tired of life at the time, but I love that it has a hopeful outlook towards the future and the chorus is about waiting for better times that are surely ahead.”

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and built the whole second half of that What follows is the whole spectrum song, and I’m so happy with how that of Mayday Parade laid bare. There is turned out,” he beams. the harder edge - think ‘Black Lines’ It’s just a hint of Mayday Parade era - with ‘If My Ghosts Don’t Play, I Don’t straying from the emo / pop-punk centre Play’, there is the sweet ballad in ‘Think that they’ve made their own. And here of You’, the poppier shift in ‘Bad At Love’ lies a problem. Stick or twist? and the stark, piano coated, ‘Angels Die Other bands do it, keep it fresh with Too’. Talking about that track, Derek a shimmering pop album, 80’s-inspired reveals: “There are a handful of people, friends, that I’ve lost, and there is a close synth-rock album, emo shoegaze album friend of mine who is still with us but who but can still return to the same centre (desperately avoiding the term “scene”) I’ve seen struggle a lot and go through as Mayday Parade. But, other bands really hard times and somebody that I don’t always get to make seven albums care about a lot and I worry about a lot. and tour for almost 16 years straight “That was the place I was at when either.

I wrote that one was thinking about And it’s something they’ve the friends I’ve lost along the way, in considered. Derek reasons, “It’s a really particular, to suicide and having this tough thing because it’s hard to get all friend I was really worried about not wanting the same thing to happen there.” five of us on the same page with that.”

There is no denying that 2015’s album Derek had described this album ‘Black Lines’ was a shift, and the newer as being “a nice step forward in our ‘Bad At Love’ is a slightly unexpected career”, and one of the more progressive foray into modern powerhouse ballads, moments in the album is only really half but, on the whole, a song. ‘Heaven’ will you know what you’re probably unfairly getting with Mayday be overlooked in Parade. But, there this album; it’s two is undoubtedly minutes and just something niggling one line: “It feels like when Derek heaven the way you considers the put me through hell”. idea, “There is It’s taken from a demo something exciting for a song by guitarist about that as well, Alex Garcia, but the idea of ‘let’s go thanks to Jimmy Eat into this without World, it became the any preconceived biggest left turn on ideas of what it the album. should sound The story goes, like and just while in the studio create something one night, Derek’s and see what it favourite album of happens’. There all time, ‘Clarity’, was is something being streamed in Derek Sanders enticing about full by Jimmy Eat that,” he World, so the whole contemplates. band (including Zack He repeats, “It’s a tricky thing, and and Kenneth, the producers) tuned in to it’s hard to get us all excited about watch it. the same idea with that.”

“In general, that album is very At the same time, Mayday Parade experimental; there is a lot happening, are prolific and exceptional at what and it’s not just drums, guitars, bass, they do and while songs from their vocals. There are a lot of cool sounds first album find new life on TikTok, and cool things that they do. The last tracks like ‘Piece of Your Heart’ and song, ‘Goodbye Sky Harbour’, kind of ‘It’s Hard To Be Religious…’ from goes on for a long time and doing it live; ‘Sunnyland’ are firm live favourites they have these loop stations they’ve for those who have been with the set up and doing these cool sounds and band from the beginning. synths and instrumentation - xylophone Still considering the idea of rewhatever,” he recalls. inventing their sound, Derek adds: “And the next day we were really “There is something about making kind of inspired by that, I guess, and the core fans happy, but then there the way ‘Heaven’ takes that turn in the is something really exciting about middle and takes that more electronic, embracing new ideas and trying out synthesised sound halfway through was new things.” And it all comes back heavily inspired by watching that Jimmy round to the fans.

Eat World live stream which is so cool to “I wrote a song for you, and then me. That’s exactly what I hoped would it came to life,” is the chorus line in happen with watching that livestream, ‘Notice’, the band’s direct tribute to and then the next day, we really dove in

“There’s something really exciting about embracing new ideas”

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those who have kept Mayday Parade going. Derek admits it sounds “cheesy” that the song is “for the fans”, but justifies: “For the people that have been there for us and believed in us, those people that have been coming to shows for ten-plus years that have been to over 100 Mayday Parade shows, and those die-hard people.

“There are so many of them in every city you go to; there are these people that you recognise. It’s so cool to have support like that its jit’s paying respect to those people, and it’s a song for them.”

That bond with their

fans is unbreakable, and the music now, especially in ‘What It Means To Fall Apart’, cements that in place of being able to tour and meet new fans and the old familiar ones in every city they go to.

“We try to really appreciate the people that support us, and I go out after every show that I’m able to and talk to people and hear their stories and see their tattoos, and they’ll tell us stories about the ways in which our band has

helped them or has helped their friends.

It’s always really incredible and really humbling to have those experiences, and I feel it makes it easier having those connections with people.

“It makes it easier to want to keep going and want to do better. We started off playing music for ourselves; we just loved doing this and wanted to do it but, at a certain point, you get to a level where you’ve made all these connections. It feels like it means something bigger than what it means to you, and it gives you even more of a drive to continue and push forward.”

It’s that which sets Mayday Parade apart. The songs are great; they’ve been consistently great for seven albums now, no huge peaks and no real stinkers either, but a steady stream of greatness. But on top of that, their fans have real value, a name to every face in the crowd and genuine dependency on the people that support them and the same love and support given in return. They are a safe place, one which will never really change.

It’s rare, which is sad, but it helps to understand Mayday Parade’s eternal youth and how they’ve stood the test of time. And, also, maybe their apprehension to not alienate fans either.

It still niggles, though, as to whether Mayday Parade are writing their own fan fiction now. Does the expectation of the “die-hard” fans carry too much weight?

Derek’s favourite track on the new album, one of his favourite ever Mayday songs, in fact, is ‘One for the Rocks and One for the Scary’, but when it came to showing the band the track, he had his reservations.

“I was really nervous about that song because I wrote it in that way, and I knew that some of the guys were going to try and change the

pop-punk part - or whatever you want to call it - that it fires into. And, some of the guys did try and change that, and it came down to a vote of how we wanted to do it, and I was like, ‘Guys, please don’t ruin this song’. I’m super happy that we stuck with it.

“It’s something we’ve never really done before, and that’s always really exciting; to do something different and not just the same old thing.”

Those compromises are a regular occurrence, it seems, and are down to the democratic style of operating they have. The good of the band comes first, and what’s good for the band is what’s good for the fans.

Discussing losing out on a vote, Derek admits, “Sometimes, in the moment, it sucks,” but he reasons: “At the end of the day, that’s what makes the band who we are. It’s always been that way since day one, we make decisions as a group, and we vote on things; there isn’t just one person who is like the leader who takes charge and decides things. So, I have to trust in the process and know that’s the way we operate.

Sometimes things go your way, and sometimes they don’t go your way, but, ultimately, it is what is necessary to our band.”

And rather than getting frustrated with that system, Derek has been turning ideas that don’t fit with the band’s vision into his own solo work, and he assures, “one of these days I’m going to put out something out other than the cover EP.” Continuing, he says: “It’s super nice to work on something with the freedom that I know I can do whatever I want to artistically. It’s made me not worry so much about the band stuff; if it doesn’t go the way that I want it to, if I get outvoted on something, then that’s okay because I have this project where I have complete freedom. I could take the songs that I write and bring to the band that we won’t end up using and would have bummed me out before, but now I’m like, well, at least I can take that and still record it.”

It’s a solo project that is likely to sound radically different to anything the band has ever done, but it will also preserve Mayday Parade as a vehicle for the community that regularly needs to get in venues around the world and sing sad songs, hopeful ballads and some downright angsty anthems together.

Mayday Parade have become something bigger than the sum of their individual parts, and the last two years have confirmed that and have culminated in ‘What It Means To Fall Apart’. Very simply, it seems, when everything does fall apart, you’ll always have Mayday Parade to help put things back together again. P Mayday Parade’s album ‘What It Means To Fall Apart’ is out now.

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Fixer Uppers t-punk ‘stuff’? You’ve Think you’re bored of all this pos s of the north probably just not heard new king Yard Act yet. Sort it out. n.

Words: Jack Press. Photos: James Brow

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Upset 45

A

s the dust settles on 2021, it’s safe to say we’ve been through it. The pandemic kept testing our limits as we stayed locked in our bedrooms. Politicians pushed us further back into the dark ages. Keyboard warriors came out in droves to drive home just how divided we’ve all become.

Thank God, then, that four friends from Yorkshire decided to document it and call it a debut album. And if it wasn’t for Yard Act frontman James Smith’s oven, we might not have got this postpunk meets Britpop meets noughties indie-rock mash-up at all.

“Every year when Bake Off comes on, I’m like, ‘oh yeah, I’ll try that’, but our oven’s shit, so we can’t even get the right heat,” he exclaims, veering off-topic from the influences of the pandemic on the album to the influences of it on him. “I can make a good Focaccia, though.”

Thankfully, it’s not just baking bread he’s good at it. Alongside bassist Ryan Needham, drummer Jay Russell and guitarist Sam Shjipstone, James has held up a mirror to modern British life in a post-Brexit, post-pandemic world. Built on corruption and fear, fake news and lies, it’s all a bit worrying.

“There’s a lot about corruption and lies on this album, because this disbelief and fear in the establishment isn’t an unwarranted feeling and shouldn’t be dismissed,” James suggests, as he highlights how the pandemic revealed just how much mistrust is placed in our government. “You shouldn’t do exactly what the government say all the time; the problem is that a lot of people are being fed false information by equally shady organisations.”

Of course, debut album ‘The Overload’, as you might imagine, isn’t a political punch-up between the left and the right, the north and the south, the rich and the poor. It’s a character study on a country gone wild.

“A lot of those themes come through on the album, like paranoia and disbelief, as it’s more of a study on how and why we do the things we do,” he admits. “It’s pretty messy and pretty complex, and it doesn’t give any answers; it just asks a load of questions.”

If ‘The Overload’ does anything in 37 minutes, it’s certainly ‘ask a lot of questions’. Billed as a concept album, you’ll meet a motley crew of characters that aren’t too unfamiliar to you as you take a whistle-stop tour through modern-day Britain. It’s like having a mirror held up in your face at a family do down your local. It’s about you and everybody else, and it all comes down to James standing in front of that mirror.

“There are parts of me in every character that crops up. I’m not going to deny that I have less appealing sensibilities like everyone does, and

46 Upset

I’ve really tried to get myself out of that headspace of thinking I’m right, and I’m doing the right thing, and I’m better than other people because I’m switched on,” he asserts, as he points out just how much of a reflection ‘The Overload’ is of himself as it is everyone else.

“What the whole album comes down to is deconstructing the vague consensus of what the left-wing believe by deconstructing myself and seeing it from other people’s angles and seeing the humanity in everyone. At the end of the day, you’ve just got to let people do what they want to do, everyone’s just trying to get by, and everyone’s knackered.”

In fact, Yard Act owe a lot to producer Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius, Soccer Mommy). But not for his technical wizardry. No, of course not - for lending them a book. Thinking, Fast and Slow

by Daniel Kahneman changed James’ outlook on life. And by chance, changed the course of the album.

“It was quite a revelation when I

“Everyone’s just trying to get by, and everyone’s knackered” James Smith

realised it wasn’t my job to change the world. For a long time in my early 20s, I felt like that and was traumatised by feeling responsible for everything,” he explains, building up to how the book’s helped mellow out his inner madness.

“I take a lot of comfort out of that book because it makes me realise that it’s not all chaos, and there is a narrative, and we’re all kind of bound by it.”

The narrative we’re bound by, or so it seems, is influenced by the book’s concept of two systems: the fast, instinctive and emotional and the slower, deliberative and logical. James took it and flipped it on its head for his study into British life.

“I didn’t want to look at people as if they were systems; I wanted to look at what systems do to people,” he explains, adding: “It’s about how easily people can fall into traits and habits and cycles and other systems.”

‘The Overload’ is in many ways an existential listening experience as much as it’s an essential one. When James

warns you’ll have more questions than answers, it’s true. Because that’s what happened when Yard Act wrote it.

“The news will have us believe that we have to, for the sake of humanity, change the way we live and then you start asking, how important are we? Like, life has always carried on; something will sprout.

“The humans aren’t the story of existence, we just think we are a lot of the time, and it’s scary when you look beyond that, and it doesn’t mean trash the fucking planet and don’t give a shit, but it means asking yourself the question of ‘who are you? Why are you here?’”

These are big questions, and when you start diving deep into politics and putting a mirror up to the world around you, not everyone’s going to nod their head in agreement. There’s going to be kickback. It’s something Yard Act are unsurprisingly not all that fussed about.

“I don’t think I’m going to be that much of a nuisance that people are going to kick off, but then maybe if we get massive, it’ll fuck loads of people off,” he laughs, the thought of doing an Oasis and starting a revolution from his bed becoming an attractive one. “I don’t worry about it, and I don’t think you can.

I think you deal with it. If it becomes an issue, you remain transparent and open and listen to what it is – but if it’s just someone who doesn’t like it because they don’t get it, then they can probably fuck off.”

Yard Act aren’t a band to be brushed aside. They won’t be tucked under the rug or thrown in the cupboard. And they won’t stop standing for what they stand for. ‘The Overload’ closer ‘100% Endurance’ is a testament to that.

“If you talk to someone long enough, you’ll find the human side because we don’t do a lot of talking these days, and the pandemic really heightened that,” he sighs, disillusioned as much as he is inspired. “Online sparring is not a humanising thing; it’s really dehumanising. People just want to get their point across, and no one’s really listening.

“When you remove those structures, and you just teach someone one on one, you’ll find most people care for someone, and they show that real human emotion.

That song is about trying to make people realise that you can apply that beyond your circle, especially if you’re not in fear, like when people are happy, they’re genuinely nicer to everyone around them.”

Every generation needs a group of go-getters to get behind. Every generation needs a band who brings the brains and the bops. And this generation, matter-of-factly, needs Yard Act. P Yard Act’s debut album ‘The Overload’ is out 21st January.

Upset 47

HAP PY NO W?

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Some bands are happy to keep on making the same album again and again, safe in the knowledge their fans will stick around. With their fourth full-length, Volumes are taking a leap of faith.

Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Lindsey Byrnes.

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W

hat does Volumes’ fourth fucked up. Holding your hands up outing mean for the band and acknowledging a mistake instead and their story so far? “I of burying your head in the sand is can’t really put my finger an integral part of maturing. This is on what exactly it is for Volumes other something Volumes are reckoning with than just the best music we’ve made,” as they’ve begun acclimatising to being vocalist Michael Barr begins. Jumping back in the world. straight in, ‘Happier?’ is surmounted by Recalling a recent interview the the simple realisation of: “What are we band completed, Michael notes the opportunity it offered. “We were typing doing? Like, are we going to make the the questions, and I was like, ‘let’s same record that we’ve made for ten years or are we going to do something just put everything out’. I mean, we’re not going to hide from, you know… different and take that leap of faith?”

Opting for the latter, that leap of faith especially in this niche scene. Bands make mistakes, people fuck up, things also extends to Michael’s relationship happen. We very much err on the side of, with the turbulent band he left back in it’s sexier to own your faults than to like, 2015. spin them a different way or just act like He returned to Volumes in 2020 they’re not there. after founding vocalist Guy Farias left “We’re just really transparent about at the end of 2019 due to “personal differences”, his thorny relationship with the history of this band in those times because a lot of bands go through it Michael publicly airing in a 2017 tirade and in this day and age, how accessible at his solo career. Gus’ brother and everything and founding guitarist everyone is, it’s like, Diego also left in the cat is out of the 2020, sadly dying bag, for sure. Let’s that same year. It’s just own up to it. You not been an easy know what I mean?” ride.

That’s not to Comments say Volumes are on recent music reckoning with videos comparing anything especially his rejoining the dark. The band band to Gandalf started at the returning in Lord perilous age of Of The Rings are an eighteen. When apt metaphor for unleashed on the their tempestuous road, especially for journey. It feels like Michael, it was a an epic that requires matter of choosing its own tetralogy between two paths: now that they’re “There are bands back for round four. that go on the road Indeed, everything and touring, and about the band is what comes with it maximum impact, goes over their head, to a detriment and they end up sometimes. fine. And then there Proving quite are the other types adept at creating Michael Barr of bands that just a rod for their embrace everything. own backs, the LA “We were very metalcore stalwarts passionate about music, but we also love have had controversy, sadness, and instability shadow them for the best part to live. We also love to have a good time, and I think we’re at a point now where of a decade. But now, they’re ready to make amends and to show the world that it’s very much more professional.”

An untamed few years led to a they’re not going anywhere. turbulent journey for Volumes. “I think The four-piece - Michael, along with the consensus is we used to be a pretty his initial replacement Myke Terry, wild and carefree band,” Michael admits. drummer Nick Ursich, and only Volumes “And we’d definitely get ourselves into constant bassist Raad Soudani - are some sticky situations. I know I did, out currently hitting the small venue circuit. there on the road. We’ve all changed a Something they’ve not had to do for a fair few years now, mostly thanks in lot, and we’ve all realised what the most part to touring restrictions, it’s led to a important thing is the longevity of this serendipitous unpacking of their journey band and making sure that we connect so far. with fans in the most deep, intimate and passionate way. Instead of, you know, thinking our heart’s in the right place, but it’s not.”

It takes guts to admit you’ve

Some of those situations involved the party roving onward from the venue to, well, wherever. “I’d end up at someone’s house,” he recalls. “’Where are we going? What are we doing?!’ That’s the detrimental part I was bringing up.”

“None of us regrets it; or, I don’t regret it. I mean, I have lifelong friends because of those situations.” Their party-hard lifestyle was, in part, born from a desire to keep grounded. “What you want to do is provide a realness.”

He continues, “At every show and as the band grows, as the vehicles get bigger,

“You’re thankful for the opportunity to come back, show a face and clean the slate”

50 Upset

as the production gets bigger - making sure that I’m still the same person.”

With various incidents taking place throughout their early years, from scraps with security to general wanton chaos, this current tour is not only a chance for this new formation to stretch their legs. It’s also a chance for some repentance.

“It’s definitely a reflective moment.

Sometimes I walk into venues, and I remember something horrible that happened or someone that I pissed off years ago, a promoter or whatever,”

he says with a bright honesty. “You’re thankful for the opportunity to come back, show a face and clean the slate.

There’s a lot of transparency going on.

We love to go around and shake hands again and just let people know this is a different iteration of the band, more professional for sure.”

This is where their fourth outing, ‘Happier?’, comes into play. With Michael back in the band after pursuing his solo artistic desires, in more of a mellow R&B vein, a period he describes as being filled with “very sobering

the departure of Gus. Initially, only temporarily, that move soon became permanent. That’s not to say it was an easy choice.

“100%. Absolutely.” He laughs while reaffirming any potential trepidation.

“You know, I’m 31. We started this band when we were 18. So much has transpired since, and yeah, I tread lightly. It was a big decision, but in the end, I don’t know why I waited so long. I don’t know why I spread out the option to come back because it feels like home, and it’s just been a no brainer

moments, but character building.”

Watching him take stock, sitting back in a chair in the rear of a tattoo studio on this tour stop in North Carolina, doesn’t feel like watching someone shove jigsaw pieces together, hoping for the best. There’s sincerity behind each string pinning together. Proving those nights of nearly-empty rooms on his solo tours were necessary for this next step.

It’s tantamount to their rough ‘n’ ready phoenix-from-the-ashes moment.

His return was signalled last year after

since I’ve pulled the trigger.”

Did it feel like popping on an old pair of shoes, especially now they’re deep in a tour that’s underplaying by Volumes standards? “That’s a good question.

You’re very much one person in your 20s, and you’re very much someone different in your 30s, and it’s blending the two,” he considers. “I have these moments on stage where I’m doing the same things and the same tactics to get the crowd involved I was 10 years ago, when I first started this band. It’s interesting to see the growth, and even

I surprise myself some nights in some stuff that I do or something that I’m not used to with this format of music.”

‘Happier?’’s cover also

features four clear masks, in case you needed a visual of what their new transparency looks like. The faces of four sons of the niche ‘djent’ genre of metalcore, founded, in part, by Swedish metal band Meshugga. Volumes’ journey from ardent purveyors of brutality to effacing pop enthusiasts and back again, picking up bits and pieces along the way, has resulted in this forceful compendium of Volumes both new and old, expertly twirling the two worlds between its fingers like a master dealer. It also holds a wealth of cards being laid out on the table. Which is truly what Michael stresses is different.

“We’re a tiny metal band who plays very obscure music. And it’s just like you have that physical platform standing on a stage; you have the digital platform.

Even if it’s 600 fans to 6000 fans, like yes, someone is probably looking up to you without you even knowing it.

It’s very important to recognise those things for sure.”

Now, onto that title.

The word ‘happier’ in itself feels loaded, but lobbing that question mark on the end is like cocking the trigger on a lethal level of questioning. With all the reasoning Michael gives behind this choice, including “is anyone, after this pandemic, gonna be happy again?”, there’s only one question left: are the band actually happier these days?

“Yes, we are,” he says after chewing on it for a hot minute. “This has been the best and most reflective time for the band, and every day we wake up and are happy to be sharing the same space, which is very rare for a band to have. It takes a long time to get there for some, and that’s very much our band. The past few years making this record, to this day in North Carolina, it’s just like a band of brothers - very family-oriented vibes. So I think it’s safe to say we are.” P Volumes’ album ‘Happier?’ is out now.

Upset 51

Another year, another list of brilliant albums we’ve been blessed with over the past twelve months. 2021 has seen ups, downs, starts and stops - but it’s still managed to give us so, so many brilliant records. Here are 50 of what we consider the best for you to catchup with, led by an artist who is already mapping out the future...

52 Upset

#1

I

f anyone deserves to take this year’s crown, it’s De’Wayne. Impeccably ambitious and delivering enough walking power to suit all that high-energy talking he does, he’s the very essence of what it is to be an artist in 2021.

Since leaving Houston, Texas, a few years ago for LA, De’Wayne has focused on achieving his dream. When Upset first spoke to him last September, after the release of ‘National Anthem’, his thunderous rock/hip-hop combo debut single, the world was slightly different. Continue forward to June, and he was coming up to bat with his debut album ‘Stains’.

It turns out, not only was he smashing it out of the park,

E N Y A W ’ E D STAINS

but this was his dream becoming fully realised. Now, he’s finally back on the road too: with that mighty record in tow.

Given he’s just finished up Willow’s mammoth US tour and is mere days from starting the whole slog again with Chase Atlantic, that trademark De’Wayne spirit is all present and correct when we catch up to celebrate his year. After all, this is someone who embraces life; what else would you expect?

De’Wayne! How are things going?

Everything’s really good! First of all, it’s good to be talking to you again, man. I feel like we always have good conversations. But it’s been really good, bro, like we did the Willow tour; we just finished that yesterday. Man, it’s good to be playing shows again and crushing it and just connecting with people. My spirit feels good right now, and I’m very excited and feeling very thankful. We had to try to soak all this energy in and keep it going for this next one we got in a couple of days.

but I don’t feel like it’s old or anything like that. I want to be playing for some years, hopefully. It’s my first one, it’s my baby, and I’m getting to perform it all over the world.

How do you think you’ve grown now you’ve completed this massive step?

I feel like I’ve grown in knowing to trust my gut, how I trust my music. Like, yeah, “This is the hook, this is what I’m gonna say.” I’m starting to trust that all-around just with me as a human and with me as an artist. I have such a great team, but I don’t want to lean on people for ideas or expect people… I feel like I would do that, and I don’t do that anymore. Over the past month, now I believe in my intentions with everything that I’m doing, more so than ever. That’s something I’ve noticed.

If it’s what I’m wearing, if it’s what I’m telling my band to do - respectfully! Not being like, “this is my shit”, but I have a vision for it so let’s execute that. I don’t think I would have been able to do that at the top of the year or be able to make the songs that I made before the tour.

“I got to do this again for 10 more years if I want to have the career that I want”

How is your world now ‘Stains’ has been unleashed for What other moments a while? have stuck out for I saw fans Tweeting you this year? it’s been five months I mean, putting out the the other day, and album with the label…

I was like, that’s it’d be my first one. amazing. To be able Getting the billboard to play the songs now, in Times Square was it’s cool to see them huge. This tour. When received so well. We we got the okay from start the set with Willow, and when her ‘National Anthem’, post went up about and we end it with the tour, it felt like I ‘Me Vs You’, just like was becoming a part the record, and it of popular culture. connects with these That’s something that kids who hadn’t heard means a lot to me, of me until before especially with what the show or checking DE’WAYNE I’m trying to do with me out before and this new music and then by the end of just with my career as ‘National Anthem’ I a whole. Not trying to get on the scene, got them all yelling that record. It’s been or anything like that, just bringing rock cool, and it just makes me more proud of to everybody, which I think Willow is what I did on that album. doing so for her to bring me along that felt really great. For her to respect what What’s it been like reflecting on it now I was doing and love what I was doing, it’s both out in the world, and you’re we were fanning out for each other. I feel playing the songs live? like I’m stepping into my own, those are It feels good. When I talked to other some big moments for me. Now I’ve got a people, I was like: “I’m gonna be proud of house and stuff like that. Being able to be this record,” and I’m still fucking proud in a home and take care of myself and… of it. The thing is that before the tour, I bought my mom a purse! I know that’s I’d made new demos because I’m kind of getting to the vibe of the next record, but silly, but that’s a big moment for me, you know? Silly shit like that.

I’m still so proud of it. I was texting with Willow last night, and she was like, “I just It must be nice to see the career you ran ‘Stains’ through all the way; it’s one envisioned coming to fruition given of my favourite records I’ve ever heard.”

That makes me feel really good because I how much faith you put into it? get to play it every night, but then people That was huge for me, bro. When I talk to my dad and when he sees me and Willow connect with it. I got these new songs,

54 Upset

together, it makes him freak out. Those are moments for me too, you know? It’s crazy.

Have your parents caught a show?

Man, they haven’t! But we’re playing in Houston on this little festival run in December, and they’re definitely pulling up. They haven’t seen us in two years.

The show is way better, they love the new album, but it’ll be experienced in December.

When you released ‘Stains’, did you

feel how you expected?

Man, that’s a really great question. I think I felt that way for about two weeks; I was on cloud nine. I was doing parties for the album, I was celebrating with my girl, I was just so happy to have a record out. I think for two weeks, I felt untouchable, incredible. I felt really good, and then I was like, “Oh, yeah, I got to do this again for 10 more years if I want to have the career that I want to have!” The songs have got to be better.

But it was two weeks of straight nirvana.

I was very blissful, very excited about

everything. It didn’t last that long I’ll be honest, and I don’t mean that to be a downer or anything like that!

Was it the closing of one chapter, and the opening of another?

That was 25 years of living to make things, and then we were in quarantine and all that; I’m like damn, where can I grab all this new inspiration? Then I went into straight, steady mode, and it’s cool to also see what the new music is about and to see what I’m grabbing from, and what I’m learning from, and

what I’m inspired by and all that stuff. I went through, to be honest, a month of straight searching, making demos. I was like I have to exceed myself fully for this next record, and I’ve found my groove everywhere in my life at the moment.

What does new inspiration look like, given you mentioned you were processing 25 years of living before?

What’s around me, touring, I did about eight amazing fucking demos, you know, before I left, and I want to cut about 10 more when I get back, but I think I mentioned my shorty - I have a girl that I really love, and I was starting to see that seep into the music. I always talk about my dad in a way on my records, and during quarantine, we had a father-son breakthrough. I always thought he could have done better, and I know he just wasn’t a good father, to be honest. I love that man, but he really came through during quarantine, and we became close in a fun way. For so long, I didn’t understand that was trauma for me. Now I get to brag on him and talk about him in a different way. Yeah, those two things, and just where I want to take it next, and that’s to be the goat! Conversations like that, and then a lot of coming for everyone’s head once again but in a different way. I think we’re gonna be working a lot, and that’s kind of what I’m looking towards now.

You’ve always toted that hip-hop, rock, punk and everything in between sound - is the new stuff going in the same direction?

I’m exploring. I’m trying to tell people it’s like Ramones, The Strokes if they had like a little baby Kendrick Lamar.

Just very punk, with great guitar tones, and then me just talking all the shit!

And also singing all the shit, you know, kind of putting it in a way to it feels like confident, but there’s definitely more melody. I want the sound to be heard around the globe. I’m still saying everything from my heart, but the sound is a bit more locked in. That feels great to me.

It feels like alternative music that’s borrowing from everywhere is having this huge moment.

Right? It’s in the best place. I was talking to Tyler [Cole], who produces for Willow, you know, they got the song going crazy right now, ‘Meet Me At Our Spot’, and he was like, man, it’s cool that we’re building each other now. We see each other out, and we see each other on Instagram like we fuck with each other, like white, Black, everybody, it’s love. It’s cool to be building each other up instead of trying to tear each other down and instead have way more Black artists in this game making great music. I’m happy to be a part of it. P

Upset 55

#2-50 #2 WATERPARKS

#18 POPPY

#35 GARBAGE

#3 WILLOW

#19 TIGERS JAW

#36 KISSISSIPPI

Greatest Hits

lately I feel EVERYTHING

#4 ARCHITECTS

For Those That Wish To Exist

Flux

I Won’t Care How You Remember Me

#20 RISE AGAINST

Nowhere Generation

#5 WOLF ALICE

#21 EVANESCENCE

#6 GOJIRA

#22 BLANKET

Blue Weekend

Fortitude

#7 EMPLOYED TO SERVE Conquering

#8 TRASH BOAT

Don’t You Feel Amazing?

#9 MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA

The Million Masks of God

#10 TURNSTILE

Glow On

#11 POM POM SQUAD

Death of a Cheerleader

#12 WHILE SHE, SLEEPS

Sleep Society

#13 NOTHING, NOWHERE

trauma factory

The Bitter Truth

Modern Escapism

Life In Your Glass World

#16 AMYL & THE SNIFFERS

Comfort To Me

#17 AFI Bodies 56 Upset

No Gods No Masters Mood Ring

#37 COLEEN GREEN Cool

#38 TIGERCUB

As Blue As Indigo

#39 SPIRITBOX

Eternal Blue

#40 WAGE WAR #23 PARQUET COURTS Manic Sympathy For Life #41 BEACH BUNNY #24 LAKES

Blame Game

Start Again #42 BULLET FOR MY #25 MAYDAY VALENTINE PARADE

Bullet For My Valentine

What It Means To Fall Apart #43 WILD PINK #26 CITIZEN

A Billion Little Lights

#27 CLOSER

#44 THE MAINE

#28 BEARTOOTH Below

#45 ILLUMINATI HOTTIES

#29 SLEEPWALKER

#46 EVERY TIME I DIE

Within One Stem

Atlas

#30 SEEYOUSPACE COWBOY

The Romance Of Affliction

#14 THE DEAD DEADS #31 GLITTERER

Tell Your Girls It’s Alright Life Is Not A Lesson #15 THRICE #32 ADULT MOM Horizons/East

Driver

#33 SINCERE ENGINEER

Bless My Psyche

#34 ROYAL BLOOD Typhoons

XOXO

Let Me Do One More

Radical

#47 YOU ME AT SIX Suckapunch

#48 HOLDING ABSENCE

The Greatest Mistake of My Life

#49 AMERICAN TEETH

We Should Be Having Fun

#50 THE PRETTY RECKLESS

Death By Rock and Roll

Rated.

THE OFFICIAL VERDICT ON EVERYTHING

others fail to reach. DAN HARRISON

Andy Shauf Wilds

eeee A surprise album release isn’t necessary the novelty it once was, but to those in the know, Andy Shauf more than holds the attention.

Recorded at the same time as last year’s ‘The Neon Skyline’, ‘Wilds’ is as much a companion piece to its predecessor as it is a record in its own right - nine songs culled from fifty, created at a point when Shauf lost confidence in ‘The Neon Skyline’’s central narrative. To shake the block, he switched to writing songs about a woman named Judy. It’s the emotions and ideas beneath the surface that really give ‘Walls’ its impact, though. A flipped coin on an existing story, difficult emotions and new perspectives make it an occasionally painful but always satisfying vignette; one that proves Andy Shauf’s innate talent beyond doubt.

DAN HARRISON

Can’t Swim

Change of Plans

eeee

Over recent EPs, Can’t Swim have delivered a varied selection of styles, ideas and genre-hued tints, but third-album ‘Change of Plans’ sees the quintet in many ways returning to their roots.

That doesn’t mean they’re not still pushing new ideas, but rather casting these thoughts through a satisfyingly tense prism of post-hardcore aggression.

Teaming up with Beartooth’s Caleb Shomo, ‘Set The Room Ablaze’ has especially sharp teeth - an immediate calling card for a band who continue to hit the spots

Kills Birds

romantic and tragic, with songs lamenting themes of love, loss and longing.

Derek Sanders’ voice is warm and gentle yet carries an audible ache.

There is a great variety of introspective acoustic numbers and classic poppunk anthems on display here. From the pianobacked isolation of ‘Bad a different textured At Love’ to the energetic palette on show - lush, ‘If My Ghosts Don’t Play, enveloping and timeless, I Don’t Play’, every track it’s a collection that offers is as strong as the last. a new perspective on Mayday Parade continue an artist at a time where to prove themselves we’re all discovering new a cornerstone of emo. things about ourselves.

KELSEY MCCLURE A low-key gem. DAN HARRISON

from their 2018 debut album ‘Merci’, ‘Another Kill For The Highlight Reel’ is an eccentric and deeply unapologetic theatrical force with emopop firmly at its core, lyrically driven by death, blood and vampires.

Though amusing, the album doesn’t quite hit nostalgia, but more endearing confusion.

You really do have to commend them, though, for sticking it out consistently over 11 tracks. JASLEEN DHINDSA

Weakened Friends

Married

eeee With fans in Kim Gordon and Dave Grohl, it’s no surprise that the debut album from LA noisy newbies Kills Birds is a feat. The trio are fronted

by Bosnian-Canadian singer and visual artist Nina Ljeti, whose incomparable vocals strike a chord from the first moments of opener’ Rabbit’. Hitting you hard, Nina’s voice is fraught and confrontational. “I’m not like the other girls,” she sings frankly, with a hint of irony. ‘Married’ is a record bursting with gems that lean into the heavier side of alt-rock.

Second track ‘Cough Up Cherries’ is mid-00s emo at its finest, while ‘Offside’ balances the delicate with the fuzzy in a hardy and euphoric mix akin to Deftones. The delicate acoustic of the titletrack provides a stirring final stop on what’s a consistently powerful first move from the punk rock outfit. JASLEEN DHINDSA

than a genuine question.

Opening with a brutal punch, it’s recent single ‘Bend’ that proves there’s more than one string to Volumes’ bow, though.

Mixing melody with a satisfying gut-punch, it marks a record that can live both above and below in a way so many struggle to match. Those hard yards make a difference. DAN HARRISON

Orchards

SeeYou Space Cowboy

Quitter

eeee

Life in a mid-tier band is often far glamorous, and The Romance Of from Weakened Friends “I always say I’ll never Affliction know that more than write lyrics about most. The Portland In a genre where something I haven’t trio has encountered everything is always personally experienced, Two weeks after numerous obstacles, angry, it’s easy to and at this point I’ve SeeYouSpaceCowboy from sexist soundmen to feel like sometimes experienced enough finished recording their band-member changes those frustrations are in the last year to last second full-length ‘The and airline woes, many performative at best. me a lifetime.” That’s Romance Of Affliction, of which are worked Not so much for Like how Orchards vocalist frontwoman Sgarbossa through on second fullPacific. ‘Control My Lucy Evers introduces nearly died from a drug length ‘Quitter’. Whether Sanity’ has a title that ‘Trust Issues’ - an EP overdose. It’s that kind of it’s talking about burnout more than understands crafted from a period darkness that envelops on lead single ‘Quitter’ the assignment. Born of discovery, both of an album that finds or existing in a capitalist during the start of the ourselves and those comfort in the collapse machine on ‘Spew’, coronavirus pandemic, around us. A collection - a brutal struggle to ‘Quitter’ paints a picture songs were written over of unusual, difficult or pull through and find of a band treading water video chats and iPhone othering emotions, it meaning in chaos. If as they fight to stay demos - an experience manages to take the nothing else, it’s honest. afloat. Nevertheless, that took a toll on the hard stuff and make it Personal lyrics delivered Weakened Friends seem ADHD of vocalist Jordan sound like hope. ‘Drive with a hard punch to to take some enjoyment, Black. It’s that cathartic Me Home’ deals with release that runs through the moment where we’re the gut, it’s anything but however scant, from loud for the sake of it. this chaos. Here, they’ve the record - every yelled forced to care for those chorus a cathartic release. who haven’t necessarily Every scream and shout perfectly married is earned a release of lyricist Sonia Sturino’s Melodic and immediate, earned it, while ‘Wrong something heartfelt. pessimistic worldview it’s also a tensed muscle, Shoes’ is the moment with some devilishly In your face, tense primed to release. DAN the curtain lifts on infectious indie-punk, and essential, it’s an HARRISON someone not being resulting in their finest album of juxtapositions quite who we thought. collection of songs to that makes perfect A reminder of just why date. ‘Tunnels’ might Orchards are one of the sense. Essential. DAN deal with anxiety and HARRISON UK’s best bands yet to awkwardness, but you’ll make it massive. DAN be hard pushed to find HARRISON a finer chorus in 2021, while opener ‘Bargain Bin’ is a lyrically frayed Mayday but musically lush midLaura-Mary Parade paced standout. And, just when Weakened Carter What It Means To Friends find themselves Town Called Volumes staring into the abyss, Fall Apart Nothing instead of freefalling Happier? to their doom, Sturino Save Face Long-reigning emo leads her charges to Another Kill For ‘Town Called Nothing’ royalty, Mayday Parade salvation with ‘The Last Sometimes you have The Highlight might not be the solo provide yet another Ten’, a winning reminder to travel a long way to mini-album you’d expect staple to the scene. ‘What Reel of all the small joys that get back to where you to get from Blood Red It Means To Fall Apart’ life and being in a band started. That’s the tale Shoes Laura-Mary brings. An album that is an album that oozes of Volumes’ new album Carter - best known pure nostalgia, with ‘Happier?’, an album both confronts hardships On a first listen, you head on – and mercifully for shredding her way the bright and bouncy might think New Jersey’s inspired by the journey, not in a ‘woe is me’ pity through brooding, spitting opening track ‘Kids Of but more secure in its Save Face have written melodic indie-punk The Summer’ instantly own skin. Reunited with party – ‘Quitter’ is not an album parodying My anthems - but that’s transporting listeners Chemical Romance, but if original vocalist Michael only a musical triumph part of its charm. From back to those beloved they were on Broadway. Barr, there’s a heaviness but also one of human summers at Warped opening track ‘Blue’s that makes its title more resilience and resolve.

You probably aren’t far ROB MAIR Tour. This album is both from the truth. A far cry of a rhetorical query Not My Colour’ there’s

eeee

Like Pacific

Control My Sanity

eee

Trust Issues

eeee

eeeee

eeee

eee

ee

Upset 57

EVERYONE HAS THOSE FORMATIVE BANDS AND TRACKS THAT FIRST GOT THEM INTO MUSIC AND HELPED SHAPE THEIR VERY BEING. THIS MONTH, EDITH FROM MEET ME @ THE ALTAR TAKES US THROUGH SOME OF THE SONGS THAT MEANT THE MOST TO HER DURING HER TEENAGE YEARS. WITH... EDITH JOHNSON, MEET ME @ THE ALTAR Photo: Lindsey Byrnes.

First off! I would just like to say that I have a Spotify playlist called ‘What Started It All’ that has all of the first emo / pop-punk / metalcore songs I first ever listened to. It’s called ‘What Started It All’ because it highlights all the songs that led me into the “Warped Tour scene”, which then awakened me into realising I wanted to be in a band. I simply fell in love with this music, and these songs changed my life and steered the course of my career and dreams. These are some of the songs that really DID start it all for me.

BRING ME THE HORIZON Can You Feel My Heart

This is the first EVER memory I have of listening to a song in a “harder” genre. I was 14 years old at the time, scrolling my way through Youtube. I saw the video for ‘Can You Feel My Heart’ in the Recommended Videos tab on the side of my computer screen. I clicked on it, not even imagining what it could be. While watching this, my mind was flooded with love and excitement; I just KNEW that I found something special and amazing in every which way.

This video and song did change my life! BMTH still reigns one of my ALL TIME FAVOURITE bands of ALL TIME. There is simply no one like them! I get emotional talking about them sometimes because they were the FIRST band that showed me the world of alternative music.

A DAY TO REMEMBER Downfall Of Us All

Don’t we all LOVE A Day To Remember? This band was everything to me, and still is. This was one of the first “meshed genre” songs I got into, which gave me comfort and made me even more excited about the scene I was falling in love with.

As a young emo who loved

58 Upset

pop-punk just as much as they loved harder music, A Day To Remember opened my eyes to the possibilities this scene had to offer. “Downfall Of Us All” is the perfect mix of harder and softer sounds. The mix of pop-punk and metalcore in this song is a MASTERPIECE. Fourteen-yearold Edith had this song on repeat for YEAAARSSS! This song opened my mind to the realisation that pop-punk could sound just as hard as any other heavy genre! This song still stands as one of my favourite songs ever written. (ADTR is also a dream tour for me).

the lyrics. As a punk / emo and passionate kid who would never bend on their beliefs, I really resonated with “I’d die for what I believe, than live a life without meaning.”

ISSUES Hooligans

I found this song through ‘Can You Feel My Heart’ by BMTH’S Related Videos tab when I was fourteen! After falling in love with ‘Can You Feel My Heart’, I had to find more like it! FUN FACT: Issues was actually my FIRST EVER show. This was the show, that also started it all for me. It’s the show I realised I wanted to be in a band as well. I was fourteen years old, the lineup was Issues, PVRIS, Bad Seed Rising, and Life Cycles a couple of other Atlanta local For me, this song meant and bands. This show was also at my means a lot. Not only because it favourite venue, The Masquerade, was one of the first heavier songs in Atlanta, GA. After that show, that I heard, but also because of my love for the scene and that

THE WORD ALIVE

venue was solidified. I now have a tattoo of The Masquerade logo, and Issues bassist Skyler Accord loves my band! (He quote tweeted our ‘Garden’ video clip on Twitter a couple months ago saying that we were stars.)

OF MICE AND MEN The Depths

At fifteen, I actually found Of Mice And Men through Pierce The Veil. This was the first song I heard by them. “The Depths” is a pretty heavy song, so it was the perfect song to itch all my angst!

Listening to this song just felt right; I loved it so much and still do. Of Mice And Men still stand as one of my favourite past times, and I’m so happy I found this song and band when I did. It solidified my love for Warped Tour and Warped Tour culture more than anything. P

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