Upset, June 2022 (Stand Atlantic)

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NOAHFINNCE State Champs Taking Back Sunday

Stand Atlantic.

“I love making sure people don’t know what to expect”

JUNE 2022 Issue 77

RIOT 4. TAKING BACK SUNDAY 8. PEANESS 10. NORWAY HOME 16. STATIC DRESS 18. GHOST ABOUT TO BREAK 20. GILT 22. CRAWLERS FEATURES 24. STAND ATLANTIC 32. NOAHFINNCE 40. STATE CHAMPS 44. MEMPHIS MAY FIRE 50. DE’WAYNE

Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Scribblers Alexander Bradley, Dan Harrison, Jack Press, Kelsey McClure, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Snappers Brooke Marsh, Christopher K. George, Derek Bremner, Frances Beach, Kay Dargs, Natalie Escobido, Olli Appleyard, Patrick Gunning, Sarah Louise Bennett, Tom Berridge 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. Distributed nationally.

HELLO. Exciting bands are always worth a magazine cover - but what do you do when you have two that fizz and bang so much you want to stick them on the front of an issue at the same time? Easy - you do both. This month’s edition of Upset has two separate cover features.

Stand Atlantic have been wowing us with their technicolour brilliance for a while now, while NOAHFINNCE is more freshly through the door, but no less

vibrant. You’ll find both in this issue, and can pick up two different variations featuring each of them on the cover in your usual stockists. Bigger is always better, right?

S tephen

Editor / @stephenackroyd

Riot.

THIS MONTH >>>

There’s something exciting happening in Norway - a group of bands at the forefront of a thriving new wave of emo. Spielbergs, Onsloow and Flight Mode check in. p.10

EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK

The Big Story

“With any record, the second that it’s released, it’s no longer yours” Twenty years since the release of ‘Tell All Your Friends’, Taking Back Sunday are looking back on an iconic album.

Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Natalie Escobido, Christopher K. George.

4 Upset

Olli Appleyard runs through Static Dress’ ambitious debut album, from front to back. p.16

Ghost embrace their most theatrical urges at London’s O2. p.22

Upset 5

I

t doesn’t feel like it’s been twenty years since Taking Back Sunday paved the way for 00s emo with their debut album, ‘Tell All Your Friends’. Along with various other Tri-State area bands - some we don’t talk about anymore, and some eventually who transcended any idea of what a small band from a small town could do - they let us know that it’s okay to not be okay.

Having a moment in your life trigger a chain reaction, essentially changing your trajectory forever, is an experience we all eventually go through. But having one that helps shape an entire culture? That’s something unique. For Adam Lazzara and Taking Back Sunday, it was ‘Tell All Your Friends’.

“It’s wild. I can remember vividly the day that it came out,” vocalist Adam begins, wandering down memory lane. “And like where we were. It’s so crazy because it feels no time has passed at all, but it also feels like a lifetime ago.”

The early-00s felt both promising and unknown. The world had not long turned into a new millennium, and culture was in somewhat of a fractured state. Pop-punk was bouncing all over the place, while nu-metal did its best to force together rap and metal like a petulant child attempting a jigsaw. In alternative music, there was a need for something more.

Something sincere.

O

riginally formed in 1999, after undergoing various line-up changes, it wasn’t until Adam was recruited into the fold - initially as a bassist – that Taking Back Sunday found the form immortalised on ‘Tell All Your Friends’. Alongside founding guitarist Eddie

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Reyes, guitarist John Nolan, bassist Shaun Cooper and drummer Mark O’Connell, what came next is the stuff of musical legend.

Recorded in the winter of 2001 in New Jersey and released in March 2002 on Victory Records, the band’s debut was a blistering, clattering snapshot of adolescence and angst.

With its post-hardcore roots and heart-on-sleeve emo, Taking Back Sunday set a gold standard. Its impact on those who found it, though, was equally as significant.

Reflecting on the moment ‘Tell All Your Friends’ took flight, after hunkering down and spilling his guts on the page, Adam offers that “with any record, the second that it’s released, it’s no longer yours.”

“You just happen to be there when it was being made,” he continues. “As it’s been twenty years, we’re able to see the impact these songs have had. One of our goals was always to reach as many people as we could.”

The burn for Taking Back Sunday and ‘Tell All Your Friends’ was a slow one. Achieving decent initial sales, as time went by, they soon began clocking up into the hundreds of thousands, eventually reaching into the dizzying millions. As Adam’s favourite music helped him understand his feelings, giving him validation in them, so did he to so many more as word spread. “All these years later,” he says, “to be able to know and like see that, ‘Oh man, we weren’t alone in feeling like that, because here are all these other people, and it seems like they felt the same way’ - I think that’s just a beautiful thing.”

Knowing that you’ve reached a wide audience, not only in terms of attentive ears,

“It’s so crazy because it feels no time has passed at all, but it also feels like a lifetime ago” Adam Lazzara but that lives are being eased through your own experiences is any musician’s ultimate goal. Being in their early twenties at the time, with the whirlwind of attention and building expectation, Adam admits, “it was really wild, and it was hard sometimes not to get wrapped up in it or the hype.” However, the biggest question that ultimately came out of ‘Tell All Your Friends’ was, “how do we grow in a way that’s in line with how we want to grow as humans?”

With a network of their families, friends and

peers, Taking Back Sunday navigated this period.

But problems developed, leading to further line-up changes with Shaun and John departing in 2003.

Now older, looking back at making it through mostly unscathed, to the point where all could reunite in 2010, is a testament to the draw of the band’s individual components.

“We were together last week, talking about how Mark and Shaun have had the same group of friends since elementary school,” Adam says. “It’s the wildest thing, and I think it’s beautiful. I think that

was a big help for them to help keep their feet on the ground.”

Twenty years is a long time for anything, let alone to be in the same band (Adam and Mark are the two sole founding members to have weathered the entire twenty years, Eddie left in 2018). Equally, the world has changed a hell of a lot. These days it’s all everything now, but back in 2002, there was a slower pace, which lent itself to the slow-burning urgency of bands like Taking Back Sunday and their reckoning with the deepest and darkest of emotions.

On what he misses from that time, Adam admits, chuckling, “how little responsibility there was.

The naivety of it. I mean, that was probably one of the things that made it special for me. You can go back and remember those times, and the people that were around and the good

and bad, [but] then you close the book put it back on the shelf.

“Immediately, that Rod Stewart song pops up in my head. ‘I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger’, because there are definitely some things we would have handled differently. But at the same time, it probably wouldn’t have turned out the same, so we’re just happy for what it was.”

Digging out the boxes of photographs from this period for the physical release, Adam reckons it was akin to flicking through an old yearbook. “I had found a bunch of photos from our first tour, and you’re looking at this stuff like, ‘Oh my god, we were kids. This is insane.’”

For all this, Taking Back Sunday are a band that refuses to let the past dictate their future.

In embracing both the anniversary of ‘Tell All

Your Friends’ and their own twentieth back in 2019, it’s acknowledging where they’ve come from and just how far they’re continuing to go. “We can spend some time there, but I don’t want to stay there long. I’ve already been there,” says Adam.

The spectre of ‘Tell All Your Friends’ did linger.

How could it not, given everything it achieved?

Adam naturally fell into being “riddled with these insecurities, like, is it good enough?” But over the years since, they’ve released six further albums, shifting from the raw kinetic energy of that emo sound into sturdier, fraught rock.

After the archive rummaging and being thrust back to that heady time of fringes as imposing as the feelings they sang of, with all said and done, is there anything Adam would say to his younger self?

“I would just tell myself to be cool,” he gleams after a pause. “Just be cool, man.

It’s gonna be okay. I’m a worrier - I inherited that but looking back now, I’m sure other people could relate to the feeling of ‘Man, why was I so worried all the time?’ It’s fine.

Everything’s fine. Just calm down. For some reason, I don’t know if it’s human nature or just something in me that it’s so much easier to just focus and harp on the negative even when there are just all these positive things happening all around you. That’s a skill I think that I’ll be working on for some time.”

C

ertainly, legacy is a hefty term. It conjures images of dusty old books or people past their prime, something Taking Back Sunday certainly are not. But there’s no doubt that with ‘Tell All Your Friends’, a legacy is something that Adam and co. created. “I don’t know,” he coyly laughs. “I think we’re still working on that.

For us, we all still feel like we have a ways to go. So to start thinking in terms of legacy or anything like that is difficult for me. I didn’t even start thinking in the long term until maybe just a few years ago. So we’re still figuring that part out.”

There’s no denying Taking Back Sunday’s debut became a fraught time for the band, involving further line-up changes, interpersonal conflicts, and a dizzying amount of new, complex emotions to deal with. But throughout it all, one thing remained; Taking Back Sunday were the doused log thrown to the already smouldering kindling of emo, lighting a lifesaving beacon which still shines bright twenty years later. ■ Taking Back Sunday’s reissue of debut album ‘Tell All Your Friends’ is out 27th May. Upset 7

Riot.

Peaness’ Everything you need to know about...

new album

‘World Full

Of Worry’

Photo: Derek Bremner.

on being a full-on cheese-fest. ‘irl’ was almost a completely different song and had a different title for ages until we decided that it just didn’t suit us.

Chester trio Peaness - Jessica Branney, Rachel Williams and Carleia Balbenta - are nearly a decade, umpteen live sets and several irresistible bangers deep, and now it’s time for their aptly-titled debut album, ‘World Full Of Worry’. The band let us in on some behind-thescenes titbits.

RECORDING THE ALBUM We recorded our album ‘World Full of Worry’ in North Wales with our good friend Russ Hayes at Orange Sound Recording Studio. It’s where we’ve gone to record since day one. The opening song to the album is called ‘Take A Trip’, and it’s about our journey to and from the studio. The waves and walking that you can hear in the song is actually us walking around on the beach recording

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on Jess’ [Branney - bass + vocals] phone! We love being in the studio and working with Russ. I think after all of these years working with us he understands our process. We would have an absolute chore on our hands trying to explain things in the way we do to anyone else.

THE SONGWRITING All of the album songs were written prepandemic, and we were actually set to release the album a lot sooner, but being a touring band, it felt right to wait until we were able to get back on the road, so we could perform it in all its glory.

It’s our collective brainchild, and we’re very proud of it. We’re all involved in the writing process, and the songs come from our own personal experiences, frustrations and relationships. We try to avoid writing ‘Love Songs’ as such.

We’ve tried, but because instrumentally our songs are so upbeat, it can border

THE ALBUM IN-JOKES We’ve got so many little in-jokes about this album now. Our audience might catch us having a cheeky giggle on stage, or looking at each other and smiling at some of the lines in certain songs. Like every time we play ‘Kaizen’ we all sing in our heads, “getting it done, yeah”. In ‘What’s The Use’, there’s a line “so if I picture us outside”, which when we sing it sounds like “picture Russ outside”. For a while, before it was edited out, Jess was recorded trying to get the note before coming in for the final chorus of ‘What’s The Use’ and just sang “wuh-wuh”, so that’s in our head every time we play it. There’s a muted track on ‘Girl Just Relax’ that has a line from The Simpsons theme tune, and ‘Hurts ‘Til It Doesn’t’ was called ‘Beatles Song’ for ages due to Rach [Williams - drums] channelling her inner Ringo Starr.

THIS IS A “COMING OF AGE” ALBUM And when we say that, we all came of age a bloody long time ago, but it really feels like we’ve grown together with this album. Our writing has matured in a way that there’s a lot more time and thought that’s gone into the production, and lyrically we feel more comfortable being open, honest and vulnerable with ourselves and our audience about our struggles. We’ve been through a lot both together and separately, and we channel all of this into Peaness. You can have a good bop to our music, but the lyrics are what create that classic Peaness juxtaposition...hence the album full of sad bangers. ■ Peaness’ album ‘World Full of Worry’ is out now.

way

Flight Mode: Sjur Lyseid, Eirik Kirkemyr, Anders Blom

Nor There’s something exciting happening in Norway - a group of bands at the forefront of a thriving new wave of emo.

Spielbergs, Onsloow and Flight Mode check in.

Words: Rob Mair. Photos: Kay Dargs, Brooke Marsh.

10 Upset

Onsloow: Mathias Nylenna, Johanne Rimul, Lasse Berg, Morten Samdal

home I

Spielbergs: Christian Løvhaug, Mads Baklien, Stian Brennskag

f they like you abroad, you get Norway for free,” comes the disembodied voice from Flight Mode’s rehearsal studio. The band are in the middle of their fourth practice ever, even though with the release of EP ‘Torshov ‘05’, the Oslo-based group have a perfect eightsong discography.

Vocalist Sjur Lyseid jokes they’ve recorded more singles than they’ve had band practices. If it seems like a back-to-front way of approaching music, then little about making emo-inspired music is straightforward in Norway.

With few cities to play in, and a small but dedicated fanbase, Norwegian artists must focus their efforts abroad to get attention.

Sometimes acts, scenes, and trends stick – ask the casual fan on the street, and they might mention A-Ha, Sigrid or even black metal – but Norway’s geography is not conducive to supporting an indie-rock scene like those found in the UK or the US. Yet, against the odds, the Norwegian emo scene is thriving, with a handful of acts on the cusp of breaking out. Onsloow’s Mathias Nylenna calls this ‘the third wave of Norwegian indie-

rock’. Oslo’s Spielbergs are the most advanced of the acts associated with it, yet other bands are garnering attention too. Both Flight Mode and Trondheim-based Onsloow have met with overseas acclaim over the last 12 months, while Killer Kid Mozart, Lazy Queen and This Daze continue to build their profiles nationally and internationally. So, what better time to bring together these titans of Norwegian indie-rock to find out just what the frick is going on?

T

o understand the current landscape, you need to go back two decades. Norway used to have a thriving hardcore and emo-core scene, of which Spielberg’s drummer Christian Løvhaug (as part of Dogpile) and Onsloow’s Mathias Nylenna (Angora Static) – alongside many of today’s players – were part.

Fast forward ten years, and, echoing the burgeoning emo revival scene in the States, a more nuanced sound emerged. It centred around Youth Pictures of Florence Henderson, who were picked up by doyens of the scene Count Your Lucky Stars.

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A veritable ‘who’s who’ of Norwegian indie, the post-rock inspired group specialised in long-form cuts with vast swathes of instrumental passages.

It’s no surprise they found themselves a fan in Empire!

Empire! I Was A Lonely Estate’s Keith Latinen.

Today, members of Youth Pictures of Florence Henderson can be found in Onsloow (Morten Samdal – who also runs the influential How Is Annie? record label) and Flight Mode (Anders Blom Nilsen). At this point, it’s also worth mentioning Monzano and The Little Hands of Asphalt too, both of which came from the furtive imagination of Flight Mode’s Sjur Lyseid and rose to prominence during this period.

With such a small and interlinked scene, it’s little surprise to learn that Christian, Mathias and Sjur are, first and foremost, friends. Onsloow found themselves playing with Spielbergs a couple of days before we talk, while pictures on social media showed members of Onsloow and Flight Mode hanging out at the show.

“In a strange way, it feels like it’s all come together at the same time,” says Christian.

“Of course, we all saw more of each other a decade ago, but now we’re all in bands again at the same time; it’s funny to think about how they’re all somehow relevant to each other.”

“We were all in bands that were big around here maybe ten or fifteen years ago, but I feel it’s easier to do something that has a very specific sound and for that to find an audience,” continues Sjur. “Like, Norway’s so small. You’re either in the mainstream, or you’re playing to ten people.

“And that’s true for metal or hip-hop bands too. It’s not just for bands like us. If three bands are doing this style of music, then we’re probably the only three bands.”

“Not many people in Norway listened to emo 20 years ago, but everyone who did started a band,” concludes Mathias.

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“Norway’s so small.

You’re either in the mainstream, or you’re playing to ten people” Sjur Lyseid, Flight Mode This statement certainly rings true for Spielbergs, Onsloow and Flight Mode.

Whether it’s the frenetic indie-pop of The Anniversary, the sombre narratives and buzzsaw guitars of the Weakerthans or the propulsive energy of Braid, there’s evident love and acknowledgement for emo’s golden era refracted through every band.

This sense of nostalgia also translates to the lyrics and, through happenstance, is echoed in Spielbergs’ recent single ‘Brother of Mine’ and Flight Mode’s ‘Twentyfour’ – which oddly feel like different sides of the same coin.

But, as much as nostalgia is a valuable creative crutch, it can only take you so far. All three bands are interested in capturing a time and a place, but are eager to not simply repeat the past. With bruising experiences of the music industry behind

them – and wiser heads on their shoulders – the current outlook of the groups is one of low-key enjoyment and the desire to embrace the creative process without thinking about big breaks or asking ‘what does it all mean?’

“Music is my job, but Flight Mode is my hobby,” says Sjur, a producer, mixer and sound engineer. Through this work, he connected with Flight Mode’s Anders and Eirik Kirkemyr (also of Dråpe).

Anders and Eirik had worked together as part of Ben Leiper, alongside Youth Pictures of Florence Henderson’s Gjermund Jappée, the act closest sonically to Flight Mode.

Indeed, to further evidence the tight-knit nature of the scene, a little inside joke shared by the members of Flight Mode can be seen in the track names of Monzano’s ‘The Buildings, Then the Trees’ and Ben Leiper’s

wondrously brilliant ‘The Trees, Then the Buildings’.

Ultimately, Flight Mode is a band borne from relationships that are several years old – as well as an evident and shared love for The Weakerthans, which runs through the output of Flight Mode and Ben Leiper.

“It’s so nice to be in a band that has that sort of energy where it is something that we can do for fun. For example, I can drink beer when we rehearse,” laughs Sjur in conclusion.

“I agree. That’s why we started Spielbergs, too,” continues Christian. “We wanted to do something fun again. But suddenly, you get a lot of responsibilities, and it’s hard to keep it fun. Maybe it’s got a little more serious than what we meant to at the start.”

For Spielbergs, success all happened by chance. A lucky encounter with Prescription PR’s James Parrish at a festival led to the creation of a label to push Spielbergs to the UK market. At the time, the group had put out one single on a tiny label. “The only thing I can remember was that show was extremely loud, and I had no idea what we sounded like,” laughs Christian. “It might have kicked everything off for us, but it was a shit gig!”

But what Spielbergs’ success has meant is a steady focus on Norwegian indie-rock - something that’s only intensified over the last

PURENOISESTOREUK.COM

18 months following their switch to Big Scary Monsters and Fysisk Format. Flight Mode, meanwhile, have found themselves on the boutique label Sound As Language, run by former Tiny Engines publicist Will Miller, while Onsloow have teamed up with hip US label Friend Club and How Is Annie? to release their self-titled debut. Yet despite label backing, all three bands maintain a fierce DIY spirit, epitomised by their willingness to push the music themselves.

“Something that’s common between all three bands is that we still do a lot of stuff ourselves,” says Christian.

“We’ve been in bands for so long, and we know so many people that we’re happy just sharing songs via messenger or whatever. Like, ‘we know this person at this label might like it, let’s send it over’.”

“We picked up that DIY spirit from when we were younger,” attests Sjur, acknowledging that Kirkemyr has done a lot of the legwork to get Flight Mode’s EPs out to people and onto the radar of Sound as Language.

This openness extends to promoting other bands’ work, too, meaning it has the feel of a supportive and progressive scene, with each act championing the others while simultaneously spurring each other on to greater heights.

“We wouldn’t promote each other’s work if we didn’t enjoy them,” says Mathias, a journalist and broadcaster by trade. “I love Flight Mode, and

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I love Spielbergs, ever since I first heard their music. In fact, I think I was one of the first people to write about Spielbergs, and that was long before I started to think about getting back into music.”

“It is really supportive,” says Sjur. “Even though we all know each other from way back, and we don’t really see each other much these days, we still go to each other’s shows. I don’t think it was as supportive as this for a lot of years. Now it feels like we’re growing because other bands are growing, and that’s great.”

exist in a semi-permanent stasis. For example, there was an eight-year gap between The Little Hands of Asphalt’s ‘Floors’ and ‘Half Empty’, while even Flight Mode’s first EP consisted of songs written and recorded four years before release. Ben Leiper, meanwhile, have two more songs written and have recently announced a one-off acoustic living room show.

Their last singles all dropped in 2018.

Spielbergs are perhaps more solid in this regard, but they still must fight to balance what makes them happy with the stuff that makes being in he camaraderie a band a chore. With Norway reflects what’s a limited market, it means currently happening having to find moderate in the UK scene, success abroad too, and it’s not – which brings us hard to draw back to the point: parallels. For ‘If they like you example, a UK abroad, then you emo Discord Key bands: get Norway for channel has Killer Kid Mozart, Slotface, Probleman, Ben free.’ taken wings and Leiper, Hammock, The “It’s easier is being used to Little Hands of Asphalt, to build a crowd elevate bands, Lazy Queen, This Daze, in the UK or discuss gig Morfar, Avind, Monzano Europe,” says swaps, and help Christian. “More promote acts Key labels: people attend How Is Annie? Fysisk to a broader Format, Slow Down our shows in audience. It Records, Furuberget London than harks back to in Oslo – even the DIY days Key festivals: though the press of yore but Indiefjord has been really simply utilises into us here.” modern digital Mathias says tools instead of mail-order that he can’t see Onsloow catalogues and dusty touring much domestically Filofaxes. or in Europe, although he’s There are questions loved getting on the road in around sustainability, previous bands. Here, the however. Many bands in ambitions are modest and – Norway are short-lived or

T

FACT FILE

hopefully – easy to meet. “We will mostly about becoming a better live band,” he says.

“We’ll play Oslo, Trondheim and Bergen – maybe a festival if they’re interested – but I’d like to keep making records and putting out songs. But touring Norway? It can never be about making money.”

For Sjur, the aims are much more complicated. By focussing locally, he can only see a path to frustration, but he’s also been around the music business long enough to know not to take anything for granted.

He says Flight Mode haven’t really thought about playing in Norway as the limit for the market for their band might only be 500 people.

“You can play Olso, Trondheim and Bergen, and anywhere else you’re playing to 15 people who don’t really care,” he says.

While this might make Sjur sound burned out, he’s also a self-confessed contrarian.

There’s no question that he’s been stoked about the response to the first Flight Mode EP, both domestically and internationally. But instead, he hopes the success of Flight Mode will inspire the next generation of Norwegian indie-rockers.

Regardless of what success looks like in the long term, Onsloow, Spielbergs and Flight Mode have all helped create a scene based around nostalgia and a sound that harks back to indie-rock and emo’s breakthrough era. All three may sound different, but you can see the throughlines, the shared influences and the respect they have for each other.

“I feel like we’re all revisiting our youth,” says Sjur. “We’re all doing what we would have done in 1998.

You can’t unlearn the 20 years that have passed, so what you’ve got is a skewed version of that; maybe a better version of that. Trying to be young and stupid again isn’t possible.” ■ Onsloow’s self-titled album and Flight Mode’s debut EP ‘Torshov ‘05’ are out now; Spielbergs’ new album is out later this year.

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Static Dress TRACK BY TRACK

Rouge Carpet Disaster

Olli Appleyard runs through his band’s ambitious debut album, from front to back.

FLEAHOUSE

This song is the opener of the record, which is the immediate continuation of the last moments of ‘Prologue’. We thought it was necessary to include a seamless transition both audibly and in a narrative sense behind the two chapters. This paints the scene and describes the setting we find ourselves in at the true beginning of this story.

SWEET

This song is a hyperfocus into the scenario of our two main characters through very self-destructive but almost cathartic settings at the same time. From the very chaotic intro and the emotional verses, we see extremely polarised points of view, and that is something that’s extremely important to the protagonist’s tale.

PUSH ROPE

This is definitely a new sonic path and a different taste of the Static Dress palette. Rather than relying on impactful moments, ‘Push rope’ lives within the balance, and that’s something we’d never tried

before.

ATTEMPT 8

‘Attempt 8’ is a very personal, deep cut kind of song. It really scratches the itch of the colours we hint at within this record. It’s definitely the easiest song to listen to on the album, but it also acts as a slingshot for the following track.

COURTNEY, JUST RELAX

From following the most sombre moment on the record, we are propelled into the most aggressive that this band has ever sounded. Playing this one live, it leaves people on edge as it just keeps on getting heavier and never lets up. We wrote this song as a way of having each section try to outdo the one prior to it.

DI-SINTER FT. KING YOSEF

This one explores the more production-focused side of this band. There are a lot more electronic elements and digital reinforcement.

When writing this one, I knew I needed a different voice and a different texture, and Yosef was the perfect candidate for just that. He brings a sound that I could never produce or imitate.

SUCH.A.SHAME

One of the more melancholic tracks on the

record, ‘such.a.shame’ leans into a world that we didn’t touch before, but we very much will in the future. This song allows a break from all the aggression but still gives you something to bop your head to. This song was crafted to break away from tags and umbrella genres that we’ve been pushed into through no choice of our own.

…MAYBE!!?

One of the first songs written for this record. This song provides you with a more classic Static Dress sound, while incorporating electronic elements that really show how far we’ve come single playing together.

LYE SOLUTION

Very much similar to ‘Disinter’, this song expands into a more productionbased form of composition to show just how far we can push a heavy rock song. This song is the one I pushed my vocals hardest on. The vocals are absolutely relentless, and in that last section, we wanted to find out how much of an impact we can have just by using raw, organic instrumentation without relying on layering to force anything.

UNEXPLAINABLE TITLESLEAVING YOUWONDERING WHY (WELCOME IN)

This was the fastest song

written on the record. It was completed in almost three takes. We wanted to be as raw as we could possibly be, packing as much of a punch as we could in under two minutes.

MARISOL

This is a very personal track. This has probably the widest range of instruments we’ve used in a track; we have a live string section mixed with real field recordings to create a soundscape to paint a picture that surrounds a very deep and emotional. This was originally going to be the album’s end, but we didn’t see it fit to leave people with tears in their eyes.

This song feels like the perfect “credits start to roll” moment.

CUBICAL DIALOGUE

From that “credits start to roll moment”, this is the outro to the sonic movie we’ve aimed to create. This song is there to leave a good taste in your mouth with regards to the journey we’ve taken the listener on. This track revisits lyrical themes from the other songs, while acting as a bow on the top of this album, our gift to all those who have stuck with us.

Static Dress’ debut album ‘Rouge Carpet Disaster’ is out 18th May. Upset 17

Live Report

Ghost embrace their most theatrical urges at London’s O2 Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Frances Beach.

18 Upset

The O2, London 11th April 2022

L

ed by a demonic anti-pop, Ghost have spent their decade-long career being championed as the next Metallica. And while their stadium-sized ambitions are very much on show tonight as the Swedish metal band take over London’s O2, it’s also brutally clear that they’re a band unafraid to break with tradition.

Sure, 2015’s ‘Meliora’ dealt with the absence of God while 2018’s ‘Prequelle’ explored the theme of survival against a historical backdrop of The Black Death and elsewhere, the recently released ‘Impeara’ did its best to break down the cyclical nature of empires while telling stories about the industrial revolution.

On paper, it’s all very serious, very weighty. In reality though, Ghost’s main tools of rebellion is humour.

For one, the band have transformed the stage at the O2 into a giant church, complete with demonic stained glass windows. It’s impressive to the point of ridiculousness. That over the top glee is carried over into the seven-piece band that backs up frontman Tobias Forge, tonight playing the role of Papa Emeritus IV. Wearing steampunk helmets, the gang of guitarists, keyboardists, backing singers and drummers create a textured wall of sound that is as clean as it is heavy. At one point, a resurrected pope stumbles onto the stage and plays a blistering sax solo, before the zombie saxophonist wanders back into the depths of the church.

“What did I miss?” asks Forge when he returns.

As for Forge himself, he

flits between impassioned preacher, kindly grandpa and frustrated manager, shooing away a couple of those nameless ghouls after one too many selfindulgent riffs. He calls certain songs “rocking tunes”, hopes the crowd haven’t had “too shite a time” since they last visited the UK back in 2019, and holds aloft a knitted rodent, thrown onstage by a fan during ‘Rats’.

Part pop spectacle, part death metal fantasy, that connection to the crowd is displayed time and time again, from the almighty singalongs to the tender moments between a masked, demonic antipope and his facepainted fans in a front row.

There are countless costume changes including several different pope hats, a pair of bat wings and a jacket so glitzy, Brendon Urie would be jealous.

The music itself also rebels from tradition. Yes, the likes of ‘From The Pinnacle To The Pit’ and ‘Year Zero’ are as heavy as anything you’ll hear at Download this summer, with a grand theatrical edge for good measure but ‘Miamsa’ sounds like it’s lifted straight from a John Hughes movie about video games, ‘Mary On The Cross’ is a flirtatious rock and roll tune while ‘Spillways’ could have been written by ABBA. With a real flamboyant streak, tonight Ghost embrace the more theatrical edges of their band, champion entertainment and stick firmly by the mantra that bigger is always better.

It’s a devilishly good show that breathes life into certain tired, heavy metal stereotypes while also offering a gateway for people to explore that world to begin with. ■

Upset 19

About Break. to

NEW TALENT YOU NEED TO KNOW

REGRESSIVE LEFT With debut EP ‘On The Wrong Side Of History’ coming in July, Luton dancepunk trio Regressive Left have thrown their bast LCD Soundsystem shapes with teaser single ‘Bad Faith’.

SCENE QUEEN

DEATON CHRIS ANTHONY

Signed to Hopeless Records and with debut EP ‘Bimbocore’ having just landed, Scene Queen has taken TikTok and Spotify by storm - the only way she’s going is up.

Musician and visual artist Deaton Chris Anthony is set to arrive this summer with his debut album ‘Sid The Kid’, out via Dirty Hit. Lead single ‘iScream (Feat. beabadoobee)’ is out now.

Florida post-hardcore twosome GILT have just dropped their latest EP, ‘Conceit’. It’s an ambitious effort that sees them exploring the nuances of grief alongside a team of guest vocalists that includes the likes of Nat Lacuna from The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir and Syd Dolezal from Doll Skin. Ash Stixx (vocals) and Tyler Fieldhouse (guitar, bass) take a few minutes out of their busy day - which includes helping their partner with an essay about the inaccessibility of the American dream (Tyler) and getting pulled over by a cop while running an errand for their grandfather (Ash) - to tell us all about it, and their band.

What first sparked your interest in music?

Tyler: A lot of people in my family are musicians.

My dad is a phenomenal piano player, which is why I learned basically every other instrument besides piano, so there wouldn’t be a comparison, haha. If I was trying to pinpoint when it really became my identity, I’d say Say Anything’s ‘...Is A Real Boy’ turned that corner for me; I realised music wasn’t just learning AC/DC riffs. I didn’t know until then I could connect with words like that.

Ash: I was very interested in doing music since my parents were also musicians, but I didn’t know what exactly I wanted to

do. I started with the cello in the third grade and later musical theatre. It wasn’t until I went to Warped Tour when I was 15 that I really wanted to pursue being a performing musician like the bands I saw. I started a high school band soon after, learning how to play the drums, and that was the opening to doing what I love to do.

How has your music taste evolved since then, have you always been drawn to heavier sounds?

Ash: My iPod used to have Hannah Montana and Bratz soundtracks because I never actively searched for music outside of what was in front of me. The first time I got into heavier music was funny enough when I was playing the online game IMVU (this game was not a fun time, btw), and there was a chat room where someone was playing Sleeping With Sirens, and that’s when my music taste shifted.

I really liked the heavier sounds I was hearing mixed with really pretty vocal melodies, and then I got into In This Moment which led to Motionless In White.

Now my playlists are mostly metalcore and also still Bratz soundtracks.

Tyler: It’s really funny… as a kid, my dad was showing me hard rock, and my mom was into nu-metal, so for me, the whole “whiny” effeminate emo thing was sort of my rebellion. Luckily Fueled

By Ramen bands led me to AP magazine, where I got into post-hardcore like Thursday, and eventually, I cycled around to heavier music, especially in the last couple of years. Now I’m listening to Sunami on

“GILT had a Tinder profile looking for musicians” Ash Stixx the daily.

How did you guys get together?

Ash: GILT had a Tinder profile looking for musicians. We met at a local house show, and the first thing they said was, “we promise not to kill you”, as my dad drove away.

Tyler: It’s true! Later, when Ash was the drummer, and we were trying out new vocalists, we went to a show at that same house, and I almost got run over by a drunk driver while walking down the street directly in front of Ash, so that’s what I get for joking.

What’s been the highlight of your time as a musician so far?

Tyler: We were able to leverage our online clout and ask all our friends from years of touring to throw a virtual concert in the midst of quarantine and raised several thousand dollars for gender-affirming name changes for people all over the country. At a time when the isolation was really getting to us, that was a huge spirit boost for us just as much as anyone we were able to help. Playing instruments is fun but being part of a community and feeling a sense of purpose in the work takes it to a whole other level.

Tell us about your new EP - what’s it about, where

did it come from?

Tyler: ‘Conceit’ is a big rumination on grief. Ash’s dad passed away abruptly after we got back from tour in 2019. The band sort of lost its identity for a minute, and especially during quarantine, we just spent a lot of time talking online about all our feelings.

All of the songs are based on fragments of those conversations and the weird emotional states we were in, from absolutely lashing out at people around us to internalising and avoiding a lot of the loneliness.

How did you curate all the guest vocalists?

Ash: We had all the songs written, it was only a matter of looking at our friends and seeing who we knew would perfectly capture the sound we wanted. Every guest vocalist we reached out to was not only into it but did the feature just as we imagined it.

What do you do for fun?

Tyler: I’ve put almost a fulltime job of hours into Elden Ring the past few weeks, haha.

Ash: I like to collect fashion dolls like Monster High or Bratz. It’s been the most peaceful aspect of my life, where I get to style and display my collection. ■ GILT’s EP ‘Conceit’ is out now.

Upset 21

22 Upset

Hotly-tipped Liverpool four-piece Crawlers - Holly Minto, Amy Woodall, Liv Kettle and Harry Breen are a name that’s been bandied about relentlessly over the past few months, racking up streams and buzz like no one’s business. Bassist Liv lifts the lid on one of rock’s most rapidly rising new acts.

Let’s get it out of the way, then. TikTok. A band makes a few videos, gets a few shares, and they’re a ‘TikTok band’. How do you feel about that label?

I think TikTok has given accessibility to musicians that this industry has desperately needed for a very long time now. Of course, we’ve had platforms such as SoundCloud etc., but TikTok allows you to find your exact audience and connect to them far better. I don’t think the label of a ‘TikTok band’ is such a bad thing; however, it often ignores the hours of work that go behind other marketing and promoting methods, so it’s understandable why it’s not always taken highly.

We saw a video recently with someone defending you against that daft ‘industry plant’ label.

How ridiculous does it feel that you have to defend yourself against that stuff? Do you think it’s simply people not understanding how the music industry works?

Ignorance definitely plays a big role here. Words get thrown around, they

“The album’s something we’ve spoken about before we were even signed” Liv Kettle catch on without their meaning being completely understood, and next thing you know, everyone’s an industry plant. It was a little frustrating at the time - it completely undermined the hard work we’d been putting in for years. We have literally built ourselves from the ground up, and it felt like such a slap in the face to be given such a label. After a while, we realised that it literally didn’t matter. We know who we are and where we’ve come from. Nick and Chad with an anime character for a profile picture commenting meaningless shite for their own entertainment make absolutely no difference to our lives or our career.

It’s obviously a great way to reach an audience and create a community something which seems to have become a big part of your identity as a band.

That’s an important thing to you?

Definitely! We wouldn’t be where we are without the support of our followers; they make all the difference.

A lot of them remind us all of how we were at their age and totally band obsessed.

It’s very wholesome.

As a band, you seem very engaged in societal issues

and creating safe spaces.

Are you seeing that reflected at your shows amongst fans? How far do you think we have to go still?

We know we still have a way to go, and we have plenty of plans for the future! We never want anyone at our gigs to ever feel unsafe or uncomfortable, which is why we stress for everyone to look after one another, and we’ve 100% seen it for ourselves - it fills us with so much pride.

Now you’re signed to a giganto major label - is the plan to take over the machine and change things from the inside?

Hahaha, the short answer is yes! As much as we can!

You seem like a band made for the festivals. We’re guessing Reading & Leeds is gonna be a big one for you this year. How much are you looking forward to that one?

You’ve no idea how excited I am for festival season. Ever since I left high school, I’ve been to Leeds Festival every year without fail. The fact this time around is to play there feels like I’m dreaming!

Are there many shared musical reference points in the band? What’s the stuff

that gets you all excited?

There is, yeah! The main band that all of us bonded over was Nirvana, but we all love bands such as RATM, QOTSA, Foo Fighters, Muse and Fleetwood Mac. Amy [Woodall, lead guitar] and Holly [Minto, vocals and trumpet] tend to share a mutual love for artists such as Sam Fender and The Strokes, whereas Harry [Breen, drums] and I love the heavier side of music. That being said, though, Hol and I adore Björk and The Cure.

All of us have crossovers in each other’s musical interests!

Are you creative in nonmusical ways too?

I used to really be into art before I started uni, but I haven’t really made the time for it in recent years. I’d go through phases of either making my own earrings or candles or trying to mimic different cartoon/comic book drawing styles. I even bought a sewing machine to make clothes with at one point! I think that’s why I adore things like fancy dress and even going to ComicCon - everyone’s just so creative, and to be honest, I love seeing each person’s version of my favourite characters.

Has anyone dared to start talking about ‘the album’ yet? What’s in the pipeline for Crawlers?

I’m not sure how much I can say, really! The album’s something we’ve spoken about before we were even signed and way before we even knew Harry! We’ve changed so much as songwriters since we first imagined what it would be, so the idea of what it will be is very exciting!! ■ Upset 23

24 Upset

Roaring back with their best album to date, Stand Atlantic are back with a clear message - Fuck Everything And Run. ge.

Words: Jack Press. Photos: Tom Berrid

Upset 25

E’RE LIVING IN WEIRD TIMES. The cost of living is rising, wars are being waged, and the pandemic is still cancelling concerts. In a decade of disarray, at least our artists have got something to sing about. It’s time to climb up on the soapbox, raise a fist to the sky, and talk about the state of, uh, crumpets?

“Dude, I was thinking the other day about how the English muffin got so big in America, but crumpets didn’t – they’re so much better than a McMuffin. They’ve got the holes to hold the butter better!” exclaims Stand Atlantic bassist Miki Rich from his home in Sydney, while vocalist Bonnie Fraser yams down the delicious treats over in Manchester.

“It’s all about the moisture.

Americans are whack,” she laughs between bites. “I’m really sorry. I haven’t eaten all day – I fucking love crumpets!”

On a rainy night Down Under and a sunny day in the UK, Stand Atlantic are serving up hot takes on their new album ‘F.E.A.R.’ (That’s ‘Fuck Everything And Run’, FYI). Once the crumpet crusade is over, it’s clear they’ve got plenty more to sing about.

From Christianity and homophobia, to long-distance love and imposter syndrome, to the kind of garlic bread they serve at MENSA - nothing is off-limits.

But before they could bring themselves to raise a middle finger to the world, Stand Atlantic had to reassess everything. 2020 should’ve been a victory lap for second album ‘Pink Elephant’, but Covid-19 closed the borders, scattered the band across continents, and had them second-guessing everything.

“There was a point where we didn’t know if we’d ever release another album. We had no idea what the world was going to do, let alone us,” Bonnie admits. With ample time off to write an album, were the creative juices flowing through their veins?

“It was shit. I definitely struggled creatively,” Bonnie recalls. “I’m always stressing about what the next one 26 Upset

will be about, but this one was so much harder because I felt like I hadn’t lived my life. I don’t have any new experiences besides the whole pandemic, and there’s no fucking way I’m singing about that because it’s cringy as hell – don’t put Covid in a song, don’t put pandemic in a song, don’t put virus in a song.”

“Yet we’ve got a song on the new album called ‘Bloodclot’,” Miki interjects, with Bonnie retorting, “Hey, that’s nothing to do with Astra Zeneca, bro, leave it out!”

While the hazy dream-pop of ‘Bloodclot’ battles with Bonnie’s very real, very personal long-distance relationship difficulties rather than Covid, everything comes back around to the growing pains the pandemic inflicted on her. When you’re so done with the world, what do you write about?

“I felt frustrated because I couldn’t write anything. So then I was like, well, I’ll just write about the fact that I’m frustrated as fuck. The whole album is just me spewing out all my feelings.

It’s a blessing and a curse.”

Caught in creative limbo, with nearly two years to write rather than two weeks, Stand Atlantic stared the death of their band in the face. Forever rebellious, they found themselves throwing their frustration into everything, coming out with the longest album they’ve ever made.

And, it turns out, their most diverse.

For 14 tracks and 36 minutes, ‘F.E.A.R.’ doesn’t stay in one lane long enough to be labelled. Once a straight-up pop-punk act, Stand Atlantic are genre-bending rebels ripping up the rulebook.

Opener ‘Doomsday’ shakes up a cocktail of sweet synth-pop and bitter alt-rock, whilst ‘Deathwish’ deals in the kind of pop-rap that Machine Gun Kelly wouldn’t bat an eyelash at. Elsewhere, there’s the punchy hardcore punk of ‘Molotov [OK]’, the gritty grunge vs glitch-pop hit of ‘Cabin Fever’, and the sing-alongs of ‘Pity Party’. But with the ghost of writer’s block haunting them, how did so many genres come crawling out?

“I tried to stick to the mindset of thinking ‘what if this is our last album,’” Bonnie explains. “Would I regret not doing things we’ve always wanted to do and just push the boundaries? If we write a fucking trap song and we like it, we’ll put it on.”

“There was a point where we didn’t know if we’d ever release another album” Bonnie Fraser By bringing themselves to the brink of no longer being a band, they found themselves feeling freer than ever. Pop-punk’s elitism had held them in a chokehold for far too long, something they felt ‘Pink Elephant’ suffered from.

“We just didn’t want to hold back, and I think with ‘Pink Elephant’, we did because we were worried about whether we’d please the fans, but we didn’t want to be put into a box,” Bonnie reflects. “We dipped our toes in a little, but this time we just fucking cannonballed into the pool like ‘here we are, bitch!’ – I love making sure people don’t know what to fucking expect.”

If you’re beginning to worry that ‘F.E.A.R.’ is too far-fetched for you, don’t. It’s still the same Stand Atlantic we know and love. They’ve put more quality control into this album than a pizza delivery company.

“Yes, we’re experimenting with all these different things, but at the end of the day, we always want to make sure it sounds like something we would do. It’s still in the lane of Stand Atlantic, whatever the fuck that is. It’s about a seven-lane highway at this point, but there’s still that personality that makes it come across as one of ours.”

It’s a thought Miki shares fondly with Bonnie. “You and [producer] Stevie [Knight] were writing songs that were leftfield and almost not us. Like, let’s write a completely 2010 Kesha song; obviously, it’s not going to make the album but write it anyway. And then we’d be like, ‘well, this is not Stand Atlantic’, but it’s a really good song, so let’s do a cover of it and make it a Stand Atlantic song.

It’s how ‘Dumb’ became one of my favourite songs.”

“Oh yeah, it sounds like a fucking Upset 27

Marshmello remix or something,” Bonnie quips, with the pair erupting in laughter.

Little moments like this encapsulate what recording ‘F.E.A.R.’ was like. Considering they were split across continents whilst writing it, kept in quarantine to record it, and stuck in writer’s block for most of it, they could still kick back and appreciate the finer things.

These moments found their way into the record, too. Like little earworms hiding in the cracks for keen listeners to seek out. Whether it’s cutand-pasted samples or off-record conversations, it’s courtesy of long-term producer Stevie Knight’s mischievousness.

“There are lots of times that Stevie just left the mic on,” Miki adds.

“There’s stuff the label tried making us cut out. There’s this bit that’s like, ‘this isn’t a beach, it’s a bathtub...’”

“We literally ripped it from a porno. I want to get sued

by Pornhub. How funny would that be?” Bonnie howls before bringing it back down to earth. “But the label were like ‘no, it’s not worth the risk’, and we’re like ‘you’re just way too fucking scared.”

While some are sillier than others, there are moments snuck into songs that let the band address serious concerns with tongue-in-cheek wit. Take ‘Hair Out’, for example, where Bonnie jokes about fans hating the track.

“We were reading YouTube comments on our videos, and I was like, ‘look at all these fucking haters just hating us just for the sake of it’. I think we wanted to have those

little jokey, stupid moments because that’s who the fuck we are.

“I thought it was important to keep that lightheartedness in the album because I am just so angry throughout the entire thing. It’s cool to show that, even when you’re feeling fucking terrible, having your mates around you is super important. We all realised that during those two years, what would you be without your friends?”

If ‘F.E.A.R.’ peels back the Stand Atlantic curtain and teaches us anything about Bonnie, Miki, guitarist David Potter, and drummer Jonno Panichi, it’s that alone they’re strong, but together they’re unbreakable. When they’re

mental health, and we’re just fucking fighting each other, like ‘you did this, and you did that’, and it’s really hard when you’re away from them. I hate to say it, but ‘Bloodclot’ doesn’t have a specific point. I just felt so defeated, like I was a burden on this person’s life because I’m here, and they’re there.”

However, ‘Bloodclot’ goes beyond being just another love song. It’s a song that helped Bonnie open up about her feelings away from the page for the first time in her life.

Ultimately, it’s what she hopes we all take away from ‘F.E.A.R.’.

“I hope people realise that it’s alright to talk about how you feel, and if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s alright, that’s chill, but maybe you can find something in other people’s music that can make you feel like you belong somewhere, Bonnie Fraser or validated in your feelings.”

It’s a comic firing on all cylinders as book cliché, but all that friends, they can push great power does come through their problems with great responsibility. and find out plenty about While Bonnie believes it’s themselves along the way. important to open up space Take ‘Bloodclot’, for for others to talk about example - a song that their feelings, she admits soundtracks the highs and it’s not been an easy road lows of Bonnie’s long-term, for her. In fact, it’s ‘F.E.A.R.’ long-distance relationship that’s helped her open up. with Hot Milk’s Hannah “I do think that it’s Mee, which was put important, but I also feel through its paces during like a complete hypocrite Covid-19. because I don’t really talk “It’s definitely the most about my feelings in my personal song on the daily life. I know it sounds record. Throughout the corny, but it’s true. When I whole Covid experience, was growing up, and even I spent six months in now, writing is the only way Australia and six months in that I feel like I’ve gotten the UK, where my partner over an emotion. is and where we live, so it “That was the only way was a very difficult time. when I was a kid that felt “Not only being distant like I could make sense from them for that long, but of them, which is strange we’re both dealing with our because, at the time when

“I love making sure people don’t know what to fucking expect”

28 Upset

I’m writing, I don’t have any sense in my head about what I’m feeling until it’s written. But of course, I want to make sure people know that even if you don’t talk about your feelings very often, there are other ways you can express yourself. You don’t have to just be an open book to every single person you come across.”

In some ways, for both Bonnie and the band, expressing their feelings came through the music as much as the lyrics.

‘Molotov [OK]’ is a fiery furnace of pop-sensitive hardcore punk that punches its subject matter in the face with the kind of infectiousness that tops charts.

Without tapping into their creative frustrations, Bonnie would’ve never found the courage to confront memories from her past that have plagued her in coming to terms with her sexuality. On ‘Molotov’, she returns to the Christian school she grew up in, where homophobia was taught as regularly as English and Maths.

“Because it’s such a punky song, I felt like I needed to make a statement with it lyrically more than other things I write,” she admits. “I was thinking back to my life, and I remember how hard coming to terms with my sexuality was when I was in school. There was this priest condemning homosexuals to hell in the school assembly, making them feel like this is wrong.

I just remember thinking, ‘well, I’m never coming out’.

“How the fuck can this person do this to young kids and have such a strong stance on something so fucking horrible? Everyone’s entitled to believe what they want, but when it comes to dictating who someone loves, I think that is absolutely disgusting, especially when Upset 29

it’s consensual. So, on ‘Molotov’, I took a stance of letting people love who they love. Fuck you if you’re trying to corrupt people to join your religion just for the sake of it, to make them scared of doing anything wrong in your eyes.”

Protest songs are important in pop culture, though the risk can outweigh the reward. But is that something Stand Atlantic really care about?

“At the end of the day, I know I’m not a fucking political figure,” Bonnie explains. “I can’t really go out there and be like ‘Boris Johnson sucks, and so does Donald Trump’ – I’m not going to do that; I will leave it to people who are way more educated on that subject.

“But ‘Molotov’ is a more personal thing I felt I could take a stance on from experience. At the same time, when I’m writing this shit, I don’t want it to be explicit that that’s what I’m saying – I want people to still be able to relate it to something else. If they feel trapped and someone is telling them what to do, they should be able to listen to that song and feel it.”

Songs like ‘Bloodclot’ and ‘Molotov’ may have been born with ease, but pulling ‘F.E.A.R.’ together wasn’t a walk in the park.

Looking back, writing sessions blur into one, and certain songs almost hit the cutting room floor.

“I feel like the whole time I was at Stevie’s house, writing was a fucking mess,” Bonnie recalls. “You’d start one song and finish it the following week, and in the meantime, you’ve written three others. You’d lose track of what came first. I have no fucking clue when we thought the album was actually coming together.”

Better yet, there were times Stand Atlantic couldn’t agree on single sections of songs. Like 30 Upset

policies in parliament, they spent days, weeks, even months deliberating over them. It was as if they were in a tug of war, having to learn to work together before songs got lifted from the rubbish pile to the recycling.

“We had all these songs like ‘Hair Out’ and ‘Dumb’, which everyone really liked in the sense of melody and stuff, but everyone was like ‘we like this, but we hate this’,” explains Miki. “Like the original ‘Dumb’, it was the best and the worst ever, but once we had those songs, we had to add more Stand Atlantic stuff to them.”

While ‘Hair Out’ and ‘Dumb’ needed some Stand Atlantic love,

anymore, to be honest,” Miki chimes in, clear that as much as they’re happy with ‘F.E.A.R.’, they’ve truly been pushed to their limits by it.

“Not that everyone hated the song, but everyone was just over it. Everyone gave up, and I was like ‘no, we have to put this on’ – I fought for that.”

In many ways, the difficulties they dealt with were channelled into the album title and its accompanying artwork.

When your world is covered in flames and burning down all around you, why not let everyone feel that?

“I wanted to create an image of hell, but then I was like ‘well, that’ll be a bit too serious’, so I thought, ‘let’s put the devil in his

“I want to get sued

by Pornhub. How funny would that be?”

Bonnie Fraser others were crash test dummies that took trial and error to get right. Take the edgy electro-rock meets pop-punk pomp of ‘Switchblade’, a song that nearly sent them spiralling into insanity. “’Switchblade’ was a piece of shit. I hated it,” Bonnie exclaims, laughing in exhaustion, “We had this chorus where all of us were like ‘eh’. You’d listen to it enough and finally be used to it, but I don’t want to listen to it like 20 times to be okay with it, so we had to go back and back and back until we found a chorus that worked – even now it triggers me.”

“I feel like we’ve gotten to ‘Switchblade’ chorus eight. I don’t even know which ones are which

pyjamas’,” laughs Bonnie, who ended up taking to social media to bring her vision of madness to life.

“I found this dude on Instagram whose stuff is sick. I didn’t want to do anything that everyone else has done. I don’t know if we’re at the point where we want to put ourselves on the cover, so I thought we could put the devil on in his pyjamas and jog the fuck on - oh and put some fire on so you’re good to go.”

That same attitude transcended over to the title. It was a phrase Bonnie had been toying with for some time. Only, she wasn’t sure whether it was a song or something more.

“It’s weird, because every album we’ve done,

I’ve had the title before the songs are written, which is either stupid or genius. But on this one, I didn’t think of it for the album. I just kept trying to put it in songs. I tried eight different songs, and I was like, ‘this sucks’ every time, so I forgot about it.

“I was really struggling to name the album because there’s no concept to it; it’s just me being moody. I went through my notes to check if there’s anything fucking genius that I wrote down, and then I saw ‘Fuck Everything And Run’. And it spells ‘F.E.A.R.’. I was like, ‘that’s actually sick’. It encapsulates everything this album is about. It’s a snapshot of how I was feeling and where the fuck I was the entire time.”

On reflection, ‘F.E.A.R.’ is the album that cost Stand Atlantic so much on every level. It exhausted them mentally, physically, and spiritually. But it’s also the album that’ll catapult them further towards the forefront of alternative music’s future. And it’s one they can look back on with immense pride at having made it past the perils it put them through.

“Once an album is done, I’m like ‘how the fuck did we pull that off?’, Bonnie questions. “I’ll go back and write out all the lyrics for the album sleeve, and I’m like, ‘oh, I didn’t know I could write that. That’s pretty good.’

“I feel like I second guess and doubt myself all the time until I actually do something and look back on it and go, ‘okay, Bon, you did alright.’

Realising you’ve got all these songs that you’ve worked so hard on through the most tumultuous time is pretty nice. I’m pretty proud of myself.” ■ Stand Atlantic’s album ‘F.E.A.R.’ is out now.

32 Upset

NOAHFINNCE is a superstar in waiting. And he’s not waiting for anyone. k Gunning Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Patric

Upset 33

“I think it sounds wanky when I say it!”

NOAH ADAMS HAS always wanted to be a musician, even if he doesn’t like saying so. The truth is, if it wasn’t for his early cover versions winding their way onto YouTube, NOAHFINNCE wouldn’t exist. “The only reason I’m making music now is because I started a band fan account on Instagram when I was 13 or 14,” he recalls. “The account I use on Instagram now used to be a My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy fan account.”

Finding solace in the community he inevitably built up, it was the fizzing fuse leading to the dynamite explosion of Noah and NOAHFINNCE being thrust into the world.

Now, two EPs deep, and after signing to legendary pop-punk label Hopeless Records, 22-year-old Noah’s truly living his best life, even if he is a bit busier these days. “It took a bit of adjusting to it for me to be like, ‘Oh 34 Upset

shit, this is a job that I’m doing!’” he laughs. “I’m enjoying it, but it’s also like, you have direction now. It was overwhelming, but it’s always been in a good way.”

The earlier part of his life was overwhelming too, though for different reasons. But before getting into the nitty-gritty of this time and finding out where the essence of NOAHFINNCE was manifested, we need to head back a bit further.

Raised in a household that echoed with the likes of Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Blondie, and Fleetwood Mac, the sound of rotating records played until dawn is still a fond memory.

Eventually finding the scrappy nonsense of pop-punk, Noah started with Busted when he was a child. Then, at school - before he transitioned - he’d find solace in the lyrics of Fall Out Boy, crunching along

“When I was a four year old, I wanted to be in Busted” NOAHFINNCE to the hyper-adrenalised punk guitar lines of ‘Take This To Your Grave’.

“It wasn’t only just something I enjoyed, it was a coping mechanism,” he explains. “I was going through a really tough time when I was younger.

I’d spend most of my day playing guitar and then Googling ‘What did Pete Wentz mean when he wrote this’.” Along with finding the answers to such eternal questions, he also discovered something special - a home from home.

Finding a community of likeminded people gave Noah the confidence to continue exploring online. “Without finding the people that I met from those communities, queuing outside shows for like 10 hours and becoming best friends, I’d be a completely different person.”

Who that person would have been is anyone’s guess, but the smiley Noah of today is every part the person they want to be. Remembering that he was “going through a shit time” during this period, it’s finding that solace in others going through similar situations that alternative music has always been about.

“It really did boost my confidence,” he says. “It showed me that there wasn’t just this one set way of living.

My school made everybody apply to university, so I applied. I was gonna do psychology, but I didn’t want to. The fact that I met these friends who were all doing creative stuff and enjoying it, and had a completely different worldview, really shaped the person I am today. Without them, I’d probably be a uni student doing psychology and probably not as happy as I am now.”

Playing the guitar he received for his fourteenth birthday in his dorm at school, this solitary comfort was his own form of rebellion. “I would get Upset 35

so many complaints for playing guitar really loud,” he says, laughing at the thought of the distorted rampage of Fall Out Boy ringing through the corridors.

Finding the online alternative community not only helped Noah through his trying school days but also paved the way for a career he didn’t believe was truly an option.. “Even when I was a four year old, I wanted to be in Busted,” he laughs. “There are home videos of me fucking dancing around and my brother being like, ‘She wants to be a Busted man!’

It opened an entirely new world to me that was like, ‘Wow, this is where I should be’.”

NOAH’S MUSICAL CAREER began as it does for so many people, with that iconic piece of plastic: the recorder.

Eventually making his way behind a drumkit and even trombone, it was the guitar that ultimately snagged Noah’s heart. All these brief forays play into Noah being a one-man-band of sorts, playing everything himself with the attitude to go with it.

Describing a spectrum of the pop-punk that stole his heart, he mentions Busted on the left, blink-182 on the right, and All Time Low in the middle as bridging the gap. The main allure for Noah was the “fuck you attitude”, the same one his mum would tote when turning up to his school with “her hair half chopped off with red highlights and Dr. Martens.”

“I always really liked not only the music but the whole idea of being different in a way that’s true to yourself, not just for the sake of being different,” he continues. “I enjoy the fact that half the songs that those bands make are just like, ‘fuck you!’

“I can hear lyrics and be like, ‘Fuck, that’s exactly 36 Upset

how I feel’. But then there are also songs where I hear a breakdown, and I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s how my brain sounds!’ It wasn’t even just the lyrics. It was the way it’s put across; guitars being too loud and drums being loud and crazy matched how I feel in my head. When I listened to it, I was like, ‘This feels therapeutic’.”

It’s an understatement to say that Noah reaching where he should be was a fraught time. Essentially living two separate lives while in school – termtime and online – the latter was where Noah would thrive. Thanks to his cultivated online sanctity, he describes it as finally having “a place in the world, because when I was

I would actually say?”

The songs he pens are of the most vibrant strand of pop-punk. The place where positivity collides with humanity, creating an irresistible spark of attitude and sincerity. There’s a carefree aura luminescing around them, leaning into the happy-go-lucky songs he’d listen to growing up.

While therapy inarguably helped him unlock the doorway into a clearer mind, especially given his ADHD diagnosis, he’d already been doing his own by writing songs.

“You have to think about the things that you’re writing about,” he says. “You can’t just write words on the page. It’s like therapy in itself because

“I like the whole idea of being different in a way that’s true to yourself” NOAHFINNCE in school, my entire school life, I was a girl. I didn’t come out to anybody as trans until I finished.”

His time in the vlogosphere is where Noah figured out how to embrace not just his identity but also his inner monologue.

It’s these same tools he tinkers with when writing as NOAHFINNCE. Spending an entire day filming a two-minute video making his voice sound perfect for his covers was one thing.

But speaking his truth?

“That was a bit different.

It’s weird. Being yourself is easy, but when you’re being yourself in front of a camera, and you’re trying to put across a certain message, it’s a bit more difficult. It’s like, am I being fake? Is this something that

I’m just like, ‘Oh, I feel this way. Let’s write a song about it’. ‘Why do I feel this way?’ ‘How do I put into words why I feel that way?’ But when it came to therapy, speaking about that kind of stuff for an hour a week really helped with the music as well.

There are so many things that I didn’t know about myself until I started. Now that I know them, it’s a lot easier to be like, ‘Oh, this is why I’m like this. Let’s write a song about that’.”

Noah’s breakout single came in 2018 with ‘Asthma Attack’, a ukulele-led track which exposed the mayhem reigning through his head, including the indecision of what Noah wanted to do in life. He then careened swiftly into

a pop-punk sound that he’d lean into on his later songs, including his latest EP ‘MY BRAIN AFTER THERAPY’ and the lo-fi, snot-nosed ‘Underachiever’. “In my head… it’s just chaos, really,” he ponders.

A large part of Noah’s journey, particularly over the last few years, has been organising that chaos.

It comes through in the analytical way he questions his moves over those shaping years when he was worried about coming out as trans, seeing it as “a trial of being like, is this okay?

Is it okay if I look like this?

Is it okay if I say this, or I sound like this?”

“I was dealing with being doxxed as a 15-year-old because of it,” he says softly. “So there were obviously terrifying aspects of it. And I was scared that people would confront me about it, but I don’t regret any of it because I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t discover that side of myself.”

Discovering NOAHFINNCE was a serendipitous affair.

“Someone said, ‘You look like a Noah’, and I was like, that works,” he beams.

“And then my mom wanted to call me Finn when I was born. So I was like, Noah Finn. And then I was like, ‘Oh, it sounds like no offence!’ None of that was on purpose.”

NOAHFINNCE surfaced after Noah left school, where he still went by his dead name. “Sometimes I’m just like, what the fuck did these people think that I was doing? Did they think I was creating a fake person online?” he marvels.

“But I guess it felt natural because I came out to everybody in my life when I finished school. So at that point, the NOAHFINNCE thing was like, this is just me. It didn’t feel like a big step in terms of a character or an alter ego.

“It’s so weird because it’s not a normal thing to

“As soon as I finished school, I was like, I don’t give a shit what these people think about me because I’m not going to see them again ever” NOAHFINNCE happen, to have two completely different lives,” Noah ponders.

“But, I guess the fact that my YouTube channel was doing well, and I felt happy when I was around the people that I had met online gave me the confidence to be like, ‘Oh, I can do this shit, and people don’t think I’m weird.”

Amassing over a hundredthousand followers in his last year of school, all bets were off.

“As soon as I finished school, I was like, I don’t give a shit what these people think about me because I’m not going to see them again ever,” he asserts.

NOAH’S QUICKLY GROWING in confidence, using both 38 Upset

YouTube and his music as soapboxes to portray his truth.

On YouTube, he aims to create a dialogue while picking holes in the world and its many awful takes, while with music he’s “very honest and open about stuff. I can say something that’s personal to me.”

“When I first started making YouTube videos, I would set up the camera and film the same video three times because I didn’t like how I said this one thing. It’s not like that anymore.”

Putting himself under such scrutiny, he’s learned things that he didn’t expect - such as, oddly enough, his nostril size when singing and breathing.

“There are people that comment, and they bring you new information that you also didn’t know about yourself,” he chuckles. “A lot of it is just learning more about myself.

Everything that I posted online was in search of that because I was in a place in my life where I was like, I don’t fucking know who I am. I know who I want to be, but I don’t think that’s possible. It was all just learning about that kind of stuff, and it’s very fucking weird!”

Does he enjoy the spotlight?

“I feel like I wouldn’t be at this point in my life if I hated attention,” he giggles. “I’m obviously a massive attention seeker, which most people who do this kind of shit are. I don’t really know what I was expecting when I got into the YouTube thing because I didn’t do it intentionally. I’ve never found it too overwhelming.

“I’ve gotten to the point now where sometimes I’ll be like, ‘Oh, this is a bit much’. But I’ve had an Instagram account since I was 15, and it started doing well when I was like 16, so it’s been like six years or seven years. I’ve gotten used to it.”

He continues, “But now it’s like, I’m on Hopeless, and I love Hopeless, and they’re fucking pushing me in a good way. But then also, my YouTube channel is doing well. So it’s kind of overwhelming to have these two things that aren’t really separate. But it’s fine. I’m not terrified at the moment. I’m sure I will be at some point.”

Imposter syndrome is something most experience now and again. Admitting that he still feels it now, it’s the audience he’s grown organically through his vulnerability and lack of fear when standing up against the world that gives him the confidence to knock any such thoughts on the head.

“This is a community that I’ve always been drawn to,” he says. “I grew up going to the shows, buying the merch and camping outside. But to be signed by Hopeless and having bands I grew up listening to know me is extremely validating. We’re the same; I just came here from a different avenue.”

While he enjoyed the stuff he was writing, the fact it was all being appreciated by those surrounding him gave Noah an extra boost. However, now that Noah’s written a batch of songs direct from his mind (‘STUFF FROM MY BRAIN’) and after going through therapy (‘MY BRAIN AFTER THERAPY’), where does that leave him?

“I have no clue!” he grins, with another bright chuckle.

“When I started therapy, we were uncovering a bunch of stuff that I didn’t even realise happened. And a lot of therapy now is going over those things being like, ‘I understand this thing. It still makes me upset. Why the fuck am I still sad about it?’ I’m at that point of therapy where I’ve acknowledged everything, but when is it going to fuck off and go away?”

Getting better and understanding what makes Noah Adams, Noah Adams, is what NOAHFINNCE is about.

Noah knew who he wanted to be, and NOAHFINNCE is the manifestation of those childhood years, music radiating around him as he dreamed of being in a poppunk band.

Maybe being a musician isn’t so wanky after all. ■ NOAHFINNCE’s EP ‘MY BRAIN AFTER THERAPY’ is out 3rd June.

kings of the new age.

T

he throne has been vacant for a while in the pop-punk scene, and all of a sudden, there is a new wave of artists staking a claim backed by radio play and TikTok hype. But, for second-generation pop-punk bands with life still in them after Warped Tour ended, their time is now too.

It’s like Game of Thrones but with snapbacks and Super Soakers.

The East Coast’s very own State Champs are claiming the crown for their own with new album ‘Kings of the New Age’. It’s not a very subtle title, but it’s absolutely backed by 11 tracks that are all killer, no filler.

There are a couple of big-name guest features, and plenty of vibrant, hooky choruses as the band embrace their youth following a rocky few years and their more mature, glossier previous album ‘Living Proof’.

‘Kings of the New Age’ is the chance for State Champs to catch the wave that is breathing new life into the genre rather than be gatekeepers of a scene that sometimes seems quite exclusive.

It’s an important album for them and another jewel in the crown for the next generation of pop-punk.

Lead singer Derek DiScanio has the lowdown.

Four albums in and State Champs are laying claim to the pop-punk crown.

Words: Alexander Bradley.

It’s been four years since ‘Living Proof’; does it feel like a long time?

To us, it feels like a lifetime. That being said, we had so much time to make the album. There were no deadlines, so we wrote so much music and took the necessary time, and it shows on this one.

We had the time to go “nah, this is not our best” and restart things, rework songs, and work with different people. We never had that time before; we always had deadlines.

It [was] always crunch time, and you’d overwork yourself a bit, but it was nice to be a lot more stress-free this time so we could write double the amount of songs we would and have an all-star line-up of tracks for this album.

With both the title and the Upset 41

album’s first line, you’re making some bold statements on this record.

It is definitely a big statement; it’s a bold statement, and it’s something we’ve wanted to do for a while. We’ve always been a band that’s been like, “let’s be grateful and humble about ourselves”, and it’s not that we aren’t that anymore, we still have that, but we have a lot more confidence in ourselves with this album.

We’ve been doing this long enough to appreciate and understand where we are in the community and legacy that we have built within our scene and the groundwork that we have laid for this next chapter.

It wasn’t called ‘Kings of the New Age’ until we wrote that song - ‘Here to Stay’ and we decided it was the opening track for the album.

We were listening, and there was a lightbulb moment “that’s gonna be the one, right!?” Thinking about it now, yes, it’s a serious thing and an ego thing, but it’s us not taking ourselves so seriously and being able to push our peers around too and have some friendly competition - almost how hip-hop does it, where everyone is at each other’s throats, but everyone still supports each other. Why can’t there be that in our scene as well?

If you’re the kings of the new age, when did the old age end? It’s hard to pinpoint, but between Tom DeLonge leaving Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy’s hiatus, you’ve spent ten years as an up-andcoming band. How do you see the pop-punk scene?

It’s an interesting thing to think about. When did one age end and the next begin - was it something like a Fall Out Boy hiatus? Was it the explosion of a Machine Gun Kelly? Was it the end of the Warped Tour? Something like that played into it.

Warped Tour made us 42 Upset

“We may be the best at what we do, and it’s okay to have that ego this time around” Derek DiScanio take off, with 2014 being our first one, but we were the smallest band on the smallest stage. Then in 2016, we were asked to be a headliner, but we didn’t feel like we deserved it.

Then in 2018, being the last year of Warped Tour, we really thought, “this is our festival” - we were the main headliner on the Main Stage. That was it, and we had to say bye to something we owed so much to for our career.

On top of that, there was a saturation of a lot of young bands and up-and-coming bands like us, Neck Deep, Real Friends, Grayscale that [had broken through] in the last four-five years, and that kind of stopped. You don’t see those young, exciting, pop-punk bands like us, but what you do see is this new wave of mainstream acceleration of Machine Gun Kelly, LILHUDDY and Jxdn where it’s becoming a little more “mainstream”.

A lot of people talk about whether this is good for “the pioneers” fans or Warped Tour-era bands, and if anything, it’s a good thing because more people are listening to guitar and drum-based music. It’s on the radio and at the forefront of pop culture. If that relates to a little bit of discovery of bands in our world, that’s a good thing.

With this new era, does that make this album your ‘Dookie’, ‘Dude Ranch’ or ‘Take This To Your Grave’ moment?

I would love to say that, and

every band hopes that their most recent one to be their best album… I do think this is our best album. It’s the one we are most proud of for our craft. We’ve been a band for ten years now, but we also realised that with this new discovery of pop-punk, there will be a lot of newcomers coming in, and this will be the first thing they hear of State Champs. That’s exciting for us as well.

How much of this new album is influenced by those new mainstream artists?

We’ve been doing this for ten years now, and if we start to put out things where we are just adapting to trends that we are not really into or want to listen to ourselves or want to play for the rest of our careers, then we are in it for the wrong reasons, and that’s not us.

We did take a little bit of inspiration from the new wave era of rock music that is coming in, and a bit more experimental hip-hop culture leans into this album, but there’s not much of a difference between listening to this album and also going back and going “this is the State Champs I know”. ‘Kings of the New Age’ is able to adapt to those new things, but we are never leaving where we come from and what makes us State Champs in the first place. We’ve been doing it long enough to know that we are good at it. We may be the best at what we do,

and it’s okay to have that ego this time around and be confident in what we are doing.

Diving in on the album, there are a lot of different guest features on this one. How did they come about, and were they the upside of a global pandemic?

This is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, bring in some friends and peers - people in our genre, maybe a little outside our genre - and experiment with collaborations. But the fact that we did have time and not as many deadlines was the reason this could work out. Not all the features, though; Ben Barlow, for example, I sent him ‘Everybody But You’ - an early version of the song - and was like, “what do you think about hopping on this?” He was very quick to respond. In the span of

of that that you can’t get out of your head after the first chorus listen. It’s very important to us, that by the second or third chorus, you need to know the chorus otherwise, it’s not a successful song, in my opinion.

a couple of days, he sent one take over and then in no less than another day or two, the final version of ‘Everybody But You’ was done.

Others, like the Chrissy Costanza one on ‘Half Empty’, took a while. We had asked her to do a song in the past, and it didn’t work out because of timelines I’m glad we could take the time to sit down.

Taking the time to make sure we could get the right people was an advantage to us and almost a luxury this time around, so that was cool.

And then we have someone like Mitchell Tenpenny, who is a country artist, on one of the poppier tracks on the album. We didn’t actually know him; we were introduced through mutual friends, and our producer Drew Fulk had done some sessions with him in Nashville. We sent him the

song, we got in a group chat and bounced some ideas back and forth. He loves our music, and we love his - we became friends really quickly.

The songs released so far have all been huge - how did ‘Half Empty’ come around?

That one is the most different, most outside the box, almost showing a darker aspect to State Champs. We had this little loop in the studio that had that piano. We were like, “is this State Champs? How do we make it State Champs?’

We took a different approach and thought about the live experience of a song and we were like, “let’s make a sunset, Reading & Leeds stadium banger!” We took influence from Bring Me The Horizon and Don Broco into a song like this and realised with the concept of the song -

“I’m a glass half empty, and you’re the other half” - well, it’s got to be a duet, and that’s where Chrissy came in, and she nailed it.

It’s a huge moment on an album that’s full with catchy choruses, whether it’s the instant hook of ‘Outta My Head’ or the more earwormy ‘Just Sound’. You seem to write hooks with ease; is it a case of just keeping it simple?

Sometimes it’s don’t think too much about it. When we are skeltoning out an instrumental, I find myself singing the first thing that comes to my mind about a melody. I’m a big melody over lyrics guy. I’m all melody. So I will be skatting and go up to a vocal booth and just go melody first, and then we build lyrics around a melody. You talked about “earwormy”, and I think there is a lot

Given you had time to write a lot of songs for this album, was there anything that you held back as State Champs fans aren’t ready for it yet? Anything that’s too new wave??

I think ‘Everybody But You’ is probably the most new-era pop-punk because it has the trap beats, but it brought us to a nostalgic point where it’s almost like All American Rejects-y.

That’s why that one works so well, because it’s like new school meets old school, but there is some other stuff that is a little too deep that didn’t make the album, and we were like, “nah, this isn’t that youthful, stress-free vibe of ‘Kings of the New Age’ that we need.” I think a lot of it was “concept-wise” it didn’t fit the album not so much that it was that we went a little too hard on the new-school trap stuff.

Are you enjoying the possibilities that come with being between old school and new school?

Yeah definitely. We can still go and do a tour with New Found Glory, or we just did a tour with Simple Plan right before the pandemic, and we will always be close with Real Friends and Neck Deep, but I want to go and tour with Machine Gun Kelly. Or I want to go on a tour with The Band CAMINO and break down those borders and make sure people know there are no rules in pop and rock music anymore. ■ State Champs’ album ‘Kings Of The New Age’ is out now.

Upset 43

44 Upset

After a period of self-evaluation and going back to basics, Memphis May Fire return a band reborn.

Words: Steven Loftin.

Upset 45

I

f you were to ask any band if there are any regrets or missteps in their career, chances are, most would say no. Not Matty Mullins.

For their seventh album, though, Memphis May Fire are decidedly back on track. For a while, things deviated from the original plan: outside factors muddied the waters, stopping Matty, guitarist Kellen McGregor, drummer Cory Elders and bassist Jake Garland from being able to focus on what made Memphis so appealing in that dark and dingy world of metalcore in the first place.

“I’d be lying if I said differently,” Matty shrugs with an accepting grin.

“There are some of our records I can’t even go back and listen to, but I put myself in the mindset that I was in when we were making them, and mental health takes a toll on every season of life,” he says.

“You’re in the grind, trying to be on tour and make a record, and you’ve got all these voices saying ‘do this’ or ‘I wish you were more like this’ or ‘I wish you would try this’ or ‘you’re not doing this enough’. You just get so wrapped up in all of it.”

The vortex of voices surrounding Matty is mostly silenced on ‘Remade In Misery’. Starting just before the pandemic with the band separated, it was Kellen who began the instrumentation side of things.

Meanwhile, Matty found himself mucking around with Wage War guitarist Cody Quistad - a close-by neighbour - with single ‘Somebody’ the first of these musical playdates.

A track that tackles addiction and the self-flagellation that comes with it, the theme of resilience in the face of adversity and accountability began to take shape. Forced to complete the record in their bedrooms, it was a drastic change compared to their most recent endeavours, which generally involved finding a topnotch studio and settling in to create whatever that previously mentioned vortex demanded. Able to strip back to the purity of being a band doing things for themselves lends itself to ‘Remade In Misery’ and its caustic brand of fresh Memphis May Fire mayhem.

Matty acknowledges that this previous process made it “hard to remember why you even went to that studio in the first place. You’re just making music and doing the best you can. But something’s missing. We’ve had a handful of records like that that’s the honest truth. To be here with this one, that we so genuinely,

46 Upset

“For the first time, I feel like I’m one with this album. For the first time, I think that I’m a fan of Memphis May Fire” Matty Mullins authentically made from scratch, right here at home, and to see the reaction from our fans, it’s like, ‘Oh, now, this makes sense’.”

Making sense of things is part of the allure of Memphis May Fire. Metalcore’s darting euphoria

predominantly houses darkness in the hope of offering light to others, at least in Matty’s case. “I’ve always been a hope enthusiast,” he beams.

“It’s just who I am as a person. I always want to acknowledge the pain we go through as human beings but

know that nothing is ever hopeless. There’s always an opportunity. There’s always a chance for things to get better.”

Where ‘Remade In Misery’ differs from usual for Matty, however, is that he deviates from this natural inclination. “I just realised that in seasons where I’m struggling, it doesn’t help me when someone comes along, pats me on the back and says, ‘Hey, cheer up.

Everything’s gonna be okay’, right?”

This time he’s saying: you’re not alone. Three powerful words that do much more than any reflection of misery ever could. “Pain is this universal language that we all speak,” he continues, “and then at the very end of the album, we kind of wrap it all up and say, But hold on, you know, it’s worth it. It’s worth it to keep going.”

“I saw something the other day that said you never had the chance to heal because you never

admitted that you were broken,” Matty explains.

“Or you never admitted that you were hurt.”

Looking back is one of Matty’s favourite hobbies at the moment. Not only upon his band’s catalogue, but to those moments that he kept “a secret or hidden pain or faked happiness.”

“I’ve regretted every one of those, but I’ve never regretted a moment of vulnerability, where I’ve been honest with the people I love, honest with music,” he reveals. “Honest

with friends and family and being sincere to just say, ‘Hey, I don’t think I have it all together. Right now, I’m hurting.’ It’s in those moments that you can really start to heal. You’ll never heal if you can’t admit it to yourself.”

That’s a theme that runs throughout ‘Remade In Misery’. The term itself, according to Matty, is “another way of saying being forged in the fire.”

Rebuilding from the ground up, like a phoenix from the ashes - it’s what their seventh outing is all about.

Feeling confident with this stride is him combatting his foibles.

“I always want to be celebrating. It’s not until I’m willing to get honest and get dirty that things really start to come together. That’s honestly why the record is called ‘Remade In Misery’. It’s to understand that the hardest moments of your life are the ones that have brought you to this place.

If it wasn’t for the things you had to go through, you wouldn’t be the person you are today. You have to be thankful for that.”

Throughout chatting, there’s an air of relief that exudes from Matty. As if this is something the band needed. That, had the pandemic not altered their course, would undoubtedly have ended up in one of those moments that they learn to overcome, as opposed to being a point that is Memphis May Fire.

And for that, Matty is thankful.

“I’ve always felt like I was running, trying to catch up to something with every record we’ve made,” he ends. “For the first time, I feel like I’m one with this album. For the first time, I think that I’m a fan of Memphis May Fire.”

■ Memphis May Fire’s album ‘Remade In Misery’ is out 3rd June.

Upset 47

Rated.

THE OFFICIAL VERDICT ON EVERYTHING

Static Dress

Rouge Carpet Disaster ★★★★★

48 Upset

IMAGINE SOMEONE GRABBING your face and just spilling their guts at you in between howling screams: that’s what Static Dress have bottled on their hotly-anticipated debut album.

‘Rouge Carpet Disaster’ sparks with electricity, connecting each depraved holler, searing guitar line and furiously sturdy rhythm section barely holding itself together. With unbridled stamina, it’s unrelenting in all the best ways.

Echoing early days My Chem, but with a more jagged post-hardcore edge, the twelve tracks here collide together, pressure building, ready to inject life into the band’s take on just what a group can be and do in 2022.

Having reached into their creative pockets and pulled out a world built with lore and ambition, it’s their ability to as easily lift their feet from the pedal and let the glimmering sound of shoegaze take over (‘Attempt 8’) that marks them as more than a flash in the pan.

This is a band here to stay, with the ferocity and determination that makes sure everyone will know the name Static Dress, and ‘Rouge Carpet Disaster’ is their statement piece. Steven Loftin

Coheed & Cambria

Vaxis II: A Window Of The Waking Mind ★★★★ Coheed & Cambria’s universe is one that lives as much in graphic novels as it does in your earbuds. Where the initial Armory Wars tetralogy was wrapped up in 2013, kicking things back into gear in 2018 with the release of ‘Vaxis Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures’, Coheed are ready to dive right back in where they left off. ‘Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Wind’ remains reasonably loyal to the Coheed structure; breakneck riffs, soaring melodies and a blurring narrative that flips between canonical and relatable enough to sit isolated. Chances are, if you’re listening to ‘A Window...’, you’re here for the development of the epic world they’re building with soaring choruses and echoes of emotional vulnerability, and for that you’ll not be disappointed.

Ten albums in and Coheed show no signs of slowing down or retracing trodden ground, with the twists and turns as regal as they are maniacal, which is all the more remarkable given the extracurricular efforts that goes into their beloved Armory Wars. Steven Loftin

have repeated the trick in spectacular style. Less indebted to the intimate work of John K Samson and The Weakerthans, instead there’s a dexterity that echoes the early work of Death Cab For Cutie. But while nostalgia courses through, it never feels like a re-tread of the past. What we have here are four songs of the highest order, with preppy opener ‘Twentyfour’ – where vocalist Sjur Lyseid battles with mid-20s anxiety – and sombre closer ‘Do You Remember’, which features a guest turn by Keith Latinen (Empire! Empire! I Was A Lonely Estate/Parting/ Count Your Lucky Stars Records) both excelling.

There’s something exciting brewing in Norway, and with the return of Spielbergs and Onsloow’s album making a mark, ‘Torshov, ‘05’ could serve as a lightning rod for the burgeoning scene. Rob Mair

Gilt

Conceit EP ★★★★ ‘Conceit’’s opening track ‘Amethyst’ starts with haunting whimsy but quickly melds into something more fragile and ferocious, setting a wild pace for the next four tracks. Each features a guest vocalist, but it’s GILT’s own lead Ash Stixx who’s the most striking. Raw and intense, there’s a heavy emotional release in every one of their growls.

As GILT’s first work since the passing of Ash’s father, ‘Conceit’ is a profound exploration of grief and the full range of emotions that comes with it. Vulnerable and intimate, fresh and exciting, GILT have perfected an EP of gritty yet gut-wrenching posthardcore. Kelsey McClure

Memphis May State Champs Kings Of The New Fire Age

Remade in Misery ★★★★

Last summer, Memphis May Fire dropped a series of singles, with no suggestion of an album to follow.

North of 35 million streams later, they’re finally letting us in on the secret, with their seventh full-length ‘Remade in Misery’. While albums where so many songs have already been revealed before release may sometimes lack something in the excitement stakes, appearing a largely known quantity, that quickly falls by the wayside when they’re as in your face and impactful as these. The sound of a band in perfect synch, ‘Remade In Misery’ is brutal and brilliant.

Dan Harrison

★★★★

You can blame it on MGK or Willow or whoever but pop-punk is getting reinvented and it’s the perfect opportunity for State Champs to show newcomers to the genre and die-hards alike why they’re the kings of the new age. It’s fun, pogo stick bouncy energy, huge hooks and youthful optimism; this album is everything pop-punk should be. With Chrissy Costanza joining on the standout ‘Half Empty’ and cameos from Four Year Strong, Neck Deep’s Ben Barlow and country singer Mitchell Tenpenny too, the Champs have made sure that everybody (but you) are invited for their coronation.

Alexander Bradley

Flight Mode

Torshov, ‘05 ★★★★

Flight Mode deal in nostalgia. Whether that’s wistful feelings of longing, rose-tinted reminiscence or trying to piece together the people they once were, they’ve found a highly emotive seam to mine. On debut EP ‘TX, ‘98’ this was perfectly realised, and on ‘Torshov, ‘05’ the Oslo-based group

Upset 49

EVERYONE HAS THOSE FORMATIVE BANDS AND TRACKS THAT FIRST GOT THEM INTO MUSIC AND HELPED SHAPE THEIR VERY BEING. THIS MONTH, DE’WAYNE TAKES US THROUGH SOME OF THE SONGS THAT MEANT THE MOST TO HIM DURING HIS TEENAGE YEARS.

N.E.R.D Jump

can relate to this feeling. For the longest, my dad was my hero, but honestly, he did nothing to deserve that. I just really loved his ass and wanted him to be more present. But we’re closer than ever now, and I call him at the most random times, and he answers. So thank you, Mr. Jackson, for growing, but this song got me through a lot.

This was the first band I saw led by a black man in my life. So off the rip, I was inspired and moved. You always know the kids growing up who landed where they were born but was meant to be something else.

Pharrell taught me that from a young age. And it features my kings Good Charlotte... I had no KID CUDI idea who they were at the time. Confused Now I work with them. Love how Raw and grungy! My favourite. that can happen.

It’s no way I was gonna miss a chance to tell you about this TYLER THE rager! As a late teen, this song CREATOR made me wanna be in the passenger seat, lit out of my Answer This song is about needing your mind, confused and thinking where this music was going to dad to just call. I mean, most kids who grew up where I’m from take me!

50 Upset

PARAMORE Ain’t it Fun

OMG! In Hollywood, closing time at Taco Bell where I used to work, I’d be sweeping the floors, and this would always play! Even though it sounds happy, this song has everything you need. I knew I was either gonna die trying or make something of myself!

From a damn pop-rock, so thank you, Ms Hayley and the band, ofc!

ARCADE FIRE Wake Up

First off, Win Butler is from the same part of Houston as me, so once I found this band, it was everything to me! WAKE UP! Like that’s gonna be relevant

forever. If you ever need some motivation to stop the bullshit and keep going, this is the record to put on.

DAVID BOWIE

Rock n Roll Suicide

This album is in my Top 5. I have to say Bowie is the first rock star I fell in love with.

True infatuation! “Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth.”

That shit is deep as hell. To be real with you, those types of thoughts didn’t come in my head till much later, but I could feel where he was getting at. A true poet and artist, and I’m very thankful I had this album and this song.

De’Wayne’s single ‘Die Out Here’ is out now.