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WELCOME TO CONSUMER MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR

Rock Sound, Unit 2.38, East London Works 75 Whitechapel Road, London E1 1DU Tel: + 44 (0)20 7877 8770 Fax: + 44 (0)20 7377 0455 THIS MONTH’S BIG QUESTION: What would Pennywise from IT have to say to get you in the sewer? PUBLISHER: Patrick Napier (“You’ve won a free iPhone X!”) Tel: 0207 877 8779 patrick.napier@rocksound.tv Editorial Director: Ryan Bird (“If you come down here I’ll relegate Swindon Town again.”) ryan.bird@rocksound.tv PRINT ART EDITOR: Tom Morgan (“I have Peanut Butter Kit Kats and trap music.”) tom.morgan@rocksound.tv ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Rob Sayce (“I’ll show you IT 2.”) rob.sayce@rocksound.tv

NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY IN LIFE, YOU’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO PLEASE EVERYBODY.

into, and you won’t read a more honest interview with Ronnie anywhere else, regardless of your feelings on the man himself.

Whether it’s your friends, your family, your boss or anyone else, the simple fact is that at one point or another you will feel as though you simply can’t win. Nothing, and indeed nobody, knows that better than Ronnie Radke. Love him or hate him, chances are he’s done or said something at some point that has made you crack up with laughter, or spit feathers all over the living room floor. He isn’t perfect – far from it – but he’s certainly got plenty to say for himself, and given the distinctly grown-up vibes shown on latest album ‘Coming Home’ it seems as though he’s gone through some drastic and important changes. One way or another that’s something we think is worth delving

And if that’s not for you? That’s fine, because there’s plenty else going on this month to keep you occupied. From awesome new album exclusives with Against The Current and Of Mice & Men to insightful chats with Architects and Wage War (who might just be the most exciting heavy band we’ve heard in years), there’s something for everyone in an issue that we think is one of the most fascinating we’ve produced in ages. Because even if you can’t please everybody, you can always say you tried your best. Be good.

JUNIOR EDITOR: Will Cross (“I’ve got the unreleased Stand Atlantic album.”) will.cross@rocksound.tv DIGITAL DIGITAL EDITOR: Andy Biddulph (“I’ve got new State Champs music.”) andy.biddulph@rocksound.tv ACTING SOCIAL MEDIA EXECUTIVE: Jack Rogers (“I’ve got a block of halloumi the size of your head.”) jack.rogers@rocksound.tv DIGITAL INTERN: Koen van Meijel (“We’ve got so many cats in here.”) koen@rocksound.tv COMMERCIAL ADVERTISING DIRECTOR: Ben Crudgington (“I have a marketing budget.”) Tel: 0207 877 8776 ben.crudgington@rocksound.tv CONTRIBUTORS WRITERS: Matt Ayres, Alex Deller, Jennifer Geddes, Candice Haridimou, Chris Hidden, Josh Hummerston, Andrew Kelham, Emma Matthews, Niamh Moore, Heather McDaid, Mischa Pearlman, Gareth Pierce, Alex Reeves PHOTOGRAPHERS: Corinne Cumming, Adam Elmakias, Kevin Estrada, Tom Falcone, Mark Forrer, Steve Gerrard, Ben Gibson, Kane Hibberd, Elliott Ingham, Carla Mundy, Ashley Osborn, Nathaniel Shannon, Giles Smith, Justine Trickett, Mitchell Wojcik Newstrade distribution by Marketforce. If you have any trouble getting hold of Rock Sound in the shops please call: 020 3148 3333. Subscription rates are as follows: UK £37.99, Europe / US / Canada £49.00, Rest of world £69.00. To subscribe or if you have a problem with your subscription please call: 01293 312091 or email: rocksound@subscriptionhelpline.co.uk. All calls are charged at local rates. Rock Sound cannot accept responsibility for any unsolicited manuscripts and photographs or for material lost or damaged in the post. All material remains the copyright of Rock Sound Ltd. No part of Rock Sound may be reproduced in whole or part without the prior permission of the publisher (that includes uploading it online, kids). Our lawyers will be round (and they’re dead scary). ABC Member of The Audit Bureau Of Circulation Jan-Dec 2016: Average net circulation 14,057 ISSN: 1465-0185

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NEWS AND REGULARS 6 THE BIG PICTURE: THE MAINE

Go inside the Arizona crew’s biggest UK show yet. 8 AMERICAN SATAN

Andy Biersack and Ben Bruce take an in-depth look at their new movie. 14 TELLING IT AS IT IS

Patty shares his wisdom on hygiene, North Korea and plants. 16 TALK, TALK, TALK

Chrissy takes a break from touring the world to check in. 18 TAKE MY MONEY

Because you don’t have to crawl into a sewer to get what you want… you can just buy this stuff instead. 24 THE SECRET ROCKSTAR

This month, our band insider reveals what life is really like for women in music.

BREAKOUT 30 I DON’T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME

Dallon Weekes and Ryan Seaman give us an exclusive insight into their internet-breaking new project. 32 CRAZYEIGHTYEIGHT

YouTube stars Jarrod Alonge and Lauren Babic team up and get serious. Sort of… 34 BETWEEN YOU AND ME

Heartfelt, sun-soaked pop-punk from Down Under? We’re in. 36 HOMESAFE

Knuckle Puck’s Ryan Rumchaks opens up. 38 AWAKEN I AM

Into catchy, atmospheric pop-rock? These guys are for you.

FEATURES 26 LIFE LESSONS: JESSE BARNETT

Go deep with Stick To Your Guns’ frontman, who explains how all actions have consequences. 28 7 OF 30: FIL THORPE-EVANS

Neck Deep’s bassist reveals the worst advice he’s ever had, why he can’t stop swearing, and fucking loads more. 48 FALLING IN REVERSE

He’s back. Love him or hate him, Ronnie Radke is one of the most fascinating, unique figures in our world, and in this world exclusive cover feature he reveals all about the latest chapter of his journey. Brace yourselves. 58 AGAINST THE CURRENT

Chrissy returns and reveals how the band’s second album is sounding, and how they’re taking inspiration from… Oasis? 60 BURY TOMORROW

Naked dudes in a circle pit? Crowdsurfers riding killer whales? The UK metalcore titans have seen it all. 62 WAGE WAR

Here’s everything you need to know about heavy music’s next great hopes, and their plans for world domination. 64 ARCHITECTS

Sam Carter and Dan Searle tell us about new music, headlining Alexandra Palace and looking to the future. 76 5 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT: ‘SWAN SONGS’

From fighting their label to overcoming addiction, Hollywood Undead tell the incredible story of their debut album. 78 IN THE STUDIO: OF MICE & MEN

Wondering how album five is shaping up? Here’s the latest, straight from the mixing desk. 80 MY TUNES: TIM McILRATH

Rise Against’s frontman talks punk legends, car sing-a-longs and why he never wants to grow up. 82 WOULD YOU RATHER: ALEX ADAM

If you’re squeamish or love cats, look away now – ROAM’s guitarist / vocalist faces our toughest challenge yet.

REVIEWS 66 SLEEP ON IT 68 THE FRONT BOTTOMS 70 THE HAXANS 72 WE CAME AS ROMANS 74 WEEZER 4 rock sound

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6 rock sound

THE MAINE KOKO, LONDON SEPTEMBER 15, 2017 PHOTO: Ben Gibson In front of a packed Koko in London, The Maine brought the hits as well as the finest cuts from this year’s stellar sixth album ‘Lovely Little Lonely’ to their biggest ever UK headline show. Judging from the flowers adorning the stage, it’s fair to say that business is blooming...

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s n e k Awa

ive us the g E C U R B N ACK and BE thriller ANDY BIERSn on supernatural KE THEIR lowdow SATAN, AS THEY MA forget AMERICAN TING DEBUTS. Don’t AC CINEMATIC the popcorn… ll Cross INTERVIEW: Wi

So, how did you get involved in the film? Andy: “I’ve known Ash [Avildsen, director and founder of Sumerian Records] for about eight or nine years. He was Black Veil Brides’ first booking agent and someone who really believed in the band when not a lot of people did. Around the summer of 2015 he came to me on Warped Tour and said, ‘I’ve written this movie and I’ve got you in mind for the lead character.’

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Ben: “Ash’s father is John G. Avildsen, who directed The Karate Kid and Rocky, so Ash has always been a huge movie buff and said that he was going to write movies someday, but he was always busy with the label. I think once the label got bigger and started taking care of itself he saw the opportunity and ran with it. He hit me up asking if I wanted to be in his movie and I was like, ‘Of course I do! I want to be a movie star!’”

Tell us about your characters. Ben: “Leo is from England, is a huge rock ‘n’ roll fan and moves to Los Angeles in search of stardom and making it big in a band. His name may as well be Ben Bruce, to be honest!” Andy: “Johnny moves to Los Angeles to become a big rock star, and things sort of unravel for him as his life takes a pretty dark turn.”

“This character is getting involved in a lot of dark stuff.” Andy Biersack

How much of your own experience with your bands did you bring to your roles? Andy: “I have plenty of experience with the craziness of being on tour and being on the road, but in many ways I was just a passenger. It always felt like something I was aspiring to be. The character in the movie really falls through the trappings and the excess pretty quickly, and goes to a much darker place.” Ben: “I think the hardest thing about playing Leo was actually going back to my original innocence before Asking Alexandria took off, and before I was 10 years deep in the music industry – trying to switch off and remember what it was like before all that.” Was revisiting that early innocence difficult? Ben: “If anything it was more eye-opening

because it made me realise what I have now. I don’t want to say that I’ve taken everything for granted, but you do get caught up and these last 10 years have gone by very quickly. I kind of forgot everything I had to go through to get here. Filming this re-opened my mind – it was really interesting to go back into that headspace and relive it all.” Was it hard going in on such a heavy lead role? Andy: “We filmed this movie maybe four or five months after my decision to stop drinking, so a lot of that was still very fresh for me. With this character getting involved in a lot of dark stuff, there was certainly an emotional element that I could tap into and do my best to convey someone who’s going off the rails and losing control. There were certainly times when we would finish a scene and I would drive home for the night, and I’d feel spent or shaken up by the emotion of it all.” Did you have any musical input yourselves? Ben: “It was just acting. Ash asked me if I wanted to be involved in tehe score, but this was my first real acting role so I was like, ‘I just really want to concentrate on the acting.’ I wanted to simply try to enjoy the role of Leo, rather than trying to switch between Leo and Ben Bruce.”

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How DID YOU FIND working with each other given your long-term friendship? Andy: “Ben and I joked that we’ll never have a job where the bar is set so low for us ever again! We came up together and our bands were neck and neck. We were two rival groups, we would have crew that would work for us and work for them and people would talk shit behind each other’s backs. So in that way we kind of had a funny relationship. It’s been a lot of fun to laugh about the past.” Ben: “I feel like Andy was one of the reasons why I agreed to do the role in the first place. I remember thinking, ‘Well, at least I’ll have a friend on set.’ It was like the first day of school, I was nervous about the whole thing – ‘what if no one like me? I’ll just sit in my trailer all day on my own, but at least Andy will be there.’” How does it feel to be a member of [fictional rock band] The Relentless? It’s taken on a life of its own! Ben: “I don’t really know how to explain it! It started off as a fictional band and now it feels real – my fake music video (‘Let Him Burn’) is getting god knows how many 10 rock sound

views on YouTube and the single’s climbing the charts. It’s now an active rock radio hit in the States. I think it just goes to show that myself, Andy, Sumerian and everyone involved really does have a very loyal following, and this movie is really speaking to a lot of people.” Do you think fans of your bands are going to be into the movie? Andy: “I think that anybody could enjoy this. We sat down to see it a few months ago in Los Angeles. John Feldmann was there and the whole of Black Veil Brides, my wife, my sister-in-law, my father-in-law… it was a really emotional experience. I think anyone who enjoys rock ‘n’ roll and crazy shit will like it.” Ben: “It might be the highlight of my career so far, which is a crazy thing to say because I’m a musician and I’ve accomplished some incredible things, and I’ve got way more goals ahead of me that are just as exciting, but this was just so out of my comfort zone. It ended up being such a pleasure to work on.” Do you feel like the film highlights certain dark areas of the music industry?

Ben: “I think it really does. Obviously take it with a pinch of salt; I’m not saying Satan is under our feet and offering bands contracts! But there’s an underlying element of truth there. There are a lot of record executives and people out there who are like, ‘Give me everything and I’ll give you back very little in return.’ They offer fame and lights and cameras, but they literally suck the life out of you.” Andy: “Now I’ve been totally sober for over a year, the quality of my life and my decision-making, and my ability to be a

“It was like the first day of school.” Ben Bruce

little bit more on the ball with everything has made me a bit more perceptive. The kid in this movie moves to Hollywood to be a big rock star and immediately surrounds himself with the wrong characters and the wrong situations, and ultimately puts himself in a position to fail despite the success that he might have. Emotionally he’s kinda failing, so I think that’s absolutely true.” Does such a good experience mean you might do more acting in the future? Ben: “I really hope so! I feel like I did the best I could. I’ve been told countless times now by people in the industry what an insane job I did, so I’m really looking forward to doing more stuff in film and TV. I’ve actually already been offered a few new roles coming up in the near future for TV, so yeah, I’m thankful for the experience.” Andy: “I would love that! Ben and I spoke about that while we were doing it. Ash has created an opportunity for us to show a skillset that I probably otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to show. I had so much fun doing it and hopefully this is something that I can continue to do. I think the world of American Satan and the characters in it probably deserve to be seen more, so hopefully Ash will want to do some more stuff.” For more information on American Satan, visit www.americansatanmovie.com.

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ISSUE 232

RYAN BIRD

CHASE ATLANTIC ‘Chase Atlantic’ KNUCKLE PUCK ‘Shapeshifter’ STICK TO YOUR GUNS ‘True View’ ROAM ‘Great Heights & Nosedives’ THE MAINE ‘Lovely Little Lonely’

ANDY BIDDULPH

SLEEP ON IT ‘Overexposed’ CHASE ATLANTIC ‘Chase Atlantic’ SEAWAY ‘Vacation’ 7 MINUTES IN HEAVEN ‘Symmetry’ KNUCKLE PUCK ‘Shapeshifter’

ROB SAYCE

WILL CROSS

MOVEMENTS ‘Feel Something’ SLEEP ON IT ‘Overexposed’ WE CAME AS ROMANS ‘Cold Like War’ ANTI-FLAG ‘American Fall’ QUICKSAND ‘The Head On The Door’

SEAWAY ‘Vacation’ KNUCKLE PUCK ‘Shapeshifter’ SLEEP ON IT ‘Overexposed’ CHASE ATLANTIC ‘Chase Atlantic’ ARCHITECTS ‘Doomsday’

TOM MORGAN

7 MINUTES IN HEAVEN ‘Symmetry’ CHASE ATLANTIC ‘Chase Atlantic’ REAL FRIENDS ‘The Home Inside My Head’ THE STORY SO FAR ‘Under Soil And Dirt’ ARCHITECTS ‘Doomsday’

Bands with ‘Atlantic’ in their names who’ve been all over the Rock Sound stereo recently (Stand, Chase and Across The…). There’s clearly something in the water.

Songs from Fall Out Boy’s original ‘M A N I A’ sessions that will make it onto the final record, as Pete Wentz told the Rock Sound Podcast. Bold.

3:42

Length of All Time Low’s orchestral version of ‘Good Times’. It’s all kinds of emotional.

People who saw ‘Legends Never Die’ – the epic League Of Legends soundtrack song featuring Against The Current – coming. It’s great.

Years that Real Friends have been a band. They celebrated by releasing their ‘Something Old, Something New’ acoustic sessions. Happy Birthday lads!

11/12

The first time we tried our own Sleeping With Sirens lyrics quiz, we got this score. To be fair, it is hard. See if you can do better at rocksound.tv.

BEN CRUDGINGTON

THE HAXANS ‘Party Monsters’ ANTI-FLAG ‘American Fall’ CONVERGE ‘The Dusk In Us’ WAGE WAR ‘Deadweight’ EXHUMED ‘Death Revenge’

JACK ROGERS

CONVERGE ‘The Dusk In Us’ CHASE ATLANTIC ‘Chase Atlantic’ IRON CHIC ‘You Can’t Stay Here’ WE CAME AS ROMANS ‘Cold Like War’ MAYDAY PARADE ‘ Tales Told By Dead Friends’

KOEN VAN MEIJEL

ARCHITECTS ‘Doomsday’ COUNTERPARTS ‘You’re Not You Anymore’ ARCANE ROOTS ‘Melancholia Hymns’ OH WONDER ‘Ultralife’ PVRIS ‘All We Know of Heaven, All We Need of Hell’

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Months until they hit the UK for an arena tour, joined by Pierce The Veil. Big line-up is big.

Band who were not happy after their music was allegedly used in an advert without permission. “[They’ve] compared us to traffic, a flat tire and being arrested,” raged Carnifex.

OVERHEARD

IN THE OFFICE “He’s one of those Paddington dogs isn’t he? Wait...Paddington is a bear...” Coming to a bookshop near you: Will Cross’s The Adventures Of Paddington Pup. “At the end of the day, maybe we’re all chargers?” Andy Biddulph got all philosophical one afternoon. “If I found out poo was the best tasting thing in the world, I’d keep it to myself.” As Jack Rogers pointed out, this month’s Would You Rather? raises all sorts of questions. “The dragon from Shrek got quite sexy by the end of the film” Uhhhhhhhhhhhh… “He’s the king of men, and Harry Potter lived in a cupboard.” In the words of Tom Morgan - Aragorn 1, Boy Wizard nil. “You’re a cloud!” As Ben Crudgington shows, sometimes the simple comebacks are the best. “I went to see Paranormal Activity thinking it was real.” Jack Rogers on a very memorable afternoon at the cinema. “I’m on top of you, what are you gonna do about it?” Ryan Bird, while chasing Will Cross’s mouse around an Excel document. It was a slow day.

96%

The amount a video is improved by having dogs in it, as Seaway’s ‘Lula On The Beach’ shows. We see pups, we click: it’s that simple.

“I’m listening to dishwasher sounds because of you...” As Andy Biddulph informed us, there’s nothing like the noise of a ‘washer if you need to get stuff done. “I’d miss my own wedding for Fall Out Boy” Hey Fall Out Boy, can we hire you for Jack Rogers’ big day? Just in case…

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T I S I S A WITH

PATTY WALTERS

I have always been straight edge. However, my mental health hasn’t been great and I’ve been considering the drugs and alcohol offered to me from friends to try and feel better. I don’t want to stop being straight edge, but the temptation is there. SAM “I’m sincerely sorry to hear that times are particularly tough right now. In difficult times, it can prove tempting to turn to selfmedication and other methods of escapism. However, when used, coping mechanisms such as drugs and alcohol can only offer distractions and temporary relief. I pretty strongly discourage experimentation at such a volatile and uncertain time in your life. Prioritise your physical and mental health for the

time being, and appreciate your gradual progress and small, individual victories.” My ability to speak to people I’ve just met is terrible. I never know what to say without already having some level of familiarity. As someone who meets new people constantly, do you have any advice? DARREN “Have you ever completely forgotten someone’s name because you were so intensely fixated on remembering your own name? Yeah, me too. It’s so easy to be more present in your head than in the conversation you’re having. Try to temporarily tune out your inner monologue and actively listen and engage with the complex and nuanced human being in front of you. I promise you that person isn’t meticulously criticising you the way you’re criticising yourself.”

I’d like to consider a vegetarian lifestyle, but it’s hard when my family all eat meat. Any advice on how to take steps towards GOT A making that change? QUESTION STEPHANIE FOR PATTY? “If I’m entirely honest, I didn’t miss EMAIL: PATTY@ meat at all after giving it up. Being ROCKSOUND. a vegetarian has never been easier! TV It’s 2017, and supermarkets are all woke AF and filled with cheap and easy meat-free alternatives. They can be super effortlessly introduced into your family meals. You’re not trying to impose your diet on the rest of your family, so if you’re respectful of their choice, they should be respectful of yours.” If you had to pick one person from your band to try to negotiate with North Korea over the current missile crisis, who would? JACKSON 14 rock sound

“Our drummer, Foley, is a real people person. In many ways, he’s our band’s ambassador. He’s always looking out for people, making sure everyone feels loved and valued. Underneath his larger-than-life bravado, he’s definitely the most sensitive member of the band. Foley is also the last person I’d want negotiating with North Korea.” On a scale of one to 10, how smelly do bands get when they’re touring? Your suitcases must smell atrocious. IMOGEN “There are things in life you can’t unsee, and there are things on tour you can’t unsmell. Personal hygiene is its own artform on tour; sometimes you have to get creative. I also think having thousands of people who adore you and your band can totally over-inflate your ego, so knowing you haven’t showered in four days and are still wearing the same socks you wore when tour started can be a necessary and really humbling experience.” What would Pennywise have to say to get you in the sewer? PATRICIA “If Pennywise told me that Motion City Soundtrack were playing a reunion show, I’d be in that sewer faster than you can say ‘Commit This To Memory’.”

If PATTY couldn’t answer your question THIS TIME, but you’re still in need of help, advice or SIMPLY someone to talk to, help is at hand. Samaritans are here to talk 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. All queries are strictly confidential and there is no religious affiliation whatsoever. If you need guidance, call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90 (UK) or contact them on email via jo@samaritans.org.

TAL

ALK

L K A T , , T K

Chrissy Costanza Failure is the key to success. It sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? You look at successful people and their surface is immaculate and perfectly put together – they have it all together. Of course, we hear the stories of the battles they fought to get to where they are now, but even those seem romanticised and poetic through the lens of hindsight. I’m a perfectionist, but not in a way that you might think. My handwriting is terrible, my room can be a disaster at times, and half the time my T-shirts are wrinkled. So when you think of that type A, anally neat and put together perfectionist, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the kind of perfectionism that keeps you up at night because the fear of failure is crushing your soul and poisoning your mind. It’s a kind of perfectionism that eliminates the grey area and turns the world into success or failure: win or lose, live or die. It’s crippling, and it destroys me. It inhibits me from being happy or even content, it can ruin the things I love the most. The idea that failure is the key to success was okay for other people, but I could never apply it to myself. We all need to be a little less hard on ourselves. I hate letting people down, and touring is gruelling. We’re in the middle of a tour in Asia as I type and we’re on a plane every two days. Sleep is the most important thing, but the thing we get the least of. When we tour Europe or the U.S. we’re crammed 10 to 12 people in a bus for two months at a time. Often, I end up getting sick. Losing my voice is the most discouraging and defeating feeling in the world. I could have done everything right – drank lots of water, slept as much as possible, even worn a mask to try and prevent catching any germs – and still get sick. It’s just near impossible to stay fully healthy on the schedules we live on. Despite doing everything I could have to stay healthy, I failed anyways. It destroys me. Not being able to sing kills me, and having to cancel shows is the biggest failure of them all. At the other end of both scenarios are people who paid to come to our show, and I let them down. No matter how

hard I tried, I still let them down. Often in times like these I shut down, hide in my bunk or hotel room, and avoid eye contact with anyone. Hearing people say before we even start a tour, “Hopefully you won’t get sick this time,” causes dread to flood through my body. Even if I’m not sick, and just have a bad show, I shut down, hide and stop talking. I’m learning that this isn’t okay. I’m learning that I’m human, I’m imperfect and despite my best attempts at being my best, I will still fail to get there sometimes and that is just perfectly fine. But bullying myself isn’t fine at all. That’s not how we learn. When I get sick, I try and determine why I got sick in the first place. I’ve been working with a vocal coach to be able to sing through sickness. I have a whole ‘sick kit’ that I pack in my suitcase nowadays, so I’m fully prepared when it inevitably happens. When I have a bad show, I assess what was bad and whether or not it was in my control. If there were technical problems beyond my control, I can’t beat myself up over them. If it was my own fault, I try and determine how to avoid it in the future, and ask what I could have done differently. These failures contain much more information than successes do, and instead of using my failures to my advantage I hid from them for so long. Getting sick and being unable to perform aren’t the extent of this for me – it bleeds into everything. Even writing this article, I fear that what I write is of no interest or help to anyone, so think that I shouldn’t even bother. But fear of failure is public enemy No. 1 for me. Our failures are the bricks that build our castles. The more shots we take, the more misses we’ll have but eventually, the more hits as well. So now I’m trying to take every shot, to get up and face a crowd when I’m feeling defeated, and stay in the mindset that I can work through it. I’m learning that failure truly is the key to success. There is power in failure, and I’d like to stop wasting it.

Often in times like these I shut down, hide in my bunk, and avoid eye contact with anyone.

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Closing date for entries is November 07 and winners will be notified by email. GOOD LUCK! 20 rock sound

the resurrection tour uk

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rock sound 23

They’ve sold countless records, toured the world and appeared on the cover of just about every rock magazine YOU CAN THINK OF. Meet Rock Sound’s top secret band insider…

this month

The Secret Rock Star On...

women in music

24 rock sound

What’s life really like for women in music, and just how close are we to true equality? Our mole tells all…

don’t have all the answers, but I do have an insight into what it’s like for women working in music, both on and off stage. And not all of it is pretty. The sad reality is that some bands do abuse their status. A lot of the time, it’s when bands tour in different countries that they prey on their fans worst. Some of them treat touring as some sort of weird vacation where they just grab at everything they can. It’s almost as though being in another country gives them license to behave however they like. Or at least that’s what they believe. In some cases, girls seem to be more likely to swoon over an accent, and I think bands take advantage of that. If they find out there’s a rock bar down the street from where they’re playing they’ll be like, ‘We have to go,’ and then they just go around dropping their band name all night in the hope of suitably impressing someone to the point where they get what they’re looking for. It is, frankly, disgusting and pathetic. This doesn’t apply to everybody who happens to be in a band – it certainly varies from one to another – but the bands that are bad can be really shitty to their female fans. I don’t like being around people like that. I remember hearing about a band that went to Europe, and then early on in the tour one of the members got drunk and forced himself on a 15-yearold girl and kissed her. He then went missing and travelled home because he thought he was going to be arrested. That’s just one example - there are dozens more similar and equally unacceptable instances. Then there are bands that are the cliché towards women in the worst possible way. I remember touring with a fairly old band a few years back. A few friends and I stepped onto their bus to say hey to find a fan of theirs walking through the bus toward us. She said, ‘Are you here for the party? I’ve just done those guys’. Take from that what you will. I remember being like, ‘What?! This is insane. No!’ And not in a good way. And her brother was waiting for her outside the venue. It makes me feel weird. Yes, sometimes girls can be treated badly, but sometimes girls (and boys) are there to see the band, and see a lot more of them than they need to. That band must have been so happy that something so clichéd was happening to them. Especially on things like touring festivals, bands can act like they’re Mötley Crüe just because they’re on the tour and they think they’ve made it. It’s often just boys constantly being sleazy to girls, rubbing, touching and grabbing them. One dude picked a girl up and tried to take her away. It’s normally the people who don’t know how to respond to the word ‘no’ because they believe their own hype, they believe they can have whatever they want and should be entitled to whatever they want and whoever they want. A lot of those bands are told they’re fucking amazing and they believe it, then that comes out in their actions when they’re talking to people or talking to girls, or being turned down by girls and getting angry because they think, ‘I should have that’. They get pissed when

“Sexual harassment wouldn’t be acceptable on the street or in a bar, so it shouldn’t be acceptable ona tour or at a record label’s offices.” girls turn them down, and then call them sluts. They’re not sluts. They’re the complete opposite if anything, you fucking maniacs. And when I say boys do that to girls… boys do that to boys too. It’s not just straight dudes who are like that. So how do you deal with it? If you’re a smaller band it can be hard, because people don’t normally pay any attention to you, but in all honesty the smaller bands are often the worst for this kind of stuff. Little bands on a proper tour for the first time act like rock stars just because they have a laminate, and then you have bigger bands who act like they’re God’s gift to the world and get away with it. It’s not a problem with all of the population, just patches of each area. It’s important for people in bands and positions of power to call people out on their bullshit. Architects’ Sam Carter calling out an audience member for trying to grab a female in the pit is a good example of that. I also saw a band organising an all-female crowd surf recently, too. I hope things like that help make our scene safer and less intimidating to women. The girls in bands I’ve toured with have largely been treated well while they were actually on tour. It feels like girls in bands tend to be worshipped by their fans, and it’s amazing that there seem to be more and more bands featuring women breaking through every day, but there aren’t many women who work in music behind the scenes. Especially in terms of touring staff and crew. Some bands would probably see it as, ‘Oh, a woman stringing my guitar?!’ It’s incredibly backwards but that mindset still exists. I remember being on a tour once where one of the touring party was a really young dude – maybe in his late teens – and one of the other bands had a female merch seller. He got wasted and grabbed her breast. It was not okay, and it was good to see that the band and touring party – male, female, whatever – weren’t

afraid to let him know that in any uncertain terms. All hell broke loose. I sometimes wonder if the merch seller was put off touring after that, and I can see why she would hesitate to go on tours again. Nobody deserves to be treated like that, let alone while they’re trying to work. The vast majority of bands and crews would not be okay with this, but it shouldn’t happen in the first place. Sexual harassment wouldn’t be acceptable on the street or in a bar, so it shouldn’t be acceptable on a tour or in a recording studio or at a record label’s offices. It’s a great thing that these days, girls can see that they can be in bands more than ever. Now they can see that they can be Hayley Williams, that they can be Lynn Gunn, that they can be Chrissy Costanza. Not only that, but they can be themselves and be respected for it. Go to a Paramore show and you’ll see so many young women at their first show – sometimes just because there’s an iconic, inspirational woman in the band. That’s amazing and is something we need to see more of across the board. Rock music has been a male-dominated world for far too long, so the influx of women is brilliant and it has to carry on, because it’ll only make things better.

CATCH MORE FROM THE SECRET ROCK STAR EVERY MONTH AT WWW.ROCKSOUND.TV rock sound 25

t h i s

i s s u e

JESSE BARNETT STICK TO YOUR GUNS INTERVIEW: Jack Rogers

from CHANGING PERSPECTIVES and STAYING OPEN, TO karma AND chanelling positivity, the stick to your guns frontman certainly has plenty to pass on… LESSON #1 BEING A GOOD PERSON DOESN’T NEED A LABEL

“Like most children in America, I grew up going to church. It was part of everyday life. As I got older and looked at the morals that people consider to be Christian, I realised that they were just basic human morals. You shouldn’t need any sort of reward to do something good. I think my parents were just generally good people, though. They just saw their values as existing within the Christian religion.”

LESSON #2 DON’T RESTRICT YOURSELF

“In hardcore, there are kids who love just one style and think everything else is shit. That’s fine in theory, but there is so much diversity to hardcore and punk that if you only love one style you will fall out of love or feel you’ve ‘grown out of it’. I’m fortunate in that I have never been like that. People look at me at the age of 30 and go, ‘Have you still not grown out of that stuff?’ My response is always, ‘Fuck you!’ If you just stick to one lane then of course you are going to get bored. I love pizza, but I’m not going to eat pizza every day.”

LESSON #3 LOVE HARDCORE, HATE VIOLENCE

“When we started – and even now to a point – there was so much violence in hardcore. I identify with the anger and the aggression that comes with the genre, but I don’t identify with the violence that goes on. I’m not saying don’t mosh, just don’t be an ass-beater. It often seems so

26 rock sound

deliberate, rather than just letting that aggression out. I’ve had my bell rung a few times, but the kid has always come and checked that I’m okay. I think that all of the frustration that we are all feeling needs a direction. We need to know that we are chanelling that anger towards the right things, and not the person standing next to you wearing the same shirt and singing along to the same songs as you. It feels so counterproductive.”

LESSON #4 YOU MAY NOT STAY ON THE SAME PATH FOREVER

“I was never supposed to sing in Stick To Your Guns, I played guitar. I never wanted to be a frontman. People kept telling me to just do it, but I didn’t know how. I would cough up blood and wreck my voice so much and between songs I wouldn’t say a single word. I hated it. Looking back it feels like the universe was telling me that I’m not getting away from singing that easily. It’s cool to see the life I have grown into from that.”

LESSON #5 YOUR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES, NO MATTER WHAT “You have a right to say whatever you want. For example, a Nazi has the right to say he is a Nazi and I have the right to get on stage and say, ‘Fuck Nazis’. Nowadays, if I say that onstage there is a huge group waiting to beat my ass when I come off, and that’s a consequence that I have to face because of what I want to say. But at the same time, if you want to preach hate, you can’t complain when you get punched in the face.”

LESSON #6 IT’S IMPORTANT TO SWITCH OFF

“I try to educate myself on things that have happened in the past and how we can use them going into the future, and in looking for different ways that I can do my bit in combating all of the bad things in the world. I’m that person six days out of the week, but on that seventh day I have to switch off. I go and appreciate art for the way that it looks, music for the way that it sounds, or just look at something and know there is nothing political or social about what I’m seeing. Everybody needs those moments.”

LESSON #7 DON’T BE AFRAID TO QUESTION YOURSELF, always

“The last two years of my life have been incredibly confusing and distorted in so many different ways. When I was on the road I was getting offstage everyday, thinking I was someone who I really wasn’t. It took me a long time to realise that I was not that person, and it put me in a downward spiral of depression – I realised that so many of the relationships in my life had been ruined through my selfishness and my own thoughtless actions. I had to sit down and really clean out the closet, and get back to a place where I knew why I believed in the things that I do.”

Stick To Your Guns’ new album ‘True View’ is out October 13 via Pure Noise.

I WOULD COUGH UP BLOOD rock sound 27

T H I S

I S S U E

FIL THORPE-EVANS NECK DEEP INTERVIEW: Jack Rogers PHOTO: Ben Gibson

30 QUESTIONS. PICK 7. ANSWER ’EM. SIMPLE. FIL’S CHOICES:

#2 What is the worst piece of advice you’ve ever had?

“Probably to not be in a band! I’ve heard that one a lot over the years. The people who say that sort of thing are the ones who don’t even have an interest in actual music or the music industry, though. It’s usually old, bitter people who don’t believe that succeeding in that sort of thing is even remotely possible. I’ve always just sort of gone, ‘Meh, I’m going to give it a go anyway’. I think that attitude just stems from jealousy, ultimately.”

#3: What was your nickname at school? “I don’t think I really had one… everyone always just called me Fil! I guess that was it really. Being from a really small place there were always loads of people with nicknames, but I was always just Fil. I never really thought about if I wanted one either, to be honest. At school I did get called Little Fil for a long time, because I was dead small, but that’s about it. It got shortened to Lil’ Fil a lot, though, which was cool because it made me sound like a badass rapper.”

#7: When was the last time you cried? “Oh God, this is getting a bit dark! Let me think about this… I don’t really know, it’s been a little while. I’m very British so I don’t let my emotions out very often – usually I just ignore them. I think it must have been some time last year, but I think it’s probably a good thing that I can’t remember why or what it was about. That’s almost definitely for the best. Usually anything to do with animals gets my tear ducts going, though. Films like Marley & Me – those are the worst.”

#15: What is your worst habit? 28 rock sound

“I’d probably say swearing – I swear all the fucking time! I do it without even knowing that I do it. Most people have lives and jobs where they just know that they can’t get away with it, whereas most of my time is spent on tour where anything goes, so I never really have to worry about it. I mean, sometimes we do but most of the time I’m in an environment where it’s absolutely fine to swear. Back home my mum is worse than me, so I’ve never really had to worry about it there either!”

#19: What is the worst present that you’ve ever given someone?

“I pride myself on being a pretty good gift giver in general. I feel like I always put a lot of effort into birthdays and stuff like that. It must be something that I gave my mum when I was younger… I can’t think of anything bad that I’ve given recently. I must have given her some shower gel or a candle, because you never know what to get them. I’m one of those people who doesn’t spend lots of time worrying about presents, but there are people in your life who you want to do right by, so I think of them all year round. If I see something special I will pre-plan and buy it. I’m good for a decent prezzie if nothing else.”

#21: If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

“I would probably like the ability to turn off all my anxieties and everything that comes with them. That would be a pretty useful skill to have. I mean, I know that the things I worry about have helped form the person I am today, but at the same time it would be nice to turn them off when you feel like you don’t need them. I feel as though being in Neck Deep has helped

to combat a lot of those things, even if it’s also added a few extra ones for good measure! Being in a band becomes one of those things where you do something so much that you just get used to it. Like, if you do anything every day, it slowly becomes easier.”

#29: Do you believe in the concept of marriage?

“Of course! That’s kind of a weird question... It’s not something that should ever be considered alien or weird. It’s something that just exists. I maybe shouldn’t be such a big supporter of it because my parents are divorced and my mum remarried, and that’s not been the greatest thing to live through at times, but I think maybe seeing and living through the difficult moments has made me the total opposite of what people would expect. I back marriage – all the way.” Neck Deep’s new album ‘The Peace And The Panic’ is out now via Hopeless Records.

WANT MORE 7 OF 30 ACTION? You can find a whole host of 7 Of 30 interviews on our YouTube channel, featuring the likes of All Time Low, Twenty One Pilots and many more. Simply head over to www.youtube. com/rocksound to check them out in all their glory.

I’m very British… I don’t let my emotions out very often rock sound 29

I Don’t Know How But They Found Me

Dallon Weekes & Ryan Seaman Break The Internet

FROM: Los Angeles, USA RELEASE: ‘Modern Day

Cain’ (Single, self-release. Out now)

idkhow

Don’t Know How But We Found Him…

Following months of online mystery, secret shows and fan hysteria, Panic! At The Disco touring bassist Dallon Weekes – alongside exFalling In Reverse drummer Ryan Seaman – has finally revealed all the details on his new project, I Don’t Know How But They Found Me. Largely inspired by the ’70s and ’80s rather than anything from the modern era; the band is something

30 rock sound

decidedly different…

HI DALLON! WHAT’S IDKHOW?

Says Dallon: “It’s a little project that I’ve been working on in secret for the last year or so. I’ve ended up with some time on my hands and a whole backlog of songs and ideas with no real outlet to use them in, so I just created one in my spare time. I made a record, went to a bunch of friends’ places that had studios who were willing to give me an hour here and there to piece this thing together. Ryan, who I’ve known for like 10 years,

came in to do the drums on the record, and he was in a similar situation to me – touring for another band. So we just got talking about wanting to do something in our spare time and that’s how the idea of working together came about. But yeah, it’s been fun so far and it’s been fun to see the reactions of fans finding out about what we’ve been doing secretly.”

SO THERE’S AN ALBUM DONE?

“Nearly. It’s been a process purely because I don’t have a huge budget for this thing, and my skills at recording

LIS

‘MOTDEN TO DAY CERN ON O AIN’ UR SM

playlist

PANIC! AT THE DISCO

on my own are pretty limited. I’ve been learning over the last year but I still don’t know it all. It’s nearly finished. I could have called it finished quite a while ago but I wrote a song that I really want to add to the record, so I’m putting the finishing touches on that one right now.”

IS THE PLAN TO GET MORE MUSIC OUT SOON?

“Yeah, as soon as possible, really. It’s something that I’ve been working on for a while, and I hadn’t really

planned on making it this public as early as it’s been. But fans have started to find out what we’ve been doing and showing up to shows and stuff, so we’ve had to put everything into a high gear and get it out there as soon as possible. And in the most effective way as possible too, we want this thing to be as successful as it can be, so we’re trying to hurry but also be smart about it.”

IT SOUNDS LIKE EVEN YOU DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THIS!

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TWENTY ONE PILOTS

GERARD WAY

“We knew that there would be Panic! fans and Falling In Reverse fans who would come and check us out and give us a chance because of that. So we wanted to be as respectful as we could to the bands that we were playing for, and as respectful as we could to those fans too. It would have been very easy to do a press release and advertise and sort of say, ‘Hey, come check out this thing we’re doing!’ but there’s something about that that feels disingenuous to me. It’s so much better when you’re able to discover a band on your own, you know?” WORDS: Will Cross rock sound 31

CRAZYEIGHTYEIGHT

LIS

TEN T ‘TOM O PLANMY’S ON ET’

OUR

TWO YOUTUBE STARS + A WHOLE LOT OF RIFFS

playlist

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FROM: Tennessee, USA & Toronto, Canada RELEASE: ‘No Words Spoken’ (EP, self-release. Out now)

crazy88official

Have you heard the one about the parody artist who started a serious band?

No, it’s not a joke: songwriter / guitarist Jarrod Alonge (Canadian Softball) has teamed up with vocalist Lauren Babic of Red Handed Denial to channel the spirit of ’00s post-hardcore. Throw in some influence from classic cinema, and you’ve got CrazyEightyEight. “The lyrics on our EP are all written from the perspective of characters in movies,” explains Jarrod. “I

saosin

had a normal upbringing without any real tragedies or big unique events to draw inspiration from, so if I were to write something deep and personal, it’d be about my asthma or how my head is too big for my body!” “It’s been fun seeing what themes listeners have been discovering and interpreting,” nods Lauren. Though the duo have never met face to face – shout out to the internet – they’ve already released both a series of covers and an EP, ‘No Words Spoken’. “We finished the EP completely via emails, texts

underøath

bring me the horizon

and messages,” continues the vocalist. “[We’re] going to see how long we can keep the streak going.” “With comedy music, there’s this protective blanket where if something in the song isn’t really up to par, you can go, ‘It’s comedy, it’s not supposed to be good,’” adds Jarrod. “There’s an anxiety around releasing serious music, because people can straight shit on it. Though I’ve seen some comments saying ‘I don’t get it?’ it seems like most people have really connected to this.” Give ‘em a shot, or the joke’s on you. WORDS: Rob Sayce

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between you AND me AUSTRALIAN POP-PUNKS SET TO MAKE WAVES

L ‘oveIrSTEN TO thiN k ON O U ing’

play

From: Melbourne, Australia Release: ‘Overthinking’ (Single, Hopeless. Out now)

WITH CONFIDENCE

byamaus

With the exception of 5 Seconds Of Summer, pop-punk HASN’T ALWAYS BEEN a big thing in Australia.

That’s starting to change, however. With Confidence have broken out of the continent, Stand Atlantic look set to do the same, and hot on their tail are brand new Hopeless Records signees Between You And Me. “There’s not really much happening here in terms of pop-punk,” says vocalist Jake Wilson. “It’s mainly hardcore or indie music. So it’s flattering that we’re one

of the only two who are signed to Hopeless. It’s cool to be noticed outside of Australia.” The band first got together when twin brothers guitarist / vocalist Chris Bowerman and drummer Jamey Bowerman saw Wilson’s covers videos on YouTube. Initially, they started off just doing acoustic covers – due to a wrist injury incurred by the drummer – but they soon began writing their own brand of catchy, earnest pop-punk. In October 2016, after a line-up change, they selfreleased their debut EP, ‘Paper Thin’, and were soon

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STAND ATLANTIC

COLUMBUS

snapped up by Hopeless, with freshly released new single ‘Overthinking’ paving the way for an album set for early next year. But while things seem to be falling in their favour right now, Wilson is also very much aware that life for new bands can be tough. That’s not a problem, though. “To be honest,” he says, “If I’m seeing new places, meeting new faces at gigs and being able to write music with my mates, I don’t care how much money I make. As long as I get to do what I love, I don’t really want money.” Can’t argue with that, eh? WORDS: Mischa Pearlman

Bearings

The Everyday Anthem

Life Lessons

Ashland

For Fans Of: Knuckle Puck,

For Fans Of: 5 Seconds Of Summer,

For Fans Of: With Confidence,

Like Pacific, Grayscale

State Champs, All Time Low

Seaway, The Story So Far

For Fans Of: Against The Current, PVRIS, Courage My Love

Love your pop-punk mixed with lashings of emo? Ottawa’s Bearings should be your first stop. Recently signed to Pure Noise Records, new EP ‘Nothing Is Permanent’ swells and bursts with lyrical confessions and heart-on-sleeve emotion – just one listen to ‘North Hansen’ or ‘Petrichor’ will have you staring off into the sunset, tears rolling down your face (well, it did us).

Produced by none other than All Time Low’s Rian Dawson, Atlanta’s The Everyday Anthem play irresistible pop-punk. Songs like ‘Three Years’ and ‘Stage Dives & Pick Slides’ on debut album ‘Nobodies’ fizz with huge choruses and sweet melodies – with the odd beatdown thrown in every so often too. Love the poppier side of your pop-punk? Get involved.

Currently supporting Four Year Strong across America on their ‘Rise Or Die Trying: Part 2’ mega tour, Oklahoma’s Life Lessons bring a whole load of punk pace and grit on new EP ‘Best When In Motion’. Ragers like ‘Attention To Detail’ and ‘Control’ thrash with uncontrollable emotional energy, taking in killer dual-vocals and more than a nod to the classics of the genre.

Love the new PVRIS album and want more? Can’t wait for that new Against The Current album? Ashland have got you sorted. The Illinois duo blend an irresistible mix of rock and pop on debut album ‘Wildfire’. The choruses and lush textures of songs like ‘No Trouble’ and ‘Always Something’ whisking you up and away – pure dancefloor knockouts.

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34 rock sound

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homesafe

‘HOUSTEN TO RGLA ON O S UR S’ SM

KNUCKLE PUCK’S RYAN RUMCHAKS BEARS HIS HEART

playlist

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FROM: Oak Lawn, USA RELEASE: ‘Evermore’ (EP, Homegrown. Out now)

homesafeIL

KNUCKLE PUCK

Some bands are formed with a deeper meaning in mind.

Some are formed with the intent of starting a movement that’s bigger than just chords, lyrics and emotions. Some, however, just love music so much that they want to share their own with the world. Homesafe are that sort of band. “Homesafe is the be all and end all of what we’ve all been working towards,” vocalist / guitarist Ryan

Rumchaks smiles. “I definitely feel like the sound that we’re creating isn’t happening [anywhere else] in the scene right now.” Ryan may just be onto something there. Put together in his off time from pop-punk heroes Knuckle Puck – where he handles bass duties – with as much blood between its teeth as tears staining its cheeks, the band’s latest release ‘Evermore’ is an emotional outpouring that delves into the sort of corners that the genre has rarely dared. “‘Evermore’ was the first time we sat down in a room

BOSTON MANOR

SLEEP ON IT

as a band and worked on songs together,” explains Ryan. “With our new music we zoned in on the same things but tried to make it bigger and better.” You can sense that tight-knit connection between the band, especially in how distinctly relatable the music that they produce feels. No stone is left unturned and no subject matter is too personal. “We don’t really have a general theme with our lyrical content,” he admits. “I just want to write music that still makes me feel something five years from now.” Chances are, it’s mission accomplished. WORDS: Jack Rogers

Stand Atlantic

The Fever

Holding Absence

“I’ve got Stand Atlantic on repeat and I’m looking forward to watching them just get bigger and bigger. I knew I was going to love them as soon as I heard the first chorus of ‘Coffee At Midnight’ – I couldn’t believe how new they are, they already know exactly how they want to sound. They’re definitely my favourite new band; their music has that ‘get up and go’ about it, which is exactly what I’m looking for in my music. I can see them becoming the new Paramore or Tonight Alive. Just awesome!”

“Within the first 30 seconds of hearing ‘We’re Coming In’, I knew I was going to love The Fever. There’s something so raw and passionate about their sound that just gripped me. I’ve only heard two songs by them and they’re already one of my favourite new bands. I love what they stand for and the message they’re clearly trying to send out. The lyrics, sound and energy that comes from this band is just what the music scene needs! The Fever’s coming and we better be prepared!”

“I found Holding Absence on YouTube and was instantly blown away. They create an atmosphere within every song and it makes you feel the lyrics so deeply. They pause songs at the perfect time to just make you think and take in what’s just happened, especially ‘Penance’. The small things they do really blow me away. On top of that they’re still heavy and the vocalist is incredible. Overall they’re an amazing band to look out for in the future, they will become huge.”

Check Out: ‘Sidewinder’ standatlantic

Check Out: ‘Hunting Season’ thefever333

Check Out: ‘Penance’ holdingabsence

Erin Godde

THE NEW STARS

OF YOUR STEREO

36 rock sound

Claire Archer

Andrew Lawler

FROM: Brisbane, Australia RELEASE: ‘Blind Love’ (Album, Victory. Out now)

Sleeping With Sirens

awakeniam

There was a time when Awaken I Am’s fate hung in the balance.

Yet despite several line-up changes leaving just two members – vocalist Adam Douglas and guitarist Ned Jankovic persevered and finally scored their dream team in 2014. “We joined a shell of a band that had broken down in a way,” acknowledges drummer Luke McKenzie, who helped piece the group back together from the other side alongside guitarist Connor Oakley. “We’ve been

working hard since then.” True enough, a post-hardcore-laced debut album quickly followed, securing the Brisbane crew countrywide radio play, international tours and eventually a deal with Victory Records. But when it came to creating new album ‘Blind Love’, they were keen to change things up. “Our big goal in mind when going into the studio was to take a sidestep from playing technical music,” admits Luke. “Instead we wanted to focus on melody and music that complemented the vocals.”

play

Atmospheric Quintet IN LINE FOR THE CROWN

awaken i am

‘BLIINSTEN TO D ON OLOVE’ UR RL

Hands Like Houses

list

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B R EA K O U T PL AYLI

Too Close To Touch

The result is a sleek, atmospheric pop-driven record, emphasising the emotional weight of its themes. “The album’s concept is about struggling with selfdestructive tendencies and I think a lot of that can come as part of being a touring musician.” Thankfully they have each other to share that journey with, completing their lineup with touring bassist Ryan Oxford. But if others tagged along too, that’d be okay. “We’re extremely proud of it and that’s the main thing for us… although we hope other people like it too!” Bets are on the latter. WORDS: Candice Haridimou

YOUR FAVOURITE bands’ new FAVOURITE bands

Power trip

CHAPEL

Can’t Swim

Elijah Witt, Cane Hill

Hannah Greenwood, Creeper

Drew York, Stray From The Path

“I don’t know if you’d call them ‘new’ but they definitely aren’t old – my shout is Power Trip. Jesus Christ, the RIFFS. They’ve brought thrash metal back in a modern way and I can’t get enough of it. Check out their new album ‘Nightmare Logic’ – aggressive is an understatement. Especially on tracks like ‘Soul Sacrifice’ and ‘Executioner’s Tax (Swing Of The Axe)’. If you like hardcore fight riffs mixed with Metallica-style solos, this is your new jam.”

Check Out: ‘Soul Sacrifice’ powertriptx 38 rock sound

“I’ve been listening to CHAPEL a lot recently. I started giving them a listen when I found out they were on the Waterparks tour we did at the beginning of this year – only to then realise we weren’t on the same dates! :( They’re super catchy, especially ‘Caught Up’ and ‘We’ve Got Soul.’ They’ve just toured the UK with Waterparks and The Bottom Line and apparently they’ve got some new stuff coming very soon, so go check them out now!”

Check Out: ‘We’ve Got Soul’ chapelusa

“My new favourite rock band at the moment is Can’t Swim from New Jersey. Their album ‘Fail You Again’ dropped just a few months back. They remind me so much of the stuff I grew up listening to and love. The album has moments that remind me of Brand New, who I love to death, while also being original in the way the singer Chris’s voice sounds. If you’re looking for a band that’s gritty, emotional, and something that really grabs you, then they are for you.”

Check Out: ‘Stranger’ cantswim

Â© Eliot Lee Hazel

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‘COMING HOME’ IS DEFINITELY A RECORD THAT MOST PEOPLE WOULDN’T HAVE EXPECTED FROM YOU. IT’S CERTAINLY A CURVEBALL OF SORTS… “Because it’s cohesive, right? It blends together nicely, way more nicely than the other records that are all somewhat bipolar in nature. It plays out a story that is linked through every song and comes together as a complete piece of work. I don’t think it’s something people ever expected from a Falling In Reverse album, and I think that was important.”

WHY WAS THAT IMPORTANT? WHAT WAS IT THAT MADE YOU WANT TO REINVENT THE IDEA OF FALLING IN REVERSE? “The predictability, probably. I think things were perhaps becoming too familiar in some ways; too normal in some strange manner. I don’t like normalcy or predictability – they don’t sit well with me. I don’t like the idea of doing something over and over again, at least in terms of musicality. If it’s cardio or exercise then that’s different – that’s short-lived and something you generally do on a daily basis for a period of time. When it comes to something that is immortalised, be it a record or a movie or anything in that kind of creative sphere… I can’t do that.”

DID YOU FEEL AS THOUGH EVEN YOU YOURSELF WERE STARTING TO KNOW WHAT CAME NEXT? “That’s exactly what it was. Even when it came to making this last record I re-evaluated what it was that I was doing and started from scratch. I wrote a bunch of songs and then one day I just threw everything in the trash. I must have had somewhere between 20 and 30 songs and I deleted the whole collection, including some songs that people at my label were freaking out over because they were perfect for radio. The idea of that would probably intimidate most people, but I would rather stop putting out records completely than release something I don’t believe in. Mediocrity and normality has never produced anything worth a dime.”

WHERE DID ‘COMING HOME’ AS WE KNOW IT BEGIN? “It actually started with the title track, which is why the album has the same name – because it was the building block for everything that came after. That song actually came from the David Bowie song ‘Space Oddity’, where he’s doing the countdown and it has this intergalactic, interstellar vibe going on. It’s completely otherworldly and that’s exactly what I wanted, something that literally sounded as though it was from another planet. I remember listening back to ‘Coming Home’ when it was done and going, ‘Holy crap, this sounds like it should be in a

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IN SONGS, OF ALMOST HIDING BEHIND SOME LEVEL OF SILLINESS. FOR THE MOST PART THESE NEW SONGS DON’T DO THAT. Transformers movie!’ That cinematic feel is something I love – that song is like a score to a movie that lasts five minutes. There’s actually a bunch of songs that sound as though they’re made for different types of movies on there, whether it’s the title track or a song like ‘I Hate Everyone’ which sounds as though it should be on the American Pie soundtrack.”

HOW DID YOUR LABEL REACT TO THE SONGS WHEN YOU FIRST PLAYED THEM, PARTICULARLY AFTER YOU’D SCRAPPED EVERYTHING BEFOREHAND? “I feel like the people around me know that’s just who I am, you know? My manager always tells me to go with my gut, and when the album was finished he told me that he was glad I’d done that. It isn’t always straightforward, though. I feel like any artist is ultimately riddled with self-doubt and insecurity – if you’re a creative then nobody doubts yourself as much as you do. I feel like if you’re going into something without questioning yourself repeatedly then that thing probably isn’t worth doing anyway. Nothing is worth doing unless it keeps you up at night at least a little bit.”

YOU’VE ALWAYS HAD A WAY OF DRESSING UP THE SERIOUSNESS OF WHAT YOU’RE SAYING

“Because they’re not as fun, right? They’re not so bouncy and silly and outrageous and funny… there’s no wackiness and absurdity painting over everything. But you know, I’m 33 years old now. I’m not going to write songs like ‘Bad Girls Club’ over and over again because I don’t want to, and because I’m getting older and I want different things. You listen to a song from the new album like ‘Broken’ and it’s very serious, and it puts you in a very serious mood. Sometimes I don’t want to dress up something that makes me sad or pisses me off – I don’t always want to slap a dress or a nice suit on something to make it more appealing.”

SO IS THIS THE END OF EVERYTHING THAT WE’VE KNOWN, SO TO SPEAK? “As terrible as that pun is, I don’t think you should assume too much or read too much into things, because I just wrote a song a couple of weeks ago that I’d describe as ‘Alone’ Part Two. It isn’t as knuckleheaded and full of insecure bravado as that song, but it doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before, which is exactly what I said about ‘Alone’ at the time. Yes I’m growing up, yes I’m at a different point in my life, yes I want to do things differently… but that doesn’t mean that everything from here on in is going to sound a certain way just because I’m getting rock sound 51

older. I could say something to you right now and then tomorrow completely change my mind, especially if I feel like people suddenly expect a certain something. I don’t think that sense of chaos and unpredictability is ever going to leave me whether I’m 33 or 103.”

I THINK EVEN PEOPLE WHO DON’T LIKE YOU WOULD ADMIT THAT YOU’RE VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO PREDICT. “Yeah… but I feel like the only people who don’t like me are people who don’t even know me anyway. The amount of people who talk shit on me and say I’m this, that or the other – there’s no way I’ve even met one per cent of them. It’s just not possible for me to have met them for even 30 seconds because there’s so many of them. I can come off as a real jerk sometimes because I simply say whatever is on my mind, but I think that the internet and social media ruins a lot of things and gets in the way somewhat. It’s kind of funny because I’m actually starting to see that certain people 52 rock sound

understand me a lot more than I ever thought. A girl tweeted me recently going, ‘You’re really mean sometimes, but we can tell that you’re a very nice person – we all have things that we say that don’t show the real us’. I looked this girl up and she could only have been 13 or 14 years old – these kids are getting smart! They’re a lot more switched on than people give them credit for, and I think it says a lot about society when a lot of children have a more balanced way of viewing people’s behaviour than many adults do.”

I SAW YOU AT WARPED TOUR THIS SUMMER AND YOU HAD COMFORTABLY THE BIGGEST AND LOUDEST CROWD OF THE ENTIRE DAY. I REMEMBER TURNING TO A FRIEND OF MINE AND GOING, “NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS OR HOW MUCH TIME PASSES, THIS GUY JUST ISN’T GETTING ANY SMALLER.” “That is probably the coolest thing any interviewer has ever said to me, because I’ll bet you all think it constantly and no one

ever has the balls to say it. And do you know what? I don’t understand it either. There’s a constant insecurity and uncertainty that lies within me that always leaves me thinking my career could end at any moment. Most people go through their lives falling in and out of fads and trends – everything is cyclical and disposable and very few people like the same thing they did when they were 15 when they’re 50. Unless you’re fucking AC/DC then at some point it’s all going fall away, and I’m not AC/DC. Or am I? Who knows – maybe I have that same thing they do in that this thing will just carry on for the next 20 or 30 years. I’m 33 years old, I’m not some handsome twentysomething dude wearing makeup anymore. I don’t have much else to offer besides my songs and my music, so when people turn up in big numbers, and when they sing the songs as loud as they do… there’s something there. There’s some sort of connection that goes deeper and keeps people coming back, and every time I think it might be about to end they show up.”

FALLING IN REVERSE

DO YOU THINK IT’LL EVER GET ANY BIGGER THAN IT IS, THOUGH? PEOPLE COME BACK BUT IS THAT THE EXTENT OF IT INDEFINITELY? “I mean, I’m not sitting in arenas or anything, but I’m consistently sitting at a level a lot of bands don’t get to, let alone sustain. It just sits there, and yeah, that can be frustrating. It’s like, ‘What the hell? I want to be in an arena!’ Who wouldn’t want to be at that level? But at the same time, I’m just grateful that I’ve been doing this as long as I have and it’s showing no signs of getting any smaller. And that’s what really pisses me off when people talk crap on me, or they call me an egotistical prick or some shit, because if I really was that egotistical I wouldn’t be asking myself every day if this is all going to end. It’s as though people see the bravado that goes into some of my lyrics, or some of my music videos, and they think that it’s real life. As much of an idiot as they might think I am, you’d have to be an ever bigger idiot to think that I sit around all day acting like that.”

THIS IS THE FIRST ALBUM YOU’VE MADE WITHOUT JACKIE VINCENT [GUITAR] AND RYAN SEAMAN [DRUMS] BEING INVOLVED. DO YOU FEEL THAT’S HAD ANY SORT OF NEGATIVE EFFECT ON THINGS? “Jackie is a good person – I just don’t think he knew what he was getting himself into when he joined this band all those years ago. He’s this kid from a small coastal town in England who used to be a baker or some shit, who left this foggy little place to join a band in Las Vegas with a guy who just got out of prison – a guy with a lot of controversy and huge interest around him – and went straight on the road and into a life he was never prepared for. He’s a very nice person, a simple person in many ways, and as time went on he just became less and less able to handle it. By the end it was written all over his face – he wouldn’t leave his bunk, he’d ask me to ask photographers to stop taking pictures of him onstage because he didn’t like how they came out… he was just done with it all. He’s the only person who has ever left Falling In Reverse voluntarily – everyone else was fired. I don’t want to get too much into the stuff that happened with Ryan because I don’t want to damage what he’s doing now – and it probably would – but I’m not really happy with him. He’s a liar and he uses people, and only the people who know him and have worked with him behind the scenes know that.”

HAS IT BEEN DIFFICULT WELCOMING NEW PEOPLE INTO THE BAND? “I have a no bullshit policy – I’m not scared to fire somebody and it’s always for a good reason. A lot of people have wronged me rock sound 53

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in my life. I fired somebody once because they broke into my house, because they lost their keys. They broke the lock so that it wouldn’t close, and they invited fans into my house while I was sleeping even though I deliberately told them not to. They came into my room and woke me up at like three in the morning, so I got up and I fired them. And then another person, I bought them a car for their birthday. It turned out to not be a particularly great car, which I didn’t realise, I just bought it real quick, but it cost me like seven grand. That’s a lot of money – I just wanted them to have a car for their birthday. They took the car and then freaked out because they had to take it to get it fixed or something like that. They were like, ‘I didn’t need a car – I needed money’. I was like, ‘You’re a dick – you’re fired! I just did something nice for you, and instead of being grateful you slap me in the face’. It’s really hard to be the boss of your friends – I don’t like it. I’d much rather be the boss of people who I’m not friends with, but when you’re living with people for nine months of the year you have to be their friend.”

HAVE YOU TRIED TO PUT MORE OF A PROFESSIONAL BARRIER BETWEEN YOURSELF AND THE OTHER PEOPLE IN FALLING IN REVERSE AS A RESULT OF THAT? “I try to, but it’s hard. You have a couple of glasses of wine on the bus, or you have a beer, and you’re bro-ing down with people… you can’t help it. What I will say is that the newer people in the band know their place. It’s much more of a professional thing – they just come in and they play. They don’t complain or act like divas. One person who used to be in my band, I caught them once talking to my friends, these two girls. They said to them, ‘If you know anything about rock music, you’ll know who I am’. That’s a mentality that I just can’t put up with, which is probably shocking because so many people think I’m an egotistical prick. It’s pretty ironic.”

YOU’VE SPOKEN OF PEOPLE YOU WERE ON ON GOOD TERMS WITH WHO YOU NOW AREN’T. DOES THAT GO THE OTHER WAY TOO? “I think there are definitely certain people I’ll always be on good terms with regardless of certain shit – if I’ve known you for 20 years then to a

point you’ll always be on good terms with me. But I’ve really started to figure out people’s intentions over the last year or so. There are a lot of people who want certain things but who don’t necessarily have the means or the ability to accomplish them for whatever reason, so they latch on to people who have those things. Eventually you realise that you can’t go around paying people’s rent for them, because if that’s happening then they aren’t your friends.”

DO YOU FEEL YOU’VE HAD YOUR FINGERS BURNT A LITTLE? “I’ve realised that I need to be able to see the warning signs a little clearer. I’ve come to see that certain people have been using me whether they admit it or not – it’s very clear to me. I shouldn’t be saying a lot of the stuff I’ve said but I don’t care anymore because I’m done – I’m sick and tired of people getting away with shit while I’m always taking the fall for it. Because I write all of the songs and because people buy shirts with my face on them I reap the benefits of that, and so the people playing in my band get a flat rate. But every time that we would go out or that we were on tour, those people would have to pay for zero. I would pay for dinner, I would pay for their clothes, I would pay for their haircuts… over time you start to realise that certain people aren’t even grateful for that, and that they actually come to expect it. You start to realise that maybe you’re being exploited.”

DO YOU THINK YOU’VE BEEN GUILTY OF BEING TOO TRUSTING OF CERTAIN PEOPLE? “Here’s the thing – there’s a big difference between somebody like Derek Jones [guitar] and certain other people. Derek Jones would never let me [pay for his meal], because that’s the kind of person he is. I bought someone else a car too, by the way, and I found out after I fired them that they went around telling people I didn’t pay them enough, and that the car I bought them, they bought for themselves. These things I’d find out would really break my heart, because all I do is try to help. That’s what people don’t know – they think that I just randomly fire people or that people just leave the band. That’s not how it is.”

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AWAY FROM THE DAY-TO-DAY RUNNING OF FALLING IN REVERSE, WHAT IS AN AVERAGE DAY FOR YOU LIKE IN 2017? “I do a lot of cardio – like three times a day. I’ll do this thing called the Insanity Challenge, which takes about an hour to do, and then I’ll get on my bicycle. I actually rode my bike over 50 miles the other day, which sounds pretty excessive but it was quite a special moment. I rode it to the prison that I was incarcerated in, all the way to the sign where the prison starts. It was symbolic, of how careless I once was and how I want to be a better person mentally, spiritually and physically. It meant a lot to accomplish that, and to take something positive from a dark place.”

WHAT BROUGHT ON THIS GENERAL CHANGE IN LIFESTYLE? “It’s unacceptable for me to let myself go – I don’t like to put up with that anymore. Drinking alcohol can be fun, but it’s also not, especially before you go onstage because when you start singing the blood rushes to your head. I looked terrible, like Elvis right before he died. I like to keep myself in check on the back of that, and to not let myself go too much.”

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HOW ARE THINGS IN TERMS OF YOUR FAMILY LIFE? YOUR DAUGHTER JUST STARTED SCHOOL, RIGHT? “Yeah man, that’s fantastic – I flew out to Texas to take her there and I’m about to see her again. For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction, so it feels like although some negative shit may go down there’s always something positive going on as well. My daughter’s mother and I are on this new wavelength now that has nothing to do with emotions or feelings for each other – there’s never an argument or anything like that. I’m glad that we’ve reached that point because let me tell you, it is a lot easier! She’s a great mother, too – a wonderful mother. She does a really great job of raising our child.”

WHEN I CAME TO YOUR HOUSE IN APRIL OF 2014, YOU SAID YOU DIDN’T KNOW HOW MUCH LONGER YOU COULD STAND ONSTAGE AND SING FALLING IN REVERSE SONGS. YOU SPOKE OF STEPPING BACK AND PRODUCING, RATHER THAN BEING ONSTAGE... “It’s kind of funny because right now I have

FALLING IN REVERSE

two songs on the Active Rock charts in America – one is a Falling In Reverse song and one is a song that I wrote and produced for another band. That’s something that’s never happened to me before. I know some people and especially producers are used to having four or five of their songs on the chart at any one time, but this is new ground for me. It’s definitely a small step towards the production side of things, but the train isn’t stopping any time soon as far as Falling In Reverse goes. I might not understand it, but I understand that there’s no reason to give up something I enjoy that’s still so successful.”

SO WHERE DO YOU STAND AT THIS POINT? WHERE DOES ALL THIS LEAVE YOU? “I think it leaves me in a good position, at least right now, but I don’t know how or where this is all going to go. I wish that I did – it’s like wanting to know how and when you’ll die or some shit – but for now I’m just riding this train. I feel like despite everything my life is in a pretty good spot right now, and I’m determined to stay focused and positive about everything as much as possible. Certain shit will never go away – the controversy, the drama, that sense of who and what people believe me to be… It’s always going to be there. It’s down to me to make things as positive as I can, and we’ll see which way the chips fall.” ‘Coming Home’ is out now via Epitaph.

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bones

d e s o p ex

After debut album ‘In Our Bones’ propelled them to superstardom, AGAINST THE CURRENT are on the verge of something even bigger. As vocalist Chrissy Constanza tells us, though, you should be careful what you wish for. INTERVIEW: Will Cross PHOTO: Elliot Ingham

You recently revealed that you weren’t ready for the ‘In Our Bones’ cycle. What exactly did you mean by that? Says Chrissy: “I guess I just didn’t realise how draining every aspect of a record can be. We really ran the gauntlet making that record - we were writing with different people every day 58 rock sound

and it was a case of completely opening myself up to someone new over and over again. I guess I didn’t realise how much of a toll that can take on your emotions. There were days when I couldn’t even get out of bed and go into the studio, and there are times you’re sitting with a complete stranger talking about your deepest, darkest secrets that you don’t

even tell your best friends. It’s exhausting, and you’re reliving those moments every day when you’re on tour. It’s tough.”

It sounds like you’ve had a particularly steep learning curve to ride… “I’ve definitely had a lot of experience in trying

to figure out what it is that makes me tick, and what gets me down. What I’ve come to realise in the last few months, and I don’t think I even realised it during ‘In Our Bones’, is what a perfectionist I am. It’s soul-crushing at times – I can’t deal with failure and I’ll often give up before I even contemplate it. So coming out of the ‘Gravity’ era, when we had so much success off just an EP, there was so much pressure for the album to be great that I just couldn’t stand to think that any slight thing wouldn’t be perfect. I can’t even listen to that album now because I can hear all the things I would’ve done differently and it crushes me.”

It sounds incredibly intense. “Yeah, and I didn’t even know where those things came from. I just thought, ‘Oh I’m an artist – I must be crazy!’ But then I realised it was just this incessant desire for every single thing to have to go right. Everything has to be

perfect and if it’s not, it’s not good enough. I couldn’t stand the idea of doing something that wasn’t good enough, but as time has gone on I’ve gotten a little better at balancing everything. I get to do what I love, I get to sing every single day, I get to write my own songs and sing about the things that I want to sing about…I want those things to be fun.”

Has being seen as a role model Been a shock to the system? “Absolutely – we have a really diverse fanbase. As much as we have a lot of people who are our age or older, we also have a lot of younger kids, so there’s always that balance on being, I guess, appropriate. The way I was raised, I never want to do stuff just for me. I have to express myself, and I have to be true to myself, but all of these people are part of the band too. I really want to take those experiences into account, and the people who have been experiencing them with us.”

Will we hear a more open and confident Against The Current moving forwards? “Definitely, and that will come out in the music. We’ve definitely experimented a lot more with this next record – it’s not going to knock you off your feet in a drastic way, it’s just going to be way more intelligently written because we’ve grown up. We started writing ‘In Our Bones’ nearly three years ago and some of the lyrics even came before that, so we’re very different people. Touring and being in a band ages you a lot quicker and makes you see things a lot differently – you have to figure yourself out a lot faster because you’re forced to. I think that’ll come through a lot.”

should we expect the unexpected in terms of influences on this next record? “Me and Dan [Gow, guitar] have been listening to a lot of Oasis recently. I’ve been loving that really organic rock band sound, because we kinda drifted away from that and are quite a bit more pop now, but those roots and influences are really important. Their songs are so simple, but also the most powerful

“I can’t deal with failure. I’ll give up before I contemplate it.” Ch r i s s y C o s t a n z a

AGAINST THE CURRENT songs ever – no one will ever not know the words to ‘Wonderwall’ and Liam [Gallagher] probably sang it in one or two takes! So when I’m overthinking every single thing, it’s good to keep that perspective in mind. They wrote songs because something sounded good or felt good, and those are the biggest songs of all time.”

You’re keen to stay in touch with your rock roots, then? “I hope so! I think the influences of rock music are so important to maintain - the best pop acts are always people who have come from bands. Hopefully we can bring the best of both worlds together. It’s definitely going to air a bit more of the pop side sonically, but we’re taking all those influences and intricacies that bands think about and putting them into the songs.”

Might we be hearing music sooner rather than later? “Potentially! The hope is that we can get a song or two out before the end of the year and then the album in really early 2018 – it all depends on where we are with the record because we want to do it right. I’m still a perfectionist, I’m just aware of it now! I’m still a little crazy on myself, so we want to make sure we don’t just push something out for the sake of pushing it out. We want to have it exactly right.”

Is where the band is now exactly where you always hoped it would be, both mentally and musically? “You know, I’ve never really thought a perfect goal, and I think that’s been for the best! I don’t think you can imagine who you’re going to be – we’ve been doing Against The Current for a long time and I’m only 22. It’s pretty crazy to think about who I was at 20, that person is so foreign to me, so I think it’s impossible to have plans for where we want the band to be when we change so rapidly. But I’m happy and I’m excited – that can only be a good thing.” Against The Current’s second album will be released in early 2018 via Fueled By Ramen.

WANT TO HEAR MORE?

Check out the full interview on The Rock Sound Podcast, available via iTunes or at www.soundcloud.com/ rocksound

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R N TOU O I S A V IN lcore STAGE E meta , T A R E M THEIR I N T E R R N I O A C R H I E S HE UND TH N’TS… O WITHST O D R A D tomorrow T N JU DOS A s bury chamLpTIMATE GIINGTERVIEW: Rob Sayce U

#1 REMEMBER THE STAGE IS YOURS DAVYD WINTER-BATES (BASS / VOCALS): “A lot of bands kick off over stage invasions, but as long as everyone’s in it together, it’s cool. We’ve played tiny shows where fans formed human chains in front of the drum kit and guitar cabs, because they knew, ‘Hey, if this gets trashed, the music stops.’ When your frontman can stop singing and the volume doesn’t drop, it just blows you away.” DANI WINTER-BATES (VOCALS): “I love shows where nobody stands still. Even with something like the circle pit – it’s the least aggressive form of movement, and the biggest spectacle. Just run real fast and you’ll be fine, everyone should get involved before they’re too old.”

#2 EXPECT IT TO GET HOT - SO HOT DAV: “Any sold out show in a tiny venue is a sauna. All you can do is keep moving and going for it, because then you’re having fun and can ignore the heat. Also, take off all of your clothes! That’s really important – get as naked as you can without it being obscene. People do get naked in our circle pits sometimes… it just happens.”

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#4 NO PROP IS EVER TOO RIDICULOUS #3 IF YOU’RE GONNA SING, COME PREPARED DAV: “Our mic is the fans’ mic. On more than one occasion someone’s come up, grabbed it from Dani, smashed the first line but not had a fucking clue what the next bit is. The nerves kick in, and they jump offstage to avoid further embarrassment!” DANI: “We wear in-ear monitors, so there’s no hiding if you mess it up. Sometimes this weird squeak comes out, or just complete silence, but they’re still miming the words. Or on the flip side, they’ll scream and completely blow up our ears!”

DANI: “We’ve seen the craziest onesies in our crowds. I’ve watched a banana crowdsurf over 1000 people’s heads for almost an entire set, and then there was the guy dressed as a pirate who threw confetti right in Dav’s face!’” DAV: “When people bring inflatables to shows, it’s always mental. Out of nowhere, you’ll suddenly see someone riding a killer whale or chilling on a lilo. People always try to outdo themselves, to go the extra mile, and we love it.”

BURY TOMORROW

#5 DON’T GET MAD, GET ORGANISED DANI: “At shows in Germany, they do this Viking longboat row. The centre of the crowd sinks down, and at first you’ve got no idea what’s happening… then there’s hundreds of people sitting, pretending to row, with a circle pit spinning around it. Now that is teamwork!”

#6 WAIT FOR YOUR MOMENT DANI: “We played in Bath a while back, and the PA exploded on the first song. A guy came up and rapped Eminem through the monitors for about 25 minutes while we fixed it. That was awesome, but on the other hand in Tunbridge Wells, a guy was filming the whole thing for Facebook Live. He was onstage for 30 minutes trying to get the perfect camera angle. It was so funny, we decided to just let it happen!”

#7 KNOW YOUR CROWDSURFERS DANI: “There are four types. There’s the newbie who runs up, stands onstage and then sinks into the crowd, never to be seen again. Then you have the ones who dive over the front four rows, miss everyone and eat shit. Then there’s the acrobat, who just wants to show off that they can do a front flip. Finally, my favourites, the lingerers, who didn’t think they’d actually make it to the stage, and just start dancing. They’re the most innovative, I think…” DAV: We played a tiny show in Poland once, in a venue that held about 200 people. Kids were getting thrown into glass windows and we had triple-decker crowdsurfers. It was actually kind of frightening…”

“People get naked in our circle pits!” Dav y d W i n t e r - B at e s

#8 BE NICE OR FUCK OFF DANI: “The metal and hardcore community went through a strange phase where everyone was talking about ‘crowd killing’. I’ve never understood how your intention going to a show could be to hurt people – it doesn’t sit right with me. Go and learn martial arts or something, it doesn’t have a place here what so ever.” DAV: “I remember going to see Disturbed when I was a kid, coming out of the pit with a bloody nose and being so happy. For a lot of metal fans it’s the same as buying a shirt! But we want people to come away thinking it was the craziest show they’ve ever been to, not to get seriously hurt.”

#9 MOSH IS FOR EVERYONE DAV: “We had a show where two people in wheelchairs crowdsurfed at exactly the same time, clocked each other and threw each other the horns. It was one of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen – completely unplanned, and so badass. It’s all about respect.” DANI: “At really tiny shows with no security, fans sometimes jump onstage to catch people coming over the front row. They don’t have to, but they’re doing it so that everyone can have the best time. I don’t think you get that in any other community. It’s a special thing to be part of.”

Bury Tomorrow’s latest album ‘Earthbound’ is available now via Nuclear Blast. rock sound 61

ffor or

Brace

’ seeing their sales ight ht dwe eig ‘dea dw ea ‘D m bu al nd With seco WARR are officially the GE WA WAGE 3%, WA 26 g in pp ho w a by et ck ro Sound dons a helmet ck Ro e. or lc ta me d in n nd a ba b estt ttes ott hho eat hope. ets heavy music’s next gr RVIEW: Will Cross me d an INTE ‘Deadweight’ has had an extremely successful start. Has the reaction to the album been a pleasant surprise? Says vocalist Briton Bond: “I think all of us are really surprised by how well it’s done. We put so much of ourselves into it – a lot of personal stories and experiences - so to see the success come out of everything we’ve put into it so quickly is really cool. We definitely weren’t expecting it, but it feels awesome.”

Do you think the record’s early success shows a shift in terms of heavy music coming back into the mainstream? “[In terms of] metal, I think a lot of bands are writing really great songs that are slightly out of their comfort zone at the moment, and I think we really did that on ‘Deadweight’. Your typical Metallica fan can get into us because it’s got riffs, but it’s also got melodies. Maybe it is making a comeback – I hope it is anyway!”

62 rock sound

You worked on the album with producer Andrew Wade and A Day To Remember vocalist Jeremy McKinnon. What did they bring to the record? “It was awesome working with those guys again. This was our second time working with them – our debut album ‘Blueprints’ had such a good reaction and we loved the way the album came out, so we definitely wanted to go in for round two. Jeremy has a really good ear for tweaking songs. You’ll bring a song you’re not happy with to him and he’ll be like, ‘Hey, why don’t you do this, or maybe try to hit this note instead?’ He’s really good at tweaking songs, and Andrew is such a great engineer. Sitting on ideas and then bringing them to Jeremy and Andrew, I think we made them the best they could be.”

You’ve just completed a sold-out headline tour back home in America. What was the reaction like to these new songs?

“It was insane! For some of the slower songs, like ‘Gravity’, kids were singing the entire song every night. It’s crazy because the album had only been out for maybe a week or two at that point, so kids are really latching on quickly.”

There are a lot of different types of songs on the album. Does that eclecticism come from having so many varying influences? “Absolutely. For example, bands like Slipknot were definitely a huge influence [on the record], but a lot of us love pop music too. I think we tried to go down that route in small doses, particularly on the choruses – they’re definitely not your typical metal choruses. There are so many bands, especially in the metal genre, that you can’t really pioneer things too much anymore, but you can still add little things in a unique way. I think that’s why bands like Architects and August Burns Red stand out, because they don’t just bring the same thing to the table every time.

impact

WAGE WAR

““dDooiningg things differen

tly puts you in th e ssppoottlligighhtt.” “ Briton Bond

There’s always something new and cool – hopefully people get that from us, too.”

Do you think bands in general play things too safe nowadays? “I think doing things differently puts you in the spotlight. We’ve played with so many bands and it’s like, they’re just another metal band - it’s just someone screaming into a microphone. Try something different, and if it’s not cool then just go back to the drawing board. I think that’s the biggest thing bands need to do now. Be bold - you need to put your brand out there in your sound. When I hear an Architects song, I’ll instantly know it’s them. That’s a big thing.”

that’s another thing people are really loving about the album. It’s like, ‘Wow, I’ve been through these same problems’. We didn’t want to write stock lyrics, we wanted to pour our hearts into every song.”

You played the whole of Vans Warped Tour in 2016. How big of a role did that play in your success?

Even lyrically, ‘Deadweight’ is a refreshing album. It’s certainly very open and honest…

“It was the biggest thing that ever happened to our band. We were originally supposed to play on one of the smallest stages, but we played an opening party for the tour in Orlando and [Warped founder] Kevin Lyman was like, ‘I’m going to bump you up to a bigger stage!’ We played in front of so many kids who’d never heard of our band, and to this day people come up to us and say they love our band, and would have never heard of us if it hadn’t been for Warped Tour.”

“It has some of the darkest songs we’ve ever written, for sure, but they’re real – it has songs that everyone can relate to somehow. I think

In terms of the UK and europe, when can people expect to see more from you

guys? anything you can let slip a little bit early? “Oh we’ll be over there soon, don’t worry about that! There are some things in the pipeline at the moment that I can’t reveal just yet, but we will definitely be over there very soon, and we’ll have lots of new songs with us. Watch this space!” ‘Deadweight’ is out now via Fearless.

WANT TO HEAR MORE?

Check out the full interview on The Rock Sound Podcast, available via iTunes or at www.soundcloud.com/ rocksound

rock sound 63

With the release of their first new music since the passing of guitarist Tom Searle, and with their biggest ever headline show now looming large, ARCHITECTS are looking to the future. INTERVIEW: Andy Biddulph PHOTOS: Ben Gibson

YOU RECENTLY ANNOUNCED YOUR BIGGEST EVER HEADLINE SHOW AT ALEXANDRA PALACE IN LONDON. THAT’S PRETTY CRAZY… Sam Carter (vocals): “We’re going to put on the best show possible. It’s one show and you’ve got to go all in, and we’re so stoked to have While She Sleeps with us as well.” Dan Searle (drums): “We just want to make a massive night of it. It’s a big event, a big celebration for everyone. Everyone knows what the band has been through. It’s not your average story, and there’s a level of emotional investment with fans now where it really makes for a special event.” Sam: “I feel like now, shows and especially big 64 rock sound

shows like Brixton Academy [last year] have meant so much to people in the crowd as well as to us. It’s crazy that people have invested so much time in our band over the years to see us get to this level. I think they understand how much this means to us as well, so they’re equally important to the show.” Dan: “It’s odd, because the trajectory of our band is so unusual. We sort of pottered along for a decade at a lower level, barely making ends meet. We’ve persevered and to then suddenly find ourselves in this position is quite unusual. Not many bands break through to that degree on their seventh album.”

Brixton, and Brixton’s still a big venue.”

ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT WHAT COMES AFTER THAT? AFTER BRIXTON YOU WERE SAYING, ‘WE CAN’T BELIEVE THIS...’ Sam: “I always do this thing, and I think Dan’s similar, in that while we were playing Brixton my mind was like, ‘Right... next!’ You always have these little points where you’re like, ‘Where are we going to go from here?’ With Ally Pally it’s like... ‘Where do we go?!’” Dan: “After we played Brixton... that was the career pinnacle off my bucket list. There was nothing beyond it, and I came offstage at Brixton... I loved the show, but afterwards I felt a bit empty, like, ‘Well, that’s it’. We’ve had to set new targets and new ambitions in order to keep moving forward. We’re incredibly insecure, though, so we don’t get too carried away. It’ll probably only do 1,000 tickets, the promoter will lose money and never work with us again.”

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT HOW A NEW ALBUM IS PROGRESSING?

HAVING WHILE SHE SLEEPS AND COUNTERPARTS INVOLVED MUST BE pretty AWESOME… Sam: “Brendan from Counterparts messaged me being like, ‘Thank you for letting us play a 10,000 capacity show. We will never do that ever again for the rest of our career!’ It’s so funny, but really cool.” Dan: “Has a hardcore band ever played at Ally Pally? Is the closest Suicidal Tendencies supporting Slipknot? It’s really great that we can give a band like them the opportunity to do something like this, because it’s a very unique and rare thing, so that’s really cool.” Sam: “And for us it’s like, ‘Let’s just go all in.’ We’re planning and getting carried away already, so it’s nice to be like, ‘This is our one show, let’s focus all of the attention on that.’ It’s obviously a massive venue, so you can do things [in terms of production] that you couldn’t normally do in smaller rooms. You can do more in that room than you can in

architects

Sam: “I think for all of us, a way of actually helping was being all together on tour, having a routine of being together and constantly being busy. I think now we’re at the point where we need some time to chill and to evaluate everything properly.” Dan: “We were a little bit silly in that we just said ‘yes’ to everything. It’s been a bit too much. [Reading & Leeds was] our last show of the year so we’re fine, we’re right at the end and it’s been great, but we’re all pretty burnt out now. We’ve said in the past that we wouldn’t do that any more, but after we lost Tom we just wanted to dive right back into it.” Sam: “Not that we didn’t feel grateful before, but I feel very honoured to be still able to be in a band and still be playing shows. Not many bands go through this, and no one really tells you how to deal with stuff after it, so we’ve just been feeling it out. We’ve been there for each other through periods of finding it hard and being tired, but we’re all still smiling.”

DOES IT FEEL LIKE THE WORLD NEEDS AN ARCHITECTS ALBUM RIGHT NOW?

Sam: “It’s going really well. When we finished the last tour we knew that was when the Sam: “We get asked this a lot regarding the writing was next record, really going because of our to start taking political stance shape. Dan and and what Josh [Middleton, we’re about. guitar] have Obviously there been writing, Ali will be some [Dean, bass] has parts of the been writing… record where it’s been a lot we may be of work but it talking about seems to be D a n S e a r l e that sort of flowing very stuff, but I naturally. It’s actually fun and we almost have think with the things we’ve been through as too much stuff. Now we’re going to trim it back a group of people, lyrically it’s going to be and work on each song individually, and start [interesting].” demoing vocals.” Dan: “The state of the world is obviously not Dan: “There’s a lot of pressure. The good, but dealing with personal stuff has circumstances are unique and I feel like the taken the spotlight off that stuff for us a little attitude should be, given that we’ve lost Tom, bit. Lately we’ve become a little bit more to just try and make something half decent, invested in it…” but we want to keep getting better. The odds Sam: “I feel like for us, writing lyrics about are still stacked against us and it almost this sort of thing and writing lyrics about what sounds arrogant or deluded to suggest that we’ve been through can be very cathartic and we want to keep getting better, but that is very helpful. I think we’re obviously never ultimately our target.” going to turn away from our beliefs, but there Sam: “I think people know that we have very are an awful lot of things that we need to get high standards, and if we didn’t truly think off our chests and right out of our heads, as [any new album] was better than what we’d a band but also as a family, and as a group of made before, it wouldn’t come out. We’re best friends.” very hard on ourselves and we’ll keep working until we smash those standards right out of Architects’ latest album ‘All Our Gods Have the park.” Abandoned Us’ is out now via Epitaph.

“The odds are still stacked against us.”

DO YOU WISH YOU’D HAD MORE TIME OFF OVER THE PAST YEAR? rock sound 65

REVIEWS

SLEEP ON IT

‘OVEREXPOSED’ (RUDE)

hisper it, but there’s been a subtle change sweeping through the pop-punk landscape of late.

Not quite a revolution – possibly an edge towards evolution – but whatever way you cut it, there’s no denying the rise in bands getting real and flexing their creative, emotional and songwriting muscles in 2017. Chicago five-piece Sleep On It are emblematic of this collective shot at more than 4/4 beats, sheer energy and sun-drenched fun. Everyone from Knuckle Puck to Grayscale and even homegrown heroes The Gospel Youth have been at it; almost as if there’s been a conscious, scene-wide recognition that this style of music can serve as a vehicle for people to dig a little deeper. Considering that it’s a debut album, ‘Overexposed’ is an outstanding wider introduction to a potentially special band. Following swiftly on from last year’s ‘Lost Along The Way’ EP (the band’s third in total, and first with vocalist Zech Pluister) this picks up where 66 rock sound

the five-piece left off in fine style. Opener ‘A New Way Home’ is actually something of a callback to the previous release’s curtain raiser, ‘Counting Miles’ – bristling with wanderlust and the hope that there’s something better out there somewhere. As the frontman yearns for“a splash of colour in this grayscale life” over guitar lines that build and rise and drums and bass combos that heighten the drama, it makes for an epic opening salvo that sets both tone and scope. It’s immediately clear that Sleep On It aren’t messing around. The quality doesn’t dip once, in truth, with memorable verses and catchy choruses everywhere you turn. That’s thanks in part to the warm, familiar production qualities of Seth Henderson (Real Friends, Knuckle Puck), with a little help from State Champs frontman Derek DiScanio (who also lends his voice to the emotionally-charged ‘Fireworks’). But it’s the stories, the words, insight and personality of the people behind these songs that will keep you coming back for more. Zech – as the chief protagonist of said tales – comes across like a pensive, troubled soul, with lyrical themes of

9 hopelessness, feeling lost and self-improvement dominating proceedings. There’s a maturity in his delivery and a husky quality about his vocals that sets him apart from some of his more overly-earnest peers. The best bit is, this merely feels like the beginning of what could be a fascinating story – one worth sticking with as it unfolds. Ultimately, Sleep On It are a band worth believing in. That’s sometimes hard to say with a straight face in this day and age, but this lot feel different: backing this record feels like being on the side of the good guys. It’s unlikely they’ll become the biggest band in the world, but if there’s any justice Sleep On It will become a lot of people’s favourite. That might mean you. Give them your time and attention, and you just never know… FOR FANS OF: Grayscale, Real Friends, The Gospel Youth DAVID McLAUGHLIN

EYES WIDE OPEN

Heartfelt tearjerkers. Shout out to ‘Photobooth’, ‘A Brighter Shade Of Blue’ and closer ‘Autumn (I Wish I Was Better)’.

Choruses you’ll have stuck in your head for ages. These really are superbly well-crafted songs.

HERE’S WHY YOU REALLY SHOULDN’T SLEEP ON ‘OVEREXPOSED’...

16%

BALLADRY

GIMMICKS

Lyrical references to ghosts. Though not in a spooky, Halloween sense – think of them more as a symbol of memories lost or faded.

Song graced with the presence of pop-punk royalty. Big up Derek DiScanio’s vocal turn on ‘Fireworks’.

25%

CHANCE OF TEARS

59%

EPIC MOMENTS

rock sound 67

THE FRONT BOTTOMS

‘GOING GREY’

(FUELED BY RAMEN)

ery few success stories are as natural or pure as that of The Front Bottoms.

The band’s uniquely quirky style of acoustic folk-punk has seen them carve out a cult status over the past decade – even twigging the curiosity of Blink-182 enough to win them an invitation to open their recent arena tour. That incredible, unexpected journey looks set to continue here, with their fourth – and most fulfilling – full-length. The band’s strengths have always stemmed from letting their easygoing approach to music run wild. With no forced gimmicks or extra bells and whistles thrown in, ‘Going Grey’ is testament to their knack for producing good, honest

10 YEARS ‘(HOW TO LIVE) AS GHOSTS’

(MASCOT)

and most importantly fun songs in abundance. Tales of long lost love, awkward encounters and all of life’s little insecurities pop up at some point or another, be it in the form of the breezy ‘Ocean’, the irresistible ‘Raining’ or the fantastically titled ‘Don’t Fill Up On Chips’. It all adds up to a slick and engaging display of songwriting that, without reinventing the wheel, exists without pretence or ego. At times this record can you feel utterly joyous, and that’s a special thing.

FOR FANS OF: Modern Baseball, Tigers Jaw, Joyce Manor

ANTI-FLAG ‘AMERICAN FALL’

JACK ROGERS

(SPINEFARM)

On their eighth record, these Knoxville alt-metallers stick to what they know best; moody, grungy tunes with a few extra shots of emotion thrown in. There’s something surprisingly moving about how these songs play out, soaring vocals interlaced over the top of anthemic, but subtly melancholy choruses that are built for stadiums. The album does sadly suffer from a lack of direction and structure though, songs blurring together as it rolls along, especially as the final stretch rolls into view. It’s a solid effort and tracks like ‘Novacaine’ are sure to become setlist staples in the months to come, but by no means is this a game changer.

Following the result of last year’s U.S. election, it’s no surprise that Anti-Flag have plenty to say. The politically engaged punk veterans sound like they have a renewed purpose on 10th album ‘American Fall’, which was co-produced by Good Charlotte’s Benji Madden. Whether it’s anti-war anthems (‘American Attraction’, ‘Digital Blackout’) or attacks on the forces of discrimination (‘Racists’), frontman Justin Sane drives his points home with bile in his voice and a spring in his step. While they continue down a more measured, accessible route – calling to mind everyone from The Clash to Rancid – there’s a freshness to the anarchy this time. Here’s a welcome beacon of hope.

FOR FANS OF: Black Peaks, Deftones, Chevelle

FOR FANS OF: Rise Against, Billy Talent, Goldfinger WILLIAM SCOTT

68 rock sound

CANDICE HARIDIMOU

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THE HAXANS

‘PARTY MONSTERS’ (ANOTHER CENTURY)

his long-awaited collaboration between New Years Day’s Ash Costello and Piggy D – bassist for industrial horror-

metal veteran Rob Zombie – sounds exactly as you’d

expect it to. Ash’s voice comes to the fore in a catchy, more accessible way than we’ve seen before, with standout song ‘Dirty Magic’ basically an uber-catchy pop song dressed in black, while the apocalyptic tumble of ‘Lights Out’ is an

CONVERGE

[8] COPE

‘THE DUSK IN US’

FOR FANS OF: New Years Day, Rob Zombie, William Control

ANDY BIDDULPH

[6] HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD [7] I THE MIGHTY

‘TOOTH & NAIL’ (DEATHWISH / EPITAPH)

absolute riot. Songs like ‘Professional Weirdo’ and lyrics such as, “Now I walk like a zombie” feel kitschy, but barring the occasional moment when they really overdo it (the teeth-grinding glam rock of ‘Party Time’ chief among them), this album is good, filthy, spooky fun.

‘FIVE’ (SELF-RELEASE)

(DOVE & GRENADE / BMG)

27 years into their career, there still isn’t another band close to matching Converge when it comes to creating art that’s so visceral, punishing and compelling. A half-decade on from the excellent ‘All We Love We Leave Behind’, (yeah, that long) ‘The Dusk In Us’ makes up for every second the quartet have been absent. Gut-busting, heart-wrenching and captivating from vicious beginning to devastating conclusion, the likes of ‘Cannibals’, the jolting ‘Arkhipov Calm’ and beautifully excruciating title track capture the band at their most ambitious and dominant. As usual, you absolutely need to hear this.

COPE’s latest EP echoes the voice of furious young people across the world. Taking a swipe at right wing politicians, the blistering title-track finds vocalist Tom Walker screaming “How much more must we endure / A sorry state of rich vs. poor.” That infectious, uninhibited energy is amplified with stormy riffs and slamming snares throughout these songs. Sure, at times the EP can sound a little clumsy – tracks like ‘Many Faces’ aren’t as polished as you’d hope for – but the London crew are still a new prospect and the message behind ‘Tooth & Nail’ is arguably more important than its execution.

Five guys. Five albums. You don’t need to be a maths genius to work out the story behind Hollywood Undead’s latest record. From start to finish, ‘Five’ is a nod back to the band’s early days – even the title pays homage to ‘No. 5’ from 2008’s ‘Swan Songs’. Think tongue-in-cheek lyrics, jagged riffs and the kind of on-your-feet frenzy that’s hard to ignore. ‘California Dreaming’ has an cheekiness about it as it unmasks the glamour of The Golden State, while ‘Renegade’ adds a major injection of swagger. These are some of the catchiest tracks that Hollywood Undead have ever penned, and that's saying something.

FOR FANS OF: The Chariot, Every Time I Die,

FOR FANS OF: Gallows, The Bronx, Feed The Rhino

FOR FANS OF: Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park,

Letlive.

JACK ROGERS

70 rock sound

EMMA MATTHEWS

Eminem

EMMA MATTHEWS

[8]

‘WHERE THE MIND WANTS TO GO / WHERE YOU LET IT GO’ (RUDE)

No one writes break-up songs like this San Francisco quartet. If you favour subtlety, eeriness and beautifully observed lyrics over showier quick-fixes, I The Mighty’s fourth album is just the thing you need; weaving from the broken-hearted slow-burn of ‘Pet Names’ to the dizzy euphoria of ‘111 Winchester’. Continuing the shift towards atmospheric, off-kilter pop hooks that began on 2015’s ‘Connector’, these 11 songs pack just the right amount of post-hardcore bite, but also play to the strengths of Brent Walsh’s uniquely evocative voice. Dive in. FOR FANS OF: Too Close To Touch, Dance Gavin Dance, Circa Survive ROB SAYCE

WE CAME AS ROMANS

‘COLD LIKE WAR’ (SHARPTONE)

e Came As Romans are back. Sharper, heavier, and

armed with their best songs since 2013’s huge, poppy ‘Tracing Back Roots’, they’ve well and truly put their shaky past couple of years behind them on ‘Cold Like War’. Lead single ‘Wasted Age’ is one of the heavy songs of 2017, replete with a chorus that’ll wedge in your brain and not let go. It might just be the best song they’ve ever written, and it reflects the urgency and quality this band have regained. Harsh vocalist Dave Stephens sounds like an absolute animal again, while his melodic counterpart Kyle Pavone displays a newfound grit on the likes of ‘Vultures With Clipped Wings’. The glitchy ‘Encoder’ adds a brand new, nu

JAMIE LENMAN ‘DEVOLVER’

(BIG SCARY MONSTERS)

metal-tinged edge to their armoury and is absolutely furious, while the title track’s mighty gang vocal suggests this is a band rejuvenated if not necessarily reinvented. More importantly, they’re not messing around any more. Closer ‘Learning To Survive’ finds WCAR railing about how they’re “Too young to die,” Kyle singing “I can feel them watching me but I’ll make it out alive,” atop a newly minted metalcore anthem. They’ve done just that, and so much more. Here’s to their bold new chapter.

FOR FANS OF: Beartooth, The Color Morale, The Word Alive

MOVEMENTS ‘FEEL SOMETHING’

ANDY BIDDULPH

(FEARLESS)

It’s been four years since Jamie Lenman delivered his debut double album ‘Muscle Memory’, and the Surrey-born troubadour has returned with a less ambitious – but by no means less inventive – follow-up. From the don’t-give-two-fucks attitude and grimy ferocity of ‘Waterloo Teeth’ and ‘Personal’ (echoing former band Reuben) to the comedic and danceable ‘Body Popping’ and ‘Fast Car’, his far-reaching creativity is amplified on ‘Devolver’. Mostly, those contrasts prompt excitement rather than confusion. That even goes for ‘Mississippi’ and the title-track; a dark Southern rock dirge and a power ballad with soft harmonies and synths respectively. Brilliantly bonkers stuff.

“Losing friends as fast as I’ve been losing sleep / It’s overcast and I’m always six feet deep inside my mind,” confesses Patrick Miranda on ‘Fever Dream’, the haunting, acoustic centrepiece of Movements’ debut album. That feeling of isolation and suffocating sadness runs through each of these 11 songs, from the gorgeous, brittle melodies of ‘Full Circle’ to the grit and desperation of ‘Deep Red’. It sounds like a heavy listen, and it is, but the Orange County band’s fusion of post-hardcore and alt.rock – complete with the odd spoken word section and occasional shards of light breaking through, as on ‘Daylily’ – is so powerful, it’s worth taking the journey. The album title says it all.

FOR FANS OF: Dinosaur Pile-Up, Reuben, Arcane Roots

FOR FANS OF: La Dispute, Knuckle Puck, Can’t Swim CANDICE HARIDIMOU

72 rock sound

ROB SAYCE

WEEZER

‘PACIFIC DAYDREAM’ (CRUSH)

h dear. After two brilliant releases – themselves

boldly experimental, but these songs would’ve been better served under another moniker – so removed are they from the qualities that made fans fall in love with Weezer. A disappointing swing and a miss.

following years of iffy output – Weezer have dropped the ball on ‘Pacific Daydream’. Lead single ‘Mexican Fender’ aside, gone is the familiar crunch and the smart, snappy lyrics that made them vital way back when. Instead, here’s another musical identity crisis. Words merely fit to melodies now, like soulless mechanical placeholders, accessorising bland, mid-paced jingles. Album 11 may be

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER

DAVID McLAUGHLIN

[7] TRIVIUM [6] VEIL OF MAYA

‘NIGHTBRINGERS’

‘THE SIN AND THE SENTENCE’ (METAL BLADE)

(ROADRUNNER)

After a brief but very theatrical introduction, Michigan’s melodic death metal heroes kick back into full swing with a storm of apocalyptic guitar solos and guttural vocal lines – just like no time has passed at all. There’s nothing easygoing about this latest album in truth, the band lurching through nine tracks of darkness and fury. It’s another strong release from one of the metal world’s most consistent bands, but arguably comes up short on the moments that would transform a good record into a great one. Never mind; this is still fierce, relentless stuff and signifies that The Black Dahlia Murder won’t be slowing down any time soon.

This time around, Trivium have gone back to their roots. Packed with guitar pyrotechnics and vicious hooks, this eighth album sees the return of Matt Heafy’s screams following a health scare in 2014. Over 11 tracks, the band deliver exactly what fans have come to expect – off-the-charts energy that will get circle pits spinning in seconds. Tracks like ‘Betrayer’ and ‘Other Worlds’ are full of stadium-sized choruses, while ‘Endless Night’ provides lashings of nostalgia with classic, Metallica-style guitar solos. Do they take any risks? Not really, but this is a tried and tested formula, and one that plenty of us can’t get enough of.

FOR FANS OF: In Flames, Carnifex,

FOR FANS OF: Bullet For My Valentine,

At The Gates

WILLIAM SCOTT

74 rock sound

FOR FANS OF: Bleachers, Best Coast, The Rentals

Avenged Sevenfold, Parkway Drive

EMMA MATTHEWS

[6] THE USED

‘FALSE IDOL’

[6]

‘THE CANYON’ (SUMERIAN)

(HOPELESS)

Two years on from the divisive, but commercially successful ‘Matriarch’ (their first album with vocalist Lukas Magyar), Chicago’s Veil Of Maya continue to run with a more melodic and accessible sound. But while some shuddered at their introduction of clean vocals, ‘False Idol’ features a well-balanced mix of old and new – showcasing pulverising blastbeats and deathcore (‘Follow Me’) and complex riffing (‘Whistleblower’) whilst complimenting Lukas’s broad range. Okay, so there is the odd bland crowd-pleaser (‘Manichee’), but overall, it’s an encouraging evolution from a band not looking to recycle old ideas.

Welcome to the bravest record The Used have ever made. From the desperately sad ballad that opens it, ‘For You’ – a tribute to a close friend of Bert McCracken’s who died a short while ago – to the odd, oblique lyrics, classic rock swagger and long, complex songs that largely make up the rest, it bears little resemblance to anything they’ve done before. Coming in at 17 tracks and way over an hour, it’s a labyrinth of experimental art rock; complete with flashes of brilliance, a fair amount of confusion and even some performance poetry. Messy and lo-fi? Sure. Overlong? Yeah, just a bit. Admirable? Well, that too.

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5 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT…

‘SWAN SONGS’

HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD RELEASED: September 2, 2008 LABEL: Interscope / Polydor

Turning the air blue and taking names, Hollywood Undead felt like the second coming of nu metal when they broke through just under a decade ago. But behind the lyrical bullets and bravado of ‘Swan Songs’, the five-piece were struggling with the realitIES OF a harsh industry…

#1 THEIR HOLLYWOOD ROOTS RAN DEEP

“Some of us had been friends since kindergarten, street kids from Hollywood who never had any money,” remembers vocalist Johnny 3 Tears. “That album was written in a dirty little rathole on Hollywood Boulevard. We had our clique, other people had theirs, and we’d go to fucking war with them! All the anger and vitriol you hear on ‘Swan Songs’ was very real. We wanted to let everyone have it. I’m still proud of ‘The Diary’. It’s all about falling into addiction – thinking, ‘How the fuck did I end up here?’” 76 rock sound

#2 THEY MADE THE MOST OF THE MAJOR LABEL CASH…

“After we signed with Interscope, suddenly we were in an L.A. studio that cost thousands of dollars a day, and these label people would bring us anything we wanted. I’d be like, ‘Okay, I want a flatscreen TV and a pool table’, and they just went and bought them. It was amazing, but not the best environment to write music in – we’d just sit around, drink and watch basketball. I always considered us like the Beastie Boys: there was no one place that we belonged, and I loved it.”

#3 … BUT FOUGHT WITH THEM ANYWAY

“‘Undead’ was actually an attack on the label, and everyone who’d pissed us off. All of a sudden they were telling us, ‘You can’t say that line, you can’t do this’, and this was our ‘fuck you’, our anthem. The lies and the bullshit… everyone pretends to be your best friend and next thing they’re stabbing you in the back. It’s a rude awakening, especially as a 19-year-old kid. You wake up and think, ‘Wait, how come we’re surrounded by guys in suits?’ We were their sacrificial lambs, but we wouldn’t lie down and take it.”

#4 WITH SUCCESS CAME STRUGGLE

“Going to places like Europe blew my mind – no one from my family had been there before, and all these huge crowds knew our songs! But at the same time, touring was a toxic experience. Drugs and alcohol were everywhere, and we could have whatever we wanted. I got to a point where I was inebriated every minute of every day. Afterwards I had to relearn music without the crutch of liquor and methamphetamine just to keep me interested. Now I try to help kids I meet through the band, who’ve had similar experiences.”

#5 THERE’S MORE TO THOSE MASKS THAN MEETS THE EYE

“It’s not true that we got the masks to hide our identities, because we weren’t famous then. We’re like Z-list celebrities, nobody’s stopping me at the supermarket! We grew up very much into graffiti, and the masks became a way of bringing that other art into our music. Now we get a props dude from Hollywood to design them. A lot has changed since those days – we’ve grown up a lot, but I still love what we did back then. It was painful at times, but it’s also the reason we’re still able to make music.”

13 14 15 17 18

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This

Month

Of Mice & Men

AS THEY PREPARE TO REVEAL THEIR FIRST FULL-lENGTH WITHOUT FORMER VOCALIST AUSTIN CARLILE, AARON PAULEY GIVES US THE LOWDOWN ON ALL THINGS ALBUM FIVEâ&#x20AC;¦ INTERVIEW: Andy Biddulph

7 18 6 rock sound

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE APPROACHING THE END OF THE TUNNEL?

“It’s crazy – I feel like I spend so long in the tunnel that I forget what it’s like being on the other side of it! Sometimes I get really caught up in listening to the new songs over and over and just thinking, ‘Is this going to be good enough?’ but in reality it’s only because I’ve heard them 100 times. I think we’re all perfectionists in our own ways.”

IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU STILL HAVE THE HUNGER, THEN…

“I read something once that said, ‘Success is never owned, it’s rented, and rent is due every day.’ I think that I can speak personally that I’ve never felt – no matter what we’ve done as a band – like, ‘Oh yeah, this is the pinnacle. I’ve made it to where I want to be.’ Which maybe is a detriment – because maybe I should feel that way about certain things sometimes. It’s not from a place where it’s not good enough, it’s just from a place where I want to go further. If I’ve made it this far and there’s a door, what’s behind the door?”

WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE ALBUM?

“This album is chock-full of very energetic material. It’s very passionate, it’s very… exciting. ‘Cold World’ was subdued and came from a dark, painful place in all of our lives, in all of our situations. It’s what we were going through as a band and as individuals when we made that record. This record sounds like Of Mice & Men coming off the back of a successful festival run. There are lots of percussive drums and lots of loud guitars, but also a lot of dynamics. There are a couple of softer songs, a couple of songs that build from soft to heavy, some that go backwards… I’m really, really happy with it.”

IS THIS ALBUM AN EXERCISE IN REDISCOVERING YOUR IDENTITY?

THINGS ARE

beautiful

BECAUSE THEY’RE

IMPERMANENT

“I don’t know if it’s something that we ever lost. I think with a lot of the stuff on ‘Restoring Force’ and ‘…Full Circle’ and all those different singles, there was a lot of energy, aggression and excitement. When we made ‘Cold World’, at the time Austin [Carlile, ex-vocalist] had gone through a couple of pretty debilitating surgeries and we hadn’t toured or done anything for the better part of a year. For us, making that record was kind of a way to evolve as a band, in a way that meant we could keep performing. If we had written an album of exclusively heavy material, there was a risk that Austin’s exit from the band would have happened sooner.

SO WHAT’S THE NEW MUSIC ABOUT? “A lot of what I’ve been writing about is change, and how you get through it, whether it’s being unsure of the future or whether you are sure of the future and then it’s gone. Everything is beautiful because it is impermanent and I think it’s really easy to try to be hopeful and ignore the reality. It’s really easy to go, ‘Oh just get over it. Just be hopeful! Press on!’ but I think we don’t take enough time as people to go through our feelings. We don’t take enough time to actually validate that sadness of understanding that things end. You can kind of learn to live with that and get to a place where you understand that things are beautiful because they’re impermanent, that there is a gentle sadness that flows through all impermanence and that there is a larger, gentle sadness at things passing.”

THERE’S NOW A BIGGER SPOTLIGHT ON YOU AS A SONGWRITER AND VOCALIST. ARE YOU FEELING THE PRESSURE? “I try not to think about how things are going to be perceived. For me, writing is very honest. I know it sounds cliché and everyone says the same shit, but for me writing is something that’s very personal, it’s not even something that I do around a lot of people. I never try to think about outside perspective, but at the same time I have a very eclectic music taste. If I just

tried to write from my own music taste I’d probably be the only one that bought the record, so I think in a way all I ever try to do is listen to where it’s coming from. Where it goes after it’s been recorded onto a CD and either put into the internet or onto vinyl… I think after that it’s up to people to assign the meaning to it and decide whether they like it or not.” Of Mice & Men’s new album will be released in January via Rise. rock sound 79

This

Month

rise against

TAKE A JOURNEY WITH THE RISE AGAINST FRONTMAN THROUGH PUNK ROCK HISTORY, FROM LOCAL HEROES TO GLOBAL HEAVYWEIGHTS. INTERVIEW: Rob Sayce

THE SONG THAT… …SUMS UP WHERE I AM IN LIFE ‘I DON’T WANT TO GROW UP’

DESCENDENTS

“I’m a dude approaching 40, still playing in a punk band. When Rise Against started I was in my early twenties, and now I’m a father – just as likely to jump offstage into a screaming crowd as I am to be waiting for my kids outside of school, telling them to do their homework. ‘I don’t want to grow up’ is generally the running theme in the back of my head!”

…I FIRST REMEMBER LOVING ‘AMERICAN PIE’

DON MCLEAN

“Growing up, my parents didn’t really listen to music; it was a Catholic family, so the only stuff I heard regularly was in church. But one of the two cassettes my dad owned was ‘American Pie’, and on road trips we’d all sing it over and over. It’s the first song I learned all the words to, but only later did I realise how sad it is – referencing the Vietnam War and Buddy Holly dying. But it’s done in such a veiled way, it sounds so happy!”

…ALWAYS REMINDS ME OF HOME ‘THROUGH MY FINGERS’

PEGBOY

“Whenever I hear any Pegboy song, it makes me think of Chicago. They’re the perfect band for that city, because they’re a bunch of grumpy dudes who will play for beer money, and never really tried to break outside of the area. Before I go onstage every night, I’m usually backstage playing a stripped-down version of a Pegboy song. They’ve been our local 80 rock sound

heroes forever, and if you speak to the Alkaline Trio or Hot Water Music guys, they love them too.”

…I’M PROUDEST OF ‘HERO OF WAR’

RISE AGAINST

“When this song came out, the only way we talked about soldiers in the U.S. was ticker tape parades and mandatory worship. All these guys were called heroes, but nobody was talking about what they were going through personally, or how they were fighting wars based on lies. Young soldiers were approaching me at shows, telling me stories that were nothing like what I’d heard on the news. I wanted to share that, and I knew we’d get shit for it. That was the first time I was sent death threats, but eventually the song crossed all kinds of borders. We’d be playing it at festivals in Europe, and realise that everyone knew the words. It shocked me, but I’m so proud of the impact it’s had, the message it conveys and the stance that we took.”

…IS THE GREATEST I’VE EVER HEARD ‘KISS THE BOTTLE’

JAWBREAKER

“With the arrangement and lyrics, it takes you into a deep, dark place, where you can really feel the pain. I’m a 38-year-old straight edge kid, and Blake [Schwarzenbach, guitar / vocals] is talking about alcoholism, but he draws me into the moment. He neither condemns nor celebrates it, it’s more like, ‘This is what it really feels like.’ It’s not a redemptive song, like, ‘And now I’m going to change!’ It’s more, ‘I’m probably not going to get better, I’m going to do the same thing tomorrow.’ That’s really powerful.”

…I FIRST MOSHED TO

‘RADIO FRIENDLY UNIT SHIFTER’

NIRVANA

“It was at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom in 1993. Nobody really moved during the support bands, so I went right to the front, but when Nirvana came on I just got crushed! I was in way over my head; it was like being caught in a rodeo, getting knocked around by a giant bull or something. I remember thinking, ‘This is awesome, I want to do this same thing for giant crowds of people kicking the shit out of each other!’”

…I WOULD USE AS MY WRESTLING INTRO

‘YOU CAN’T KILL US ALL’

COALESCE

“These guys were incredible, and I followed them around in the nineties. The drummer James [Dewees] went on to play with My Chemical Romance, too. This is probably the most brutal song I’ve ever heard, so that’d be the way to walk into a ring. Someone took me on a backstage tour of a wrestling event once. It was really interesting watching these really polite, quiet guys turning into larger than life characters for the camera.”

…HAS MY FAVOURITE LYRICS EVER ‘A LITTLE UNCANNY’

CONOR OBERST

“This is a dark, midlife crisis record – but one written by a guy who’s really angry at American politics. If you can create a personal story instead of just expressing your views,

those are the songs that truly last.” Rise Against’s ‘Wolves’ is out now via Virgin.

I WAS SENT DEATH THREATSâ&#x20AC;¦ rock sound 81

d l u o WY o u r e h t Ra

Hang out with the Devil or God for a day?

“I honestly think God would be kind of boring. He would be saying all this good shit and being a nice guy. The Devil would be more fun to hang out with – he would be trying to get you in shit. God would be like, ‘I’ve got shit to do, I need to go and cure this or help these people who have been praying.’ The Devil would just say, ‘Let’s hang out and go to a strip club’.”

R O A M

ALEX ADAM INTERVIEW: Jack Rogers

The taste of poo, the countless benefits of dogs, and of course, the lovely ScarleTt Johansson. Putting the world to rights, ROAM style.

on you would just be able to taste cotton. Or would it be in my bum so I taste my poo? I’d still pick taste buds, because then I don’t have to deal with poo in my teeth. That said, for all we know, poo might be the best tasting thing in the world.” Be a girl or a kid again for a day? “This is a family magazine, so I’m going to say kid. I would do the same as I normally do but be able to get away with it. Go and play with loads of coloured

balls, get chicken nuggets and potato smileys for tea and then watch TV and go to bed. It would be sick.”

Wear someone else’s underwear or use their toothbrush?

“You could have someone who’s really clean and their underwear isn’t too bad, or you could have someone with horrible breath. I’d pick the underwear. You can always have a wash at the end of the day...”

Never have access to the Internet again or have to read every nasty comment?

“Have it and read every comment, because I do that anyway. People come up with the most interesting references. ‘This sounds like Taylor Swift if she was having a BBQ and was only serving sausages’ was a highlight. There’s nothing better than sitting down, having a cup of tea and reading some horrible comments.”

True love or a million bucks?

“Million bucks. You can probably buy true love for less than a million quid. Tinder is free!”

Be the smartest person in the world or the richest?

“Smartest. If you’re the smartest person in the world you must already have money, or can make it. I assume Stephen Hawking is rich, he pretty much rules the universe. The Nobel Prize winner gets £500,000 for just saying that electricity is better conducted through copper. Easy.”

Exist in the Star Wars or Marvel universe?

“This is a bad question for me because I don’t really care about either of them. Marvel has Scarlett Johansson, so that one. Star Wars just has Leia and you aren’t going to have a chance if Luke is busy kissing her. Stay as far away from Luke getting off with his sister as possible.”

Wake up as a dog or a cat?

“Dog, because cats are absolute scum. Cats rub themselves up against your leg and pretend they like you then stick their claws in, scratch your face then fuck off. Dogs will be happy to see you and want to show you that they love you. Cats just rub their bumholes on everything.”

Have taste buds in your bum or poo out of your mouth?

“Taste buds in my bum, because when you put pants 82 rock sound

JUS

STHEIR cT Rat UB

N O S E L O H M U B EVERYTHING

ROAM’s new album ‘Great Heights & Nosedives’ is out October 13 via Hopeless Records.

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ON TOUR IN NOVEMBER Nov 11 - Patterns - Brighton - U.K. Nov 12 - Clwb Ifor Bach - Cardiff - U.K. Nov 13 - Vintage Bar - Doncaster - U.K. Nov 14 - Rescue Rooms - Nottingham - U.K. Nov 15 - G2 - Glasgow - U.K. Nov 16 - Rebellion - Manchester - U.K. Nov 17 - Think Tank - Newcastle - U.K. Nov 18 - The Dome - London - U.K. Nov 19 - Joners - Southampton - U.K.

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the new album

out 27th october