CONTENTS
#3 | OCT 2015
Riot!
4. CREEPER 8. ALL TIME LOW 10. JIM ADKINS 12. FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND 14. PANIC! AT THE DISCO 15. ALLISON WEISS 16. PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH 17. CEREMONY
About to Break 18. DILLY DALLY 19. DEMOB HAPPY 20. SVALBARD
FEATURES 22. BRING ME THE HORIZON 30. SPEEDY ORTIZ 32. DEAFHEAVEN 36. THE FRONT BOTTOMS 38. NO DEVOTION 42. TELLISON 46. MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK
RATED
48. ALBUM REVIEWS 56. LIVE REVIEWS
upsetmagazine.com Editor: Stephen Ackroyd (stephen@upsetmagazine.com) Deputy Editor: Victoria Sinden (viki@upsetmagazine.com) Assistant Editor: Ali Shutler (ali@upsetmagazine.com) Contributors: Alex Lynham, Amie Kingswell, Danny Randon, Emma Matthews, Emma Swann, Heather McDaid, Jack Glasscock, James Fox, Jessica Bridgeman, Jessica Goodman, Kristy Diaz, Phil Smithies, Ryan De Freitas, Sarah Louise Bennett, Tom Barnes, Tom Connick, Will Richards All material copyright (c). All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of Upset. Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure the information in this magazine is correct, changes can occur which affect the accuracy of copy, for which Upset holds no responsibility. The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of Upset or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions. Distributed nationally.
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Riot! THE LOWDOWN ON EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK.
LOST BOYS THE
WORDS: ALI SHUTLER. PHOTOS: EMMA SWANN.
THERE’S A DEAFENING NOISE BUILDING AROUND CREEPER, BUT THEY JUST WANT TO ESCAPE REALITY.
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“Those other bands don’t have a patch on us. PATCH! Geddit?”
“I
was that kid at school who would just play with a deck of cards and do magic,” starts Creeper frontman Will Gould. “I hated how boring everything was and I didn’t like how a lot of the people at school treated others, so I’d escape into a bit of fantasy. I just loved the idea of it because it makes the real world seem a bit more magical. It makes it seem like anything’s possible.” After the past few months, it’s an attitude Creeper must feel at home with. Releasing a self-titled debut EP last July on little more than a whim, and agreeing to play a single show to launch it, the band that today are sat on sofas at their record label HQ are in a very different position indeed. They’ve found a home on Roadrunner Records, a summer of festivals lays behind them and their diary for the rest of 2015 is filling up fast. “I’m blown away everyday,” continues Will. “We’re trying not to let everything become a normal thing. The first time we came here it was like, ‘Why are you letting us in here?’ We don’t want to break anything. It’s just this weird little bubble and I feel like any minute
it’s going to pop.” Despite the hooks of their ‘The Callous Heart’ EP, all brash community and soaring spirit, it’s unlikely to put a pin to their world just yet. “People should beware ‘The Callous Heart’ because it’s people breaking out,” warns Will. “It’s going to a place where you’re running away from all your responsibility. In our story, it’s kids from broken homes, it’s people running away and not putting up with that anymore. It’s a mark of change for us.” “It’s the inclusion as well,” adds guitarist Ian Miles. “It’s saying we were those kids who were in a weird place. We were anxious, nerdy kids and we can do this together. You can be part of our gang.” “It’s a battle cry,” Will adds. “The record is five songs long and it looks at our own lives through the guise of Peter Pan and all those fairytales. It’s all very real and sincere, but it’s fantasy as well. It’s those real wishes to escape and run away but seen through a world where you can put this record on and disappear from your own life. “ “Our band’s always been about escape. Always,” he continues pointedly. “We’ve been on tour, running away from responsibilities 5
HOPE LIKE NEW SONGS “I
THEY
MY
JIMMY EAT WORLD FRONTMAN JIM ADKINS IS GOING IT ALONE.
WORDS: ALI SHUTLER
A
fter twentyone years in the game, Jim Adkins is still finding new audiences. “It’s the best thing ever,” he exclaims, sat in one of north London venue Union Chapel’s more spacious back rooms. “I’ve got such an insane opportunity to play beautiful places I’ve never been to. One of the main reasons I got into music is to explore.” “This year is a result of me trying to do something different between band records and it just led to this,” he explains. “I wasn’t sure exactly if ‘something different’ meant producing, solo work, co-writing or starting a yoga studio. It just evolved into me doing a series of singles and a solo acoustic tour.” Tonight, Jim’s performing in London as part of a European tour that sees him stripping Jimmy Eat World classics down to their acoustic bones alongside the handful of self-shaped solo material that’s been drip released throughout 2015. There’s also a cover of Rihanna’s ‘Only Girl’. “I’m here by just following the natural progression of saying yes to shit,” he ventures. “I’m discovering things about it that I hadn’t anticipated before, and that’s cool. It’s challenging in a way that playing with the 10 upsetmagazine.com
”
band isn’t,” he admits before expanding on the dynamic shift.
“In a band setting you’re responding off what you’re hearing. By yourself, you are solely in charge of leading the momentum and direction of what’s happening and you can change that depending on how you feel at any point. It’s a meditative process in a way. The audience plays a big role in it, they’re like the band members you’re getting feedback from in this setting. I learnt a long time ago to reset my expectation meter to zero walking on stage and then you just see where it goes. That’s true with playing a set at Reading Festival and it’s true for playing with just a guitar to twenty people at a house party.” While this venture has grown into slightly more than twenty people at a house party, the idea of one man with a guitar holds true. “I hope people find something in it they like. I’m playing some Jimmy Eat World songs that might be familiar, but I’m trying to present them in a way that’s different. I hope it’s an awesome fan experience depending on whatever that means to fans,” he offers. “And I hope they like my new songs.” This new solo venture came about from, “just trying to be productive and do something different. If you do the same things, you’re going to get the same results. While
I’m very grateful with the results I’ve got from playing music so far, you’ve got to push yourself. You’ve got to change things. That only helps to inform all aspects of what you’re interested in.”
“I think I’ve gotten better at talking to people because it’s just me,” he continues with a grin. “I’ve learnt about letting go of certain aspects of perfection because it’s just me, and I’m going to fuck up. You have to roll with it sometimes, and that’s good,” Jim says before talking about the writing process. “It’s just an informative experience being the only person, working without the filter of the band. You have to finish it. You. Personally. You have to make the choice when it’s done.
momentum of wanting to pursue the future,” he says, on the battle between the yesterday and the tomorrow, “I think I’m at the age where they work together.” From PVRIS via Paramore to Taylor Swift, Jimmy Eat World’s influence can be felt across the music industry. “It’s weird,” says Jim. “When any fellow musician says they relate to what I or the band have done, it’s always weird. We create this stuff in a bubble and it is a huge compliment when you get feedback that things are happening outside the bubble because of what you’re doing. It feels good.
“Since no one has any expectations, it’s freeing. That doesn’t mean to say I feel restricted playing with the group. It’s just different. I hope this opens the door a little bit to expect me to do this in the future. It’s the Wild West out there. Why couldn’t you just put out something when you’re happy with it? You can. There’s no reason why not, so we’ll see.”
“I’ve just always tried to be honest about what I like and what I think is good. People pick up on that. It’s not presenting something with the idea of chasing a trend or a particular demographic. It’s really just about what I like. If you can be honest with yourself about that, and continue to do so, people will pick up on that and relate to it. There’s always going to be a connection there.”
“I think the gratefulness for the history helps adds to the
For many, a solo project is a chance to escape from being
“I’m here by just following the natural pro gression of saying yes to shit.” JIM ADKINS
‘that guy from that band’ but for Jim, “It’s not even on my radar. I’ve been the guy from Jimmy Eat World for 21 years so that’s going to be hard to outrun.” After so many years creating, it’s things like this solo project that keeps it fresh. “It’s things like deciding you’re going to do something a little bit out of your comfort zone,” he starts. “Really, there is no such thing as a comfort zone, there’s just a zone of fear preventing you from learning anything. It’s just the idea of
trying to grow, that in itself is exciting and is momentum enough, to see what’s next.” With plans to get the band back together in November to start work on their next project, well after the cobwebs and beer cans have been cleared away from the studio, Jim’s ambitions are as stripped back yet as universal as his solo venture is proving to be. “Just being happy that whatever I do next, is my best work. Whatever that ends up being.” P
TIGERS JAW TEAM UP WITH KEVIN DEVINE THE PENNSYLVANIAN QUARTET HAVE COVERED THE CURE FOR KEV DEV’S SPLIT EP PROJECT. WORDS: RYAN DE FREITAS
I
Jim Adkins is really excited about his new solo career. Look! Thrilled!
n the latest and third instalment of Kevin Devine’s ‘Devinyl’ series - in which he releases split EPs with a range of collaborators – Tigers Jaw have tackled a cover of The Cure’s ‘In Between Days’. Covers aren’t new territory for the Scranton duo, with covers of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Gypsy’, Lee Corey Oswald’s ‘You’re The Soul’ and most recently, Title Fight’s ‘Safe In Your Skin’ & ‘Where Am I?’ already part of the band’s sizeable repertoire. However, the band are quick to point out that they can still be a daunting task. “I’ve always been intimidated by doing covers,” admits Ben Walsh, one half of the indie-punk outfit. “I never think my voice is quite right to adapt to different styles, so we just try to do the song justice but make it sound like a Tigers Jaw song. Of course, when a band of such legendary stature as The Cure are involved, there’s added pressure. “I must admit I was very nervous to cover them,” Ben continues. “So, before going into the studio, we listened to a whole lot of
Cure songs and did our best to capture the vibe of the band and specifically ‘In Between Days’.” Tigers Jaw have been busy since the release of 2014’s ‘Charmer’, with their recent Studio 4 acoustic session, a heavy touring schedule and now the release of this split EP. Clearly, cover songs aren’t the only thing on the band’s mind. “We’re always in the process of working on new original material,” reveals Ben. “I don’t really have a time frame because we’re trying to let it happen organically, but it’s an ongoing process.” Up to now, the only material we’ve heard from the band since they became a twopiece is ‘Carry You Over’ on a Will Yip ‘Off The Board’ compilation, but according to Ben, the ‘new original material’ they’re working on will most likely end up part of a bigger project. “I tend to gravitate towards the mind set of writing for a full length, so if I had to predict what’s next I’d think a full length over an EP.” Good news – it sounds like we won’t have another four-year wait between Tigers Jaw albums. P 11
“ WE HAVE A SECRET RECORD THAT NO ONE IS EVER GOING TO HEAR.”
ABOU T TO
BR E AK
DILLY DALLY WITH THEIR DEBUT ALBUM ‘SORE’, TORONTO PUNKS DILLY DALLY ARE SHOWCASING SOMETHING SPECIAL. WORDS: JESSICA GOODMAN.
THE BEST N EW B ANDS THE HOT TEST N EW M USIC
T
oronto quartet Dilly Dally might be releasing their debut album, but they’re no newcomers to the music scene. “We have a secret record we
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recorded four years ago that no one’s ever going to hear,” frontwoman Katie Monks teases. “We didn’t know what we wanted as much back then. Now we have more of a sound. We know what we want more.” That certainty has been a long time coming. Dilly Dally have been performing in various guises for the past seven years. At the band’s core lies the permanent duo of Katie and Liz Ball, high school friends who pledged their allegiance to the Dilly Dally cause before they ever picked up instruments together. “We
were like, ‘Yeah, let’s start a band!’ So we went and we got the tattoos for it,” Katie laughs. “The tattoo artist was like, ‘You really shouldn’t get these if you haven’t even played a show yet…’” Thankfully, the pair were not to be deterred. “We were appalled that he didn’t have faith in Dilly Dally. We got the tattoos, so that was that.” Jump forwards a few years, and with the addition of Jimmy Tony on bass and Benjamin Reinhartz on drums, Dilly Dally’s lineup is at last complete. “Liz and I have been playing in Toronto once
Whilst most people might shy from baring themselves so openly, the frontwoman relishes it. “It’s like sex!” she exclaims. “It’s amazing! It’s like I’m stripping my emotions in front of everybody. You’re so vulnerable. The more vulnerable I make myself, the more people enjoy it, and the more it makes them feel good about themselves. It’s easy.”
Don’t dilly dally on... oh, nevermind. a month for the last six years under Dilly Dally,” Monks recalls. “Every shit bar and every crummy hole in this city, we’ve played it. Over time I think we just started to get frustrated that no one cared about what we were doing.” Frustration led to creation, and changing their setup, the group found their forte. “People reacted differently to us live once we started playing with Ben and Tony. Ben is an incredible performer. He makes us all play in a bigger way. Tony does as well. We became louder and more angry. We were just like, ‘Now will you guys listen to us?’ It affected the live show so drastically that it felt like something really special was happening with the four of us.” That ‘something special’ is showcased in the form of ‘Sore’, the quartet’s first full-length record to see release. “It’s pretty animalistic stuff,” Monks describes.
“I have a great story!” Katie proclaims. “One time there was this guy at a party, and he was like, ‘You stand up on stage, and you sing and you play in front of all those people?’ He said, ‘You are so brave’. I don’t get scared – I feel so comfortable doing it, you know? But I was like, ‘I guess that is brave, thank you!’ I took it as a compliment, and I started thinking quite much of myself. Then I said, ‘So, what do you like to do?’ He said, ‘I skateboard’. And he was like, ‘Last year I skateboarded into a bus, and I was in a coma for eight months, and now I can’t see out of this eye…’ He told me he had all these health problems…” she trails off in disbelief. “I put my hand on his shoulder and said ‘YOU are the one who is brave.’ I’m not fucking brave. I don’t have the guts to fucking skateboard.”
DEMOB HAPPY
“Deeply personal and spiritual experiences I’ve had in my life. I’m a smart person, but I live my life through what I feel. So that’s what the record is. If I felt like I was oppressed because I was a woman, and the deep anger and sadness I would feel because of that, that’s on the record. Deep feelings of love for my friends, that’s on the record. Feelings about just wanting to have sex with somebody, that’s on the record.”
Thomas Armstrong (drums and vocals) spares a few minutes to talk about his band’s debut album, after a wet trip back from rehearsals.
‘Dream Soda’ has been described as a “concept album without contrivance”. What does that mean? I mean, it’s not a concept album in the traditional sense, but there’s these common threads underlying everything, whether it was something in the room when we were recording it together, or in the artwork or in the lyrics. Dream Soda is us trying to make something real that both satirises and undermines the empty products and promises we’re sold to supplement our happiness in life.
When it comes to feats of bravery, Dilly Dally are completely modest. Their hopes, however, are as admirable as they come. “I hope that when people hear the record they find it empowering,” Katie expresses. “I hope that all people across the board hear it, and it makes them want to get up and do something with their day. I just want it to have a positive effect on people.” “If they’re feeling depressed, and shitty, I hope it makes people feel like “she’s made sense of it all, and turned it into something beautiful. Maybe I can do it. Maybe I might try.””
Did you have a specific idea of what you wanted to achieve when you first started working on the release? When we locked ourselves away in the remote cottage in Wales to write the album we just wanted to make the best record we could. It’s our first album so we worked on balancing out tracks that have been around for longer and getting them to where we wanted them and had a load of fun making new tracks. Also lots of whisky.
“There’s tons of bands that get started saying, ‘We started our band because we liked other bands in school’,” she continues. “I want to make people pick up instruments, a pen, or whatever they want to express themselves with, and run over to their fucking desk or wherever, and get to work.” P
If there was one thing you’d like everyone to know about the record before it’s out, what would it be? That we poured ourselves into it and went a bit mad and came back and you should listen to it really fucking loud on some bigass speakers. P 19
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WORDS: TOM CONNICK. PHOTOS: PHIL SMITHIES.
THEY’VE CONQUERED READING & LEEDS. THEY’RE DOMINATING THE AIRWAVES. WITH THEIR LATEST ALBUM, BRING ME THE HORIZON ARE READY TO RULE ROCK ONCE AND FOR ALL. 23
bout a mile north of Sheffield centre lies Neepsend, a suburb of the city whitewashed by early twentieth century industrialisation and its subsequent post-Thatcher destruction. As with most such places, it’s largely derelict now, boarded up windows and copious graffiti replacing what was once a bustling hum of industry. Sadly, these streets are perhaps now more famous for their problems with prostitution, as immortalised in early Arctic Monkeys single ‘When The Sun Goes Down’ – but amongst the wreckage, at least one legal local business is booming. The former site of Samuel Osborn & Co steelmakers is now home to the Drop Dead warehouse – the hub and flagship store of its impossibly popular namesake clothing line, and a second abode for each of the members of Bring Me The Horizon. Sheffield’s Steel City nickname may be long-since made redundant, but with Bring Me’s new album ‘That’s The Spirit’ looming large, it seems metal will always have a place within these walls. Indeed, while the warehouse below churns out clothing orders from across the globe, the upper corridors are shaking as pre-production for the band’s massive Reading and Leeds sub-headlining slot hits full swing,
each of newest member Jordan Fish’s sub-drops and samples echoing around the building. “He’s the last piece of the puzzle,” smiles the band’s iconic frontman Oli Sykes. “He just unlocks so many possibilities for us, that weren’t possible before,” Oli continues. “I think it’s been apparent really since our second album that electronica is stuff that we’re into and wanted to mix in, but we’ve had to rely on other people to interpret what we want. It weren’t ever someone who could bring something to it, just like another band member who can bring it as an instrument and be like, ‘this is what I’m gonna do’. It just used to be more saying, ‘right, this is what we want; can you do it?’ So we’ve been limited in what we could do.” ‘That’s The Spirit’ is the sound of Bring Me The Horizon finally becoming limitless. Recorded and produced entirely by the band themselves, it’s a bold, melodic new step for a band who started out swathed in nails-onblackboard deathcore extremity. “I think it’s every record label and management’s worst nightmare when a band turn around and go, ‘We’re gonna self-produce!’ because it’s always shit,” jokes Oli, “but we were confident that we knew what we were doing and we knew what we wanted” While the band might have hired mega-producer Terry Date – who boasts Slipknot, Limp Bizkit and Deftones as
past clients on his packed CV - for ‘Sempiternal’’s knob-twiddling, it quickly proved to be nothing more but another barrier to what Bring Me really wanted – to take the whole thing on themselves. “It’s kind of something we’ve done for every album,” he divulges, “but we never got credited for it. I think that’s ultimately something we got fed up with: with ‘Sempiternal’, there were still people going, ‘Oh, Terry Date really sorted them out and made them good!’ It’s like ‘Nooooo! We did this on our own!’ “Even with ‘There Is A Hell…’ and ‘Suicide Season’, I feel like I produced it – I probably over-produced it to be honest,” he laughs, “’cause I was sat there going, ‘Do this, do that, do that’. It’s still always been in our control. So it came to the point where, if someone comes in – a big name or whatever – it’s just gonna be a compromise for what we really want. You have to plan your battles; like, ‘I’m not happy with that, I’m not happy with that; but I’ve gotta pick one’. Rather than just being like, ‘This is how I want it. Can’t I just have it like that?’ “Even mixing and everything, it goes through a hundred times, and when it’s someone else doing it it’s still not exactly how you want it. With ‘Sempiternal’ it was like, ‘yeah, we really know what we want and we don’t wanna fight for it.’ So yeah, it just felt like the natural thing to do.” Every step Bring Me have taken has been underpinned by that desire for natural progression. While ‘That’s The Spirit’ might see them at their most overtly melodic to date, the band’s evolution is easily traceable, each release sharpening their assault and introducing those electronic flourishes. ‘That’s The Spirit’ is like nothing that’s come before, though. The earliest indicators of its gargantuan leap forward came late last year with ‘Drown’ – a track written with the band’s year-ending Wembley Arena headliner at the forefront of their minds.
“WE’RE GETTING MORE CONFIDENT, BUT WE S T I L L A L W AY S H A V E
T H AT N I G G L I N G F E E L I N G LIKE WE’RE JUST FLUKING IT.” - OLI SYKES
“It wasn’t a conscious thing to do,” explains Oli of Bring Me’s melodic new dressing, “like, write ‘Drown’ and see how it goes because it’s so different - but at the same time I think the overall positive reaction to it and response just gave us that confidence to go, ‘Right, we won’t make any compromises with this
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TRICKS
expectations for it,” says Sadie. “Whenever anyone likes it, we’re like, ‘Yes! Us too.’ It’s my favourite thing I’ve ever worked on, ever.”
“We’d toured our first album extensively before we recorded it but with these news songs, we barely played them live before we went in the studio. We didn’t have a set way of how they would sound live which resulted in more interesting recordings, FOLLOWING THE REL E AS E OF TH E I R N E W AL B UM ‘FOI L DE E R ’, which was the point. To figure out the best SPEEDY ORTIZ ARE F E E L I NG MOR E C ON F I DE N T THAN E VE R way to way to present B E FOR E . them live is always an WOR DS : AL I S HU TL ER . evolution,” says Sadie before recounting the record was angry, very rooted in the past ’ve been glee she gets from trying to recreate and is highly specific,” Sadie explains. complaining that the keyboard parts on ‘My Dead Girl’ “On this one, I wanted to do something it’s the first time live. “Rearranging songs and figuring ever I’ve not that could be applicable to people out how to trick my preexisting ear into other than myself. Even though I’m been home for sounding like vintage synths is funny. still somewhat of a pessimistic writer, Halloween,” smiles I’m so excited every time we play it. ‘Foil Deer’ is forward looking. It looks frontwoman Sadie It’s always been important to me to at addressing problems and healing Dupuis. “I’m a play complicated guitar parts while from them instead of dwelling on big fan of Halloween but from what I I’m singing or I’d get totally bored. them. It’s not just a music evolution, it’s understand, no one does it like America.” Everything we write is slightly harder about trying to get better and be better Despite the lack of trick or treating than I know how to play, just so I can instead of firing shots at the demons potential, Sadie is looking forward to get better by writing that song.” Speedy Ortiz’s upcoming European tour. of my past.” It’s been a year since they were last over It’s not just their album that tenses with Named after a sculpture in Amsterdam and, with a fantastic new record to their musical growth, as Sadie ventures. “I name, it promises to be a different and recorded over three weeks instead think we’ve all of the four days that ‘Major Arcana’ experience. become more took, ‘Foil Deer’ set out to be “more confident expansive and nuanced.” Months “The as after its release, first the record is still revealing secrets. “We never had
AND TREATS
“I
musicians and people. Before I did this full time, I was a teacher. I taught at a university so I’ve worked with kids before. In that job there was a level of mentorship that came with it. I always assumed that our audience was our age but we’ve started to see younger people at shows. They want to talk about how to start a band or how to get good at guitar when the very male-dominated scenes they operate in, intimidate them. I‘m always having fun on stage but looking more confident or that I’m having fun has become more of a focus for me. I have these people I’ve met who are now seeing women visible in rock. Playing proficiently is important to me because it doesn’t exist in my town. That’s a big aspect that’s changed; now I’ll throw in an extra riff or jump around a bit more.”
never been something I’ve sought out or got excited by. All the shows I like, ten people go to,” she admits. “The more we’ve been playing these bigger venues, it’s hard for me to know what I should be delivering because the way I like listening to music most is at home. I’m just trying to play the songs in a way that makes me feel good about them and is interesting to someone who likes the records. More than that though, I want people to feel safe and have a good time. The best thing at a show is a space that’s welcoming.
“I want people to fe e l safe an d have a go od time at our gigs .” Sadi e D upuis
From its inception ‘Foil Deer’ deals with the role of performing. “I used to have to drink a lot play and I was nervous,” continues Sadie. “I was pretty shy and I still am. Steeling yourself to have this public face and persona, not only for yourself but for the people who might take meaning from you, can be useful or important.” ‘Foil Deer’ came from this idea. “I used to have to get drunk to play shows and I didn’t want to drink anymore, so I got real into glitter and real into getting dressed up to play and that bolstered my confidence. I could do whatever I needed to do without getting messed up to do it. You go on stage and if you have a message you want to deliver, sometimes you have to sugarcoat it a little bit.” That message may be a
personal one but the songs of ‘Foil Deer’ also draw from the narratives of the everyday. “Usually there’s a reason for me to write a song in the first place,” she explains. “For me, there’s a specific meaning to every song but I prefer that more open interpretation especially with this record. A lot of the stories I was writing about, I was frustrated about hearing other friends with identical stories about being devalued in their professions or their personal relationships because of their gender identity or their sexual identity. It’s funny, I don’t think about them when I’m playing them though. It’s the way I set things up for myself. One of the reasons I used to get nervous playing is because there’s a lot I need to remember to do. Between the guitar and the singing I’m mostly thinking, ‘How can I not fuck this one up?’” It’s never a case of steely eyes and by-the-books recreation for Speedy Ortiz though. “I’m always making stuff up on stage,” laughs Sadie. “There are certain songs where I’ll sing a harmony for a verse because I fucking can. It keeps things fun. In the same way, we change up setlists up every night. I can’t understand bands who go on tour and play the exact same set every night. It must be mind numbing and I think it would feel the same if we did the songs the same every night. The songs are generally evolving the more we play them in terms of music and the performance.”
“Usually I’ll be selling our merch because we want to meet the people coming to our shows and find out what they’re about. I like hearing about people. There are friends I’ve made just from people who came up after shows,” says Sadie. “They tell us, ‘Hey, you guys came through here a year ago and there weren’t any bands with women in our scene, so now we’ve started a threepiece that’s entirely compromised of women. Maybe we can play with you in a year when we’re ready?’ I tell them to send me their demo immediately. That’s exciting, that’s the most gratifying part of this.” P Speedy Ortiz’s album ‘Foil Deer’ is out now.
“While I really admire performers who have elaborate live shows, that’s
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“I
didn’t want a graphic cover, I wanted fine art,” explains Deafheaven frontman George Clark. “I wanted a literal cover art, visceral but very sad and introspective.” Turned onto sculptural oil painter Allison Schulnik by Touché Amoré’s Nick Steinhardt, the end result proudly adorns the front of the band’s new album, ‘New Bermuda’. “We committed before we saw it. I saw this painting. It’s this man at a piano
and when I was in this depressed state, I was always on my keyboard writing music, desperately trying to climb my way out of whatever I was feeling. I saw this painting, it was all greys and blues and black. That’s how I feel, that’s what I did, that’s what we need.” After conversations back and forth, “She sent us that back and it’s perfect. I love it. There’s so much,” he starts before gesturing. “She paints with such emotion. You can feel that scrawled into the canvas, I really love that about it and it just worked. That’s
it,” he states before adding. “It’s totally not like ‘Sunbather’ either, which is maybe the best part.” And that’s the thing about Deafheaven’s ‘New Bermuda’. It’s very aware of ‘Sunbather’s presence in the room, it’s hard to ignore a record that reached so far, but the band don’t give it so much as a second cursory glance throughout. There’s no shadow play here. “We’re a forward thinking band,” George offers from a corner of London’s Scala. Last time he was here 33
“IT’S ABOUT
LETTING G O , OF THE PA S T .” WITH THEIR DEBUT ALBUM, NO DEVOTION ARE SET TI NG OUT EXACTLY WHO THE Y AR E . WORD S: H EATH ER MCDAI D. PHOTO S : TOM BAR N ES.
“I
t’s something I’ve never experienced before,” recalls Geoff Rickly, looking back on No Devotion’s first shows as they come ever-closer to their debut release. “Having people just waiting for us to make our first song, not knowing what we are but just wanting to be a part of it. I just hope they know we don’t take that for granted, we work our asses off to be good enough to deserve all the support and love we’ve been given.” That hard work culminates in ‘Permanence’, and they couldn’t be more excited for people to hear it. “I think that everything every single song on the record is something that I’m really, really proud of. I think it really gets across who we are what we are trying to do, what’s different about us, what’s new, how we blend together. I think this record helps tell the whole story.” It’s a story that developed over time. It took hearing ‘Addition’ before Geoff knew this was something he truly wanted to be a part of. “The first demo was a lot heavier and I just didn’t know if I wanted to do a lot of heavy rock. Then I heard the rest of it and thought ‘Shit, they’re great at this kind of stuff!’ so I cut down the
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AS THEY APPROACH TH E RELEASE OF THEIR THI R D ALBUM, TELL IS ON ARE T WE LVE YEARS IN AND STILL NOT SELLING OUT WEMBLE Y THAT’S JUST FINE BY TH E M, THOUGH. WORDS : TOM CONNICK . PHOTOS: SARAH LOUI S E B E N N ET T.
COMFORTI N SOUND
Tellison are heading out on a UK tour with Upset. Catch them at: SEPTEMBER 18 LONDON St. Pancras Church 19 SOUTHAMPTON The Joiners 20 BRIGHTON The Hope 21 CARDIFF Clwb Ifor Bach 22 HULL Fruit 23 LIVERPOOL Bumper 24 LEICESTER The Firebug 25 BOURNEMOUTH The Anvil 26 NORWICH The Owl Sanctuary 27 LONDON The Lexington
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Seriously, you too Tellison? SOMEONE LEARN TO IRON A SHIRT.
“
W
e just wanted to be a band really - make records, go on tour - there was never any grander plan than that.” As Stephen Davidson, frontman of Tellison, explains in “one of the few pubs that aren’t awful” near his East London flat, the quartet’s ambitions have never been particularly lofty. Theirs is a twelve-year career that’s the epitome of underdog - plagued by bad timing and doubly-bad luck, seemingly on the edge of a breakthrough just as the music industry “was essentially sinking”, their scrappy charm never quite delivered the quartet the rock’n’roll dream. Sometimes, though, that’s not the point.
“I worry sometimes that I’m very negative,” Stephen admits, “especially in interviews; it comes across as if I’m moaning, and I don’t want to do that because it’s fun - that’s why we do it! It’s fine - we still get to do fun things and play to lots of people and have a good time.” “I, for a long time, felt bad - like I’d failed,” he continues. “I still, sort of, on some level do. The yardstick by which people measure bands - if you put us on that yardstick, we’re a failure. We should give up, probably, because the odds are getting slimmer!” He laughs, but anyone pressing play on Tellison’s new album ‘Hope Fading Nightly’ might worry that Stephen’s in need of one hell of a hug, as opener ‘Letter To The Team’ fades-in with an apology penned by Stephen
to the other members of Tellison, past and present, “for the mess we’re in – this holding pattern of defeat, on defeat, on defeat.” It’s not as mopey as it might seem, though. “I love black, ‘gallows’ humour,” says Stephen of the track. “I just thought it’d be a really dark but funny thing to do. And then my brain just kept going, like, ‘Imagine if this is the first song - he quits the band in the first song!’” he cackles. Influenced by his day job at the company that creates the Football Manager games, where “if you suck, they fire you”, it’s a typically wry slice of Stephen’s observational lyricism. “When the idea occurred to me that I could write a kind of resignation letter I was sort of thinking about culpability and liability,” he explains. 45
I
n the apparent era of reunion tours, a band travelling the world in celebration of an album they brought out a decade prior seems an increasingly rare occurrence. But it’s 2015, and Motion City Soundtrack’s epic ‘Commit This To Memory’ has taken them all around the world in celebration, but while having one foot firmly in the past, they’ve kept their eyes set on the future, with ‘Panic Stations’ on the horizon.
“We were just writing songs and it was very exciting. We asked if he wanted to be the guy and he said ‘Hell yeah!’ and then we just started writing a ton of stuff. I guess I went from being not excited to very excited again. When you’ve been with those guys for so long and when something changes the dynamic of that, the unit changes. Luckily we found a guy who was very excited about playing music which propelled us forward.”
“I think that the interesting thing is that the age of people is anything from ten years old to 55,” explains Justin Pierre, on their ongoing tour. “A lot of younger people had older siblings that had that record and introduced it to them but they were too young at the time to actually come to shows. Also, a lot of parents of people who were in their teens 10 years ago are coming out to the shows now. It’s fascinating. An anomaly.”
‘Panic Stations’, the result of that propulsion, has strong nautical themes, from the artwork to much of the lyricism. It’s quite different to what they’ve done before, so what was the thought process behind that? “I think when I was younger I didn’t really question anything and words just kind of came up. Some songs were harder to write than others and then somewhere around ‘Even If It Kills Me’ I couldn’t find the words and I had to work really hard to figure out what things meant. I started on another project out with this band and the writing was just whatever came to mind off the top of my head
For fans new or old, there’s another album ready to be added to their collection, and the wait is almost over. “I’m excited, I’m anxious, I’m nervous,” he begins. “No, all good things. We recorded that over a year ago, so yeah it’s about time!”
With the new album being such fun to record, there are naturally some songs that stand out to them. “I think ‘Pleasure To Meet You’ is one I really like,” says Justin. “I think it’s the only outright positive song on the record. Not that the others are negative just a little bit more... I always confuse this word - I want to say melancholy, but that’s a lot more depressing than it is. To me melancholy is infinite sadness, but I think it’s real meaning is deeper than that. ‘Pleasure To Meet You’ is one, particularly the bridge, I lift from a time in my life where I was extremely lonely. “’Gravity’ is another one that’s interesting too. I feel like when I sit and really think about it there’s something really lonely about this record. I don’t really question a lot of the things when I’m writing them, I just sort of write; I find that story then I write towards that story but as a whole but with the finished product it takes me a few years to make sense of it all. I think there’s a lot of loneliness on this record but I don’t think that’s a bad thing necessarily it’s just a way of being.” It’s an exciting time for Motion City Soundtrack, both in looking forward and reflecting on what they’ve achieved this last decade or so. Has the tour they’ve undertaken given them the opportunity to just stop and think? “[The touring] part is excellent, most excellent,” he begins. “I was thinking about that the other day when I was walking around: had I done something else for a living I don’t think I would have ever left the country. Some people never leave the country, state, or city that they are born in and I guess I couldn’t imagine my life being any other way.
“ I trust my i n sti nc ts a lot mor e , tho u gh I sti l l d o q uestion al mo st e ve ry th i ng . ” J USTI N PI E R R E
An album being sat on can make fans impatient with excitement, but what is it like when it’s your work? “It’s nerve wracking,” admits Justin. “It’s happened to us twice now but this time it was more my fault because I went in and had a kid and that threw a monkey wrench in the plans. I have been busy, so it hasn’t been too bad.” This album has been the first for the band since the departure of drummer Tony Thaxton, who felt life on the road was taking its toll on him. They parted more than amicably, all moving on to new roads. “The trajectory of that, at least from my point of view, there was an initial bit of fear, then the team all huddled together and decided that we still wanted to do this. I remember we had two gigs lined up so we called up our buddy Claudio and asked if he wanted to fill in for that and he said yes and then we just started playing together.
and that freed me up. I used a bit of that with this band. “I have just gotten to a point where I think I just trust my instincts a lot more than I used to, even though I still do question almost everything. I think whenever you’re writing, it’s in such a compact, short period of time, whatever you happen to be going through or thinking about kind instils itself into every song a bit. On the last record [‘Go’] there was a lot of death, it was just weird. I think of that record as being a very floaty album. I felt like I was watching my life unfold around me but I wasn’t in it. I don’t know how to explain it. “So with this record it was just a lot of fun to write and to make this water theme. I just filled every song with as much of those words and phrases as I could. It was a conscious decision to do that but I don’t know what inspired me to do that, it’s just sort of what was happening at the time.”
“Having a family of my own now, I think I’m starting to appreciate my time at home a lot more on a different level than I ever have before. This is a job but it’s a very fun job. I enjoy what I do for a living and I’m grateful I’ve gotten to do it for this long. If I were never able to do it again, I would have fond memories from it and I will be okay but if it continues I will continue to be grateful.” P Motion City Soundtrack’s album ‘Panic Stations’ is out now. 47
RATED
Bloody great, m8 Prrrretty good It’ll do Bobbins
BRING ME THE HORIZON THAT’S THE SPIRIT
RCA
eeee Thought ‘Sempiternal’ made Bring Me huge? You’ve seen nothing yet. ‘That’s The Spirit’ will make them one of the biggest bands in the world.
A
decade into a career that many were convinced held little more than some flash-in-the-pan MySpace success, Bring Me The Horizon hit their own glass ceiling. From their earliest days as a screeching banshee of deathcore’s worst tropes, through to ‘Sempiternal’’s Wembley Arena-filling anthemia, the Sheffield group had fine-tuned every element of their being, until every chug hit like a torpedo, every scream shook spines. It was time for a change-up. Enter ‘That’s The Spirit’ and the band’s jaw-dropping emperor’s new clothes. Almost entirely gone is the screaming; so too are the breakdowns. In their place 4 8 upsetmagazine.com
stand an album that’s more CHVRCHES than The Chariot, and a band who’ve never seemed more confident in their approach. Early singles ‘Happy Song’ and ‘Throne’ might have marked ‘That’s The Spirit’ out as something of a left-turn, but in context they’re little more than baby steps. Opener ‘Doomed’ judders into life like the bastard comedown of a Berlin techno weekender, until frontman Oli Sykes reveals his stunning vocal transformation. Gone is the safety net of grit that he fell back on even in ‘Sempiternal’’s soppiest moments – with ‘That’s The Spirit’ he’s dives straight into a feather-weight croon that’s flooring. From there on out, nothing’s out of bounds. ‘Avalanche’’s arms-aloft ode to overcoming dyslexia is backed by a carnivale horn section, something that would stake a claim for the most left-field addition on the album were it
eeeee eeee eee ee e
not for closer ‘Oh No’’s saxophone solo. No, really. Lyrically, ‘Oh No’ sees Sykes tackling his problems with drug addiction in the most head-on manner yet, but before that he lays down the band’s first ever ballad – an ode to newly-wed spouse Hannah Snowden – with ‘Follow You’. “Cross my heart and hope to die, promise you I’d never leave your side,” he sings in caramel tones – a world away from the snarling, spitting Sykes of the band’s earlier odes to lost love. Admittedly, there are times when Sykes’ lyricism trips up on itself, or when the band’s dedication to ditching needless breakdowns and heaviness leaves them treading water with little more than a slightly forgettable fuzz - that’s the beauty of ‘That’s The Spirit’, though. It may not be perfect, but Bring Me The Horizon never were. They’re a group that relish the fighting and the thrashing that comes with every step of an evolution. It’s that which marks out ‘That’s The Spirit’’s true majesty –so much more than just the next rung on the ladder, it’s an open door on a whole new world and another decade of innovation for one of modern metal’s most consistently vital and vibrant bands. Tom Connick
DEAFHEAVEN
NEW BERMUDA
Anti-
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I
Deafheaven go darker on their tense third album.
t’s something as old as art itself - the expectation of an artist’s upcoming effort after previously producing a groundbreaking piece of work. We find ourselves in this position again in light of Deafheaven’s 2013 LP ‘Sunbather’. How could a record of that calibre be topped? One that mixed disparate genres so effectively that it drew attention from all across the spectrum, even from people who don’t normally listen to ‘heavy’ music. Born from the cramped conditions of a San Francisco apartment, ‘Sunbather’ contemplated light and dark in equal measure and offered feelings of hope and desperation for a better situation. ‘New Bermuda’ comes with a much tenser, confrontational mood aided by an expectedly crisper production. ‘Brought To The Water’ and ‘Luna’ introduce searing texture, with more of a distinctive
black metal phrasing than ever before. ‘Baby Blue’ and ‘Comeback’ are a step up. Separated briefly by an eerie-sample led moment that’ll remind most of GY!BE, both tracks offer the most post-rock serenity heard so far, It’s a shame there aren’t any standalone ‘interludes’ like the kind found on Sunbather, something that paid dividends to that record’s eventual form. Instead, Deafheaven experiment further on a fifth track, ‘Gifts For The Earth’, detailing a story of suicide at sea via an Interpol-esque indie-rock setting and a powerfully crushing refrain. The beautiful melodicism that defined the band’s first record hasn’t gone completely, it’s still there on every track, just perhaps a little more scattered. A bleaker affair, ‘New Bermuda’ might not be as uplifting as ‘Sunbather’, but it’s still an incredible set of post-metal compositions that’ll move people nonetheless. James Fox
ALL DOGS
KICKING EVERY DAY
THE WINTER PASSING
Selinas Records
6131 Records
There’s something intrinsically resigned in All Dogs’ music. Tales of loss and self-deprecation ring with a dull heartache that feels all too familiar. But performed with the quartet’s unfailing energy, the group find purpose amidst the pain – reason to keep fighting. ‘Kicking Every Day’ is a soundtrack from after the darkness. Rediscovering hope with a poignant determination, All Dogs take the listener by the hand, and show them that no matter how long the space between the two, beauty can follow a battle. Jessica Goodman
A DIFFERENT SPACE OF MIND
eeee
The underground is heading overground.
Treading a tightrope between the gnarled tone of emo’s sharpest incarnations and the sickly sweet melody of its radio-rock breakthrough, The Winter Passing’s debut LP is a razor-sharp indicator of the progress of the burgeoning underground scene on this side of the pond. Tied in knots by the intertwining vocals of brother-sister duo Rob and Katie Flynn, it’s a debut that longs to break free of their Irish home, and with any justice will see the group crossing seas for months to come. Tom Connick
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Purpose made to shoot straight for the heart.
ATREYU
LONG LIVE
Search and Destroy/Spinefarm
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Hiatuses, huh? They suck.
In their first album posthiatus, Atreyu waste no time in going full throttle and reassuring fans that they’ve not lost themselves in the process of taking a step back. ‘Heartbeats and Flatlines’ is slick and pounding, while ‘Moments Before Dawn’ begins eerily and lurches into more sombre tones. ’Brass Balls’ channels a classic rock swagger with vocals that don’t quite match up at times. There are sparks of how they’ve pushed for something fresh upon their return, but much of ‘Long Live’ can feel repetitive, holding on to a good thing when they find it. Heather McDaid 49