** Plus ** Enter Shikari / The Regrettes / Roam / Hot Milk / Crown The Empire / Bleached + loads more
46
August 2019 upsetmagazine.com
Sum 41 Alexisonfire Lights
IT’S THE MARK & ALEX SHOW
SIMPLE
C R E AT U R E S “This is not just a one-time thing”
W E
A R E
N O T
Y O U R
K I N D
9 A U G U S T 2 0 1 9 P R E - O R D E R N O W C D • C D / T E E B OX • D I G I TA L • 2 L P LIMITED EDITION 2LP RED VINYL AVA I L A B L E F R O M H M V A N D I N D E P E N D E N T R E C O R D S T O R E S
SLIPKNOT1.COM ROADRUNNERRECORDS.CO.UK
AUGUST 2019 Issue 46
HELLO. Supergroups, eh? How often do we come across supergroups that, actually, if we’re honest, aren’t so super at all? That one from that band that you can’t remember the name of, someone else who once was a touring guitarist for that lot who had two hits eight years ago. The music still needs to write the cheques, and rightly so. But then you’ve got this month’s cover stars. And yes, I do mean stars. If you’re looking for iconic figures of the past 25 years, rock music could do far worse than simply to offer up Mark Hoppus and Alex Gaskarth and be done with it. Now joining forces for a new project that allows them to write outside the lines of their clearly defined day jobs, Simple Creatures is a project with a genuine sense of something exciting about it. That they describe it as something for keeps, rather than simply a oneoff experiment, is even better. In their case, super doesn’t really seem strong enough.
S tephen
Editor / @stephenackroyd
Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Scribblers Alex Bradley, Beth Casteel, Dan Harrison, Jack Press, Jamie MacMillan, Linsey Teggert, Paris Fawcett, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Snappers Ashley Osborn, Claire Marie Vogel, Frances Beach, Lindsey Blane, Nicky Giraffe, Sarah Louise Bennett P U B L I S H E D F RO M
W E LCO M E TOT H E B U N K E R.CO M U N I T 10, 23 G RA N G E RO A D, H A S T I N G S, T N34 2R L
All material copyright (c). All rights reserved.
RIOT 4. ALEXISONFIRE 10. DOWNLOAD 2019 17. ACRES 18. TORCHE 20. CROWN THE EMPIRE 22. MUSE 24. ALL POINTS EAST 26. HOT MILK 27. CASE STUDY FEATURES 30. SIMPLE CREATURES
40. THE REGRETTES 44. SUM 41 48. BLEACHED 50. LIGHTS REVIEWS 54. SUM 41 55. CHASE ATLANTIC 56. NORTHLANE TEENAGE KICKS 58. PLAGUE VENDOR
Upset 3
Riot_
THIS MONTH IN ROCK
EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK
Festival season is well and truly underway, with Download bringing some of the biggest bands in the genre to Donington. p.10
RELIGHT MY FIRE Interview.
Returning earlier this year with ‘Familiar Drugs’ and ‘Complicit’, their first new music in almost ten years, plus a host of buzzy live shows, Alexisonfire are looking to the future. Words: Alex Bradley. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.
4 Upset
Crown the Empire are taking a confident step forward with their new album, ‘Sudden Sky’. p.11
Back in 2015, at Toronto’s Riot Fest, Wade MacNeil triumphantly declared that “Alexisonfire is officially back”. Rightly so, everyone excitedly took that as fact but what the guitarist actually meant was the most literal interpretation of “back” - they were physically all in one place for a couple of shows together. Wade’s proclamation and the subsequent online frenzy actually prompted Alexisonfire to collectively issue a statement to clarify that actually... well, erm, they were kinda just all friends again and playing a couple of shows. Alexisonfire were back, kind of. Flash forward four years and those few shows have become many shows around the world at infrequent, short, bursts, but as they dropped ‘Familiar Drugs’, their first new music in nine years, it felt like Alexisonfire were back; for real this time. And now, just a few months later, they’re back again with ‘Complicit’. Where ‘Familiar Drugs’ is rock anthem with a stoner twist, ‘Complicit’ is
It’s Bring Me The Horizon! Headlining a festival! p.24
a different beast altogether. This single is the more driving, menacing, side to Alexisonfire with vocalist George Pettit at his snarling best as he shares a message of inclusiveness and continuing the fight against racism, misogyny and heterosexual supremacy. “It’s hard to write a song like that,’ George begins. ‘Writing an anti-racist song or antihomophobic song, it’s hard to tread those waters because a lot of songs have been written like that. And if I felt that everything had been said and everything was done, then I wouldn’t have done it, but I think it’s really important right now. Racism, homophobia, misogyny are all on the rise in some regards - maybe not “on the rise” - but a lot of people who feel that sort of thing are feeling very empowered to talk about it publicly.” While Alexis are no strangers to politically focused tracks like ‘Sons of Privilege’ or ‘We Are The Sound’ and anthems for empowerment like ‘Accept Crime’, the inspiration for ‘Complicit’ came from a pretty unlikely source. George explains: “The motivation for the song was the Childish Gambino music video came out for ‘This Is America’. I was really moved by it...” Wade enthusiastically seconds it adding: “Punkest shit that has happened in 10 years!” He continues: “This is so punk. It’s so amazingly punk. It’s punker than punk. It’s so fucking visceral. How do I get behind the things he is speaking about in the song, and how do I be an ally to this cause?’
Upset 5
Riot_
DOWN -LOAD TWENTY NINE -TEEN Festival.
Festival season is well and truly underway, with this year’s rock behemoth Download once again bringing some of the biggest bands in the genre to Donington. Words: Steven Loftin.
10 Upset
Upset 11
CREA COMF 30 Upset
ATURE FORTS Supergroup? You call *that* a supergroup? Nah, mate. Simple Creatures are a supergroup. We pinned down Mark Hoppus and Alex Gaskarth to find out why this is more than just a side-project for two of rock’s true icons. Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Matty Vogel.
Upset 31
40 Upset
With their new album ‘How Do You Love?’, The Regrettes ruminate on butterflies and break-ups. Words: Linsey Teggert. Photos: Claire Marie Vogel, Sarah Louise Bennett.
Upset 41
HEA
ADS WILL
Sum 41’s D eryck Whibley lays himself bare across an album that hones in on both the personal and the political.
ROLL WORDS: JAMIE MACMI L L AN . P HOTO S : AS HL E Y O S B O R N .
May 2014. Shocking images of Deryck Whibley are in the news, the Sum 41 frontman looking close to death following kidney and liver failure. Admitting to hitting the bottle too hard, and for too long, Whibley was hospitalised for a month. Flash forward to 2016. Against all the odds, he and his band are celebrating the success of ‘13 Voices’, a triumphant return to form. But one thing became
apparent on the mammoth threeyear tour that followed. Just as Whibley had got better, the world itself had seemed to get sick. It wasn’t just in the United States, where the shadow of the 45th President loomed large, but across Europe too. Everywhere Sum 41 ventured, they found chaos and discord. Out of this mayhem, however, ideas began to form for album number seven. Today, Deryck is keen to clarify that ‘Order In Decline’ was never meant to be a political protest record. Instead, though, world
Upset 45
IT’ LIT One of music’s most ambitious artists, Lights has spun her ever-expanding world of music, comics and stories into stripped-back full-length, ‘Skin&Earth Acoustic’.
Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Lindsey Blane, Sarah Louise Bennett.
50 Upset
’S T Upset 51