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L.S. Dunes Magnolia Park Jamie Lenman White Lung
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DECEMBER 2022 / JANUARY 2023 Issue 83
RIOT 4. JAMIE LENMAN 8. WHITE LUNG ABOUT TO BREAK 12. HONEY REVENGE 14. SNAYX THE BEST OF 2022 16. SLIPKNOT 26. KID KAPICHI 26. ROLO TOMASSI 27. PUP 28. MAGNOLIA PARK 32. STATIC DRESS 33. NOAHFINNCE 33. PUPPY 34. L.S. DUNES TEENAGE KICKS 42. SHOW ME THE BODY
Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler
Scribblers Alexander Bradley, Dan Harrison, Jack Press, Jamie MacMillan, Jessica Goodman, Kelsey McClure, Linsey Teggert, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Snappers Anthony Scanga, Frances Beach, Jessica Griffith, Jonathan Weiner, Leila Rummery, Lindsey Byrnes, Luke Dickey, Mark Beemer, Paige Margulies, Sarah Louise Bennett, Scott Chalmers, Zachary Spangler PUBLISHED FROM WELCOMETOTHEBUNKER.COM PO BOX 420, HASTINGS, TN34 9LZ
All material copyright (c). All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of The Bunker Publishing Ltd. Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure the information in this magazine is correct, changes can occur which affect the accuracy of copy, for which The Bunker Publishing Ltd holds no responsibility. The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of Dork or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions. Distributed nationally.
Riot. EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK
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L IS A Y
LOVE S ALL YOU JAMIE LENMAN explores love and atheism on his fifth and freshest album yet. Words: Linsey Teggert. Photos: Scott Chalmers.
Y
ou really think there’s a heaven and hell? Well, maybe there’s a planet Krypton as well,” spits Jamie Lenman sarcastically. It’s the opening line on the first track of his new record; a bold lyrical statement to match a bold album title, but then again, Jamie has never been a shrinking violet. ‘The Atheist’ sees the musical chameleon declaring his position on the existence of God, and it’s something he’s been wrestling with for a long time. “I like the way it describes me, Jamie Lenman: The Atheist,” he explains. “I had a few titles I was playing with, but I thought ‘The Atheist’ was the boldest and would tell people something about me before they pick it up.” It’s a heavy theological subject to wrestle with, but this isn’t Jamie’s God-bashing concept album. While not all of the songs deal directly with religion, it was a deliberate choice to bookend the album with two tracks that directly reference God, or rather, the lack of God: aforementioned opener ‘This Is All There Is’ and closer ‘War Of Doubt.’ “It’s like saying at the beginning, ‘Hey, we’ve accepted there is no God, now let’s talk about this other big stuff with that in mind. No one is going to come and help us; there’s no one else to rely on but ourselves, so here are the socio-economic concerns, and here are the political concerns. It provides a nice umbrella theme for everything else to sit under, even if it’s not being directly tackled.” Reminiscing on his upbringing, Jamie recalls how he wasn’t raised in a particularly religious household but that God’s existence was established simply as a natural fact. “It’s just presented as a fact of life: there’s God, heaven and Jesus, and you don’t question it until you grow a brain and think, ‘Hold on a minute’. I went through a period of really
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PR EM ON ITI ON Canadian punk trio WHITE LUNG reflect upon motherhood and growth on their blistering final album. Words: Linsey Teggert. Photos: Lindsey Byrnes.
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fter an exhilarating, often chaotic decade and a half together, Canadian punk trio White Lung are about to release their fifth and final album, and, of course, they’re going out with an almighty bang. Despite emerging at the end of a very grown-up, transformative period for the band, ‘Premonition’ doesn’t compromise any of the ferocity and feral energy that White Lung have wielded throughout their career. It’s been a long road to get to this goodbye: when White Lung returned to Vancouver to record the follow-up to 2016’s hugely acclaimed ‘Paradise,’ they had no idea of the circumstances to come that would lead to an unintentional five-year hiatus. “In October 2017, I flew up to Vancouver to go into the studio, and I realised I hadn’t had my period,” frontwoman Mish Barber-Way recalls candidly. “So, I pick up a pregnancy test before I head into the studio, and of course, it’s positive.” With her first baby due around the time of the fifth album’s planned release date, White Lung decided to postpone the release until 2020. “Well, what happened in 2020?” asks Mish. “The world stopped!” Throughout the progression of her pregnancy, Mish continued to travel to Vancouver while she was still able, feeling comfortable enough to continue recording with the band’s long-time producer Jesse Gander. “I was going through all these massive changes in my body and my psyche and my spirituality because I’m prepping to become a mother, and I’d lived a pretty wild life up
to that point.” Knowing she was about to leave her previous turbulent lifestyle behind; the endless touring, the lack of any stability and the cigarettes and whiskey she used as a crutch when recording (“I’d never recorded sober before,” she confesses), actually came as a huge relief to Mish, changing the whole dynamic when it came to her songwriting. Having only written three songs for the album before entering the studio, the whole trajectory of the record changed. “Before that point, I really didn’t know what the album was going to be; I’d been really struggling lyrically. I realised retrospectively that I’d been carrying around this severe unhappiness and that there had been this huge hole in my life, and I just really wanted to be a mother, but I was still living this insane lifestyle. Once I discovered I was pregnant, the whole direction of the album became about that. It felt very different to write an album knowing I was embarking on this huge change that would be permanent.” Having to go through the whole process sober was a challenge, Mish acknowledges, as she was forced to reflect upon herself in a bold way. “I second guess myself a lot and self-criticise: liquor was always a way to shut up those voices and just write and not really think.” On previous records, Mish had used storytelling as a way to hide behind her feelings, confronting the issues through someone else’s narrative, and sometimes those narratives were dark. Take the frenetic ‘Sister’ from previous record ‘Paradise’ for example, where Mish sings from Upset 9
2022 has been a banner year for heavy music. From continuing to blast back into the mainstream to producing some of the best genre-based work in years, over the next few pages we’ll run you through some of the very best of the last twelve months, starting with the iconic...
THE
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B E ST O F 2022
SLIPKNOT are still one of the biggest bands on the planet. Twenty five years in, and they remain unmatched amonst their peers when it comes to their power, influence or sheer size. But beautiful? This we’ve gotta hear. Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Jonathan Weiner. Anthony Scanga.
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PARK
MAGNOLIA PARK are experiencing a breakout year with their ambitious debut album, ‘Baku’s Revenge’. Words: Jack Press. Photos: Jessica Griffith.
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f you flicked through the record collections of Magnolia Park, you’d find cult hip-hop groups like Three 6 Mafia wedged between pop-punk giants A Day To Remember and Neck Deep. On their debut album, there are interludes inspired by drill pioneer Chief Keef next to tracks featuring emo icon Derek Sanders of Mayday Parade. ‘Baku’s Revenge’ is an album for the outcasts, so how do they feel about shaking awake the pop-punk guard? “There are definitely some older rock heads and elder emos who’ve been like ‘they’re not pop punk’ and ‘they shouldn’t be here’, but we don’t let it get to us,” says vocalist Joshua Roberts
LIFE Upset 29
TH E PAST L L.S. DUNES may be a band of familiar faces, but don’t go calling them a ‘supergroup’ - there’s much more to them than that. Words: Alexander Bradley. Photos: Luke Dickey, Mark Beemer, Zachary Spangler.
OF L.S. D 34 Upset
LIVES
DUN ES.
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here are some new kids on the scene. They’re in their 40s. They’ve been around the block a few times with Circa Survive, Thursday, Coheed & Cambria and My Chemical Romance, too. But this isn’t a supergroup. “This is a bunch of super friends,” drummer Tucker Rule offers instead. No, this isn’t some vanity project or some one-off special. This is L.S. Dunes; they’re a new band just starting out. If you didn’t know the names Tucker Rule (drums), Travis Steven (guitar), Tim Payne (bass), Frank Iero (guitar) or Anthony Green (vocals) already, then you’d be forgiven for mistaking this outfit for a rag-tag bunch of teens just cutting their teeth. With their blistering debut ‘Past Lives’, L.S. Dunes are confrontational, loud and urgent with the do-or-die energy of a group taking their one shot at the big time. “There are very minimal
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