Upset, June 2020

“You have to destroy the entire thing to have a true rebirth�

JUNE 2020 Issue 55

HELLO.

Yep, we’re still stuck inside. No, we can’t go round our mates’ houses - unless they pay us to clean them, anyway. While the world around us is placed firmly on its arse, we’re getting on with the important business of rock music. May as well; we’ve watched everything on Netflix.

Not that we need a period of pandemic fuelled boredom to get excited about the mighty Creeper finally making their way to the cover of Upset. We’ve been behind the band since both their and our earliest days - and while ‘current restrictions’ may have both restricted us and forced them to delay the release of their backfrom-a-self-imposed death new album ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’, frontman Will Gould still tells a mighty good tale.

As ever, we’re eternally grateful for your support - especially a time where everyone in music requires a helping hand. We hope you enjoy!

S tephen

Editor / @stephenackroyd

Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Scribblers Alex Bradley, Dillon Eastoe, Jack Press, Jamie MacMillan, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin, Tyler Damara Kelly Snappers Ashley Osborn, Brian Cox, Carla Mundy, Daniel Hildebrand, Gingerdope, Jessica Lena, Sandra Steh 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

RIOT 4. LONELY THE BRAVE 6. WALLFLOWER 12. BEST EX 13. CROSSFAITH 14. THE HOMELESS GOSPEL CHOIR 16. COVET ABOUT TO BREAK 18. SPACEY JANE FEATURES 20. CREEPER 32. PALAYE ROYALE 36. OWEN 40. THE USED 44. MAKE THEM SUFFER 48. ASKING ALEXANDRIA REVIEWS 52. THE 1975 53. ROLLING BLACKOUTS COASTAL FEVER TEENAGE KICKS 54. DIET CIG

All material copyright (c). All rights reserved.

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THIS MONTH IN ROCK

Wallflower’s debut album, ‘Teach Yourself To Swim’, is all about facing up to anxiety and uncertainty. p.10

BRAVEHEARTS

EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK

Words: Dillon Eastoe. Photo: Carla Mundy.

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“I AM TRYING TO PUSH MYSELF JUST TO TRY AND PROVE A POINT” JACK BENNETT

Derek Zanetti is eager to stress ‘This Land Is Your Landfil’ is a new chapter for The Homeless Gospel Choir. p.14

With their debut album ‘The Day’s War’, Lonely the Brave delivered on the potential they’d hinted at since their first EP in 2008.

Since then it’s been a rocky road for the Cambridge band. After a two-year victory lap brought them to new audiences, the darker followup ‘Things Will Matter’ hinted at the personal struggles that eventually led vocalist Dave Jakes to step back from the band in 2018.

Promptly recruiting Jack Bennett, aka Grumblebee, to front Lonely the Brave, they roared back in 2019 for a euphoric clutch of sold-out shows.

Now they’re back with surging single ‘Bound’, their first new music in four years, and their first with Jack on the mic.

“For our first song back it’s familiar enough to be us and yet different enough to be the ‘new us’,” guitarist Mark Trotter explains “The reaction has been great, really positive.” ‘Bound’ swirls with the chiming guitars and propulsive rhythm that characterises LTB, Jack slotting right into the mix with a howling vocal befitting the band’s reputation.

“Yeah, I mean it’s alright. It’s not that shit! That’s what I keep saying to people,” Jack laughs. “I am trying to push myself on certain things just to basically try and prove a point,” the singer admits. “’Bound’ is just insanely high... I like when my voice breaks, like an amp or a valve or whatever, it’s just pushing it a bit more. I’m making sure my vocal was within the music, not just like plonked on top.”

Meeting up to work on material at Jack’s Manchester home studio on free weekends (the rest of LTB work full-time to support their art and their families), what initially

started as demo sessions have ended up with Bennett helming production a new record due out this year.

“Look, it’s a really weird thing,” Mark confesses of those first tentative rehearsals. “We’ve been a band as we were with Dave for ten-plus years. It wouldn’t have mattered who was coming in and singing, it’s going to be weird. From the very first time we tried with Jack, we knew it was right. We’ve always had a very strong vocalist and want to maintain that, but we didn’t want anyone that was just trying to replicate what Dave does.”

Jack, dialling in from his studio up north, feels the same way. “The band don’t want me to be a copy of Dave, they have said it so many times. But I still gotta be somewhat respectful to people who’ve listened to the previous band, and although they aren’t expecting a carbon copy, I don’t think personally I will feel comfortable just coming out like ‘Cool. Fuck you guys. This is how I sound’. I’d like to do some sort of homage to what has been in the past.”

Although ‘Bound’ is inspired by the commodification of veganism as it gains popularity (Bennett has never eaten meat), he’s more focused in the music connecting with people than digging into his words. “The melody and how you phrase the words, that is more interesting to me, that’s the way that somebody in Spain or wherever, who has no idea what I’m singing about can enjoy it. You can still enjoy it, and you don’t have to worry about whose dog I’m talking about,” he jokes. “It’s not isolating people.”

While Jack tinkers with recordings holed up in his studio, drummer Mo and bassist Bush are at the time of writing working

Having already mastered the art of atmospheric math-rock instrumentals, Covet are back with their second album. p.26

on the frontlines of the Covid-19 response. Mo is helping with patient delivery to and from hospitals while Bush is a nurse at a Cambridge hospital triaging those suspected of carrying the virus. “Bushy’s this amazing character, he can take anything on his shoulder and just deal with it, you know. He’s so stoic but in the best way, and talking to him about this is…” Mark sighs.

“You feel it, you really feel it. We’ve been through a hell of a lot together as a band, and I know him better than I know most other people on this planet. Seeing him taking this on is massively inspirational, but it’s really getting to him as you’d expect.”

If and when the mist clears, the focus is on getting the album out and taking it on the road.

“There’s always gonna be loads of judgement, which is fine. I’m more than happy to take that on,” Jack says of the pressure involved in replacing such a unique talent as Dave’s. “I only had one goal, which is to make the band happy with what they were producing. I’d rather them be able to look back and think yeah, this is exactly what we wanted to do and it sounded really good at the time. We’re happy with this.”

With both songwriters hinting at a more accessible release than the darkness that shrouded ‘Things Will Matter’, there’s a sense of triumph that it’s almost time to step out of the shadows. “The music is more important than any one of us,” Mark affirms. “It’s not about the people in the band per se. It’s about being creative and making music.

It’s always been an evolution, it’s always a moving thing. It’s been too long as a project for us to abandon.

That was what we wanted, to just carry on because it’s all we’ve known for so long.” P

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learn to swim Words: Alex Bradley.

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Wallflower’s debut album, ‘Teach Yourself To Swim’, is all about facing up to anxiety and uncertainty and, in the words of frontman Vini MoreiraYeoell, “going out there and teaching yourself how to deal with things better”.

The artwork for the album, however, adopts a more literal translation to that title. Created

by James Dowling with CGI and 3D rendering, it features a woman

dressed in white suspended in motion between crystallised blue water of a swimming pool and the pink hues of the sky like an avantgarde tribute to expressionism.

And between the literal, visual interpretation of the album and between the themes in the songwriting, there is a swimming pool filled with the blood, sweat and tears Wallflower have put into making this album a reality.

It has been years in the making.

In fact, even the 2017 EP ‘Where It Fell Apart’ started life with designs on it being a more substantial offering but, as you’ll learn, the band needed everything to be

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The following year came with the standalone single ‘Magnifier’ which signalled a renewed, more streamlined, more focused energy to the band’s sound and towards making an album. The alternative single put forward was, in fact, ‘Eat Away at My Heart’, which was half a song, aired once or twice live to not much of a reaction (largely due to Vini “just making the words up every night and doing a different melody “). The track was put on the back burner only to be revisited when coming in with the final blueprints for their debut.

In the following months, the band - Charlie Pollard, Jake Reburn, Sam Woolley, Will Slane alongside Vini - found their stride with writing as they “went from two songs in the space of a whole month to 10 songs in another couple of months”.

At the point of heading to The Ranch in Southampton (reuniting with Lewis Johns to produce the record) it was late in 2018. The regular commutes to and from South London to the studio were arduous but worthwhile as the band worked their sessions around their existing day jobs. The five of them could have made it easier worked with different producers or in different studios - but, just like the artwork for the album, it was all part of the plan, and that meant only trusting those jobs to friends who also believed in the scale of ‘Teach Yourself To Swim’.

“We really just wanted to get every single bit of it right so that there was a tone and a theme that we were hitting,” Vini claims.

“There is so much that has gone into it, and I’m talking every part, from the songwriting to distribution of it - the emails that go out to record shops - and everything else is all done by us.

We’ve been there every step of the way.”

And beyond the time and effort put into their debut album, it’s important to know that all of this is

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self-funded by the band too. There isn’t a label pushing the band, pulling strings, and making this all possible. And that’s maybe why the care poured into this release is so unmistakable with Vini keen to emphasise how they “didn’t want to half-arse a release and put something out there and see it fade into the abyss but give it the support that it deserves”.

On more than one occasion, the singer affectionately refers to the album as his (or their) “baby”. And, like with any labour of love, there were times it was difficult. There was the quick learning curve of assembling the album by tracking instruments separately and the late nights to get it done around their day-to-day lives. And also the longer stretches in the studio and the cabin fever that came with it thanks in no part to bunk beds and TVs with limited internet capabilities.

“With such a long process you go a little bit crazy in a way,” he admits.

And then there was the pressure of making “the vision” into reality and, despite making sure they could play the whole album live together before going into the studio, there were still a couple of issues with the songs.

“I definitely had my share of breakdowns in the vocal booth in trying to get things right. Things I thought ‘this will work in the song’ then getting to that point where you’re actually recording and going ‘hang on, I can’t sing this melody’ or ‘this lyric doesn’t make sense’ and all of sudden you think ‘what have I done?’’

‘There is a lot of pressure. You feel like you’ve got not only a responsibility for yourself but for other people as you’re representing not just yourself but the rest of the band. There is a lot of pressure there.”

It was mostly a self-inflicted pressure created by Wallflower’s commitment to making an album that matched the amount of care they’ve put into planning it. ‘Teach Yourself To Swim’ is an album by

“I DEFINITELY HAD MY SHARE OF BREAKDOWNS IN THE VOCAL BOOTH”

VINI MOREIRA-YEOELL

meticulous design; a design so thorough that it even went against a few standard album-making conventions.

“We did something during the writing process which most people would say is a terrible idea when you’re writing a record, and most people would say never do it this way. When we started writing a song, we were already talking about where on the tracklist it would be.

“It was like ‘right guys, we need to write our track 3. We need to write our track 6. What is track 6 going to be?’ I guess that gives an insight into how we viewed this as a piece. It was a case of “this song” has to be a quiet one. We know that “this song” is going to be about this sort of thing, and we want it to have ‘this vibe’ so let’s make sure it has its place.”

For all that planning, hard work and dedication, Wallflower have made an album to be proud of. And they are. It’s an album that takes everything that makes them special, those expansive dreamscapes that they can build and destroy on a turn, and pulls them in 12 different directions.

Vini raves, “There is definitely a lot of excitement because I have been listening to these songs [for a long time], I enjoy listening to that record a lot. I can’t remember who it was who said it, ‘if your favourite band aren’t your own band then why are you doing it?’ and to a certain extent, I agree with that because I’ve definitely spent a lot of time listening to it and I really enjoy it.

“There is a part of me that is just like, ‘what if I leak it?’ because I genuinely just want people to hear it because I think what we’ve done is really really cool.”

What they’ve done is attempt to break the mould of onedimensional albums; albums which stick to one style and instead make a record that chops and changes approach with every track. And, not shackled by just 4-5 tracks like with their EP, it meant that songs that are 5-6 minutes long could be included to further explore the

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limits of the vast soundscapes they make. And, if they wanted to include a song that sounded like Weezer or Queens of the Stone Age, they could do that too.

Yes, ‘Teach Yourself To Swim’ is an album by design, but the songs are far from formulaic. There is the short, sharp, blast of ‘Dread’, the breezy, blissed-out ‘Blood and Stone’, the foreboding strain of ‘Passer-by’ and raw, furious, power of ‘Hungry Eyes’ to keep the album constantly on its toes.

A big part of what makes the album work is the self-restraint Wallflower learned. From their previous recordings and their live shows, the chaos - the unbridled

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noise - that they build and then release has been a staple of what makes them such a force.

But, it’s obvious that would get pretty boring, pretty quick, if they did it every time. Instead, they learned to build that excitement and suspense by subverting the expectation for them to be explosive by withholding. Much like the camera focusing on the empty spaces in a horror film and then nothing happening, the suspense and expectation combined are just as impressive.

Inspired by the control bands like Radiohead and Manchester Orchestra have, Wallflower taught themselves about self-control. “One

of the things we really learned from bands like that is that you don’t necessarily need to be going at 100mph to get there. Sometimes, really holding back on those moments is really important.

“When we started this band, we’ve always had three guitars.

We started influenced by Balance And Composure, who were so so good at making that noise, and we always have that in us. But I think one of the really big things in the songwriting for making this record was to really hold back on those really bit moments to make sure that when they did happen, it was earned from us. We didn’t just all play at the same time, we really

“I GENUINELY WANT PEOPLE TO HEAR IT BECAUSE I THINK WHAT WE’VE DONE IS REALLY REALLY COOL”

VINI MOREIRA-YEOELL but Sam [Woolley] is pretty much a genius when it comes to composing and orchestrating some of these bits. He is so good at going ‘no, we’re not going to do it now. Wait for “this” moment because it makes so much more sense to have it here’.”

The pay off is huge and well earned in the end and, ultimately, creates the uneasy tone that runs through the album where the sound teeters from unnerving dread to the completely unhinged.

That tension is impacted

by Vini’s more sophisticated songwriting too. “That’s what comes out,” he confesses, somewhat modestly. In truth, it’s songwriting which has grown a lot from broken-hearted laments to a deeper look at all the anxieties and worry that sit beneath the surface of his mind.

While fundamentally therapeutic, the songwriting was a bold and personal dive. From the built it up to those moments.” opener, which he describes as an He continues, “On the other side “overture” to the album, ‘A Parody of that, one of my favourite songs Of...’ strips all of Vini’s defences on the record, ‘Blood and Stone’ thanks to lines like “I’m a parody that’s probably one of the first times of the man I’m suppose to be” and we’ve written a song that stays soft only gets more deprecating from and doesn’t jump and crescendo. there.

“It’s that opportunity you’ve got Sure, there are departures with making an album to write a like with the politically charged nice, slow, quiet, song that does ‘Hungry Eyes’ but, for the most everything without going to that part, the album is a battle of real high, loud, point and, from a emotions with the track ‘Further songwriting perspective, it’s one Down’ the defining moment of of those things we were all so so ‘Teach Yourself to Swim’. proud of.

“I think lyrically it’s one of the “Waiting for those moments is so best songs we have done. I think the difficult every time you write those music and the lyrics speak to one songs. I’m quite guilty of going another well in that song. It’s one of ‘maybe we should go big on this bit’, those songs where when I hear that

song, I think of Wallflower.

“And its a song that’s about coping mechanisms and finding help from other people and vice versa and if there was ever some kind of message that I’ve ever wanted to put forward in our band, it is making people feel a little less alone. That’s what I’ve always felt when I listen to music I love, and that song gives me that feeling. I’m quite proud of what we achieved in that song. It’s probably the best representation [of who Wallflower are].”

It’s exactly “the stamp of Wallflower” they strived for when planning this album.

Anyone who knows Wallflower would know that Vini MoreiraYeoell could mainline his deepest insecurities into his lyrics and that the band could craft songs that are intricate, layered, and meandering.

What couldn’t be expected is the attentiveness they’ve taken into making their debut, and that’s what makes it stand out.

It’s careful but doesn’t play it safe either. It has soul-baring honesty without becoming contrived or self-indulgent. It’s wide-ranging in its approaches to the tracks but still unified as a cohesive album. It’s as fine a debut album as you’ll hear thanks to the devotion Wallflower had to make an album exactly how they imagined.

They’ve even sat on it for a year and a half for the perfect moment to release the album too...or so they thought. Of course, the global pandemic has curtailed plans for touring the album immediately, but the album’s release is still set for 5th June, and the plan is to celebrate it like it or not.

“The record comes out a day before my birthday, so maybe I will just guilt trip all my friends into listening to it and celebrating,” Vini jokes.

But, in a way it’s fitting that Wallflower have stuck to their plan, their vision - pandemic or not - because at the end of the day, we have to just keep swimming.

P Wallflower’s album ‘Teach

Yourself To Swim’ is out 5th June.

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Everything you need to know about...

BEST EX’S We recorded most of the EP in a kitchen. I recorded most of

‘Good At Feeling Bad’ in Andy Tongren’s kitchen, which was the opposite of what I was used to.

With Candy Hearts, we had that traditional Hollywood experience where we flew out to LA and locked ourselves in a big studio for gruelling 12 to 15 hour days.

It was amazing, but with Andy, it was amazing in a different way, like hanging out with an old friend. We’d get together every month or so and trade voice memos. I felt a lot more creative because I didn’t have that added pressure of staring out of a vocal booth watching (but not hearing) everyone on the other side (my least favourite part of legit studios).

‘Good At Feeling Bad’ started on a bus. When I wrote ‘Good At

Feeling Bad’, I was splitting my time between the US and UK. That day, I was riding my usual bus route, just absolutely ecstatic

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With her new EP ‘Good At Feeling Bad’, Best Ex looks to balance of the yin and yang of her life from the past two years - from the ups, to the downs, to the, well, downs again. Mariel Loveland tells us more.

new EP

'Good At Feeling Bad' to pass some little lambs on the way into Canterbury. I thought, “I want to always remember that it’s possible to feel this happy,” so I sang a quick line into my iPhone.

When I got back to Jersey, we built the whole song around that threesecond voice memo and recorded it the same day.

I wrote ‘Lemons’ in the Penn Station bathroom. After years

of somehow avoiding it, I fi nally caved and used the bathroom in Penn Station. I was kind of drunk, feeling a little sorry for myself (Penn Station does that) and trying to catch the last train home. You know when you’ve been drinking, and your pee is absolutely endless? This was that.

So I sat there singing to myself and the line ‘the tile on the floor reminds me of my freshman dorm …’ just hit me like a brick.

Excuse my middle finger. ‘Feed The Sharks’ was probably the hardest song to write because it’s

about my personal experience with abuse. When it came out in the press, it was distorted, and I was bombarded with negative messages for months. In fact, I still get them. It felt like no one believed me except my sweet friend who sent me a carton of Ben & Jerry’s because she didn’t know how to make it better (which I ate sobbing on the floor, afraid to leave my apartment). I wrote this song because I wanted to have the strength to say, “Say what you want. I know who I am.”

Eventually, after singing it enough times, I found that. I just hope it can do the same for someone else.

Can you whistle? I can’t whistle, but we did sample a whistle (like the kind a gym coach uses) in ‘Lemons’ and added a ton of effects in an attempt to recreate a sound from Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’. P

Best Ex’s new EP ‘Good At Feeling Bad’ is out now.

TRACK X TRACK

Crossfaith’s new EP ‘Species’ Vocalist Kenta Koie talks moment in our live shows for sure. us through the band’s adventurous new EP from None of Your front to back.

Business This track was written by Kazu, Crossfaith’s guitarist. He told us that at the beginning of writing this song, he wanted us to feel something dirty and heavy - so heavy that it gave people the creeps! Lyrically, this song is an explosion fuelled by the frustration we feel.

‘None Of Your Business’ expresses straight ANGER. It’s a song to make any jealous people who try to interfere in your lives shut right up. We invited Jin Dogg - the most violent rapper in Japan! - to perform a verse, making this a brilliant crossover between rap and hardcore. It’s like a contemporary Judgement Night.

Endorphin

Your Song

Digital Parasite

Endorphin takes a big inspiration from 90s rave. We mixed a signature Acid Bass sound with the emotion that we fi nd in the post-hardcore era, so this feels like a really different and new sound for Crossfaith.

Truth of Insanity

This is all about strong, unique riffs and the fast impact that only Crossfaith can make!

This song will be an important

In this song, I sang a sad, farewell to a time that we all shared but that which did not return. It makes me feel emptiness. But musically, we focused on creating soundscapes that amplify the emotional feeling of the song, so I hope people can feel our evolution through our careers. P

Crossfaith’s new EP ‘Species’ is out now.

Jeff Rosenstock has surprisedropped a new album. His fourth full-length, ‘No Dream’ was originally scheduled for later in the year but has arrived early in conjunction with a free download encouraging donations to Food Not Bombs.

Dream Wife have announced a new UK tour, there’s a bit of a wait though. The trio - who are about to release their second album ‘So When You Gonna...’, due 3rd July - will hit the road on 14th April 2021 for a fairly-lengthy tour that culminates with a night at London’s Electric Ballroom.

arture: “I am incredibly grateful and proud of everything we have achieved.

Jamie Lenman has announced a new mini-album, ‘King of Clubs’.

The follow-up to covers-albumof-sorts ‘Shuffle’, the record will be released on 25th September via Big Scary Monsters. “It’s a dirty, dark-sounding record based on uncomfortable, conflicting emotions,” he says.

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“I MADE A RECORD ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD THAT WAS RELEASED WHILE THE WORLD WAS ENDING” “If there’s one thing I want to convey, it’s that there’s nothing folk-punk about this album. Nothing. It’s a loud fucking punk rock record.”

Having made his name as a folk-punk troubadour, Derek Zanetti is eager to stress that ‘This Land Is Your Landfill’ is something of a new chapter for The Homeless Gospel Choir.

Words: Rob Mair. Photo: Gingerdope.

Where previously the focus was on mental health and personal storytelling, here, backed by a hand-picked group of punk rock peers featuring Matt Miller (Wingnut Dishwasher Union), Maura Weaver (Mixtapes, Ogikubo Station) Megan Schroer (Kitty Kat Fan Club, Boys) and Craig Luckman (Belly Boys), Zanetti has added stereo surround sound to his hyperkinetic and personal stories.

The results are electrifying.

“This album is a very definite divide between the old material and the new direction we’re going,” he continues. “It’s like, this is the sound that I’m hearing, and this is the noise that I want to make.

Hopefully, this is how it’s going to look when we get to show this as a band.”

Indeed, a creative rebirth feels

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rather apt, especially for 2020 – a year in which much of normal life has come to a crashing standstill.

While this interview took place in the middle of lockdown – Zanetti will spend the day busying himself with art therapy before performing a solo set online in the evening – ‘This Land Is Your Landfill’ was written long before the coronavirus halted normality. Yet it feels like a suitable album for these dark days, tackling big themes of global warming, environmentalism and religious extremism, with Zanetti’s razor-sharp wit and critical eye still front and centre, despite the bolstered backing.

“I couldn’t have predicted that this would happen,” he laughs, when pressed on the themes. “I made a record about the end of the world that was released while the world was ending. If you’d have told me, I would have never believed that.

“I thought that, in maybe five years’ time, when things are really terrible, that people would look back at this record and be like ‘Hey, that guy was pretty funny’. I mean, take [lead single] ‘Art Punk’; that’s a song about being trapped inside your house and being afraid to go out. That’s something we’re experiencing this very moment!”

Yet Zanetti is someone who’s songwriting often seems to hit on a topic at just the right time. 2017’s ‘Presents Normal’ tackled issues of

mental health, just as the debate on the matter went mainstream.

This time, he’s contending with the apocalypse – in numerous guises – and looking to find a way to navigate his way through all this shit safely.

Zanetti calls this his framework for the album, and once the concept was established, he found himself facing a creative deluge of ideas.

As well as a songwriter, he has also published two books and is working on a third. Throw in a newlyestablished band, with members who all have their own sense of creativity which they want to bring to the party, and it has made for a rather prosperous time for Zanetti.

It also means that such a plan was essential to bring it all together.

“One thing I like about writing songs together as a band – and coming up with the ideas together as a band – is that we’re able to have a framework and say that all of our ideas are going to fit within the story of the framework.

“So, then it’s ‘What do we want to write about?’ We want to write a concept record about the end of the world, and how we have to surf on a wave of trash with a smile on our faces to pull us through, or we’re going to be crushed by the hopelessness or the sadness that comes with being 36-yearsold, having no income and no healthcare, in a country where our politicians are eating our young

alive.

“Then it’s saying, ‘Can we write a record that reflects that? This is the framework, and this is what we have to work within? Okay, let’s fucking do it.”

Yet it has been a challenge for Zanetti to hit these doomsday themes without damaging his mental health. It can be easy to find yourself bombarded by despair, propagated by 24-hour news channels or ill-informed posters on Twitter and Facebook – places where it is easy to end up in a rabbit role. For Zanetti, it means finding ways to digest the message, get back to creating art and then switching off to ensure it doesn’t become overwhelming: “Before my grandpap went to bed, he’d sit down, and he’d read the newspaper for 30 minutes. Every night. Like, ‘This is how the day went, now I have all the information about the day, I can put the paper away. Tomorrow? I’ll worry about tomorrow in tomorrow’s paper’.

“Now, information is changing so quickly – and there is so much misinformation out there. Take this coronavirus. Should you wear a mask? Should you not wear a mask? Should it be a cloth mask? Should it be a disposable mask? Can you go to the grocery store without a mask? Is it okay to send your kids to daycare?

“There are all these things happening, and there’s so much information available it, I just try to poke in once a day. I read NPR. I think, in the US anyway, it’s a straight-

down-the-middle news outlet, and it gives you the pertinent information that you need. I read it, I find out what I need to know, then I turn that motherfucker off before it sucks you in.

“I guess my issue is this,” he says, jumping to a tangent. “I care.

I really care.

“There are a number of my friends who posted stuff like, ‘Well, we lost my dad to the coronavirus’ or ‘We lost Uncle Larry to the coronavirus’ or ‘We lost grandma

to the coronavirus’. There’s only so much sadness you can take.

And I’m not trying to sound like a selfish, entitled baby, but for my mental health to be okay, I need to unplug. I need to not see so much sadness; I have to make some space for my own, so I can go and make art, or read, or just get away from it all.”

This idea of caring certainly manifests itself on ‘This Land Is Your Landfill’. Sure, it’s an album about the end of days, but only because Zanetti sees so much that’s positive in the human race that he wants to save it. Issues like denying global warming and religious extremism all shine a light on how wrong the human race can get it, but it has to be balanced by the hope. If the Homeless Gospel Choir can bring a bit of joy by saving the world while surfing on a pile of trash, then that must surely count for something… P The

Homeless Gospel Choir’s new album ‘This Land Is Your Landfill’ is out now.

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Bay Area trio Covet - Yvette Young (guitar/vocals), David Adamiak (bass) and Forrest Rice (drums) are back with their second album ‘technicolor’. Having already mastered the art of atmospheric math-rock instrumentals, their new material sees them push themselves to bold new places.

Hi Yvette. Are you guys all self-isolating?

How are you spending your days?

We for sure are all self-isolating; I’ve been so inspired by this time home. I haven’t really been “home” properly for an extended time in months, and with things being cancelled, it kind of feels like I suddenly have all this freeform time to play with (which used to be such a luxury!). So I’ve been using this time to teach myself how to record and work in Ableton, and learn other random new skills.

I’ve also been just writing music for fun! I’ve just felt a new wave of energy and inspiration despite the grim outside circumstances.

How long have you been working on your new album for, then? Where did you write and record?

We have had some of these songs for around a year or so, but most of the album came together the last month before we went to record. Most of the songs start with me writing out the whole song and structure in my living room at home, and then I bring it to the band. We recorded at Vudu Studios in Port Jefferson with Mike Watts and Frank Mitaritonna.

How did you find the process of putting it together compared to your debut, was it a very different experience?

This time it felt a bit more deliberate. We all knew what tones and structures we wanted going in, and we knew better how to achieve the sound we had in our minds. Last time, we decided a lot of what gear to use in the studio and this time, we came armed with our boards and the exact amps we wanted.

However, when I use the word deliberate, I don’t mean that there was no room for happy accidents, improvisation, and outside suggestion. There was certainly a lot of that “studio magic” as well!

Did you utilise any new or interesting bits of gear?

David got a new bass from F bass, and

16 Upset

T E C H COL

Forrest used Evans UV2 heads, which are his favourite! He’s super grateful to Tama and Meinyl. I got to try out a new sevenstring outfitted with single coils from Ibanez which was so fun. I also got to play out of my favourite Vox ac 10 amp, which felt awesome because I’m really familiar with how all my effects interact with it.

What were the main challenges you came up against?

The main challenge was time. We had only had around a month and a half to record the full-length and also make six different videos! It always is a bit nerve-wracking being creative on the clock, but I work well under time pressure. It’s easy to want to dwell forever on perfecting all the minutiae, but sometimes that can detract from the big picture. The time limit lit a fire under our asses and kept us moving along, and I don’t think any of the last-minute decisions ended up feeling like hasty ones.

It’s interesting that you’ve experimented with lyrics on this one, what prompted you to make the leap?

T H N I LOR

“I WON’T RULE ANYTHING OUT IF IT’S WHAT THE MUSIC NEEDS” YVETTE YOUNG

My rule is that all my creative decisions must serve the music. I won’t ever actually rule anything out if it’s what the music needs! When I wrote those two songs, in particular, I immediately heard the vocal melody over it, so I had to include it. The lyrics came later! I feel like I wanted the lyrics to match the mood of the melody. One felt optimistic (‘Parachute’), and the other felt like a departure or goodbye (‘Farewell’).

Are lyrics something you’re likely to bring in more in future, do you think?

If the music calls for it, then definitely! I don’t want to ever include something for the sake of doing it because that’s an easy way to clutter a song, but I have a feeling that vocals will definitely happen in the future.

What are you up to over the next few months, it must be hard to firm up plans?

Everything is somewhat up in the air! Right now we are all focusing on just getting this album out and also working on our respective solo crafts. I’ve been trying to practice playing these songs fluidly to get in “live performance” shape! I’m just taking everything one day at a time at this point. P

Covet’s album ‘Technicolor’ is out 5th June.

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THE BEST NEW BANDS. THE HOTTEST NEW MUSIC.

WANT A NEW BAND CRUSH? CHECK OUT THIS LOT! >>>

BILK Essex trio BILK give the impression of a band that just wants to have fun, but their punk tunes hold an insightful take on British youth culture.

SPACEY JANE Perth, Australia four-piece Spacey Jane were meant to be in the UK right about now for sets at The Great Escape, Live At Leeds, Hit the North and more. Instead, the garage-poppers are sat on their mum’s sofas (we assume), eating biscuits (probably), and waiting for the release of their debut album ‘Sunlight’. Caleb Harper (vocals) and Kieran Lama (drums) fill us in.

Words: Sam Taylor. Photo: Daniel Hildebrand.

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CRACK CLOUD Crack Cloud are an ‘out there’ bunch. An anarchic collective that goes out of their way to not play by the rules, their debut album is due in July.

Hi guys! How’s Australia 2019 to study medicine, at the moment, are you and after some pretty desperate searching we all self-isolating?

Caleb: Things are feeling mostly under control after a couple of weeks of denial people are generally adhering to most of the rules, which is great! Yep, we’re all selfisolating in our respective houses, definitely missing the gang. Ashton and Kieran are living together at the moment – I’m very jealous.

How has that impacted your plans?

Kieran: It’s impacted our plans in a big way, I suppose like all touring artists around the world.

We’ve had to cancel our first shows in the UK and Europe, and postpone a bunch of Australian dates which was pretty heartbreaking. It’s shit, but we know everyone’s in the same boat and toughing it out together.

Well, in isolation, but together.

Who are you all, and how did you get together?

Caleb: Kieran and I have been playing together since 2012 in high school.

We moved down to Perth from Geraldton (a tiny coastal town in West Aus) to study and started looking around for bands/ bandmates. We met Ashton and Meils through mutual uni friends and it sort of clicked straight away. Meils left in mid-

found Peppa who’d just moved to Perth, she’s fit in perfectly!

WALT DISCO Glasgow’s Walt Disco don’t do things by halves, melding glam-rock, post-punk, and allsorts-else to stick two-fingers up to all the boring old farts.

“‘SUNLIGHT’ TRIES TO TRACE EXPERIENCES OF LEAVING HOME” We got to hang out with

we liked the most and

Have you always wanted acts like DMA’s, King Gizz then tried to order them in a way that would feel and BENEE and play to to be a performer?

Caleb: I think so, I at least can’t remember wanting to be anything else. Maybe a pilot when I was really little. My stepdad is a great muso, and I grew up in church around a lot of music, so I’ve been playing and performing since I was 12 or something.

our biggest crowds yet. It was really special for me.

Kieran: Yeah, the same for me, always the shows.

I think my highlight so far has to when we played at a pretty iconic venue in Brisbane called The Tivoli. It was our first ever ‘theatre-sized’ show and our biggest headliner, sort of when things started to get real for me personally.

Can you remember the first song you ever wrote with the band? Is it still Congrats on reaching kicking about? your debut album, Caleb: I think it was ‘Still ‘Sunlight’ - does it feel Running’, which was as though it’s a long also our first release as a time coming?

Spacey Jane. I wrote the

natural. Our producer, Parko, said if an album feels shorter than it is and you don’t think about how it’s put to together then you’ve done a good job with the tracklisting.

Hopefully, it worked!

Kieran: I’m surprised at how little we argued about it. We’re all pretty stoked with the way it runs through!

What do you most enjoy writing songs about?

Caleb: I mostly write about how I’m feeling as a means of processing things. I’m terrible at Caleb: Thanks! Yeah, it talking about what I’m song in high school in really does, it’s been close going through, so I pour 2012 or around then, so to two years since we set it into songs. ‘Sunlight’ it’s been kicking about out to try and release an tries to trace experiences for ages. It’s definitely album and much longer of leaving home, starting still a regular in the live than that since we wanted and dropping out of uni, shows, we don’t really to do it. We didn’t realise a few failed young adult write any heavy bar chord the number of moving relationships and figuring stuff anymore, so it’s nice parts involved with out how to be a better to have it in the set for a releasing a record, so person. I hope some headbang. there’s real satisfaction in people can relate to it. having it all ready to go.

What’s been the highlight of your time with Spacey Jane so far?

Caleb: Playing shows is easily my favourite part of being in the band. We recently wrapped the Laneway Festival tour in Aus which was amazing.

How did you approach curating the record’s tracklisting?

Caleb: I can’t remember if we had any solid goals with the tracklisting.

We cut 17 songs down to 12 just based on what

Anything else we should know?

Kieran: My Nintendo Switch friend code is [redacted]. Let’s race. P

Spacey Jane’s debut album ‘Sunlight’ is out 12th June.

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sex,

i f n n i e h t & 20 Upset

death

nite void

As Southampton sextet Creeper – comprised of vocalist Will Gould, guitarists Ian Miles and Oliver Burdett, bassist Sean Scott, drummer Dan Bratton and keyboardist Hannah Greenwood – welcome us to their world of ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’, Upset gets caught up in the middle of a global pandemic with Will to find out just what happened during their year away.

Words: Jack Press. Photos: Jessica Lena.

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Having spent four years crafting a conceptual labyrinth of characters and crime stories inspired as much by J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan as it was by AFI’s back catalogue, punk-rock renegades Creeper embarked on a two-year world tour flying the flag for the latenoughties emo-revival.

By the time their feted faux farewell came about on 1st November 2018 echoing David Bowie’s on-stage retirement of Ziggy Stardust in 1973 – it was abundantly clear that Creeper were falling apart at the seams from creative, mental and physical exhaustion.

“I know we needed to do it; I know we needed the break. We needed some time to work and then suddenly the craziest shit in the world happened to us and to me. It resulted in ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’,” reflects frontman Will Gould, almost as proud of his band’s post-breakthrough breakdown as he is broken by the wreckage they’ve risen out of like phoenixes. While the Creeper Cult spent their time wishing for their heroes to make a return, the protagonists of our tale were battling their demons on a day-today basis. So much so that it began to feel like fate was waging a war on their year-long reinvention, constantly threatening to derail everything disastrously in a series of events that eerily echoes the tragedies the cast and crew making the iconic 1982 paranormal phenomenon Poltergeist experienced.

“We often think about this record as being cursed. When we

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“WE OFTEN THINK ABOUT THIS RECORD AS BEING CURSED” first started it, Ian [Miles, guitarist] got sick and was sectioned, and my mum’s partner died, and I was in LA on my own for all of this. Our producer went through a divorce, and our manager was having a baby, and he couldn’t be there for his wife because he was out there with us.”

While major shifts in their personal lives were taking place, seismic quakes in the world around them were shaking up their landscape in ways unimaginable.

“As soon as ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’ was done being pressed, like the vinyl records at Apollo Masters in California, the entire plant burned down to the ground, which is absolutely crazy, and now we’re going through a global pandemic.

“I’ve never through the course of one project experienced anything as chaotic as this, like I left my fiancé last year and moved to Manchester. It’s just an extremely transitional period that surrounds this album, but it’s allowed us to feel confident with what we’ve made and who we’ve become.”

The creation of confidence in both the album they’ve written and the people they’ve grown into during it wasn’t something important to them, it was critical to their continued existence.

Following the band’s on-stage breakup and the real-life breakups taking place in their personal lives, Creeper were undergoing an identity crisis in more ways than one.

“The infinite void was literally where we were drifting for some time while making this album. I didn’t know if Creeper was going

to come back, I didn’t know if we were over.” Will pauses for a moment, reflecting on the trials and tribulations he’s faced over the past year. “I was floating through California with the shards of a broken relationship and a band that I’d just broken up on stage that had been my life’s work.

“It was that feeling of drifting and staring off into the infinite void, like what the hell am I supposed to be doing? What is my purpose of doing this? Who am I? I’d lost my entire identity over the course of a few months. It was surreal.”

While floating in the infinite void, Will found himself changing not only his band but his own lifestyle. Having doused his band in fire and set them alight on stage, he took their disappearing act one step further by taking an eyeopening social media hiatus.

“Imagine being the singer of a band, which inherently comes under being an absolute narcissist, and throwing away all of that ability to get attention – you have to look at yourself in a different way. It’s actually been really healthy not having any social media or anything like that, just waking up to the world around you.

“I was noticing all of these weird things and having these strange nights. I really started to feel more of what was going on around me, I was going out in the middle of the night and getting drunk, meeting people and having relationships, and like what was going on with me. I recognised my alcohol dependency and all these different things. The infinite void to me was the thing that came along with all

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that.”

The infinite void is as much a metaphorical wonderland for Creeper as it is a very physical space; their minds operated within their own personal four white walls surrounding them and ultimately challenging themselves to recreate, redefine and reinvent themselves at every turn. Their personal identity crises were slipping into Creeper’s sonic subconscious, already bubbling at the brim in the battle of creative do’s and don’ts, despite Will having foretold a change in their sound’s waters many moons ago.

“It’s always been important for us to keep our word and our promise. I’d spoken a lot during ‘Eternity In Your Arms’, that if we did this thing again, we would completely rebuild and come up with something new, that would be really bold, and I wouldn’t be scared.

“The problem was that the sound we had on the record, we had built across three EPs

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beforehand [2014’s ‘Creeper’, 2015’s ‘The Callous Heart’ and 2016’s ‘The Stanger’]. It had built our entire career, and it was quite successful.

So, when it came to the point where I had to make the call on what to do, I had to decide between whether we double down on it and just make the same record again or we rip it apart and start again.”

Creeper took the latter option of taking everything everyone has ever known about their band, dousing it in kerosene and burning it down to the ground like the real-life fire that would engulf the plant pressing the record they were about to make.

“I told everybody we didn’t want to use the callous heart anymore and everybody was freaking out about that, and then I was telling everybody we weren’t going to make any fast songs anymore and everybody was freaking out about that. For me, if you’re truly going to do it, you have to destroy the entire thing, just smash the entire thing to rubble to rebuild it in a

completely different shape, to have a true rebirth.

“A lot of bands in our scene promise innovative ideas, and then they do a really small version of that. I wanted to be bold and innovative, there were times where we started writing songs and I was wondering whether we were going too far, like it felt edgy and alienating, and that’s when it felt like we were pulling it off.”

If the creative cornerstones for 2017’s ‘Eternity, In Your Arms’ were AFI, Alkaline Trio and My Chemical Romance, then for ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’, it’s Suede, Pulp and Oasis. The Britpop invasion that engulfed the midnineties distils itself infectiously throughout ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’. Whether it’s the punchiest hook you’ve heard from the band or a new-found romanticism of old-fashioned ideals and the overdramatised exploration of modern youth culture, Britpop is as much a part of this album as David Bowie, Jim

Steinman and the emo-rock revival are. In fact, escaping the tags they’d been brandished with was key to their reinvention.

“One of the things that was so frustrating about the last record was that we were constantly compared to My Chemical Romance, AFI and Alkaline Trio. We were constantly told we sounded like these bands, but none of them actually sounded similar to us. It was impossible to sound like us. I wanted us to be our own thing. I don’t for one second ever want to be in the shadow of somebody else’s career.

“By the end of it, I was literally saying ‘If I have to answer another question about somebody else’s band I’m going to go crazy’.”

It might sound like a badly drawn business plan – the idea of ripping up your own rulebook in the face of an emo-rock revival you’re the de facto leader of – but in hindsight, it’s the beating heart that pulsates at the very core of what makes Creeper, Creeper. Therefore, when it came to writing on the whiteboards they used to weave their second album’s web together, Will spent some time taking a trip down memory lane.

“It’s impossible to make something if it’s not in your blood. We collectively stockpile ideas in a memory bank somewhere in our minds, and we start putting them together with these very real-life experiences, and suddenly you have all these things to draw on you thought you’d forgotten about.”

“I grew up with Britpop, I’m a child from that era, and I was just a boy then. I used to listen to the Big 4 – Suede, Oasis, Blur and Pulp – when I was a kid, and I pulled these influences out of nowhere while in America, and it was perfect for what we were doing.”

Will reflects candidly on his time revisiting his British musical heritage while away in America, continuing: “I was in Hollywood all the time, and I made a lot of friends out there. I was going out

all the time, to weird goth clubs and fetish clubs, and I found myself in utterly bizarre situations that I wouldn’t normally at home.”

It was in the many ‘morning afters’ Will experienced during his time in America that he would work with his band on their new

album, revisiting his childhood and connecting the dots both consciously and subconsciously one-by-one. However, there’s a single memory that sticks out the most when Will thinks of ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’.

“When I think about this record, I think about when my parents divorced, and how I used to go round my now-step-mum’s house with my dad. They would go to bed, and I would go straight to their CD collection and pull records out at random. I’d look at the cover and put the record on and sit there all night listening to the record.

“In Hollywood, I’d think about that and the bands I discovered through that and that romantic period of time where you digest that music properly. It’s such a formative thing for me, it’s how I first got into music. This is why our album cover looks the way it does, it’s supposed to look like an

“I DIDN’T KNOW IF CREEPER WAS GOING TO COME BACK, I DIDN’T KNOW IF WE WERE OVER”

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old record, because that’s how I see this and the influences that go into it. Like when I first got my dad’s copy of ‘Hunky Dory’ by David Bowie, and the cover was all beat-up, and it had been played a million times. I used to listen to that in my room all the time, and it’s so much a part of me.”

Those formative memories and their importance; not only in creating the frontman we know and love today, but in steering him through his own modern-day identity crisis; were critical to the creative process. Will, and in turn his friends in Creeper, found themselves drawing on these memories and finding more than just musical influences.

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“In the daytime when I’m working on the record, I’m drawing on references that I had 20 years ago when I was a kid, and I’m singing about these immediate experiences over a vintage background. It felt like a really bizarre epiphany.”

With a band of callous hearts on the brink of breaking and moments away from embarking on their journey to becoming the fugitives of heaven, epiphanies were being experienced like ecstasy. Much like when David Bowie took Ziggy to America in the early seventies writing songs about his experiences in America, the essential ingredients of ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’ were bought

together by Creeper’s very real experiences as Britons in America.

Set in a small town based on Dunsmuir in Northern California, ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’’s twisted tale encapsulates the band’s feelings of being Englishmen in America and the alienation that brings with it. Following the journey of a fallen angel’s experiences as an outsider in a small town, listeners will embrace our protagonists’ trials and tribulations as they fall in love with a woman while learning to be human and to feel again. The puzzle pieces that tie together the fictional America our heroes inhabit are the same that tie together Creeper’s time in

“IF I HAVE TO ANSWER ANOTHER QUESTION ABOUT SOMEBODY ELSE’S BAND I’M GOING TO GO CRAZY” America.

“The songs are all real-life scenarios, our real-life completely mimics this fictional America that we’ve written. I think it’s the only way to make it more real, you should write what you know. Even though this sounds like an out-of-

this-world story that we’re telling you on this album, it all really happened in real life, in one way or another.

“It didn’t happen in a fictional place, some of the elements of the story have been expanded and blown up, and it’s told in a slightly different way, but all of the plot points are very much there in my real life. You know, the very real tragedy that surrounded this record is the same that imbues it.”

While out in America, Creeper were battling not only the demons of their creative muscles and emotional minds but of their very being against one of the countries most controversial names. “One of the biggest influences on the story was our experience with the Westboro Baptist Church, who were protesting Warped Tour while we were on it. We then protested the protest, and in America, obviously, everything is more heightened and more dramatic, so it went everywhere. In fact, there wasn’t a better place to write a Creeper record really.”

The album is split into three acts in which the songs they comprise of have all been categorised under the three key ingredients of it all: Sex, Death and - you guessed it - the Infinite Void. “Those three things have been extremely important in making this record.

When we were writing in LA, we had a whiteboard with a graph and the three categories, and if we wrote something that didn’t fit in those categories, we wouldn’t use it.

“It sounds like a very hopeless title, but those are the ingredients that came into making this. Before everything happened and before Ian got sectioned, that is what we would talk about constantly, those three things all the time, every day. I don’t think it’s hopeless, the arc of the narrative is that when our character dies, the people of the town he’s from are redeemed, and we’re hoping this is what it does. Life is not as miserable as it seems, and that’s very much in the real world, not in a fictional one.”

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While the Infinite Void was a blackhole Will and co. spent their time drifting aimlessly towards in a mental purgatory, Sex and Death were creeping up everywhere in aesthetical, mental and physical capacities as they travelled through their own version of America.

“There was some very reallife tragedy that we felt the ramifications of each of those in terms of death, and then there’s so much sex on this record it’s unreal. It’s done in a quirky fun way, but in reality, we were exploring a lot of different avenues of sexuality in our personal lives, which is all so different. It’s been a very strange time for us.”

Strange is an understatement in the lives of Creeper, who spent as much time recording the record and hanging out with soundtrack producer Xandy Barry as they did visiting celebrity graveyards and fetish clubs.

“We were little weirdos going to death museums in Hollywood every day, we went to Hollywood Forever to see Maila Nurma, who obviously plays Vampira, to see her grave and we saw Jayne Mansfield’s car, where she had been killed. They emphasise death out there like we’ve done with our band, and we had just killed Creeper, and I was surrounded by very real-life loss with my mother’s partner, so the death thing was everywhere.”

“The sex thing was absolutely everywhere,” he continues, “especially in Hollywood. Like, oh my god, it was fucking everywhere.

We’d be out at clubs until two, and there’d be these out of hours places in downtown LA, and you’d go there until six and seven in the morning.”

Whatever happened regarding the holy trinity in their real lives entered their fictional ones, as if they were holding up a giant mirror. Ultimately, ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’ is an album that has pushed Creeper to the upper limits of their pain thresholds.

“This record has been a really

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“THERE’S SO MUCH SEX ON THIS RECORD IT’S UNREAL” explosive one to make and unlike anything I’ve ever made in my whole life, and it’s threatened to ruin absolutely everything at times. When you can hold the record, like the vinyl, and know it’s the last thing made in that place before it burned down to the ground, like that’s just crazy.

Sometimes the reality is much more fantastical than the fictional one we’ve made.”

While their worlds – both real and fictional – are fantastical, the songs that define them are just as much. From the So Cal sun of alt-rock explosion ‘Be My End’ to the piano-laden dreampop soundscape of ‘Cyanide’ to the honey-dripped harmonies in the Suede-like future first dance ‘Thorns Of Love,’ which is perhaps Creeper’s most grandiose departure. In crafting their story, they also crafted a narrative of sounds split into acts that ease you into their new era.

“It needed to be three really definitive acts, which is how it’s divided: the first third is still jarring if you’re used to our old sound, but it’s not as jarring as the things to come with songs like ‘Be My End’ and ‘Born Cold’.

The middle section begins with ‘Paradise’ and goes right up to ‘Thorns of Love’, they’re these songs that are much more grandiose, and they have the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra on them. They’re slower numbers that you’ve never heard us do before. It ends with these big rock songs like ‘Napalm Girls’ and a cracking piano finale in ‘All My Friends’.”

As much a theatrical act as they are a punk rock band, the structuring of both the narrative and its accompanying songs was as important to Creeper as the music itself was. Will, in particular, suffered sleepless nights stringing together the tiniest details.

“It’s paced and put together meticulously. That’s one of the biggest things for me, especially the way it’s track-listed and the amount of time between songs. We spent ages changing seconds and milliseconds of pauses to make sure it hits the way it should.

“The one that sticks out in my mind is the spoken word track with me and Patricia [Morrison] from The Sisters of Mercy. When it goes ‘and I feel nothing’ and then into ‘Annabelle’ straight away, it’s such a small thing, but I couldn’t work out the exact balance to go into the next song. We fretted over tiny little nuanced details, but it’s essential it flows nicely; otherwise, it wouldn’t work, it’d be disjointed.

“It was the same with ‘Eternity, In Your Arms’, when Hannah had her first appearance as a solo voice on ‘Crickets’. If we had started the record with that song, it wouldn’t have made any sense, and if we’d have ended the record with that song, it wouldn’t have made any sense. You have to condition the listener to expect the unexpected, almost.”

The notion of expecting the unexpected runs through ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’ almost infectiously, throwing you completely off-guard trackby-track, moment-by-moment.

There are audible and narrative Easter eggs aplenty throughout, providing what the band believe is a much-needed escape from reality, just like the one they experienced while making the record in America.

“At the very core of what we’re trying to do with this is providing escapism, our mission statement when we very first started was to put the dramatic pomp back into punk rock,” muses Will, laughing at the reality that his band’s dream

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has become. “We were trying to make a magic record which people can lose themselves in, and no matter how rough their life in the daytime is, they can put this record on or our last one on and zone out and live somewhere else for a minute, and be somebody else. It’s a magical thing, isn’t it?

Putting a record on and being able to lose yourself in it?”

In a time and an industry where anyone and everyone can access millions upon millions of tracks at their fingertips on their phones, where music to many has become a disposable commodity for background listening, Creeper are throwing caution to the wind and bringing their old-fashioned ideals to the fore. ‘Eternity, In Your Arms’ broke the mainstream barriers

and peaked in the UK top twenty.

Most other rock bands would’ve double-downed on their schtick and carried on. For Creeper, this simply wasn’t an option.

“I feel like it’s from a different time almost, I can’t see it the way other band’s see it these days, where it’s an autotuned verse and chorus, and all the drums are a certain way, I just can’t do that, it’s not a part of me. I have to create in the way I feel is becoming, so even if it’s a bad idea, I’m tethered to it. I’m going down with this ship because it’s all I know.”

When you’re committed to the old ideals you’ve been raised on, you’ve got to put a lot of stock in the following you’ve amassed.

For Creeper, their cult of fans is integral to the success of ‘Sex,

“IMAGINE IF IT WAS JUST A SHALLOW FUCKING T-SHIRT DESIGN AND A RECORD CHUCKED TOGETHER, THAT’S NOT CREEPER”

30 Upset

thing is loaded with Easter eggs and little nuances, and you’d miss it all that way. The idea of us is that everything rewards the more dedicated listener.”

Rewarding the listener isn’t something Creeper take lightly.

From breaking up and resurrecting themselves on the very same day a year apart to releasing an entire book dedicated to the world they’d created across their EPs and debut album; they’ve always gone to infinity and beyond to reward the most dedicated of their cult. For ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’, they even made their universe playable.

“If you focus on the things we’re putting online, like the video game we launched a little while ago, if you play that enough, you’ll find things no one else will find. There are things on The Mainframe no one has discovered yet. It’s a deep, deep world, and it’s intentionally deep because we want people to spend some time on it and lose themselves in it.

“Imagine if it was just a shallow fucking t-shirt design and a record chucked together, that’s not Creeper. There’s nothing wrong with that but it’s not what Creeper Death & The Infinite Void’’s his longing for the golden age of does.” mission to provide escapism. In albums, and he’s fully aware that Since their inception in 2014, Will’s mind, they’re what makes they’ll be many who spend little Creeper have constantly defied the risk of ripping the rulebook up time appreciating the nuances the odds, having risen from the worth it. of their work, but he’s more ashes of a dozen local acts to “We went from doing something interested in rewarding Creeper’s headlining festival stages and that was heavily branded, like more dedicated listeners. playing support slots in UK arenas, every time we went on stage, we “In this climate, you have to with an act that in this generation had a uniform, and we completely keep throwing music out because shouldn’t work. On ‘Sex, Death & abolished the entire thing. We everything’s so disposable now, The Infinite Void’, Creeper skip threw the entire thing away, and like kids don’t sit down and listen a rung or two on their way to the we made a bunch of sounds that to an album in the way that you top of the ladder, crafting their are absolutely not what somebody and I used to. They want the definitive sound and multiverse listening to our contemporaries in singles, and that’s it. This album much like My Chemical Romance alternative music would normally is very traditional in lots of ways, once did when they transitioned put on. We’re just hoping people I like to think of it as a return of will follow us down the rabbit hole. form in the way of a great rock and from ‘Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge’ to ‘The Black Parade’. No “If I had to make music the way roll tale, you have to sit down and other people have been doing it, listen to it in the order it’s planned matter what happens, Creeper will continue to push themselves as a I just wouldn’t do it, I’d just make to truly appreciate it. something else. I’d be better off “There are people that will press creative anomaly putting the pomp back into punk and the magic back staying at home making things play on ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite and selling them on Etsy. I find a Void’ and skip through it, listening into music. They simply won’t rest until they’ve achieved it all. P lot of the music around me quite to the first verse and chorus of Creeper’s album ‘Sex, Death & The boring.” each song, hear what we’ve done In Creeper, Will is not alone with and move on. I get it, but the whole Infinite Void’ is out 31st July.

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Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Ashley Osborn.

From film and TV, to books, to music, who doesn’t love a world to get lost in? With their new album, Palaye Royale felt like it was time to craft their own, which is precisely what they’ve done with ‘The Bastards’.

On the Las Vegas band’s third full-length, they’ve sought something more than just a collection of tracks, they needed to get lost in narrative and surroundings. Enter, the island of Obsidian.

Set in 1888, in this fantastical place you can find vocalist Remington Leith, along with his band of brothers, guitarist Sebastian Danzig and drummer Emerson Barrett, and most importantly, a whole lot of truth.

While each has played his part in the creation, Remington is the penman behind the feeling and emotion that swirls thick like

summer thunder, crashing through the confident rock bravado.

Lavishing irony in the fact that the entire world is currently in need of an escape, the stage is set for Palaye to take their place amongst the dreamers and thinkers who want to try and do something to make things better.

To construct something based wholly on truth, first Remington had to face his own, including his troubled childhood. “It definitely took me back to a strange place,” he starts. “But it’s weird because I feel like I write better when I put myself in those situations and take myself back to the memories of darker stuff.”

It’s no easy feat vocalising such deeply personal trauma, especially not “without, you know, breaking down in a weird way,” but for his growth to take place, it was necessary. “Weirdly this whole experience was kind of like a therapy session for me. I’m putting it out into the world, and I feel like I can move on.”

During those early years when he needed to be lost to something else, Remington had his own way of coping. “I wasn’t all that crazy about my childhood, I had a tough upbringing,” he says. “But I threw myself into music and these different worlds to just try to escape, and I’d always daydream of what I wanted my life to be like.

“So I got lost in bands like My Chemical Romance and Nirvana, and that’s what helped me through my childhood. [And also] picking up the piano and singing and trying to write my own music, just escaping through creating, that was the biggest thing for me.”

And create he did. Obsidian came to life all these years later, through the cranes and forklifts in the mind of all three components of Palaye Royale. Given the lyrical construct lies in Remington’s truth facing, what he was planning to excavate from himself would come to sit as the core, the molten bubble of circumstance and experience that Obsidian shifts elegantly across.

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What came first though, the decision to confront these truths, or the idea to build their world?

“It was building a world around it, I think that was an important thing,” he says. “Especially with the comic book and the music videos. I thought it was really important because we made this whole escape from our reality, and then it was important that for this record we confronted all the things that made us try to make our own reality. You know, confronting the past. It was definitely difficult, but the most important thing is you’re honest with yourself and you’re honest with the world and tell your story. That’s the whole point of music.”

In the crystal world, Obsidian is known for its truth-enhancing properties, absorbing negative energy. The hard and dark stone comes to life through the harsh solidification of lava from its natural enclosure - in a similar fashion to Palaye Royale and their ascension from hometown dreamers to headline touring artists. An all-round fitting name then.

Giving life, and narrative structure to Obsidian was Emerson.

“He created this whole world to escape to, and wrote this whole story,” Remington says. “The graphic novel’s going to be coming out, I think a couple of weeks after the record drops? And it tells this whole story about this whole different world that he created. I’m fucking so proud to have him as a brother who created this whole big thing.”

The three brothers are the core of Palaye Royale. The three of them, the same blood coursing through their veins, against the world.

There have been moments where once it started raining, it started pouring, so in the same instance of trying to use the negative energy for forwarding progression, naming the album ‘The Bastards’, was the only sensible solution.

“It was when we were on tour with Enter Shikari, we got some backlash from their fans,”

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“THIS WHOLE EXPERIENCE WAS KIND OF LIKE A THERAPY SESSION FOR ME” Remington remembers back to 2018. “We would constantly hear ‘Yah bunch of bastards!’ And it stuck. We’d been working on this album for a long time, we’ve always had the name ‘Bastards’ in the back of our head, but that tour confirmed that for us. We turned it into something good, in a weird way.”

Palaye Royale haven’t had an easy ride. Picking up flack for being artists that fall into the vaudevillian world of pushing things to the extreme, but always, always, residing in truth. They’re rock music for the disenfranchised, but more so than that they are three kids who managed to find a way out of it all, yet the crosshairs still follow like the spotlight in a theatre of dreams.

“Honestly, the internet, I’ve learned, is just a toxic place,” he says when asked if it can all get a ‘bit much’. “One of my friends told me this great quote, and it always stuck. He said, ‘You can be the ripest peach in the world, but some people just don’t fucking like peaches’.”

True enough words, the wisdom doesn’t stop there. “You can’t base your whole life on one person’s opinion,” he continues. “So honestly I think we’re the luckiest people in the world. We get to make

music, and people care about it.

“We have the most amazing fans, and I get to sing for a living the lyrics that I wrote, and I get to go to almost every country in the world and have people that don’t even speak English sing back those lyrics - it’s a fucking feeling that’s just unbelievable. So don’t ever let one person’s opinion get you down, or doubt what you’re doing because not everybody’s gonna like you and that’s just the truth.”

Which is why the development of Obsidian was born out of the challenges Palaye face feels so strong and invincible. The word escapism crops up a lot during our chat, but would they actually consider it escapism, or more of a self-imposed exile?

“Definitely a self-imposed exile,” Remington says, wide-eyed. “The whole reason we created this world is to escape our demons and create the world that we’ve always wanted to get lost in. It’s funny because Emerson actually said one quote that stuck with me: ‘You were put on earth to create heaven’. And I feel like we kind of made our own version of that.”

Amongst the building of their heavenly exile, in the far distance, the silhouette of even grander ideas sits, a beautifully imposing idea that Palaye Royale aren’t going anywhere. Physically what that looks like is a removal of venues, and “creating our own”, Remington smiles.

“It’s almost like a travelling circus, where everything is immersed in the world that we’ve created, and you know it’s almost like you’re living inside the world, and the album.”

Speaking brightly of the future, that hopeful escape that Remington yearned for when he was younger, for all their sins, Palaye are doing their damnedest to be just that for somebody else in need. “The whole experience is you can actually see it for yourself, this is where you can live inside of it for a day. And that’s where we want to take it.” P Palaye Royale’s album

‘The Bastards’ is out 29th May.

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In an industry built on streaming singles, setting up TikTok trends and selling superstardom, it’s difficult to believe there are still musicians roaming the streets of songwriter city brandishing authenticity and honesty like they’re wearing their hearts on their sleeves. Then again, few musicians have been involved in not one, not two, but three different bands all responsible for influencing and pioneering America’s indie-emo revolution

Words: Jack Press.

A NEW MUSE and revival. It’s unlikely Owen – aka Mike Kinsella – realised the cult following his high-school boredom-buster Cap’n Jazz and its subsequent projects Joan Of Arc and American Football would have on an entire genre when he got his first drumkit or when he learnt his first chord on the guitar in the suburbs of Chicago.

Transitioning between identities like Miley Cyrus in a certain children’s TV show and navigating the sea that is being a father of both a family and a scene and dedicating time to both sits at the heart of Avalanches. Across nine songs and 45 minutes, Mike paints the picture of an otherworldly soundscape with gentle indie-folk brushstrokes illuminating his rainy-day melancholy emo in little 25 years on from his first glimmers of sun shining in on your project, as the de facto posterbedroom. boy for indie-emo everywhere Having spent four years working enters double-digits with his solely on the creative output of solo project’s 10th album ‘The Avalanche,’ Upset finds out how American Football off of the back of their long-awaited 2014 reunion, life under the industry’s radar has been treating Mike Kinsella. Mike was more than ready to shed the skin of being in a band and working with a far smaller team, a “My whole existence, for team he already had in mine. Enter now, has just been a bunch of producer Sean Carey (of Bon Iver transitions, like being a part-time musician and a full-time dad, there fame) and engineer Zach Hanson (Waxahatchee), who worked on his are constant transitions back and forth. Some of it I’m getting used to last Owen album in 2016, ‘The King and sometimes I just have to accept Of Whys’. “’King Of Whys’ was the first it’s going to be a transition day, time working with Zach and like the first and last day of tour Sean, and so that was a little like and the first and last day of being dancing, where you figure out at home.”

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“I’D RATHER NOT CONVINCE SOMEONE TO CARE ABOUT WHAT I’M DOING” who’s good at what and who’s bringing what to the table, so going back this time I was able to plan for that a lot more.

“Usually I’m coming into the studio and banging on things and doing everything myself. I just keep throwing stuff at it, and maybe I’m not quite realising what I’m hearing in my head because I don’t play string instruments and Zach and Sean have different approaches, like both of their roles in the bands they’ve been in are as ambient space makers, and that’s something I don’t have. I’m just like ‘here’s the front guitar and the front drums and the front melodies’. When I started ‘The Avalanche’, a lot of the songs were literally just repetitive guitar parts, and I knew that Sean could put different drums then I would on it, which is where the songs take off in different directions.”

At its core, ‘The Avalanche’ is at times a difficult and discomforting album, broaching subjects such as alcohol dependency, death and the destruction heartbreak delivers with Mike’s trademark wit and gutter-punch honesty.

It’s something that works in his favour yet haunts his thoughts on reflection.

“That’s my biggest fuck up in my life – none of the music I’ve ever made is really fun. Cap’n Jazz when I was in high school was such a release, but still, for whatever reason, me and whoever I’m always drawing myself with, we’re never satisfied with the four-chord power-pop music, which would

be a lot more fun, I could get a lot more drunk, and I could think a lot less.”

The concept of listening to an album and thinking about its makeup is an experience awarded to repeat listeners of ‘The Avalanche’. Inspired somewhat by his favourite songs, its lyrics were written differently than in the past. While the dry wit and trademark humour still haunts his songs line-by-line, Mike places his faith in the details, delivering a layer of honesty and openness not seen before in his music.

“I’ve changed the way I write a little bit; I used to write very specifically. Like, for me, in my mind, my favourite lines in my favourite songs are these little details that there so specific that it almost takes you out of the song.

You’re wondering what is that detail? What is it referencing? I’m shifting now to where I like to keep things a little more universal.

“I’m saying my favourite songs, but I’m dismissing the fact that my actual favourite songs are like Taylor Swift songs, where it’s boy meets girl. I’m more and more influenced by not having to paint the whole picture, it’s almost more like poetry.”

Authenticity and the honesty are central to the way in which Mike presents himself, more so than ever with Owen. It’s also what he believes is his Achilles heel and commercial undoing in an industry obsessed with glamorising unachievable lifestyles and sacrificing

authenticity for likes on social media.

“Pop music doesn’t care about authenticity, it’s the antithesis to that. It’s about what’s most current, there’s no correlation between whether that star is authentic in any way. I was raised on punk rock and DIY shit, and I respected the musicians I liked, I respected them as humans and for whatever reason, and I know it’s stupid commercially, it’s something I think is still important.

“You probably have twenty friends that like my band, but there are forty million people who follow Drake, and that guy’s not real, I used to watch Degrassi, so I know the real Drake. But that’s the difference, you know?”

Whereas Drake and his horde of followers bathe in the beauty of being listened to and adored, for Mike, it’s not something at the forefront of his mind. As with his songwriting, sending his music out into the world is something he has to do, not something he does for fame or fortune.

“I’ll put the record out, and people can listen to it, and people who like what I do are going to really like it, and hopefully people who don’t know what I do will listen to it and like it, but I have no interest in selling it to people.

It is what it is, if they can relate that’s cool. I’d rather not convince someone to care about what I’m doing, because they’re doing stuff too, and I don’t really care about what they’re doing, so it’s hypocritical for me to ask people to care about what I’m doing.”

In ‘The Avalanche’, Mike Kinsella has an album and a project that goes against the very grain of an industry he’s obsessed with following but not with imitating. There’s a magic to his music that comes from its authenticity and its honesty, from its ability to be an open book. As long as he sticks to his guns, he’ll continue to be the long-lost king of emo. P Owen’s album ‘The

Avalanche’ is out 19th June.

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HEART 40 Upset

T//O U T Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Brian Cox.

Serendipity, as defined by The Used frontman Bert McCracken, is an event “occurring or discovered by chance, in a happy or beneficial way.”

whim - and just in time for the world needing that little reminder to let loose since you really don’t know what could happen.

“Records seem to, just like humans, take on the environment around them,” he ponders. “The Used have been in one of the best places, emotionally and No, this isn’t dictionary corner with rock bands, it’s Bert unpacking physically... we’ve never been the big picture of the last few years. tighter, so I think that’s what this record sounds like.”

For example, The Used’s 2017 That environment is certainly release, ‘The Canyon’, was a one filled with a revel of no focused affair, processing the tomorrow. death of a friend. This time, on “Even the moments where I tried their eighth album ‘Heartwork’, it’s simply Bert and co. doing what they to reflect on things that are tough for me, things from my childhood want and embracing their every

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“IF ANYONE’S FANS ARE ‘CULTY’, IT’S USED FANS” and things of the past that are difficult to deal with, feel light.

That’s just about headspace, we had an amazing time making it, and I think it shows - it’s like a fantastic little voyage.”

Literature forms an incredibly intrinsic piece of the ‘Heartwork’ voyage. With no less than four direct references to some of Bert’s favourite writings, including album opener ‘Paradise Lost, a poem by John Milton’, ‘1984 (Infinite Jest)’ and ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ (alas, not a cover of the Klaxons’ nu-rave classic).

“The parallels between those two books, in particular, are just so poignant to today in modern technology and society and mental health and addiction,” he says of ‘1984 (Infinite Jest)’ and its namesake novels. “Big Brother is a different thing than I think [author George Orwell] thought it would be, but it’s still right on track. The metaphors are so beautiful.”

Grander societal view aside, on a personal level, Bert read Infinite Jest while he was in rehab. “It’s a book that’s about addiction, and depression, and a whole bunch of other things. I read it in a really volatile and vulnerable time in my life.”

“Gravity’s Rainbow as well is one of these books that’s kind of an enigma, it feels good to be able to bounce my songs off of some of these masterpiece novels. I was thinking about how bold and kind of courageous [Thomas] Pynchon was in his approach to literary criticism. A lot of people have talked about how it was maybe a direct fuck you.”

Pop-punk, and alternative genres, are often cast with the assumption they’re easily digestible, the fast-food of music,

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but it’s the layers they hold, their many facets that can be loaded with meaning, intentional or not, via the music or words, that are the real gems.

“I like a piece of art that can hold my attention for quite a while, that I feel challenged by,” Bert says.

“And I think that corresponds in a nice way to an entire record.

We’re still huge fans of the record journey, the journey from song to song to song and in this specific sequence that tells a certain story.”

Which is exactly what all these things have in common, books and records, that keyword - story.

“Whether it’s a poem like The Iliad and Odyssey, or a short story in Stephen King’s new book, or a song, a pop song even, if it tells a story, and you can find yourself and connect to that. When we connect with art, we learn so much more about ourselves.”

For The Used the journey of ‘Heartwork’ proved that their flame was still very much alight.

The carefree, cavalier attitude that screams through every twist and turn along the emo sounds way, “the approach would be to naturally let whatever emotion or feeling that day dictate what the song sounds like.”

“Going into this record, [we wanted] to create songs that felt nostalgic to us for the same reasons we fell in love with music. So to try remove ourselves from any other aspect of the music industry right now; all the trappings that come along with making a record, social media marketing and all the nightmare stuff, we tried to just focus on making the songs that we love,” ‘Heartwork’ also has a little help from some of The Used’s friends, both new and old: Fever 333’s

Jason Aalon Butler (‘Blow Me’), Beartooth’s Caleb Shomo (‘The Lottery’) - who “recorded it before he went on stage at a show in New York City. Talk about driven!” - as well as Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus (‘The Lighthouse’) and Travis Barker (‘Obvious Blasé’).

“We had a day planned out where we were gonna meet up and get in the studio and jam,” he says on working with the Blink 182 duo.

“We hung out during the day, wrote together, ate doughnuts and drank coffee until the songs were done.”

“We’ve been friends with those guys for so long now,” he continues.

“I toured with Travis and Box Car Racer back in, like, 2003. They’re both the type of people we feed off; Mark and Travis are so driven and so passionate and hungry to create art.”

Being ambitious and driven is a natural aspect of a creative type.

“The differences on this record are quite drastic,” says Bert. “The dichotomy between light and dark is the most extreme that The Used has played around with so far. So the tarot cards are kind of cool and appropriate in that way because we love a little symbolism in our music, and if anyone’s fans are ‘culty’, it’s Used fans. They’re diehard, ultra dedicated, it’s pretty amazing.”

While Bert isn’t “necessarily a believer in everything happens for a reason,” he understands that human nature is what drives us to craft the understanding, which comes especially in times we’re all pushed to new limits.

“When things do happen, and they’re great, it’s amazing to feel grateful and to not take those things for granted because right around the corner is the drop.”

He pauses thoughtfully. “I think that life, the ups and downs are so important. I think we’ve been trained to kind of feel like if we’re not feeling happy then something’s wrong, but without sadness, there’s no happiness and vice versa. What a cliche and bland banal statement, but it’s so true!” P The Used’s

album ‘Heartwork’ is out now.

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FUNE PART “We just do what feels natural. If it starts getting forced, that really shines through, and sounds artificial; like it’s not authentic,” says Booka Nile of Make Them Suffer in response to being asked whether the band find themselves influenced by the demands of their fans.

Since the release of their guttural deathcore debut ‘Neverbloom’ in 2012, Make Them Suffer have consistently expanded on their sound while experimenting with a more melodic take on their colossally dynamic riffs and guttural vocals.

While this progression is widely met with praise and acceptance, there are a few die-hard listeners that will always wish for the band to go back to their heavier origins.

Australia is something of a melting pot for hardcore/ metalcore bands, and their fans often adopt a kind of fanaticism towards the music. More often than not, they’re pretty outspoken and will happily publicise their opinions – regardless of whether

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their intentions are good. As part of the recent line-up change for Make Them Suffer, and a ‘woman in a metal band’ Booka has had the unfortunate experience of being at the receiving end of these outbursts. Rather than let it affect her emotionally, she questions what the motivations are behind somebody expressing themselves in such a vulgar way, and most importantly; she likes to bite back.

“I’ve got this background in psychology, so I don’t see it perhaps as, like, an attack on me. I see it as them being very sad, sick individuals if they say stuff like that, but I guess I bite back not for me, but for women in general. I want them to think to themselves, ‘holy hell I’m pretty pathetic’ or ‘there’s something wrong with this attitude that I have, perhaps it’s actually a sign of something bigger being wrong with me’, because it is wrong. Nobody should have those attitudes. It’s outdated. It’s just not normal,” she says.

While ruminating on where the roots of these thought-processes might stem from, and with a well-deserved air of confidence, she laughs as she hypothetically asks the question, “Are you pissed off cause I’m in a sick metal band and you’re not?” The motivation

ERAL TY Words: Tyler Damara Kelly. Photos: Sandra Steh.

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behind highlighting this behaviour is to show solidarity with those who don’t have a circle of people around them who can help them feel empowered and unaffected by the opinions of a small group of individuals. Luckily for Booka, she has a strong support network surrounding her in the form of her bandmates.

Since guitarist Nick McLernon lives on the opposite side of Australia to Booka and the rest of the band, it’s often difficult to get everyone together with the intention of making new music.

Instead, they choose to share files via a Dropbox folder so that they can collaborate on their ideas and formulate a plan for their next releases. Once they had gathered enough material over the last couple of years; on the advice of friends such as Chelsea Grin and Wage War, the band decided to get in contact with producer Drew Fulk.

Unlike their sessions for ‘Worlds Apart’, which were more of a scattered process with multiple producers at the helm, their forthcoming album ‘How To Survive A Funeral’ came to life with the band taking some time out of their schedules to move into a studio in LA. For Booka, who joined the line-up just as the band were in the process of recording Worlds Apart, the last three years have been all about growth, becoming more confident as a musician, and training herself to be more proficient as a vocalist.

She radiates with happiness as she discusses the sense of freedom that came from spending time in LA with nothing to do but make music, and how much she learnt from working with Dre: “He just knows how to write big choruses, and we had just learned so much from him. As well, I guess I had more freedom and flexibility with the vocal parts that I could do because I had been training my voice for the last three years to get it to a stage where it had a bigger range, and it was more powerful, and stuff like that. So being able to record this new album with trained vocals

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“ARE YOU PISSED OFF CAUSE I’M IN A SICK METAL BAND AND YOU’RE NOT?”

was a huge thing because last time, I did struggle to get through ‘Worlds Apart’ a little bit. Some vocal parts were very complex, like complicated for me… but it was really great to be able to look back at that recording process versus this one and go ‘wow, this is how far I’ve come – that’s amazing’.”

‘How To Survive A Funeral’ offers the best of both worlds for fans of Make Them Suffer. While it is undoubtedly progressive and sees the band exploring new sonic terrain, the album itself feels like it runs parallel to their second full-length release, ‘Old Souls’.

Make Them Suffer waste no time in ripping through pages from the infamous back catalogue of Neverbloom in order for frontman Sean Harmanis’ to reach into the depths of himself, locating where his visceral death metal vocals had been waiting in stasis.

There isn’t as much of an underlying story that runs throughout the songs as there was on the previous release, but there was something else that kept following their lives during the creative process which heavily influenced the direction that they went in. “It was something that was at the forefront of everybody’s minds, you know – funerals and death in general. So, like, even though not all the songs are that macabre, ‘How To Survive A Funeral’ just came one day. It wasn’t really thought upon too much. It just seemed to work,” says Booka on the origins of the album title.

Starting at the beginning, and ending with the ambiguity of the future appears to be the approach that the band have taken in crafting the perfect listening journey. With heavy influence and direction taken from their producer, Booka’s melodic and clean vocals are at the forefront of the choruses in songs such as ‘Drown With Me’, ‘Erase Me’ and ‘That’s Just Life’, which sees Make Them Suffer dive into the more expansive realms of their meticulously crafted sound.

The key to a song metal song is nailing the perfect riff, and Make

Them Suffer have truly outdone themselves with ‘Bones’. What starts as a pulsating wave erupts into sheer chugging carnage, and takes on three different iterations as the song progresses. In admiration of Sean and Nick’s ability to balance out vocals and guitar, it has become one of Booka’s favourite songs. “If you listen to that song you can hear that I haven’t had a lot of input like the keys aren’t very much to the forefront of the song. I’m sort of in the background, vocally, but I’m not on that track too much, but I love it! It’s so good… The riff that Nick has written is so dirty. It’s just like pornographic guitar – it’s really groovy, but it’s also really heavy.”

In signifying what could become a new direction for the band, ‘The Attendant’ offers an element of ethereal shoegaze-doused metal which is almost reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine. The song was originally called Worlds Apart and was originally intended to be released on the eponymous album, but the band were not happy with the vocals that they had written at the time. Booka notes that this album is a lot more self-reflective than the last, so it is quite telling that they were able to revive a more denuded side to themselves this time around.

Reflecting on what she would envisage for the lasting power of How To Survive A Funeral, Booka says, “while we each have our own personal meanings behind lyrics and the message that each song sends, we want it to have its own personal meaning for each and every individual who listens to it… We want it to have a message that, you know, ultimately we are all connected [and I think it is great that] they can listen to it and have their own meaning from that piece of music, even if it’s not the meaning that we had when we wrote it. Because that’s what music is about, isn’t it? It’s about connection, and people feeling connectedness with the songs.”P

Make Them Suffer’s album ‘How To Survive a Funeral’ is out this summer.

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respect.

Words: Steven Loftin.

Demons have played a big part in the Asking Alexandria story.

For most of their career, the five-piece have had to battle through negativity, lineup changes and even substance abuse. So much so, their sixth outing ‘Like A House On Fire’ is “the first album we’ve ever written sober,” according to founder, vocalist and guitarist Ben Bruce, but the band making their way through this muddied 2020 are a stronger union than ever.

Vocalist Danny Worsnop’s return in 2017, after a departure in 2015, and the

ensuing self-titled fi fth album was a relative return to form. It held the same energy that’s kept Asking Alexandria propelling forward, but this time things have a more focused serenity.

But truthfully, no one knew how long things would last once Danny had rejoined. “Everything was uncertain,” Ben starts. “It was really exciting [and] a lot of fun. We’d rekindled our friendship and our relationship, [but it was] a big learning curve, we’d changed a lot as people. When Danny rejoined the band, I was still a little bit broken and lost, still using drugs and drinking very heavily. Danny wasn’t doing any of that anymore, so I was relearning a new Danny, and he was being reintroduced to a lifestyle that he had walked away from.”

Through all this learning the band found their way to the point of ‘Like A

Upset 49

House On Fire’ during the touring cycle for the self-titled album.

Ben says: “We would look at each other every night and just be grinning, you know, just having the best time.”

“Not too far in I’d stopped taking drugs, “ he continues, “and I stopped drinking as much because my daughter was born.

I’ve since had a son. I was over [drugs and drinking], and I was fi nally happy within my own life, and so I stopped. I started to just fall back in love with music again.”

It was on this tour that the cogs began turning, and a feeling that they were “having fun and want to do this forever,” swiftly took over. “This isn’t a job anymore, you know? We both snapped out of that dark period we were in, and remembered why we did this - that’s when we realised we wanted to continue doing it.”

Deciding which Asking Alexandria 2020 was going to get involved a delve into the past. “It was the same as back in 2007, when we were writing [debut album] ‘Stand Up And Scream’,” Ben explains. “We had no preconceived ideas, we had no bar, we had nothing that we were trying to achieve or accomplish, other than we were all just stoked to be back in the studio and creating music together.”

Remembering those early years, where Ben and Danny, along with guitarist Cameron Liddell and bassist Sam Bettley “were angry,” he says. “Lost confused teenagers struggling to fi nd our identity.”

“We had moved away from England to America on our own, without our parents or friends, we were anxious, and that’s what ‘Stand Up And Scream’ sounds like,” Ben recalls. “It’s a very all over the place album because we didn’t know who we were.

And then ‘Reckless & Relentless’ came out and it just sounds like a drug binge - which it was.”

No longer a dark and twisted fantasy, Asking Alexandria have

50 Upset

weathered through the storm, and now ‘Like A House On Fire’ is what they’ve always tried to be - themselves. “With this one, we were just writing as ourselves, we’re comfortable, and we’re confident,” Ben says. “And we’re very different people. I’m 31, I’ve got my third kid on the way, and I’m remarried. [The band] are clean and that’s what it looks like; it’s just five friends that still love making music together, and we never went into this to make music for anyone other than ourselves.”

Deep within Asking Alexandria lies a heart of resilience; over the years, and even on the singles they’ve been dropping for ‘Like A House On Fire’, there have been shouts of negativity, an all too common occurrence in metal and alternative genres.

“That’s what’s so weird about rock fans now, they’re so quick to judge someone for being themselves, especially a band,” Ben chuckles with an air of disbelief. “So quick to judge and make up some excuse in their head as to why the band are doing what they’re doing instead of just going, ‘Oh, this is the music that they’re writing because they

“WE’RE CLEAN AND SOBER, AND WE’VE WORKED HARD TO BE WHERE WE ARE”

enjoy it’. It’s just such a weird, bizarre thing from a genre that was born out of rebellion, and the love for rock and roll, loud guitars and big drums, and singing at the top of your lungs. [From that] has come this snooty, strange, kind of incestuous fan base. It is a very small percentage, but it’s just such a shame.”

Everyone wants something different from Asking Alexandria, but ultimately they’re “a rock band,” Ben shrugs. “I never would have called us a metal band or metalcore or heavy metal or pop we’re just a rock band, we always have been.”

“That’s what people are hearing now, you know?” he continues. “Still the same five people writing the same songs in the same way, just in a different time of our lives. It’s still enjoyable for us. But people get caught up in the past, and the funny thing is, it’s never been any different.”

Recalling a show during a tour for their debut, where they “had the entire audience turn its back on us and sit on the ground while we were playing,” it was easier to digest back then, according to Ben. “We were so young and drunk, and just so high on life.”

But with age and sobriety, the wound becomes raw. “The older we get, the harder it is to swallow,” he says of the heat his band often gets. “Now we’re clean and sober, and we’ve worked hard to be where we are, there’s [just as much] shit-talking as ever. It hurts a little bit more than it used to, or we’re noticing it a little bit more.”

Which is why Asking Alexandria are roaring, the symbolism of their sixth album pluming wide.

“I stand by the fact that Asking Alexandria has always just been a rock band,” Ben ends fi rmly.

“We’ve always loved rock music we’ve always loved rock and roll. And that’s not changed.” P

Asking Alexandria’s album ‘Like A House On Fire’ is out now.

Upset 51

Rated_ THE OFFICIAL VERDICT ON EVERYTHING

BEST EX

GOOD AT FEELING BAD EP

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On Best Ex’s 2017 debut EP ‘Ice Cream Anti Social’, there was a sugary acceptance of the pitfalls of life, and the experiences that comes with it. For the follow-up, ‘Good At Feeling Bad’, the indie-pop sweetness hasn’t waned, but instead morphed into a euphoric sound with a melancholic heart. The dance bop of ‘Gap Tooth (On My Mind)’, arm in arm chanting chorus of ‘Feed The Sharks’, and even the air of Lana Del Rey on ‘Bad Love’ make for a pleasing EP that has its moments while trying to figure out just where Best Ex should sit. P

Steven Loftin

CITY MOUTH

THE 1975

NOTES ON A CONDITIONAL FORM

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“I

t is time to rebel,” promises Greta Thunberg on the opening track of The 1975’s ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’, before ‘People’, a spike, numetal collision of aspiration and frustration that sees the band ditch their neon poppolish, takes that instruction to heart. And while the rest of ‘Notes’ veers away from grand statements and political outrage, it does see The 1975 at their most rebellious.

For years, The 1975 - or Matty, anyway - believed that they were the best band in the world and with 2018’s ‘A Brief Inquiry...’, it was a difficult stance to argue with. However ‘Notes’ refuses to do the expected. Rather than a record of arena-ready pomp or radio-friendly bangers, it explores the state of things with

52 Upset

a quiet introspective smile. If you didn’t like The 1975 before, this isn’t the album that will convert you. But, full of surprises and with a now or never lust for more, ‘Notes’ is the perfect The 1975 album for right now.

With a reflective Matty dwelling on the mistakes of his past, trying to make sense of the anxiety-inducing world around him and sure of the power of other people, the lyrics flicker between comforting warmth and icy abandon while the music skips from instrumental bliss, glitching electronica and folksy Americana. It’s a lot, but The 1975 are at their best when they embrace excess.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, no one comes close to inspiring emotion like The 1975. On paper, ‘Notes’ is ripe for disaster. A delayed, 22 track album that longs to do something new with every track from a band trying to follow-up their most successful album, The 1975 painted a target on their backs long ago. In reality, though, ‘Notes’ celebrates everything that’s brilliant about this group. Chasing excitement down rabbit holes and with a sense of gleeful freedom, ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’ is a lot of things all at once, but it’s never boring. P Ali Shutler

COPING MACHINE

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Hailing from Chicago, City Mouth are the latest in a long line of bands from the city to marry emo sensibilities with memorable poprock hooks. Like Lucky Boys Confusion or Fall Out Boy before them, they’re also not afraid of mixing up genres, bringing in electronica and power-pop to build a sound that is instantly beguiling yet tantalisingly hard to pigeonhole. Some of this can be attributed to vocalist Matt Pow’s semispoken-word delivery, which adds a contemporary pop-sheen to the group’s indie sound, while the love for easy-onthe-ear melodies and sincere songwriting owes a debt of gratitude to The Format or Motion City Soundtrack.

A perfect pop album dressed in a Hot Topic wardrobe. P Rob Mair

COVET

TECHNICOLOR

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Returning for round two, San Francisco’s Covet are building vastly upon what came before on debut ‘effloresce’. With ‘technicolor’, they’re seeking to expand

math rock beyond all its noodling glory and are instead yearning to create something that feels beyond imagination. There’s a little surprise tucked away too… vocals! Actual voices, in the form of guitarist, and now vocalist, Yvette Young. On both ‘parachutes’ and ‘indie farewell’, the vocals are sparing, but offer a new dimension. As for the rest of the album, where it’s instrumentals ahoy, the three-piece certainly know how to evoke, be it a heartfelt reaction. Covet are a unique anomaly who say so much when, only on a two-song occasion, literally say anything. P

Steven Loftin

PALAYE ROYALE THE BASTARDS

the familiar. On ‘Sideways To New Italy’, the second album from Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, all of the emotions and memories that life in a tour van evoke have been wrapped up into a huge leap forwards from already promising beginnings.

Delivering on all of the promise of ‘Hope Downs’, it’s not too much of an overstatement to draw parallels with classic mid-era R.E.M. Album highlights ’Beautiful Steven’ and the closing ’The Cool Change’ straddle that same perfect line of earworm melodies that keep nagging and poking, while never losing sight of that quirkiness that has driven them this far. A sideways move? Not in the slightest. P Jamie MacMillan

eeeee

A band almost designed to ruffle feathers - from their earliest days of describing themselves as ‘fashion-rock’ - with track names ranging from ‘Anxiety’ and ‘Fucking With My Head’ to ‘Masochist’ and ‘Doom (Empty)’, you know what you’re going to get with ‘The Bastards’. And with a stylistic approach that seems to be largely based around throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks, subtlety is the only thing that appears to have been left out. There are interesting moments, tracks like early single ‘Lonely’ giving a hint of what Palaye Royale could achieve. With a much angrier and more ferocious sound behind them now, it remains to be seen what their existing fanbase make of it. Dangerous territory for a band who still seem to be searching for themselves. P Jamie MacMillan

ROLLING BLACKOUTS COASTAL FEVER SIDEWAYS TO NEW ITALY

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Life on the road for a touring band can be many things: it’s no surprise that many find themselves yearning for home and

words acting like a sorbet to the mind so the sweet jams can continue their journey without rotting away, before you know it the ‘Wasted On Me’ journey disappears into a laid back sunset where life feels just that bit more manageable.

P Steven Loftin

THE GHOST INSIDE THE GHOST INSIDE

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It’s been almost a year since The Ghost Inside’s comeback show following a tragic bus accident in 2015 which saw the LA five-piece rattled to the core.

Having to overcome such tremendous hurdles, they’ve now returned with their fifth offering, and one thing’s for sure, there are demons to exorcise. ‘Still Alive’, with its curdling call of “This is the new sound of sacrifice” says it all.

This is The Ghost Inside paying homage to themselves; layering brutality with melodies that simmer. The Ghost Inside are back, and nothing can stop them. P

Steven Loftin

WALLFLOWER

TEACH YOURSELF TO SWIM

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SPACEY JANE SUNLIGHT

eeeee

Cool, breezy garage cats Spacey Jane have emerged with a debut album that’s full to the brim of their soon-to-be classic sound. Knowing that what they do best is popping a melody with lyrics which dig deep into the soul, the Aussie four-piece have enhanced this twenty-fold and are all the better for it. The confidence exuding from every this-is-our moment jam they’ve conjured up makes sure to cherish every moment you spend with it. With

Brooding intensity is the order of the day for Wallflower’s debut. A band who’ve been tinkering away, honing their craft across a smattering of singles and EPs, ‘Teach Yourself To Swim’ is a fullyrealised stare down of intricate human emotions while swinging wildly with the unhinged flow that life can often bring. The full on crunch of guitars like thunder clouds are where the heart of Wallflower emanates, but no one moment is wasted on their journey through the fragile human psyche, totalling a debut that is the embodiment of growth and development where Wallflower hold their emo predecessors dear. P

Steven Loftin

Upset 53

EVERYONE HAS THOSE FORMATIVE BANDS AND TRACKS THAT FIRST GOT THEM INTO MUSIC AND HELPED SHAPE THEIR VERY BEING. THIS MONTH, DIET CIG TAKE US THROUGH SOME THE SONGS THAT MEANT THE MOST TO THEM DURING THEIR TEENAGE YEARS. WITH... DIET CIG THE EXPLODING HEARTS Throwaway Style Alex: I was OBSESSED with Fall

Out Boy as a teen, I would scour YouTube for every video of them ever. There was this one video of Pete Wentz, and this song was the background music. I was obsessed with this song, but could never figure out who it was by!

It took me years ‘til I found it - I was 19 years old at a show at the DIY venue Shea Stadium (RIP) in Brooklyn, and it was playing over the speakers.

THE USED All That I’ve Got Noah: I remember watching

Fuse TV’s Stephen’s Untitled Rock Show (I think I was in sixth grade?) and the music video came on for this song. I was instantly hooked! I went to best buy and bought the CD ‘In Love And Death’ and also their self-titled first record. I’ve never been the same since!

HELLOGOODBYE Here (In Your Arms) Alex: I got this CD when I was like

13 (?) and listened to this song over and over again, hearing it brings me back so HARD!!! Middle School was emotional, man. I got my period for the first time the day before Valentine’s Day in sixth grade, and the same day my CRUSH put a TEDDY BEAR in my locker!!! It was a day full of a lot of feelings. Times were simpler.

EVALINE Calm Touching Noah: I remember finding their

EP late at night, surfing the web. I think I found out that the guitarist of The Used produced it and was interested to hear what it was like. Instantly found my fave

54 Upset

EP to drum to. Especially ‘Calm Touching’. I loved the syncopation and style of the drums.

MIRAH Engine Heart Alex: I loved this song in high school; I remember visiting NYC for the first time without my family on a field trip and listening to this on the bus, full of hope and excitement. It immediately makes me think of the smell of Central Park.

PIGLET Caramel Noah: This song gets me every time! Honestly, the whole EP ‘Lava Land’ is so friggin’ good! These guys really opened my world to math rock and feel. Melodic guitars, sick drums! I’m all about it!

REGINA SPEKTOR Ghost of Corporate Future Alex: My mom introduced me to

Regina Spektor, and I feel like this album was this special shared thing we had. I played a lot of soccer growing up, all year round, and my mom coached some teams.

She’d always play this record in the car on the way, we’d sing all the words super loud. This song makes me think of waiting in the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru at 7am and drinking their crappy hot chocolate together.

GIRAFFES? GIRAFFES! A Quick One, While She’s Away Noah: This was my release song. If I was ever feeling bad and needed to get away, I’d throw this tune on my headphones. I remember skipping class a bunch in high school and wandering around listening to this until somebody noticed I was gone. P

Diet Cig’s album ‘Do You Wonder About Me?’ is out now.