“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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Riot_
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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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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the
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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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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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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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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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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
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