Tag: new album

Aaron Bruno In-Depth On Everything ‘MEGATONS’

Posted on by joshwurz

Through nearly two decades across multiple acts, there was one itch that frontman Aaron Bruno couldn’t quite scratch: going back to his hardcore roots. Starting his musical career in his teenage years in Los Angeles, Bruno dabbled in all subsects of heavy music before then shifting focus to other genres and getting his big break with a name every household will know: AWOLNATION. The success over the years was evident, but the desire to return to the sweaty hardcore clubs chock-full of people’s undivided attention and unrelenting energy always loomed. So when wind of Tinfed guitarists’ and seasoned studio producer Eric Stenman’s hardcore demos got to Bruno in 2024, The Barbarians of California emerged from the smoke. 

With their debut LP, And Now I’m Just Gnashing My Teeth, being an instant statement in the hardcore community, as well as Bruno still finding his footing in the genre he hasn’t touched in decades, making the sophomore record a confident continuation of what had worked before made the most sense. With the lineup additionally consisting of lead guitarist Zach Irons, bassist David Amezcua, and drummer Linden Reed, they step into their new record MEGATONS with more fury, angst, and tongue-in-cheek humor than the last, showing that Barbarians isn’t a one-off; they’re in your face, they’re unapologetically loud, and they are here to stay. 

Hit Parader caught up with Bruno to dig into the project, the new record, the upcoming tour, and the joy of going back to your hardcore roots. I don’t say this lightly; if you need some new heavy music in your life, MEGATONS is one of the best places to start. 

Cred. Greg Flack

Hit Parader: What’s the most fun thing about being in the Barbarians of California for you?

Aaron Bruno: No one’s asked me that. That’s a great question. There’s so much about it that is fun that it’s insane. I can’t say I’ve had this much fun since I was 16. Musically, I think a lot of it has to do with the pressure being lifted off my shoulders and the weight being lifted off from AWOLNATION into this, because this is still a passion project that has just become serious, but the passion remains. I’m not doing it to feed my career, or start a career, or chase the dragon of success. I’m doing it because I truly love heavy music, and I feel like we’re very good at that, for people with ears to hear this heavy music. So it’s just so rewarding, and to answer your question in a long-winded way.

HP: It seems very rewarding.

AB: Since I was 16, I’ve been chasing the reaction that I’m getting now. From 16, I’m in a punk band, then a hardcore band, then a more rock band, and I don’t want to bore the readers here with my whole documentary story. But then a lot of failures, you mentioned Under the Influence of Giants before we started, Hometown Hero, and then, of course, AWOLNATION, and I hadn’t had any success until AWOLNATION. When that all took off, that was a surprise, and really a miracle, because it wasn’t supposed to, and it did. With that, with the audiences growing, the crowds becoming more intense, I brought a little bit of the hardcore spirit with me, because that’s where I came from.

But then you’re looking at some people in the front row who have never been to a concert in their life. I’ll be eyeing someone who is really drunk in the back, or a mother and a daughter, or a father and a daughter or son and family event, because they all became a bit of, not necessarily the band name is a household name, but certainly I have a couple songs that became household. Can I even say that? Household songs? 

HP: I would say so, for sure.

AB: So doing stage dives and bringing that energy, sometimes it worked, but oftentimes I’m like, this is a little too aggressive for the people who are coming to the show. So cut all the way to now, it’s this camaraderie, it’s this understanding where I’m getting the reaction physically from the audience that I’ve been looking for my whole life. And probably the most insanely fun thing about this is that the gentlemen in the band are very, very good musicians, so I could sing a part, I could try to sing every part on the record, or I could just skip out and not, and it’s still entertaining enough because what they’re doing is so impressive.

So to answer your question, I would say the crowd reaction and the shows have been the funnest part of this, and I just feel like I’m playing with house money, because there’s nothing to lose at all. It’s all upside.

HP: That’s awesome. Hardcore shows tend to be very communal, so apart from the specific form of hardcore crowd interaction, what has been your favorite part of the live show compared to other projects?

AB: With this, it’s just a different kind of energy, and it’s not quite as heavy emotionally, I guess. And I think it’s well deserved as far as how intense the fifteen years of AWOLNATION has been, because it’s a lot of pressure, and I love it, and I’ll continue to do that as well. But with Barbarians, it’s kind of just a fun throwdown with a bunch of buddies, and what I’m saying is that at these shows, I can just walk right in, and it’s not a big deal. It’s kind of an understanding that we rarely have barriers.

We did that Deftones show, of course those were in arenas, so that was different because it was such a big event because of them, not because of us, and so we experienced barriers and separation there. But we just played the Roxy, no barrier. We played the Troubadour, no barrier. And this headlining run we’re about to do in fall, I doubt there will be any barriers. I don’t even need a dressing room with this project. I could just be hanging out and then just go play the show.

HP: That’s amazing.

AB: It really is, and I’ll address the hardcore scene too. It’s rooted in hardcore, but we obviously dabble in metal, so I guess it would be metalcore, but labels are insane, and everybody wants to label every different band something. I’m buddies with Brian Garris from Knocked Loose, and we love them, I think they’re the greatest out right now. We hit it off on this cruise we did. AWOL and Barbarians and Knocked Loose played this cruise, and I said, what would you call us? And he said, “Well, I guess it’s metalcore adjacent,” and he adds these comparisons.

But all that to be said, at our shows so far, and I’m still just getting to know the audience, you’ll have kids who are doing classic hardcore dances that have clearly been to a lot of hardcore shows, and people who just like heavy music, whether it be Sepultura, Slayer, and everything in between. So I feel very blessed that so far we’re not pigeonholed as one genre specifically.

Cred. Greg Flack

HP: That’s fair. You were talking about pressure specifically from the AWOL days, and having lived through that pressure following the breakout Megalithic Symphony LP, what experiences from then, going into the second record of AWOL, informed either choices, precautions, or just anything when you were approaching a sophomore album for The Barbarians of California?

AB: They’re so completely different, and even with AWOL, that second record, it was the first time I had followed up success, breakout, freakish success, so there was definitely a different kind of pressure. But I enjoyed that pressure because I knew I had the audience’s attention. So I think a lot of people were thinking, okay, well, what’s he going to do now? And I knew I had that sophomore follow-up, fun seat at the table where I could make a song like “Run” that ended up being, I think, arguably my second most known song, and I just knew I had that moment, so I took my time with it, and that was great. But that being said, I’d made so many albums from the age of 18 all the way into my 30s that it wasn’t really a sophomore album; it was like the seventh album I’d made in my career, just under the name AWOLNATION. So it’s a little different. But with Barbarians [of California], this kind of just feels like an extension of the first record.

Hopefully, hopefully there’s improvements and people find it to be a little better. But you know how this goes: when you discover a band, and you fall in love with their first record, it’s almost impossible to like their second one more. So hopefully it’s just that there’s something for everyone who likes the first record on this one, and until we get tired of doing it, and it isn’t fun, and we don’t seem like we’re on top of our game, it’s all one thing to me.

So to answer your question, there are no rules in this band. I can’t even believe we made a full first album, let alone doing a second one now. So it’s just kind of like this great gift that keeps giving.

HP: That’s all you could ask for. In what ways is the sophomore record an extension? Is it sonically a continuation, lyrically a continuation, or were there other spots where you tried to break habit from the first record, or is it literally just going straight from where you left off?

AB: I think we’re just picking up where we left off, and they always say you have your whole life to make your first record, and then six months for the second one, whatever, however that goes. And I’m contradicting my earlier AWOL journey story there, but in this case it still feels like Eric and I have had our whole lives to make all of these songs, because it’s sort of like, oh, what if we did that there? I’ve always wanted to do that, because with heavy music like this, a lot of it is dependent on the ability of the musician.

When we were all in high school bands, with hardcore, you could always tell when there were some bands that didn’t necessarily have the talent, but they had the passion and they had great ideas and great parts, but maybe not necessarily the technical ability to pull off the most extreme version of that. I was in a band where we were limited, I was limited as a singer, as a vocalist, as a thinker lyrically as well. But now I’m around so many great musicians, and I’ve become a producer, and Eric is a great engineer, so if we think of the idea, we can execute it, and that’s just a weapon that I never had before when making heavy music.

HP: So there are no bottlenecks anymore, so to speak; you guys are just ready to go.

AB: Yeah, it’s kind of like AWOLNATION kept boxing, I love boxing, grew up watching Mike Tyson, and heavyweight boxing was a big deal to me. So AWOL feels like classic boxing, and now Barbarians is MMA.

HP: I love that analogy. And you said that hardcore has always been a part of your life, it was where you started back in high school, and that you said in a previous interview that hardcore taught you not just the ethos, but how to start and operate a band, book shows, put flyers out, and overall just an introduction to DIY culture as a whole. With this more modern iteration of hardcore, what aspects of that culture and that ethos do you want to preserve through Barbarians of California?

AB: Well, it’s just so easy to reach people now, and I slugged it out with trying to get people to pay attention to my different bands growing up, whether, like you mentioned, it was flyering different high schools or going to other shows and handing out stuff and learning how to communicate with people, learning how to talk to the cute girl to try to get her to come to the show, or these guys that were wearing striped shirts, or whatever, and everybody else around. That was so difficult, but adventurous and fun, that now, you get to hide behind a phone. So you could kind of do whatever you want, you just have to have a good imagination, and it’s an exciting time in music, in my opinion. 

A lot of people complain about social media and the old guard of tastemakers being gone and whatnot, and I realize there are influencers all over the place, but now you can release music, have it completely fail, and then only for someone to do a clever story with that song, only for it to have a second, third, and fourth life and blow up later. So the old guard of needing to be in Rolling Stone, or whichever hip magazine, or even website or blog, doesn’t matter anymore. You just put out music, and I’d like to think that if it’s good enough, enough people will talk about it, or it’ll catch attention. Of course some great songs slip through the cracks, and that’s definitely common as well. But I’d like to think that the karma of good songwriting is on the side of sincerity, and it’ll find its way. It may not be in your lifetime, but it could find its way, and that’s the hope I like to lean into, and optimism.

Back to the DIY question you actually asked, though, we’ve taken that approach. There were a few ways to go about this, or sit around and wait for the cool label or whatever, but you can kind of carve your own path. I do have the luxury of the success of AWOLNATION, but I will say I thought it’d be easier. When we first released “Dopamine Prophecy,” the first song, and then the first record, I thought, however many millions of people knew about AWOLNATION, or at least my songs, I just assumed at least half of them would join the dark side of the Barbarians of California, but it was not the case at all. In fact, it’s almost in reverse. A lot of people are discovering Barbarians, and then eventually going, holy shit, I had no idea it was that guy. And while that has been surprising to me, it’s a more rewarding way to build it brick by brick.

HP: I was reading some of the YouTube comments today, and a few were along the lines of, “Wow, I didn’t even know this guy was in AWOLNATION, this music is great,” which has got to be somewhat of a freeing feeling, to have a separate life outside of it.

AB: Totally. Well, we’ll play these shows, like we just did that tour with Converge and Poison the Well, and I’d walk on stage, and I know that no one knows what I do, or let’s say ninety-five to ninety-nine percent of the audience has never seen me on stage before, or if they have, they don’t realize it’s me again. And it’s been so effing fun. It’s almost like a quarterback that had a really nice run, had a couple of Pro Bowl seasons, and then got traded to a new team, has a new uniform, and has a fresh beginning, that kind of thing. That’s a ridiculous analogy, but I think you get the point. So it’s just been so fun walking on stage and throwing down, because I feel like with AWOL, and you can see some of the stuff on YouTube from some of these major festivals we’ve done, I could tell that we were getting a little too ridiculous in the heavy zone, and losing the audience just a bit. But where I came from, it was hard to hide that or suppress that desire to scratch the itch of heaviness, or screaming, or laying into a heavy riff, or whatever.

So this feels almost more comfortable to me, and maybe that’s part of the appeal of AWOL, that there’s a tension and an awkwardness because it’s so vulnerable. Barbarians doesn’t feel vulnerable at all. It feels like I’m in a bar fight with a bunch of friends, hypothetically and lightheartedly, of course [laughs].

Cred. Greg Flack

HP: Fair enough [laughs]. When people describe Barbarians as a hardcore band, and you were discussing how pigeonholing is a very real thing with genres as a whole, you use a lot of electronic touches, the modern fashion sample, the outro to “Really Really Rad,” and then “Shark Out of Water” is just an acoustic track on the record. In your opinion, what thread ties all these tracks together, whether it just be the sound production or just how the music is very inherently Barbarians of California?

AB: I don’t really know yet. Maybe I failed at that, hopefully not. 

HP: I would say that they all sound cohesive. 

AB: Thank goodness, that’s great. Well, I don’t know, I loved the heavy records that push the limits, I guess I like all music that kind of spreads its wings a bit to cover other grounds. I personally can’t just listen to fifteen songs of full X-rated brutality, musically. Sometimes I want to take a breath, and hopefully this record provides that with some of the segues. Like you mentioned, “Shark Out of Water,” I love Metallica, I love the Black Album. A lot of people try to be purist and say the Black Album isn’t good, and I think it’s great. I also love Refused’s “The Shape of Punk to Come,” and I don’t mean to imply that I’m comparing Megatons to any of these great albums, but we have no, there are no rules with this thing. So as far out as we can go, I’m happy to do so. Sometimes I’m looking at a song, like at the end of “Really Really Rad,” you mentioned the disco part that comes in, and I just didn’t know where else to go. I didn’t really want to end the song there, so I thought, you know what, I have this thing in my head that we could do that’s kind of silly and fun, let’s just try it. And then I thought it was cool. If someone hates that, you could always just turn it and go to the next heavy part [laughs].

HP: [Laughs] Fair. You spent a lot of time being the sole mind behind projects, working with Eric and the rest of the band on these two projects. How has it felt to occupy a slightly different role, co-writing, co-producing inside of a project that you’re still fronting on stage?

AB: Well, there’s certainly a lot less pressure, so I think it frees me up to have even more ideas, whether it’s for a guitar riff or just a vocal cadence, and there’s a lot of help all around me. I’ve said this before, and I’m running the risk of sounding too confident, it’s really easy for us right now, and I bet there is going to come a point where it’s not, and it becomes more of a challenge, maybe if we get bigger or it becomes more of a business. Right now it’s not, we’re just trying not to lose a bunch of money, and so far we’re even, and it’s just a fun experience, but it’s pretty quick and easy.

If Eric has something that sparks an idea, I listen to it, and I know what I like and what I don’t pretty well at this point in my life. He may say something like, that ain’t happening, man, I’m off that, and then we move on to the next idea. But we have a little drawer full of ideas, whether it’s Zach, who’s a psychotically talented guitar player, and Eric’s more of a robotic engineer mind that has these vicious riffs that are a little more calculated, and even our drummer Lyndon has some nice riffs that, even though he’s a drummer, have sparked something.

So with AWOL it’s all on me, and with this it’s a team effort, and the help is greatly appreciated at this point in my life.

HP: Out of curiosity, you’ve discussed in past interviews about how you want the theme of positivity to be a through message of these projects. I understand that there’s a layer of silliness and sometimes satire throughout the lyricism, but if the listener had to draw one theme, or takeaway from the lyricism off of this record, what would you hope that to be?

AB: You’re catching me at the infancy stage of this thing, so I’m learning what this is as time goes on, in a lot of ways, and I don’t know. I’m just happy people like it. And heavy music is so intense already, and I’d like to think that we’re very heavy, so it feels most natural to sing or scream with a tinge of sarcasm.

Remember, most humor and sarcasm has a bit of truth in it, and again, at this point in my life, I’ve studied so many artists and so many writers, I think it was finally time for me to allow a little bit more playfulness and humor into these lyrics. It doesn’t always work with AWOL, I have to walk a fine line, it doesn’t feel right all the time. But with this stuff, it just feels, I can’t explain it, it feels so, if my voice is in a place, let’s say on a scale of one to ten, if it’s pinging on a ten as far as intensity and aggressiveness, it sometimes just feels overbearing for it also to be a very dark, intense, serious lyric.

Some people pull that off really well with their voice, I find that it just feels too, and I love sports, by the way, and I played a lot of sports, but it feels like jock vibes to me when I hit too dark of a lyric, screaming that hard. Again, some people pull it off really well, it just doesn’t work for my voice, something feels kind of cringe when I hear it back. So I’ve found a way, when I write these lyrics and sing these parts, I’m hoping that the rest of the guys laugh at least once, not like it’s slapstick, but I want it to be so insane and so ridiculous, kind of going all the way back to what I loved about hip-hop in the ’80s, and I was lucky enough to discover it before it became mainstream pop music.

A lot of these guys would just be bragging, and that was the thing they did. LL Cool J’s “I’m Bad” was a big song to me, Public Enemy, a big part of that was to have this bravado and make these ridiculous claims. So I’ve approached it with a bit of that sarcasm, and it’s kind of like, I’m just kidding, but if you love it, I’m serious. You know what I mean?

HP: I love that quote. “I’m just kidding, but if you love it, I’m serious.” That’s fun. If you had to, but if you had to choose a song that felt like a representation of the record, what would you say they were? Or alternatively, what’s the thing you’re most looking forward to for the rest of the year?

AB: Looking forward to the tour, looking forward to these festivals that we’re playing, and as we grow I’m seeing our name climb a little higher on the big flyer. Ever since I was a little kid, that was a thing, in the beginning your name is really small at the bottom, and then as things go and the word spreads, if you’re lucky, it becomes a little higher and higher and higher. So it’s nice to see that growth. 

HP: You’re playing Louder [than Life], right? 

AB: Yeah, so I’m seeing band names that were big influences and heroes of ours growing up, so that’s incredibly cool. But as far as the record goes, the first song, “Back to the Valley,” is probably my favorite song on the record, if I had to pick one, and the reason is, I’ve been chasing the finale riff of that song my whole life, and I feel like I finally did it. If the world were to erupt tomorrow, I could rest easy knowing that I delivered the one riff I’d been chasing my whole life. Now that I’ve done it, it’s time to rethink and chase another one down, but for the time being, I’m still riding this high, that I feel like one piece, yeah, and then I come in with the most insanely ridiculous line I could think of, and I was trying to channel a Muhammad Ali level of confidence, slash professional wrestling attitude, after the riff. So I don’t know if people take it as just too conceited or understand that it’s just for fun.

Presave MEGATONS by The Barbarians of California, out August 21, 2026 here.

Wave To Earth’s New LP Has No ‘Bad Pieces’

Posted on by joshwurz

Tranquility is more than just a feeling but a combination of environment, mood, and circumstances. There are not many projects that lend themselves more to helping along this feeling than wave to earth’s new LP, bad pieces. The Seoul trio of Daniel Kim, John Cha, and Dong Q is back after a 2-year gap since their last entry in their discography. With an innovative take on a previous sound and a willingness to break what would be perceived as their old formula. The band has spent the time diligently heading towards a sound that feels both mature and inspired. The sat down with us to give us a glimpse into the writing process, talk creative risks they took on the album, and the intent behind the title. 

HP: How is your year going so far? 

Daniel Kim: We’ve been working hard trying to make a good album. I’ve also been working on my other band, The Poles. We’ve also been prepping for the tour. 

HP:  What’s the last notable song you guys listened to? 

DK: I recently watched the new Spider-Man movie, and in the end, Steve Lacy’s “Oh Yeah?” is on the soundtrack. I’ve been listening to that one a lot. 

John Cha: I bought some vinyls from the old Stevie Wonder records. It was the aquarium album. I’m not sure about the tile. It had “Higher Ground” and “Ribbon In The Sky.” (Original Musiquarium)

Dong Q: Amie Blu 

HP: Getting into the album title Bad pieces. What is the story behind the title and what inspired it? 

DK: While we were in the process of making the album, one of our team members showed us a photo of Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s bed peace protest bed-ins. We thought it would be fun to play around with those words. 

HP: What were the themes that you wanted to display through invoking that imagery?

DK: This album contains songs about growth, about being confused, and about trying to find peace. But apart from that, through the process of creating these songs, a lot of them came out spontaneously, Like, Pieces. We wanted to convey the message of how these are somewhat bad pieces or ugly pieces, but when we put them together, they become one beautiful piece. 

HP: Speaking on that spontaneity, when talking about performing in a jazz venue, you were able to improvise more than in other venues. Is that something you plan on bringing to this tour? 

JC: It will be more of a curated show because, for bigger venues, we somewhat can improvise, but we set a more detailed show. So it has a large amount of structure to it. For the jazz venues, we have experience with small gig shows. We had jazzy songs and the space for that in the music. For the big venues, it is more structured and curated. 

DQ: We actually don’t really think about improvising or internationally trying to improvise. It’s more about what we feel on that day while we are playing and the vibes of the room. WE try to focus on our performance, and then that brings out the improvising. It’s not an intentional thing. 

HP: When talking about this new album, it feels like you guys have matured into your sound in a lot of ways. What were the objectives and themes that felt like a focal point going into the writing process? 

DK: This album was made in a pretty straightforward, simple process compared to our previous records. Some of these final versions were actually the exact same as the demos. We’ve used the demos as the final version, and there was a lot of mixing. Tossing around demos and masters throughout this entire process. We tried to figure out a way to make a cohesive album throughout with that workflow. Overall, I think as artists, we as individual artists have grown and matured. I think that’s displayed on the album. 

Cred. Ted Min @tedminted

HP: With the tones on this project, you guys still maintain the key feeling of wave to earth. There is this feeling of “warmth” that’s consistent throughout all of your work. How do you guys focus on keeping those key elements while experimenting with new sounds? 

DK: Personally, that’s my preference, the warmth and vibe of wave to earth. This album we used a lot of songs from my other two members. I think in that process we could have had a completely different color and vibe to the album compared to our previous records. I try really hard to keep the original essence of our previous wave to earth records on this one as well. That’s just who we are. 

 JC: Still, the whole process is all from our hands. Even though we got quite sought out, we still don’t have any external producers. We’re still all producing. He’s doing the producing (points to Daniel). The entire project is coming out from our studio. From the mixing, recording, and mastering, all of that. That really felt quite essential to us to maintain that character of wave to earth. I think that’s why it contains the same soul. 

HP: One thing that really stuck out to me—maybe it’s just the tracks that caught my attention—but there seemed to be funk and blues elements. Was that something that you naturally went towards, or was it something that was an intentional incorporation?

DK: For this album, in terms of what you asked, there was a lot of intention behind those things, incorporating blues and funk elements. We focused a lot on the essence of those genres. We tried to incorporate the essential elements of those genres into our songs. While trying, we also had to manage getting the wave to earth sound into it as well. That was the entire workflow. 

HP: It was very impressive because even the tones of the guitars and the basses—you could tell the inspiration was there. But it felt true to you guys in a way that was very hard to do. It felt very well thought out. 

JC: We also talked about it. We also heard the references to the genres. British and African American neo-soul are two different extreme ends, but they somewhat got mashed up. We were used to that sonic sound, but it felt like it had a wave to earth feeling to it. 

HP:  When it comes to writing, there is also The Poles and John, your solo stuff as well (Potatoi). How do you guys parcel through what is a wave to earth song versus the other bands in your creative radius? 

DK: In regard to John. We listened together to a lot of his demos that he had. Some of those go to Potatoi, and some go to wave to earth. When I listen to the songs, I intuitively know which song should be on a wave to earth album. The same goes for The Poles. It’s more of my intuition and my feeling when I listen to the song. 

HP:  With the naming of this album, you guys have broken away from the decimal system from previous albums. You’ve also talked about how that was there to create the feeling of a work in progress. Is the lack of a decimal a sign of this project being closer to “finished” than others?

JC:  We are kind of implying that theme as bad pieces is already incomplete. 

HP: (That went totally over my head till this moment in the interview.) 

DK:  We don’t really want to stop using the decimal system. It is not about giving up the decimals. We will be utilizing the decimal naming scheme somewhere else. 

HP:  You guys obviously sing and write most of the music in English. I can imagine there are some words that don’t directly translate as well. Is there a Korean word or phrase that you would love to use in a song, but the translation isn’t fitting or succinct enough? 

DK:  When I write, I try to write in English. I don’t think there’s a lot of frustration in terms of not finding the right English phrase for a Korean phrase I have in my mind. More of the frustration is maybe because I haven’t grown up in an English-speaking country, so it’s not my natural language. 

HP: What is the song off of the album that took the most out of you guys creatively? 

DK: All of the songs on this album were probably the hardest for me to write. More than any other song in my life. But for me, “skylark” was the one that was the longest and the most out of us. It was a new type of song for all of us, a new type of music for all of us, and it took a long time to create. We had many blocks in the process while we were creating this song. Eventually, what really resolved the writer’s block was going back to our very roots. When we started music, we listened to a lot of Motown, and I think those elements helped us finish the song. 

HP:  That’s fascinating because that’s my favorite song off the project. There is a very clear amount of thought and intention that bleeds through the track. 

JC: We had almost gathered up all our songs at that time. I had a little synth loop with the drum. It was right after listening to Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need.” It had shuffle groups. We still didn’t have any shuffle discography. So we talked about, “What if we do a shuffle thing with a taste of early 80s or 90s Michael Jackson?” We were going back and forth. At the production arrangement stage, it was quite blocked. He somewhat saw somebody playing a fretless bass. He was like, “Hey, John, you should get your fretless bass in that.” It is very unobvious to play a fretless bass in a funk group. 

DK: That was crazy. 

JC:  It was crazy and very odd, but very nice and amazing at the same time. 

HP:  Yeah, I saw fretless bass in the credits for the song, and that stuck out to me. What do you think drew you to the fretless compared to a normal bass? 

JC: Oh, the tonals. It’s very hard to match up, and I never tried to play one. Buying that fretless bass was also a rare experience. We went to some guitar shop, and there was a specific bass that was kind of broken. It wasn’t selling for such a long time, and we just felt that if we’re not buying it, nobody is going to. We got it somehow. We were pretty much considering how to use it in the album, and we were pretty much not doing it. He just made a spark and used it in no other way. So it was so special to play that only in that one song. 

HP: What’s one band or artist you think should be more well known? 

DK: He is relatively well known, but Nick Hakim. I think he deserves to be more mainstream. I’ve been listening to him since I was young. 

DQ:  Ryan Beatty, I hope he gets more attention than he has now. 

JC: Potatoi.

HP:  Any last message to the fans or listeners? 

DK: This is our first full-length album in a very long time, and it might not be as good as your expectations, or it might be exceeding your expectations. But whether it’s good or bad, I just really hope that this album sticks with people for a long time and that I see you guys on the tour. 

Listen to bad pieces here.

Yard Act’s Newfound Freedom on ‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’

Posted on by joshwurz

From their 2019 inception in the Capital of the North, Leeds-bred post-punk quartet Yard Act were never the outfit to sit quietly in the shadows. From the second their assertive statement of a debut LP, The Overload, was released four years ago, it was universally understood that the group wasn’t interested in beating around the bush regarding things they feel strongly about, and conforming to styles and genres that might be more commercially appealing. This is a self-accepted choice voiced by lead vocalist James Smith, saying “I don’t think we’ll ever be a big band in that sense, because I don’t think what we do is meant to connect on that level,” but to those who aren’t afraid of unapologetic political messaging and brutal honesty over screaming post-punk bound solely by the limits of the minds in the band itself, then their new LP You’re Gonna Need A Little Music, released on July 17 2026 via Island Records, will set your previously concieved bar a hell of a lot higher. It’s a representation of “four very different opinions that manage to democratically put the same foot forward” (Smith), additionally made up of guitarist Sam Shipstone, bassist Ryan Needham, and drummer Jay Russell; the four of them “wrestling and finding harmony and dissonance at the same time, and managing to do that while having fun” (Smith). It is glaringly apparent after the first listen how much thought, care, and effort went into this album, and the end result is some of the best post-punk to be released this decade. 

The art of the album, above all else, is at the heart of Yard Act’s ethos, and with the music industry ever pushing artists toward releasing singles to optimize the algorithm, they’ve intentionally taken a step toward the way other artists came before. “We’re definitely luddites, we’re like relics in that sense,” Smith states, “We’re out of time as an albums band in this world.” Their philosophy of appreciating works (albums) as a collective piece rather than individual songs is a sentiment shared across all generations. “I think as a body of work, as a statement, a forty to forty-five-minute album [doesn’t] need to be changed,” Smith states, as “that’s what I grew up with, that’s how I got into bands, it wasn’t through singles.” While every single song on You’re Gonna Need A Little Music is incredible individually, the magic lies in the project as a whole, and the dynamic range it possesses. “I hate the idea of bangers,” Smith admits. “Bangers are for your frontal lobe, bangers are fun, but it can’t all be bangers all the time; it’s like fast food,” and that “substance and range is important.” The substance is evident, the range is captivating, and for the first time in Yard Act’s career, they made a record the way they always wanted to: fully together. 

Cred. James Winstanley

The previous two full-lengths, The Overload and Where’s My Utopia?, were what Smith referred to as “laptop records,” where the creation process consisted of “writing and recording it on the back of the tour bus. Essentially writing it together, but one at a time.” Smith reflects, “I’d build a beat, or Jay would build a beat, and then Ryan would lay some bass on, and Sam would lay some guitar on, and I would lay some keys on, or Jay would lay some keys on, and then the vocals would be put up.” But to Smith, that inhibited the group, as those records didn’t translate directly to the live stage, Smith said that “We’re a live band, and we were going out and reframing those songs as new versions in a live format that we couldn’t capture that way.” So in the talks of the creation of LP3, one thing was clear: to accurately capture the core of the “live band” Yard Act is, they had to record the full-length entirely as a band, in the same room, at the same time. 

They built a studio in their home base of Leeds and specced it completely to their requirements, which opened up new paths of exploration that weren’t possible before. “The main thing is that intuition led us a lot more,” Smith explained. “If you didn’t like the tempo of something, or needed to shift and modulate the key to fit the vocals better, we could just start again and do another take, and it would be done in three to five minutes, and then we’d have that version, purely based on impulse, what felt better.” Another thing Smith said made a substantial difference was the ability to create and act purely as a unit rather than the layered production style described above. “We found that we were thinking less about ourselves and more about the song,” Smith states. “The individual parts weren’t as important. You’re working as a unit at the same time.” A metaphor used by Smith makes the difference clear, because if the first two records were like “ants bringing a crumb at a time to the colony,” then You’re Gonna Need A Little Music is “a bear sticking its paw in a hive and scooping the honey out in one go.”

Cred. James Winstanley

The metaphor isn’t bulletproof, however, as the scooping of that honey ended up taking the group six months of straight writing, producing, and recording. That allotted time was a new experience in its own right, as “in the past we’ve had to conclude the endpoint so much faster because of time limits; those decisions are kind of made for you,” Smith stated. Nearly unlimited freedom in regard to time and resources was presented after two projects made in directly opposite conditions, and Smith says that “because we’d never had it before, at the very start I was kind of quite stressed about settling into uninterrupted creativity; I wanted to get ahead of myself because I wanted to understand the vision at the start.” But that feeling faded fast. “It disappeared by the end of the first month, and it got to a state where we just wrote a song a day, that was just for pure fun,” Smith confesses. 

When you distill the idea of creating music down to its base form, the act is viewed a bit differently, and with a bit more whimsy, by Yard Act. “The grand artistic statement is disingenuous if you think that’s what you’re making; you’re just playing.” Smith chuckles, yet the statement does hold gravity. “I mean we’re playing music, but you’re playing like a kid.” With the stress fading and fear of time constraints and judgment gone, confidence and trust in one another filled that emotional space. “We had faith in the fact that the sound of the four of us and the chemistry we had would be our sound,” Smith states, adding that “nothing else could define it other than the fact that it was us four in that room making it.” After all those months of “playing”, experimenting with new sounds, and at its roots making a hivemind of a record, Smith explains that “it was only towards the end of the project we started to see how we could form and string these songs together, and see what the through-line was between the pieces.” But come together it did. During this recording period, Smith explains that “It was the happiest I’ve ever been, and I do think that shows on the record. There’s so much playfulness and joy on it, despite the fact it’s probably lyrically a darker record than the ones we’ve done.”

It is a fascinating thought, combining dark, political, personal grievances with the described whimsy coming with the freedom to create. But these motifs can be compartmentalized in a healthy manner for Smith, as he notes that “darkness is an energy you tap into and feel. Especially over a six-month period, you feel those low moments, you feel those moments of anger and darkness and aggression, but you don’t stay in them,” and that with the creation of songs with darker themes, “you have to have faith that the essence is still there, even though the mood shifted.” The core of the lyricism inspired by political angst, and dressed in a fantastical, consumable format, but one track in particular had a story behind it that broke that pattern: “Janey Said”. 

The track was “inspired by a real conversation I had,” Smith said, adding that “it was originally called ‘Billy Said’ and it was set around a conversation I had in a cafe with my friend Billy.” While the vivid story told through the song was based on that conversation, Smith “didn’t really know what I was trying to say until I heard the song ‘Tom’s Diner’ by Suzanne Vega,” which, when comparing the two, is interesting as the songs could not be further from each other. “But as this person spirals into their own self-importance, they start to observe less and less detail as the song goes on, until at the end they don’t even ask Janey what their issue was, because they’ve become so embroiled in their own self-importance. So it’s kind of a reverse ‘Tom’s Diner,’” Smith states, as both the conversation with Billy and the track “Tom’s Diner”, “sparked the premise of how to reverse-engineer the idea, instead of realizing that you’re watching people and being watched, you stop watching and start just getting in your own head and thinking you’re the most important thing in the world, and you don’t notice anything going on in your peripheries.” This concept directly ties into the record’s core themes of hyper-individualism stemming from neo-liberalism, which, as Smith states, even for casual listeners, “you don’t have to be politically engaged to realize, you might not know it, but you are first operating under the neoliberal proviso of self.”

Cred. James Winstanley

These political call-to-actions, declarations, gripes, sneers, whatever you would want to call them, have always been, and continue to be, the seed that Yard Act’s tree grows from. Neoliberalism, the ideology and economic philosophy defined by corporate privatization and free-market individualism pushed simultaneously by the UK’s Margaret Thatcher and the US’s Ronald Reagan, is the political groundwork that has stained how people act in every way, not just economically. Smith states that he is trying to convey through the lyrics that “In regards to the American dream, I think that mentality has sort of penetrated the West, and the way Britain came on board with Thatcher and Reagan, we were the twin figureheads of neoliberalism, and then Tony Blair and Clinton carried it on for us.” The idea that people are functioning with self-interest too much in mind “has penetrated everything. Even to the point that art for art’s sake, I think it penetrates to the idea that we see music now as a product” and that the idea of commercialization and ownership “has eroded the creative and philosophical and educational tangent that brought us from the post-war world into what could have been a utopia.” All of this shows Yard Act isn’t afraid to speak out on how they feel, they aren’t comfortable with playing it safe and aren’t ready to live in a world where music, the art form we all collectively love, is distilled down to just a product to be consumed. 

Yard Act’s rise over the seven years since the band’s inception has been staggering, going from Smith and Needham moving in together and writing minimalist rock tracks in Meanwood, a green suburb a mile northeast of Leeds, with a borrowed bass guitar, to having their debut record chart at #2 on the UK Album charts, playing Coachella and SXSW music festivals, and receiving critical acclaim for all the music they’ve released. That editorial eye affected Smith, both positively and negatively. “When we did South [by Southwest] in 2022, it was accelerating so fast, and we were getting all this praise and press attention, and the gigs were all selling out rapid fire, and the venues were getting bigger. Even at that stage there was no money, and we all dropped our jobs to do it, and we were like, ‘why are we skint [broke]’.” Smith continued by saying, “I think a lot of people thought we were instantly rich, and I had a breakdown, because I was like, ‘we’ve just played a thousand-cap venue, and I’ve got no money, this is messing me up.’” But as the financials evened out, time passed, and most importantly, Smith gained more and more deserved confidence in his own creative vision, the press critiques were less effective; while he “never fully got there, but I do care less and less every time, because I kind of hate that I give a shit about it,” Smith jokes. And with those experiences and mindset shifts came a new feeling going into this record: having no self-inflicted pressure. 

“I don’t even feel pressure on myself for the first time, because doing this album unlocked something in me, where I realized I trust my own ideas.” That trust is apparent when listening; Smith is lyrically at his best on You’re Gonna Need A Little Music, and the instrumentation is better than ever before, with it feeling like how they feel it should: a band playing in-your-face kick-ass post-punk with poignant messaging alongside. “I can do what I want, I trust my own intuition, and I trust those guys with my life,” Smith explains. “It wasn’t an easy ride to get here. The last four years were so fucking hard, and we all changed dramatically in that time.” But just as the record took six months to find a through line, it took four years of grit, belief, and determination to get over the hump, and “through it all we all had each other.”

Listen to You’re Gonna Need A Little Music, out now.

Bebe Stockwell Is Not Who You Expect 

Posted on by joshwurz

Most musicians, by nature, are introverts. This is not a generalization. This is what I have learned after thousands of interviews with artists from Aretha and Adele to ZZ Top and Warren Zevon. 

So, armed with this first-hand experience over decades, when I sat down with self-proclaimed folkie Bebe Stockwell, she of the quiet, introspective, lovely folk songs, I thought I knew exactly what to expect – a thoughtful, soft-spoken, shy singer/songwriter. Well, you know what they say about assuming, for good reason. 

The Los Angeles-based Stockwell is indeed thoughtful, but soft-spoken and shy? Definitely not, as I found out talking to her. Bebe Stockwell — EDM fan, extrovert who laughs constantly — is quite unexpected in a very fun way.

Hit Parader: Congratulations on the project! Listening to “When You Know,” I love the idea of you saying, “It’s not like in the movies.” And yet, every person has that picture of what falling in love with the movies is like. So, when you think of falling in love, what movie do you think of?

Bebe Stockwell: I think of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, or Notting Hill. Which, to me, is like movies I grew up on where I was like, “Oh, it’s going to be that easy.” I also do love rom coms. I think rom coms are blowing up right now, too. There are just so many movies about love and stuff. So, I was talking to my friends. We have this couch we all sit on, my friends in L.A., we usually watch rom coms, and [since] it’s really hard to date in L.A., we were all like, “Oh God, I wish it was this easy.” It’s a classic tale for single girls being, “Oh, I wish it was like how it was in the movies, but it’s the movies.”

HP: If you could live in any rom com and make music there, what would it be?

Stockwell: It would have to be Notting Hill because I have such a love for London that I would want to be in that movie. I would want to either be busking on the street or something. Yeah, I think Notting Hill would be a fun one. It’s a great movie; it makes me cry. I watch it every single time I’m on the airplane. Every single time. 

HP: How’s the European tour going? Have you been surprised by songs and the responses to them?

Stockwell: Yeah, I think because a lot of them I haven’t really shown the world yet because the record’s coming out tonight. I think I’ve played we played “Out of Line,” which is a song I haven’t put out yet and people have loved that live. It’s been really cool to see the response to that, maybe it’s the rhythm but I think people like the story of it and they like the rhythm of it. It’s different usage of my voice. I feel like I can sing really low but, in that song, I say it’s like a vocal warm-up almost because I start so low, then I go really high and then I go back down. So, to me, that song has surprised me how the crowd reacts. “New England Regret” I always say that I’m from New England or Boston, it depends which city I’m in. But people who are from New England really resonate with that song, which is really special to me because that’s why I wrote it, for the people back home. So that song, it was nice to see a reaction from the crowd. When I was writing it, I was listening to a bunch of songs about New England because I wrote the song and I was like, “What else is out there that is about where I’m from? They’re all such cute songs. When you listen to a song about New England all the songs are very “guitar-ian,” except there are a bunch of punk songs about Boston. But I feel like a summer New England song is very familiar.

Cred. Katherine Goguen

HP: Do you feel like having moved away and getting a little older you are feeling closer to New England and those roots?

Stockwell: I’ve always felt close to it. It’s an awesome place. I grew up with my grandparents living on the same street as me and for Christmas we just walked down the street. Then my other grandparents were across the park. So, everyone knows each other there.  I’m always one person, if that, away from knowing someone. It’s so small and I think people are so with it and so fun. And everyone knows how have a good time. It’s my favorite city. And I think as I get older, I am pulled back to it a lot. And I do see myself going back as I get older, but I’m too young. It’s a very chill city. So, I’m excited to go back.

HP: What made you move to L.A.?

Stockwell: I actually was going to move to London. The year before, I went abroad in London. And I was like, “Oh, I really want to move to London. I really like it here.” And I had a group of friends from NYU that had moved to L.A. and they were just having so much fun. At the point I just signed, and my best friend had moved to L.A. I followed her. I was like, “I need to go where she is.” And now we live right behind each other. I think it was more a decision of like, “Where are my friends at right now? Where’s the music at?” I felt good about that decision and I’m lucky that I get to come to London a good amount too now, so I get the best of both worlds.

HP: I find environment very much affects writing and recording so if you had moved to London do you this would have been a whole different project?

Stockwell: I made the record in Woodstock, so I wasn’t even in L.A. for all of it. I was just in the woods and Boston. I left for a really long chunk of time. I wrote all the songs before and then I took them to a producer named David Barron. He’s so lovely and we it was awesome, we just jammed out to all these ideas, and he brought new musicians in every day. I met a lot of new people, which I haven’t done before. I haven’t met as many musicians in my life as I met this year, so that was a super special moment.

HP: What made it so special?

Stockwell: I was friendly with David, so I trusted whoever he brought in and everyone who came in was just a really lovely person and so nice and so talented. So, just to be able to jam out and talk about ideas freely and also in the meantime randomly jam out and make new songs, it was just about having fun. If I’m not having fun, I can tell and it affects me. I talk about this with my friends a lot and it’s important to have fun. I had a very good time making this record.

HP: What was the most fun show you’ve been to? 

Stockwell: I’ve been to two Olivia Dean shows and those have always been my favorite. A Lumineers show and Olivia Dean show have been all-time favorite shows because they’re just having so much fun on stage. Also, I love her outfits and the vibe. And I think feeling comfortable on stage is so hard. I just saw her play her last show at the O2. It was incredible. They were just having so much fun on stage, and I think that the audience could feel that. I was like, “Oh, I hope my show feels like this to the audience.”

HP: When I’m looking at songs like “Going to the Country” or “Wild Love” they feel very quiet and natural, so I pictured you as more of a shyer folk artist?

Stockwell: No, I’m not shy at all. I’m being tame right now. I guess every person who listens to the music is going to probably have their own perception of who I am as an artist. Yeah, those songs, I guess they are introspective. They’re a story and it is a soft record in a way. It’s a nice, soft feeling and vibe. A lot of my artist friends are so not introverted that I always just think everyone’s just out there like that.

HP: Which of your songs would you most love to have remixed and by who?

Stockwell: I would want Calvin Harris to remix “Ant Farm” and make it into like a summer beat. Then, it’s like, “Let’s go swimming in the river creek.” He’s someone I grew up listening to. I feel like I listened to a lot of Diplo and Becky Hill. I loved Becky Hill, for a second, I was like, “Do I want to be Becky Hill? She’s so cool.” Jess Glynne, her voice and Becky Hill’s voice were my favorite voices of the era of listening to pop EDM music. As much as I grew up on jazz, folk and Americana, there was that intermission of EDM music. The lyrics of EDM songs are so simple, yet they make me feel so much when I need it.

Listen to her new album here and catch her on tour here.

Skylar Grey Finds Her Full ‘Potential’

Posted on by joshwurz

Skylar Grey has shared a Grammy stage with Eminem and Dr. Dre, written numerous hit songs for the likes of Celine Dion, Eminem, and more, and collaborated with big names like Illenium, Macklemore, Kaskade, and Deadmau5. 

Yet, with her superb new album, the intimate and raw Wasted Potential, she says with no hesitation at all, “I’m absolutely enjoying music more than I ever have. Music to me has always been about getting my emotions out, and it’s therapeutic for me to write a song.”

For Grey, she has reached that magical point in her career where she is answering to herself and just making the music she needs to make.

“There’s been a period of time in my career where I didn’t do that because I felt forced to do sessions I didn’t want to do and write songs I didn’t want to write just to try to make money and stuff, but I shut all that down, and now all I’m doing is writing from the heart,” she says. “I sit at the piano, and I make music and write lyrics, and that’s how I get through stuff. And I think that is the best way to connect with people. It ends up always being the best music when it’s just honest.” 

Cred. Shervin Lainez

Part of her aging process is feeling much freer to not only be more honest, but also to follow her instincts more and not overthink things.

“I think as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to give less fucks about what other people think. And that helps me stay truer to myself. And I’m also taking everything less seriously than I used to. I’m not exactly sure I’ll get the quote right, but Post Malone said something about how he just makes a bunch of music and then puts out whatever vibe he’s into and whatever he’s feeling in the moment. And he doesn’t think too hard about it. And that made me realize that for a lot of my career, I was always just overthinking everything way too much,” she says.

Growing older also inspired one of the album’s most memorable tracks, the homage to the ‘90s, “Nirvana.”

“I think for me personally it was turning 40 and feeling old and wanting to go back to my childhood,” she says. “The whole song is about how I didn’t appreciate my childhood and so many things that I hated back then that now I miss.”

The ‘90s are a recurring theme on the record, according to Grey. 

“Most of my musical influences came from the 90s because they were my formative years. And it’s when I was the most excited about discovering music,” she says. “And so, ‘Come,’ for example, is an ode to The Spice Girls to become one song. And then there’s just a lot of little elements of what I do that I think are inspired by the ‘90s. The song called ‘Bullshit’ on the album opens up with a strumming acoustic guitar that reminds me of Oasis.”

The album was co-produced by Danny Majic, whom Grey said she first worked with on “Last Man Standing” from the soundtrack to Venom.  

“We have such great chemistry, and we have such a great workflow. It’s like, ‘Don’t fix it if it isn’t broken.’ Why do I have to go out and search for more producers? I have one that is amazing right here, and we work so well together. So, I hold those relationships really near and dear to my heart,” she says.

Cred. Shervin Lainez

As someone who has experienced the highs and lows of collaborating, Grey has an especially deep appreciation for those people she clicks with, like Majic and Marshall Mathers (Eminem).

“That’s why I’ve written so many songs with Marshall, because we do have such good chemistry.”

Many artists will talk about self-fulfilling prophecies, about making their dreams a reality. Whether or not you believe in the ability to manifest, Grey’s friendship with Em is a literal dream come true for her. 

“‘Stan’ was another [song] that was very impactful for me. It was the first time I’d heard a beautiful, angelic vocal mixed with hip-hop, and I thought, ‘Man, I love that combo.’ It was so unique at the time, and I think that was a huge inspiration for why I wanted to get into collaborating with rappers,” she says. “Because I can relate to these vocals that were more airy and unique. As a kid, I was in musical theater, but I never had the power as a vocalist to be up on stage without a microphone. And so, the artists that really inspired me early on were the artists I could relate to vocally. Sarah McLachlan, Dido, they’re the artists that showed me a path in music that I could take.”

Though if Grey were to pick one song from her childhood that changed her life and shaped her musical vision, it would be a true ‘90s classic. “There are so many songs that I’m obsessed with and love. One of the most impactful songs from my childhood was Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop.’ I first heard it when I was walking up the hill to my best friend’s house. She had the windows and doors open, and it was sunset. And that song was just blasting in the house, out the windows. It was magical. I don’t know how else to describe it. The feeling that song gave me in that moment. It was completely life-changing,” she says. “That airy, dreamy vocal and the beat and the darkness, but also the uplifting feeling it has to it. That was just a super powerful moment for me in music discovery. Then I was obsessed with Fiona Apple’s Tidal, the whole album.”

Cred. Shervin Lainez

As someone who experienced huge stardom in her early career and chose to then follow an unconventional path of releasing music whenever she wanted, the brilliant Apple still inspires Grey tremendously.  “Somebody like Fiona Apple just inspires me to always stay true to yourself. It’s easy to get swept up in the Hollywood of it all. And she’s just one of those artists that’s always stuck to her guns and made the music she wants to make. That, to me, is very inspiring.”

That said, Grey doesn’t plan to follow her path of releasing albums as often as Halley’s Comet. 

“Instead of just putting out music as it came to me, I would try to curate the perfect album. And by doing so, I would limit myself to releasing an album every five years or something. As I’m getting older, I’m like, ‘Wait, I want to put out a lot more music before I die.’ So, I’m taking it less seriously. I’m having more fun, and I’m just making music that I love in this moment,” she says. “It doesn’t have to define me and my whole career and my whole sound in this moment. It can just be what I’m feeling right now, put it out there in the world, and then move on to the next project. That’s a new approach I’ve been taking. And it’s a lot more relaxing, a lot more fun. And I plan on putting out albums way more frequently because of that mindset change.“

Sons Of The East: From Stage to Studio

Posted on by joshwurz

Fresh off the touring cycle that saw the Australian indie-folk trio Sons Of The East play over 100 shows around the world, they found themselves writing more and more music on the road: between shows, behind the stage curtains, and mainly away from home, a fact that shows through clearly on their fantastic independently released album SONS. Even as they build on their folk roots with their newest full-length release, the group of Jack Rollins (Vocals, guitar), Nic Johnston (Vocals, keys), and Dan Wallage (Guitar, banjo) explore new sounds and styles they haven’t before on SONS, widening their sonic palette without losing what makes their sound theirs. Hit Parader sat down with Rollins to discuss more: how relentless touring, ever-changing influences, and independent autonomy shaped SONS, and how, at the end of the day, it will always come down to playing music they love with their friends for as many people as they can reach. 

Hit Parader: So, just with the new record and the making of SONS, much of the songwriting happened while touring. How did being constantly on the move shape the emotional tone of the music?

Jack Rollins: Good question. I guess I don’t know, it does get a little lonely on tour, if I can be completely transparent. So I guess there is a bit of yearning and longing in some of the themes in the music, but also I think we just kind of felt crazy pressure, knowing that we did 110 shows last year, and then as each show came to a finish, we were like, “Fuck, we’re getting closer to coming home and then having to finish this album.” We already had a few songs ready, but basically, we had to come home and literally only had like two or three months to finish the album. We were kind of just, like, anything that was coming up we were putting down, and we’re happy with anything, or whatever, really. But yeah, there is a sense, you can kind of sense this travel, definitely some kind of yearning and longing for connection in a lot of the songs.

Cred. Pat O’Hara

HP: And then what are a couple of places that you or others drew inspiration from that your fans wouldn’t expect? Maybe a book, a non-folk artist, or a movie, or something?

JR: Good question! Yeah, I don’t know, we get it everywhere. I don’t really listen to folk music. A lot of us don’t really listen to folk music. I listen to a lot of really crazy, different stuff compared to folk. I listen to a lot of hip hop and Afro beats, stuff that’s so far removed from folk music. I still love folk music, but a lot of times, if I’m driving in the car, I wouldn’t put that on, unless it’s a nice sunset drive or something like that. We listen to a lot of War on Drugs, J.J. Cale; you can definitely hear little bits of that seeping into the new record. We’re just trying to make the pool of inspiration a bit bigger and wider in terms of its range, so it keeps things interesting for us.

HP: I love that. My personal favorite off the new record is “10 Days,” which is a really pretty ballad/ interlude. Tell me a little bit about the imagery and the storyline behind the lyrics, and the lyric in specific, “They say bad luck comes in threes”.

JR: Nick had probably a 95 percent hand in writing that song. Speaking of longing, that one came whilst we were on the road last year. He’s got a partner that he’s been with for a long time, and she’s wonderful. I think in those lyrics, you can hear Nick really kind of almost calling out to her as we’re on the road, and you know, it’s right there in the title, “10 Days.” It’s all about him coming home soon and how that’s going to feel, because it is always a bit awkward coming home to your loved ones, because you haven’t seen them for, we’d been four months last year. So yeah, coming home is kind of a weird thing, you’re like, “Is it the same? Is it going to be different?” So yeah, I agree, it’s a beautiful song that Nick championed there.

HP: What song off the record took the longest to finish, and what song seemed to flow out the fastest?

JR: The song took the longest… There are a couple that took us a while. I’m trying to think. “It’s Alright” took a while; we mucked around with that for months. But then, on the opposite end, “Sweet Thing” and “Time Will Tell” were done in a day each, which is really cool. “Pour the Wine” took like a few weeks. I’m trying to think. I can’t really remember now, I think we kind of repressed it because it was so fucking stressful.

HP: I understand. Sometimes I’ve noticed an interesting thing between some people I’ve talked to. If they work on a song for months on end, it always ends up being like, “Hey, I just like the original song,” and you kind of revert back to the first demo.

JR: Yeah, definitely. There’s this guy, an Australian comedian who’s also a musician, Tim Minchin, who talks about how it’s like a painting. You never really know; you’ve got to know when to stop adding paint to the art because you can overcook it. Sometimes it’s just like, when do you get to the point where it’s done? Having deadlines is always good because you can just go, “Alright, it’s time to stop, because we need to deliver this thing.”

Cred. Pat O’Hara

HP: If a fan only had the ability to check out one song off the record, what would you show them? What’s the “opus” in your opinion?

JR: Oh…

HP: I know that’s like a favorite child situation, but, 

JR: Yeah, a little bit. I don’t know. I think because the record has heaps of different genres on it, it’s hard to pick. Can do a top three? 

HP: Please!

JR: My favorite three are probably “Recognize,” “It’s Alright,” and “Sweet Thing.” When we were going through the album, those are the three that I’d listen to the most when we’d just finished with them, and be like, “Hey, this is cool,” you know what I mean? So I think probably those three, for me, I would pass on to a fan. But as I said, those three,  “Recognize” is like a War on Drugs-type thing, “It’s Alright” is like JJ Cale, and then “Sweet Thing” is like a full ’50s, ’60s-type beat.

HP: I was reading online earlier today, someone on the War on Drugs Reddit page said, “’ Recognize’ reminds me of [The] War on Drugs and this song rips.”

JR: That’s sick. 

HP: “Now I’m checking out these guys as well.”

JR: Fuck yeah, that’s great.

HP: So, just with this record, it adds to a long tradition of self-releasing records, accomplished entirely without major label backing. What has been the most meaningful reward and unexpected challenge of steering your music independently, and in what ways has the autonomy shaped your vision?

JR: Man, you ask great questions. Well, I think because we’ve always been independent, we’ve always had to learn on the go. We’ve been our own marketing team, our own publicity, our own design studio; we literally do everything ourselves. Especially Dan and Nick, those guys are so hands-on. Dan does so much with social media, designing merch, and making marketing schedules. We’ve really had to knuckle down and learn. We started this thing just to be musicians and not have real jobs, but now the admin’s crazy. We’re literally running a business and having to learn all that has been really important and amazing as well.

I think being independent for us is all about control and owning our own stuff. Our manager always said to us from the start, “Just own the product,” and we’ve enjoyed being able to do that. Sometimes it’s taken us a long time to release stuff, so not having overlords breathing down our necks has been nice for us to do things at our own speed. It took us ten years to release our first album, so maybe it took too long, but we’re happy where we are, enjoying playing and writing music, so life’s good.

Cred. Glynn Parkinson

HP: And you could argue it’s a lot more authentic without as many hands in the pot, so to speak.

JR: Exactly, exactly. You don’t want to have too many cooks in the kitchen.

HP: Just tell me a little bit more about the rest of the year and anything else you want to add for the fans.

JR: Yeah, so we just did an Aussie tour. I just did a month in Europe, and we’re halfway through a month here in North America. Then we’ll probably come home and chill out for a bit, just do some surfing and get some sun in, it’s an Aussie summer when we get back. Then we got Christmas and stuff. Then we’re just going to do some writing and hang out, and we’ve got a few things back over in the States in May, and a few gigs around Australia early next year. Working towards that and just getting to some new music, I think. Now, not having any crazy deadlines will be nice to get in the studio with no pressure and see what we can cook up. We’re having fun touring and looking forward to getting back in the studio and having fun making music again.

HP: And that’s what it’s all about.

JR: Exactly.

Listen to SONS by Sons Of The East wherever you stream your music.

Read the article in print in Issue 4 of Hit Parader Magazine.

Hit Parader #4: Brent Faiyaz

Hit Parader #4: Brent Faiyaz

March 2026 — $12.99

In this issue of Hit Parader, Brent Faiyaz steps into the cover spotlight for a rare, unfiltered conversation about artistry, independence, and the cost of doing things your own way. At a time when most artists race against algorithms and deadlines, Brent moves on instinct —scrapping albums, disappearing to finish ideas on his own terms,…