On Tour With Set It Off

As part of You Me At Six’s Truth Decay Tour special guests Los Angeles-based trio SET IT OFF are playing all five Australian shows. SET IT OFF have become known for creating their own original brand of pop music, infusing bold electronic elements with rock instrumentations and guitar riffs as catchy as the choruses, alongside an overall feel-good, dance-worthy vibe.

Forming in Florida in 2008, the genre-blending group has released four previous albums and their Top 10 Spotify tracks have racked up 528 million plays. Their 2022 release Elsewhere is a transitional, moody, and forward-thinking release, one in which they have faced their demons and come out happier and more full of life than ever before – and this will be on full display on stage for the Truth Decay Tour. Cody Carson talks to Hi Fi Way about the tour.

Are you excited about returning to Australia?
Yes. I really, really am. I miss it a lot.

Judging by the, the footage from Download Festival it looks like you guys are well and truly on fire at the moment.
Oh, thank you. I appreciate you saying that. It’s been a really fun ride so far since deciding to go independent. So, yeah, we’re feeling we’re really happy.

Was playing Download Festivals one of those dream festivals to play, especially when you consider the calibre of the lineup playing and how many people were there? Did it feel to good to be true?
I feel like everything always feels that way. Whenever you get a win, it’s like, all right, what’s going to go wrong. It was actually an incredible experience and you’re right, it was one of those things you want to check off the list of things that you want to do, but it’s also, instead of just checking it off, these experiences of these festivals, we know like the notoriety of it. We know how massive these things are. To be a part of something like that and have our name attached to something like that is amazing and feels great, but it’s really gratifying to know that that’s where we’re thought of right now as Set It Off and that we belong there. We hope that we can continue to belong and grow and hopefully work our way towards the main stage. It gives us another goal to look forward to. It was an amazing time and we’re very grateful for being put on it.

Do you have a, a lot of great memories from the last Australian tour here with One OK Rock?
I was already thinking about like five different things and the first thing was that it’s the only tour we’ve ever done where we flew from one state to the other. I remember being nervous about it vocally, like, oh God, am I going to sleep? But it was amazing. It was perfect. Everyone there was extremely kind. Everybody we ran into would give us like the best recommendations of like where to eat, where to go. I remember in Sydney, we had like a whole day of walking around there and it was a perfect day. Of course we wanted to see the Opera House, which we did and I was bringing this up before, but the thing that was the funniest to us was the dock that’s next to Sydney is like the loudest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

It sounds like the loudest creaking, but like forty times in a row layered on top of each other. So that was really funny to us. But we got to see the beautiful Opera House and Luna Park we could see from across the shore and we want to do that next time. We had a nice glass of white wine as the sun was setting. It was just gorgeous out there. I want to get on a surfboard again. The first time I ever did it was last time. I just want to experience areas I haven’t experienced yet. I want to do things I haven’t done yet because we tried to do a lot in a short amount of time when we were there and there’s a lot to offer which is great.

Do you think Australian fans really stand out from other fans that you come across when you’re touring around the world?
What I’ve noticed in areas that we’re not able to get to frequently, there is an very apparent amount of appreciation and wanting you to know that they’re grateful that you’re there and that they want you to come back, because I know that people acts from the United States can’t often come over there whenever they want to. That was a big challenge for us when we first started. It took us eleven years from the inception of the band until we could first come out with One OK Rock. The good thing is though is that that gap has significantly decreased. So we just had to wait for the pandemic to end and then a little bit more time. Luckily You Me At Six like us enough to bring us along. Hopefully this is the door open to us be to be able to more frequently visit because we love the fans out there

In terms of a double bill, it doesn’t get any better than this. Do you know the guys from You Me At Six well?
The closest we’ve gotten to them is we played a festival called Slam Dunk with them and I was fortunate enough to meet them in person because they were headlining it and I got to see them perform, which was, they’re amazing obviously. They were extremely kind and really humble, you would never know that they are the band of their stature if you met them. There’s just so much humility and kindness around that group, which is important and I love that they’re that way. It’s also exciting when you know you’re going to be on a tour with a really nice band that is also a great thing to know when you’re support act, so very pumped about that. Between You & Me, I’ve heard about them like last year. Max showed us their song Anti-Hero and I’ve been playing that on repeat, I’m really pumped about this lineup. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Are you working on an album at the moment or is it just not quite enough time to fit it in with all your touring commitments?
The great thing right now is we’re newly independent so we’re kind of making our own rules. All we really care about is just writing music and it will eventually turn into an album. We have released two songs so far with Punching Bag and Win Win. We already have two songs on deck and any time that I’m home and I have free time I’m working on it. We flew in from the UK after doing this long US run right into that run and in to Download, flew in and then the next day I went into the studio and started working on it again. I just love it. This is one of my favourite parts of the job is the creative process. We’re working towards an album but we’re working towards writing the best songs Set It Off has ever put out and just having fun doing it along the way with no real pressure. Being independent has been the most fun we’ve had ever, but it’s also been the most successful we’ve ever been. It’s just really gratifying to know that you’re going to have your cake and eat it too.

Do you think it’ll be about putting out more singles until you have enough to fill an album or focus on a complete album?
It’ll start as just singles, but we are also thinking ahead towards the final project. We’ve always loved having a ballad on the album. I’m already talking to a buddy of mine who is so great at ballads, and I love writing slower songs with him. We’re already working on that and it’s not going to be for a lack of what should go and what shouldn’t, but I’m already thinking about songs that have like a swing feel to them. I think that there’s always a place for that in the album. The main focus is what’s the best song we can write and let’s put them out as a single. Let’s just give everybody what they want, which is music. What I’ve come to realise as far as consumption goes with music is that you work on an album, it can be anywhere from a couple months to a year to some people a couple years and you’re putting your heart and soul into it, and you at least three singles and those get a lot of love and attention. Then you hype up the album that comes out and then in a month you realise that five songs total got a lot of love and then the ones you really care about never got the chance to shine because you weren’t able to do a real push for that. What I like about this opportunity is that every song or just about every song that’ll end up on the album will get a lot of spotlight and love and the attention it deserves instead of something just falling into the background, which it feels like happens sometimes unfortunately.

What sorts of music have inspired you and the creative process?
So as far as sonically, I feel like we’ve always drawn from a bunch of different artists, but I feel like this is the first time I’ve been able to equally draw from all the different music I grew up listening to. As far as heavy guitars being my nu-metal phase when I was listening to Limp Bizkit, Korn, System Of A Down, the melody structure is very much in the Max Martin world or like the late nineties, early two thousands pop world with NYSNC, Destiny’s Child, Usher, Backstreet Boys and that sort of thing. Then the background auxiliary stuff with the strings is my world of orchestral music that I studied which was going to be my job instead of this. I think it’s all melding really well together. Now that it’s happening, it feels natural, I feel really free and I feel like I don’t have to think about it and just have fun with it. For us it’s trying to find a way to better it every time and how we make it even better. It’s just been a fun game. I feel like I’ve been able to recapture how I felt when I first started writing music and there’s no pressure. I feel like that’s starting to show and I think that’s why people are resonating with us more than they ever have.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Set It Off on tour with You Me At Six and Between You & Me on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…