British Metalcore Legends While She Sleeps On Their Return To Australia…
‘I reckon I could easily beat Louis Tomlinson in a game of football, five-a-side, whatever it is. Yeah, played a lot of football over the years. I don’t really know much about Louis Tomlinson and his football career, but I’m going to have to back myself and say me for sure!”
Lawrence ‘Loz’ Taylor, the whirlwind of energy that fronts British punk-metalcore giants While She Sleeps is bullish about not only coming back to Australia in October but also dualling at football with fellow Doncaster Rovers FC fan, One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson. However, after my own fanboy moment with the singer, we settle in to talk about the band, their history, and the latest album Self Hell, which featured Taylor writing his first music on the track Radical Hatred/Radical Love.
‘It’s quite criminal really, but I actually don’t play any instruments. Can’t write music into a computer. I can’t really play well. There’s ‘no’ really about it! I can’t play guitar either, so all my writing’s always been darker, nihilistic poetry. If I look back through my notes that I’ve written down over the years, it’s like looking through a psychopath’s diary! One minute it’s like’ I hate everything’ and I want to curl up and die. And then the next is like, nah, be grateful for what you have in life and look to the positives. So that’s how I kind of write the music.
‘Radical Hatred/Radical Love’ is one of the first times I’ve actually picked up an acoustic guitar, played some notes and sort of sang along with it. So, it is a bit of a special one for me, that being sort of my introduction to actually writing and putting the lyrics to it. So yeah, it was a fun one to do, so I think it’ll always be special for that reason.’
Taylor was last to join the band in 2009 and his introduction was the life changing The North Stands For Nothing, which became prevalent when presented along with copies of the prestigious metal magazine Metal Hammer in 2010. The dam on the bands upward trajectory bursting a few months earlier with help from a very notable UK musical source.
‘The story is actually crazy. I mean for anyone that goes back all the way to ‘The North Stands For Nothing’ when the rest of While She Sleeps were basically really, really young kids almost, probably like sixteen, seventeen years old. There was another singer in the band and he sort of wasn’t too interested in continuing the journey with the band. He had other ideas. He wanted to get a steady job and things like that. So long story short, the lads asked me if I wanted to join and there was zero hesitation from me. We’d already sort of bumped into each other on the local scene and we hung out on occasions. So I always thought that the band was going to do good things – the way that Sean Long was such a youngster, but literally sweeping on guitar and playing crazy lead lines – there was just a buzz about the band really early on. So, when they asked me to join, it was literally a no brainer for me.’
‘Then we started getting together and writing the first CD that we put out being ‘The North Stands For Nothing’ and literally, instantly, Daniel P. Carter from BBC Radio One came down to a show. We were that excited to be out on our first ever tour that we turned up to the venue a night early and we were in the venue checking out another band and just bumped into him, got talking and he said ‘when you’ve got your songs out of the demo stages, more of a real song, send it over and I’ll give it a listen’. Instantly it was just like, ‘I’m going to play this tonight!’. It had literally been a day after we’d sort of tried to mix it and master it ourselves and we were like, ‘oh my God, it’s going to sound crap on the radio!’
‘It was really exciting from the get go. We all had the same sort of ideas and passion for where it could go in the future. I think sometimes that can be quite difficult to find in a group of lads, making sure everyone’s on the same page with the same commitment and just straight out the gate. Daniel P. Carter played it on the Rock Show and literally from the first single that we recorded after that, we never really looked back. We’re lucky in that sense that people like Daniel P. Carter have enabled us to get the music out there from an early point and supported us in that way.’
While She Sleeps are no ordinary band. Many would claim to be hardworking however this band take that to another level, dropping self-produced albums every two years, directing their own videos and of course touring.
‘We’ve always been a very hands-on band. We’re from Yorkshire, there’s loads of old fucking mining industry around here and it very much a case of if you want something, do it yourself, get your hands dirty. That’s how we’ve always worked. So, we moved into a space now, like you say, where we’re not on a major label, release all our own music, self-managed. That’s not necessarily for everyone. I don’t want to sit here and slag off management and the industry, but we just felt like we had ten different people working on our band when we were signed to Sony and things like that. It was always ‘why does this need to go through 10 different people that are often fucking it up when we know we can get the job done ourselves?’
‘I think literally because we are a very DIY ethic band, we just felt that was the best way to go for us. I feel the best way for people to get the best impression, or for people to experience how we want things to be experienced, is best offered from it coming straight from the band to our fan base and cutting out the middleman. We do all our own artwork. Aaron’s now doing so much video. We’ve always been very hands on with how our band’s perceived if you like. Like you say, the band best way for your band to be perceived is from your artwork, videos and your music coming straight from us to the fan base.’
Having no record company to potentially filter your art can come with its own pitfalls. A band that has always dabbled in different versions of their songs, different styles of recordings and different sounds as bonus tracks, latest album ‘Self Hell’ very much ventured into exploration and the band knew not everyone would be on board.
‘We want to keep things interesting, keep our fan base on its toes and I say with ‘Self Hell’, not that it’s a complete sort of left turn or anything like that, but it’s all helping the progression of where we go next with the next record and trying to just spice things up and keep it interesting. We knew that ‘Self Hell’ would ruffle a few feathers and get people questioning where is this going to go? I think it’s just all about testing ourselves, pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone a little bit and doing things that keep it fresh and feel exciting in the studio. With the whole oversaturation of the genre if you like, we didn’t want to put out a record that sounded like anyone else or that anyone else is doing at the moment.’
‘I think that one of the most exciting things to come out of the ‘Self Hell’ as a record is sort of where does that take us in the future? We kind of push the electronics a bit more. We’ve got a couple of more softer ballads in there, the guest spots or something a little bit different, maybe artists that you don’t really know. I think it all helps the evolution of our band. If you look back at our discography you might say ‘This Is The Six” is a bit more of a metalcore record and then ‘Brainwashed’, it’s almost like punk metal in a sense. It’s a bit more anarchy and every album we’ve tried to do something a little bit different, we don’t just want to sit in that box. it’s a progression but it still sounds like While She Sleeps.’
Ultimately my own fanboy took over and one last one for the road for Loz. Who’s the worst dressed in the band and why is it Sean?
‘Hahaha, I don’t want to say anyone’s badly dressed, you know what I mean? I’m not going to do that. I think for so long though, we were sort of in that metalcore sort of space and cut off, I mean I’m wearing one now, but cut off tank fucking tops and skinny black jeans. It is strange because I think because we found ourselves as a metalcore band, it felt like that’s what we needed to do. Now it’s more like we don’t need to do that, we can do exactly what we want. With ‘Self Hell,’ the first release off the record, that song, the video is actually showing people perhaps a different side to the band that we haven’t really showcased much. I think it’s more representative of the fun we’re having now as a live band. It’s not tough guys singing metal, we just want everyone to have a good time, entertain everyone and feel unified at the show whether it’s a festival or indoor at a venue. So yeah, just having fun with it. And yeah, Sean’s definitely the worst dressed!’
Interview By Iain McCallum
Catch While She Sleeps on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…
