Songs About Making a Comeback Back in the Saddle Again

"It's virtually our duty to accept it to the extremes that it has never gone earlier because if we don't do it, who volition?"

In instance you somehow missed it, Attack Attack! are well and truly back.

Following a 7-twelvemonth hiatus, the godfathers of crabcore announced their return at the tailend of 2020 and set virtually reclaiming their throne. Just don't merely retrieve this isn't a nostalgia-laced comeback, pining for a return to the mid-00's way of life. This is a whole new beast that isn't afraid to bite back and throw a few punches of its own. Taking all of the energy and creative fluidity that helped to define a whole genre at the end of the concluding decade and channelling it through a modern lens, there really is no limit on what is possible as we look forward.

So, with a new EP existence worked on and tour dates being pencilled in, we jumped on the phone with drummer Andrew Wetzel to get the full story of what exactly Assail Attack! is in 2021...

What has the last eight years, from hiatus to the conversation nigh getting dorsum in the saddle, been like? What has it been like watching people talk nearly and discover the ring whilst not beingness active?
"Afterward we went on hiatus dorsum in 2013, at that signal, information technology felt like people didn't care. Our early career had been a very uphill battle. It was popular to hate on our band. People loved to do it, and they were good at it. It was a pretty ridiculous position to exist in. We had been beaten downward for so many years, and y'all can only hear so much negative stuff until it starts to get to you, no matter how resilient you lot are. So people in the ring were less and less happy with everything, and we were trying hard to exist a band that we weren't. You tin can see information technology in the development from the Self-Titled album into 'This Means War', where there was a way more than serious tone. That was us almost trying to testify that we were a existent band. I don't want to say it was a mistake, just nosotros should never have felt similar we needed to prove to anyone anything, especially when it'due south most something artistic and creative. We had an identity crunch, which led to more discord in the band, leading to Johnny [Franck] and Caleb [Shomo] quitting. [Andrew] Whiting [Guiarist] and I just continued doing what we had done before and observe replacements, but we weren't addressing the real issue, which was that we weren't happy. We were trying to be somebody else, and it wasn't Attack Attack!.

"So later on we went on hiatus, time started to put everything into context. I began to see the number of mentions that the ring started getting online. There was lots of coverage and articles being written about us. More than people were streaming our music and putting us on playlists. We got more than popular after nosotros bankrupt upward and after 2 years of total silence. Similar, what the fuck is going on? I call back people had started to sympathize what we had been well-nigh. As a scene, we had begun to navigate away from that type of music, and we had it expert back and then. Information technology was a great time to be involved, and it was then much fun. There was a big breakout moment. So we all got older, and life marched on, and it lost that spark. I don't think we were the merely band who went through that identity crisis either. As a huge listener of metal and metalcore personally, it felt like the genre started to get stale and never really recovered. Equally the scene began to disappear and people got on with their lives, a lot of other bands were just like, 'Well, what do we practice at present?' They tried to go into radio and find bigger audiences, and a lot of the goofy, stupid and fun feeling of the scene was lost.

"So information technology was interesting seeing people looking at what was going on and so plow effectually and look back towards where we had been. Then for Whiting and me, it started to become clear that our work wasn't done and that in that location is something special about this band and the creative outlet that information technology gives us as artists and musicians. Now that people recognise a little flake more what it all meant, we take the opportunity to operate with even more than freedom and practice even bigger stuff than earlier. Now that nosotros understand what nosotros have, nosotros tin can pursue things as recklessly as nosotros like. At this signal, we don't care, equally we have lost the ring once. Correct now, we accept nothing to lose, and that thought is so powerful and fun.

"The conversation was very curt, and whilst nosotros had it, we both knew what the answer was. This is bigger than us, and it was always going to happen. It was merely a thing of time."

That idea of recklessness is so interesting. In many ways, that's what the band existed on in the first identify. You were taking what you idea might sound good in your heads and making information technology a reality, despite being different annihilation else. The difference at present is the whole tool belt of resources at your fingertips that only didn't exist back in 2008…
"Totally, and it'due south interesting. During the hiatus, I would sit around and think about all of the things nosotros did and how I would have done them differently if I had the chance to do them again. I thought nigh that in great item. So when Whiting called me, and we decided to starting time again, I checked dorsum over my notes. I looked through our career line by line and thought about fixing everything that we could have done differently but exercise information technology differently. Permit's say fuck it and get to a hundred on everything and run across what happens because that's the attitude that we had every bit teenagers because we had no understanding of risk or what's correct or wrong."

Where did the actual feeling and expect of this new era come from? How did yous bring it to life?
" When nosotros work on music, we always joke that the songs write themselves. It'south truthful that Assail Attack! is an organism all of its own. There is so much fan participation and feedback that we don't demand to make any actual decisions. We just need to know to put little pieces of the puzzle out in that location, come across what people say about them and then learn from them. The group decides that they like this or don't like that and then on. We accept our catalogue of songs, and we have seen how everybody has responded to everything we have done. At the end of information technology, we're scene kids, and we always will be. So in a lot of means, our identity is even so continued to those kids in the scene correct at present because we are all withal so similar. When we are thinking about what nosotros want to do, we are thinking about how nosotros can have stuff that nosotros have done in the past, yank it out in the hereafter and do it in a way that nosotros haven't done it before.

"That's how we started talking almost the whole anime aesthetic of the new videos. That's something that we all similar and something that people in the scene are interested in, only information technology likewise fits our initial identity. It feels like an obvious inclusion in the Assault Set on! chest of tricks. And then we looked out for people who besides felt excited about the aforementioned things, and a lot of the guys who worked on the new logo and graphics are agile in the music scene and big fans. They understand, and when we sit downwardly to talk with them, they are excited and want to participate. That's a massive affair for us, finding people who want to exist involved and add their piece to the puzzle. Like having Joey Sturgis involved, he isn't producing anymore except for Conquer Split up, his wife's band. Having him come up out of retirement only to exercise a handful of tracks with u.s.a. specifically is incredible because he is excited. It's a delicate residue for us to ride, just the most important thing for us is making certain that nosotros are excited about what we're doing. It needs to check all of these boxes for us equally fans as much as artists."

In a lot of ways, information technology's almost celebrating all of the things that you loved virtually the band initially, but not brand everything rooted in the nostalgia or the way that things were a decade ago. You lot don't desire to become a extravaganza of yourself…
"If we wanted only to play 'Anytime Came Suddenly' once again and again, we wouldn't have written the Cocky-Titled record. Some people are never going to exist happy, though, merely that's okay. But there is also the fact that there are many people interested in what nosotros are doing now, and the range is incredible. 16-year-old kids are discovering this music that I was making when I was sixteen, and some older people remember what it was like back and so. It's and then interesting how the stuff I got into when I was younger is withal relevant to kids now. It's still cool. It'south still fun. Then some people are stoked go to experience us at present who didn't get the gamble the first fourth dimension."

It's all nearly escape at the finish of the day. And if yous can deliver the same level of escapism that this music immune yous to take when you were younger to kids today, and so that's a pretty incredible legacy to have…
"That's a large matter. One of the reasons I experience confident in what nosotros are doing now is that feeling. Our number i goal right at present is to be entertaining. We want to create experiences that you want to take because y'all need that. We needed that considering it was an outlet for us, so we want it to be the aforementioned for other people. So as long as people are there to enjoy our shenanigans and nosotros tin can both decompress through them, that's a not bad system to have.

"But there were a couple of people who told me that this wasn't going to work and that we shouldn't do this. I told them that they didn't sympathize how this works. For the aforementioned reason that they idea that people would turn down is why people would take u.s.a.. If y'all commit besides much to the nostalgia, sure, yous are tap-dancing on stage in clothes that barely fit yous anymore. But if you accept the risk and tick the right boxes and go along on looking forwards, at that place's nothing you can't do."

So, as nosotros are looking frontwards, what is the thing that holds the new songs y'all are working on together? What'southward the core and aim of the process?
"Our whole process is extremely fluid, and that's how you end up with things similar 'Kawaii Cowboys'. Once we started working on 'Brachyura Bombshell' and took shape, nosotros've been writing without borders and rules. Because of that, we end up with stuff that feels like it authentically belongs to this band. Just at the same fourth dimension, goose egg in life is free, and if you want a 'Brachyura Bombshell', you have to go through a 'Kawaii Cowboys' to get to information technology. We want our fans to have whiplash before nosotros're finished with this new EP. We are going dorsum and forth between all of these things. Because who else can, and volition, practise that? Who else will take that hazard in 2021? It's almost our duty to take it to the extremes that it has never gone before considering if we don't do it, who will?"

The thing is that Attack Attack! volition always represent that button and pull of trying something unlike. And the minute that changes, it becomes a disservice to what this all is
"Y'all're right. It can't alter. This is its own organism, and it does its own thing, and once you're tapped in, the energy binds all of these chaotic events together. Things that don't brand sense all of a sudden brand sense. That's the best fashion to sum upward the real identity of Assail Assault!. We do things that don't even make sense to me sometimes, and so with time, it starts to sink in a bit more."

How does it feel to have Assail Attack! back as a role of you and your life?
"Indescribable. Every twenty-four hours when I wake up, there are a thousand different possibilities. I have this powerful outlet to cascade myself into creatively in every possible mode, and no one can tell u.s.a. otherwise. I tin't even draw how that feels afterward living through the career we have had upwardly to this betoken and dealing with these unlike barriers and struggles. All of those shackles and chains have been removed, and now information technology'due south just us and everything nosotros want to practice. I launched a tape label, so I'm doing all of the release stuff with 2 other guys. Then there is no one else. There'southward no booking agent or manager of anything else. Nobody can tell us, 'I don't call up that'due south a skillful thought'. Nosotros demand to effort it to find out, though. We can make or break, and it's all up to us. That'due south a potent motivator."

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Source: https://www.rocksound.tv/features/read/this-is-why-attack-attack-knew-that-right-now-was-the-perfect-time-to-make