One of the first things we notice about these new songs is the clean vocals, tell us about the decision to include more of those in these new songs?
Sammy: “We kinda started experimenting with it even as far back as The Warmth Of A Dying Sun, as every album’s gone on and as you do when you’re in a band you just wanna explore new territory. So it just seemed like a natural thing to do, start adding more clean sections in, we’ve been experimenting a lot more with having choruses in our songs etc, so it felt like a natural direction to go in really. Even on our last record, the first single to come out of that was ‘Force Fed’, and even though that was still pretty gruff there was still melody there, so it’s not exactly new territory for us so much as it’s us pushing it further than we have before.”
For the lyrics, do you co-write those with Justine, and do you have a lyric writing system in place there?
Sammy: “It’s kind of different with every album we do, but this is probably the record where I’ve done the most lyric writing, whereas before it’s been fairly split. Last year Justine was working throughout the pandemic but for me I had quite a lot of downtime, so as soon as I got the green light to start writing I just went full steam ahead with it. With this one there’s still some co-writing going on but this is the most lyric writing that I’ve done for a record, particularly now we’ve moved into this territory where there’s a lot of choruses and stuff. I’ll usually write the chorus riff and be like ah okay, I’ve got an idea in my mind for how that’s gonna sound, so then there might be some songs where I’ve written the rough idea of what the song’s talking about and I’ll go to Justine with that like ‘hey this is where I was going with this one, could you give me some lyrics that maybe you have in mind that would fit with this?’ But yeah, with Warmth and Eternal Forward Motion it was very collaborative, and that’s still how we operate but just because of how it worked out around the pandemic it saw me penning a lot of the lyrics for it.
The writing and recording process of this album, how did that go given how disruptive the pandemic has been for many bands and that process?
Sammy: “It was pretty smooth for us luckily, we were in a good place with the last album where it’d already been out for over a year by the time the first lockdown started, and we’d been able to do some shows and all that, so I was in the headspace to begin writing again anyway so when we figured out that the summer was basically a write-off anyway and didn’t know when shows were gonna resume again it was just like; oh okay, let’s just get another album on the go! So all the writing literally just took place at home in the room I’m in now, and it was definitely something that helped me to keep sane last summer for sure, jumping straight into that, and it was exciting because I was able to write all these things that were different for us, and then we booked in to record it throughout December, and then for rehearsing for the record as well was during the summer, so the stars kind of aligned for us during that process and we didn’t experience any hold ups at all which is was very fortunate.”
“We’ve been experimenting a lot more with having choruses in our songs, so it felt like a natural direction to go in really”
With Conquering you’ve gone for a more traditional metal sound, was there anything in particular that influenced that musical direction?
Sammy: “Once again it’s a direction we’ve already been heading in, this one’s definitely more of a leap for sure but it’s the direction we’ve been wanting to go in for a while and with personnel change it’s sort of opened a door to like a different type of songwriting as well. The people we had in the band before were all excellent players but for example our old drummer, he was more of a single pedal kinda guy, more kind of Deftones, groove type of vibe, and we were wanting to explore more metal themes and styles of writing. And with Casey joining the band that’s more his style, so we were heading this way anyway but then when our last drummer said ‘hey I’m looking to step down from the band’ because he wants to do other things it was like once again being given that green light to go full steam ahead into this new territory, no holds barred and really try out ideas that we’ve not been able to experiment with before.”
Are there any bands in particular that heavily influence that direction when you began diving into that metal sound?
Sammy: “Oh for sure, this record is like, drawing influence from all those records I was, well, still a massive fan of but the ones I was really influenced by in my formative years, so Machine Head‘s Burn My Eyes, Chaos A.D. and Arise by Sepultura, y’know the 90s Roadrunner kind of like, golden era, and bands like Pantera as well cause there’s a lot of big groove on this new album, with a bit more of a rocky twist to it as well. I just wanted to pull from all of those bands I listened to when I was younger, and I’ve been saying recently as well it’s like you come full circle as you get older, so you have those bands that bring you in, and then you go far and wide and listen to all sorts of stuff. Then you come back and revisit those things you listened to when you were younger and they almost end up influencing you for a second time, like ah yeah! all of this stuff still holds up! That really influenced me when writing the riffs for this new record, Lamb of God is another one to mention as well, As The Palaces Burn and Sacrament were huge records for me when I was young and they’ve definitely had an influence on this album.
Related: Employed To Serve – Conquering | Album Review
You’ve scaled up on the production value for your music videos recently too, you really went all out on the latest two.
Sammy: “We’re really stoked with how they came out, as soon as we got the idea for them we were just so stoked, and seeing how they’ve actually turned out as well we couldn’t be happier! We wanted to do something fun with these music videos, obviously there’s a serious side to Employed To Serve and what the lyrics are all about but after the intense year we’ve all had with the lockdown and everything else we just wanted to have fun and show a lighter side to the band. I mean the last video we did for ‘Mark Of The Grave’ was probably the most fun I’ve ever had making a video, cause we just rocked up at the studio with a green screen, with no idea… well, I think we had a rough idea of what the outcome might be but they had all kinds of fancy dress and we got to spend the whole day putting on loads of mad shit and just have fun with it basically.”
Do you think this production value might bleed its way over into the stage production for Employed To Serve shows?
Sammy: “Definitely, we’re coming at it from the angle of like, we’re this kind of band now, not in an egotistical kind of way but we feel like the songs we’re writing are more suited to playing on a bigger stage and we definitely want to have production that accompanies that and gives people a bit more of a show when they come. I mean, we’re still kind of in the realm of brainstorming what that might be but it’s on the agenda! There’s been so much going on and then it was like, well when are shows coming back? And then it’s snuck up on us, and the album’s out soon so there might not be any mad dragons that’ll be fighting on stage for the first few shows back but it’s definitely territory we want to get into further down the line.”
“I think our fear with moving into a more metal territory was that we didn't want it to be a metal by numbers record”
The album artwork itself is quite striking, who created the artwork and where did the idea for it come from?
Sammy: “So the artist is Luke Preece, and he’s incredible, we couldn’t be happier with how the album art turned out! He introduced himself to us at our last London show before lockdown so we got it into our heads that he’d be an interesting artist to work with for the next album, and the artwork concept was by myself, I wanted it to be like a continuation of the last album cover, so on Eternal Forward Motion you’ve got all the cogs and stuff which was supposed to be like the inner workings of everyone’s minds, and then with this one it was supposed to be like transcending all of that bullshit, and the head exploding and all the cogs coming out, essentially. So I wrote down a rough brief to send over to Luke, and then the first sketch he sent back it was like, yeah, that looks awesome! We wanted it to look metal, but at the same time we didn’t want it to look like a stereotypical metal album cover, I think our fear with moving into a more metal territory was that we didn’t want it to be a metal by numbers record, we wanted to flaunt with the more metal elements but still maintain our identity, so the artwork I feel looks kind of metal but also hopefully doesn’t just look like a standard metalcore record and leaves a little bit of intrigue, and for me I feel it does that.
So the band runs a Patreon, and trying to operate as a band in the industry today do you feel a pressure behind trying to earn that money and figure out what content to give the subscribers there?
Sammy: “Totally, yeah, I mean with Patreon I enjoy it because you have time to think about what you’re gonna give to the patrons and you can be creative with it. I think for me in the modern day with everything that comes with being in a band now, with Twitch streaming and stuff like that I think it’s fantastic because it gives artists another source of income and a way to connect with the fans, but I don’t think it lends itself to every band or artist out there. I think it’s becoming almost expected these days to do these sorts of things, and you almost have to be a bit of a TV host if you will, you have to be quite charismatic or on the spot and all of these things, and some people who make music or art, that’s not their thing, they might be quite a mysterious person or an introverted person and they have their creative outlet which is their music and they don’t necessarily want to do Twitch. I think it’s all fantastic but it doesn’t suit everyone and I think it’s becoming a bit of a norm to have to do that, but with Patreon it’s nice because you can connect but you still have time to think about what you’re doing, pre-make it and stuff like that. I definitely admire people who can do livestreaming on the spot but that definitely doesn’t appeal to me, that’s for sure.”
So with the record out imminently, are we going to be treated to a tour sometime soon in support of that?
Sammy: We recently announced we’re doing the Gojira tour early next year which all seems to be going ahead as planned, but obviously the album’s about to come out and we’re very keen to do some shows before then so yes there should be some shows being announced very soon. We’re keen to play live again, and we’ve got all these new songs to play and we’re raring to get out and play them!
Conquering is out now via Spinefarm Records
Purchase the record here