Tuesday 28 May 2013

SLAM DUNK NORTH 2013 - The Interviews // THE WORD ALIVE

Arizona metalcore quintet The Word Alive are over in the UK on Sleeping With Sirens’ sell out UK tour. They're also playing at the infamous Slam Dunk Festival. Est.1987 headed down to The Ritz in Manchester ahead of the Slam Dunk weekend to catch up with the guys.

We talked about touring in the UK, working on the record and straying away from being your average metal band.




You were last over in the UK at the end of last year with Parkway Drive- is it nice to be back?
LUKE [Holland, drums]- Yeah, definitely. We’re not used to doing so many UK dates, so it’s nice. There’s not so much of a language barrier and all the shopping and stuff rules.
TONY [Pizzuti, guitar]- It’s a completely different crowd too, a lot of younger girls compared to a bunch of manly dudes. I feel like kids are more accepting of our music here too, as opposed to say like Germany.
LUKE- What I don’t like is the weather [laughing].

You’ve been over here for the past couple of weeks- all the shows have been sell-outs are you having fun?
TONY- Yeah, awesome and it’s been great exposure for us as well. This is one of the first tours we’ve done that’s had more of a poppy side; we’re probably the heaviest band on this tour, so we stand out, but in a good way I think. Even some of the younger girls in the crowd have been getting a little rough and aggressive.

Do you enjoy that opportunity to win new fans?
LUKE- Oh yeah it’s great.
TONY- Yeah, absolutely.


And you’re playing at the sold out Slam Dunk Festivals too- are you looking forward to them?
LUKE- First time we did Slam Dunk was last year and I loved it; we had a great time.
TONY- Yeah, we loved it. And catching up with friends too in other bands from the States; it’s a big party.

“Life Cycles”, your second album, came out last year. You’ve said that the process of putting it together was very different and you learnt a lot.
LUKE- Yeah, definitely. I mean I wasn’t in the band really when they were writing and recording, but it was all very different than “Deceiever”. And this next record, we’ve heard that it’s pretty typical for a band’s third full length to be their most prominent and we feel that for us it will be the case. It’s going to be different with me writing with the guys and we’ve been coming up with some really cool stuff, and we’re all excited to show it to everybody.
TONY- I think it’s going to be our most mature album too. This one will be less scattered; I feel like each CD has been closer to where The Word Alive wants to be and this one will be cohesive. I think there will be a lot of different elements and doing different things that we haven’t done before, so we’re really excited for it.

I know you’ve said that you will be releasing an EP this year?
TONY- Well, we were planning on doing an EP but then started running songs and then tours came around, and we just decided that by the time we can start recording the full length it’ll be just over a year since “Life Cycles”. And because the band is completely different now, just from having Luke join, we want to hurry up and push out another album; this is finally The Word Alive. Each CD we’ve done we’ve had different members and it’s always been super difficult and really last minute so this CD we’re excited because we’ll all have the time to sit together and write the best album we can.


And what can we expect from it?
LUKE- We’re still gonna be heavy, y’know but we’re going to take out all the screams and all the drums. I’m just kidding [laughing]. We’re still going to be heavy, but we want to stray away a bit from your typical metalcore. We all have such different musical influences and different abilities that we put together as one; that as a unit is something really unique and special.

After this you’re going on a run with Killswitch Engage and Miss May I- are you looking forward to it?
LUKE- Yeah, definitely, we’re really looking forward to it. We’re also going to be offering lessons on the tour for kids to come out and get lessons with us, so that’ll be fun.
TONY- It’s a heavier line-up so we’ll fit in a lot better. We grew up listening to Killswitch Engage so I’m really excited, it’s a dream come true for me.
http://wearethewordalive.com/

Slam Dunk North 2013 live review CLICK HERE