Following the release of their 7’ and now full. Length, I caught up with Sam from Antagonist AD to discuss the album and shows ahead of their overdue NZ tour!
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NEW ALBUM/FINAL PART IS OUT. HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HAVE ALL OF IT OUT?
Anti-climactic. I’m not gonna lie. We recorded this in 2019. It think some of the songs we had demos for, as far back as 2016/2017. But we’ve been sitting on these songs for so long. Then we recorded the whole album 2019 and at the same time broke it up into the 7’ and had this real like grandiose plan of how we were going to release it all. It tied into all these tours around the world and it was going to be so sick and none of that happened. Then all of a sudden the album is kind of out now. But it is rad to have it out. I listened to it for the first time in a long time in it’s album format which is what the intended format was. I was really stoked and proud of how we made it flow, how everything links together with the quotes and how different themes present themselves. I’m really proud of what we’ve done but it just feels anti-climactic from our original intention.
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WHEN YOU SAID IT WAS 2016/2017 I COULDN’T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT YEAR WE ARE TALKING IN NOW.
Yeah it wasn’t even just one change, it was multiple throughout the time. And we’re about to go to New Zealand right and that was for, I don’t even know if was ‘Through Fire’ or ‘All Things’. It may be a ‘Through Fire All Things’ release and we go over there and it’s going to be for the full length We didn’t get to go to NZ in between releases and that sucks.
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I HAVE TO ADMIT I WAS A BIT WORRIED. I WAS THINKING PLEASE DON’T CANCEL, JUST KEEP RESCHEDULING.
I think if we had to do it one more time we may have cancelled it and re-announced it. It’s just been a grind and I don’t like to harp on about it because everyone went through the pandemic, lockdowns and experienced different things in different ways. It’s so sick to have it out, I don’t want to sound like I’m whinging, I’m very very grateful but overall yeah anti-climactic.
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I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PROCESS:
HOW DID YOU KNOW YOU WERE GOING TO HAVE THE NAME AND TRACKS SPLIT OVER THE 3 SEPARATE EP’S? WHICH WEREN’T EVEN THE ORDER FOR THE FULL ALBUM TRACKLISTING EITHER.
We sat down for a while for this. As the songs were materialising, we were placing them throughout the record. We had a rough idea that we should do a song like this and a song like that. When the actual song ‘Through Fire’ came together, I had those lyrics sitting there and I wanted to do something with it, it just needed to be with the right song and the right idea. So once it came together, the name for the album and how we’d break it all up kind of made sense more. It’s not even something like “Oh I thought the name was cool and I wanted to split it up into the 7’”. I feel like ‘Through Fire All Things Are Renewed’ reminds me of ‘Our Cities, Our Graves’.
I wanted it to be reminiscent of our previous stuff and intrinsically us at the same time, which sounds self indulgent. But I wanted to step more into our world and our music and what we’ve tried to create.So that’s how splitting it up into the 7’ came about as well. It’s to try give everything more life and spend more time with each release and each of the songs.
We broke up the songs and we shuffled them around and spent heaps of time going okay what works. We got the full tracklisting done first and then we broke it up into the 7’.
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IT WORKS THOUGH BECAUSE WITH COVID AND HOW PEOPLE COSUME THINGS, EVERYONE IS CONSUMING THINGS QUICKER.
Yeah of course and that’s insane to me. We did all of this before covid existed and we did it like this because we were like this may be our last album. We might not have the opportunity to write again, we might not have an audience to listen, we might not have it in us to pull something together again. So we really wanted to do something special. Because of how much time we’ve put into each song, we wanted to give all of the songs as much time and light as possibl and that’s why we released it like this. So we could release a 7’ and couple of singles off each one. At the time we were operating pretty minimally, so we’d be like oh well do a tour so we can do a song prior to this tour and we had all these grand plans before covid of all some South East Asia and European tours as well as Australia and New Zealand. We were planning on releasing stuff as these tours were coming together but then covid happened.
But we were glad we did it like that because we would have just put a record out and then it would be done. It would be 2 years later and 2 years old now and that’s crazy.
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WHEN YOU SAID YOU DEBATED FINISHING THINGS AS A BAND… I SWEAR.
We had time off and then we came back and started playing shows. We really appreciated the fact that people came to see us, still shared the energy and still want to share that live experience with us. It’s so sick. I think now everyone gets to experience that again with covid time off as well. But coming to release the album we were just like we don’t know. We don’t know if we’d have time to put together a record again because it was quite arduous putting this record together. We’ve been a band for ages and we want to make sure that something we release is really good. Everything that we have to do from now on, it’s going to be the best representation of ourselves, otherwise what’s the point. If we sit on demos forever, which we did prior to the release, and just keep putting them to the side then it might go on like that and we’ll fade away because we won’t have anything good to release. But I am glad we did what we did with this one and I’m really proud of that and it’s definitely lit a fire in all of us.
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Photo Credit: Tom Ise
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I HAVE FELT LIKE WITH MUSIC, AND ESPECIALLY LIVE MUSIC, I TOOK SHOWS FOR GRANTED. TO HAVE THIS THING TAKEN AWAY, IT FELT AMAZING TO HAVE IT BACK. BUT IT DIDN’T HIT ME UNTIL I WENT TO A FESTIVAL OVERSEAS THAT I WAS LIKE YEAH NO I LOVE THIS SHIT.
A big thing that became apparent to me on our last tour, I was like these things are so special. Isn’t it wild that we all have this cool thing we get to go to, almost every weekend, where we just have this whole thing that exists and most of the world doesn’t even know about it. And we have this whole thing where we can be around likeminded people, feel welcome and share our crazy ideals of how the world can be a better place and live that amongst ourselves. All just have that shared hope and release from everything else – it is crazy! It is so sick we all know about it and go along for the same reasons. And sure there’s dumb drama and all that bulklshit but in my opinion that shit can be swept under the rug and ignored basically. But for all the positives that are there, it is a really special environment and not having that for a couple of years is wild. That’s a big part of a lot of people’s mental health. Being able to connect with people and have that release every weekend, it’s really special.
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TWO SHOWS COMING UP IN NZ. YOU GUYS WERE HERE NEARLY ONCE A YEAR.
Yeah were were trying to keep it once a year. With what we were doing with the record we would have been over a couple of times and were going to try start bringing bands with us as well. But with covid and stuff we haven’t been able to see it through. We have these shows in July and hopefully we’ll be back at the end of the year too. We’re not really sure yet because we’ve been trying to make new plans while trying to sort the stuff we planned before covid. But hopefully we’ll be back and can bring someone else with us that may not usually be able to make it to New Zealand.
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I WANTED TO ASK ABOUT THE ARTWORK AND HOW YOU GOT THE IDEA FOR EACH OF THE EPS AND ALBUM? IT IS VERY COHESIVE AND LOOKS LIKE AN ETCHING. IT IS ARTWORK YOU COMMISSIONED OR PRE-EXISTING?
Thank you! The concept for the artwork is similar to the concept for the music – because we wanted to split it up over 3 eps to spend more time with each song in the same breath we wanted to spend more time to illustrate that narrative through each single and ep – taking the opportunity to create more artwork that would slowly peice together the bigger picture. We really wanted to create a world that is our music, our message and have imagery and history to go with that.
I met with Patrick Galvin to discuss ideas for artwork, and said how we wanted to reference classic metalcore releases in particular Arkangel and their woodcut etchings they used. But also expand on that and create out own esoteric images/icons that would represent the messages and culture of our band. We wanted to create the world the band is and I think Patrick nailed it!
He had recently traveled through Europe at the time and had seen etchings and other tapestries that he pulled for reference, reimagined and added too.
Super happy with how it all came together and how you can see the journey in the artwork.
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YOU HAVE RELEASE A FEW MUSIC VIDEOS THROUGHOUT THESE RELEASES. HOW DID YOU GET THE IDEAS FOR THEM? AS ‘THE SYSTEM IS RACIST AND OPPRESSIVE’ IS QUITE CONFRONTING AND FAST-PACED WITH A LOT OF INFO AND VISUALS. THEN YOU’VE GOT ‘ANGELS AT YOUR FEET, DEVILS IN YOUR HEAD’ WHICH HAS MORE OF A CLASSIC SELF-SHOT VIDEO TYPE FEEL TO IT.
With the lyrical content for System we wanted to be straight up with what the song is about – we wanted to have the facts and statistics to show that the message is undeniable. It’s an opportunity for us to create awareness to an important topic so it was about utlising that. We consulted with a lot of people (special thanks to our lovely friend Jimmy from Chasing Ghosts who had a lot of input here) to make sure we did it the right way. Shout to wriggles/third eye for making it look as impressive as it does!
For Angels we wanted to do something clean and personal as the song is more self reflective. We also wanted to work with our friend Tom Brown who comes out with us each time we tour – was rad to see him come up with what he did.
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NOW WE RECENTLY SPOKE ABOUT FB TROLLS AND HOW THAT GUY SAID YOU SHOULDN’T TALK ABOUT “ISSUES” AND HOW EVERYONE IS DOING IT. BUT I WANTED TO KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS ON THOSE SORT OF COMMENTS AND ALSO WHAT YOU THINK ABOU THE FACT THAT MOST ARTISTS HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THESE THIGNS IN THEIR MUSIC. OBVIOUSLY THIS IS WHAT A LOT OF HARDCORE MUSIC IS ABOUT. BUT OVERALL (NOT JUST HARDCORE) DO YOU THINK SOME OF IT MAY BE TOKENISTIC OR DOES IT NOT MATTER AS IT IS STILL SOMETHING THAT SHOULD BE TOUCHED ON REGARDLESS
Okay, I could either rant on this for so long or try to give a really short and blunt answer – I’ll do my best for the latter. If people are jumping on positive topics / health choices / compassion / awareness / trying to help others because it’s trendy then fucking give them a high five and tell them to keep on going. Assume the best in people you dog cunts, don’t be so damn judgmental (looking at myself also here). If you’re concerned that someone is being insincere or tokenistic with a message just talk to them and if you find yourself disagreeing have a conversation and try to educate or show them quietly why approaching something right in *potentially* the wrong manner is harmful. What does tearing down people publicly when they’re trying to do something positive achieve aside from discourage others from coming out of their shells and just stroking one’s ego.
Who cares, just try to be better and help people be better. Everyone’s learning, everyone’s growing – we should never stop. Let and help people evolve.
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I HAVE TO ASK ABOUT THIS PIECE OF MERCH – WHERE DID THE IDEA FOR THE WARRIORS SHORTS COME FROM? ALSO WILL YOU BE BRINGING THEM TO NZ?
Haha it was mine, because I wear them 24/7 and I thought it’d be mad to represent but I’m still worried they’re gonna tell us off about that – but they rule. Next year is our year for real for real, we will have them in NZ – fun fact I can finally wear my NZ WARRIORS HOME shorts on Friday and Saturday for the first time playing since we are finally home.
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NOW THAT THINGS CAN ESSENTIALLY GO AHEAD, DO YOU HAVE MUCH PLANNED OR IS IT MORE 2023 AND IS THERE MORE NEW MUSIC IN THE WORKS?
We have some plans for the end of the year, and are talking about some options for next year. We need to lock in this year 100% then we will be on to the next one.
We have some new demos that have been on the back burner while we get ready for these shows but once we have some time they’ll get it.
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RANDOM/FUN QUESTIONS
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FAVE SNACK?
Toast with marmite and heaps of butter or these cookies that have jam in them.
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OVERUSED PHRASE?
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I say “interesting” a lot in different contexts / kinda like buzzy but with a flat tone.. I think it’s passive aggressive sometimes I dunno, being passive aggressive is wack – but I think it’s kinda become it’s own thing..
and if not then.. Bruv, bruh, bro, buzzy (not altogether but sometimes). I am filling this out on a plane, if I wasn’t I would ask my friends I’m curious to see what they’d say.
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IF YOU COULD START A RUMOUR ABOUT YOURSELF, WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY?
I don’t know any but the bassist from World of Joy is telling everyone their great granddad invented kodak.
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