While She Sleeps: "We live for being on stage"

It's been ten long years since "Four Walls" took the world of heavy music by storm, and a couple more since the quintet from Sheffield made its full-length debut with "This Is The Six". Five records later, While She Sleeps are still pushing forward, with no intention of slowing down or compromising their art on any way. From the band's truly independent, in essence, mentality and their overly energetic live performances to the brand new "Self Hell" and the fresh spin it brings on their sound, Aaran McKenzie painted for us a clear picture, and then some.

You've always had a really hands-on approach to your work. From your point of view, which is biggest advantage, and which the biggest challenge that comes with it?

We've always been just a very hands-on band, it's the only way we know how to approach things. We really started putting ourselves out there properly around 2009 or 2010, and naturally things came along, like management and labels and all those kind of things. At the time, being very naïve, we kind of started handing our baby over to other people, and it felt like a lot of the time people were dropping the ball. We didn't feel like we were taken care of properly, so we quickly realized that if you're going to do something, you have to do it yourself.

Nobody's going to care about your band as much as you are. We've always had that mentality. Then, when we had we started gaining some success and we started going through those things, it kind of empowered us even more. You know, people look at things like management, labels and all that kind of thing, they put it on like a pedestal, like something to achieve. The light got quickly shined onto that stuff, I mean, it's very helpful and it definitely aided us, but at the same time, like I said, no one's going to care about it as much as you.

You know, Mat (Welsh) manages the band, I make the videos, Sean (Long) writes pretty much all the music, a lot of us have our hands in that now, but primarily over the years he's been the one who's created like a lot of the music, and Mat and 'Sav' (Adam Savage) handle the merch. We're people who don't do well at sitting around and doing nothing, so although it is a lot of work, we wouldn't have it any other way; otherwise we'd just be driving ourselves crazy and our art would not be a true reflection of us either.

From what I've gathered you changed things up this time, compared to your previous works. Can you share more about that?

Hmm, I don't think we necessarily changed things up. I mean, the record sounds a little different and is more diverse, but I think every record in itself is some sort of natural progression from the last. Our musical taste differs from the previous albums. We are just in different places in our lives, so every record is like a time stamp in our lives, what music we're listening to, how we're feeling, what experiences we're going through; and "Self Hell" is no different. I think it is the culmination of all of our experiences combined and being translated into something musical.

You know, the synths are there, but Sean has been going through this like big kind of synth journey since "So What?", really. It only made sense that we keep putting it on albums because he's progressing in the way that he writes. It's just kind of like a progression, and we're also getting more collaborative as time is going on. As I was saying, Sean has been primarily the songwriter in the band, but I think with this one more than ever, we've collaborated and people are contributing more musically and lyrically than ever before.

So, the process has stayed the same, we're still we're still recording at our warehouse, like we have done since "You Are We" and we don't really write with a specific style in mind, we don't write with anything particular in mind at all, we just let things naturally happen in the studio. If somebody has a part or a section, we build around that and that kind of blossoms into whatever it's supposed to be. There's never any intention behind it, it's just what naturally comes out of us.

It's the definition of being a sellout, if you're not writing songs for yourself

I totally get that, especially the 'not with anything particular in mind' part, and I mean, your sound is always there and distinguishable.

I think whatever we did, even if we wrote a pop song or a country song, because it's coming from us, it's always going to have a Sleeps element to it. There are songs on the record that don't sound like anything Sleeps has sounded like before, but that's a good thing. People have had 18 years of this band and five other albums, six if you include "The North Stands For Nothing". Do people just want more of the same thing? I think it's a situation, especially on the internet nowadays, like you're damned if you do and damned if you don't; people just love to spread negativity and they feel entitled, like they have some ownership over what you do.

Don't get me wrong, we're very appreciative of our fans and we wouldn't be here without people who support the band, but we don't really owe it to anyone to go in any particular direction. We write the songs that we want to write, always had. We've never written for anybody else, and we've just been lucky enough that we've had a bunch of people come along for the ride. We're just doing what we want to do, and I think that's what people want to see, really. It's the definition of being a sellout, if you're not writing for yourself, so that's what we're doing.

I think people will always find a way to be negative about the stuff that you're doing, but it is what it is, that's the internet nowadays. I think there's a lot of the sound that is still very Sleeps, you know, we have the heaviest song we've ever written on the record and we also have the most melodic, most emotional song and everything in between. It's a 12 track album, there's a lot of jumping around but it's a journey, and we write albums specifically for them to be listened to from start to finish. No single song that we release really represents the album in its entirety, you have to take it with a pinch of salt.

Just fucking do what we want, and have it bright and loud

So, when you put out the title track, I guess you anticipated the questioning that followed?

Yeah, I'd be very intrigued to know what people would think of "Self Hell" if we didn't release such a flamboyant video with it, in the style that it was. Like I mentioned, we've been around for eighteen years and we have done every single metalcore, every style of music video that we could possibly do, and this is why the music videos for this album campaign are wildly different from each other. We're trying to really get creative with it and do things that we haven't done before.

With "Self Hell" we were just having fun with it, we were just like 'let's have people dancing, let's dance ourselves, let's dress crazy and just fucking do what we want, and have it bright and loud'. I think people saw that and got scared, because when I listen to the song it's still very heavy, Maybe some people didn't get from the chorus what they wanted, cause it's not a typical Sleeps chorus, but... we're trying to do something different, you know. I would love to know people's reactions if we released some sort of "Sleeps Society"-esque video with it, like in an alternate universe.

But yeah, we definitely knew when we were releasing that with the video that it was probably going to stir things up a little bit. And it's proof in itself that we've played this song live quite a few times now and people love it, it's one of those songs that I think translates better live than on the record, and I think that's what Parkway (Drive) have done really well in recent albums. You can hear that they're writing for those big festivals and when you go and see them it fucking kicks off and it's amazing, I think "Self Hell" is one of those songs.

And as you said, it's just a part of the record. On the other hand though, when I first listened to the whole thing, quite a few songs caught me by surprise. Were there any gave that felt like that for you while writing?

In a way; you know, we always incorporate these breather-kind-of moments in our albums, and although we experimented with a few styles, I don't think this album is any different, but those songs that are kind of like pallet cleansers, "No Feeling Is Final" and "Out Of The Blue", it was really nice to push the boundaries with those. It wasn't something new, but to really do it in a way we haven't done before and see it work out, that was nice.

We never go in the studio with finished songs

And "Radical Hatred / Radical Love". That was a song that 'Loz' (Lawrence Taylor) brought to the table, he wrote it on acoustic and we didn't really want to translate it into a typical Sleeps song. We very much wanted it to still have that acoustic feel to it, to feel like it was a bit stripped back; we've never done that before, it is definitely a very different sound for us, but I think it's great. It does what it wants, and I think that's a good representation of our mindset on this album.

You know, we never go in the studio with finished songs, we're building on it, and sometimes I'll spend like a few days away from the studio while Sean's tracking, and I can come back and an entire song is built. It's always a nice surprise to come back to that. [Laughs] But yeah, I think every song has different flavors and because you're in the process so much, obviously, you're stoked with how some things turn out as they unfold, but nothing really takes you by surprise.

Now, I might be off, but since you touched on it, I just have to go there; in some ways, "Self Hell" reminded me a lot of "So What?" Looking back at it, how do you feel about it?

It was a very chaotic time. A lot of us were going through different things when that album was being created. I got married, and I was supposed to be married way after the album was finished, but in typical Sleeps fashion things got delayed, so I was gone for part of it. Mat had appendicitis and he had surgery. Sean was going through a breakup at the time, so I think when you're listening back to that album, you can hear the pain in it.

It was an album that very much nearly broke us, because we had to get it done, but we had so much going on in our actual lives, but you know... I look back at every album and it's so cool that we get to do this and have it like a time capsule. You can almost hear what you were going through at the time, in every album. Like, I listen to "Brainwashed" and I can hear how young and angry we were. As time has gone on, we've become a lot more introspective, we're more well-rounded human beings than we were, and I think that's everybody's natural progression in life, right?

But I think because we write music and have released albums right from our teens all the way up to now, in our mid-30s getting to 40, it's really cool. When I listen back to those albums, it's almost like a smell that can take you back to a certain time in your life. When I listen to those albums I fully just immerse myself, which is crazy. But yeah, when I listen to "So What?" I hear a lot of the struggles we were going through back then.

We're not blood family, but we are like literal family

With all those ups and downs, how difficult is it to preserve your friendships while being in the band?

We definitely have internal struggles from time to time, a lot more so back in the day, and when I say 'back in the day' is probably like... recently we're as tight as we've ever been, we're the most understanding we've ever been with each other, but like every human being has any friends or family, you have certain things that annoy you about certain people, and we're no different. But you can't go through as much as we have and not still be friends.

We'll be friends for life, until we're fucking old people, we've been through too much, we are inseparable now. We're not blood family, but we are like literal family, and you don't break up with your family, you know. Even if Sleeps didn't continue in the near future, or the far future or whatever, I think we'll remain friends. It's one of those things, and I mean it's hard, because you start this thing as friends when you're very young, and then before you know it, you're in a business with your friends.

That's very difficult to navigate at first, because you started this out to be fun, and it is still very fun don't get me wrong, this is the best job in the world, but it takes you by surprise, because you didn't think that's what it was going to turn into, and if you want to maintain it, it is a business and you have to take finances into consideration, it won't survive without it. That's hard, but we've been through the naivety and the struggles, and now we're in the best place we've ever been.

Given the nature of your live performances, and the fact that you go quite heavy on touring, what's the secret ingredient for keeping the energy up there every night?

By just truly-truly loving it and truly being passionate about it; I think if you weren't, then you couldn't do it as hard as we do. And it's not just the relentless amount of shows that we do over the years, it's having the energy to do that night after night. It definitely is almost like a form of yoga or fucking meditation for us, you know? I mean, I think it's the polar opposite of yoga in literal terms, because we literally fucking headbang and throw ourselves around and it's probably not the best for our bodies, we're definitely feeling that in our mid-30s now, but it's the fucking passion for it man.

Our shows are almost like a form of therapy

Getting out on that stage and for people to resonate with something that you're doing, it's hard to not just fucking be energized by that, so I don't think it's anything more than that. Like literally, we live for it. We live for being on stage and putting on the best show for people, no matter what we're going through. You know, we've been through some fucking terrible situations, personal things that have happened or receiving some fucking terrible family news before a show, and you still go out on that stage and you still use it as an experience. We're not going to let our fans down. I'm not going to let it. It's probably what I need in that moment.

You know, I'm never going to not give 100% at a show, because for some people who come to see us, that's probably like the one fucking night out of the week they're taking out of their lives, they've probably got a lot of stress in their lives, and they're coming for a release. They don't want to see us put on a half-ass show, and we we're well-renowned now for having a live energetic show, so we're not going to let people down. It's all about that and, like I said, our shows are almost like a form of therapy, in a way I feel like a lot of a karma person when I'm on tour. [Laughs]

Through the years, you've shot some pretty awesome video clips, and for my taste, "To The Flowers" might just be your best.

Thank you, I really appreciate that.

As someone who's been on both sides, behind the camera and in front of it, I'd love to hear some of your insight.

So, I've always had a passion for film making, but it was eight years ago when I started my actual journey in creating visuals, and it's really helped having the band to practice on, in a way. I started by creating content for the band, and when I first started creating it was terrible, but back then the standards for the content coming out weren't as high as it is now. I kind of came up in that era, as content was getting better, and I was getting better with it. By the time that bands were having content creators and videographers out with them, I got to the point where I was okay.

We had Tom Welsh, Mat's brother, who shot all of our music videos. He was out on tour with us back in the day, and I say this a lot, but I think we were ahead of the curve. When we were releasing studio documentaries, tour diaries and all that stuff way back in like 2010 to 2013 or whatever, you didn't really see a lot of people doing it. Then Tom got paid jobs and we lost him, because he just started his own journey and started making a living doing what he loved. When we lost him, I was trying to fill the hole, and like I said like it was very much like practicing on the band, like trying to make whatever I could.

[The video for "To The Flowers"] is very raw, but I think art should be like that

Eventually, I just got better, bought my own cameras and started creating music videos for other bands, and then that progressed into making documentaries and that kind of stuff. I've worked with a lot of different brands, and now I'm in the realms of creating my own short films, to try and get myself to the place of directing and making my own feature films, which is the goal for me. It's what I've wanted to do for forever, and I'm so grateful that I still get to create music videos and still stretch my legs with the band, because I've got two pillars of occupational passions in my life; While She Sleeps and film making. When I can bring the two together, it's always amazing.

I think my first one was "Haunt Me", and you know I always got the music videos that didn't get a budget, because I wasn't quite good enough yet. [Laughs] Tom was still shooting our music videos, but when it got to "Eye To Eye" a couple of years ago, I got the budget for my first big music video for Sleeps, and I felt like it was an opportunity. I love how that one came out, and it was kind of a light bulb moment, like we can pull off what looks like really big production for way less money. "To The Flowers" is the latest one and thank you for your kind words on that, because yeah, I'm really proud of it.

I think we accomplished what we set out to achieve. We wanted to make something that looked like an indie film, obviously it's a very tragic love story, but we just wanted to represent real life and... there isn't always a happy ending, these things can happen, but even in the darkest of times there is still a glimmer of hope. You can't let go of that hope and you should never lose the will to live, no matter what you're going through. There's always people around you who you can turn to, there's help lines, there's people out there.

People don't want people dying, I think we can all agree on that, especially to suicide. It's the worst way to go. Sorry, this is longwinded answer, but we were definitely a little bit nervous about releasing that video, because it is very raw, but I think art should be like that. And I think if you take it with a with a pinch of salt, if you take it as almost like a warning, that this is how life can go, if it can make you feel something emotionally, you can resonate with that and you can tap into that, and maybe plan your life accordingly somewhat after witnessing it, then maybe it could save a life, who knows.