Photo by: Wolfe Eliot
I have been a fan of The Word Alive since I was 13. I’m 24 now, so it’s very full circle to do something like this for me. So very excited for the opportunity to get a chance to talk to you about the singles and Hard Reset.
So, congratulations on Hard Rest, number one! How do you think that these four current singles that you’ve released reflect on the fact that you said Hard Reset is the most important album for you guys to date?
It’s always hard when, you know, you’ve been a band that’s been around a while. You have different levels of expectations, from internal to the business side to then fans. You have fans of specific songs, you have fans of specific albums, and then you have fans who kind of like everything, which is obviously the best kind, but it’s just not realistic. When you’ve been around this long, you’ve made so many different kinds of songs and albums. You know, it’s interesting to me because for The Word Alive, we hit a point early on where we felt like we did this thing. And we were like, we like all these other things, too.
So for us, we thought it would be cool to just showcase everything that we love. And sometimes I think we just kind of lost focus on what we really wanted to be making and saying at times, not that it wasn’t meaningful to us. I feel with Hard Reset and these songs and what the whole album is and represents — it’s just meant to be a refocused energy. There’s still diversity, song to song, but we want people to be like, “Oh, that’s The Word Alive.” And not have any confusion as to who we are and what the band’s trying to do.
So this kind of is literally a hard reset where it’s like, “Hey, we can’t change or do anything about how you feel about the band for the last 15 years, but here’s what we’re doing now”. And with the Hard Reset Tour, leg one that we announced, we’re playing something off of every single release.
It’s the first time we’re headlining properly in I think, six years or something like that. It’s a very long time and you know, we’ve had our shares of up and ups and downs and some bad luck stuff. But when we say this tour and this album are really, really important, it’s because we are kind of at that point where we’re getting older, life isn’t just like, get in a van and just go tour and, and just have fun. Whether it’s families, loved ones, friends, stability, there’s just a lot more at risk every time.
We choose to continue forward. So I think for all of us we’re just at that point and we feel like this album is very special, but ultimately the fans decide what happens with the music and how it connects. So if it connects and it gives us 10 more years, then we’re gonna happily do that. But if it doesn’t connect and if it isn’t the one that we feel like it is, then it’s just one of those things where you have to draw a line in the sand at some point in your life. And we want the legacy of The Word Alive to stay intact. So for us it’s like, “Here you go. We’re giving you everything we’ve got on this album”. We’re playing all the songs that, hopefully, you love when you come see us live. And if that isn’t enough, we’re okay with that.
What do you think that these four singles so far say, and what do you hope the fans kind of grab from all four of them as a piece of the bigger puzzle?
You know, it’s interesting because I don’t think that any of these four songs necessarily really sound alike — it would be hard to compare one song to the other and then one song to another song on the album, and once people hear the whole thing, it’ll make a lot more sense.
But it was done intentionally. I think we’ve had several records where it’s like, “Okay, these two to four or five songs kind of fit together and these two or four, whatnot” but they kind of sounded similar. For this, what we really, really tried to do is make each song have its own identity and sonically you’re gonna hear the cohesiveness, from song to song.
You have “Slow Burn” that’s more of like just an emotional, strong ballad that’s more focused on what it’s saying and how you feel. And then you have “Strange Love,” which is more like a darker, heavier, vibe where you’re banging your head a little bit more — and hopefully moshing. And then “Nocturnal Future” is faster, but would say leans more on the post-hardcore side of our band, which we always loved.
And then “New Reality” is kind of like this in-the-middle song. [I’d] say “Slow Burn” is the most commercial song on the record. New Reality is kind of closer to that too, but in the middle. And then you have “Strange Love” and “Nocturnal Future,” which are more on the other side. So I think there’s a lot of balance on the album and what I hoped people would take away from it is that each song is special and stands on its own.
They definitely stood on their own. When I listened to each one, every single time I thought “whoa,” but for a different reason. It was all very exciting to listen to. And together, they all sound like they are meant to live together but they’re different enough and I’m very excited to hear the rest of it.
None of my favorite songs have even come out yet
Really?
Yeah, I’m very interested to see how people will receive the rest of it.
Speaking of “Nocturnal Future” and it being the first single to be released, you also said on an Instagram post that it was always supposed to be the first song that everybody heard and it all kind of started with a dream. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Yeah. So I was very early into, essentially, rewriting the album. Whether you know, or people listening don’t know, we had a lineup change just coming out of the pandemic. Before we had started touring again, we had a lineup change. Zack did one tour and then took a year-long hiatus, which at the time was open-ended. I didn’t know if or when he was coming back. and he had to deal with some health stuff that like, maybe he wasn’t even gonna be able to play guitar anymore. And so, I was just like, “Well, I have one option. I can either just stop everything now or I can write what I feel the record is, if this had to be the last The Word Alive record.”
I wanted to just say everything that I could and be able to just walk away like “I left it all on the table.” So, “Nocturnal Future” was a song that started as a dream I had. I was writing so many songs, and lyrics and I was just constantly at the studio, like every single day for eight to 16 hours. It was consuming all of my thoughts and I would be dreaming about writing songs or being in the studio. The whole breakdown riff I basically heard in a dream. I woke up and I voice-memoed it. Then I went into the studio the next day and wrote “Nocturnal Future.”
It was the first one that I did with Hiram Hernandez, who did most of the record with me. “Strange Love” was written first before then, and “Strange Love” is what made me come back to Hiram because I was like, we’re working really well together and we’re pulling out elements. The guys were stoked. Zack was like, “This is fucking sick.” So that was kind of what set me off to the races. Then with “Nocturnal Future”, I had that dream and said to Hiram “I know it sounds crazy, but I heard this in a dream. I just wanna hear the idea all mapped out and then if it’s not cool, then we can move on.”
But we did, and it just became the song that is it. And he has this tapestry in his studio that has a black sun on it. And so I was like thinking about how the song felt like lyrically, and so I wrote the breakdown, “stare into the dark sun,” and then wrote the whole song about the world feeling like an eclipse where, like we’re all just like blinded by how shitty it’s become, and we’re just kinda keep moving on. But it’s like, does anybody see this? Because to me it’s as obvious as the sun and we’re all looking at it, but it’s not blinding us. So that’s like the whole metaphor behind it. Dreams and tapestries.
That’s honestly really, really cool, and kind of plays into “New Reality” and what you were speaking on with that song. Do you feel overall, the kind of idea for the album is like “I’m watching these things happen in the world and it feels so important to me, but not everybody else?” Because I kind of feel like that’s what, at least in how I’ve listened to it, that’s what “New Reality” is about in a way.
“Nocturnal Future” is definitely like me sitting back and getting older now and like looking at things from a different perspective and just being like, “Man, the world feels a lot worse than when I was a kid growing up and it just feels like everything’s dark.” The news is always not even just bad, it’s like horrifically bad and, and it’s just like click, click, click, move on, swipe, swipe, swipe. We’re just like, on our phones, doom scrolling and it just started to feel like I wanted to try to separate from that energy while shining a light on it myself for others. And so that’s “Nocturnal Future.”
With “New Reality,” it’s actually more about, how can I word this? It’s kind of like an ego death. Where your entire perspective like shifts and you are faced with like, you can live the way you were living, or you can go live this way, but living this way is gonna be a lot harder because now you have this like whole new perspective on life and it’s not gonna be easy, it’s not gonna be comfortable. So that’s kind of what “New Reality” is. It’s about battling maybe what’s easy and what’s comfortable, versus what maybe we should all be doing, which is looking inward and trying to just be better.
“Nocturnal Future” was the first song to come out. It came out in November [2022]. How do you feel the reception is, and how do you feel like that’s kind of amping you up? Or even maybe on the flip side, making you kind of anxious about the reception for the rest of the album?
So, “Nocturnal Future,” what’s funny about it, and I think I mentioned this somewhere else, is to me it’s not like, a single. It’s not what I would’ve put necessarily to represent the album, but it’s the first thing I wanted the album to say. I wasn’t done with the record when we put that song out. To me, this is kind of like a tied over, like just get things started. And it felt important to say, especially with just how things were, and it’s either the same or it’s only gotten worse since then. So, you know, I just want to put that out there.
Live, It goes over really well. It’s really fun. I think it’s a high energy song. It’s easy to get people jumping. Um, as far as the reception versus some of the other songs, we’ve only been able to play “New Reality,” but “New Reality” became like an instant like the loudest song we’ve had people singing in years.
It was really special to have both of those songs received so well, so quickly. And of course I’m, with just online as the only way I can tell so far, it feels like “Strange Love” and “Slow Burn” are also really accepted by the fans. Time will tell. People have to show up to the shows ’cause it’s, you know, it’s more than streaming. It’s getting out there and connecting live, which is the most important part.
Are you planning to play both of them live then on this tour?
We’re playing all four. We’re playing 15 songs for 15 years, so it’s a pretty long set.
Love that, hreat idea. Yeah, I feel like playing into the — not that Taylor was the first person to ever do this — but playing into the ERAS thing is a great idea for those who’ve been doing it for a long time, because it gives every sort of fan a reason to come to a show and enjoy themselves.
Yeah, exactly.
So I really would like to talk about “Strange Love.” That one’s my favorite so far. I just love the conversation about the rollercoaster of love in life and kind of those things that I pulled from it. This one does kind of feel like it has more of a negative take on love or on that part of life. What were you trying to say and what do you think, or hope, that people are gonna take away from it?
Yeah, so I feel like, again, the way the world is and — you know, there’s so much instant gratification now, that I feel like people aren’t necessarily connecting as deep as they used to or as they should. And because of that, it creates so much insecurity and trust issues and you’re unsure of yourself. And then when things don’t go a certain way, it’s like, you’re just constantly in a state of doubt and whether it’s self-doubt or doubting the other person. And when you have this toxic approach to relationships in general, not even necessarily romantic, because you can love your friends, you can love your job, you can love all these different types of things. It’s like when you’re loving with just a piece of you that’s not actually the real you, it’s not doing anything for you or the other person. And so that’s kind of like, we’ve teetered a lot over the years and you have “Numb Love,” you have “Misery,” you have “Why Am I Like This?”
You have these different songs which are pulling essentially at this toxic approach to relationships in general that I think is poisoning the future, because now you have a lot of, you know, these broken people who are constantly breaking more people. It’s just like, a cycle that’s creating anxiety, stress, doubt, hurt, pain that, in my opinion, is just not necessary.
I totally agree. It’s an unfortunate domino effect. Those people never really get the fix that they need, and then it kind of goes on from there.
It kind of feels like, as someone who’s been listening to you guys for a long time who loves picking apart lyrics and looking into those kinds of things, writing from a more personal place or writing in a place that lets you say what you need to say is pretty cathartic for you. It seems like so far with these songs, that really is something that you pulled into since you’ve done a lot of this by yourself.
What would you say is your main takeaway from this entire writing experience?
I think definitely this time around, I feel like I had to make it more personal. I think throughout the years, whether it’s been taking inspiration from experiences or things around me — people, their stories, movies, I’ve written a bunch of songs from movies, I think this time around I felt it was more personal to me. Like having the lineup change, having the feeling like I was the last man standing in certain aspects, it kind of was like, “Alright, well, you need to say whatever it is that you feel needs to come out of you.” I wrote and rewrote songs. I wrote a bunch of songs, and there are a couple songs that I didn’t finish. So maybe they would’ve made the record if I would have or maybe not. I’m sure they’ll come out at some point, but for me it was just like, “Which songs say something important? Which songs say something that I feel like is needed?” Whether it’s for myself to get out or something that I feel like people need to hear or would help.
And that’s just kind of the way it was. I feel like I gravitated more towards positive stuff. Like if something bad happened, there was a positive tinge to it. And there are some songs on this record that just don’t go there, they are just in this darkness. And I think that was something that I had to bring back into the equation because I think that’s where some of the angst and some of the heavier side of our band that fans love, too.
I think now being like the main writer for the first time, I wanted to connect the lyrics to the music more than they had been in the last few records because it’s like the guys do this and then I’m feeling something and then I write over it. It was kind of like at certain times I’d be like “This doesn’t feel like what it sounds like,” or vice versa. So I feel like I’ve really tried to connect the songs to themselves in a way that we have at times, and I think those are the songs that shine throughout our career. Like “Life Cycles,” “Trapped,” “Misery,” “Overdose,” “Why Am I Like This?” — all those ones I feel are connected, both instrumentally, lyrically, vocally, and now I just tried to do that with every single song very intentionally.
Do you think there was a song that you absolutely nailed that on for this record, or do you think it’s kind of all of them?
I think, yeah, pretty much all of them. But I would say there are some standouts for sure, which I will not go into detail about, but for sure, I think “The Word Alive Is Dead,” “War With You,” — which might be my favorite song on the record — “Hate Me,” I would say those three probably have the most synergy between them. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re like, the best songs or not great songs, but it’s just — I feel like those are the ones where it’s like, it’s like glue. They’re almost inseparable from each other.
Well, I can’t wait to actually get to talk about them at some point and hear a little bit more about it.
So, you did talk a little bit about “Slow Burn” and how it is maybe a little bit more on the commercial side. But musically, lyrically it’s very different and definitely has more of a standout approach. Personally, I think it’s beautiful. Why was it important for you to put something more slow and melodic on the record?
So, I think “Slow Burn” is one of the first songs that was technically written for this record, and the other being “A New Empty.” I think “Slow Burn” started first.
Me and Zack, we were working on this one with Erik Ron and when the lyrics and the melodies started to pour out, because this song went through a bunch of different versions, it’s probably got like eight versions of this song. And there’s, there’s actually one thing in this song that I don’t like and I just like gave in to, you know, the producer’s side of it where I’m like, “You know what? Maybe I’m wrong if everyone else likes it but me”. There’s like one harmony in “Slow Burn” that I just wish was taken out, but I’ll leave it at that.
But when I was in the studio and writing it, me, Erik, and Zack were just like, “I don’t know what this is gonna be, but this is special.” It just felt like the hook, the lyrics, were just like pouring out of me. It just worked so well and it felt like — in a very different way — but it kind of felt the same way as the beginning of “Life Cycles,” where it was almost surprising that there wasn’t like a big song with those words. And that’s kind of how this song felt to us, where we’re like, “This feels like something I would’ve heard before, but I know that I haven’t.”
We just felt like it was something that was saying something that a lot of people would probably be able to relate to unfortunately, because it’s a very sad song.
Yeah, definitely. You did say that it’s almost like a vision of yourself getting into a car crash in slow motion. Where did that idea come from? How do you feel like you’ve really accomplished that effect for the song?
I think hindsight is what we all crave. You know, we wish we knew then what we know now, and you can look back and be like, what would be different. For “Slow Burn,” it was more about — there’s like, a portion of the song that is very real to me, and then there’s like the extension of — I wrote it sadder than it necessarily meant to start as, and it’s just easier for me to write sad or upset. I think, you know, sadness and anger are very easy emotions to express and obviously can be unhealthy and very negative, but they’re just easier for any human to express..I mean, that sucks and it’s kind of fucked up, but it just is like the way that things are. So to me, I was in a relationship where one person was seeing that we were going kind of splitting apart. We both weren’t seeing the relationship at the same place. We had a different view of what it was and how it was going.
Then when you look back though, you’re able to like watch it like a slow motion car crash where you see the car running the red light, you see this happening, you see it, but you’re in the car and you don’t realize it because you haven’t got hit yet, but you’re getting in a car wreck.
And so that’s kind of what the song is to me. Where I think that happens to a lot of people for various reasons, you know, and this one for me wasn’t anything that bad or that sad, so I just made it like, “what would the saddest version of this story be?” And so that’s the song.
I think you nailed that. So “Slow Burn” came out at the same time as the album announcement. Was there a specific reason for choosing “Slow Burn” for that?
Honestly, we have a good amount of features on this record and people’s schedules kind of dictated a lot of when we could release songs, when we couldn’t release songs. There were certain plans that we wanted to do that had to shift because of other people’s plans shifting. And it’s so special to have the guests that we do have on the record, but it also made it very, very, very difficult to plan everything because it wasn’t just our schedule. It was six — I think there’s six, five or six. It’s like five or six schedules with their release schedules, which some would shift and then it would overlap with another one. So then we have to do this and move this, and then finishing the record and then worrying about vinyl and stuff. So honestly, “Slow Burn” wasn’t going to come out before the record dropped.
We pushed the record back to facilitate some things so we had this gap. And, Bob, our owner [of Thriller Records], called me. We were actually in Tucson, Arizona playing on the Pop Evil tour, and he said “So we were thinking it would be best to move back the record”. Not by much, since it was always gonna come out in August, but even a few weeks makes a big difference with scheduling. So it kind of freed up just enough time and he [Bob] said, “If you could put one other song out before the record, which one would it be?” And I thought it should maybe be just the best written, most heartfelt song on the record because a lot of the other songs are not about anything like that.
I just felt like it was gonna be just a nice breath of fresh air from the other singles and it kind of helps. I’m glad it worked out this way because I love the song. But it also kind of sets up the next single that’s gonna come out and it starts to like ramp back up. So I think it’s serving multiple purposes for the record.
And we’re off tour right now. Summer just started. You know, it’s like people are either falling in love or falling out of love left and right and it was just the right song for that. I didn’t feel like most of the other songs were like that start-of-summer where you’re kind of like, shedding your skin in some ways. People are doing different things, people coming home on break from college and whatnot. And you know, I just felt like it was the song that would be good for people traveling, driving around and for some people it’s almost like a reminder to focus on the love that you have so it’s kind of like a love song for those people. And then for others it’s an unfortunate anthem right now.
Awesome.
I really wanted to ask about the Twitter post and kind of the start of the effort to give opportunities to women and non-men to get into the photo pit. Whether it be their first time or their hundredth time. Why was that an important thing for you to do and kind of how do you think that all went?
So first off, it went incredible. The demand for it was beyond anything we could have expected and definitely not what I expected. It all started from, and I can’t even remember which one of my female photographer friends that I follow on Twitter, like there was a conversation happening that I just happened to see. And I’ve always tried to give photo passes to photographers just in general. And you know, there’s some really great photographers out there now who I gave them their first photo pass. And I think that’s like, for me, it’s really cool.
I’ve always liked photography, there was a part of me who always wished I was a photographer on the side, at least. I like looking at things and seeing how people can edit and make it look so cool or just unique. So I’ve always just been a fan of the art of photography, and especially in live music. Capturing those moments, capturing someone’s sweat beading off them while they’re singing, screaming, and a fan singing in their face.
There’s just something that you capture that makes you pause and look out a little bit longer. You know, video is great and I love video content. But when a photo really impacts you, it’s like — you sit with it a little bit and it just feels more like, I don’t know, not old school. It just connects you with the root of that moment a little bit more.
And so I saw this conversation happening and I thought, “Hey, you know, we have guest spots or guest list spots every night.” And especially on that tour in particular, I think we had 10 spots and we were playing a lot of cities where I knew we didn’t have a bunch of friends coming out or family, so I was like, “Fuck it. We can put a couple people on in most cities,” and then that just kind of erupted and the demand for it was just, I mean, we had thousands of people signing up and we could only put so many people on. And then at first, if we did anything beyond our guest list we’re like, “We can still get a photo pass, but we couldn’t give a free ticket.” Otherwise, we’re just gonna be paying, it was like we’re paying thousands and thousands of dollars and we’re not balling like that.
And so we, at first it was like, if you want a photo pass and we’ve reached our limit, and you still want to come to the show, you wanna see the show but you also want to photograph it, buy a ticket, and then we’ll give you an additional photo pass. that of course, like anything on Twitter or the world, got twisted and some people thought we were like trying to force people to work for free and pay to get in. And I’m like, “This isn’t for you.” Like if you’re a professional photographer that is regular, you’re working in publications and you’re getting your work seen, you’re getting paid, the opportunity was never truly meant for that level of photographer, it was meant for, “I’ve never had a photo pass, I don’t even know how you get a photo pass, I was already gonna be going to the show and now I also get to photograph it.”
So, you know, it was meant for something more niche. And then once it hit into the algorithm of [the] Twitter photographer world, a lot of things got twisted.
I was getting so many hateful messages and that were completely missing the point and misunderstanding what we were trying to accomplish. After speaking with management and the tour managers, we decided to just stop that. So we only would give what we could give for free, which sucks because that meant we had to cut off like, potentially hundreds of photographers, but it was just — you know, that’s the thing. No good deed goes unpunished, especially on Twitter. You can’t even, like, you couldn’t give money to someone who’s homeless and in need without someone maybe twisting it into this other thing. So I try not to focus on that because it is just, you know, you turn off your phone and then that’s gone and then you’re living your life and you know what your intent was.
But it was upsetting because I’m just trying to help and this is a way that I know that I can help and if there is a better way, do it. I feel like it’s kind of crazy if I’m the first person who’s like, “Hey, maybe we utilize guest lists and open guest list spots and we get a register of all these photographers in all these different states and maybe we start helping them to build their portfolios.” If I’m the first person who’s putting this into action, I feel like that says a lot about the photography world as a whole. I’m like, “You guys should be working together.” And I feel like it’s very cliquey, and [the] music industry is just like that as a whole. It’s very hard to break into.
So in my mind I’m like, I’m trying to help, and this is why people don’t help, you know? And to me it was like creating a counterproductive conversation rather than acknowledging like, “if this isn’t for you, that’s fine.” It would be the same for me, if someone wanting to do guest vocals on the record and they didn’t have a budget and there’s this thing like, it might not be for me, but there’s probably a thousand people that would think “This is so sick and I would love to do this,” and so I think, yeah, for me, I’m very excited that I did it. I’m happy it was so successful. It was so rewarding because people would come up to me every single night and either like, “This is my first photo pass” or they’d show me the photos. And some of them were so good and I couldn’t believe that they’d never even been given an opportunity. And even the ones that weren’t good, it’s like, you gotta start somewhere. Like my first demos of singing were not great and my first band sucked, but you gotta start somewhere and someone has to give you a chance. So that’s all it was meant to be. And you know, we’re gonna continue to do it as best we can. It was a lot more time consuming than I anticipated.
One of our managers, or day-to-day manager, is female as well. And she donated her time to do it. It took like, days and days of work for her. So it was not an easy thing to do and put together. And she said “I want to help too,” but she was getting very, very rude and hateful emails to her and she’s like, “honestly, it’s not worth it to me to feel this way.” You know, she’s a human being. We’re all human beings. People need to just be a little bit kinder to people on the internet.
Lastly, I wanted to ask about your whole career and kind of how you did say that Hard Reset truly is a hard reset. If you could put all of your career into a reflection moment, how do you think Hard Reset really does put all of that into a reflection of personal and musical growth.
I think there’s pretty much an element of every release we’ve ever had in this release. There’s the experimentation, there’s the technicality, there’s the aggression, there’s the anger, from breakdowns to solos to you name it. Electronic components shining at different moments.
I really feel like if people don’t like this record, I would genuinely be shocked, but music is subjective and nostalgia really plays a huge role in people’s minds and the way they consume music, even now. So someone’s perspective of us being our heaviest or our most technical, or our most whatever, may be seen through a different lens than a new fan who’s like, “Damn, okay, this is pretty crazy actually.”
So I can’t control that, not gonna be able to, but I do feel like this record takes into account our whole career, both the message that we’ve always tried to express — which is just mostly about being able to express how you really feel and the trials and struggles that we all go through throughout times and trying to find that optimistic atmosphere and push it through the songs, while also being as authentic as possible at the same time.
I feel like this represents our band very accurately. But of course, people’s perception of our band may be completely different from what it actually even is. And that’s just a part of music. You know, someone could be like, “I wrote this song about this” and you could have a hundred different people take the lyrics and they’re like, “oh, to me it means this.” And that also is true for the way the music is played, felt, heard, you know? There’s so many factors in it of how people are going to receive this album, but I’m just overall excited to, I just want it out. Like, honestly, if I could skip forward a little bit and just be like, do you guys like this? Are we gonna be able to play a ton of shows? I’m kind of there because some of the songs I had started writing years ago, and it’s been a very long, grueling process to get this record done and made. And so I put everything into it and I hope that will be felt through, through the songs.
“Hard Reset” drops August 25, 2023 via Thriller Records.
