2021

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M U LT I M E D I A M A N A G E R J A M E S W I L S O N - TAY L O R
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CONSUMER MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR

04 | ROCK SOUND
CONTENTS
10 THE ROCK SOUND CLASS OF 2021

12 WATERPARKS

30 SPIRITBOX

48 THE MAINE
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08 | ROCK SOUND
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C L ASS OF 2 02 1
 HIYA,

IT’S US AGAIN, BACK FOR ANOTHER EDITION OF

THE ROCK SOUND AWARDS!

IT MAY HAVE STARTED SLOWLY, BUT 2021 TURNED OUT TO BE THE YEAR
WHERE OUR SCENE GOT BACK TO DOING WHAT IT DOES BEST:
BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER.

COMMUNITY IS WHAT WE’RE ALL ULTIMATELY HERE FOR, AND IT FEELS

LIKE THIS YEAR, TOURING ARTISTS HAVE BEEN ABLE TO CONNECT WITH
PEOPLE IN A WAY THAT ONLY MUSIC ALLOWS US TO.

THESE THREE ARTISTS ALL PUT OUT EXCELLENT ALBUMS IN THE PAST 12
MONTHS, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY THAN THAT, MADE OUR WORLD FEEL
LIKE A COMMUNITY AGAIN. THAT FEELS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER.

THIS IS A CELEBRATION OF BANDS GETTING TO GO OUT INTO THE

OUTSIDE WORLD AND SING, AND PEOPLE LIKE US GETTING TO GO AND
SING RIGHT BACK AT THEM.

ALONGSIDE AN UTTER HEAP OF EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS FROM THE ROAD

AND BRAND NEW, AT TIMES SOUL-BARING INTERVIEWS, IT’S TIME TO
MEET ROCK SOUND’S ARTISTS OF 2021.

ENJOY,

ROCK SOUND | 11
 THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS

WATERPARKS
C L AS S OF 2 0 2 1

ART I S T OF THE YEA R

J A M E S W I L S O N - TAY L O R

JAWN ROCHA

ROCK SOUND | 13
 nother album, another lap around the world… another year

A
that very much felt like it belonged to Waterparks.

Their exponential growth continued this year with a new

label deal and their latest and absolutely greatest record.

They began 2021 in isolation putting the finishing touches to

‘Greatest Hits’, and end it off the back of a triumphant, huge

North American tour, by way of big, big festival slots and the realisation of

more ideas than even they might have thought possible.

Here, Awsten Knight looks back on the journey he and his bandmates

Geoff Wigington and Otto Wood have been on over the past 12 months,

and faces towards the future.

14 | ROCK SOUND
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS

How has your 2021 been, Awsten? It seems like a
lot of bands have understandably found this year
to be way more productive than last…
“It’s better, but it’s been equally productive. In 2020 I still made over
100 songs. Still recorded all of ‘Greatest Hits’ - it was pretty much
done by January - made the DVD, ‘FANDOM: LIVE IN THE UK’… that
took like, five or six months. Yeah, 2020 was still super productive
and then obviously this year… album release, making a million more
videos, playing shows. That’s why I say it’s equal.”
Was there any transitional period for you, or were
you just straight into work mode?
“It never stopped. And I’m not saying this is necessarily a good
thing, but I just can’t stop working. It’s very hard for me to stop.
Sometimes I actively try to just because, but I feel like I just operate
better if I’m working on things. The thing is, at least if we are out
doing shows, I’m not writing songs because of it. But last year I
didn’t have an excuse.”
‘Greatest Hits’ was of course released this year.
You’ve talked before about wanting to better
yourself with each album, but what’s interesting is
it feels like the leaps between each record are now
getting bigger too...
“I’m very about smooth transitions between stylistic stages. It feels
very inorganic if somebody has screamo, alternative rock and then
they try and go full pop. It’s like you didn’t do it naturally, so it feels
disingenuous. I also think that I was more impatient being stuck at
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS
home. And on top of that, since I had more time to create and just
make weird sounds and demo things out, I got to learn a lot and hit
a lot of things that I wouldn’t have necessarily found so soon. So I
think it’s a combination of those things. This gave a lot of time for
me to find the most weird, left of centre, out of pocket stuff. I can’t
tell you how many Halloween sounds I went through making ‘See
You In The Future’. Sorry, ‘See You In In The Future’.”
It’s funny hearing you talk about acts earning that
change in sound. It’s like you are world-building
but it’s about the musical sounds rather than
characters or stories...
“Yeah, and wanting to make as many different styles as you can.
Because when it stops being fun or fresh or exciting, I don’t wanna
do it. Touring itself is very fun and rewarding, but it can also get
monotonous. So if you are not pushing the boundaries everywhere
you can, whether its sonically or show production or whatever…
I mean, you see how easily I get distracted. I won’t want to do it
if it’s not fun. You know who has got the best transition between
that I think I’ve ever seen? Like, as far as musical styles go as
a band? Bring Me The Horizon. I know where they started and
watching them go to ‘That’s The Spirit’ and even the stuff they are
putting out right now… it changes style-wise so much. Not only is
it consistent, but it changes and I think thats awesome. Not a lot of
bands are willing to do that in case it feels like they are putting on
somebody else’s clothes. But they’ve done it in a very smooth way.”
Was there anything specific on ‘FANDOM’ that you
ROCK SOUND | 17
“WHEN IT STOPS BEING FUN OR FRESH OR EXCITING,
I DON’T WANNA DO IT”
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS

ROCK SOUND | 19
 “I THINK BEING ALONE ALL THE TIME
MADE ME WANT TO COLLABORATE MORE...”
wanted to improve on or push further this time
around?
“I don’t wanna compare songs especially because if you compare
old things to new things, just because of how nostalgia works, it’ll
never compare until more time has gone by. But if I can sit down
and look at ‘Numb’ vs ‘Watch What Happens Next’… They’re both
cool, they both have interesting pre-choruses in very different ways.
One of them is more drawly, very minimal and then the other is a
little hip-hoppy but more in a Beastie Boys kind of way. Then that
outro is from hell, just crazy. I love the vocal patterns in it, in the
b-section. And then I’ll look at ‘Watch What Happens Next’ and
compare those patterns. I look at things like that. What stuff got
added in that’s special? What are the special elements that aren’t
just guitar, bass, drums? I compare stuff like that a lot. Some songs
are written where it’s like, ‘This one will have a pit’. Some songs it’s
like, ‘This is for people who don’t even fuck with us, but it has such
a groove’. Or, ‘This one is a dark ‘Life Of Pablo’-type production
that’s dark and evil but expensive-sounding’. There’s just certain
things I wanted to accomplish and especially at that time, during
recording, being stuck at home, I needed to do what’s going to
make me feel fulfilled right now.”
You seem to be in a very collaborative mood too
with the guests on the album and then things
outside the album like the track you did with
DE’WAYNE. Is that collaborative spirit something
you are becoming more open to?
“Yes, definitely. I think being alone all the time made me want to
collaborate more. And then also I feel like, and I hope this comes
off okay… as good as I feel like I am at writing and production and
finding creative ways to do things, I know that other people are so
much better than me at other things. I don’t wanna be the fucking
best in the room at everything, because then why am I in this room?
When I gave ‘Crying Over It All’ to Zeph, I didn’t give very much
instruction. I was like, ‘Just add harmonies, do your thing, pretty
freeform, just go for it’. Because when I listen to her stuff, she’d
always send me demos or even on her Instagram stories she’ll post
the acapellas of stuff she is working on. There’s like twenty layers
of vocals and they are doing these random swells and all this cool
shit and I’m just like, ‘Woah, that’s insane’. So when she sent back
all of the vocals for that, it was the same kind of thing. And that’s
not something I would have thought of. It’s no longer me sitting at
this desk right here working on ‘Double Dare’ or ‘Entertainment’. I
20 | ROCK SOUND
think you can only go so far alone and if you happen to have friends
and people you like around you who are incredible at other things, I
don’t see why you wouldn’t collab with them. At the end of the day,
all I want is the best album in the world.”
It felt like that spirit of collaboration had
disappeared in the scene for a while but is now
coming back around again, which is great because,
like you say, everyone benefits from that...
“Yeah that’s totally true. And at least for me, I felt like I had
something to prove, especially early on. Because we did... we had
a lot to prove. But I think, maybe in an ego sense, or I don’t know
what it was, but I took a lot of pride in it. We’d meet people in other
bands who were bigger than us and they’d go, ‘Is it true that you
had no co-writes or people working on this or anything?’ But in the
grand scheme of things, we’re not shit. In the world of music, most
people don’t even know we exist. But I feel like that thing - that
weird alternative music mindset. Some, ‘Us against the world, got
to prove yourself’ type of shit - I don’t really have that anymore.
And I’m glad, because it’s not productive, it’s not helpful, it’s not
gonna make you have a better album. I feel like alternative music,
as stubborn as everybody is, I think they are probably seeing how
good collabs are in hip-hop, or how Spotify works and are like, ‘Oh
shit, we should do that’.”
You’ve always talked about personal stuff within
your lyrics but it feels like on ‘Greatest Hits’, you
were a lot more open and direct. What do you
think has changed in your approach to lyrics?
“I think there’s multiple reasons for it. I think most people just don’t
look that deep into stuff and I want them to know what I’m talking
about. ‘Entertainment’… that whole fucking album is metaphors.
The whole thing. And I think with stuff like ‘Turbulent’, that was in
a way more cathartic. This isn’t an objective truth or anything, this
is just for me, but I think it’s more cathartic to be blunt. And thats
not to say metaphors or keeping things poetic isn’t good. I want to
still use metaphors, part of me wants to lean a little more on that.
There’s just something very cathartic about just saying it. ‘LIKE
IT’... just getting to talk shit for verses and I had even more verses
written but I just wanted it to be like a punk song. A very grungy,
punk kind of thing. It was just more of a release. People that are
very into the band will look more deep into things but sometimes I
just want someone who hears ten seconds on TikTok to know what
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS

the fuck I’m talking about. Lyrically, I didn’t want to waste any time,
I just wanted to get to it.”
‘Double Dare’ celebrated its fifth anniversary this
year. Is there anything about the creative process
back then that still applies to how you work now?
“Honestly, it’s the same. Sit down, laptop, guitar, keyboard, bass,
mic. Shut everything out, start making shit. What is made has
changed, but the process is the same.”
Is there anything you wish you knew back then
that you know now?
“All I would do if I could go back is just give them a mixing budget.
Because I wouldn’t change anything. I like some of the songs more
than others but I still think they should all exist. We made the whole
album for like, $10,000. Some people might hear that and think it’s
a lot, but it’s not. For making an album, especially on a label, thats
nothing. If we could get a Zakk Cervini mix, like a remix…”
When it came to the live show, this tour seems to
match this new era in feel. How did you approach
bringing ‘Greatest Hits’ to the stage?
“We went through a lot of different stages with the production.
This was the first idea - I want it to make it look like thunder if we
want to, make it really dark and moody, no lights around us just
silhouettes and bits of lightning, because it’s just a full cloud wall, so
we can be in a storm like we are going to die or it can glow gold like
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS
we are in heaven, or like a sunset. Somebody actually asked me at a
Q&A the other day about the symbolism of the doors onstage and
I think being in my apartment so much for that long, I was always
just looking at them. It felt right to bring the three doors hovering in
the clouds. We had the red, yellow and blue bikes because that was
my only escape during it. I could come up with crazy production
all day, but you also have to take into consideration the rooms you
are doing. Is it indoor, outdoor, 500 people, 2,000 people… You
base these things on that. What can work in different ways. I think
it’s the most fitting and conceptually it’s probably the best pairing
we could have had visually with this album. But some day I think it
would be so cool, when we get to do those fucking arena shows,
to collab with someone who has done it a million times. The first
time or two around, you don’t understand the capabilities of what
can and can’t be done. You don’t know what your limits are, so you
just kind of be safe. So I’m excited to eventually start collabing with
someone on that.”
As things get bigger, it feels like the rooms
are starting to match your ambition. Is there a
pressure to scale things up?
“There’s not really a pressure. I just don’t think about it like that. The
other night, and this hasn’t happened in forever, but right before
going on I had this weird moment where I felt like I’d re-entered my
body. They were already playing ‘Greatest Hits’ and the first song is
about to start and I felt like I’d re-entered. I glanced at the audience
and thought, ‘Oh god’. Fucking freaked out. Like, ‘What the fuck am
ROCK SOUND | 23
“I NEEDED TO DO WHAT’S GOING TO MAKE ME
FEEL FULFILLED RIGHT NOW”
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS

ROCK SOUND | 25
 “SOMETIMES I JUST WANT SOMEONE WHO HEARS TEN
SECONDS ON TIKTOK TO KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I’M
TALKING ABOUT”
I doing?’ I say that because the best thing you can do is not think. If
you just show up and do it, cool shit gets done. If you think about it,
if you analyse it, you psych yourself out.”
It was also great to see you be joined again by
Mikey Way during this tour…
“I know man, that was so cool. We’re always talking about when
we can do stuff because he loves playing shows and he fucks
with Waterparks and stuff which is so crazy. I was in Nashville a
month before the tour and we hung out and got dinner, and he’s
like, ‘Dude, I wanna play one of these shows’. And he’s gonna be
in Nashville so I’m like, ‘How about Nashville? And anything else
you wanna do’. And he’s like, ‘Definitely Nashville and I’d love to do
more’. I was like, ‘You let me know what you wanna play and we’ll
switch up the set after’. That was so fun. He is one of the nicest
fucking people in this world. He’s in the biggest rock band in the
world and does not act like it. He’s so humble and so nice. He’s just
a good dude.”
Looking forward, what do you think are the
biggest things you learned in the process of
making ‘Greatest Hits’?
“I definitely don’t wanna talk too much, especially as I don’t know
way too much, but I think that the one drawback that I’ve had with
‘Greatest Hits’… it’s not even a drawback with ‘Greatest Hits’, it’s
just the way in which it was consumed. I think that because it’s
so long, and not even long runtime wise... It’s just that 17 tracks is
intimidating to some, especially if you are not a diehard listener. I
think some songs got overlooked, or under-appreciated. There are
certain ones where I wonder how long it’s gonna stay underrated.
The production on ‘See You In The Future’ is fucking insane but its
not even in the top seven of the most listened to. Or ‘Magnetic’. Or
‘Crying Over It All’ is I think one of the best songs Waterparks has
ever put out. They just get overlooked. ‘American Graffiti’, I kind
of made that song as I was frustrated one night at how dogshit a
26 | ROCK SOUND
lot of alt.rock stuff that was coming out at the time was. I was just
like, ‘This is so uninspired, I’m just gonna make the way fucking
cooler version of what these people are trying to do. I’m gonna do
the perfect mix of Jimmy Eat World and Death Cab and all these
people. And then just throw in some real wild production’. That
outro is so fucking pretty. I feel like a lot of those get overlooked
because theres so much. And there’s a lot we can’t put in the set
because it’s literally 17 songs. We’re already playing for an hour
and a half every night, which is a lot. We’re not playing six of the
songs because theres not even time. What I’m getting at is, the next
album will probably be more… I don’t wanna say concise, because
it’s not like ‘Greatest Hits’ isn’t. It definitely goes on more tangents
because that was the point. But it’ll probably be shorter.”
It certainly feels like alt.rock is the place where
the album is king. In hip-hop you can release
singles all the time, EPs, whatever you want. Is
that something you’ve thought about in terms of
release structure?
“I’m cool with singles. I don’t really wanna do EPs anymore. Mainly
because I’d rather just do four singles or release them as a pair.
Because then if somebody hates one, they’ll probably like the other.
But I think that I would probably just do singles or pairings then
drop another album.”
What is on the to-do list for 2022?
“We are coming to Europe. We’ve got some more shows that we
are gonna announce soon. Some places we’ve never been before.
We’ve locked in support, haven’t announced it yet but its gonna be
very cool. We’re playing that London show - insane. I wish I could
say more. It’s gonna be a good year.”
Waterparks’ latest album ‘Greatest Hits’ is out now via 300
Entertainment. They’re due to tour the UK next summer.
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS
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 THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS

SPIRITBOX
C L AS S OF 2 0 2 1

ART I S T OF THE YEA R

JACK ROGERS

ANA MASSARD

KYLE JOINSON

ALEX BEMIS

ROCK SOUND | 31
 T
his year, in the shape of ‘Eternal Blue’, Spiritbox released a

debut album that dyed heavy music in their very own shade.

Their year has been an awful lot for anybody to take in,

especially when you consider they’ve only played a handful of

shows this year. As a result, they’ve become the hottest heavy

band on the planet largely through screens rather than onstage.

Much like the year before it, 2021 has seen Courtney, Michael and Bill

finding new, ingenious ways to connect with the people who adore their

band, and achieving that rarest of things and delivering on the hype.

Here, Courtney LaPlante and Michael Stringer explain what it’s been like

to live within Spiritbox’s whirlwind year.

32 | ROCK SOUND
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS

First off, and on top of the other incredible things
that 2021 has provided, how does it feel to have
your debut album out in the world finally?
Courtney: “I’m almost scared of it now. Like, I know that we can top
it, but the thing is, more than anything, it is us figuring out who we
are as musicians. And the whole process was compromised and
compromised just because of the nature that it had to be made. We
made it during a time when everything was shut down. We made
it in a kitchen, with our producer Dan [Braunstein] of course, after
all. But it’s cool that it resonates with people in the way it has, just
because the process was so humble. It wasn’t the big elaborate
thing that we always envisioned it would be.”
Michael: “The process made me want to rip my hair out. It was the
most stressful time of my life for sure. So it’s just nice knowing that
people like it.”
Courtney: “It resonates with us so much, so for it to do that with
others and for them to feel it in the same way - and for you guys to
be as embracing of it as you have been - is just so fucking cool. It’s
every musician’s dream.”
Well, first off, let’s go back to the end of 2020. You
had just released ‘Constance’ as a single. More and
more eyes were on you with each passing day, but
you still needed to make ‘Eternal Blue’. What were
your hopes and aspirations for the year ahead at
that point?
Michael: “It was complex. We were trying to balance time to make
the album, record it, and make all of the extra bits and pieces for
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS
it whilst also trying to book shows and festival slots. But at the
time, we were all thinking, ‘By June next year, we will be all good.
Everything will be fine again’. So we had a fairytale of sorts of
what we wanted 2021 to look like, but slowly and surely, things
started falling away. At the very least, mentally, the biggest thing
for me was getting the album done. It was a case of getting it
done in the best way possible where sonically it wasn’t going to
be compromised, even if other things were. But it was just a case
of figuring out precisely what you can do. It sucks when you have
Reading Festival and Download Festival - bucket list things -
pencilled in, and then they are not a thing anymore, and you have
to accept that.”
Courtney: “I knew that people were going to like our album at
that point, but I didn’t realise that people would have such strong
feelings about it. We would never put out anything that we didn’t
think was good, so we knew that we would get a pat on the head
from someone. But we didn’t think it would end up resonating so
much and people being so passionate about the build-up. I’ve also
been pleased with how our music world has embraced me. That’s a
very low bar, and it should be the bare minimum, but I’m not naïve
enough to know that the bar is that sub-level at times. Personally
and professionally, being a woman and being so embraced equally
and not put on a different platform or pedestal has been cool.
It’s been nice to feel like I feel the same way as many of our male
peers feel, without gender being as important to the music they are
making. It’s an interesting and diverse thing to celebrate, rather than
the sole reason people talked about the band. To me, I think that
means that many younger people are in control of music media and
ROCK SOUND | 35
 “IT JUST FELT LIKE PEOPLE WERE READY”
M I CH AE L
starting to organise and share that kind of stuff and perspective.
That’s good for everybody.”
Michael: “Also, by the time we were going into 2021, most of the
recorded songs had been written for almost two years. So I was
personally pretty checked out from a lot of what we were doing,
but seeing them roll out and people start to hear them for the
first time was a massive shock. Like, ‘Oh, we have actually made a
record!’”
You must have had to accept that at that point,
it was other people who were now writing your
story for you. And it’s in a way that you definitely
wouldn’t have expected, with people sharing
opinions and labels and expectations on a
predominantly digital scale out of your control
because you can’t go out and play and prove
yourselves…
Michael: “I struggle with that a lot, to be honest with you. With the
whole world cut off, it feels like the worst time in terms of people
suffering in the way it has been. And then when your passion
project that you’ve put so much into starts to take off and people
start to take notice, it’s mentally very weird. It’s mental gymnastics
trying to deal with both sides of it. And yeah, because you only
have one means of seeing the world, you start to discover these
things. People are talking online, making their minds up, sharing
their opinions over on YouTube because there is one video of you
playing live, and that’s all they have to say whether you are good
or not. So, it’s been a learning experience to not pay attention
to that and not let it get to me. But the aspect of one year there
being a small group of people who care, and you love that, to all
of a sudden a lot of people start to care. You still appreciate it, but
you’re still in disbelief, and it’s very stressful because you haven’t
had the time to go out and hone in on your craft. You go from the
opening slot of a tour that you felt so lucky to even get on to all of
a sudden playing festival sets in front of 20,000 people, and a lot of
them are there for you. I don’t think anyone has a handbook written
for coping with things like this because it’s such a random thing to
experience and go through.”
Courtney: “The expectations are very high, but I work a lot better
under pressure. I like that people are going to expect a headline
quality show from what is still an opening band. I’m going to do my
darndest to give that, but the truth is that we are still an opening
band throughout all of this, and we deserve to play those slots and
36 | ROCK SOUND
STR I NGE R
learn and grow from that. That’s what I’m hoping we get to do this
upcoming year because we still have so much ground to cover and
learn from our peers. We haven’t been around people enough to
know and get advice that so many other bands in our positions
have been able to.”
Michael: “We’ve done nine or ten shows in 2021. And in that time
we have got to rehearse only a little bit. Everything else has been
done over the Internet, and it will be nice to be able to all sit in a
room for an extended amount of time. Because Bill [Crook] and Zev
[Rose] live far away, and we still need to get to know them.”
Courtney: “Seeing them is like a treat. It’s like seeing your friends
on vacation. But Michael doesn’t like seeing people speculating
shit online. I, on the other hand, love it. When you’re the only
woman in the room, you feel like you have a conspiracy mind,
and you’re constantly paranoid about what people are saying and
thinking about you behind your back. And sometimes, you start
to catch little looks from people and begin to worry about what
they believe. But that’s why I love the Internet because people will
share exactly what they think about my band and think about what
we deserve. The thing that makes me so happy and proud of my
accomplishments is the people who have nothing to say that the
only reason we could be where we are is an industry plant. When
I see that, I’m like, ‘Oh my god, could I get a better compliment?’
Like, we aren’t just shot old people who finally got a fucking
break, and who are now set up for a home run. I also love how the
discourse has changed so much. Now, and don’t get me wrong, it’s
still alive, and well, people don’t tolerate misogyny and sexism as
much as they used to. Or instead, they are more comfortable calling
it out, whether they be a man or a woman or a non-binary person.
It’s not just women defending women anymore. But also, when we
are a more active band, we simply won’t have time to look at any of
that because it’s unhealthy to look at it as much as we have had to.”
That’s why the band’s trajectory this year has
been so fascinating, because it’s a route that
would never happen at any other point. And it’s
all documented in such a unique way. It’s very
rare that those expectations rise in the way they
have when you’re just sitting in your house or the
kitchen recording. And because it’s happening in
such a way without a lot of your input, you must
be doing something right at the base of it…
Courtney: “Exactly, that’s why the industry plant thing is so funny.
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS

Fifteen years of delivering pizzas as a front to our success. The
masterplan of not going to college and working every day to reach
this point. It’s all been plotted perfectly.”
Michael: “And the thing is, despite all of it, we still know how far we
have to go and how many aspirations we still have. It’s interesting
to me how some people will look at us and think, ‘Well look, they’ve
made it,’ and we are very appreciative of that. We never thought
we would get to this point. But we’re not content with just putting
the one album out. There’s a lot we want to do, and there’s a lot of
ground we want to cover. We’re still learning, and we’re still trying
to figure it all out. So, we don’t find a reason to lie to people when
they say to us, ‘Oh, you guys must be loaded now and living the
good life’. Like, no, dude.”
Courtney: “We’re doing better than most other people who make
this kind of music, but we’re not finally successful. We’re still one
of the lucky ones. We still have our jobs, but we are going to quit
them. We have had the kind of jobs where you don’t have to work
all the time and can take time away, but we will make that change
soon.”
So, when you reached the point when you finished
the album, and it changed from being files on your
computer to a physical entity that you could hold
in your hands, what did that feel like?
Michael: “There’s a small moment when all of that was happening
where I was feeling very depressed and lost. It was a moment
where I probably should have been relieved, but it was more, ‘Well,
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS
what can I do now?’ But ultimately, it’s for everybody else. So when
that process is happening, it’s getting ready to become everybody
else’s. I wasn’t 100 per cent mentally finished with the record until
release day. When it went on Spotify, that’s when I said, ‘Right, it’s
done’. I couldn’t be so attached to it anymore after that. It’s like
a kid, isn’t it? You spend so much time obsessing and thinking
about every possible thing that could be right or wrong. And even
a month after you have released it into the world, you listen and
think, ‘Shit, I should have done this and this’. But then you have to
be in the mindset that it now belongs to everybody and it can now
become a part of their lives as much as yours. But the in-between
time was very difficult.”
Courtney: “As a singer, there’s a point when you listen, and it stops
being you singing and you’re just listening to a song. Instead of
focusing on your performance, you’re just hearing music. It goes
from being critiqued to being a glued together full song that you
don’t think about in that way anymore. It’s no longer the act of
you singing it in the kitchen. It’s just a voice that also happens to
be your voice. You’re then thinking of the feelings that it makes
you feel and not, ‘At this time my throat hurt and I had just eaten
a burrito’. That’s the transition. And it’s the transition of power.
We’re so passionate about our music that we were just so excited
for other people to hear it finally. We were also excited for the
small group of people from our Patreon who are passionate about
listening to it because we knew that they were so excited after
watching this band struggle for two years to make it happen. So
the big moment was when we were able to show it to them. It was
ROCK SOUND | 39
 “HOW MANY BANDS COME ALONG AS THE NEW COOL
GUYS AND THEN FUCK IT UP?
THEY GET TOO COMPLACENT”
COUR N TE Y
almost like we all got to be done with this thing as one. Now I’m just
excited to play songs off of it.”
One pretty incredible moment within this whole
process was when ‘Circle With Me’ dropped, and
another unique moment of feeling like something
was genuinely happening, albeit being online.
What was it like for you to see how much that song
and video took off? There must have been a sense
of relief first of all…
Courtney: “First off, it wasn’t even going to be the song that we
went with. It didn’t even have a name at that point, just days before
it was released. It was called ‘Diet Coke’ when we shot the video.
The guys kept on saying, ‘We should do Diet Coke,’ and I was like,
‘No, it’s too dramatic, I want to do something more fun’. So we
were initially going to do ‘Hurt You’, that’s more about shaking off
the cobwebs and feels fun and bouncy. I was worried about how
dramatic it was. But the more and more the guys were saying,
‘We’re doing the wrong song, let’s do this one’, that’s when I started
to think, ‘Hell yeah, this is dramatic, and it goes with what we are
trying to do’. And then the video was thrown together at the last
minute as well. We went into it wanting to do just a performance
video, but then we got the place with the spinny camera, and it felt
perfect. We felt like such assholes to the crew because it was four
days before us launching, and we were changing everything, but
luckily it was an easy fix and a cool experiment.”
Michael: “We watched the premiere in Dan’s studio all like, ‘Okay,
this is the start of it, let’s see what people think’. And it was just
crazy. Then the reaction community on YouTube just grasped hold
of it. It used to be a case of sitting in your car and showing your
friends a song and then watching their faces to see how they freak
out to certain parts that you freak out over as well. But now you
can just get on YouTube and watch people watching things for the
first time and be genuinely stoked. It’s one of my favourites on the
40 | ROCK SOUND
L aP LANTE
record, and it all lined up and made sense, but it ultimately just felt
like people were ready. And they were happy with the direction.”
Courtney: “And we’re such nerds too, so we were built up with,
‘This is it, we’re going to see what people think of the mix of the
album’. And there were no bad comments about it. There were no
comments about it at all. That’s a good thing because it means that
they are focused on the actual song, so that felt awesome as well. It
was very much our little, ‘Hello everyone, we’re still doing this’.”
And then, when some of the plans that you had set
in place are going to take place, that must give you
so much more drive as well. But the Limp Bizkit
tour, albeit cut short, must have been the last
thing you saw coming as your first shows back…
Courtney: “That tour came into our lives as quickly as it left. It was
three weeks to prepare for it because that’s just how they roll. Then
three dates in, it got cancelled, and we were such naysayers to all of
our friend’s bands who had a tour lined up. We were getting texted
saying, ‘What happened?’ and we were like, ‘You’re next buddy,
you’re all going down, get ready’, and everybody else’s tours just
kept on going without a hitch. Like, of course, it was going to be
us, but now we have hope because everybody else is fine and has
plans in place. But it was all just insane to be in the middle of.”
Michael: “To go from releasing the few singles that we had to find
out that we would be touring with a band I have been obsessed
with since I was a child and that the first shows back would be on
such a platform, it was a lot. We had one day to accept when we
got the offer through, and I have never felt sicker. I was pacing
backwards and forwards, not knowing what to do. But when we
accepted, it was like, ‘Here we go’. It wasn’t even about what we
needed to practice. It was ordering everything that we needed. The
in-ear systems, all of the tech. We had never done anything to that
scale before, because the first tours we did didn’t even have a crew
or anything. It was just a rig that I had thrown together. It was good
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS

enough for a local band, but not for huge shows and festivals.”
Courtney: “There was too much on the line for us to use anything
like it. A lot could go wrong.”
Michael: “We just didn’t have what was required to put on a show
that we wanted to on that scale. So from meeting up in Chicago
a week before and getting everything ready to meet our crew to
then being on stage on that first night, I was terrified. We then
played, and people who were there knew the words, which was
even crazier. Then afterwards, I stood there for about ten minutes in
complete disbelief at what had just taken place. It came and went
so fast, we left the stage, and I can’t even describe the feeling. It
may not have physically been the biggest show in the world, but it
was also the first time we could show ourselves within ‘Eternal Blue’
and since the pandemic. The whole thing felt like a massive glitch in
the matrix.”
Courtney: “We’re grateful for it and for what it meant. We’re getting
so many opportunities that we’re not taking for granted. Because
how many bands come along as the new cool guys and then fuck it
up? They get too complacent and don’t spend enough time on that
second album and tour and tour and tour without writing anything
worthwhile, and then they put out something bullshit and go back
to delivering pizzas. I don’t want to do that. We’re going to take
every chance we have very seriously and work our asses off so that
we don’t fuck it up.”
And when you’ve been waiting for this moment
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS
for this long, you know that you can finally start
paying your dues and cutting your teeth in the
way that you have always wanted to. You’re able
to show people why they should believe in you as
much as everybody is saying that they should…
Courtney: “And we can only improve along the way. We just need
to go on tour. Every day when I go to the gym and practice, I have
February 16, 2022, Dallas, Texas, in my head because that’s the first
day of the Underøath tour. It’s a full six-week tour, and it’s going
to fucking kick our ass, but we need that desperately. For the
chemistry of playing live together and all of the things that we miss
within our identities as musicians that we have had to stifle for the
last two years. Much the same as everyone else, but the difference
is that we also had the five-year gap before not exercising that
muscle either. I just want to show people what we are. I want
people to respect us as a live band, so our work is cut out for us.”
Michael: “There is nothing better than catching one of your
favourite bands halfway or towards the end of a tour where they
are warmed up and flying.”
Courtney: “The most shows we have ever done in a row is on the
Coheed & Cambria cruise we played!”
And on the subject of that, some of the beauty of
the shows you have been able to play this year is
the variety of audiences you have been in front
of. What do you feel you have learned from those
ROCK SOUND | 43
 “IT’S BEEN OVER 13 YEARS TRYING TO
MAKE IT HAPPEN”
M I CH AE L
different environments and different sets of eyes?
Courtney: “The thing I have learned the most is the process of
studying all of the bands in their element that genuinely love to
perform live. You look at Coheed & Cambria on the one hand, and
then on the other, you look at Gojira. At Welcome To Rockville,
when they were playing, I snuck onto the stage and hid behind
some gear and watched them play for a minute. But seeing how
some of the best bands in metal do their thing is priceless. We
got to see Slipknot too. Those bands seem so comfortable with
themselves on stage, be it somebody who has a microphone or
is just playing the guitar. They have this instant confidence and
connection with their audience. Also, they are very much there to
do their job. Those are the kind of bands I like. They look like they
go out and put their head down, and it’s not this weird egotistical
dick-measuring contest. They are there to play music and innovate
their live sound and continue to push it as hard as they can go.
They are never complacent, even if they are a band that has been
around for 20 years. That’s all been crazy inspiring to me. And then
watching that laser connection with their fans and it is channelled
back to them, it’s fucking crazy and something I want in my life.”
Michael: “I started making music in 2008, so it’s been over 13 years
trying to make it happen, and this year has granted us a lot of
opportunities to play and be around artists that I never thought I
would be around. So when you get those moments where it can
be as simple as setting up your rig, you look over and see what
somebody else is using. Or you get to meet their crew or their tech.
They are all such tremendous learning experiences. Being able to
pick up little bits of information from them is incredible.”
Courtney: “Even little things like, ‘How do they walk out on stage?
Where do they stand on the stage?’ Every video I see of us, I’m like,
‘Bitch, stand further back, they can see you poking your head out
and having a look’. We want this to be like theatre, after all. But also,
seeing the fans has been a huge motivating factor in all of this. I see
people who look genuinely happy that you are there, even if they
don’t know your band and are hearing you for the first time. And
also being able to build a team for ourselves. We are so grateful to
44 | ROCK SOUND
STR I NGE R
have been able to find a group of people who will be on the road
with us throughout the next 12 months and beyond. My main goal
next year, and nothing is confirmed, but I hope it goes my way, is
to be the opening band for the entirety of it. And every time a tour
is announced with us opening, I want people to be like, ‘What?
With this genre of band? Opening?’ I would love it so much. I want
the head-scratching and confusion. I feel like it would be a big
statement in a lot of ways.”
Another thing is that when you’re on stage, there
is nowhere to hide. And when you are so used to
being in control of everything you put out into
the world, you need to learn about the things that
can go wrong. Because nothing is perfect, but you
learn from those imperfections….
Michael: “It’s so important that side of things is continually
improved upon, even when we get to the point where everything
is seamless and all there. I still want to research and add little
things that we bring in that make things easier and sound better.
Ultimately, people coming to a show are spending a lot of money
and time on travelling, and you have to deliver. Especially with
the expectation that has been put on us, to not have that mindset
would be us shooting ourselves in the foot. We have been granted
this chance, so let’s never be lazy.”
Courtney: “Our main thing right now is making sure we are living
in the moment. Taking in these huge audiences and making sure
I remember to open my eyes when I’ve had them closed for a
whole minute so I can take it all in. The rest is just technical issues.
There’s always some crazy thing going wrong, and I’m not going
to be talking on stage and saying, ‘The reason Michael isn’t moving
around is that his stuff is broken, and if he moves, everything will
cut out’. I’m going to talk about how lovely a day it is. We don’t
have people waiting in the wings ready to throw another guitar for
him. [Reassuring people that] I can hear everything in my in-ears
right now too, and nothing is cutting out, even if I can’t. But it’s all a
part of it. It’s a really big dose of reality. There will always be things
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS
that go wrong. Even people at the highest level go through it. So
it’s been very comforting watching things like that happen and then
watching how effortlessly it gets smoothed over. And throughout
the next year, we will get all the chances to put all of this into action,
so we are ready to play that headline tour that we have always
dreamed of.”
So, a few months down the line, how has been it
watching ‘Eternal Blue’ bloom and thrive and seep
into people’s lives on both sides of your creative
process?
Michael: “Every day, new people discover it, and that’s what’s
crazy about it. When you make a record, you put it out, and you’re
focused on the immediate response. The first week is the focus, all
of the emphasis is on that. But what is so lovely about it is that it’s a
permanent thing that represents a couple of years of our lives, but
at the other end of it, it’s going to come into other people’s lives
at some point in the next five or ten years. Hopefully, people will
be discovering it for a long time. People are living their lives, and
our music is playing as part of it, and that’s so crazy. These songs
soundtrack their day to day. It’s so satisfying and fulfilling.”
Courtney: “I think that’s one of the things that we did have a good
head on our shoulders about. We’re not making this album for genre
gatekeepers or people who are annoyed that we put out too many
songs as singles. We’re making it for the people who may not have
even heard of our band yet, or even like this sort of music. There
are an exponential amount of people who could discover it at some
point in their lives. That’s such a cool thing to be able to present and
watch.”
Michael: “It’s evident in the songs that are on the album. Things like
‘We Live In A Strange World’ and ‘Eternal Blue’ don’t hit you in the
face, and if they do, it’s in a more emotional melancholy kind of way.
We intended it to be something that you could digest if you’re a
fan of soft melodic shit or heavy breakdowns. That was the goal, to
have variety.”
Courtney: “We wanted to make a record that we wanted to listen
to.”
You’ve achieved the fluidity that you initially
set out to create, and looking to the future, that
fluidity will become even more prevalent and so
much more important…
Michael: “The goal since day one has to not put a label on anything
we do. When we wrote the first EP, I didn’t even know what I
wanted to call it. It was a collection of songs that I loved, so we
put them out. Then the second EP was a set of singles that we put
together, but we simply enjoyed making. It has never been a mission
statement to the point where there has been a point we wanted to
reach. We never set out to be more groundbreaking or heavier than
we have been in the past. If songs turn out a certain way, then so
be it. We don’t go in saying, ‘This is what we need to do’ or, ‘This is
how we get that accolade’. We’ve already started writing again, and
everything will be even more diverse in that sense because we’re
older than we were two years ago. There is so much more creative
fulfilment in winging it and seeing how things turn out because
that’s the way that they are meant to be. As long as you are making
what you like and want to create, that is all that’s important.”
Courtney: “Every song we make is Michael going, ‘Wouldn’t it be
cool if this part happened?’ and then we do it, and we all say, ‘That’s
cool’. That’s what it’s all about.”
With this batch of songs out and no longer
hanging over you like they have been for the last
couple of years waiting for this moment, is there
joy in that creation once more?
Michael: “Just the thought of not having restraint in travel anymore
is everything. If we chose to, we could meet up with our producer
in either Canada or LA and write some stuff. That alleviates so
much pressure and negativity. A lot of ‘Eternal Blue’, and I feel it
comes out in the recording, had a lot of frustration in it. We sat on
it, and I’m glad we did because it gave us some extra songs and
stuff for eight months. We booked Airbnb after Airbnb, and every
single time it got close, we had to cancel. So I’m very relieved to be
at this point. It’s feeling free, and it’s feeling fun and genuine and
natural, and if we chose to take it to the next step and record it, we
wouldn’t have to do it over Zoom. We wouldn’t have to do it in the
middle of the desert. We could meet up somewhere that we are all
comfortable and bring to life.”
Courtney: “We could record real drums! We could use real amps!”
Michael: “We can do things pre-pandemic once again. Of course,
there are precautions, but I’m just happy and excited to do it like we
want to again.”
Courtney: “When Michael is not writing music, he is like a wilted
flower. When he’s not writing music, he’s unfulfilled. He always
needs the chance and the space to make something. Otherwise, he
is sad. He’s always writing in his head, no matter what. He’s been
chatting to Dan a little bit over Zoom. And I’ve left them alone for
the most part, but they have shown me what they have made up,
and it’s been awesome. It makes me happy to know that Michael
can write again, and as well it means I can write as well, just because
it means we can stop basking in the ‘Eternal Blue’. We can move
on and show that the album doesn’t define our career. Something
that inspires me so much is one of the bands that beat us out and
sold more this year is Ice Nine Kills. It made me so proud and happy
that they not only kicked everyone’s ass, but everyone thought that
they couldn’t do what they did twice. But they did, and they didn’t
compromise. They said, ‘We’re going to do us again, fuck all of you’.
And I respect bands like that, who are comfortable with themselves
and not let one successful thing define them. They move on and do
what they want to do. And that’s very inspiring to us.”
No matter how amazing 2021 has been, thinking
about how to better it is another reason why
Spiritbox is so special. Because it would be so easy
for you to plant your flag and lean on it for a while,
but that’s not what this is about…
Courtney: “We’re still trying to figure out who we are as musicians,
and eventually, that could be a weakness. But right now, I feel like
it is a really big strength. It makes us a stronger creative team.
Maybe we never find out exactly who we are, and ten years from
now, perhaps that’s not so good. But right now, we are comfortable
enough to want to make more stuff. And we will keep on making
more stuff. Bands change a lot, in the same way that people change
a lot. I hope that we keep reflecting on the things that have inspired
us who have the freedom to keep making the things they want.
That’s what I want to do, too.”
Spiritbox’s debut album ‘Eternal Blue’ is out now via Rise Records.
They are due to play the Bring Me The Horizon Malta Weekender
in May 2022, and play Download Festival the next month.
 THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS

THE MAINE
C L AS S OF 2 0 2 1

ART I S T OF THE YEA R

MADDY HOWELL

LUPE BUSTOS

ROCK SOUND | 49
 t looks different, but it still feels like The Maine,” frontman John

I
O’Callaghan told us back in the summer.

He was talking about his band’s outstanding new album, ‘XOXO:

From Love And Anxiety In Real Time’, but to be honest, he could’ve

been talking about their entire year.

2021 saw them reconnect with their fans in a way that only

bands like The Maine can. They filled their cup with Sad Summer Fest,

international touring and a whole host more, and came together with their

fans to celebrate their community, and their exceptional new record.

Here, Pat Kirch and Garrett Nickelsen walk us through the journey that

they, John, and guitarists Kennedy Brock and Jared Monaco have been on

over the past 12 months.

50 | ROCK SOUND
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS

Let’s rewind ourselves back to last year when this
new era of The Maine was first taking shape. What
was the mood within the band coming out of ‘You
Are OK’ as album eight began to peer over the
horizon?
Pat: “Well, the different thing about this time is that we had ‘Sticky’
recorded, mixed and done while we were still touring ‘You Are OK’.
I actually think we got the first mix back on the UK tour, so there
wasn’t really much of a break between the two cycles.”
Garrett: “That gave us confidence because we were already really
excited about that song. It was like, ‘Okay, we’ve got a good one
ready to go’, so that mood was already there when we went into it.
I can’t remember a time where that’s been the case before, where
we’ve had a song that we were all like, ‘That’s the one’, before we
even started making a record. That freed us up to do some different
stuff sonically that we maybe wouldn’t have done if we didn’t have
that song ready to go.”
Did ‘Sticky’ lead the vision going into ‘XOXO: From
Love And Anxiety In Real Time’ as you began
mapping things out, then?
Pat: “We definitely knew that we wanted to make more of a fun
pop album. On ‘You Are OK’ we leaned more on the alternative
end of things for this band, and so on this record we wanted to do
something more fun. When we were recording ‘You Are OK’ I don’t
think we realised how aggressive it was for our band, but when
we went on tour we realised that the songs on that record go off
because they’re so aggressive. It’s cool to have that, but we never
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS
want to repeat ourselves because we already have songs in that
style now. We’ll always be able to put ‘Slip The Noose’ or ‘Numb
Without You’ into the setlist now, so there’s no point in writing
another one of those.”
Garrett: “I think that we also put ourselves in a bit of a box on ‘You
Are OK’ where strings became the thing. We put strings on every
song besides one and made ourselves do that when maybe not
every song needed it. I think we wanted to free ourselves up from
that on ‘XOXO’ to a point where we could just do whatever.”
Pat: “‘American Candy’ felt very similar in that not every song had
to feel the same. You can have this crazy keyboard-led distorted
song next to ‘Sticky’ next to a really emo song, it could be whatever
we wanted. We wanted that vibe rather than thinking that
everything had to have the same feeling.”
How did that whole process begin to take shape
once you were isolated together at John’s house
setting to work on the writing process? Did the
record start to come to life quite quickly?
Pat: “We had a couple songs done and there are always the
benchmark songs on a record where you’re like, ‘This could be the
first song we put out as a representation of the album’. Once you
have that, it leaves you feeling like you can do whatever you want,
and we were already in that phase. I think that made it more fun
and we quickly narrowed it down to which songs we were going
to work on. There was only one other song that we worked on that
didn’t make it onto the record, so it feels like we knew exactly what
we wanted to do.”
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 “THIS IS ACTUALLY WHAT’S HAPPENING IN OUR LIVES AND
THE FEELINGS WE’RE HAVING RIGHT NOW”
GA RR ETT
Garrett: “We had done so much talking beforehand too because
that’s literally all we could do up until then. At that point no one
was seeing anyone, and so when we got to John’s it was like, ‘Holy
shit, it’s my friends!’ We were so ready to work, and we had a good
idea of what we wanted to do.”
Being able to have freedom to experiment must
have been particularly exciting, and it’s something
that’s evident within the diversity of this record.
Obviously changing things up is nothing out of
the ordinary for The Maine, but it feels as though
you’ve got more freedom to chase a feeling on
each song now...
Pat: “Definitely. Honestly eight albums in it feels like we’ve done
everything, so I don’t know if we really think too much about the
direction of songs whilst we’re doing it, we’ve just learnt to go all
the way there with whatever a song feels like it’s supposed to be.”
Garrett: “It’s all about working out what the vibe is and how we do
it in the best way we can. Things leaned more in a pop direction this
time because it felt fun and cool, but not in the way where it’s like
we were trying too hard. This is actually what’s happening in our
lives and the feelings we’re having right now, so we had to go there
and let that be okay.”
Pat: “We do really bad when we are trying to do something that
just isn’t feeling right. I remember when we were doing ‘You Are
OK’ we thought that the record needed another song or two that
felt a little happier or brighter, and we tried to do some songs
like that, but they were all bad. It just didn’t feel right. On ‘XOXO’
though we did a handful of things that felt great and like we
were breaking into new territory, so it’s about not trying to force
something that isn’t what you’re in the mood to do at that time. It’s
this subconscious feeling of what’s right for our band right now,
and that’s what comes through the ether into what we get excited
about.”
Garrett: “With eight albums I think we should be allowed to do that
too. We don’t have to feel like we’re doing something for a reason, it
should only be because that’s what is actually happening. If people
want a certain thing, we’ve literally done so much different stuff.
54 | ROCK SOUND
NI C KE LSE N
If you want that specific thing you can find an album of ours that
does that. We’ve learnt to accept that and say, ‘This is okay, we’re
allowed to do this’.”
For the five of you it’d been sitting around for a
while, but the rest of the world didn’t get a taste
of this new era until you released ‘Sticky’ back
in March. How were you feeling about what fans
would make of the new direction?
Garrett: “We were pretty confident, and that song had been sitting
around for such a long time. We’d shown enough people who were
like, ‘That sounds like you guys at your best’, so we had a lot of faith
in it. We were pretty sure out of the gate that it was right.”
What’s unique and quite precious about The Maine
in that regard is that over the years you’ve built
this fanbase that seem to completely embrace
everything you do. They respect that this is an
ongoing, everchanging project, which must make
it less of a worry to break new ground...
Garrett: “That’s it. That’s what it feels like to us, and if other people
realise it too then it’s probably working.”
Pat: “I think the good thing about having been around for so
long now is that if someone doesn’t like one record or one song,
there’ll be more, and there were a lot before that. Every record is
someone’s favourite and someone’s least favourite, and we’re okay
with that. It’s understanding that each song is important for the
album, but each album is important for what people think of as The
Maine. It’s like we’ve been making this eight-song album of albums
over the last 15 years where each song is a full record. It’s fun to
think about it like we’re building a catalogue. I think it’ll be awesome
when someone hears about our band for the first time 10 years
from now and they can decide what album is their favourite.”
Garrett: “We learned early on that we wanted to be a career band,
something that lasts for a long time, because those are the bands
that we were obsessed with. We love artists who have the really
dark record, the one that got them huge, or the country record,
just so many different things that you can go to. That’s what we’ve
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS

wanted to do since our second album. It’s about building something
bigger than just, ‘Oh man, this one didn’t do very well so I guess
we’re not a band anymore’, or feeling like we have to go back to
what people like about us. It’s about doing what is good at that
moment.”
Being able to do something like that is obviously
something that takes a lot of mutual support
and respect between The Maine and its fans. It’s
something that’s always sat at the core of this
band and your ethos, but I imagine when you’re
approaching an album in such uncertain times and
doing things in new ways having that trust is even
more important, right?
Pat: “Oh, it’s so important and we take a lot of comfort in that. It
makes it feel like there’s a purpose in what we’re doing. We spend a
month and a half grinding over an album because there are people
who are interested in hearing it, and it would be a lot harder to
work as hard if it felt like people just wanted to come and watch us
play the old songs. We’re not just making an album because that’s
what bands do. The fact that we know there’s a group of people
who are anticipating it, excited for the change, the challenge, and
the ups and downs of an album - that’s what makes it fun. That’s
what makes making track seven on the album feel just as important
to us as whatever is going to be the first single.”
Garrett: “Because there’s always the special one, there’s always the
one that you don’t know is going to work and then it takes on a life
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS
of its own. Sometimes it takes two or three years for you to realise
it though, which has happened to us tonnes of times. Every record
there’s one song that people are like, ‘Why don’t you play that?’,
and we’re like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you liked that one’. Then you play
it and it’s like, ‘Wow, we’re stupid’.”
Pat: “I think ‘(Un) Lost’ is now a staple song in our set, and it’s a
song that we didn’t play for a really long time. It’s never really until
the next album comes out that you realise what songs from the
album before are the favourites.”
Garrett: “It’s 100 per cent that. You’re not going to know on the
first tour. You can think that the first tour is going to be the one
that people react most to, but no matter what that’s never the
case. Even what you think is your biggest song off the record is
not going to work for two years for whatever reason, that’s what
happens. So ‘Dirty, Pretty, Beautiful’ is going to be a huge song in a
year and a half.”
Around the time that you announced this record
back in March you did the ‘XOXO, From The Maine’
livestream too. Being able to connect with the
community around this band is a big part of what
you do, so what was it like to interact with fans
in that way once the album news was out and the
excitement was running through everyone?
Pat: “That was great. We always want the beginning of an album
cycle to feel like a moment. Generally, that would be some type
of in-person event, but I think it felt just as important to me. The
ROCK SOUND | 57
 “IT FELT LIKE WE HAD ACCOMPLISHED SOMETHING”
PAT
excitement around that show was big.”
Garrett: “I think with the way things happened last year people
were used to getting records like that and not having a tour
announcement or something. We had learned how to do it by then
and how to make something feel special online, so it ended up
being really cool. It felt like something was happening, which was
amazing, especially on your eighth album.”
How did that change once a couple of months had
passed and you came to album release week? You
had the pop-up shop and could spend some time
meeting fans, taking pictures, and hanging out...
How did it feel to be back connecting with people
face-to-face?
Pat: “It was good, but it felt like a brief period. We did the pop-up
shop, and we did one other meet and greet in Phoenix, but those
are the only in-person interactions that we’ve had with anybody
besides being on stage. It felt awesome to be back there, but soon
after that we went on tour and in order to keep the tour on track
the safest thing was to not do the meet and greets. It felt like we
were getting half of the connection on tour. You’re going out there,
playing the songs and seeing people having fun, and it’s great but
you’re not getting that conversation after. We wanted to talk to
people and do the same thing that we’ve gotten to do for 15 years
of being in the band after shows. We still feel like we haven’t had
that full connection, but it is what it is for now.”
How did it feel to see fans’ faces in a live situation
again? It’s one thing to be able to chat to them and
hang out for a brief moment, but hearing people
sing along to the new songs must have been pretty
special...
Garrett: “The album had only been out a couple of days and
I remember seeing people singing ‘Anxiety In Real Time’ and
thinking, ‘Cool, people already know this song’. That felt really
special.”
Pat: “It felt like we had accomplished something, and everything
came at the same time. ‘Sticky’ hit its peak on radio, the album had
come out, the reception had been great, we got to hang out with
fans in the pop-up shop, and then we did the show.”
58 | ROCK SOUND
KI R C H
Garrett: “It was like, ‘Oh crap. This is all stuff you’ve been working
for this whole time’. It was happening right in front of us which was
super special, and I think people could feel it too.”
Within a couple of weeks you were back at it
properly and kicking you off the summer with
a headline show at The Crescent Ballroom in
Phoenix. What was the mood like in the dressing
room before you took to the stage that night?
Pat: “That felt like the first real show. The LA one was just 25 people
on a rooftop, and you know that you’re really performing to the
cameras, which is hugely different from being in a real venue. We
knew it was just about the people in the room, and so it felt like we
were getting back to what we do.”
Garrett: “This goes against what I was saying earlier about new
songs taking time to hit but playing ‘Sticky’ in front of people for
the first time was awesome. People were into it right away and you
just take those moments as a sign that people like the record. It
felt nice to play in front of a crowd again and have those moments.
We’ve only played The Crescent Ballroom once before, but it’s a
venue I go to all the time, so it felt like home - even with all of the
people who I know didn’t live there.”
Did you recognise some faces in the crowd?
Garrett: “When I looked out, I just kept thinking, ‘You live on the
east coast. You go to shows in New York and you flew out here for
this’. I was seeing people who I knew for a fact were from California,
or wherever, and knowing that people flew out to be at that show
was crazy. It blows my mind.”
That’s an incredible vibe to have at a show at any
point, but at your first real show back it must have
felt particularly important…
Garrett: “100 per cent. It was lovely, but we also knew that we could
feel safe there with all those people. Being the first show back if we
messed up, they wouldn’t laugh at us in a mean way, although I’m
sure they would still laugh at us!”
Pat: “Yeah, it definitely felt like we were having to shake off the
cobwebs a little bit, which is why we booked the show in the first
place. Before we headed off to do Sad Summer Fest and play these
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS

huge shows, we wanted to do a quick test run that was only for the
people that are really excited about it.”
Sad Summer came around straight after that show
too, so how was it to properly get back out there
and into the swing of touring life after so long?
Pat: “That was awesome. Obviously, we’d been looking forward to
that tour for so long and had been dreaming about it, so to see it
all come to life and be so successful was amazing. We couldn’t have
asked for a better first tour back. All the shows were huge, and it
felt insane. By the time we got to the Denver show, which must
have been the fourth show, it felt like everything had clicked back
into place. We weren’t having to think about it anymore, we were
just going out there each night and feeling like we were back in it.”
‘XOXO’ is an album full of songs that were made
with the intention of being heard live too, so did
hearing those words sung back to you in different
rooms each night ignite a fire within you all?
Pat: “It reminds you that you’re not just creating things in a vacuum.
When you’re working on an album and you don’t see the reception
from it, you don’t realise that people are actually going to hear it.
You almost think that you’re just making it for you. So, it was a good
reminder that there are people out there that are going to hear this
and will be excited.”
Garrett: “On an even simpler level it’s like, ‘Wow, people still like
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS
our band’. Seeing people singing along and a good amount of the
crowd acting in a positive way and seeming like they knew the new
stuff even with two years without a show was like, ‘People still like
us, I’m happy’.”
Pat: “Yeah, and I think with the new songs it’s one of those things
where when we do club shows and more of our fans are in the
room, that’s when it feels great. When you’re playing to a festival
crowd there are a bunch of our fans there, but they’re intermixed
within the other crowd. In those moments it’s really about the
energy of the song regardless of if people have heard it or not. Is it
something you can jump to? Something you can bob your head to?
But the club shows and the few headlining dates we’ve done so far
are where it’s felt like, ‘Oh, shit, ‘Pretender’ is going to be a big song
live for us’, and that comes from seeing people’s reactions.”
How does it feel to be in a band that still excites
people with each new release? Usually by the time
bands get to album eight they’ve got fans asking
for more of what they did on album two or three,
but it seems as though the new stuff always hits as
hard or even harder for you guys, even if it takes
some time…
Pat: “That’s the dream for us.”
Garrett: “That was the goal, and it’s incredible. We’re so lucky to be
in the position that we’re in.”
Pat: “We look up to a lot of artists that have been able to do that,
ROCK SOUND | 61
 “WE’RE CONSTANTLY WORKING…”
GAR RETT
and that’s the inspiration that makes us want to keep experimenting
and keep working hard. We probably wouldn’t be a band right now
if that wasn’t the case, I think we’d be bored. If we were always
waiting for the 10-year anniversary tour of a record we’d just have
to give up. If you’re not moving ahead, it feels like you’re dying.”
Garrett: “It’s also weird because it doesn’t feel like that long. We’re
working on some ‘Pioneer’ stuff now and so we’ve been thinking
about it and talking about it a lot, but that feels like it was two
records ago, not five. It doesn’t feel like that to me, it’s strange. Time
is a weird fucker.”
Obviously over these last couple of years bands
in general have been deprived of a huge part of
their livelihood and their passions with live shows
not happening, but with the connection that The
Maine has with its fans it feels as though there was
a deeper mutual loss there too. Having that back in
your life on what feels like a more permanent basis
now must feel pretty magical...
Garrett: “Oh yeah. The fact that we know we’re going on tour, and
when we’re doing it gives us something to look forward to when we
spent so long saying, ‘Fuck, when is this going to happen again?’ It’s
something we would think about every day, and it’d bum us out. It’s
a hole that we were definitely missing because we’ve done it pretty
much constantly for 15 years. As soon as that’s taken away, you’re
like, ‘Fuck man, I just want to do that’.”
Pat: “On the other side though, there have been things we’ve learnt
through this. We’ve already been back recording new songs which
is something that wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t learn that
there’s a chance we’re not always going to be on the road now.
We’re also doing a livestream for ‘Pioneer’ which probably wouldn’t
have happened if the pandemic didn’t hit, so there are definitely
things to take away from not being able to tour for so long.”
I guess that’s something that comes down to your
own creative drives as well, right? What is it like to
feel as though you still have things left to achieve
eight albums in? It seems as though you’re not the
kind of band to sit at the end of a cycle worrying
about what’s next, there always seems to be new
avenues opening up...
62 | ROCK SOUND
NI C KE LSE N
Garrett: “I think what’s interesting is that we do think about what
comes next, but it’s never in a scary way like it is for some bands.
It’s not like, ‘Oh shit, that record didn’t do as well, I’m scared
because I want people to be happy with us’, it’s just a general,
‘What do we do now? What feels exciting to us now?’ It takes time
to get there, but we know what we’re doing now.”
Pat: “What’s cool and exciting is I think our next record is going to
be even further out there from what people expect again. As much
as we can say that we’ve tried everything, I think there are still a
couple of corners that we haven’t hit on yet that would be really
awesome to try. It’d be unexpected for The Maine to make an album
that feels like what we’re talking about right now, but obviously it’s
super early stages. I don’t want to say too much about it because
we’re going to rethink it 100 times, but all I know is the next record
will not be going backwards at all. We’ll be going forward, and we’ll
be doing something that feels nothing like one of the other eight.”
Garrett: “That’s because we’re still learning, and we never gave up
on that. I feel like when a lot of bands get to this age it’s easy to
start going through the motions and be like, ‘Okay, I know what
I’m doing’. For us though, things are still exciting. There are so
many things that we want to try because we’ve never done them
before or we’ve learned this new thing, and that’s so exciting for us.
We want to keep experimenting and seeing how far we can take
things.”
I imagine having that knack for adaptation
creatively makes things easier when you’re going
through big changes in your personal lives as
well. Obviously, a lot has changed since The Maine
started out almost 15 years ago, and now we’re at
a point where you’ve got families and loved ones
to take responsibility for too... How has that new
chapter impacted the band looking towards the
next 15 years?
Garrett: “It’s something new in a good way. I don’t have a kid and
I’m not married but I think it’s exciting. It’s like, ‘Okay, this is the
next chapter so how do we figure this out as adults?’ It’s all about
working out how to do it, but still do it, and there’s definitely a way
to still be doing it.”
Pat: “It’s certainly about not going in with the attitude of it taking
away from The Maine, because if anything it’s adding to it. We do
THE R OCK SOU N D AWA RDS
really well when we’re put into a corner and forced to work within
constraints, and a lot of our best ideas have come from that. The
idea of doing a free tour or going on a headlining tour without any
support bands that anyone knows, those things have come from
us wanting to grow but knowing that no bigger bands wanted to
take us on tour. Those constraints make us think, and that’s when
someone says, ‘Oh, maybe we can do all the shows for free, and
people can bring a friend with them that wouldn’t want to buy a
ticket, so we play in front of more people’. Now we have these new
constraints where maybe we want to be on the road a little bit less
because we want to be home with our families, but that can only
lead to the tour being better.”
Garrett: “It gives us more time to think about why we’re doing this.
If we’re only going to do this once a year, how can we make the
best and biggest version of that? If we’re doing it three times then
maybe by the last one of the tours we’re watered down or tired, so
it’s about thinking how we make every aspect of this better now.”
What’s interesting as well is it feels as though
you’re going through some of these life changes
at the same rate as your fans. You’ve got people
bringing their kids to their first The Maine shows
and it feels like you’ve got this huge family that’s
been growing together for the last 15 years...
Pat: “I love that, and I think that will definitely come into how we
tour in the future. It might not be now, but maybe in a few years, I
think people want a little bit of a different experience. Maybe people
would want to see The Maine in a seated theatre at what feels more
like a date night as opposed to seeing us in a crunchy club.”
Garrett: “I think because we’re growing up at the same kind of
pace as our fans it now gives us the opportunity to think, ‘How do I
want to go to a show?’ Sometimes I want to be sweating on a floor
somewhere with everyone because that’s really fun and feels like I’m
reliving my youth in a cool way, but also sometimes it’s like, “Man,
sitting down with a glass of wine sounds fucking great’. There is so
much left for us to explore.”
How heartening is it to feel like this is still a fun
and fulfilling journey for you as people and as
creatives? Because there’s a lot of bands who don’t
even hit the five-year milestone before they start
feeling burnt out and uninspired by what they’re
doing...
Pat: “We see it so often. We play festivals and go on tour with
bands, and you can track when people’s interest starts to wane and
they’re just going through the motions.”
Garrett: “The weirdest fucking thing is when it’s a band that started
way after us. We’ll bring them on one of their early tours where
they’ve been a band for a year or two and they’re all hyped up and
excited, but the next time you see them they’re jaded as shit. You’re
like, ‘What the fuck? You’ve been doing this for a couple years, what
happened? What are you doing? Why are you so angry?’”
Pat: “Yeah, it’s weird. I think it’s the pursuit of what’s next and
always having a new goal that keeps us pumped. It’s the aim to do
something bigger and better that keeps us excited. We’ve got this
recording studio now that’s like our clubhouse. Our manager works
out of here and we’ve got a designer that works out of here too, so
there are always creative things happening all day.”
Garrett: “It’s so cool being the age that we are now because this
gets to be an option. Before when we were in our 20s we were all
separated and would send out an email and meet up every once in
a while to get something done, but now everyone’s here every day.
We’re constantly working on songs and making this thing better
now, so it’s only going to get more exciting and fun as we do this.”
Being in the position that you’re in now, does it feel
like the next 15 years of The Maine are ready to be
written?
Pat: “I would say that we’re just getting going. I think we could be
the Rolling Stones, although maybe not as popular. Some of their
best records came 25 or 30 years into their career, and I think that is
on the cards for us.”
Garrett: “If you’re not thinking long-term, it’s so easy to be like,
‘How do those bands do that for so long?’, but we’ve been looking
at those bands since we started. We know there will potentially be
three records that people don’t get that excited about, but then
you can hit gold again. Bob Dylan put out ‘Blood On The Tracks’
after 10 years of doing stuff that people didn’t really like, and Tom
Petty did a similar thing, so there’s always more time for people to
accept you. If you do it long enough there’s always something that
reconnects, so you’ve just got to keep going. It’s so hard for people
to see it like that, but it’s the only way it works.”
Having that mindset is what allows you to keep
driving this forward, and it feels as though The
Maine are coming out of 2021 with a lot to be proud
of. It must be pretty great to know that you’re
going to be kicking off 2022 with 8123 Fest as a
celebration of all of that...
Pat: “It’s huge, it’s everything we do wrapped up into one weekend.
It’s a massive part of our band and the fact that we didn’t get to do
it when we were supposed to last year was a big bummer. We’re
just so pumped to have it back because this is like our Comic Con. If
you’re a nerd for The Maine, this is your weekend.
Garrett: “You’ve got the two biggest The Maine nerds right here, so
we’re unbelievably excited.”
It seems as though 2022 is still going to be
unwritten and COVID-dependent for a while, but
you’ve got a spring headline tour lined up for
‘XOXO’ to give these songs their proper due. Is this
year going to be about The Maine reconnecting
with everyone and everything after such a long
time apart?
Pat: “Yeah, for sure. We definitely want to play these songs all over
the world, and do a proper headliner in all of the places that we
love. It’s crazy to think that we haven’t played a show in Chicago
in three years, and thinking about all of the cities that we haven’t
visited in so long makes me really sad. It’s about getting back to
all those people and supporting the record in that way, whilst also
putting out some new songs along the way. We have an urge to
collaborate with other artists on songs now, which we haven’t really
done before, so I would say you should definitely be on the lookout
for something like that. Now it’s started though, we’re just going to
keep it going.”
The Maine’s latest album ‘XOXO: From Love And Anxiety In Real
Time’ is out now via 8123 / Photo Finish. The band plays 8123 Fest
in January, and is set to tour the US in March and April 2022.
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