Das sechste Album der UK Melodic Metalcore-Jungs von OUR HOLLOW, OUR HOME – „Burn In the Flood“ ist ein hochgradig emotionales, ehrliches und persönliches Album – der Band aus Southampton. Jeder Song erzählt seinen eigene Geschichte – sei es das Verbrennen an den eigenen Emotionen oder an der Überlastung des Alltags. In unserem Gespräch schildern Sänger Conor Hallisey und Gitarrist Tobias „Toby“ Young, warum dieses Album eines ihrer besten ist und wie es entstanden ist.
Frontstage Magazine: Hello Conor, hello Toby! I saw you last time in November 2019 in Hamburg on the „Never say Die Tour“ and took pictures of you! Was very nice!
Toby: Thanks man!
Frontstage Magazine: Cool that you two are taking your time to talk with me about your new album „Burn In the Flood“!
Toby: Yes, we like to talk to anyone who’s interested in what we do, so thanks so much for taking time out of your day to speak to us.
Frontstage Magazine: Surely! How are you?
Toby: I’m good thank you.
Conor: Yeah yeah, both do really well. Life slowly coming back to normal in England now. So going back to work – Not writing as much – which sucks. Still no shows that kind of sucks. But other than that we’re all doing good man.
Toby: Waiting for those sweet vaccines (laughs).
Frontstage Magazine: Yes that’s true. How was the last year – with all the COVID-19 stuff and the pandemic – for you as a band?
Toby: We’ve been going along the lines of both a blessing and a curse. Because whilst you know being basically confined to your own house – not being able to meet up, not being able to turn on or being able to see your friends and family. It’s been very very difficult and definitely quite challenging and taxing on each of us individuals.
For a band we’ve actually had more time we’ve ever had before to work on the album to work on the record and to make sure there’s a song for the best they could be, so you know, rather than see the last year 2020 as a big negative times expands we’ve tried to make the most of it I suppose.
Conor: Yeah, I think we – like Toby said – we’ve made the best of a bad situation with 2020 we’ve taken this time to really go in depth in the creative process. So we’ve gone back and forth with writing this new album probably more than we’ve ever done in our lives with writing a project. So we’ve really been able to go over everything in a lot of detail and make sure we’re a hundred percent happy lyrically and musically with this new album on every every front. So yeah, I think blessing … blessing in the skies is the best way to put it because we’ve done the best that album for our fans, well 100%
Frontstage Magazine: Okay. Right now you have released four tracks of your upcoming album. „Burn in the Flood“, „Remember me“, „Overcast“ and „Seven Years (Shine a Light on Me)“. This week number five „Better Daze“. Why did you do this choice of tracks?
Conor: Yeah, to be honest with you – when we wrote the album we started writing it as an EP we first started doing it and we wanted to write just six songs that we would be happy to release a singles. So it was just let’s get six songs down we are a hundred percent one out there. When we actually started writing these when we got to number six we were kind of like this still more fuel in the tank, there’s still more … still more that needs to get written there’s still more to say so we ended up just, you know, we just kept going end up with eleven tracks and then we kind of had this luxury of the what we’ve written them all to be singles so we can put them all as singles so we actually just picked like we literally picked our favorite ones and the song that we fell had like the strongest message behind them and the ones that we can create the most interesting visual for because the visuals we try to tie in lyrically in places and things like that, so I think it was kind of just a pick the ones that we wanted to whack out as and when and, you know, check with all our PR and check with our management and make sure that some cool with them, but it was literally cherry picking the best ones out like this songs.
Toby: Some of the songs were released because it would have been a song that was kind of familiar to people who are used to our sound. So there’s enough of them to be like oh that’s you know quite stereotypical OUR HOLLOW, OUR HOME they are really like that and some songs kind of showcase a bit more of the way the bands progressing which we thought was important and then we’ve also wanted to release songs that we thought well these are definitely going to be played live whether we’re playing half an hour or whether we’re playing an hour. So they’re going to be songs that people are going to want to sing along to lives so.
Conor: Yeah and one thing we’ve also been saying is we’ve written all of these songs of the intention of like putting on the best live show we can what we get back to it. So when we’ve been going through the create process it’s been how are the kids going to move to this and they’re going to mash, are they going to jump up and down, are they going to circle pit, sing along … we’ve got like all the basins covered with all the tracks. So we like to showcase all the different sides of our band with the singles, so there’s some sad, there’s some happy, there’s some heavy, there’s some angry, there’s a nice mix of emotion throughout the album and we tried to showcase about the singles we put out.
Frontstage Magazine: „Burn In The Flood“ – your third studio album. I’ve listened it a few times and think it’s very good and consistent – I like the brutal sound! What does the new album mean to you?
Toby: Well, obviously we’ve done sort of the previous two albums so „Hartsick“ from 2017 and „In Moment // In Memory“ from 2018. Both are quite concept heavy albums „Hartsick“ sort of ties in the the course of human emotion with the force of nature and animals and sort of looks at the way these things can be compared. „In Moment // In Memory“ takes you on a journey through the five stages of the grief so denial, anger, depression, bargaining, acceptance.
So with this album rather than have this ones or theme that we’re gonna touch on again across the course of ten or eleven songs. We want to make sure that each song had its own place in the limelight it told their own stories. There is this overarching theme of burning within your own emotions or being over encumbered so „Burn In The Flood“ even though it’s the album name and it is a song name. It could have been the title of any of the songs from the record because those particular poor words transcribe across all of the lyrics really. But each song on this album has picked up a very important topic that we think is you know important that we want to talk about that we think our fans will be able to appreciate whether it’s talking about mental health and young men being ignored and overcast whether it’s revisiting the grief processing retrospect, whether it’s or by looking forward to days that a better than the ones you’re currently in and trying to remain positive a better days we want to cover so many aspects rather than sort of pinpoint and pigeonhole our album into one direction.
Conor: Yeah, I think we really wanted to showcase just human emotion in the way we have done before by sort of really sort of spreading it out a wide array of like everyone goes through all of these things at different times like you’re gonna feel super happy, you’re gonna feel super sad and you’re gonna feel super angry like we all go through all these different emotions and we want it each track to kind of really highlight that through our own personal experiences and like that’s what we always try and do we don’t might pull any punches with the lyrics, they’re just experiences that we’ve been through. We’ve hidden behind metaphors a little bit more in previous works and I think this album really just wears its heart on its sleeve, it’s really open, really honest, I think that’s what a lot of bands have come to respect about our band like lyrically we’re a very honest band and with it’s very relatable it’s just real subjects from I’d like to think real genuine people which is why I would describe this as so … yeah.
Frontstage Magazine: What is the difference between the new album the previous ones?
Toby: So I like to think as a musician that you’re always learning you’re always kind of pushing yourself forward, so I think „Burn Ing The Flood“ is all the best bits from „Hartsick“, all the best bits from „In Moment // In Memory“ and then a third of this new … I don’t know …stadiums or big rock inspired aspects that we can bring into kind of make the albums fresh and interesting. But still familiar but for the fan base and the new fans coming on board.
Conor: Yeah. I think we’ve got a lot more of like a rock metal sound with this album inspection, with the guitar working, the drums. And then there’s also a bit more of an emo and like post hardcore kind of side to it as well. It’s a real nice mix compared to I’d say „Hartsick“ when we first set out. I mean, we never intentionally decide to do something – when we write we just write what we want to write – but I think with „Hartsick“ it’s very much like a Metalcore album it doesn’t put me punches or anything is a good solid Metalcore album that’s how describe it a „In Moment // In Memory“, obviously it’s a lot more focused on the narrative, but again, it’s a strong sighting more dark metal for album this album. I feel like branches out more into the world’s metal and rock but while keeping that core OUR HOLLOW, OUR HOME and from there that we’ve sort of presented on the first few albums.
Frontstage Magazine: Did you two wrote all the eleven new songs together?
Toby: So, we wrote across the period from January 2020 through to probably finishing in I would say July and apart from two and a half of the instrumentals it was all written during the national lockdown in the UK. So myself and Conor would write like we’re talking now on Zoom. So I would – you can like share your computer screen on Zoom – and I would show him the song I was working on and we discussed whether or not like it should be another verse or another chorus. And then once the song structure was laid out and the song was written we go back and forth and and write the vocals and because obviously neither risk could go out we had a lot more time to work on the songs and we got rewrite choruses, rewrite like the call outlines before breakdowns and restructured things. Which I think really shows in especially the the vocal performance across the record it’s a lot more of a united front rather than this bit sung because it’s a chorus and this bit’s aggressive because it’s a verse. We tried to make sure that both vocals are like interlocked and like, you know, if you didn’t know our bad I’d like to think that you’d think one vocalist has written it because it doesn’t sound like too many different people trying to cram everything into one song.
Conor: Yeah yeah, we’ve always kind of gone with like a Yin and Yang approach – so you’ve got like the light mix with the heavy. That’s kind of like our thing but I think with this album the lighting and the dark kind of blends a lot more than previous records and that is where me and Toby we’ve written together probably more so than we ever have before – like we’ve really gone I can’t trust it enough how much back and forth there’s been especially in the lyrical stage of this album. It was very much like know that line doesn’t quite say what we need it to so let’s revisit. Is it that we’ve had so much time to really go back and make sure we’re perfectly saying what we want to say in the right way and yeah that has been a blessing for sure.
Frontstage Magazine: Okay, so you become more digital?
Toby: Yeah (laughs). It worked very good in this time.
Conor: Yeah, absolutely.
Frontstage Magazine: Did the lockdown and the pandemic make it more difficult for you to produce the album?
Conor: We are independent band, so we have been registered as a business in the UK, so we, you know, completely self-funded but it is already a limited company yes. Yeah which basically means that legally when lockdowns have been eased throughout the UK we have been able to go to the studio and record with no real issues. Because it is technically work us so it hasn’t actually stunted our progression with the record that much. Toby records and sorts out all of the demo projects themselves. Nick or occasionally have a role in that as well, our drumer. But it is predominantly just maybe planning and recording and tracking out all of the the demos and then we will take those from the studio to people will track all the instrumentals lay it all down and then we’ll go up together and record the vocals.
Toby: I think everything because our studios and obviously a business and because our band is a business he had, our producer, had so much more time to work on our album than he normally because he was the same position like a lot of advancing businesses, so rather than go we’ve got three weeks to do an album we have like three months of being able to go to the studio and yeah really kind of like rewrite and rework parts so I think you know, as I said before, the lockdown is really made the album that we really wanted. Thanks to the lockdown we got it.
Conor: We should be honest, like we really enjoyed just go into the studio. Because we’ve been stuck inside for months and we can finally go to the studio and start working on these songs we were really excited about. It was a really good experience like we really enjoyed it and I think you can hear that.
Frontstage Magazine: And do you two think it will be possible to make a release tour of „Burn In The Flood“ in the UK?
Toby: I think if I had to sort of like someone’s putting a gun to my head and said do you think the September and the November source, so September is the UK and Ireland and November is Germany and Europe. If that was to happen I probably say this point. I think the UK will happen.
I think the UK and Ireland stages will happen. I’m not convinced there will be either get Germany this year, because even if all members of our band and crew have been vaccinated it’s a very different unit very different place at the moment, so Europe there’s there’s so many different countries to to go in and out of depending on where you’re traveling like our touring route goes through France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, you know, and there’s lots of different cities and places to play and each country has its own rules to legislations on whether people can come in and whether they can leave and even if we are COVID-tested and clear it’s just not that straightforward.
Conor: Yeah, unfortunately we now have the unfortunate decision that was made in this country of break the Brexit deal … sorry – not something that we wanted at all, but you know, apparently there’s a lot of people in this country that wanted that, so obviously that makes matters quite different for us as well because we’re now gonna have to apply for working visas in certain countries, we imagine we don’t know none of this statement slowly, yeah.
Toby: The UK government haven’t exactly been clear with what we have to do to be able to tour Europe yet but all I will say is that rest assured as soon as we can get back over to Europe and play if we will because our favorite place to go, you know, because we love it.
Conor: Yeah, I say this yeah not sugarcoating it at all Germany is literally our second home like we love playing in Germany (laughs).
Toby: I would play Germany over the UK any day ! (laughs)
Conor: Yeah yeah, send me to backstage in Munich man. That’s where I want to be like a hundred percent. (laughs)
Frontstage Magazine: Very nice, man. What a great honor. Have you ever thought about doing corona-compliant concerts? Do you thinks it is possible with Metalcore?
Conor: Yeah, I mean like I think playing like a see it kind of show like, yeah, …. with all the restrictions about everyone wearing masks and being socially distanced and stuff like I just don’t think it would be the same you know, and I’m sure you’re very like it just wouldn’t be the same.
Toby: We were offered to do a show. Just before Christmas I think and we said „no!“ because I don’t think this would be fancy, I mean, I’m sure they would come to the show and they would love it and they would enjoy it but I find it really hard to try and like not rock out on stage because you’re watching people are sat down with like the drink a table rather than being up there seeing the songs with you and I don’t think I don’t think that’s for us I’d rather wait.
Conor: Yeah, it just feels wrong, you know?
Frontstage Magazine: Yeah, no circle pit or everything else.
Conor: Exactly, exactly! (laughs)
Toby: Like people are running their fingers around on the tables like that, yeah. (laughs)
Frontstage Magazine: Hehe yes. How do you spend your days when you are not recording new OUR HOLLOW, OUR HOME songs?
Conor: Playing Monster Hunter, yeah!
Toby: We love video games. Conor works at H&M which is like about 500 meters that way.
Conor: Yeah, I sell clothes and totally manage this balance.
Toby: I manage other artists and stuff like that, so that’s what I do.
Frontstage Magazine: What will come in the next time from you?
Toby: Well we’ve already got something up but it’s too early to say well that’s gonna be and what’s gonna look like yet. But almost says if anyone thought we’d write out album and it’d be like cool we’re done for a bit that’s okay. We didn’t do that at all we were right back to the studio. We got more songs so but you won’t wait three years for another record.
Conor: Yeah, I think that’s that’s exactly what I wanted to say – like it the last album we dropped in 2018 this album’s coming out 2021, you will never have to wait that long for OUR HOLLOW, OUR HOME music again ever.
Toby: … and we definitely make it sure this time.
Frontstage Magazine: Perfect! Is there anything else you want to tell your fans?
Conor: I just like to say the I mean Toby’s been working really really hard on this but we’ve recently started streaming on Twitch, we’re really pushing our Hollow Gaming Service, we have a Discord chat which is open to all of our fans. We welcome anyone in everyone. There’s a whole list of different things that we discussed on their loads of different subject matters and it’s just a safe space for all of our fans, we literally couldn’t do this band without them, so they’re very much a focal point of the band and it’s we’re really enjoying getting to interact with those people and share like our hobbies and interests with them, so just you know, go follow us on Twitch go hit us up on Discord and like yeah, let’s play some Call of Duty, let’s play some video games.
Toby: Yeah, I think just in touch and work quantities like.
For our bands – when we first started up until now – when one person loved our band that was so sick and now we’re fortunate enough to have thousands of people love what we do and we never ever take that for grime. Our fans of the life lot of this band and without them we really wouldn’t be able to do anything nor would we want to so I just want to thank any of your readers and yourself, you know, but for taking an interesting what we do because I think you know, a lot of people in in positions like this where you’re fortunate enough to have people care about something can really overlook like the importance of people actually taking an interest and like what you do like we’ve always been a band of I like to think integrity you know we we love what we do but we are well aware the only reason we get to do it is because of the fans because of people like yourself who you know take an interest in appreciate what we do and we love you all for it – we really do.
Conor: Yeah, there were .. there was a long time when no one gave a shit about our band. So the fact that people care now and like they care enough to, you know, buy all our merch and come out to the shows and give us gifts, and tell us their stories, yeah, and interview us, you know … have conversation through us. Like it’s a cliche to stay at like we legit. Would not be here without our fans – so we just appreciating anyone how stays behind us.
Toby: I always find it funny when a band comes to talk to you and I’ve had a few times now where they’re like I was reading inside to talk to you, but you be more exciting talk to me and I’m like telling you like you know. You like what we’re doing – that’s so cool – like you don’t understand how cool that is for us so, you know. We love everybody, we love you, we love you listen readers. We love you dude, you’re now a hero as well! So you know – just thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us like yeah honestly, it means the world!
Conor: Yeah, thank you dude!
Frontstage Magazine: Yes, no problem. Oh yeah. It is a great honor to me. Yes, thank you very much for taking your time!
Toby: You are more than welcome my dude!
Frontstage Magazine: Yes, then of course I wish you and the rest of the band all the best for the coming time and hopefully see you soon again on stage!
Photocredit: Dirk Heyka