Bury Tomorrow über das miteinander auf Tour und den kreativen Schreibprozess neuer Musik

Frontstage:  This year is the Bands 20^th anniversary, formed in 2006. So, you’ve toured quite a lot in those 20 years, which is very draining mentally and physically. How do you guys deal with that?

Jacko: Well, my hips don’t deal with it very well anymore to be fair. Everything hurts now. I don’t know. It is hard to be fair. I think it’s just important to have some other focuses at home. It’s quite good, I would say, because this life it’s not just about when you’re on tour, like it’s all-consuming being in a band trying to operate at the level. We’re at trying to get bigger, you know, the thinking about that and the planning and everything it never ends. You know, if we’re not on tour, we’re thinking about writing or we are writing or we’re in the studio or wherever it might be, so I think it’s just trying to have other things that can take your mind away from that because I’m not going to lie for me like over the years, it has got to a point where I’m like, I can’t. I need to like detach myself a little bit, because it’s just it can be relentless. But, as I know, the passion for doing it, and you know, seeing you guys at the shows is what keeps us coming back so it’s not a complaint, but it’s yeah, it just after so long, it’s not for everyone I think you’ve got to be a certain type of person.

Ed: I think we’re fortunate as well, you know, we have a really good crew that works with us. So, when we are away, you know, our job really isn’t that hard, really, you know, they load all our stuff in, they sell our stuff (Merch) for us. A lot of the time we’re in a tour bus, you can have a lie down and rest, and it’s just about making sure that you’re not burning the candle of both ends, you know, occasionally we’ll stay up too late like me and you last night.

Frontstage: How long did you guys stay up for?

Ed: I got up at 2 AM for a piss, and he wasn’t in his bunk underneath mine and I was like, has he missed bus call because the bus was moving and I went downstairs, and he’s just asleep, sat upright, in the downstairs lobby.

Jacko: I can’t really know honestly that is not a thing I normally do I don’t tend to like go too hard on tour because for me, there’s nothing worse than being hung over when you’re on tour like the anxiety is just too much, but obviously, yesterday was a great show. So yeah, I must have had too many of something and yeah, just passed out in the lounge. No idea when I woke up, yeah, a couple of the guys this morning was like, yeah, I came down the middle of the night and you were just like asleep by yourself, which is quite depressing. But yeah, as Ed said, I was going to say, actually, probably the hardest thing is actually not necessarily the touring part is when you’re not on tour, because when you’re on tour, you’ve got that kind of purpose, as you said you’re surrounded by people, it’s sometimes easier to get band stuff done. Because you’re all together, but when you go home and people go their separate ways, and then you’ve got all of the internet stuff, just behind the scenes running a business that can be the worst part, when you’re on tour and playing shows like that’s the fundament. That’s why we got into it. So, while it is physically and mentally draining, I think it’s harder when you’re at home. Yeah.

Ed: Yeah, I mean, if it wasn’t so much fun being on tour, we just wouldn’t do it basically that’s the main reason we do it. And yeah, like you say, there’s a lot of things, you know, if we don’t play shows for like 3 months say, all you can look at is just internet and comments and likes and streams online. And it just all those numbers get a bit tiresome I find and it’s just seeing people’s faces in real life like as cheesy as it sounds is like a palpable thing where it’s like that actually is what makes it really fun. And that gives you so much. It’s like a recharge I find.

Frontstage: How does touring affect the chemistry between all of you guys? Because I mean, you’re six people always on tour in a tour bus that must be challenging.

Jacko: Yeah, I think we’ve been together now long enough to know how to navigate it, people have their own kind of routines and you get space in your own way. But that’s why it’s obviously crucial to have a band full of people who are able to exist together in that environment and that’s not something that every band has we haven’t had it before. That’s why we had to make changes. So, it’s so important that you’re with people that ultimately, you want to spend that time together, you enjoy the experience together, but you’re also able to like, navigate that. I think you need to know when you need space as well and take yourself away from situations, but it just comes from understanding how we are as individuals? We all know each other quite well.

Ed: And I think there is just a really good chemistry between everyone, and that includes the crew as well, any crew that we ever worked with. We’ve got like a solid crew who’s with us all the time and then the odd person that changes every now and then if they’re not available or whatever. But everyone on the bus, just I can count on one hand the amount of arguments that we’ve had in the time that I’ve been in the band which is, you know great. You know, there’s an odd little bit of bickering. But there’s very, very little arguments, it’s really, really rare that that happens between anyone so yeah.

Jacko: I think the crew thing is really important, and that’s the same from a band perspective. It’s one thing being like good enough and that goes for like crew as well, but like you’ve got to be the right sort of person and you know, we want our crew to be part of what we do. We want to have a good time with them. It’s not like a band and crew split, so we have people as part of our crew that we enjoy spending time with, and that’s really crucial for us.

Frontstage: I’ve had situations where bands on tour, I wasn’t with them, but they were on the same tour, and they were fighting all the time, I was very draining for everybody.

Ed: Yeah, I can imagine yeah, it just makes the atmosphere like, icky.

Jacko: We have toured with bands where there are issues like that and they tend not to last very long for sure, if you want to have longevity, and in this game, you kind of you need to have stuff like that figured out it’s just not fun otherwise, from our perspective, at least, but each of their own, you know

Frontstage: So, what’s your favourite or your funniest fan story that happened on tour? It’s like an interaction with fans, something that’s stuck to you guys that you like remembering?

Jacko: Um. What Springs to mind for me, and actually it happened more when Tom first joined, hasn’t happened to me in a bit. I kept getting mistaken for Tom. People would come up to me, so sure that I was him and be like, dude, I love your voice.

Ed: That’s so weird hahaha

Frontstage: Have you ever sung?

Jacko: No. I cant sing for shit

Ed: I’ve heard people say that we all look alike. Our whole band looks the same.

Jacko: It’s really bizarre. Yeah, like and honestly, it’s happened so many times I sometimes feel really awkward about correcting them, so I’ll just be like, thanks man, and then hope they just move on. But there was this one time, we were in Canada as a headline show on the seventh sun run, we did. I can’t remember Toronto, maybe. Guy came up to me was like “Hey, dude you love your voice?” And I was like, “thanks man” and the funny thing was Tom was not that far away from me. He was stood there. And I was just thinking, okay, move on and then he’s started talking about it more and going more into like singing stuff and I couldn’t. Yeah, I was in too deep and I just, had to roll with it. It was awful, but fortunately, that hasn’t happened recently. What about you?

Ed: I can’t really think of anything to be honest. I’ve not really had anything weird happen with fans. I think it’s always been really nice yeah.

Frontstage: You are very nice people. If it wasn’t for Davy, I wouldn’t be sat here so yeah. What does your typical writing process for like new albums look like, I mean, like, obviously, when you’re on tour that’s kind of busy but when you’re writing.

Ed: Yeah, it’s very much like the futuristic way of doing it like we definitely don’t like jam in a room together because you know, Tom and Dawson live about 4 hours away from us. We live down south, so it usually will start like me, Tom or Dawson, will write a demo and then it gets put in a folder like a demo folder and then Dan will go into it and go oh I really like this and then it gets chopped and changed and stuff like that. And then you know, Jack writes drum parts to it and there’s a lot of like collaboration between everyone really, but it usually stems from those demos that we have, and then just flushing them out from there basically.

Frontstage: How many unreleased ones do you currently have?

Jacko: Probably like 20, yeah, like some of them are literally just like a verse and a chorus. There’s nothing else to it. It’s just an idea that Tom’s come up with, who I’ve come up with, and they haven’t been flushed out. It’ll be like, oh I really like this. We should work on this and shoot further and make it into a whole song. I personally find structuring songs, quite difficult. I’m not very good at structuring the whole song, I always write a part, and it gets to a minute and a half in and I just don’t know what to do after that, which is why we’re having other people come in and help with it, is really useful for me.

Jacko: It’s an interesting process, and like with Tom as well like Tom is writing all the time you know, he writes for us, he writes for other people, like it’s his job essentially, so what I find with Tom is like he’ll throw stuff in that folder but won’t say anything so, like, if you go in this Dropbox, there could be something in there, we’ll play It, and it could be some absolute goal. And we’re like, did you want to mention that you had this idea, like it’s nuts, but the other guys do it as well. They just chuck stuff in there, and they don’t say anything you kind of just have to check-in.

Ed: I prefer it that way, though, because I don’t really like presenting something. I’m really bad at it. If I write a demo, I can’t show it to somebody in person and sit in front of them and see it, and like and listen to their opinion do they like it or not?  Because I find it really awkward and difficult, so I’d rather just put it in there and people can listen to it at their own time. If they want to. And then if no one mentions it, I guess they don’t like it fine if they’re like, “this is really cool, let’s work on it” they like it.

Jacko:  I can appreciate that it’s a bit weird like as Ed said, when the guys put some time into something that they think is good like the last thing you want is someone to be like, yeah, I don’t think that’s very good. You know.

Ed: They pretty constructive with the criticism, though it’s very much, yeah, no one’s ever been like, this is s***, it’s rubbish, you know, some people are like that. And I think that’s probably a good way to be if you don’t want to waste any time, but it can be a bit like “f***”. If someone just said to me, “I don’t want to just f****** Shit, because this is cringe, or it’s s***”, I’d be like “ouch”, you know, what I mean, it’s difficult, so I think everyone’s always constructive with the criticism of things basically.

Jacko: But we are working on new stuff.

Frontstage: That’s great, can you tell me some sort of direction that’s going? I mean the last album “Will You Haunt Me, With– “

Jacko: “That same patience” We shouldn’t have called it that haha

Frontstage: Exactly, I cant remember the title haha, its still fresh. And you have the February Headline tour coming up so you’re busy. And I don’t expect anything to happen in between those schedules.

Jacko: Well, it will.

Frontage: Oh? So, an album? A single?

Jacko: Not an album, no. There is no new Album before February 2027, but we will be working on one. Yeah, we’ve been in the studio. There’s some stuff coming to you, I think, direction wise we are trying a few different things we always want to kind of push ourselves, but also not lose sight of who we are. So, I think there’s going to be some new this year, and I think I’m quite looking forward to seeing what people think.

Frontstage: What’s your guest’s favourite song that you’ve ever written? I love black Flame, I have it tattooed on me.

Jacko: I recently have been picking what if I burn for this. It’s important for me that it’s a song that’s like more recent. You know, as much as I you know, black flame is a hugely important song for us. Black flame, it made our band a lot bigger, so we have to respect it stuff like choke as well. But yeah, what if I burned for me, I think is a really special song.

Ed: Yeah, I agree. I’d say the same song probably especially because I’m quite proud of it, because that’s one of the ones that was my demo that started it off. So actually

Jacko: And we didn’t think that demo was s***, so.

Ed: Yeah, and actually me and Tom wrote the whole song. Dawson didn’t write any of it, which is the first song that he’s not written anything on, because he’s normally always at least played on the song, and he didn’t play any guitar on that song, and it’s the first time he’s ever done that which is just kind of cool, and, for it to be so well received is really, really cool, and it’s a great live song, and

Jacko: And that’s a that’s not to remotely disrespect Daws, because he’s been unbelievable in the stuff that he’s written for this band-

Ed: He’s written all the biggest songs.

Jacko: Literally he’s written everything, guitar wise for many, many years, really, so I think that that’s another reason why what if I burn is so great because I think it just solidifies the quality, we’ve now got that we can have a song that, you know, we do think is so good. And as Ed said, it was created by him and Tom. So yeah, I just listened to that song and I hear a band that knows what they’re doing. It’s just cool.

Frontstage: Thank you so much for these open and honest words. I really enjoyed talking to you guys. I am excited for the Show later today and I hope I will catch you live again soon after as well.

Jacko & Ed: Thank you so much for having us. Are you taking photos as well?

Frontstage: Yes of course.

Fotocredit: Offizielle Grafik, Suede