Forward of their upcoming reside return at Slam Dunk Competition this Could, As It Is‘ Patty Walters and Ben Biss information us via their reworked and re-recorded debut album, ‘By no means Glad, Ever After X’, set for launch on April 18 through Slam Dunk Information.
Plus, we’ve teamed up with the band to carry you this restricted version ‘Swallowed Glass’ vinyl.
With solely 300 copies obtainable, order yours now at SHOP.ROCKSOUND.TV.
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“When the thought started, it was a extra humble seed of an thought and a premise. Then, like all issues As It Is, it snowballed and have become a a lot larger, extra formidable, artistic, long run endeavor.”
With the shock announcement of their imminent return arriving in 2024 after a interval of silence and seemingly disbanding, As It Is frontman Patty Walters knew that fan expectation could be excessive. Approaching the ten 12 months anniversary of their a lot liked pop punk and emo-infused debut ‘By no means Glad, Ever After’, the time felt proper for a touch of nostalgia as they take inventory of what they’ve achieved over the previous decade. The result’s a completely re-recorded and reimagined tackle that first album, now that includes a mixture of their heroes and contemporaries, all united in a grand celebration of what was a breakout second for the UK scene.
“I feel we had been initially solely planning to re-record a handful of singles with a number of options. Possibly 5 on the most,” Patty explains. “Then it grew to become this challenge the place we simply couldn’t cease ourselves from reimagining and recording the whole album and getting a characteristic on each single music and updating the issues that we actually needed to discover, placing a contemporary perspective on songs we wrote 10 years in the past and conserving a pair issues precisely the identical. It was such a pleasure to be engaged on in secret for almost all of final 12 months, and now to lastly be sharing it and shouting about this can be very thrilling.”
“The concept began with ‘Dial Tones’,” provides guitarist Ben Biss, returning to the lineup after six years away. “We’d began enjoying it on this heavier fashion in the direction of the tip of ‘The Nice Melancholy’ tour to make it slot in with the reside set extra. So it was about how we’d method these songs with the liberty that we’ve now. We had been actually, actually cussed going within the studio the primary time round and probably not that open to anybody else’s concepts or takes on it. This time round, properly, it’s all about collaborating.”
Revitalised and prepared, Patty and Ben information us via this milestone and reveal how wanting again created a path ahead.
THE SOUND
In revisiting a traditional report, the problem for a lot of artists is to realize that wholesome steadiness of nodding to nostalgia whereas nonetheless including in some new and contemporary touches. How do you make sure that ‘By no means Glad, Ever After X’ doesn’t merely tread over earlier territory?
“That’s all the time a enjoyable dichotomy for me, as a result of there’s all the time a contingent of followers that can need us to revisit our roots,” Ben displays. “And in a way, that is us doing that for the primary time ever. We all the time had been simply pushing ahead. By the point a report got here out, we’d already be writing one other report, or in some instances had it already finished or conceptualized. It’s good to only take a second and recognize one thing that occurred while additionally updating it.”
“The factor that felt so genuine about celebrating the nostalgia of ‘By no means Glad…’ is that the way forward for the band was so unsure,” Patty provides. “The challenge was dormant, if not useless, in all of our eyes for a really very long time. I feel in our private lives, when that future appeared actually unsure, we had been actually nostalgic. We had been reminiscing. We had a bunch chat and we’d meet up simply to get drinks and snicker about all of those recollections from touring. Aren’t we so fortunate that we obtained to expertise this? Quick ahead to 2024, now 2025, and the band is again and in a way extra alive than it’s been in a really, very very long time. So nostalgia, this time, was simply so genuine. We had been on this place of reminiscing and remembering and cherishing and celebrating already.”
Working away from the general public eye, the band’s return nonetheless a secret outdoors of their internal circle, the group discovered they may simply refocus their vitality to seize the sensation these early years had impressed.
“A lot music now could be marketed earlier than it’s even made and that’s a part of simply how Tiktok has modified issues,” says Ben. “It’s all about placing out unfinished songs or clips from the studio. It was very nice to not have the stress of worrying concerning the social media facet of it and truly deal with why we needed to be in a band within the first place, which is making music as pals and never worrying about all the opposite noise.”
“That is essentially the most humbly we’ve created and produced a challenge in a very long time,” Patty agrees. “Nearly all of it was recorded precisely the place I’m as we speak, at this desk in my lounge. We recorded among the different bits with the boys up in Sheffield at Whereas She Sleeps’ studio house and clearly there’s all of the wonderful visitors who despatched their elements from all all over the world. However going again to the humbler, easier roots of the band, this felt essentially the most DIY means that we’ve finished one thing in an extended, very long time. That whole artistic management, possession and satisfaction. It was a shitload of labor, however it was a complete pleasure.”
The primary style of ‘new’ music from As It Is definitely got here within the form of ‘A Decade Uneventful’, a complete rarities assortment that helped set the scene for his or her comeback and permit the fanbase to dive a little bit deeper into information they already knew and liked. However, in typical As It Is style, previous to that launch they had been already deep into the method of making their subsequent challenge.
“After we shared the primary single, ‘Balloons’, I used to be in Minnesota with my household,” Patty remembers. “It was September, and we had been celebrating that the band was again. Later that day, we had been recording my sister’s visitor vocal elements for ‘My Oceans Had been Lakes’. We had been already so deep into the subsequent factor. It’s simply how this band operates. It’s like they are saying about geese. They appear actually calm, however it’s chaos below the water.”
As Ben concludes, “We used to really feel like sitting geese, however now we’re a minimum of swimming.”
THE LYRICS
As their songwriting developed, As It Is would dabble with grander ideas and lyrical conceits, most efficiently on the idea album ‘The Nice Melancholy’, arguably their crowning second as a bunch and a artistic highpoint. But a part of the allure of ‘By no means Glad…’ is in its simplicity, formed from the sort of honesty and open hearted optimism that may solely ever infiltrate a debut report.
“As issues transfer on, it isn’t to say that it was any much less concerning the music or the creative integrity, however you change into conscious of what rooms you wish to be enjoying subsequent,” Patty explains. “How large would you like this band to get? What’s the correct sound? What’s the course you haven’t explored? Which bands and artists do you wish to be touring with as the primary assist to? However ‘By no means Glad…’ was simply such a easy, harmless challenge. It wasn’t about changing into the largest band on the earth. It was nearly expressing ourselves, making music that was fairly just like our EPs, however actually creating an album for the primary time, the dynamic journey of an album, and to inform that story throughout eleven songs as an alternative of 4 or 5. But it surely was actually humble, actually trustworthy, actually pure, and I feel for that motive it’s all the time going to be particular.”
THE COLLABORATORS
“I really feel like Lucas was the primary one, and sort of the obvious one,” says Ben as we talk about the looks of Holding Absence frontman Lucas Woodland on the brand new, heavier model of the long-lasting ‘Dial Tones’. “For our followers as properly, I had seen that they, for the portion of time the place we had been lacking, Holding Absence had been now their favorite band, and since plenty of them had been launched to them on ‘The Nice Melancholy’ tour, the crossover was simply large regardless of present now in what appears like completely different worlds or elements of the scene. However they’re simply so good.”
“Sonically, it made all of the sense, not simply due to that submit hardcore course that we took the music in, it made sense for his voice”, Patty agrees. “Every part Holding Absence have finished, historical past with them, taking them on certainly one of their early UK excursions even earlier than they put a report out, we simply knew that they had been going to be as large as they’re, and doubtless larger nonetheless. However I feel again to final 12 months and seeing him stepping up as entrance man for Funeral For A Good friend, and the way a lot the guitar elements for the brand new ‘Dial Tones X’ are harking back to that form of sound. Simply every thing about it made a lot sense. And never solely is he unbelievably gifted and succesful. He’s simply so type. He’s simply such a pleasant particular person and any alternative to only get to talk with him and hang around with him once more was not one thing I used to be ever in 1,000,000 years going to show down.”
“On plenty of the options, we didn’t essentially have a music in thoughts for them”, Ben continues. “Noah simply went ‘Can I do ‘Can’t Save Myself’?’, for instance, as a result of that was his favorite one. It’s humorous wanting again at how a few of these labored out. It was concerning the particular person and the vibe. All of it occurred so quick, and we had been so pleased with everybody that we obtained on there. Everybody actually went above and past. I feel that’s actually necessary to notice. Everybody actually put in a lot effort on their elements and made the songs their very own.”
“There ended up being three pillars or classes of options”, Patty feedback as he assesses the formidable listing of collaborators they’ve managed to enlist. “There have been the heroes, the inspirations and idols that we grew up listening to; Sleeping With Sirens, Sum 41, Hidden In Plain View, Transit. Then there have been the buddies we made alongside the best way; Roam, Mallory Knox, Holding Absence, Trash Boat. Then there have been some newer artists who cite us as an inspiration within the stuff they’re writing, which is completely mad; Noahfinnce and Artio. I don’t assume I spotted fairly to the extent that Noah was a fan.”
One significantly particular full circle second got here on the monitor ‘Silence’ the place they had been joined by Hidden In Plain View, a bunch of such significance to Patty that he has a tattoo that includes their lyrics. Ben saved their potential look hidden from his buddy and bandmate at first, shocking him with the information as the ultimate monitor was being delivered.
“I simply adore that band”, says Patty. “That one was unbelievable. I opened the session, I put the stems in and teared up. I cried. It was so surreal.”
THE TITLE
“It was simply the Roman numeral of all of it”, says Ben on the easy but efficient title of this 10 12 months assortment. “The unique album title was in a normal Instances New Roman font. It simply made sense and it regarded very placing. It’s probably not any deeper than that it means 10, simply if anybody’s confused and doesn’t know Roman numerals or hasn’t discovered them but.”
“It additionally could or could not have come from my affinity for unhealthy films”, Patty provides. “As a result of within the ‘Friday the thirteenth’ franchise, ‘Jason X’ is the one the place he goes to house and it’s fucking good. So which will or might not be why I began titling stuff that means.”
THE FUTURE
When dialogue turned to future reside reveals, there was solely ever one occasion that was going to make sense for the reunion of As It Is.
“Slam Dunk has all the time been actually particular to us”, Ben confirms. “We first performed it 10 years in the past, and it was the primary UK competition that took an opportunity on us. That they had us open a stage after which a few years later we headlined that stage after which headed to the primary stage. It’s been an actual journey with Slam Dunk, and we’ve been actually grateful for the connection we’ve had with them. And the reveals are all the time nice. So it made a lot sense to us. We knew it might be a extremely sentimental factor. South is the one Patty and I grew up going to for 3 years earlier than we performed it. I don’t assume I’ve performed a Hatfield present and never cried sooner or later. I feel the final time I used to be there was being along with the stage, watching the fellows play after I had left.”
“It’s straightforward now to miss the truth that once we had been choosing up this challenge once more, coming again, we weren’t positive who was nonetheless going to be round and going to have an interest”, Patty displays. “And Slam Dunk simply felt like this actually acquainted, actually mild, actually snug stage on which to return again. We’re larger billed than we could have anticipated. We’re actually blown away that there have been nonetheless so many individuals right here ready for this band to return again to life. We’re extraordinarily grateful for that. Slam Dunk simply felt like this excellent place to kick begin being a reside band once more.”
On condition that, as beforehand said, this can be a band who all the time has a watch on what’s subsequent, we might be sure that the upcoming large weekend in Hatfield and Leeds is not going to be the final we see of those returning heroes. However after spending most of a 12 months in a 2015 mindset, how has this train in reflection pushed their future plans?
“I feel the largest factor that it reminded us of, and made abundantly clear, is that I’ve by no means felt that artwork is extra necessary”, Patty states. “I didn’t all the time see the significance or the worth in being a musician and what it was giving to different folks. However, from this level on, I solely wish to create music that I really feel actually deeply related to and happy with, and this can be a challenge I’m so extremely happy with, not for simply having produced and combined and labored extremely laborious, and all the form of outreach and admin of getting the options, however simply celebrating songs and giving flowers to songs that I’m nonetheless, 10 years later, so happy with. So what I’m saying is that something we do subsequent, if I might be this happy with it 10 years after we share it with the world, that’s perhaps the one factor I care about anymore.”
See As It Is carry out ‘By no means Glad, Ever After’ in full at Slam Dunk Competition 2025. Tickets obtainable right here.
