WHILE SHE SLEEPS is a band that ever since they released their full length album, they got huge FAST and they only seem to wanna put the pedal to the metal (for once, no pun intended) even more. They recently self-released an album named “You Are We” that is doing extremely well, so I had a chance to talk to their bassist Aaron McKenzie and I took it. Unfortunately, he told me before the interview started that he had JUST finished playing a set and he wasn’t 100% prepared for it, so we both tried to keep it short so he can go get some rest. Little did I know, it might have been the shortest interview I’ve done to date, but it was also the most substantial, as we talked record labels, the band’s feud with BRING ME THE HORIZON and he had some great news for any Greek WHILE SHE SLEEPS FANS out there…
Hello, for starters thanks a lot for the interview!
Of course!
You guys have an album coming out in, I believe, two days? (Interview conducted on April 20th)
No, tomorrow
Tomorrow, awesome! Tell us a few words about it.
Yeah, it’s called “You Are We”, our third full length studio album and (we’re) super excited to release it basically. We recorded it ourselves with the same producer, but we built a studio to do it in and yeah, we’re super excited! Hope everyone likes it as much as we do.
You guys have released about 5 singles so far I believe?
Yes!
How has the reception been so far?
It’s been amazing! The best reaction we’ve ever had really. As far as releasing new music goes, it’s been nothing but positive. We’re just super stoked that people like it, we spent so long working on it that we kinda got lost in whether it’s gonna be well received (or not) and it has been well received. Hopefully that will continue when the record comes out but, yeah. It’s been amazing.
Awesome! What would you say that is different in this album compared to your earlier works?
Umm, I don’t think there’s any specific thing or major difference. This is just a snapshot of what we’re doing NOW, compared to a snapshot of what were doing years ago. We never really write anything with, a plan of what we want it to be like, we just have a go and make whatever that comes out that we like, you know what I mean? We never really think about it too much. So this is that.
Is there a story behind the title of the album?
Well the record is basically crowdfunded. We haven’t used a record label in The UK; we put it straight from our fans to us and not used a record label. We use one throughout the world cause we have to for distribution purposes, and basically the title is sort of a nod of how everything is possible if we all unite and do it together.
As you said, you guys decided to release the album without the help of a (record) label, how did you come about with this decision?
Well, we decided to leave (our label) because we weren’t exactly happy with it, so we talked about what we wanted to do and this time it came ‘round that… (long pause to think the right words) just kind of, why would we wanna put ourselves back in that place that we didn’t like again, you know what I mean? We’ve just been like 3 years signed to a label that we didn’t enjoy, so we wanted to prove to ourselves that it (the album) is possible without using the conventional route.
After reaching a certain level of success, what would you say a record label provides to an artist that a band can’t provide for themselves?
I think a label is something that used to exist sort of like a place that, because of the way the music was received and it used to be a lot more physical, whereas now you can release a record that you’ve recorded in your bedroom and not go the store and buy that record, you can just download that in your computer. So there are no manufacturing going on there, there’s no studio costs cause like I said you can record music yourself now, if you want to you can do it all yourself, and that immediately makes a label. Like, what’s the use then? A label would usually give you money to take your record to the studio and record it, then you’d owe them that money back from the money made from cd sales. No one’s buying cds now, but labels are still doing that, then all that’s happening is that bands get themselves into huge holes of debts, and we wanted to break away from that circle.
That’s understandable. You guys collaborated with Oli Sykes recently for you music video of silence speaks…
Yeah.
It is know that you guys had kind of a beef with him in the past. What took place and you guys managed to overcome these differences?
We… We talked a lot in the past but, as time went by we sort of came to a conclusion that neither of us really cared about any of those feuds anymore. To be honest, we were all pretty close and still are pretty close to the ARCHITECTS guys, and when Tom passed away and we went to the funeral wake with BRING ME THE HORIZON and we had a really good night together. At that night we were a little bit like “there’s no point dwelling on some stupid shit, I mean look at how big a deal this is, why still cling to any sort of drama when we don’t care about it?” We were friends in the beginning, you know what I mean? The world’s a bigger thing, there’s a whole bigger deal than us fighting over some bullshit. And it was nice! We sorta went back to our old ways with him, we literally live across the road so it makes a lot more sense for us to be friends than it does to be enemies.
That’s true I’m glad you guys worked it out, really.
Yeah, me too!
Now, an irrelevant question. What is your favorite band to tour with?
Favorite band to tour with?!
Yeah… haha
That’s a really tough question… (At this point I chuckle because I know everybody hates this question) It’s all the bands we tour with! I really enjoy touring with CANCER BATS, I enjoy touring with BRING ME (THE HORIZON) guys… (pauses and thinks). We always have fun on tour, I don’t really know who our favorite is… It’s hard to pick a favourite.
Your fans in Greece are aching to see you, we’re anxious to see you live here. Do you have a message for your fans in Greece?
We have some plans to come in the end of this year or the beginning of next!
That’s awesome!
Yeah we’d LOVE to come to Greece. We tour SO much and we’re still trying to get to new places as well as go places that we’ve already been. It’s kinda hard to constantly keep attending the places that we’ve been, while trying to push it and go further.
All right, that’s I had. Thanks a lot and I hope we see you guys in Greece!
Hell yeah man! Thank you very much!