Architects: Interview

Having sold out the majority of their shows, metalcore band Architects are currently undertaking their biggest UK tour to date. With the recent online stream ahead of new album ‘Lost Forever, Lost Together’ and a European tour approaching, the band are raring to put on the best performances fans have ever witnessed. 

2013 was a hectic year for the band. After spending a month recording in Sweden and a recent signing to Epitaph Records, 2014 might just well be their year. 

I spoke to the band’s guitarist, Tom Searle for half an hour, prior to the gig in Manchester. He seemed anxious about the night ahead but was eager to perform some of the band’s new songs for the first time. Topics consisted of his personal experience with skin cancer, the new Architects record and what it is like to be one of the few metal bands backed by BBC Radio 1.  

Let’s have a chat about your current album 'Lost Forever, Lost Together.' What is your personal favourite song from the new record?

Tom Searle: We've actually made a record with more than two good songs on for once. So it’s difficult to choose. I'm really pleased with ‘Colony Collapse.’ We've tried a lot of different things over our six albums. A lot of the time when we branched off it had mixed results. It’s great to do something different and feel like it came together well. It’s been nice to see lots of other people since we streamed the album saying “Oh I love that song it’s awesome.” 

What song was the hardest to write lyrically? Why?  

TS: Well, I wrote C.A.N.C.E.R about myself. I wrote it when I had skin cancer and was waiting for a month to find out the results of the CT scan and things like that. It was more just hard in the sense that if I wrote it I had to make sure it was going to have the right message. I didn't want it to be woe is me but I didn't want it to be too personal either at the end of the day. Sam sings the songs so it wouldn't have made much sense. It’s been a huge, surreal thing in my life but it had to be taken on in the right way. I wasn't sure what the right way was until I ended up doing it. I ended up changing some bits. Some of it sounded so negative and hopeless. At the same time I didn't want to retrospectively change it too much because I wrote it during the month where I didn't know if the cancer had spread. I didn't want to take away any of that brutal and harsh time replicating how you feel. Once you have been told you’re okay, you can’t then go back to how it felt like when you don’t know. It’s a touchy subject so you have to be careful.  

What sort of feedback have you had from fans and critics since you streamed the record? Is it what you expected?

TS: The response has been much better than I thought. You can always expect someone to come out and say “You’re shit,” or whatever. I was very nervous about album reviews. Once you spend so much time on a record, you lose sight as to whether it’s good or not. I think it hurts even more every time you release one. To me, it’s like failure if people only say it sounds alright. People just seem to love the record so much and this is what I've always wanted. I find it hard to process overall. I suppose doing this tour will be the decider.

How many new songs are you playing on this tour?

TS: We’re playing seven. The record isn't out properly until the 10th but I'm hoping that people have checked it out. We weren't going to play as many but when we put the stream out, people liked it so much so we said “Fuck it, let’s play them.”

Did you write or record any extra songs that didn't make the album?  If so can fans expect to be able to hear them at all in the near future?

TS: We did two B sides that didn't make the cut for the album but I don’t know where they’re going. The best songs are on the album in my opinion. 

For those who have yet to listen to the album stream, how would you describe the sound for the new record as a whole? How does it stand out from your previous records?

TS: I think it’s got an overall vibe to it. I got obsessed with making ambient sounds and having it run over big riffs. It’s definitely heavier and darker than at least our last two records. I hope it’s still accessible but still heavy in the way that it’s listenable, exciting and enjoyable. I like music that’s over the top and that was the main thing for me.

Why did you decide to stream ‘Lost Forever, Lost Together?’ 

TS: You've always got to be prepared if someone leaks the album. We ended up putting it online four days earlier than planned. We wanted to have everyone talking about it rather than people just finding a leak online. I think the people that want to support us would buy the record anyway. It was exciting to see it go online, it was really overwhelming.

I read that you spent a month living in the studios in Sweden so you could record the new record whenever you got inspiration. What problems occurred during the process and how did you handle being cooped up for that long? 

TS: Being cooped up was difficult, I mean we did go insane really. It was probably quite unhealthy for our mental state. By the end everyone was pretty burnt out and ready to go home. There were lots of problems but there always is. However, they are only real problems if they can’t be fixed. For example, we would spend a whole day tracking guitars and then find out one of the cables had been broken. I had to go and re-track all the guitars the next day. Despite difficulties, we got to make the album the way we wanted it to be.

Not that this had a huge effect on the record but there were a few key things we would be stuck on for ages. One thing that comes to mind was the chorus of ‘Colony Collapse.’ I was desperate to put a melody on it for Sam, trying shit that wouldn't work. It came to one in the morning, we had a few drinks and I just started humming a tune. I went to the studio, played it, hummed along and straight away told Sam to get in there. I hummed him the tune and he went insane. Together, just in five minutes out of one little bit of inspiration we got it sorted. That’s one of my favourite parts. 

When you were recording Hollow Crown I heard a fact that you use a different guitar tuning for each album, has that continued on the last three albums?

TS: No it hasn't. We had to stop eventually it was just inconvenient. We don’t have enough guitars with us on this tour to even have enough strings for each tuning. We just have to try and compromise.

You are one of the few heavy bands that are being backed by BBC Radio 1. Does this put pressure on you and your music at all? What impact do you think it will have on the genre for the future? 

TS: For us it has no impact. When we got played on the radio a few years ago I didn't feel great about it. When Dan Carter and Zane Lowe played ‘Naysayer’ from our new album I thought, it was fucking insane. It’s great that they support it. You only have to look at Bring Me the Horizon, who have radio friendly songs on their new album and look at their success. 

It’s possible that metal as a genre will become more accessible and cater to a wider audience because of radio. The thing is, you have to break past the barrier that a lot of people have with anything that includes screams.

What country was your favourite to visit when filming your documentary 100 days and how did you overcome the pressures and of being out of your comfort zone during the world tour?

TS: China was pretty difficult to be honest. Bali (in Indonesia) was easy to overcome because the next day we had a three day holiday. We just had to get through the show.  If we showed up to Manchester and 20 people showed up I guess we would be over. In a funny way Bali might have been my favourite place to visit. The only person that knew any of the words was my mum who was there bizarrely.

When we landed back in Europe and looked at the ticket sales for our UK tour, the sales were the worst they’d been since 2009. We had always said if it gets bad then we have to call it a day. That was the hardest bit, thinking “Oh fuck no one likes us any more.” Here we are now doing the biggest UK tour we have ever had. 

Are there any superstitions or routines you follow before each show?

TS: There are no superstitions but the only routine we have is the same as a lot of bands have…drinking. I know that’s a terrible thing to say but you get nerves. We have a rider which has a bunch of vegan food which most of the time doesn't end up being vegan. 

We have a little tour TV that we have had for about five years. It travels everywhere with us so we can play FIFA in the dressing room too. 

What are your plans for the rest of this year?

TS: Touring, that’s it really. We are going to America with Letlive in April and that will be great. We have lots of festivals in Europe and we’re doing Reading and Leeds.  

Is there anything else you would like to add or talk about?

TS: Thanks to anyone listening to any of our records even if they hate the new one. It’s an amazing opportunity even if it is ridiculously overwhelming for us all. It’s amazing that we get to do it, so thanks. 

The band's new album 'Lost Forever, Lost Together'  has recently made it to number 16 in the UK album charts. Pick up your copy from their official website or via iTunes. 

Find the interview piece on http://figure8magazine.co.uk/

Horror Housing

There are so many choices when house hunting - what area of town you wish to stay in, living costs and who you want to live with. It makes renting a house one of the most important choices you will have make… at least for a year anyway. However, in all the rush to find a place within budget, did you actually get ripped off?

From previously hidden damp and undiscovered deposits of unknown origin, to serious safety issues, it doesn’t surprise us when we hear housing horror stories from our fellow students. Who, because they are stereotyped to have low standards of living, find themselves taken advantage of by some landlords who will do anything they can to save money, by providing cheap furniture and crappy appliances.

Of course, some of us are just lucky to have a landlord that sorts problems out in a flash. However, after spending some time reading numerous horror house stories online, it seems others are not so lucky.Website StudentBeans surveyed over 2000 students about university living. According to the results, 50% suffered from mould, 37% experienced animal infestation and 8% even admitted their house wasn’t even fitted with a working smoke alarm.

It seems a certain letting agency in Huddersfield, claiming to be ‘The UK’s number 1 letting agent,’ is taking students for a ride. My own personal experience with this company throughout second year didn’t go down well. Problems included a hole in the ceiling above the toilet, a broken freezer and an attempt to charge money to get my bedroom door unlocked when I hadn’t been provided a key. This experience has made me wonder how many other students are being treated unfairly.

David (not his real name) 21, from London, shared the nightmares of his current house with me, stories that other students can probably relate to in some way or another. Currently in his final year at Huddersfield University, he was lucky enough to have had no problems with his previous housing, until now. “We were almost not allowed to move in because the basement living room flooded the night before the move. The pump in the house had failed and we couldn’t use the room.” He continued: “It’s fine now but the lino for the floor wasn’t even thrown out until about a month ago. They haven’t replaced it at all. The lights in the room have all stopped working now too. Someone came along and fixed the pump but that was only just before Christmas.”

To top it all off, it isn’t just the living room that happens to be a problem. He explained: “The hallway ceiling collapsed leaving a big hole due to water damage. Someone has been to the house, screwed a board into it and plastered it so you can’t see the damage. The light in that hallway doesn’t work and the taps upstairs are all leaking too. We have no drawers in the kitchen, broken freezer drawers and no working hoover.”

David has come to the conclusion that the problem could be a lack of communication between the landlord and letting agents. With this, he added: “The letting agents have said that if the landlord hasn’t sent someone then we are supposed to call them so they can send their own contractors. So far, the landlord has done nothing. The letting agents haven’t been to look themselves apart from when they first showed us the house.”

In his second year at Uni, T’Hud editor, Kevin Lawson had his own terrible experience: “I’m a mature student so I live in Huddersfield during the summer too and in the first few days of moving into my new house, I realised there was bed bugs. I told the landlord who was good enough to replace all the beds straight away, but the problem still persisted. After a few more weeks and few hundred bites on my arms, the place had to be fumigated and I had to replace my pillows at my own cost.”

Unfortunately for Kevin and the rest of his housemates the problems didn’t end there. When winter came around, mice started appearing in the house. Again Kevin called his agents who accused the students of being dirty. “The house was pretty much spotless, so we knew it wasn’t that. In the end the problem was only resolved in the final month of our lease, and we were never offered any compensation.”

Jess, 20, is another student that had problems with the same letting agent when moving into her new home. Thankfully she is now living in a different house after going through a separate company. “When looking for a house for our final year of university, we decided it would be best to go with a reputable company. We assumed it would make finding and securing a house as easy and simple for students as possible,” she confessed.

Sadly, things spiralled downhill days before Jess and her housemates were due to move in. Like David, there were problems with money amongst the unexpected. “The letting agents took a bond and deposit from us but said we could pay the rest just before we move in. When we tried to pay the remaining amount, we were told that the house had been let to others that were already living there. We never received an email, phone call or letter that gave the slightest indication that we could not have the house.” She explained: “They refused to give me my £100 bond back as it was ‘against their policy to do so.’ I eventually got it back by contacting regional managers. I would never recommend them now.”

David’s advice is something for fellow students to take into account when house hunting. He told me: “I’d say general advice to students is to be a lot more thorough. As soon as you get into the house ask about the electrics and when they were last checked. It really does make a difference if you know what is going on in the house.”

Price, location and admin fees are all something to consider when house hunting and can make all the difference to your bank balance. If money is low, it might be better to consider a private landlord. There are no middle men involved and you don’t usually have to pay an admin fee.

If any students are having problems with landlords or letting agents they can visit the advice office based in the Student Central building at the University. Alternatively, as previously mentioned in T’HUD, there is the Legal Advice Clinic (LAC) based in the Packhorse shopping centre where students can book appointments. Most importantly when signing a tenancy agreement, always read the small print. That five minutes to read the documents can save you from a whole lot of hassle...