Architects - In Conversation At Abbey Road, Part 2

flight without feathers i think is i would look at it as the album midpoint even though it isn't quite mathematically but um it feels like that especially if you listen to it on vinyl because it's sort of the last track on that side i need the record i didn't want to say that it's a palette cleanser isn't it you know it it's coming after uh you know an ordinary extinction and impermanence is one of the heavier runs in the record and um yeah it's just sort of a midpoint and if you're going to do

something like this song that is dynamically so different to our to what we would normally do then the most impactful place you could put it is after sort of you know a couple of very very heavy [Music] songs [Music] the apostles [Music] [Applause] the whole premise of this song for me was about having very very little music and really focusing on um the vocal melody and then building the song musically around that so it was we started it with a piano right was it yeah just it was very very bare

and we just had the vocal melody and we built it around that and then i went away to bali and sort of built a song around sam and then and then and then josh brought in some guitars as well those guitars are really interesting as well because again they sound super 90s almost especially the lead and the in the chorus josh is so 90s it's just really interesting just almost like again not i can't really pinpoint anyone doing like a guitar part like that and that song is so yeah out there yeah and

it's not like trying to you know it's it's not trying to be a massive hit or anything like that it's just a change of pace and just trying to explore something ambient and not i guess i was just trying not to to overthink it too much and just make just focus on making more of a soundscape you know i'm certainly not writing that song thinking you know that your average architects fan is going to adore this song it's going to be their favorite track on the record it's it's just about us exploring

something and seeing what happens and and not you know we didn't write 10 tracks like this and think and pick the best one you know it was like well we'll just dabble in that and if we like it we'll just go with it certainly interesting isn't it because you're right you aren't writing a song like that for radio or you aren't writing it to for it to be like almost like a big song or a moment in the set it is just it was like well we're good i can sing there this feels good let's just get really

strange on it and then again sort of like go weird and if it works then it works well contrary to popular belief no songs on this album were written with with radio in mind you know that hasn't existed until this album and it was not something that we ever sort of aspired to or even because thought would be you know a part of this band you know just didn't feel like there was a place for us in that um because i feel like when you do that and when bands do that it very rarely works yeah i feel li

ke it more often than not it takes away what's special about that band and more often and i feel like those songs that get on the radio aren't on there because they're radio songs they're on there because they're good songs and people are going this is good i think other people would enjoy this well and you know if if you do what we've done if you if you make a change from heavier to less heavy you know with more leaning more into melody then um you know people that don't like that uh haters or

whatever you want to call them they tend to just assume the worst don't they and assuming the worst is you know the assumption that there's sort of uh we're aspiring to you know for commercial gains or whatever and i've spoken about this before but this sort of um this attitude in some of the metal community i may have even said this to you that that sort of musical integrity runs from no integrity which is justin bieber to full integrity which is dark throne mayhem whatever and if justin bieber

you know stopped caring so much about popularity and money he would just do what he really wants is writing a you know low five black metal record which is obviously not the case and the difficult thing maybe for some of those people to understand is that some people just want to write songs that have a tune in them you know yeah um and that doesn't necessarily have to mean that there's some kind of like fakeness to it or greed or something which is unfortunately what gets sort of thrown your w

ay if you take that step yeah but yeah well the thing is as well i mean the purpose of this song aside from being a great song in itself is is its placement within the record and how it then everything around it reacts and and and the balance across the whole piece of work yeah so yeah yeah i think uh it's it's reflective of our tastes and it's something that i'm sure we will explore more in the future and uh it's uh yeah something we really enjoy we all listen to a lot of that type of music and

it's actually i don't think i play any role in this song whatsoever i don't think i performed there's no real drums on it no there's actually i didn't perform on this i didn't there's two songs in the sound when i don't play on it actually as you say hello as you say so inspired by other bands that do things like this like nine inch nails radiohead thrice this song thrice water vibe yeah isn't it and that's that side of that thrice record i mean we're all big fans of thrice anyway but that side

of the record is i think some of the best music they've ever written i think as well when this was originally going to be a double album this sort of developed in that space when we were still considering that yeah so it probably gave it a lot more licence to follow down that path of that one little wonder so this is the the second track um to feature a guest which is mike yeah um from royal blood the thing that i think is funny about it is that the chorus as i said to you before like the choru

s lyrics to me when i read them and listen to it is literally like yeah this is a literal description of what this song is within the lyrics [Music] but it's easier to follow obviously when you write a song like this you sort of know what's coming your way to a degree and um you know lyrically obviously it's it's not just referring to that i'm kind of i'm kind of saying um you know we all like to bury our heads we all like the easy life don't we and we had written this song which was obviously m

ore palatable than we typically would be and yeah those words just came to my mind as a little bit of a tongue-in-cheek um sort of meta commentary on the song you know we yes this is this this song is sort of embodying what i what i'm saying in a way you know this is the this is the sort of sometimes it's we just want the easy route don't we uh so it felt like the perfect opportunity to sort of explore that double meaning i love that flat the flashback to the these colors yeah everything is fine

as well because obviously that was a such a big part of our set for so long um yeah i floated that online see if anyone got it you know they repeat this line and then in the middle age repeating everything is fine everything is fine um but no one had picked up on it the delivery is quite different the delivery is quite quite different to the sort of ferocity of there but i think that's what's sort of again sort of funny and sort of tongue-in-cheek about it isn't it sort of like you might recogn

ize this if you're really thinking about it this is actually the the there was the last song that was written because we had done some writing in bali where we had written the next track um but then everyone got home and i i was doing like a visa run between bali and singapore and just had the idea for the verse in the chorus just in the airport and sort of quickly roughly did it on my computer while i was waiting at the gate and then sort of sent some ideas back to sam and sam and ali tracked s

ome some vocal ideas which i think we ended up changing all of them right at the last minute it's interesting this song as well how the the sort of first word the burn is almost like a little hook that goes behind everything as well it's really cool and actually al yeah this is ali tracked demo of this in his flat which before that point everything had been done with me and dan um which was cool to sort of have ali sort of jump in at the sort of not deep end but you know sort of figuring that ou

t and then then in the end it meant that when it came to actually tracking mike which was the only guest where some of us were in the room when they were tracking it meant that it was super comfortable because ali was tracking mike and it was it just felt more like a i'll just pop down and track it rather than it being like a okay we need to go through the label we're going to book this studio and do it like this which you know with most bands that have won brit awards and you know had two numbe

r one records you would think that you would have that sort of thing to go through but it was super casual i remember when we were tracking it he would do a take and then sort of look at him and he'd be like do you want more it's like that was just bang on i suppose you might as well just do a bunch more just because you're here yeah but it was it was just quite shocking how quickly he knocked it out yeah i mean we're all friends with him and and friends really good friends with with ben as well

and they're two absolutely amazing human beings but it's not like when we're hanging out with them you'd be like you know down the pub like oh mike sing a bit would you not really in work you're not in work mode you don't have those sort of discussions you're not sat there like tell me about this and tell me about this but then actually being sat there and watching him sing i was like this is really really impressive and yeah you know around a lot of singers and a lot of bands but more than any

thing the um emotion that was in his voice and the pronunciation of everything was so amazing i mean we sent it to we sent to dan and dan was straight away was like this is really special did you had you already worked out what part you wanted him to sing and you did you have like a melody and lyrics yeah yeah there was melody in lyrics but he completely royal blooded it like completely made it his own in in a way that i hadn't envisaged or anticipated whatsoever so hearing it when it got sent m

y way i was like this is so awesome it's so awesome that we had felt we were able to write a song that could accommodate someone like mike you know and like i said it was the last one we wrote so i think there was definitely an uh an attitude of oh what the hell you know let's just write let's just do something that's you know totally different and i also think a big shout out to to dan for the groove on this song i think it's really really amazing i think it's sort of something that maybe we've

always had big grooves but i think it's sort of almost like dancing yeah it's a different element to your playing in this song i really i really love it i think that's actually one of the the biggest points of the song is that sort of driving force that goes goes throughout it perky yeah and i love the fill going into in the second verse coming out of mike's bit i was talking to our friend andrew uh yesterday just like that was like i can't take credit for that phil not but not only no no when

when i was tracking the drums of nollie uh he he actually had me take out a couple of fills in this song and then i had a different fill there i think it was just on the snare or something and he suggested that film yeah it's nice um and it's great yeah so credit knowledge for that sort of entry into that sort of offbeat kind of groove yeah it's funny though because when when i had the idea for this song there was no part of me that felt like it was you know like pushing the boundary too much an

yway and it was listening to it afterwards and people suggesting it was dancing and that kind of thing which it is you know but none of that had occurred to me it just felt like it felt acceptable to me it felt totally this is another one of the songs that over the last day almost is one of the songs and i've seen a lot of people picking out different songs that they love it's not been by any means one ahead of another but i've seen a lot of people mentioning this song and and that's really cool

again where it's almost like i can't guess what our fans would like yeah i don't know but i feel like if there's enough scope there there's something for everybody there's there's so many different opinions and and i definitely give a lot of our fans too little credit for how willing they are or how open-minded they are how willing they are to allow us to experiment if you like but then also i actually give other fans too much credit because there's a monster of a riff in this as well going up

into that that um that part from coming from the middle late with the repeated everything is fine and that sort of buzz roll into that sort of sub is it subway sails f1 i think that's what it was that one i remember you had programmed something in before and it was rubbish this is good like i i i was kind of feeling the riff that was already there but you went face when but then you said no no we need to have josh chuck a huge ref on this and it was great it was massive it elevated the song so m

uch [Music] [Applause] [Music] i have a tendency to think of things very visually when i go through lyrics and i and my notes for this one was uh for the lyric where it's like infinity is waiting because nobody can burn a glass cathedral the thing that immediately came to mind and then started a chain of events of thoughts which is probably nothing to do with anything but i'm going to tell you anyway was in in the original comic in watchmen when dr manhattan gets so sick of earth he flies off to

mars and builds like this glass cathedral on the planet and then it then started making me think about the whole idea of how uh people like elon are really striving to push us to to you know exist off of our planet and it just that whole chain of events was it was like living on mars and the idea of um it would be better suited to spend that resource fixing what we have rather than trying to make somewhere else vaguely habitable when all we're currently doing is on the one we're in anyway that

was my thoughts let's talk about uh what the song's actually about well i mean that line the glass cathedral is in reference to um us being souls and flesh suits and it's in reference to there being something inside us that is unchanging and infinite um that is sort of hidden amongst the sort of swirling distractions of you know being a human being and uh you know a reminder that no matter how crazy things are that is accessible should we choose to get in touch with it i don't anywhere near enou

gh um but it's a reminder to myself and a lot of the record is is sort of touching on that you know and this record was about self-destruction again thus the pull the pin line and it's about getting drowning in just the nonsense of modern life i think and and a reminder to myself to get in touch with something that is more real yeah likely this this song i'm really intrigued to hear josh's point of view from this because the three of us and adam were in bali at this point and josh had gone home

um and we sort of had an evening where we'd listened through to everything that we had on the record and had a discussion of what we felt like was left and uh put together just an email or whatsapp or something and sent it over to josh just saying like we really feel like it needs something like this like a massive riff with really industrial vibe like think think touring in germany and fire and like let's go down that route thinking we were going to have this super kind of aggressive song and g

oing to bed we went to bed woke up josh had sent over the riffs we worked on it all day sent it over to josh that was it so it was interesting from your point of view what it would be like seeing that message and being like i'll get to work yeah one and then sending it over because it was quite different to what we'd said what was sent back must have been so different yeah what are the parameters for that is it literally like right we're all off to bed now if you can have a riff at this bpm pref

erably in this key it was more just i think there was a message from sam just saying we need like just can you just write like a really big industrial sounding track yeah i was like i got you um no so i i uh yeah i put together it's one of those things and it's the same i've seen with dan as well for this track like when something comes together that quickly you know most of the time you're after something good like when something just literally just happens and as it's happening you have like a

barometer of like this is like good i think um yeah so like i wrote a whole song and like i must have spent ages like programming some like weird noises there's a like weird trap hyatts and like weird obnoxious distorted kick drum i really like but it still only took like a day and then the next day dan had sent it back and reworked it was a new chorus uh he made like a new verse out of some piano stuff that i had in the middle and like rearranged it so like what dan had done was loads of work

as well and i got it back with like finished written lyrics and vocals like the next day so like between both of us it was just the quickest of songs that ever happened and you just know that you're off to something good when that happens yeah it's just so immediate i mean so often we have you know i'll sort of have a sense of a melody and just put some rough lyrics in there because you don't want to spend time committing to some you know well-thought-out lyrics because it might not be grey and

it might have to change it and that would have just been a waste of time so you go some placeholders you know but it was all like very uh just off the cuff and it just sort of all came together and made sense there was only a couple lines where i really had to sit down and think a bit further about it all just sort of fell into pa place so simply and you know like we're just a bunch of animals is it is it it's fairly daft really i mean i remember thinking can i use the word bunch you know what i

mean like and i'm thinking what do people in like does that make sense to people outside of england a bunch of animals anyway like it it felt good you know and that was that was just the words that came to my came to mind straight away when i when i first thought of the melody and uh but it just it made sense to me you know like that reminder of what we really are you know and it's sort of almost too simplistic but we're afraid of the outcome you know so we don't really it's sort of talking abo

ut anxiety if yeah really you know we we don't just get past the threat and then just settle we're always sort of we're in this hyper sensitive state of arousal all the time you know prepared for some unknown threat that's not there um yeah and i i just i've been getting in touch with that and thinking about that for a while so that's what came to mind straight away just out of nothing but i remember we pre when we we pressed play and stood back and listened to that first demo and i was just so

pleased you know i was just so excited it felt different and fresh it felt like in many ways it felt like exactly what we had been shooting for the whole record but it was like the 20s he's not even aiming for it to be a singer it was just like a heavy song and yeah i mean again like when this came out everyone i saw quite a few i mean obviously it's pretty very popular now but i saw a lot of people saying you know just trying to get on the radio the the hook is we're just a bunch of animals whi

ch is not out on the radio said you know we weren't this is not not a consideration i would otherwise i ought to have changed the lyrics on the on the song but um yeah i did say when you sent it to me you're like i think like when i first heard it back it was accompanied with we think this should be the lead single but that was only after it was done and then you step back and hear it and go yeah it's a strong song yeah in spite of the fact of how it didn't read that was never the intention yeah

i think it was the first time that really sparked that sort of uh replayability thing that we were looking for with writing as well where it was like as soon as the song was finished you were like i want to listen to that again and being like everything that makes it onto this record when we're listening back to these demos you have to have that buzz off of it where you're like let's go again let's go again you know where you're like that sort of feeling that i hadn't really sort of allowed mys

elf to think like or i don't know if it's just me since the sort of first record that i did with these guys where i was like i can't believe i'm i'm singing on an album and i'm like this is my favorite album because it's me and you're just like i can't believe it i can't believe it and this time it was it really felt like that sort of rush of excitement where you're like we're doing something new and fresh and i'm still not used to it yet so i want to hear it again um i think it's that spontanei

ty we were talking about before you know reacting it was it was all very reactionary and i think since then i've moving forward which we shouldn't really talk about but like that's something that we we've learned to try and just react to things and yeah get there quicker and and which isn't always easy because especially because me and josh have kids which you can't always do things when you want to do it but uh but um yeah you can't yeah i don't sound like i'm bigging it up too much or anything

because you know it it's it's not you know i don't know what song's a reference bohemian rhapsody i don't know it's not like bands are always all you really want when you write a song is you want to you want to listen to it again right you want to feel like that made me feel something i want to i want to listen again um but there's so many different sort of there's a lot in that what's this but in the spectrum that's the word i'm looking for there's a lot of different songs in that spectrum you

know and you could want to listen for lots of different reasons but sometimes i you just stumbled across something that is special and i felt that was the case with this song there was also um a moment which we haven't talked about why pete added a bunch to the verses we don't usually do that sort of thing have other people contribute ideas that are outside of the band we had uh pete miles who uh worked on the album with us we added some sims and some percussion to it and [Music] initially the

feeling is that's our song what you're doing to kind of thing but he really improved those bits yeah i remember finding this sort of hearing that part especially that the um going into the mid late hearing how sort of like in my head like i know this is going towards somewhere big i remember turning around to down and being like we should get like an air raid siren or something on this or like a like something ominous and then yeah i was just sitting on youtube or and then try and then going on

different sound sites and trying to find this sort of weird noise and i think that really builds that tension heading into that last bit did you not um i thought that you would listen to the demo like on like walking down the street and heard a police siren's yeah i was on a bus that was the police siren yeah [Music] it was like the second one i listened to and i was like i think that sounds like the right key put it in i was like oh it fits it's the right key it's meant to be the police officer

i was on a bus heading i think to the studio to do some demos and then on the way a siren had gone past like a police car gone past but i didn't realize that a police car had gone past i was like that's really cool that dan's put some police sirens in there as well that really adds to it in that song yeah and then i went back to listen to it again and and then i realized i look forward i was like that's an actual police car and i was like i need to tell damn this now and it worked perfectly bec

ause you know that the whole passage of vocals there lyrically is referring to you know like we were saying before like the truth of what i view as as really being and and trying to escape the noise and chaos of of modern life and i thought those sirens really added to that feeling of tension and noise around us at all times right so libertine we all already sort of um touched on the we are the rust worshiping the rain lyric um which i think is obviously i mean it relates to what we were just sa

ying with animals as well in the sense that it's this idea that we're caught within the trappings and the noise and and hot and kind of beholden to these things and hold them up as as great and yet at the same time if we actually stop and think about it these things are really um damaging to us as people i think that's one of my favorite lyrics that dan's ever written i i think as soon as i heard that it was like a obviously i've always been a fan of his lyrics otherwise i wouldn't be singing th

em i really really love them but i felt like that line really knocked me back that and the flower that never blossomed has quickly forgotten felt to me like something that i would hear like lennon or dylan right and and was really tired i'm in that bracket was really really taken back by it and it's something that has stuck with me since the first time he told me that line was was going there so i i feel like that is a really special line and as you say is super super thought provoking yeah [Mus

ic] it's about self-destruction it's you know it's this idea that yeah we don't do the things that are good for us and you know we have sort of created this world that we're dependent on but it doesn't make us happy right i mean i i sort of you know rust needs rain to exist but it also destroys it as well you know it and i felt like that sort of in many ways is the world that we've created for ourselves we're sort of totally dependent on um the world that we've built around us and yet it doesn't

really help us live fulfilled happy lives and obviously it is sort of we're all aware of what people would call a mental health crisis and people are sort of desperately trying to figure out how to be happy and sometimes it feels to me as though we've sort of strayed too far from the way we're meant to live and obviously the modern world you know advances in science have given us all sorts of amazing things but i think it needs to be tempered with an understanding which i don't necessarily have

of how we can live uh more fulfilled and you know we want lives of purpose don't we i think we're lacking that we have great comfort and medical science is fantastic and all these things but the educational understanding certainly in the west of how to just be happy it's difficult you know we're all looking for it but we don't really know how to find it and so we all have these self-destructive tendencies and the lyrics and the chorus in particular sort of they're sort of like the the devil on

the shoulder if you like saying why you shouldn't do things to help yourself you know um that's why it's like yeah i can't even remember the lyrics but you know you you're gonna you well the lyrics can you tell me the chorus yeah people can find them anyway yeah i very much wrote them as very much wrote them as yeah this this voice in my head of sort of whatever the voice not of reason is the one that is self-destructive another song the the melody and lyrics for the chorus changed a lot yeah be

cause we knew what it needed yeah and it took a while to get there but it's also one of the most guitar i'm not taking it off you because i'm about to say i might say it's also one of the most guitar heavy songs on the record i think yeah as far as kicking in with the big riff and the verses as well it's almost like a big verse riff which hasn't been done a lot on goes back to that doing more of less idea yeah yeah i was working backwards off dan originally having like the chorus just the chorus

i think yeah i just had the chorus which is really really basic but yeah we had a melody which got rid of um i thought it was really good to be honest yeah and the song did start with the middle eight actually i think at one point in fact the middle eight was the chorus mentally it's too much but it's not enough yeah yeah yeah i know you know trying to change i think structurally not become too repetitive or not not not using the same formula this was trying to be make a straightforward song th

at is providing something different you know and ticking some different boxes um and actually i've been really pleased to see that a lot of fans have really connected with this song which i thought it might fly under the radar a little bit but it hasn't at all it comes in hot at the start as well doesn't it yeah yeah and i think yeah i mean obviously people like big riffs and you screaming and stuff so it ticks those boxes yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah some cool nights with pete with this one there's

a bike on that song uh there's a bike and didn't like that yeah it's um it plays the rift so is it the stuff yeah so there's there's some keys and there's some percussion that run through the the intro and the verses as well and it's um pete went and just started hitting some random bits set up in the studio and one of those bits was a bike and there's this big like clang sound that's like a snare and that's just hitting the frame of a bike i i i saw people online saying that it sounded like li

ke lincoln park type noise that was probably their secret the whole time what bike today i mean obviously it's heavily affected like massively compressed and distorted but um he's got a bunch of like centers and stuff that you would just sort of yeah and we played around with some some of his sims and retract a couple of bits and um but yeah never thought we would get a bike on the record adam would be really happy with that get a rally endorsement maybe okay goliath um this is the third and fin

al track with a guest on as a featured guest which is simon from biffy cliro we should be begging there's again another reference to to another track um from lost forever lost together from dead man walking isn't there um where it's talking about heroes being hung and vilifying you know whistleblowers and stuff yeah um yeah let's talk about that and then talk about how simon in how you got him involved because obviously biffy clairo's i mean all the guests you've got a pretty pretty decent do yo

u remember we you and me did a um instagram live for uh for the nhs yeah for great frog it was to raise money there and in it you said who would who would you like to to work with is there anyone in particular you'd like to work with and i said i'd love to work with simon from biffy and you went i think he'd be keen he'd or we'd already reached out to him at that point and i in my head i was like yeah i think he would be as well like being like i've got to text down in a bit and tell him that th

is has happened that's amazing yeah i just remember that just being like that is actually so cool that it happened and thinking back to to that part but we've loved them for a long time i think each of us individually have been very inspired by that band and their level of creativity and the output that they have out there but fearless yeah yeah and and getting the recognition that they deserve was was was amazing but also because they didn't really go out of their way to become a massive succes

sful band but i think especially in the early days of us of touring around in vans across europe and america and and and being like no one likes us but it doesn't matter we're just going to keep going and keep writing and keep learning they were always an inspiration to us because it was like well biffy did that and they were putting out great records and eventually everybody was like how have we slept on to me it was like because because biffy broke on puzzle which was their fourth record i thi

nk and i felt like that was deep in their career you know and so we didn't really break into our sixth record which is you know late bloomers but they always gave me hope you know and that they had done what they do in an unconventional way and obviously um there were certain changes that probably brought them uh a greater appeal but they still did it in their own way you know they they they were memorable in a totally unconventional way that no other rock bands were doing not in a you know play

ing arenas and songs are in you know five or seven eight or whatever it is you know that was just so unique and brave and yeah there was there was a biffy spirit in this song i felt like from very early on and we once we had we had written the melody the vocal melody without simon in mind and it just felt so biffy and we said we just thought what if simon can do this then he should do it um and he was totally down and really easy as well wasn't it because strangely um one of our managers benji m

adden who's in good charlotte he's like him and simon are like best mates so it was like can we can i just grab simon's email and benjamin was like yeah he came like there was no it was super easy wasn't it and i feel like simon turned it around so fast as well yeah yeah i mean all three of them were extremely like happy and accommodating to be involved he was it was great and simon just felt if simon's different because we're not acquainted with them the same way that we are with mike and winst

on um but yeah he he his enthusiasm for the project was just amazing and he had nothing but nice things to say about the song she'll see always nice to get um compliments from people you respect obviously um but yeah i mean musically it's a heavier tune isn't it it's more riff and guitar driven and but it's it's it's a strange song i think in many ways as well it's it's quite odd and unconventional yeah yeah it's a quirky one again i don't know i think like the verse riffs are just i mean it's r

eally simple but just i don't know yeah it just feels different because typically typically we would all be in the studio together and you know when i'm tracking bass i'm usually looking at josh like what do you think kind of thing and then there was so much back and forth on that one i felt like with is this quite right that that felt like the trickiest one for me to work on by myself at home felt like a good one yeah no i uh it's just an odd song yeah i don't know i can't really put my finger

on it because to me when i analyze each part it doesn't feel odd but the end result is yeah i remember being surprised by simon because i yeah i love the band um i'm well aware that he's got a great scream on him but i just thought he was doing like just the bit before the breakdown so when i heard it yeah i was like oh he's screaming oh cool i didn't expect him to do that i've heard him do it and like i knew it sound great but i didn't know that was coming and i think that's the difference isn'

t it if with his guest appearance compared to the other two is that we had him perform something that he wouldn't typically do or hasn't done in a long while so he comes out of the blue a bit you know people probably don't see it coming but to have you know the singer in one of britain's biggest rock bands do something like that on the record just felt exciting and different and you know we want the song i feel like this song is like full of unexpected turns and that's sort of just like the cher

ry on top i think yeah okay there we go again like like the intro to the album the strings on this are super cinematic and um then there's that moment where it it becomes super fragile pardon the pun because it really did make me think there you go really like the resner is strong in that one and that moment where it just breaks down and is is just like your vocal and the piano is like a really beautiful moment i love the way that it builds into that part as well where it's almost like the synth

gets louder and louder and louder and almost becomes completely overpowering with the of distortion yeah and then just almost reminds me of that part in uh interstellar where there's that moment where that you don't hear the explosion in space and it's just silence you're sort of building waiting for this moment and then it just breaks down to nothing [Music] [Music] i remember always being really drawn to this song because of the the string arrangement really but i just felt i loved it from th

e moment i heard it and i wonder why yeah josh has just nailed it i think you wrote it i think with sort of a beatles e sort of vibe in mind i always really liked iron the walrus as a kid and that like the strings being like that sort of drunk where they just which wasn't an inspiration to like the melody but when i thought while outside get on strings it's like yeah i remember we had the way we were tracking strings is like we weren't there with them at the studio where they were tracking it mi

ddle farm and i was listening in and we both were like when when they were tracking pete the engineer there was like how's this sound guys and i remember just feeling really bad like i was just like no more drunk sounding more slurred and i really i felt like really bad because i i think i i didn't want to like we didn't i don't know how much time we had but i didn't want to waste time just like just to please myself but um pete was like no no just just say what you have to say and i was like ca

n you just sound more slurred more weird and yeah yeah it was originally like i think the first version this it was quite a heavy song wasn't it and it took a totally different turn and this is definitely one of the most out there tunes on the album yeah exactly again i had no i if the guys had gone no don't like that i would have been like that's fine i wouldn't take it personally because it is weird but yeah yeah and it's been funny seeing the the reaction to the song because i mean it just fo

r some people it's not their cup of tea and some people totally gravitate towards it depending on their taste because it's it's not what you would ever expect to hear from us that song actually has speaking of of being here and it being quite warranty the start of the song has our drum tech on it laughing and it also has the guy that does sound for us counting the song in but it was from a different session where we we were here in this room in this room doing um doing something for spotify a se

ssion with with an auction it was it was the first time we'd probably played with an orchestra i believe yeah and uh yeah it felt that felt like a really cool moment for our band and we were going to do something new weren't we but we just had to get in there and just actually trying to create that sort of because you were looking for it from the orchestra tuning up as well right but before from a different session but it just didn't feel like from the actual session yeah yeah we got some chatte

r from the actual when the strings were done they were on the song but it didn't didn't work didn't feel right yeah yeah exactly but i mean this is definitely a song that we put on the album knowing that some people wouldn't like it and doing it anyway you know i i we we wrote it thinking well i kind of joked with the guys when we were making the record that i wanted everyone who listened to this album to hate at least one song and just because i felt that that we were covering such a spectrum a

nd it was fairly eclectic and it required the listener to have basically exactly the same tastes as us and chances are you're probably not going to have exactly the same taste as us um you know if you stay in one lane then you're more likely to you know there's going to be it's going to be satisfaction the whole way through but if you take some left-field steps like like on this song then chances are it's not going to jive with everyone um but that's just it's what it is you know we kind of did

it without we're just feeling like well we don't really care it's not really what we're trying to do we're just trying to write an album there's a collection of songs that we love that's the great thing about music isn't it i mean it's also so subjective in one man's thing that he's so passionate about and loves someone else's hate yeah yeah i mean this is this is totally a song just i mean we're only day after release but i've seen people say you know this album needed to lose a couple songs li

ke demigod and and flight without feathers and then you see the next person saying the best song on the album is demi god and flight without feathers it just depends on your on your taste it could be totally out of your what you would normally listen to and then it won't sit well with you but um that's just something that we were willing to happen you know we didn't we didn't mind it didn't deter us right what's the song about well i think it deals with the uh idea that we exist beyond the trivi

alities of consensus reality and it in the same way that animals does yes next the next song [Laughter] do you want to do you want to expand on that or no no you got it right okay cool well done um thanks a star a plus 10 points for me right meteor [Music] this is um again this is uh well it's i was going to say it's funny that that you you've approached writing in a record and at no point you're going we need to have a radio song but this is clearly the most anthemic one i think it is and it's

the one which is kind of i don't know if it's it's not pushing the boundaries more than any others because as we've just spoken about the whole record is doing that constantly but um yeah it's just another one of those songs but it's um that's another one of those songs i mean it's another one of the songs that is pushing what is the accepted parameters of what your band does burning effigies of i was in the street for this one i was definitely scared but like i was definitely there was i rememb

er having a conversation with with uh with the guys just being like just one day i just remember just being like i think we've gone too far and being like this is too this is too much and then dan speaking to me on the side and just being like but do you like it and i was like i love it and then and then actually sitting there and then being like well yeah why is it why is it too far what what is it just afraid of what people are going to say i think and we always sort of came back to that bowie

quote about when you when you you know your your feet you can't feel quite feel the ground anymore and that's when you're in a special space and look we knew people wouldn't like this song some people won't like this song it's an arena rock song i mean it is arena rock and arena rock is the most taboo genre in the fundamentalist metal core elite i mean you can't say arena rock it's like voldemort you people just say arena don't say arena rock all right i mean we all love the arena rock bands an

d we'll go to the show but don't say it look i get it like some of that stuff can be really really derivative and you know it's been overdone it can be generic and you know some people have leveled this song but we just wrote a really really straightforward song about something that we cared about we felt that we had a great melody and we all really really liked it i mean first and foremost um it felt really bold this i think felt the bravest because i think if you listen to some of the other so

ngs that are out there like um flight without feathers or demigods we're just talking about they don't those songs don't sound as though they're reaching for a bigger audience even though they are more melodic that they're they're relatively experimental they're not something you would hear on the radio but this does sound like that um but like i said earlier without the intention of thinking about the radio whatsoever i mean you can only take me and my word can't you but i wrote the song and it

was just trying stuff out and just just experimenting and and and having fun with it basically and trying to write fearlessly without worrying about what people would think this was another early doors one as well and another one that started out as well because there was a change in feeling in the chorus and the chords changed i remember you texting me being like what do you think of this and immediately even though we'd sat with it for ages it was like yes this is a no-brainer this is exactly

what what the song needs to be and it's another yeah this i look forward to playing this song live also because i just feel like it's a nice way to kick in or almost imagine you at the front of the stage just having just you know sort of wind machine like wow i love that i love that guitar and actually you know i i didn't when i wrote it i didn't anticipate it being released as a single and obviously it's not the kind of thing we could have come out the gate with um but why though because this

is the thing it's the thing i find so interesting when any band puts out an album that is expanding upon what they've done up to this point there's this weird entitlement that a fan base has that feels betrayed almost and it's like well the the records you liked haven't vanished yeah they still exist you can listen to those yeah but what you've got to remember is that the art that is made by a group of artists is made solely for them and yeah yeah and i would i would love it if an audience had t

hat understanding i mean a lot of people do but it's the ones that are the most vocal it seems to be yeah they're the ones that don't grow up yeah i think we we i think you know animal animals obviously felt like a really really strong song and an obvious opening single but i think there was also a concerted effort to avoid death threats it hurts like there's no point in saying it can really mentally affect you you really can i think i i posted a thing online the other day just about like it was

words have actions and when you say something it comes out that doesn't just stop when you just type it and say like a really flippant remark that you might not think might become a mountain for somebody else and we have been through a lot as a band and i don't want sympathy for that i don't want people to feel like they can't tell us if they do or don't like songs but we've been through a lot and we've been through a lot of pain and we're still creating and still enjoying creating as a group o

f friends which i think is very special but when you take a battering from people that don't know you don't understand why you've written these songs and in their heads because they've not seen an interview or had a conversation with you they think there's some sort of other motive behind it it's hard because it's frustrating you can't sit there and have a civilized conversation with someone and be like that's not the point that's not where it's come from like we're just nine records in we've we

're creating we're expanding as musicians and we're trying to keep it fun after nine records i what i was gonna say before was that actually i've i was totally taken aback by the positive receptions to this song and and you're probably right we should probably back ourselves a little bit more um and and you know maybe we're fearless when we're writing but then when it comes to actually presenting the song so it would be a lie to say that we feel fearless i think when we release a song like this

i'm sort of in like a mental brace position um yeah but yeah you know to to the our fans credit it was it was really really positive for the most part which is amazing to see and i've i've i have misjudged uh what fans are uh willing to tolerate for the most part also i think some people think we still sound like nightmares that maybe they haven't heard these elements yeah coming in and i think i think you know obviously this record has been compared to the here and now a lot which was obviously

the other record we've done that is it has it leans more into melody and i think our experience with that you know people often talk about us hating that record which i i don't think is the case i think that we were a little bit naive during that record and i think we were a little bit under prepared and maybe didn't have the experience that we needed in retrospect to pull off what we were trying to do but the the backlash we received at the time i think put us off doing something like this rec

ord for for a long time basically 10 years you know i i think it if i'm totally honest it's it scared us a little bit um um you know i don't think there's any use in trying to pretend that we just brushed that off i think it did hurt us at the time um and we we felt at the time that that was that was could be it for us you know the ban could be done and i think on this record it was about us you know believing in ourselves again and having courage and you know when we did lost forever we knew we

had found something good and we were we were really excited by it and the band kind of took off and then we definitely i remember doing when we went when we started writing all our gods we thought well let's refine that and you you know you can hear it it's a refinement of lost forever and and i still think it's a great record um but there was within that there was a sense that we should stay in here this is we it felt like we had found something safe we were really broadly accepted for it prai

sed for it and it felt like we'd found our safe place after being out of our comfort zone and getting a bollocking basically and and so i think it's just taken us a long time to come out of our shells again and feel like do you know what we can do this and we we can fully express ourselves and do what we feel is right for us and that's what this record is a difficult time personally as well um also just being kids in america and not having anything but just knowing that you had to go there and d

o a record it was yeah it was as you say like we were super affected by that you know ali left the band for it for a little bit for personal reasons and wasn't because of the album like some people said yeah um and it it you know it was it was a weird time it was really up in the air for us and it was it was sort of the first time where we sort of you know saw this thing that we loved so much kind of going away from us and um yeah i think we were really affected by it for a while i think as well

a lot of people consider last forever all our gods and holy hell to be like a bit of a trilogy and like i said earlier it'd be very easy to go well that's worked in the past so we can just keep doing that and keep sustaining the band but it would be probably unfulfilling for us to keep doing that every time and i think that's things like that if you carry on down that route it makes those records less special yeah it would make holy hell less special if we just tried to do that again it wouldn'

t it wouldn't have the same impact just like sometimes if you don't have the gigantic riff or the scream the whole way through the song when it comes it's special i agree right so dying is absolutely safe this is one of my favorite moments on the record i think um but again it's something very new for the band it's a perfect closer [Music] [Music] grace [Music] the whole kind of melancholy to i think as i said earlier when um the second time you you go to the oh is it the first time like because

death is not my enemy when you sing that um there's that swell afterwards where as it kind of sees out the rest of the song and it feels super optimistic and uplifted it finishes on a real um beautiful note i think yeah we've always kind of feared the acoustic song in a weird way i think again because of the playing from the here and now and what we were trying to do on with heartburn but through experimenting with different versions of the songs from holy hell when we did a wasted him and we d

id the piano version of doomsday that really opened the door because it felt like people really liked that and it also gave the songs another meaning of really being able to connect with the sort of fragility of the lyrics in in those songs but yeah i i think it really does show a different side to the band and also i think it's something that we've always been really big fans of i think the the end really reminds sort of sounds like sega ross almost sort of coming into like our rehearsal space

and it feeling quite sort of joyous at the end but still sounding like us in a weird way um but yeah i think that that's that's one of my favorite songs we've ever done i think um really getting deep into that song and and really trying to deliver what dan was saying with uh a level of really sort of throwing any sort of of embarrassment of singing quite vulnerable in front of ability yeah in front of dan and just really trying to get that that across um i was it wasn't until we'd sort of really

mixed it and i'd taken a step back that that it was it almost became quite hard to listen to i think and and i think that again is a sign of a really good song when something hits you so much and i think that's what what dan's lyrics did for me in that song for a long time it wasn't an acoustic song it was this string sort of blend of strings and electronics you know i was really trying to just distill those two elements um there was none of the rest of the band was on it and some of the same a

lot a lot of the same vocal melodies one there it became the strings really came to the four at the end but i think i just had this string idea that i had sort of it was a strong influence let's say from it was it was a max richter reimagining of vivaldi um and i'd just taken i think the there's just just the chord progression i think and sort of reimagined it again i suppose um and it felt like it was something really unique but there was like a like going back to the vulnerability there was t

his bleak vulnerability about it i felt that suited and acoustic piece better so we very sort of late on adapted it and um it sort of just took on a new life and sort of made sense i think within the record in it it just fit it just slotted in in a way that it wasn't before i think the as you say that part i think it makes the end so much more powerful because of the vulnerability of the vocals leading up to that middle a and then also the middle eight of the the sort of delivery of like it soun

ds i think it sounds like you're in the room when you listen to that vocal and the piano in the background is is unbelievable and the guy that played piano on the record is such a talented yeah pat pat it's almost like a doesn't play the same thing twice sort of vibe and he is such an amazing musician yeah he's really really beautiful brought that that bit out yeah oh and the drums at the end that's not me i didn't play drum i didn't play anything on this song that's liam from black peaks yeah h

e just i think pete miles had the idea that maybe we should add some drums and i said yeah give it a go yeah i tried i really tried to embrace other people's ideas on this you know i didn't let many people in but the people who were allowed in i kind of tried to you know it's very easy to be possessive when you write a song and i tried to just embrace other people's ideas and that's three play drums together on that at the end of that song as well don't mean is it is it no no it wasn't it was th

e dream of armageddon so yeah i felt like that sort of really gave it the drums really added this uplifting feel didn't it and yeah i think there's there's like a i don't know how how to best describe it there's a there's something we do musically at that very end of that song that i don't think happens anywhere else in the album i don't have the musical language to describe it and i could describe it but i would describe it really badly and no i want to understand anyway but there's something w

e do there that is unique that it doesn't happen on the rest of the record and i think that's what gives this shift in mood that is really unique to that moment and which is why is this such a powerful ending i think the horns really had a lot of stuff there as well yeah and the and the strings towards the end as well it really feels sort of like marching towards a sort of better place i think yeah mentally and i think after the journey of the record it yeah it feels quite sort of euphoric i thi

nk yeah yeah it's hard not to go into you know closing a record with an acoustic track could could be a little bit um i don't know it it played out a bit it's been done right you know and it we didn't want it to be too we didn't want it to be if we didn't want you to feel like yeah okay we've heard all this before you know what i mean we wanted it to be something thank you also i remember you saying to to josh as well when you're putting the acoustic on it i remember you being like because josh

is obviously insane guitarist not very very good oh yeah yeah um it was almost like having saying to him you don't have to play this perfect like rock this loose like really like have the actual feel of the song and i think we were all really blown away by what yeah i don't think i i think i have me actually i think i didn't want to i have to recording acoustic is actually the hardest thing for me because it's so exposed and like i actually not used to like holding chords because i do so much so

i think that was actually me just being like it's going to be quite rough guys i think like that that's what the song needed to be it's not this is real it doesn't really sound like polish you don't want like if you go too polish with an acoustic track it's going to sound like i don't know like an american country rock radio or something which is not what it's about you know it's i was thinking something like something in the way or like that sort of like just low-fi almost yeah it was raw soun

d it needed to be have a little bit of a little lifi element to the song i mean it it is still there is a glossy side to it but wanted it to feel very very human you know and it to feel like a big shift from the rest of the record which is all very big and you know and even when it it kicks in towards the end of the song it it's big but it's in a different way to the rest of the record it's much more of a wall of sound it's much less polished it's much more raw and yeah i was really proud of thi

s song personally like i mean well i'm on it but um yeah there's a couple of moments as well we've actually played this together as a band probably with an orchestra and and uh yeah a small string section and it felt really every time it felt really really special that when we'd done it and it was a different sort of emotion for us because yeah normally i'm used to kind of hiding behind these guys playing really loud and and all of us sort of you know we use our band obviously with different dyn

amics and stuff but actually stripping it right back it felt like really playing music with each other and yeah it was really cool it reminded me and kind of i guess it inspired us for the royal albert hall as well to be able to strip back some of those songs and have dan play piano and have the guys playing acoustic and ali focusing more on the keys and if yeah it's a really cool song and i just think it's a really lovely way to end the record yeah i like the way that there's also those there's

a couple of moments that reference other things as well like dead by flight well no it does because it closes out and it also kind of then continues the loop you know absolutely yeah with um yeah and also with um distant blue from yeah yeah absolutely yeah i i find it hard not to do sometimes but yeah like i was saying before it just it's just a useful tool sometimes and it helps it's that like you're saying it's a through line it it helps it makes the song inhabit a world that is pre-existing

right yeah and so it helps you sort of it helps the song make sense within the world of architects i suppose the best way of saying it i think in a cool way as well it kind of brings tom with us i think as well because you as you say like you think of those moments and you think of those it was the same with with with on um holy hell you know with if hope is a prison then maybe faith will set me free you think of these different lines and these different moments and parts of our sort of career b

ut our friendship and yeah i always like that that sort of reflection of the past and the present but what's been really nice to see straight away is that fans have gravitated towards it and you know we write an hour-long record as 15 tracks you might worry that a song like this would get buried at the end you know and the the sort of common narrative is that people have no attention span these days but actually i've seen countless people messaging us saying how how much they love the song so th

ey've obviously made it all the way to the end which you know it just shows that there is like a place for long-form art if you like because you know we're sort of living in a world where we speak more and more about just releasing singles and things like that and that's the way the industry is going and i think this is shown that's not necessarily the case remember us having a discussion about bands that we liked that were putting out double records or or bands that we loved in the past that ha

ve put out long records and actually thinking of it from the point of view of a fan of like well if your favorite band put out a double record would you be annoyed he'd be like no i can't wait to hear it i can't wait to listen through to it and i think this record maybe more than any we've done before really lends itself to just sitting down with a with a record like a vinyl and sitting there and actually not skipping through the tracks and turning it over and living with with with the record i

think there's something nice about falling into music and not having the distractions of your phone or having the distractions of anything and i think when we first got the test press through this record i just sat there and put it on and had a glass of whiskey and really sat with the record and was like messaging the guys being like i can't believe it's here it's still it's still so exciting for us after this amount of time and i'm sure it's exactly the same for josh as well because he's releas

ed countless records before joining architects and we've had loads of conversations this week where you just in your mind you're like oh you know just the record's just coming out it'll be fine and you know nine albums in you'd think it you'd be a bit numb to it but it's just as exciting and the days before almost time goes so slowly and you're like i can't believe this is coming out like it's being released and i felt like this has been more exciting to me than others i think that's probably be

cause i felt like we were taking a risk and to see people um you know embracing that risk has just it's been really really gratifying and just made me feel so excited you know the writing process was really really liberating and that feeling is just accentuated when you start seeing people sort of say okay we get it you know we get what you're what you're trying to say what you're trying to do and it makes you excited for the future