Music
We chat to As It Is ahead of their (probable) world domination
Love pop-punk? Like new UK bands done good? Well, say hello to Brighton’s latest export, As It Is.
Don’t let their penchant for ‘writing about being sad’ fool you, this infectious five-piece have a lot to be happy about right now.
We caught up with the frontman Patty and guitarist Ben, as they supported Save You Breath at their farewell show in London. With a packed summer in their sights (try a full stint on Warped Tour), you’ll want to get to know this lot before they’re all over the place.
Read the full interview below…
Hi guys, how has the Save Your Breath tour been treating you?
Patty: The response to our set has been beyond what we expected. We turned up to the first show in Manchester and played the new song, Dial Tones, and even though it’d only been out two days, the response was incredible. We couldn’t have asked for more going into this tour, especially not as a headline act, but the response has been amazing.
Ben: The shows got progressively better. The north are always incredible to us and actually, the south’s been really good to us this time too. Southampton was off the chain – they just didn’t stop jumping the entire set. It’s so weird how, city to city, it can vary how interactive kids are. It’s been pretty damn consistent this whole tour though.
It’s also SYB’s farewell tour, has it been an emotional ride?
Ben: It’s a bitter-sweet thing because Save Your Breath are calling it a day, and we’re trying to watch them as many times as we can because we know we’re not going to get another chance. They were the first band that we collectively went to see. They were playing a venue called The Hydrant in Brighton at the time, which isn’t there anymore, and they were on tour with Man Overboard and The Story So Far. We didn’t know who TSSF were at that point in time!
Patty: It’s hard because we’ve been fans of their music for a while, and to find out they’re such lovely dudes. Each show you’re getting closer to the final one; tonight was a hard one to watch and tomorrow’s going to be even harder. They kill it, they’re unbelievable.
Ben: What’s nice is, especially when you’re going into a farewell tour, it’s easy to do it half-heartedly, but they’re giving it their all every single night.
Have they shared any advice with you?
Ben: Yeah they’ve given us a lot of advice. They’ve told us a lot of stories about things that happened to them and things we can learn from. Things to do and not to do; it’s been nice. The one piece of advice that’s stuck is that they wished they’d taken more time writing albums. I think we’ll definitely take that away, not to rush writing.
As a new band, how do you balance the pressure to tour with writing your first full-length album?
Ben: It’s a real intermediate period at the moment, as we’re waiting for the record to come out and if people want to check out more of our stuff, it’s all been out for a year now. I just hope that when people do discover it, they’re excited to hear more.
How does it feel to see new fans discovering your old material while you’re on tour?
Patty: There have been kids singing along to our last three releases. I’m sure that’s what we’ve all done, you discover a band you love and you check out their back catalogue, and it’s very humbling that anyone’s done that for us.
Ben: I just hope they aren’t disappointed when they go back to the back catalogue!
Any old YouTube videos you don’t want new fans to uncover just yet?
Ben: Uhh yeah, there are! That’s just of me personally. I’ll tell you what it is but I’m not going to tell you how to find it. I once did a promotional video for my parents’ hotel. It’s a four-minute comedy and it’s pretty embarrassing, so I just hope no one finds out which hotel it is and then how to find it. It’s a challenge, if anyone can find it; internet points to them. I’m in a suit with the trousers rolled up, walking along water in St Ives. Oops… but there’s like three million hotels in St Ives, it’s the number one tourist spot in Cornwall! Maybe I’ll have to put it out after this…
What three tracks should new fans hear before the record’s out?
Patty: Can’t Save Myself, definitely.
Ben: I’d say We Live The Story because of some of the direction of the new album, it definitely stemmed from that because we weren’t even sure if we were going to put that on the EP. And Horoscopes because that’s the poppier end of what we do; it’s got a big catchy chorus.
How do you approach writing new songs as a band?
Patty: We all collectively write together, it’s all five of us, always. We all give the stamp of approval on all songs. Ben and I do the majority of the lyric writing together; there’s so very rarely one person writing, even some of the song.
Ben: Yeah, it’s all five of us. If one person isn’t happy with one thing, we change it to make sure all five of us are happy. That can cause the writing process to be slow, but it’s worth it to keep everyone happy.
Patty: It can also be so agonising to spend one or two days on a song, then when one person isn’t there they might come back and just want to tear it apart. But we always work through it.
Ben: At the end of the day, it’s always really rewarding to come out with something we’re all truly happy with.
What are the stand out tracks on the new album, Never Happy, Ever After?
Patty: Towards the end of the album I kept wanting to push us somewhere we hadn’t been going. A lot of the record is about missing somebody that you love. I really wanted to write a song from the perspective of having to break up with that person that you still love, and we went into it like that. I was cruel but I put pictures up on the laptop after Ben had just got engaged, and we both had a cry at the end of writing those lyrics.
Ben: It was awful! That was the worst half an hour but it’s probably my favourite song on the record.
Patty: I think it stands out as something we really pushed ourselves to write lyrically.
Which UK bands are you looking up to right now?
Patty: Definitely Neck Deep.
Ben: Yeah, Neck Deep in terms of what they’re doing right now, but for longevity, it’s bands like Brand New and Taking Back Sunday that inspire me.
As It Is’ new single, Dial Tones, is out now.
Have you checked out As It Is yet? Let us know what you think @TicketmasterUK.
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