What can you tell us about the new record?
Mat Welsh (guitar): “We’re still in the early stages of recording. It’ll be out in February but there’ll be more new music before then. The last couple of years for us have been about trying to move into as much of an independent place as possible, and we’re crowdfunding this record because we’ve had up and down experiences with labels in the past. Without our fans we’d still be just five dudes playing music in a bedroom, so we wanted to make them feel part of it. It’s theirs as much as it is ours.”
And you’ve got your own studio now?
Mat: “Yeah, about a year and half ago we got a warehouse in Sheffield and built it into a huge creative space. We thought it would be a cool idea to not only make the record ourselves, but also make the rooms that we make the record in ourselves!”
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New single Civil Isolations has a different vibe to your earlier material. Should we expect a new direction with the album?
Mat: “That song is a great representation of the album but don’t expect it all to sound like that. We’ve tried to make the album with no boundaries in terms of style or genre. Whatever we do, the way we play it will keep it sounding like While She Sleeps, so we’re not afraid of doing something that musically sounds different.”
Loz, how’s your voice doing right now?
Loz Taylor (vocals): “It sounds absolutely phen-om-enal. I was trying to explore more with my voice on this first track and I think that has come through. It was a huge knock for me having surgery, I thought I’d come out speaking like David Beckham, to be honest, and I thought it would end my career. But now I feel like I’ve got my confidence back. I really feel like we’re ready to roll as a unit properly.”
There were three years between This Is The Six and Brainwashed. Looking back, do you think too much time passed between those two albums?
Mat: Yes, we do. When we did [first album] The North Stands For Nothing, we just made it because we were in a room together and we wanted to do it. We had a great time making the next two records but they were Royal Rumbles emotionally because we were trapped under all these deadlines, financial restrictions and throat surgery for Loz. We had to stop and rebuild as a band in that time and we did feel like we’d lost a bit of momentum. But we’ve just had a fantastic cycle with Brainwashed and feel that everyone’s in a much better place now, both mentally and musically.”
