This Friday (25th), Light the Torch’s new album, You Will Be The Death Of Me, will finally arrive via Nuclear Blast. (pre-order here). To celebrate the new record, the group will have a record-release Livestream event on Friday at 7PM ET, tickets are available at this location. We caught up with vocalist Howard Jones to discuss the new record, learning how to move forward, and more.
How would you compare You Will Be The Death Of Me to Revival?
One’s pretty positive and one isn’t. There’s some positivity in there. It’s a little more buried, but it’s just a darker tone.
Are there any songs on this album that were just more challenging to write?
That’s kind of every album. There are songs that come easy and then some that take more time. So, asking me which ones in particular, I don’t know. It’s just part of it. I forget after a while.
I noticed a lot of the darkness in this album. Can you talk more about the songs “I Hate Myself,” “End of the World,” and “Death of Me?”
Lyrically, I just let people interpret as they wish. For me, it was just that period of time with this album. It was in those songs. It was just life that was happening. I mean, there’s definitely nonfiction and fiction in those stories. I think there’s only so much liberty I’m free to give when it comes to explaining that stuff. And that’s just never been me anyway. I like leaving things open to interpretation.
How has Light the Torch itself evolved since the earlier days with Devil You Know?
We’ve gotten to know each other a lot better on and off the road. The name change and the music change were all such positives, especially when based in all that negativity, and it’s a lot to change all these, just to dump a thousand t-shirts and things off to just throw them away. Well, those are never getting sold. And that was just interesting, but absolutely worth it. The merch, the CDs, and vinyl. It’s just gone, and even just incorporating all that. So going through that, it was hard and very liberating. And just moving forward, it’s been refreshing from day one. Very hard, but very refreshing.
How has it been for you, in your career, to always find a way to reinvent yourself?
Is that what I’m doing? To me it’s just work.
I see it with different musical projects, it shows a new chapter or a new opportunity to show your progression or personal reinvention.
I hadn’t really thought of it in that way, but for me, I think I just get restless. Free time is a weird thing for me. I don’t know what to do with it, so I have to fill it with something. I can only sit for so long. And so to keep my brain from going nuts, I just got to do something. So, that’s really all it is. I like the work. It keeps me busy, and I really don’t think too deeply past that. So I don’t know. If you see something there, that’s great. I’m just stoked that people still want to listen to me. It’s pretty cool.
It’s safe to say that things have been quite challenging for all of us throughout this pandemic. And I wanted to know, what are some things that you’ve done to remain hopeful during these challenging times?
That’s kind of what works for me is don’t be idle. When I sit, that’s when I think, or that’s when I start thinking of the negative things. When I have a goal where I have something to do or something to put my mind to, that to me is healthy. That’s mental health for me. Mostly if I’m busy, I mean, of course finding the balance because I can kind of exhaust myself at times and do too much. It’s kind of stupid, sometimes. I definitely struggle with balance, but that’s something that I work on is just finding something to put my head into and not real crazy. But also not bury myself in it. So that to me is how I stay healthy, I guess.
Keeping active and staying busy but not too busy is definitely helpful. Seeing the return of tours, or at least we hope there’s the return of tours, what do you think livestreams and quarantine videos will look like moving forward? Will there be a combination or do you think they’ll be a thing of the past?
I hadn’t really thought much about it, but I don’t see why Livestreams would stop. People were putting together some really cool packages and presentations. And so I don’t see it going anywhere. Maybe not as many or maybe there will be. I mean, I didn’t really see Twitch and all that stuff. Just being online is a thing. So, I don’t see it going anywhere.
Yeah. It’s been a really fun way for bands to keep interactions with their fans. Is there anything else that you want your fans to know about the new album?
We really tried to make it listenable from start to finish, and we hope you really enjoy listening to it like that. Yeah. If you’re into singles, great. We’ve got some in there, but we really tried to piece this together as a complete thing. So, if you dig it, we appreciate it.
