What came first, signing to Napalm or having the music recorded?

Alan: We weren’t even thinking about new music until they approached us, and they were the only label we ever spoke to about new music. They approached our agent to see if we’d be interested in signing with the label and we kind of had to wrap our heads around that idea and we ended up making new music together in 2016. It took several months to talk it out between the four members and come to an agreement on what a new record would even sound like because it had been so long. I think that was the best thing we could have done was to start talking, start that conversation because we never really talked about what a new record would sound like. Sal had left the band so just getting back into a headspace where we could all work together and collaborate. We had to overcome that, like, how do we do that? What’s the best way to do that and we found that writing on our own and submitting ideas to each other over email was the best way because we were able to have the space we needed to come up with things organically and not force it and be able to take a song seed and pass it to the next player and have them enhance it and change it, or not, or just say, “I hate that, what else you got?”

 

Did you write lyrics for the album this time?

Mina: Yeah, we both did.

 

So I guess it’s probably the most personal album you’ve made with Life of Agony?

Mina: Well I’ve shared lyric writing with Alan since Soul Searching and Ugly too.  “How It Would Be”, “Let’s Pretend.”

Alan: I would say those are your songs. I didn’t have a part in those songs.

Mina: This is probably the most collaborative Alan and I have been.

Alan: We were pretty collaborative on Broken Valley I think too.

Mina: Yeah, but more so on this one. On this one we were both writing for the same chorus, the same verses, and sometimes if Al had a stronger chorus than I did or if I had a stronger verse, we would show the boys both our ideas for the same song and we’d have them pick, like, “We love this chorus or we love this verse.”

Alan: And the parts would complement each other because they’re coming from two different headspaces.  

Mina: Alan would come up with a completely different melodic, lyrical thing than I would and it was kind of cool.

Alan: I like to write with vocal melody in mind when I write lyrics and sometimes the music can completely change but it’s really that core melody and lyric that is the foundation of it.  Sometimes the guys like the lyrics but didn’t like the melody and we’d create entirely new music and I’d hand off the lyrics to Mina for her to place in her own way. “World Gone Mad” is one example.

Mina: Alan penned the lyrics to “World Gone Mad” but had an original “World Gone Mad” that Sal didn’t really like so much, so they all rewrote the music and Alan was stuck on the original lyrics and melodies. Well, stuck on the original melodies to the lyrics that he had for the already existing song and was like, “I can’t get the original melody out of my fucking head, can you use these words, or not?” But I love Alan’s writing so I’m like desperate to make it fucking work, but it was such an effortless thing.

Alan: Yeah, they just fell in.

Mina: That was definitely a synchronistic moment. It was definitely a moment of irony because it was so effortless it’s like it was meant to be that an original song that Alan had written the guys ended up hating.

Alan: That was part of the process. I never got so attached to something that I was like, “It’s got to be like that guys.” It was usually, “Okay, you don’t like that one, how about this one?” They all come from a real place, so for me, if something gets passed along and more than changed I think that core thought still exists somewhere in there and that was really enough for me. I think it’s important for everybody to have their own stamp on it and to feel invested in it, to want to see it grow, and to push it to it’s full potential.

 

You have a couple weeks of tour dates coming up. How full-time is the band going to be now?

Alan: We still take things in baby steps. We want to see people’s reaction to the record.

 

It seems to be pretty good so far.

Alan: So far, so good. We have some dates that are booked that haven’t been announced yet for summer and further along in the year. We really want to see how people accept the record and see what kind of opportunities there are ahead or not. Either way, we accomplished this record and that was really enough for us on a personal level.

 

Do you feel like you’re a role model now, having come out and releasing your first album since then. You’re going to be in the spotlight and there might be a lot of people that might be listening to your music for the first time.

Mina: Do I feel like a role model? I don’t feel like a role model, I don’t feel like an icon. I don’t like those titles. I’m just a creative human being that wants to see everybody succeed and wants to see everybody live their life to their highest potential and hopefully through my example of how I’ve been living my life the almost past decade, should be example enough I think for people to find some kind of source of strength to pull from where I’ve arrived in this very present moment.  I help as many people as I possibly can both in the public eye and mostly in private. A lot of fans come out to me. A lot of parents that have kids that have trans children now are turning them on to doctors or books they should be reading for their child so they can understand what their child is going through. There’s a lot involved. I’m doing my work every day with that kind of stuff, but am I patting myself on the fucking back and saying, ‘Yeah, I’m a role model now?’ No. I don’t give a fuck about that kind of stuff. I’m a humble street kid with wisdom and lot of compassion and love for people in the world. I’m just an artist and I love music and I just kind of want to be left alone in a way, but everything that comes along with being involved with music, but you know, I’m one of those quiet, introverted, ‘leave me in the recording lab’ kind of people. It’s part of it, but I do it because I love to create with people that I love and leaving behind and the creating the actual creation, being involved with creating, it’s like being involved in the journey. The creation is the destination, which doesn’t exist to me. Creating is the journey that one needs to go on in order to get to that place or destination that to me, kind of doesn’t really exist. It’s an imaginative place that keeps people on their toes and up in flames to keep going after what they want to go after in a sense.

Alan: I’ve learned about myself that no matter what it is, I like the process of coming up with a scribble on a napkin and bringing that to something tangible.

Mina: Next thing you know it’s in film or a music video.

Alan: I love that process and I kind of go into like a post-partum depression after we release something like, “What’s the next thing?”

Mina: As soon as I was done with my vocals for A Place Where There’s No More Pain I was like, “Fuck, now what?”

 

 

Alan, you also had your coloring book come out, right? Is there going to be another one?

 

Alan: Yeah, I’m working on another one right now. It comes out in September. I’m about halfway through.  It takes like 10 hours a day to draw one page.

 

I imagine reception for the first one was good enough?

Mina: It went #1 on Amazon.

Alan: It’s in like it’s 8th printing right now.

 

That’s fantastic.

Mina: Yeah, it knocked off all the other coloring book people.

Alan: It kind of blew me away.

 

Did you have any idea it was going to take off the way that it did?

Mina: I did.

Alan: She did. She told me.

Mina: From the first sketch I saw, I was like, Al always on the DL, sending me stuff to be like, ‘Oh my God, yes, continue.’ Alan was sending me early drafts of what would be The Beauty of Horror and I was like, ‘This is going to fucking blow up. I guarantee you.’ No one’s doing this original horror, if you look at all the other coloring books that are on the shelf they’re all rainforests, enchanted cities and forests and sure enough, the top seller, the girl from Scotland, Johanna Batsford or something was like the adult coloring book artist, and then Alan just friggin’ knocked her off.

Alan: I think it attracts a different type of folks.

Mina: I just thought it was kind of really cool. He deserves it because he does amazing work.

 

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