While listening to the album I hear influences of both The Cure and Nirvana. I could be off the mark but are those dark fuzzy sounds something you were inspired by?

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a fan of both of those bands. I think going into writing the songs there were sounds that I heard in my head that were heavily influenced by nineties alternative bands. That’s really what I cut my teeth on and homed my creative likes and dislikes. I grew up in that era. I wanted something that was strong and fragile.

Broken in all the right ways. It’s cool that you heard those influences in there.

A song that struck me straight away was “Joyriding”. Did that song come easily during songwriting? And was the video as fun to make as it looked?

Well the song first off actually started out as an exercise for me. I had a long conversation with a journalist the night before writing that song. We talked about the immediacy of releasing music. How long an artist can hold onto something before they release it without ruining it. It’s in all of us to go through the thing that we create and just pick at it. The more you sit with it in your possession and no one else has it the more your apt to know end. Like as an artist are you ever truly done with something or do you just get to the point where you relinquish it. So through that conversation I decided I was going to write a song that night and when it was done put it online. So that’s what I did and “Joyriding” was that song. That song was probably the only reason I played the songs I was making to my friend Matt Kelly which ended  turning into a record deal. I had never had any intention of making a record to put out. But the reaction I got from putting that song up was such a confidence boost. It was exactly what I needed to take that next step. Ultimately that song is responsible for anyone hearing the whole record.

As for the video that was one of those things where the label wanted “Weighted” to be the first single and do a video for that. The amount of money they wanted to spend on the video was less than the amount I needed for a short film I wanted to make. So I was like I have this other idea for a video but it would have to be for “Joyriding”. So they agreed to give me a little bit more money so I could make two videos. I ended up building a room in my backyard and we filmed the “Joyriding” video the night before we filmed the video for “Weighted”. It was fun but also the hardest day in my entire life. We literally built an entire room, filmed the video then destroyed the room. Then we had to get hosed down like a pulp fiction kind of moment. Then wake up at 5am the next day to film the “Weighted” video.

SCENEzine
Was the “Weighted” video always intended to be in black and white?

Frank Iero
Yes it was. Later on it was a secondary thought to colourise the pin in the video. Good questions man I like those.

There’s a deeply personal moment on the album in the form of the track “Stage 4: Fear of Trying”. Is it hard to be that vulnerable on a track?

That’s a song that I’ve got to say I was scared to do for a long time. It took until this tour to be able to play that song every night. I remember recording that song and I was very unsure of putting it on the record. But ultimately I felt the scariest option is usually the right one. So that’s how that came about.

The exciting news for Australians is that you’ve been announced as part of Soundwave Festival 2016.

Are you excited to come back and was it always the plan to tour the album down here?

Early on between us we were saying where should we go and tour and I was like I want to go to Australia with this.

I feel like with this project and this band it makes sense to come to Australia. It’s been a year in the making I’m sorry it took this long but when I got the call that we are going I got very excited. This is exactly the right thing to close this album on for this record cycle.