England based pop punkers As It Is have just released their impressive second album titled Okay. To celebrate the band are staring off 2017 with an Australian tour. We caught up with vocalist Patty Walters to talk about the new album and upcoming tour.

SCENEzine
Firstly how’s 2017 treating you?

Patty Walters
Not very bad at all. It’s been an incredible start to the year exceptionally humbling with just how overwhelming the response to the songs we have been releasing has been.

SCENEzine
Congrats on new your new album Okay it’s a great album start to finish. You must be stoked with how it turned out?

Patty Walters
Definitely and thank you. I’m really pleased we tried pretty damn hard. I don’t think many bands aspire to write a record that they are only going to be some what proud of. Everybody writing a record wants to create something that they are going to be damn proud of when they are done with it. I’m pretty proud of it and glad people seem to like it. It’s a pretty drastic departure from what we came to define as our sound so everybody’s been really kind and embracing that change. That’s been better than we could of hoped for.

SCENEzine
How was working with Mike Green on the album?

Patty Walters
It was so incredible honestly. Mike Green was somebody even before we started writing this record we considered giving it to him to produce he’s phenomenal. He’s so good at what he does. He shaped this record so much not only the songs we wrote with him but the songs that we brought into the studio. He made them so much better than we could of made them on our own. He’s so fast as so accomplished and so great.

SCENEzine
Is there a story behind the album cover art?

Patty Walters
The whole imagery and artwork is 1950’s inspired. We’ve always had this musical duality in our band where we write these upbeat sounding songs with really sombre and dark lyrics. So we wanted to portray that this time around taking inspiration from the 1950’s a time of duality and polarisation so we ran with that. We approached the artist about coming up with some depictions of that duality. So there’s this woman riding her bike down a suburban street with an atom bomb in the bike basket. It’s all just the duality of the music personifying the imagery.

SCENEzine
That 50’s theme flows into the video you guys did for “pretty little distance”. Was that fun to make?

Patty Walters
That was awesome it was a very crazy and surreal day. We were on tour while we were shooting that video. We spent the early morning all afternoon and into the evening shooting that video. It was incredible working with that dance group that did this dance battle while we were playing our song. It was awesome and so incredible to be there for it. We wrapped the music video shoot around 6pm we took some of our gear then took the tube at rush hour to play a sold out show at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. It was phenomenal just very surreal that we shot that video took all day then went and played to 2000 people. It was such an exhausting and overwhelming day.

SCENEzine
The albums title track “Okay” is a super catchy song. Do you remember how that song came about in the writing process?

Patty Walters
That was a tough one half way through the writing process I had an emotional break down. I could not deal with the stress and all of these emotions and experiences that I wasn’t fully embracing or being honest with. I broke down and decided it was time I saw a therapist I couldn’t deal with myself anymore. I started writing that chorus with tears still in my eyes from the breakdown that’s why the lyrics are that I don’t think that I’m ok because at that moment I certainly wasn’t . We spent a couple of weeks finishing that song and eventually it was done.
It was a tough song to start and a tough song o finish but it’s one of my favourites on the record for sure.

SCENEzine
Can you let us in on the lyrical meaning behind the slower song “still remembering”?

Patty Walters
Lyrically it’s one of my favourites because I started writing that song when we were collectively experiencing some pretty terrible writers block. We were crippled with doubt and fear and unable to write anything that we felt was good enough. With that came this looming fear and terror that the album wasn’t going to be good enough and maybe this is the last record we are going to be a write because of that. Maybe this would mean the end of the band and it just kind of spiralled. So to get out of writers block the only thing I could do was to write about writers block.
“Still Remembering” on the surface sounds like a song about losing somebody or losing something important and that’s what it’s about. It’s about the potential goodbye that we were all going to have to say. Saying goodbye to each other, our careers and all the people who have supported and believed in us. Surprisingly it’s one of favourite songs on the record and came out of one of the most difficult times.

SCENEzine
One of the first countries you’ll be touring the album is Australia. Are you excited to get back down here?

Patty Walters
I am so excited we had such an amazing time last time we were in Australia. Honestly the atmosphere at all of the Australian shows was incredible. Australian crowds are just so much more rowdy than what we are used to. We’ve got some new songs that are more energetic so I’m really excited to be playing those songs in Australia.

SCENEzine
Do you have a favourite show from your last visit?

Patty Walters
I think Adelaide was my favourite because it was the last day of the tour so that’s when all the tour pranks were going on. We made really good friends in With Confidence they are going to be the next biggest band in the world. I’m trying to remember who pranked who but there was a ironing board on stage, people were taping people to chairs. I think they took our drummers kit away before the song had ended it was mental. It was really fun those guys are incredible.

SCENEzine
Lastly can you leave us a message for your Australian fans?

Patty Walters
We can’t wait to see you guys it’s been too damn long. Honestly we are so excited and we sincerely hope you guys like the new record. Please bring all the energy you have and we are going to do the same let’s have a really good sweaty disgusting time.

(Interview by Christian Ross)