Melbourne Australia’s band Storm The Sky have just released their new album Sin Will Find You. The album features a new matured sound for the band with raw lyrical honestly and emotion throughout. We caught up with vocalist William Jarratt to discuss the new album and their upcoming tour supporting Pierce The Veil.

SCENEzine
Congrats on the new album it sounds awesome. How have you been feeling in the lead up to the rest of the world getting to hear it?

William Jarratt
It’s been a really long process. This record we’ve had for a few months. It’s always a moment where you are pulling your hair out in the last couple of weeks dying for people to hear it because you just want to hear what they think honestly. The biggest thing that we cling to is we really do try to write for ourselves but mostly we don’t want people to be disappointed and hurt anyone’s feelings.

SCENEzine
What does the album title Sin Will Find You mean to you?

William Jarratt
Sin isn’t being used in the religious term in the record title. Mainly we just really wanted to push the fact that the whole record comes from a really honest point of view of what it’s like to grow up in Melbourne as a twenty year old. It’s all just written from real experiences. I didn’t want to Disney anything up or make it more interesting by using metaphors or imagery. I really tried to cut everything back as much as I could and in doing that I realised that life does revolve around mistakes and I don’t think that’s necessarily a negative thing.

A lot of mistakes should be celebrated and as cliché as it is you do learn from them. That’s kind of the point. No matter what you do in life or how hard you try you are always going to fuck up or do something that someone looks down on. But as long as you can look in the mirror and understand that you are a good person it’s ok. I think that is really represented in the artwork too with the square that’s kind of a continuous loop of reality that’s why it’s quite minimalistic life can be quite bland. As you look through the booklet you’ll see it’s all over the place with imagery but we really wanted to make sure the front cover showed calm and tranquillity with the baby blue.

SCENEzine
‘Jaded Ghost” really struck me from the album. Would I be right I in saying it’s kind of a fuck you to a past relationship?

William Jarratt
To a relationship but not necessarily to a person. It was more of a fuck you to a person that I’ve been and that I’ve moved on from. The weakness of the actions that I choose in a relationship with someone I really cared about. I think that things happen and it takes a long time for me to be able to process them and write about them and put them in a song.

That was probably one of the longest times almost two years before I could sit back and put it on paper. It’s not a fuck you to the actual person at all if anything it’s almost like a sorry. In the chorus it’s literally the girl talking to me saying I get it I did you wrong. I put that person through hell just because I couldn’t get over it I was too selfish to let it go. I wanted to keep the person around even though I wasn’t ok. That’s kind of the basis of the song.

SCENEzine
I feel like lyrically on the album you’ve really stepped up your game. Would that be a fair assumption?

William Jarratt
I really appreciate that man I’ve been working a lot on it. I think it’s the biggest thing I tried to attack going in. Growing up through high school I suffered with a bit of an identity crisis. Like what I was meant to do in life. I started lying and making stuff up. I did a bit of acting it made me realise if I made things up about myself people would be more impressed by who I was.

I came into a really big spiral and stared believing everything that I was saying. I really with this record wanted to delete that part of my brain. I had gotten past all that but I would still occasionally tell white lies for no reason . In past songs I would think well that was boring no ones going to care about that part of who I am so I’ll make it a bit more in interesting. I didn’t blatantly lie in any songs but I did try to add metaphors and imagery to make it more interesting.

The main thing going into this record was to really strip everything off, all the pretty wrapping paper and one hundred percent just write about me and what I’ve done in life since the last record. It really did open me up as a person and make me comfortable talking about things I really hadn’t told anyone. There’s a lot of stuff on this record that friends and family are going to hear and not really know that it happened or that I’ve felt that way before. It was really freeing and scary to do but I had the right group of guys behind me and the right producer. I’m really proud of what we’ve come out with.

SCENEzine
Is there much of a story behind the meaning of “Lilac”?

William Jarratt
That song in itself is almost a letter to someone. Essentially I was at a crossroads in life and I knew that I could do one of two things but no matter what I’d have to leave that person and stop including them in my life. Because it would either hurt me or hurt her too much. It was kind of this harsh realisation of really looking inwards and look for a solution and not finding one. That whole song is the embodiment of that. The first verse is about if I made it with the band but the girl is always pushing me to stay I’d try my hardest but I knew it would just fall to pieces.

If I left the band I would be depressed. Maybe I’d be happy at first living a normal life. A lot of people
in bands miss that idea of going to work, saving and going on holidays. I knew that everything would turn quite spiteful quite quickly. I’d probably just get too angry and push the person away regardless. The song is just a desperate cry for help and there is no answer essentially.

SCENEzine
Having Daniel no longer in the band did that make the process of doing the album harder?

William Jarratt
If anything it was a little bit easier. With Permanence Daniel wrote a song and a half and a few extra lyrics here and there. I did write a lot of that record he did take a backseat.

It wasn’t necessarily me pushing him out or anything. He wrote a lot of the EP before that. So it wasn’t that different if anything a little bit easier. I think he would of said the same thing if things were reversed and I had of left. It was freeing to write one hundred percent from my eyes. To not have any moment where I would have to make parts for Daniel. I could just listen to a song and take everything I wanted from it and put it on a page. It was harder because it was scarier if anything isn’t liked on the album it’s all on me. But definitely more freeing in the sense that I could just be myself and as a musician really come into my own.

SCENEzine
I really liked the acoustic moment with “In vein” was it always a plan to have something a little slower and acoustic on the album?

William Jarratt
That kind of came naturally. When we were writing the record we went in for a month in a room writing all the songs. All we had to go from was a couple of riffs and about twenty five voice memos that I had on my phone. I just put melody to lyrics I had written on my phone and recorded it on voice recorder that’s where all the songs came from. That song was originally almost going to be more of a poppy song. I was sitting down with this fifty dollar nylon string guitar that we ended up actually recording it with. We just came up with simple chords that fit the melody quite well in the studio. Then we immediately mixed it up because we loved the rawness and fact that the guitar wasn’t anything special and it came out in the rawness of the song.

It was pretty much one take for the whole song vocally and one take through for the guitar. The only thing we added was the background stuff in the bridge.

SCENEzine
Very soon you’ll be touring with Pierce The Veil, Silverstein and Beartooth. Is there any band in particular you are stoked to share the stage with?

William Jarratt
Definitely all of them. All of them in their own rights. Beartooth we have already toured with and got along with them really well. We are really excited to hang out with them again. We love their new record as well. Silverstein is close to my heart because they are one of the first bands that got me through a lot of shit when I was a fourteen year old angsty teen. I’d been cool to hear some of their old songs and I love their new record as well.

With Pierce The Veil it’s always been a dream of ours to tour with them. When we first started we got affiliated with Rise Records and we immediately said we wanted to tour with Sleeping With Sirens and hopefully one day Pierce The Veil. We would of now done both of them so it’s almost like ticking them off the bucket list. It’s going to be really fun. I’m excited to see what we can learn from bands that tight live and successful because we are still students of the game and want to move up in the big ocean of amazing bands.

SCENEzine
Are you hoping to take Storm The Sky overseas with this album?

William Jarratt
Definitely that’s one of the first things on the list to do within the release period. We will probably do a Australian headline tour then focus on hitting up either UK/Europe or USA as soon as we possibly can. Hopefully we can get a deal to get us over there and return us in one piece.

SCENEzine
Your dad is John Jarratt a household name in Australia. I’m curious is he a fan of the band?

William Jarratt
Oh yeah he comes to a lot of shows most Sydney shows that we play. He’s an adult so a lot of people in his age bracket don’t really get the screaming side of things. He’s really enjoyed and understood the musicianship of the band. Moving forward there’s a lot more melody coming through. He’s just mostly proud he really likes to come see shows and he makes me feel really good about what we are doing.

SCENEzine
Your dads character scared millions of people around the world in the film Wolf Creek. What’s it like having a dad who’s scared so many people?

William Jarratt
It’s kind of weird because I know who he is. He can be a bit creepy but it’s mostly in a funny way. It’s more just surreal I find it quite funny to see him in public messing with people.

SCENEzine
Lastly can you leave us a message for all of the Storm The Sky fans who are stoked for the album and so see you live?

William Jarratt
One of the biggest messages I want to put out for this record is I really implore everyone that’s followed the band to give the album a listen in full if you want to get idea for what we are doing and will be moving forward. There’s a lot of content packed in on the record and messages. It’s not the kind of record where you can hear the singles and have idea of the record as a whole. I know there’s something in there for most people and I’ve been blown away by how many different songs from the album have connected with people so far. We really appreciate the fact that people have been patient since we had to take some time off to write this record and that they are excited to hear it.

(interview by Christian Ross)