Amity Affliction - Interview

There are times where you interview people, and you can hear almost "the party political broadcast", the media training, the voice of the board come through. With musicians though, or at least the ones we've talked with, it's always fascinating to hear their take on things, or sharing their experiences, and it's, well, really enjoyable. This certainly holds for Troy Brady, guitarist of Amity Affliction. I had loads of questions queued up ready to go just on music, but with Troy, we just found ourselves going off on tangents that actually said a whole lot more about the band and the personalities behind it. They haven't had everything their own way, but there's a real sense of determination, of togetherness, of fun, you just sense that this is a band with something really special about it.

Welcome to the UK, and the obvious first question is, how's the tour going, highlights, lowlights?

Tour is going fantastic, really stoked, Funeral for a Friend are so accommodating, great guys, and a band I've been listening for nearly 10 years now, so it's amazing to be on tour with them. The only low point / negative bit was that we pretty much our trip here, we got denied our flight from Singapore to the UK because apparently we were too drunk. And that was after 3 wines, but I guess we just looked rough in general, because we had just come off like a month of touring in Australia so that was pretty much straight onto a plane. So of course, we were just rough, and they thought we were all "smackies" or something, so they actually pulled us off, made us go to the doctor at the airport in Singapore, you know, making us read stuff off the wall and do all these really odd crazy things, and then eventually sent us to London. So that was a good 6 hours of my life that I can't get back! And they held us back for so long we actually missed two flights here, and their validation was, we "looked suspicious". I was getting ready for the European winter too. That's all I'm trying to do.

You think that's tough, wait till you go to the US!

Yeah we did some recording there. In fact I spent four months there last year. But I'm actually not allowed to tour America. I have been denied access to America.

You can't get through on Artistic Merit?

Nope. To be honest, I'm actually in the process of doing my American visa. It's been four months since my last application, and I'm finding out literally any hour now whether I've actually cleared or not. I passed a physical, a drug test, and you have to be so careful because even cold and flu remedies can show up and stuff like that, and they say you actually have to explain this and tell us "about any medication you've had in the last month". So I've been going through that process, and I find out any minute, which will be awesome because we leave for America in a week, and my flight is booked, and we don't have a back up plan, so, if I don't get in, aw s***. The band will go, but they will be the ones who are disappointed because they'll some how have to make do as a 5 piece band, and the new guitarist would have quite a bit on his shoulders, you know, he's only been with us a couple of months, and he's really fantastic, but it would just be a bit unfair on him. But we always find a way, that's kind of our charm, and we've only missed one show in our entire existence of 10 years being as a band, because "he" had pneumonia. He played the next day though!

Looking back over those 10 years how do you think you've changed personally, and as musicians?

As people we're exactly the same, we play music for the same reasons. It's what we do. We've always wanted to play in bands, it consumes our lives really, whether it be our new favourite album from whatever band, it's just all about music and making friends. That's the sort of things that have stayed the same, but something that probably has changed, is maybe us just getting older and grumpier. You know, bones are starting to hurt, and you need that little bit more sleep then you used to but, I feel like the band has evolved to a point where now we can actually be a band. Before there were so many people developing their own sense of who they were, but now that we've had these group experiences, everybody is a bit past that now, and now we're able to focus more on the band and the music. So that's where I think the band has hit it's maturity, and really coming to fruition in the last two years.

We don't see a huge amount of the Australian music scene, tending to get more US imports more then anything, how good is the Australian scene?

I think you're missing out! I think Australia has some of the most passionate shows, I've seen a lot of shows in the US, I don't know what it is, maybe the Australian kids eat better fruit, or if it's down to the sunshine giving them more energy, but they go that little bit harder than anyone else! And as for bands, because Australia is so segregated it's hard to put your name on the map, and there are some fantastic bands who just never get acknowledged. So you can go and watch a local show and see a band that would just p*** on a hundred different American headline bands, and I think that's the best thing about the country because there is so much untapped bands. Some of my friends in bands are like, freak musicians, and they still have day jobs and can't make it for whatever particular reason. But there are a million good bands in Australia, and I recommend bands like "Break Even", "The Getaway Plan", I mean there are so many good bands it's unreal.

There are so many sub genres of music now, it just seems to be getting a bit daft (I even made one up for a bit of fun, and I found a national using it afterwards), do you think that's the case, and that music shouldn't always be so readily categorised?

Yeah, compared to what we listen to and what we play, it's hard to say that we just play in a "metalcore" band or whatever pigeon hole you want to give it, it's just more so for us, really aggressive punk rock, because we just grew up on punk. We didn't make a conscious decision anything more metal or whatever, I mean, our band went from pretty much sounding like NOFX to this naturally. Like it wasn't a decision we made or a trend hop, it's just whatever we write in rehearsals and that's fun to play we just kind of take to the shows.

Youngbloods, personal favourite tracks and why?

Probably "H.M.A.S Lookback", it's about the third track. It was the last song I wrote for the record, and it was probably the easiest as it almost wrote itself. It was literally just half a day, as opposed to you know spending weeks on one track, and forcing it out, it just formed really easily. And there was the whole process of it, I barely remember recording it because it happened so naturally! Like Joel wrote that song about moving back to the coast from the city where he got more back in touch with things that really mattered to him, instead of say sitting around in a pub, he was back in the ocean surfing, he was doing this and that, just living a bit more. And it was more about coming back alive, it's weird how everyone has their own interpretations of songs, I had my own, and the process of it, so yes, that's a personal favourite.

When you were recording Youngbloods, was there a point of getting impatient?

Yeah, about three months before the record was done, I was (rolls eyes). It's a process that when you've got 6 very strong minded people filtering through everyone, so you get to a point where everyone is on the same page, it's not high fives and everyone agreeing, it's like, you know you get really attached to something and someone else doesn't like it you've got to fight for it, justifying the part, saying "That should be here because of this reason" or "it compliments this" or "it does / adds this", that's what song writing is between us. So yeah, you do reach compromises, and try to get a point where everyone is happy.

And just what are they like for compromising?

(laughs) f*** hell. Some are better then others (laughs), yeah me and Ahren have been playing in the band together for nine years so we've got a little bit of a system worked out. I'm stronger!

Haha, now you've said that expect some come back

Yeah, I'll look for it!

Ok, music piracy, any views on it?

It is what it is. The industry is evolving constantly, if you just get p*** off at it you'll just get consumed by it, just looking for the perks. CD sales have gone, you don't make money out of selling those, you just hang on to your merch rights as best you can because the only way that you can really get any personal fund is from doing well on merch and selling lots of T-shirts etc. So that's become the new, I believe is unfortunate because I think people should be buying music rather then merchandise, but that's where we are at, with possibly the labels getting their hands on the merch rights of bands, it'll be the next sort of piece of territory that they'll try to take from bands. Yeah, they'll stop putting things on CD's, start putting them on thumb drives, and then people will find a better way of copying those, so it'll just keep evolving. So I think live shows is what it really comes down to and stay focused on that and not worry about how ridiculous s*** the music industry is now, you won't get too jaded.

I was going to say, you got singed to Roadrunner, how do you feel about that, and have you noticed a real difference?

Yeah, now I get emails at midnight (laughs) now instead of getting emails during the day! That and the tour offers are rolling in more substantially then we had previously. They want to put us on tours with bands we wouldn't normally tour with, but we're going to, because diversity is important. We can't tour with bands that are exactly the same as us all the time, and I think that tours we've had on offer now are with bands that are a lot more mainstream, a lot more commercial metal I'd guess you'd say but, if they think it's viable for us then we'll go and try it out.

What motivates you to succeed as a band?

Oh money money haha. Nah, like I said, it's just what we do, it's all we've ever done, there's nothing else for us. The motivation isn't just to fulfill this want to be a successful musician or anything, it's like, because this is what we do we just continually try to find our way, do the best we can, and we just find out every few months that we don't know as much as we thought we did! And that we had learnt that little bit more, and just sort of progress from there. I sort of feel like peoples motivations just stem from trying to literally do that and just add to ourselves in every form and consistently raising the bar, and just proving it to ourselves that we took it from our bedrooms in a small country town in Australia to every venue across the world. So that's something we keep in the back of our mind, and we feel lucky that we get the opportunity to do that.

When you were younger, you had to make a choice at some point between balancing say your academic studies, with just going for it. What sort of things would you say to young people facing that similar dilemma?

Depends on what you want to do for a living. I left school. I did an apprenticeship, I did a trade, I lost a million jobs, had to lie my way through every job I ever had and you know say "I'd be back in two weeks" when I really knew I wasn't going to be. I just kept trying to push it, and create as much room for myself as I possibly could. But ultimately if you want to do something for a living, you need to surround yourself in one hundred percent, well actually more then one hundred percent because there's always that other person who may be working that bit harder then you. When your asleep, they're awake. You've got to have that hustle, and never have a holiday, because the music industry never sleeps. If you're away for three months, the music industry will just forget about you. You have to keep pushing every second of the way. If you want to be a musician, you play guitar every day or whatever, then you will be a musician. I'm not the best guitar player in the world, but I just worked harder then most, that's all it is. I know dozens of people who can s*** on me on guitar, even in my own town, but you know they're all doing other jobs.

In the run up to "Youngbloods", Joel had a really tough time of it and he came through. We work with a lot of young people who for one reason or another, are also having a really tough time of it, what sort of advice / encouragement would you give them?

Well, people who seem to be depressed always appear to be looking ahead more then they need to. Like, Joel didn't realise at the time that right in front of him he had all these amazing friends, he had all this amazing opportunity, but in his mind all he really did see was the tragedy in his life whether it be marriage, upbringing, things like that, elements that were so present in his mind they just weren't letting him see, and all it takes is a certain situation to unveil those things, whatever it may be. Like it could be a certain song or event that makes him think "f***, I'm actually one of the luckiest guys in the world", but for him it was actually probably writing the record and creating something in his life that he could be proud of (and rightfully so), because at the time we weren't so happy with the record prior. I think the process of writing that record actually helped everyone just create something they could show, "we've worked for a year, writing songs, and now we have this, and even though it's just a CD, it's a ticket to want we want to do for the rest of our lives". He literally became a happier person from that record, and we were happier too because we also became better friends through the record. The track "I hate Hartley" was a bit about that, you know, he was feeling a certain way, and the process of writing the songs, bringing us all together for a purpose, he saw as a true binding friendship. So I think that was a huge part of him overcoming.

So his therapy if you will was basically his friends

Yeah that's exactly it, and it's knowing that as much as you feel like you're alone, you f*** not! There are like a million other people that feel exactly the same as you. You feel like a minority when so many people around you aesthetically seem happy, but everyone has their downs you know, their times, stuff like that. It's just sometimes you can't see that. It's just a matter of perception, you change that and you change your whole life. If you perceive something a certain way, then that's how it is. Perceiving that you have these great things around you, then, how could you not appreciate them.

Joel does his design work, so what hidden talents or side projects do you have?

Everyone has their little things you know, to get away. Well, I'm a Chef, I got my Chef trade when I was young. I started my apprenticeship when I was sixteen, and it took me seven years to actually finish it because I had to keep leaving for tours, then come back. It was just to develop a back up, an easier way to work between tours, you know, things like that. So Id been looking into things like starting up a café, and bits and pieces, and I record bands at over a t a studio in Brisbane so, I tend to do a lot of writing for other bands as well, and that keeps me on my toes because I see a lot of the local bands coming through and what they're doing and it gives me the facility to write constantly. The things I use for Amity as opposed to things I just write, I use about five percent of what I write. So like they're so much stuff, and it's not just in the same vein as Amity, some of it's like Black Metal, some of it's "hippied out ambient soundscaping", not even a beat, just progressive melodies and stuff, so that's something I do. I just constantly try to be creative because it's so rewarding.

You're not a Kevin Smith fan are you?

Haha, I love the movies.

He did this whole thing on Prince where it turns out that Prince has a vault that holds million dollar music videos of singles that will never see the light of day!

Oh my god, wow, really? I think the thing is, especially with the next record, is that we've got all this stuff. So instead of going "Oh this sounds like Amity", it'll be "Let's try and bring this in", like this stemmed from somewhere, so we're trying to tie a lot more of those ideas to the band, and do it in a way that's not like "Let's be different on purpose", but more about giving ourselves more options. Especially for live shows, because we're writing for live shows, because you record it once, and then you play it a f*** thousand times in a million different venues, so if you kind of enjoy it when you're playing it , I think we're setting ourselves up to have more fun on tour by having these sections live that we can look forward to.

Our interview time with Troy is sadly at an end, we say our thanks, and head out on our way. If you would like to find out more about The Amity Affliction, you can find their official Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/theamityafflictionofficial