Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Balancing Aggression With TURANGA MORGAN-EDMONDS From ALIEN WEAPONRY
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 3: We what's up?
- 0:00Speaker 1: Everybody is two from Alien Weaponry here. If you don't
- 0:02Speaker 1: know who we are, we are three piece heavy middle
- 0:05Speaker 1: band all the way from New Zealand and where we
- 0:08Speaker 1: sing in both languages, but we are most known for
- 0:10Speaker 1: singing and our native tongue of danil Marii or the
- 0:12Speaker 1: Maori language. And yeah, we're just about to drop our
- 0:15Speaker 1: third album on the twenty eighth of March, which is
- 0:17Speaker 1: tomorrow for us on this side of the world.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Yeah, Tassy Brown is pretty much exactly the same day
- 0:23Speaker 2: for us on this side of the world too, bro,
- 0:24Speaker 2: So thanks for China us.
- 0:26Speaker 3: Yep, yep, it's good. The northern side of the world
- 0:29Speaker 3: has to wait nextra day.
- 0:31Speaker 4: That's because we're twenty four hours better than them.
- 0:33Speaker 3: Yeah, sure is sure.
- 0:36Speaker 4: Now, as you mentioned by.
- 0:37Speaker 2: Alien Weaponry, release your third album Tea on March twenty eighth,
- 0:41Speaker 2: which is tomorrow.
- 0:42Speaker 4: So how do you feeling, bray, Like there's all this
- 0:44Speaker 4: hype that's come up around it.
- 0:45Speaker 2: You have been living with it for so long now
- 0:48Speaker 2: it's about to come out, Like is it a relief
- 0:49Speaker 2: or are you nervous?
- 0:50Speaker 4: You excited?
- 0:52Speaker 1: Well, you know, I think we were definitely nervous. Like
- 0:55Speaker 1: going into the first single, you know, I think the
- 0:58Speaker 1: single probably had a lot more nerves it than the
- 1:00Speaker 1: album itself, because you know, it's a new stage.
- 1:04Speaker 3: In the band's evolution and sound, and.
- 1:08Speaker 1: It's the first time I've been a part of the
- 1:10Speaker 1: writing and recording process, and like particularly because like the
- 1:13Speaker 1: first single was a song that I had written myself,
- 1:16Speaker 1: so I was sort of like, oh, god, well, if
- 1:17Speaker 1: people don't like it, you know, then that's my creative
- 1:20Speaker 1: input that people don't like. And but then of course
- 1:23Speaker 1: the song came out and the response has been awesome.
- 1:25Speaker 1: And then now as we slowly trickle into the album
- 1:28Speaker 1: released tomorrow, there's been two more singles come out and
- 1:30Speaker 1: people seem to love those as well, and the reviews,
- 1:32Speaker 1: the early reviews of the album have all been raving.
- 1:35Speaker 1: So now I think going into tomorrow, we're more just
- 1:38Speaker 1: glad that it's out there for people to hear, because
- 1:40Speaker 1: when you start dropping the songs, all you get is.
- 1:42Speaker 3: Please release it, please, please please, I just want to
- 1:44Speaker 3: hear it.
- 1:45Speaker 1: So now we're like, well, that can finally happen for
- 1:47Speaker 1: New Zealand, does at least all the Southern Hemisphere listeners,
- 1:51Speaker 1: And we're just sort of really stoked that it's finally,
- 1:54Speaker 1: finally about to come out.
- 1:56Speaker 2: That's funny you say that about the single though, Bryan,
- 1:58Speaker 2: Like you said, you're a bit nervous about it, and
- 1:59Speaker 2: no one else Well, I bet you. If you had
- 2:01Speaker 2: to turned out shit, the whole rest of the band
- 2:03Speaker 2: would have been quick to throw you under the buses
- 2:04Speaker 2: supposed to Oh.
- 2:07Speaker 4: Yeah, we did it.
- 2:08Speaker 3: The new bass player would have been a new bass player.
- 2:13Speaker 2: So tell us a bit more about the album from
- 2:14Speaker 2: a music a point of view, bro, and what are
- 2:16Speaker 2: you going forward this one?
- 2:17Speaker 1: So we wanted to kind of achieve you know, we
- 2:20Speaker 1: took a step back. Well, obviously, the first album was
- 2:23Speaker 1: such a force onto the scene, left a strong impression
- 2:27Speaker 1: on a lot of people when that came out in
- 2:29Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, and the second album didn't quite.
- 2:32Speaker 3: Land, you know, where they had wanted to.
- 2:36Speaker 1: And when we went to third album, we were sort
- 2:39Speaker 1: of like, Okay, what is it that we want to achieve?
- 2:43Speaker 1: Are we trying to create another new sound entirely? Are
- 2:47Speaker 1: we trying to create something familiar? And so what we
- 2:50Speaker 1: decided on was trying to actually find a balance between
- 2:53Speaker 1: the highlights of both albums, even the second one.
- 2:55Speaker 3: So the second one, what people liked, of course was
- 2:57Speaker 3: the the.
- 2:58Speaker 1: Sort of move towards them technical approach, you know, so
- 3:02Speaker 1: maybe more complication and the riffs and the writing structures.
- 3:05Speaker 1: And then also a lot of people quite liked the
- 3:08Speaker 1: much more traditional sounding Mildi vocals, you know, not just
- 3:11Speaker 1: singing in another language, but singing in the style of that.
- 3:15Speaker 3: Language, if that makes sense.
- 3:17Speaker 1: But of course people love the grooviiness and the catchiness
- 3:20Speaker 1: and this sort of all round punch you in the
- 3:22Speaker 1: face nature of the first album. So we tried to
- 3:24Speaker 1: find some form of balance between those two things to
- 3:27Speaker 1: try and go into the third album, and and so
- 3:29Speaker 1: far people seem to be agreeing that we have achieved that,
- 3:33Speaker 1: which is great, you know, great to hear, and that
- 3:35Speaker 1: was the goal.
- 3:37Speaker 2: Now you mentioned the singles before I've Got one Thousand
- 3:40Speaker 2: Friends in Male Malco and the other single of thoughts,
- 3:43Speaker 2: But are there a good representation of what to expect
- 3:45Speaker 2: from the album or you got a few more layers
- 3:47Speaker 2: in there.
- 3:48Speaker 1: Actually, Like I think what's kind of interesting about this
- 3:50Speaker 1: album is like this, on a song by song basis,
- 3:55Speaker 1: I would almost argue there's a lot of different genres
- 3:57Speaker 1: going on, you know, throughout the album because we kind
- 4:01Speaker 1: of discovered that, like what we have happening behind the
- 4:06Speaker 1: lyrics musically, you know, some people have called some of
- 4:08Speaker 1: the songs death metal, We've got new middle thrash, groove,
- 4:11Speaker 1: metal core, There's all these different subgenres that people have
- 4:14Speaker 1: been throwing at us, but that they all still sound
- 4:17Speaker 1: like alien weaponry, because what is it that makes us
- 4:19Speaker 1: sound like us? And a lot of that is singing
- 4:21Speaker 1: in our native language, you know, So it gives us
- 4:23Speaker 1: quite a lot of creative freedom and creative expression to
- 4:26Speaker 1: create an album that track by track doesn't feel too stale,
- 4:30Speaker 1: you know, which I think is cool. So I would
- 4:32Speaker 1: say that the singles are predominantly the safe you know,
- 4:35Speaker 1: they're the safe single options, you know, maybe the more
- 4:38Speaker 1: if you're going to use the term radio friendly, they're
- 4:41Speaker 1: the radio friendly songs. And because there's definitely some gritty,
- 4:44Speaker 1: real mean songs on the album that we absolutely love
- 4:47Speaker 1: and people like labels are like no, I.
- 4:53Speaker 2: Furthered a little bit bro like in in a sense,
- 4:56Speaker 2: people expect certain things from your music. Got with unique
- 4:58Speaker 2: things a band does, such as thinking in English and
- 5:00Speaker 2: mari and strong, making body your heritage. Any music is
- 5:04Speaker 2: that expectation of factor when you write a new music.
- 5:07Speaker 3: You know, actually like, we don't really think about it
- 5:09Speaker 3: too much. You know, every album we've written, for example,
- 5:12Speaker 3: has always ended up to about fifty to fifty English
- 5:15Speaker 3: and Mali. You know, there's never there's never this.
- 5:17Speaker 1: We've never had to be like, oh, we we've written
- 5:21Speaker 1: too many Malori songs or we've written too many English songs.
- 5:24Speaker 1: It just happens to fall that way because of the
- 5:27Speaker 1: way we write, and everything we want to sing about
- 5:29Speaker 1: and write about just happens to kind of fall in place,
- 5:32Speaker 1: you know. So it's not something that really really rides
- 5:35Speaker 1: on our you know, subconscious too much, which is I
- 5:38Speaker 1: think it's nice because you don't want to feel you know,
- 5:40Speaker 1: that causes you to feel trapped creatively when you go,
- 5:43Speaker 1: oh god, we need to hit a quota of how
- 5:45Speaker 1: many songs need to be a Mary or how many
- 5:47Speaker 1: songs need to be in English. You know, it just
- 5:49Speaker 1: we're very lucky that it just happens to fall into
- 5:51Speaker 1: place in a similar pattern every time.
- 5:54Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is is it a difficult process to
- 5:56Speaker 2: integrate things with that any music like crossing languages and
- 6:00Speaker 2: boundaries and cxral heritage, I.
- 6:03Speaker 1: Guess, you know, it's actually not as hard as you
- 6:06Speaker 1: might think, you know, because of course a lot of
- 6:08Speaker 1: it comes naturally to us, of course, and the language
- 6:12Speaker 1: itself lends itself to musicality. It's a very musical, poetic language,
- 6:16Speaker 1: and it's just very rhythmic and you know, has a
- 6:19Speaker 1: nice cadence to it that, particularly on heavy metals, fits
- 6:22Speaker 1: very very well, you know, like if there was ever
- 6:25Speaker 1: a genre of music that Mali really suits, it's got
- 6:28Speaker 1: to be heavy metal, you know. And so so in
- 6:31Speaker 1: terms of doing that, it's pretty straightforward. Sometimes, you know,
- 6:35Speaker 1: we still have to be cautious that what we're representing
- 6:39Speaker 1: is accurate and correct and not going to upset our people,
- 6:42Speaker 1: you know. So we have on our music videos, for example,
- 6:44Speaker 1: we still have cultural consultants in terms of our lyrics.
- 6:47Speaker 1: My on this album, my uncle was our language consultant,
- 6:51Speaker 1: just to make sure that everything we were writing was
- 6:53Speaker 1: correct or whatever, you know, and culturally correct. So there's
- 6:58Speaker 1: definitely still things we have to be cautious about. But
- 7:00Speaker 1: I wouldn't think. I wouldn't say it's too difficult, like
- 7:04Speaker 1: it causes us a lot of stress.
- 7:06Speaker 3: It's pretty straightforward.
- 7:08Speaker 2: Now, he hasn't managed to pull off the two of
- 7:10Speaker 2: the century bro by having a little known gentleman by
- 7:13Speaker 2: the name of Randy Blythe Firstly, how the fuck did
- 7:17Speaker 2: you get him involved? And secondly all the experience, Like.
- 7:20Speaker 1: Yeah, So the Randy thing came about because he followed
- 7:23Speaker 1: me on Instagram and he flipped me a message, you know,
- 7:27Speaker 1: and my social media I talk about a lot about
- 7:30Speaker 1: Malori culture and stuff, you know, like outside of the
- 7:32Speaker 1: music job, and he'd sent me a message like, hey man,
- 7:35Speaker 1: what's up on Randy Blythe Nice to meet you.
- 7:37Speaker 3: I was like, oh, I know who you are. And
- 7:41Speaker 3: he'd actually bought a book.
- 7:42Speaker 1: On Maori customs that I had recommended on one of
- 7:45Speaker 1: my videos, and he was just like letting me know
- 7:47Speaker 1: that he liked the book and thought it was a
- 7:49Speaker 1: great book.
- 7:49Speaker 3: So he kind of broke the ice. You know.
- 7:51Speaker 1: So when we were in the demo process and I
- 7:53Speaker 1: was sitting in my car and listened to the demos
- 7:56Speaker 1: and I was kind of like, this song kind of
- 7:58Speaker 1: needs something, you know, what is it? And I was like, oh,
- 8:01Speaker 1: how about a guest vocal?
- 8:03Speaker 3: Why not Randy?
- 8:04Speaker 1: You know, And for any fans of alien weaponry, even
- 8:06Speaker 1: well before I joined the band. You will know that
- 8:09Speaker 1: Lamb of God, for Lewis our front man particularly, is
- 8:12Speaker 1: his favorite band of all time. It's probably his biggest
- 8:16Speaker 1: inspiration musically, and you know, without Lamb of God, you
- 8:18Speaker 1: wouldn't have the alien weaponry.
- 8:20Speaker 3: That you all know and know today.
- 8:23Speaker 1: So I went, if I asked Randy, I didter not
- 8:26Speaker 1: tell them because if he says no, and it's going
- 8:28Speaker 1: to be very upset. Flick Randy and message came, man,
- 8:32Speaker 1: we got the song we think you might sound great
- 8:34Speaker 1: on what do you think you know?
- 8:35Speaker 3: And he was like, yeah, man, let's do it. So
- 8:37Speaker 3: that was in the timeline of the album a year before.
- 8:42Speaker 3: We then realized we were working with.
- 8:45Speaker 1: Josh Wilber, who also has worked for many many years
- 8:48Speaker 1: with Lamb of God. So that made the process much easier.
- 8:52Speaker 1: Now when we were actually in the studio with Josh,
- 8:55Speaker 1: Randy was on tour at the time with Mastodon, Lamb
- 8:57Speaker 1: of God and mastered on tour, so coming to the studio,
- 9:01Speaker 1: but I stuck around in Los Angeles after the recording
- 9:04Speaker 1: and I went and saw him live at the show,
- 9:07Speaker 1: met up with him backstage, talked over the song, talked
- 9:10Speaker 1: about sort of what his ideas were for the for
- 9:12Speaker 1: his verse and where he might sit sort of said,
- 9:15Speaker 1: sounds great to me, and then we went our separate ways,
- 9:18Speaker 1: and Josh then flew to his house and recorded him
- 9:21Speaker 1: like in his lounge, so nice and easy, very relaxed,
- 9:26Speaker 1: and even though he was sitting in his living room,
- 9:29Speaker 1: Randy delivered the most gnarly disgusting verse.
- 9:33Speaker 3: On the album.
- 9:36Speaker 1: He would have thought he was he was fighting in
- 9:38Speaker 1: the middle of some sort of fighting the monster that
- 9:41Speaker 1: he's singing about in the song. It's such a great
- 9:43Speaker 1: feature and yeah, for everybody now, actually that single just
- 9:47Speaker 1: dropped today, didn't it.
- 9:49Speaker 3: So so it was such a cool process, and.
- 9:53Speaker 1: For for Lewis, you know, Lewis and Henry, the brothers
- 9:56Speaker 1: who started the band. It's one of those pinch yourself
- 9:59Speaker 1: sort of milestones in the band's career, you know.
- 10:02Speaker 3: So we're all very.
- 10:05Speaker 1: Very honored that he felt, you know, like you want
- 10:08Speaker 1: to be a part of this project.
- 10:10Speaker 4: And you made it fucking happen, brother, You made it happen.
- 10:13Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and I think because well, you know,
- 10:16Speaker 1: I found Lamb of God much later in my heavy middle,
- 10:19Speaker 1: my heavy middle career, you know, so so I didn't
- 10:22Speaker 1: have the same attachment to reaching out because I know
- 10:25Speaker 1: that like Lewis would have never you know, he never
- 10:27Speaker 1: would have reached out in a million years to you.
- 10:30Speaker 3: Know, to his idol.
- 10:31Speaker 1: So I was like, if anybody's gonna do it, it's
- 10:33Speaker 1: gonna have to be me. And you know the age
- 10:36Speaker 1: old saying, it's always no.
- 10:38Speaker 3: The answer is always no.
- 10:39Speaker 2: If you don't ask my brother, I've been told no
- 10:42Speaker 2: one hundred times for that one time and they come
- 10:44Speaker 2: back and say yes, makes it all worth it?
- 10:45Speaker 4: Done it?
- 10:46Speaker 3: It sure does. And this was that moment.
- 10:48Speaker 2: Yeah, bro, now not so much now, but you were
- 10:51Speaker 2: the new kid on the block with the band, obviously
- 10:53Speaker 2: coming into an established band with the three brothers in it.
- 10:56Speaker 4: How was that transition for you?
- 10:57Speaker 2: Bro?
- 10:57Speaker 4: It was it hard to sort of did you feel
- 10:59Speaker 4: like you were can you do a gang? I guess
- 11:01Speaker 4: sort of thing.
- 11:02Speaker 1: Well, you know, I actually grew up with the boys,
- 11:04Speaker 1: So we all went to high school together. Me and
- 11:06Speaker 1: Henry were and bands together in high school before Alien Weaponry.
- 11:10Speaker 1: Like my younger brother and Lewis were good friends. So
- 11:13Speaker 1: like it was like we were by no means strangers.
- 11:15Speaker 1: It had been a few years since I'd seen them.
- 11:17Speaker 1: Of course, because I was off at university while while
- 11:19Speaker 1: Alien Weaponry was kicking off their first international tours.
- 11:22Speaker 3: But you know, the integration thing kind of happened pretty naturally.
- 11:26Speaker 1: It was just kind of like seeing old mates again,
- 11:27Speaker 1: you know, And over the past few years, it's really
- 11:30Speaker 1: only cemented itself now as how Alien Weaponry is structured
- 11:36Speaker 1: right now.
- 11:36Speaker 3: And this album was, you know, an opportunity for me
- 11:39Speaker 3: to show.
- 11:40Speaker 1: The fans who have been watching me for the past
- 11:43Speaker 1: five years but they haven't heard, you know, what I
- 11:46Speaker 1: can bring to the table.
- 11:48Speaker 3: This album is the first opportunity for me to do so.
- 11:51Speaker 3: So it's just been pretty sweet.
- 11:53Speaker 4: Nice man Like.
- 11:54Speaker 2: However, the years Alien Weaponry of God from being like
- 11:57Speaker 2: an exciting new band on the scene to respect member
- 12:00Speaker 2: of the metal community, Like, has that been a noticeable
- 12:03Speaker 2: transition for you guys or being wrapped up in it? Does?
- 12:05Speaker 4: It just sort of seemed like it took forever.
- 12:07Speaker 1: I guess, well, you know, I think there's this there's
- 12:10Speaker 1: always this element in the back of your head of like.
- 12:15Speaker 3: Do you inherently always want more?
- 12:18Speaker 1: You know, like we're doing all these amazing shows, but
- 12:21Speaker 1: for example, we're the opening band. You know, there's this
- 12:24Speaker 1: part of your here that goes, oh, I want to
- 12:25Speaker 1: be the headliner though, you know, but then our age
- 12:29Speaker 1: is actually what brings us back down to reality and
- 12:31Speaker 1: you go, oh my god, we're only I'm the oldest,
- 12:33Speaker 1: I'm twenty five, you.
- 12:34Speaker 3: Know, or we're only twenty five.
- 12:36Speaker 1: We have so much time ahead of us, you know,
- 12:38Speaker 1: nine opportunities for us to show ourselves. And this third album,
- 12:41Speaker 1: I do think is it's like and a lot of
- 12:44Speaker 1: the reviews have been saying, you know, it's cemented the
- 12:47Speaker 1: band as a you know, and not going anywhere anytime soon,
- 12:53Speaker 1: member of the heavy middle family. And you know, I
- 12:57Speaker 1: know that even though the first album was such a
- 12:59Speaker 1: force on the scene, a lot of people like, is
- 13:00Speaker 1: this just a gimmick?
- 13:01Speaker 3: Is it just because their kids?
- 13:03Speaker 1: You know, all those sorts of thoughts were being circulated
- 13:05Speaker 1: through the lovely Internet, and this third album has really
- 13:11Speaker 1: been like an opportunity for us to belay, no, we
- 13:13Speaker 1: are here and we're not going anywhere anytime soon.
- 13:16Speaker 2: No eyes man, Like, I know, you've just come off
- 13:18Speaker 2: a heap of run a show this and you're having
- 13:20Speaker 2: a bit of a break. Now. The last thing you
- 13:21Speaker 2: want to think about is getting back on the road,
- 13:23Speaker 2: but have you got anything planned for the rest of
- 13:25Speaker 2: the year.
- 13:25Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's funny you say that.
- 13:27Speaker 1: We always find maybe it's the nature of this life
- 13:30Speaker 1: is when we're on the road, we.
- 13:31Speaker 3: Want to go home, and when we're home, we want
- 13:33Speaker 3: to get back on the road. You know, it's this
- 13:34Speaker 3: endless cycle of wanting to do something. But yeah, we've
- 13:40Speaker 3: just started the year.
- 13:41Speaker 1: Our main goal going into this year was like since COVID,
- 13:44Speaker 1: we haven't really been able to tour properly.
- 13:46Speaker 3: We've done like six weeks maximum.
- 13:49Speaker 1: A year, which is like one tour a year, which
- 13:52Speaker 1: you know, no one needs to be an expert.
- 13:54Speaker 3: At math to know that one tour a year does
- 13:56Speaker 3: not pay the bills.
- 13:57Speaker 1: So then we come home and we do our day
- 13:59Speaker 1: jobs and whatever until we hear word and so over
- 14:02Speaker 1: the since the Gojira tours that we did, it was
- 14:04Speaker 1: like one year with goes Up, six weeks, one year
- 14:07Speaker 1: with Gojira, and then a whole year, and then another
- 14:09Speaker 1: six weeks and then a whole year, so we've never really.
- 14:11Speaker 3: Had a full run.
- 14:13Speaker 1: We've already beaten that by doing eight weeks off the
- 14:16Speaker 1: bat on this year, and the album still has you
- 14:18Speaker 1: know it's about to drop, so we're hoping that we
- 14:20Speaker 1: should get some proper touring run in this year and
- 14:22Speaker 1: we can't wait. And we currently actually don't have anything
- 14:25Speaker 1: announced or really to be announced it. We just know
- 14:28Speaker 1: that the behind the scenes, our agents and our management
- 14:30Speaker 1: and all the people that make these shows happen working
- 14:33Speaker 1: tirelessly to get us overseas. And we know there is
- 14:35Speaker 1: some stuff to be announced very soon which is going
- 14:38Speaker 1: to be exciting stuff, but nothing that I can confirm
- 14:40Speaker 1: right here.
- 14:42Speaker 2: And Jasy bro well, thanks very much for you so
- 14:43Speaker 2: I may be an absolutely pleasure today right is out
- 14:46Speaker 2: March twenty eight. It is, as it says, as a
- 14:49Speaker 2: fantastic fucking album. Done brother, you get yourself back to
- 14:52Speaker 2: the beach and put on some sunscreen.
- 14:53Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you very much man. Thanks for the chat.
- 14:55Speaker 4: No ways, brother, you take care, good to talk to
- 14:57Speaker 4: the rest of your day.