Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / A War Of Attrition With AMOS WILLIAMS & DANIEL TOMPKINS From TESSERACT

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A War Of Attrition With AMOS WILLIAMS & DANIEL TOMPKINS From TESSERACT · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:07
  Film staring to the side. Justin. My name's Amos. I'm the bass
• 0:22
  player in tests Act, a band. Mm hmm. I'm Daniel Tompkins and
• 0:29
  I'm the lead singer for Testact. Beautiful guys, thanks for joining us this
• 0:34
  evening, oh man, thanks for having us. Thank you absolute pleasure.
• 0:40
  So tests Iact, we'll be releasing your fifth studio album what of being this
• 0:45
  Friday, so I need about five hours away Australian time. So how are
• 0:48
  you feeling, guys? It's pretty cool in it. It's been a long
• 0:54
  time, a long time getting to this point as well. The first few
• 0:57
  singles have gone down really well, so just quite excited to let people hear
• 1:00
  the full thing now. Definitely. Yeah, it's it's a lot of fun
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  because we've spent a lot of time making a lot of noise, but supposedly
• 1:11
  in the wilderness of popular music. So it's really interesting to all of a
• 1:15
  sudden have the spotlight put back on us and for us because we haven't taken
• 1:22
  any time off. Really, we're still at full pelt, you know,
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  we're still going. So it's super cool too for everybody to catch us as
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  we have momentum role than having to build it up right, and it was
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  really cracked up on us as well, hasn't it. Yeah, it's true,
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  like must says, we've been so busy, all of a sudden the
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  albums here. I'm like, oh god, that sort of leaves to me
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  to the next question then, like you've been working on the album since two
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  thousand and nineteen, So it is it harder? Is it easy for you?
• 1:53
  Guys? Just sort of let it go and breathe life of its own
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  now, like you you feel attached to it. I guess in some respects
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  it's intriguing, isn't it? Because we had like a launch event thing and
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  I wasn't and where there was a load of fans there and it was always
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  loads of fun. But I was also like not particularly I struggled with it.
• 2:14
  You know, it is a strange one to kind of let it go.
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  There's a grief process of having finished a project that's been so all consuming,
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  and obviously it's not finished. We're just moving to the next stage.
• 2:28
  But once you get to the end of this stage of the all consuming thing,
• 2:34
  you do have to question what the hell am I doing? You know,
• 2:38
  what do I do next? As always, like you put a lot
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  of board and detail into the conceptual narratives. So can you run it through
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  the sonic landscape or a being. It's taken on different forms, isn't it
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  from the beginning to where it is now. I think it really started to
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  take shape when Amos came up with the initial seed and the idea of this
• 3:01
  concept, this world of the Strange Land and the characters that live in it.
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  And you know, when we're in the studio, we developed a lot
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  of visual prompts for these different characters, and we managed to take the lyrics
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  that I'd initially created for the whole album and kind of like mold them into
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  the concept, because both I would say that the concept actually was born after
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  the lyrics were written, and bizarrely, a lot of what I'd written kind
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  of slotted into the ideas that Moss had for a concept quite easily. It's
• 3:35
  it's a vast thing. It's it's a really big story, but it can
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  it can be simplified. I've tried very hard to kind of make it digestible
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  because it's such a vast concept that Moss has created, but essentially it does
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  you know, it is a bit like ron Sill that it is what it
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  says on the tin and does what it says on the tin. It's the
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  war of being. So it's very much about turning the camera on the individual
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  and looking at who you are and asking those bigger questions, you know,
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  what do I stand for? Who am I? Recognizing the impact that your
• 4:09
  own ego can have on yourself and how that can mask your true self and
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  how you project yourself in society. And there is an element of addressing you
• 4:16
  know, those inner fears and also looking at the question of am I at
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  this point now stronger or weaker in life? You know, I have I
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  evolved? Am I stronger and wiser? Which is which kind of ties into
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  the end song on the album actually is like the it sums up. It's
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  the conclusion to the idea. You go through this big journey of self discovery
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  and then right at the end of it you recognize you know, you've been
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  on a big journey all your life and take take stock of it. Takes
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  some perspective and grow from the experience. So the concept does go much much
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  deeper, but in a nutshe it is very much about turning the camera on
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  the individual. I think very nice Now I want to get into your headspace
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  a little bit. Guys, Like in the early stages of constructing the album,
• 5:10
  right, do you have a set created process or that things happen more
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  naturally, Like you have to put yourself in certain situations to be had to
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  visualize all these ideas, like to take an air. It's definitely a mood,
• 5:23
  isn't there. There's a contemplated mood when it comes to themes and ideas,
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  Like you know, Dan does has a kind of ritual that I'll let
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  him explain when he when he's looking at writing. But all of this came
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  from moments of reflection, moments of introspection. So from that from the thematic
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  point of view, that's that. In terms of musically, it's an interesting
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  one because inspiration doesn't appear to have any seed or origin. It's not something
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  you can repeat, you can say, here's the formula, this is what
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  we're going to do. When it comes to writing riffs and stuff like that.
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  I think you can put yourself in a good place. I think so
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  the most of it, it happens when it happens, and you just hope
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  you're in the right place to put it down. I think suddenly, for
• 6:16
  aca, you know, yeah, I think some ideas happened very quickly,
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  very naturally. I think The Gray is a good example of that, I
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  think it. I think Acle wrote that in a day and a half musically,
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  and then I very quickly put melodies to it that stuck over time.
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  And that was one of my earliest demos that we recognized was going to make
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  it on the album because it was such a strong idea. But some songs
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  actually have really been a grind to actually get to this point. A lot
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  of kind of playing around with different ideas, bring it, you know,
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  like make almost like a sonic jigsaw of taking all this big bunch of ideas
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  and meshing it into one song. War of Being is a good example of
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  that. I mean, you could, I mean some people have even commented,
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  you know, this is three songs in one song. You could really
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  split that up if you wanted to and make three different songs. But we
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  wanted to go, you know, all the way with that track and make
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  it a sweeping behemoth. Some ideas actually we wrote in the studio, so
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  Legion, which is the single that we released yesterday, that was always a
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  very old idea. It was only a minute and a half long, and
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  we had it, you know, since the Polaris era, and I think
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  it was one of the every time we finished an album, one of my
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  first things that I do, and I do it with Akil as well,
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  is we go through all the old ideas that never made it and see if
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  there's anything that sticks. And that was one that kind of like, you
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  know, it stood the test of times as a demo, but when we
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  went into the studio it was only half a song and the rest of it
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  was written together collaboratively, so lots of different processes. Very interesting. The
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  subject of the single war of being like that was the first thing that your
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  release and it's eleven minute song. Guys, like many bands to sort of
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  be reluctant to put faith in such a lengthy piece of music as a single,
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  but you guys to fight convention, I guess, and just sort of
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  put it out anyway. Like, was it a risk of thoughts putting out
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  something so involved, I guess as a lead single. Yes, and no.
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  You've got to understand it kind of stood the frame, you know,
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  it fit the framework for the idea behind what we were going to do for
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  this album, which was to set up something epic, and you kind of
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  need something like an eleven minute track to be able to release a promo that
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  is epic in proportions. You know, you couldn't really drop an epic saga
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  in a three and a half minute banger, could you. You'd have to
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  really, it just wouldn't be possible. So there are a number of things
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  there. We were like, well, okay, this is the perfect more
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  of us on this record in terms of it's all next level and we can
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  do something amazing with this. So after the initial chats, because obviously we
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  were going, oh, can we do this? But as soon as we
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  got over that initial chat, we had a good six months between the beginning
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  of production that and the release of It's really just grow and allow the faith
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  in it to grow. And I think we're fairly justified because it not only
• 9:33
  hits our core fan base, but it definitely spread out to people that haven't
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  even heard of us before, which is quite something for an eleven minute track.
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  So we're very I was really surprised by that actually because normally we you
• 9:48
  know, when we speak to perhaps management or internally in the band, it's
• 9:54
  often the case that Okay, what's the what's the hookiest song, which is
• 9:58
  you know what bands do you want to You want to be accessible and reach
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  as many people as possible, And from my perspective, I was very much
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  like, you know, it's been a long time since the last album,
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  let's do this for the fans. Let's honor the fans who've wires for so
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  long to even get us to this point. But a byproduct of actually doing
• 10:16
  that was we garnered new fans on the back of doing it anyway, so
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  it was a win win. A lot of that sort of has to do
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  with the the epic cinematic music video that comes through like it did visually sensational
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  guys, like, how much sort of thought and planning when he did that?
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  Was it that's still you guys doing all that or did you leave that
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  in the hands of the photographer. It's a bit of both. So leading
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  up to that, as Dan was mentioning, before, we had we created
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  a lot of visual mood boards and character guides, like you know, sort
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  of almost a world Bible whilst we were in the studio recording, and a
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  result of that meant that we've had a bunch of character development ideas. Now
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  I mean that then meant that I could go to Stephen and Kyle, who
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  were part of Found Format Films who produced the majority of that, and Richard
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  Oaks, the guy that we cinematography worked with on Legion as well, and
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  we had pretty much the whole idea in one image, which they could then
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  go I know what you're talking about and they could just run with it,
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  and then they were able to create such a vast world simply based upon this
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  quite simple idea. In the end, yes, we spent a lot of
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  time poking around and tweaking it and getting it to a level where it felt
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  like it was saying things in the way that we wanted to say it,
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  which I think is really important for a band when they're working in a promo
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  that it has to be their voice, even though a lot of it might
• 12:03
  not be their choice, if that makes sense. And it's just kind to
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  be a massive process, like from coming up with the concept to getting the
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  album out, to playing it live, to doing all those storyboards. So
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  I say, what's of those stages do you personally get most enjoyment ours?
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  Oh man, I've got to take and jump it out of all of it.
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  To be honest, it's you have to look at it like it's a
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  pleasure to do it start with. I think the sorry part of me the
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  creation of the songs is I find that quite exciting because it's, you know,
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  you're on the verge of doing new things, and it's it's naturally exciting
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  because of the process. But it can become over time when you're down in
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  the nitty gritty of it, recording it and editing it, that can be
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  quite a chore. It can be very difficult, and you kind of lose
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  a little bit of love for it, I think, but the initial kind
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  of like creation of it is exciting. I think conceptually we haven't always been
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  this involved. I don't think. I think we've had like bodies of work
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  and bodies of songs, but no real tangible concept to this depth. So
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  this was personally exciting for me to be around Moss's creation of it. And
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  then you've obviously got to go on tour and that's the whole new thing.
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  I think we're all a little bit older. I personally have a lot of
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  commitments back home, so I'm getting to the point where I'm a little bit
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  like I'm a little bit worrisome to leave the family at home. It isn't
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  like, you know, you're young and twenty and just can't wait to get
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  out there and leave everything behind. But I do love being out there with
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  the fans and performing these songs live is going to be exciting. That is
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  death. Like, I've never been so excited to play test rack songs before.
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  So I'm like, I want to do every song on the album this
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  time. It's so good. But we can't, obviously, because we have
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  a limit on how long we need to play for and you do have to
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  cater for the fans that love songs from different albums, So it's a it's
• 14:01
  a yeah, it's hard to choose the right setlist at time, but we
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  do want to do a lot of war of being on this tour. Press
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  release called War of being your most passioned release to date. Would you agree
• 14:13
  with that statement, No argument here, mate, Yeah, it's definitely full
• 14:20
  of full of passion. It's yeah, it's there's a lot of raw emotion
• 14:24
  in this, I think, yeah, there is there is. I think
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  we definitely all concur on this that it's arguably our most important album to date
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  when you look at the continuum of the project and where things are now.
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  Currently in the music scene, and you look at how absent we've been from
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  the scene to a degree in terms of new music for five years. I
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  think there's a lot of pressure when you're bringing out an album after that long
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  too to deliver. So we were very conscious of that, and also I
• 14:58
  think in terms of like the band's growth the future of it, we definitely
• 15:01
  wanted to make a statement, I think, and just do the best that
• 15:07
  we could possibly do. I think everyone brought their a game on this album.
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  I think in the past I'm very guilty of not going the distance and
• 15:13
  giving everything. Partly from our perspective, that's down to the fear of how
• 15:18
  that's going to translate live and the difficulty of touring something so difficult because a
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  lot of what we do is extreme, it's not easy to do. So
• 15:28
  there's definitely a thought process there, like how the hell are we're going to
• 15:33
  do this live? But this time we just went hell, just just do
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  everything everything at the wall, fully invest ourselves and yeah, so now there's
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  a new added pressure. It comes back to me in a couple of months
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  and tell me if it's still all good. The other wall say comes with
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  that, Ai generated Claver art. Now, I haven't actually seen that yet,
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  so I can you elaborate on that? For us, it's say on
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  the same tree, yeah, I mean it continues what we were talking about
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  earlier, where we were in the studio and we felt that a visual guide
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  would really put everybody on the same place in the same place. Sorry,
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  And this meant that we kind of had the whole world set up in the
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  way that we had connected to it, and we've It's then the concept of
• 16:26
  giving that to somebody else and say, right now, come up with these
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  things in your own style felt a bit strange because we were then. But
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  that's not what it It's not what the album was. You know this,
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  These things are connected in except inexorably to the emotions and the feelings and the
• 16:48
  conversations of the production of the album. So we were there already. And
• 16:55
  it's it's really interesting because they're imperfect, because that's the nature of technology,
• 16:59
  you know, it improves with every generation. But I'm now looking at like
• 17:04
  the current generation of these machine learning models and I'm thinking these things are not
• 17:11
  as interesting as they used to be. They're now too perfect. So if
• 17:18
  I wanted to use them now, i'd actually say, well, I actually
• 17:19
  want to go and work with a photographer or a designer because they're going to
• 17:26
  give it something a little edgier, whereas now it's all become a bit pristine
• 17:32
  and saccarin almost. So we were almost in a position of it doesn't make
• 17:38
  sense to go in any other situation to anybody else for this. The other
• 17:45
  big news, especially on this side of the world, is Tessiract returned to
• 17:48
  Australia for the first time in six years, a run of five shows next
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  in May. I still ate months away, guys, but people over here
• 17:56
  already talk about about everyone's getting popped already or some Australia have sold more tickets
• 18:03
  than any other country for shows. I think we've pretty much been on the
• 18:07
  verge of like getting to capacity sales on some venues. I believe we didn't.
• 18:12
  We have to have a second show at some point. Yeah. It
• 18:15
  was the first show to sell ours in Melbourne, which is awesome because Melbourne's
• 18:18
  awesome. Sorry, man, I know you're in Brisbane, but Melbourne is
• 18:22
  awesome. Yeah, that's sold out really quick. And then, like Dan
• 18:29
  says, we had second day added and then the other day to looking awesome
• 18:33
  as well, which is fantastic. Before I let you go, guys,
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  I've started up three separate Spotify playlists based on the artists that we speak to
• 18:44
  you, so using your own songs, so using tess eACT songs. Give
• 18:48
  me a song for the playlist to get the party started, song for a
• 18:51
  playlist to save your marriage, and a song for a playlist that could potentially
• 18:55
  end your marriage. Well, Echoes definitely starts the party. Yeah, how'd
• 19:03
  you keep it going? Are we talking about a new album or any anything
• 19:07
  from your from your catalog? Alright? Still Echoes, it is a new
• 19:12
  banger. It's a new banger locked in. How do we keep it going?
• 19:18
  Well, I mean it'd be things like nor even the Gray, that
• 19:22
  sort of stuff keeps it going. From the new album. I'm struggling to
• 19:26
  remember all the old songs now, so we won't wanted to save the marriage
• 19:29
  and one that could end your marriage. Sun Rise is definitely a marriage ender,
• 19:34
  an absolutely horrendous song that none of us like anymore. It's all so
• 19:42
  don't don't put that one in the playlist. It's terrible. I mean,
• 19:49
  you've obviously got Echoes nockedurn and then why he puts on spot man we're having
• 20:00
  I think good. I can't can't leave you to say you're all happy with
• 20:03
  him? What about I don't know, it's just throw a curveball in there.
• 20:10
  What about Burden? We don't speak about that song too much, but
• 20:14
  that's the right banger. Yeah, that's that's that's got a that's got some
• 20:18
  good bits to it. Man. You know it goes to places you wouldn't
• 20:21
  expect. It's really cool. That's all right then, gentlemen, Well thanks
• 20:26
  very much, be time. It's been a pleasure speaking with it as quite
• 20:29
  an insight for any of you. I enjoyed that. So the album War
• 20:30
  Again is out tomorrow when you guys are here next May. So in the
• 20:34
  meantime, take care over there and like actually for a beer in Brisbane next
• 20:37
  year with staring to the side, Justin's binness eyes are cold. Stream of
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  Its was deep, My brother spent just rise and descend into the river amer
• 21:18
  The stream of its was deep. A brother for a holly folly, guilty
• 22:06
  freak and want to sound like you listen Messa death relass control messers can be
• 22:27
  guilty, free to say again, want to sound for you mess a death
• 22:36
  relas Yeah, yeah, my eyes out of this start street. It was
• 23:52
  a wounded dance. The wide WI ask the system so sen sense the