Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Divine Intervention With JAKE TAYLOR From IN HEARTS WAKE
Transcript
- 0:28Yeah. My name is Jake Taylor. I am the vocalist and manager of
- 0:33ienharts Wake, self managed band, and our new album Incarnation, which is
- 0:37out July twelfth, is our latest record, and it's a culmination of heck,
- 0:45you know, a career since we were teenagers, putting it all together.
- 0:48This is our I think it's our sixth record, and this is essentially
- 0:52our first record as a four piece, and it actually serves as a sequel
- 0:56to Divination, which came out twelve years prior. It tells the other,
- 1:00the other half of the coin. Very good, Jake, We have got
- 1:03a lot to get through rather, but thanks for joining us today. Good
- 1:07to be here. So what the album Incarnation is out on July the trol
- 1:11th, which is actually this Friday, mate, So she's not too far
- 1:15away now. Like how you feel a bit about it? Like at this
- 1:17stage you're nervous, you're anxious, you're excited, whatever shall be shall be?
- 1:23Yeah, none of those things. It's more just like the hurry out,
- 1:26let's go, like, you know, get everyone caught up to speed.
- 1:29There's really where it's at. There's no anxious or nervousness because I know
- 1:33how it's I know how it plays out. I know how it sounds and
- 1:34how it feels. I can't control what everyone else thinks, but I just
- 1:38want to get it out there, so we're all on the same page.
- 1:41Yes, So tell us a bit more about it from a musical point of
- 1:42view and what you're actually going for with it. Yeah, so with the
- 1:46flip side of the coin, you know, we've always we've been known for
- 1:49sort of diving into being melodic, having clean vocals and flipping to heavy,
- 1:55whereas this is just doubling down on heavy, And it's doubling down on heavy
- 1:57as a necessity and an and a desire. It's where the world is at,
- 2:01to be fair, like we feel the world is at, there's heavy
- 2:05shit that needs to be spoken about. And also it serves as a function
- 2:09that we have an exit of a member who served as a clean vocalist and
- 2:14so we really wanted to paint in, you know, being then forced into
- 2:17the heavy corner. What are all the shades of heaviness that we can explore
- 2:22to the nth degree and really deliver something that we're excited about and it doesn't
- 2:24sound monotonous track by track, Yeah, it actually sounds like there's a lot
- 2:30of thought would have actually got into it to deliver that bro Like was it
- 2:31something you sort of sat down and planned in stages or does you want it
- 2:36come naturally? I guess coming naturally initially. And then you start looking at
- 2:40okay, water, all our ingredients that we're cooking with, and perhaps you
- 2:45know, what what do we what would make this a better cake? You
- 2:49know, like, what are we what are we missing? I think?
- 2:51And that's when the back quarter that that last quarter you really have to then
- 2:55hone in to to help color it in. So it's a bit of a
- 3:00balance of both things. You might laying off the food analogy. It's a
- 3:04bit broke. I haven't had breakfast yet. You're making me hungry taking breakfast
- 3:08I do when I got children. That's my excuse where everyone can relate to
- 3:15food. That's probably why I go to the food analogies. And I love
- 3:19food as well. I've got Italian Italian roots, so I can't help it.
- 3:23Yeah, true mate, we can't argue with that one. So today
- 3:25you've released three singles, Orphan, Farewell and Hollow Bones, So just say
- 3:30that's all someone's heard of in hearts wak pretty much like, are they good
- 3:34representation of what do you expect from the whole album? No, in a
- 3:38word, first of all, Farewells, Farewell's not on the record. Farewell
- 3:44is a no, no, they don't follow us. Farewell's just like getting
- 3:46out of the way of letting the world the world, letting our fans know
- 3:52where Carl is head and why he is not going to be on this record,
- 3:54and really panning a picture as we descend into into head in this madness,
- 4:00darkness, whatever you want it to be. And so you're seeing the
- 4:02film clip where we're headed. Now we've given Hollow Bone as sort of the
- 4:06stake in the ground as four as a four piece delivering like what we feel
- 4:11is a really fast, energetic and solid song and it's got to in.
- 4:15It's got a hook where we deliver it as a band singing it. And
- 4:18then counter to that, man, there's like the madness and the craziness and
- 4:21how twisted and dark and unexpected. I think that what we can do,
- 4:27and that's awtuen. So they're kind of I wouldn't say that they're both polar
- 4:30opposites. One's problem in the middle and whither one's just real deep down and
- 4:34then we're going to paint in all between and around that. So yeah,
- 4:38it's a hint of what's to come, but it doesn't summarize the whole album.
- 4:43How would about It actually a bit difficult choosing the singles because you want
- 4:46to showcase your new newer direction, I guess in a way, but you
- 4:49also want to pick the best songs on the album. So how did you
- 4:53find that balance? I think it all comes down to storytelling and narrative.
- 4:58Whilst you've got to put sonically strong songs forward, what story are you telling
- 5:03around that? Why? Like, it's not just hey, here's the best
- 5:06song from ABM, go check it out. It felt like, no,
- 5:11this is us as a four piece, like doing the melodic chorus as a
- 5:14four piece, but normally one guy would and that to us was our reclamation
- 5:18of the band, and it felt really really important to show that we can
- 5:21do melody as for as well as being a solid song that we all liked
- 5:25and was catchy. That was really important to get off on that foot,
- 5:29to not throw people too much of a curveball to begin with and just have
- 5:31people go, well, what do what do I make of this? And
- 5:34then following that up you can really deep dive into the weirdness. Yeah,
- 5:39col Now you touched on this a bit before made but your big quote to
- 5:42say that Incarnation is the shadow counterpart to the band's debut, Divination, So
- 5:46yeah, actually mean by that. What I mean by that is like,
- 5:49you know, look at any coin you say heads or tails and you flip
- 5:53it. Not that anyone, not that one's good and one's bad by any
- 5:58means, but they're definitely different that they're definitely different modalities, but they're of
- 6:01the same beast. Same with the yin and yang symbol we're all familiar with.
- 6:06They're one and the same, but they're very much different. So,
- 6:10look, Divination is the innocence and sort of you know, big white eyes
- 6:15at the world and just just just writing songs and getting it out there to
- 6:20a degree, and like it was very strong that it had this youthful innocence.
- 6:24I think didn't have the maturity that I feel that Incarnation has. And
- 6:29so being the shadow counterpart and going as heavy as possible, we're telling all
- 6:32of the stories that are all quite inversed and flipped and very I don't want
- 6:39to say negative, but like there's a lot of hard stuff we're talking about,
- 6:43rather than the joys of traveling the world, which which we spoke on
- 6:46in Divination. So that's what I mean by the Shadow count Shadow Counterpart.
- 6:49So it's more of a musical, like a sonic thing, rather than the
- 6:53album being connected lyrically or what's thematic, it's connected thematically because if we have
- 6:59time for that. Look, there's twenty two major major arcana tarot cards.
- 7:03So for those that don't know Lovers, the Devil before the Magician, these
- 7:08are like, these are archetypal cards and characters if you will, that are
- 7:13found in Lord of the Rings, to June, to Star Wars, whether
- 7:15it's Yoda, Gandalf, whether it's Frodo or Luke Skywalker anyway, or Veda
- 7:20being the bad guy, you know, the Emperor whatever. So these are
- 7:24all found in the archetypes. Yeah, and when you flip a tarot card,
- 7:29if you're having a taro reading, there's the there's the light and the
- 7:31shadow of the story of those you know, those characters. For instance,
- 7:36you can step to the you know, to put it lightly, you can
- 7:39step into the dark side of something and have it be in excess of something
- 7:43you're too much you know in this or you can be in the flip side
- 7:46of that saying you're in need of it, you're needing that, you're calling
- 7:47that in. Divination was all the neat they're calling it in, and they're
- 7:50very much stepping into the light of everything in the stories and the lyrics.
- 7:55And then on Incarnation, it's all the it's all the flip side. It's
- 7:59fear, it's the it's the pain, it's the trauma. It's very much
- 8:03in the dark side the inverse, not to say that it's bad, it's
- 8:07just needing to address it and look at it. And that's where we're looking
- 8:11at all the shadows, right, And if anyone wants to find out more
- 8:13about that or go a bit more in depth, you've actually created a website
- 8:16of ANUE where people can interact and find out that sort of stuff. Yeah.
- 8:20Yeah, the website is essentially telling more of the story of each card
- 8:24relating to each song. So there's eleven cards on the album Incarnation, and
- 8:30you can flip and turn over each of the cards and they reveal clues,
- 8:33puzzles, or bits or pieces behind the album which speak to that song.
- 8:39So, and is that just through your regular website or have you set up
- 8:41something you can. You can access it through our regular website if you click
- 8:46on the tarot tab of I meanheartswake dot com. Otherwise you can access it
- 8:50via Incarnation dot inheartswake dot com directly. Well, you mentioned the word inverted
- 8:58a few times, which is quite quite relevant when you look at the track
- 9:01listing of the album, because you've got the song site or then you've got
- 9:05in brackets, you've got something upside down or inverted. So tell us a
- 9:09story by that man. It's quite interesting. Yeah. Yeah, So in
- 9:11the same way that I was speaking about the I don't like to use the
- 9:16positive or negative the light or the shadow of each card when when the card
- 9:20is flipped, it speaks to the shadow when it's upside down. Okay,
- 9:26so if you get a card that's upside down, it's going to it's delivering
- 9:28you the shadow meaning but potentially look at Yeah. So when it came to
- 9:35putting the song that the tarot cards in brackets next to each song title on
- 9:39Divination, they're all upright, they're all regular for people to read the lovers
- 9:43the full on this they're all upside down, which was a neat discovery.
- 9:48That we found we could we can still do, you know, like Spotify
- 9:52and Google and all the all the you know, just regular text to type
- 9:58because there's no buttons on your keyboard where you Yeah, but there was a
- 10:01way to do it where it's still it still is red and it can be
- 10:05done. So then it was this really great way of translating and interpreting the
- 10:11code behind each song. Right, So are those shadow meanings from the actual
- 10:16tarot readings or are they something that you've made up to go with the song
- 10:20titles? Ah? No, No, each each cards, each card,
- 10:26like, we had a tower reader, which is my mum's a tower reader,
- 10:30so we had her just double check, double double checking what you know,
- 10:35we need to. I've done some study on this, so I was
- 10:37really making sure that each card was speaking to the story of what's being told.
- 10:41Yeah, and you know how had my let's just say, the tower
- 10:46reader. So it's not just my mum, but you know, we had
- 10:48a tower reader go over that to really make sure that it was speaking to
- 10:52each card cards inverse meaning yeah, so cool. Now you mentioned that you've
- 10:58done this is a four pace piece with Kyle leaving the band mate, so
- 11:01the whole actual album was done without Kyle, Was it correct? Yeah?
- 11:05And now, way, what was that experience like he's been there for a
- 11:07while, Like, was it it would have sort of felt like one of
- 11:09your feet was missing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no,
- 11:11it definitely did. It was more Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't so
- 11:16much a foot was missing. It was it was like different energy in the
- 11:20room that maybe like balances things out like slightly. You don't sort of know
- 11:24why or what's going on and what it What it meant for us was rather
- 11:30than just being like, oh, we're a man down, it was had
- 11:33it we actually have to step up as four and find that missing ingredient.
- 11:37And so there was a lot of communication around that, like, dude,
- 11:41we'd have we'd have like weekly check ins and stuff this how everyone's going,
- 11:43Like how's this feeling where you're at? And I think I feel like that
- 11:46process really helps us actually come closer than together than ever before as a band,
- 11:54because we had to there was a need and necessity to. Yeah,
- 11:56and he always did clean cleans his bro It's so like, a ye,
- 12:01got to actually look at replacing that from outside or are you just going to
- 12:03go in the heavy direction? And drop the cleans pretty much all together.
- 12:09We've only just started that for this album, right, meaning we don't know
- 12:11what the next We don't know what the future has for writing music. If
- 12:16we start writing songs and if it's coming from a place of this, I
- 12:20can't unhear this without someone, then it won't be a replacement because like you
- 12:24can, we never look for a like singer like Kyle. It would have
- 12:28to be something unique and offering something different that fans haven't heard that could deliver
- 12:33a clean a clean voice. So we're open to it is the answer,
- 12:37but it's not fixed by any means. You know. Let's say this just
- 12:41goes down really well. Everyone loves the heavy way loving, and we just
- 12:45want to write more heavy shit and then we'll just keep following that. How
- 12:48about the dynamics for you? They rot like you're used to having that clean
- 12:52to sort of bounce off, I guess, and you know, like give
- 12:54you a bit of a respite. But how is whole process of recording for
- 12:56you without that there? It was very challenging because I couldn't fall into like
- 13:05crutches and laziness, Like not that I get lazy, but you get the
- 13:09palette refresh when you go to a clean so then you can get away with
- 13:13not get away with it. You can go back to your strong voice that
- 13:16you delivered before the chorus, because and by strong voice, I mean like
- 13:20you just bait your baseline, your baseline middle range thing. But if you
- 13:24if you're screaming and doing stuff all the way through, you've got to find
- 13:26something new then to refresh it for coming back to that. And so it
- 13:31just meant we had to work harder to be smarter. That was sort of
- 13:35how we approached that, and yet was challenging because there was no time to
- 13:39hang up the tower. Like it was like, Okay, we finished performing
- 13:43that part and I've got to perform the next part and we've got to think
- 13:45about it and we've got to work on it. We've got to try a
- 13:46new voices. And so it was just relentless. It would be cool.
- 13:50Now we're gonna have to wind this up, bro, because you've got a
- 13:52few interviews today, but we have to make mention. I've a chore you've
- 13:56announced as well for Incarnation, which kicks off on September five in Newcastle.
- 14:00You go through Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Finish Your Birth on
- 14:03September fourteen, and he got some pretty special guests with you too are here?
- 14:07Yeah, yes, we do King eight ten. I'm just gone for
- 14:11that first because David, the singer of King, he's on the record.
- 14:15He screams on a song called Michigama. It's I'm not going to pick favorite
- 14:20guests on the record, but he definitely delivers something very creative and maniacal,
- 14:24which is really sick as of a spot. We've got Powfay Swiss, who
- 14:30are the main support who we were listening to a lot must making this record,
- 14:33and they're just super heavy and blowing up in Europe and America. And
- 14:37then Australia's Grave Mind, who are very technically heavy and proficient band at what
- 14:43they do, and we just felt like we needed to bring a band who
- 14:46was well seasoned and well oiled and who deserves a tool like this. Okay,
- 14:52that's a great lineup. Ro like King ate ten and themselves would be
- 14:54great. But that's wrote three great supports. He've done well, thanks man.
- 14:58Yeah, look, it's a reflection of the of the heaviness and the
- 15:00darkness of this record. They speak to the way the sort of the tunnels
- 15:05on which we're going fantastic and what's next for in Hearts Wake after that?
- 15:09Bro, like I reckon, you're going to be as busy as I am,
- 15:11if not more. Yeah, well hopefully not with six and a nine
- 15:15year old as well to boot just yet. Yeah, we're going to be
- 15:20busy. We're we're Look, it's it's to see what comes because it feels
- 15:24like we're relaunching a whole new band to a degree, and so we need
- 15:28to see we need the right tools will present themselves to ideally go back to
- 15:33the rest of the world. We are going to America this year after that
- 15:37incarnation Australian to it. But in terms of getting to Europe and returning to
- 15:41America and what's next in Australia that's gonna it's going to play out when the
- 15:45record comes out. Well, if that's the case, mate, you should
- 15:48be traveling the world for the next ten years because she's a fucking good record.
- 15:50Bro Yous have done well thanks to well look, we'll see I don't
- 15:54it's a quality not quantity at this point for the band as well, like
- 15:58it's got to be it's got to really makes sense indeed right the tours we
- 16:02do wait well, Lucky for everyone, Incarnation is out this Friday, July
- 16:06twelve, so they can have a listen to themselves. And I bet you
- 16:08no one calls me and tells me I'm a liar, And if you give
- 16:12him your number, I'll give him. What's your number again? Roe's again?
- 17:02An I guess a SI. I got what I got so time not
- 17:11house No, I why are so many people are dying? Nobody cares?
- 17:32Yeah, w die so so but I get out stars as sor you know
- 17:47house outstar fuck hut my design the numbers guy and a lot of daughter ride
- 18:08and my friend's a rass photo squad. Tell us all rather my soot on
- 18:37mymor right. I was on your side, like your throw side plait as
- 18:45you can not far times. I saw a lot of shish ross brooms of
- 19:07the cross rooms. The balance is in the process point the point five points.
- 19:30So I was a lord, so I was on like a side not
- 19:40froside point if sars or I saw the loss of sars f