J: What’s been the best place you’ve been to on the Manic tour so far?
Cody: Probably a tie between Bristol and, was it Cologne?

Seth: Those were both big boys for us.

I’ve been to Bristol before, what was it like?

Cody: We played SWX, and it was just crazy, man. We played The Fleece there a couple times, supported and we headlined there back in 2019. Our sound guy said that the crowd was so loud that his mixing felt almost pointless, which is cool.

Seth: Good crowd, good energy, good times.

Has that been a thing of the UK leg of the tour in general?

Seth: Yeah, most of the shows have been awesome. It’s not always how big the crowd is, but usually
when the crowd is a good size, closer to like 1,000 or more kids there’s always gonna be that added
energy, and just more fun. More people screaming the words. It’s always a good time in the UK.

Cody: We’ve had some crazy intimate shows, too. We played Prague and Milan were both sold out,
and it was like 350-400 kids, and it was hot and sweaty…

Seth: so hot, and so sweaty

Cody: …and so fun. They were going hard.

How has the Manic tour built on the Pressure tour? Have you noticed a change in crowds?

Seth: Big time. At the time, the Pressure tour was our biggest headliner, and now this is. You can see
an obvious difference in ticket sales, people are hyped to hear the new songs. It just feels bigger and
better in every way.

How has it been coming back since COVID? You’re talking about ticket sales, and crowd numbers.
Has there been more energy all around?

Cody: So when we came over here, just transparently, we get ticket counts for the shows. When we came over here it wasn’t looking that good. Fans over here, especially for American bands, to book a tour and then just cancel, so what’s the point in buying a ticket? So yeah, we did the dang thing and we’ve had a lot of sell outs and this has been our most successful European tour to date. So it’s crazy coming over here and we were like ‘Oh no’ and then once we’re actually here, and we’re actually playing shows, sell outs started happening. Crazy energy in the room. And there was obviously a time, a couple of years ago, when it was like, first of all do we ever get to do this again? And second of all, are we gonna get to come back over here? We’d had a tour with I Prevail that was slated for February this year, when things were still kind of weird. But we were like, ‘We’re gonna do it!’.

So after the Manic stuff you’ve got a lot of acoustic stuff coming up, how do you think those shows are going to differ from the ones you’re playing right now?

Cody: Big time. Yeah, I think we’ve been doing the acoustic stuff quite a lot. We’ve done one or two acoustic shows in America for radio and some in-store stuff, and I think we’re pretty good at it now. But to take that to a full production stand point and create an actual show with lights, and all that stuff is gonna be different. I think we’re gonna do great. It’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be really sad as well, we’re gonna try and make some people feel some things.

I really liked the Godspeed stripped version you released recently, what was your thinking behind
that in terms of, why Godspeed after the Circle the Drain version?

Seth: I would say, because it’s being pushed towards radio and trying to come up with more content to further the progress. It’s hopefully radio success. To come up with the stripped version of that song, it’s more content for radio to use, and also it’s just a favourite of ours on the record. I think the stripped version turned out really well.

Cody: It’s also a different vibe. A lot of the acoustic stuff is sad and slow, and kind of upbeat which is a nice different flavour. It feels like you’re riding a horse in a Spaghetti Western.

So with the acoustic stuff, I’m quite new to the metal genre. Do you think that kind of stuff is going to help you guys bring in fans that are new to the genre? And then they’ll build on from the acoustic version?

Cody: I mean, I don’t think that’s the goal, because obviously that would be a sort of catfish. You’ve heard our band acoustic and you’re like ‘I love this band’ and then you listen to Stitch and you’re like ‘Oh, is this the same band?’. Certainly, it would be awesome if people could connect with those versions and maybe then they find their way over to us. I think that’s always been our thing, finding ways to be more accessible to people. We grew up on metal and metalcore, and to be able to pull people in from an acoustic song, or maybe a song that leans a little more melodic, or rock. To have those people be like ‘Wow, I started with this song, and now I’m into this kind of music’, I think that could be a cool thing.

Do you think you’re going to be changing the way you interact with the crowds in those kind of
shows?

Cody: For sure. There’s not gonna be any mosh pits.

Seth: Right now I feel like we really have a show, and we play as many songs as we can in the time we have and it’s just boom, boom, boom in your face, song after song after song. Briton doesn’t really talk that much; nobody really talks that much, and we just pound out a bunch of songs and it’s high energy. Whereas with that, there’s probably gonna be a little but of banter between songs, and talking to each other and talking to the crowd. A more laidback experience, rather than the Wage War show that everyone wants.

With that idea of being more laidback, I was really interested with you guys getting on the NHL 23 soundtrack. How did that come about?

Cody: So sick.

Seth: Yeah, we’re excited about that. Through management, I think, they said that NHL was interested in using our song Manic, and we’re like ‘Oh, we’re all super interested in that too!’ so we basically approved and waited to hear back whether they were actually gonna use it because we didn’t know for the longest time. And then they ended up using it. We’re all pretty excited about it, yeah.

When I saw it, I was really happy because it seems like more metal is being brought into the mainstream.

Seth: Yeah, 100%. If you look down the list of songs on that game, so many bands from our scene are
on there, so it’s really cool to see the metal scene hit the mainstream in that way.

Bringing it back to the topic of metal and accessibility, I really liked the Beartooth single they released recently, Riptide.

Seth: Yeah, we love those guys, too.

I don’t know if you think, with the lyrics pushing towards more positivity, if that’s a direction metal is going in?

Cody: Could be. It can be a little bit difficult to write and play such aggressive music and put positive lyrics over it.

Seth: But Caleb found a cool way to do it.

Cody: If anyone was gonna do it, it would be Caleb for sure.

Seth: He’s gone through that whole awesome transition. That dude is so ripped now, and just living his best life. It’s cool to see him write music about life being good. But I agree with Cody, it is hard to write music like the music we make, and make it happy. Because usually the sounds and lyrics and feelings that come with that sound come from a dark place at least in our past records. So, I think it’s easier to write about the stuff we’re going through, in that way.

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