THE AMITY AFFLICTION // Return With Two Massive New Tracks

Surprise! The Amity Affliction has shared two b-sides from their latest record, Everyone Loves You … Once You Leave Them. 

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Frontman Joel Birch spoke on both tracks, Midnight Train and Don’t Wade in the Water.

“Midnight Train came about from Ahren just singing ‘midnight train’ in amongst some other garbage when he did the scratch track for me to get an idea of how he wanted to sing the chorus,”he says. “We wrote the entire song around those two words, which wasn’t actually hard because there was some context to it. It follows an arc of my relationship with my wife, ending where we are today. We’ve known each other for 25 years and the song covers some key moments for both of us.”

Don’t Wade in the Water is just as personal, with Birch adding,”It’s a song about my mother and father and the role the church had in separating them, and then the role that the church and religion played in my later life. Obviously, it is a play on the old hymn sung by Ella Jenkins, which is a beautiful, beautiful song. I wanted to contrast that with my own personal experience, which was disenfranchising to say the least … There is a conversation happening within the song between my mother and father which is tumultuous and emotional, with two opposing sides with two opposing ways of viewing the world, and I really feel like it was captured well with the music. Ultimately, it didn’t make the cut, but I honestly like this song as much as all the songs that made it to the record.”

Since forming in 2008, Amity have become one of the biggest names in Australian music. They’ve sold countless records, and achieved three ARIA gold-certified albums with Youngbloods (2010), Chasing Ghosts (2012) and This Could Be Heartbreak (2016). They also achieved platinum certification in Australia for Let The Ocean Take Me (2014). 

Everyone Loves You … Once You Leave Them was recorded with Matt Squire, who worked with the band on Misery. Like their past releases it absolutely smashed it on the ARIA charts, debuting at #2. 

You can stream Midnight Train and Don’t Wade in the Water now, and grab Amity’s last album through Warner Music Australia.