AWAKEN I AM // Love In One Or A Million

If you’re a fan of Awaken I Am, things are looking pretty peachy right about now.

Fresh off the back of three blistering singles, the band will drop their hotly anticipated LP Blind Love tomorrow, mixing stadium rock anthems with metalcore intensity.

Now kicking off the new album cycle with a string of international dates throughout Asia, we took a few seconds to chat with drummer Luke McKenzie on how it feels to be starting a new chapter in the band, as well as what inspired the boys to give away a free guitar to a lucky fan.

Hysteria: I guess you could even say it’s really only a matter of hours away from your album being released. How does it feel? This is awesome. You’re chilling in Japan, the album’s about to come out. It must be a pretty cool time to be a part of Awaken I Am.

Luke: Yeah, it’s a pretty cool and exciting time. Obviously there’s lots of stress as well. I mean, there’s just so much going on at the moment. Like we’re going to be in Osaka the day that our album drops so yeah, it’s crazy. Like, it’s been such a long process up until this point. Like, we, yeah, we stepped into the studio in February. So, there’s been quite a lot of time between then and here. And now that it’s finally come around we’re all pretty excited. And itching to get it out.

You’ve hit us with three singles now, being Wolves, Black Dreams and the title track Blind Love. Listening to these tracks, you know, I can’t help but take away a sense of, a bit of a sombre tone, you know, a fair amount of aggression. Am I picking that right, or am I way off the tracks?

Yeah, so the process was Connor and Ned, they wrote a lot coming up towards recording and we went into a studio with about fifteen ideas, fifteen structures of songs. We’re very specific in choosing a producer, one that really felt could produce  a sound that we wanted to move towards to, to gravitate to. But also, a producer that we can really go into a studio with and trust to help us with the creative process and with each other. And really, I guess, their job is to produce with what we had, so we walked into the studio with fifteen songs and on the first day, we sat down with Taylor and we listened through each one. And from there, we really picked out the ones that we believed were the strongest and that we’re really comfortable in putting on the album and excited about so we worked through those from there. So… Yeah… It’s a different process, I guess, to what we’ve down in the past. We really worked hard. The sole goal in mind was to make these songs the best that they could be.

But, at the end of the day, if we have one person or a million people listening, we’d still be writing the same music.
[LUKE]

So you kind of had that holistic approach to it. Instead of just like trying to write like ten or so awesome riffs and beats and just mash them together you guys, kind of, had the bigger picture in mind with these sessions.

Yeah, absolutely, like, at the end of the day if I have to play something more simple on drums or whatever it would if it adds to the song, you know? It’s not about the instrument, it’s not about the person, it’s about the song at the end of the day. That was our goal. We’ve focused more on the songwriting and the art itself, rather than the ego of the individual.
Did Blind Love turn out to be the record that you expected to make going into the sessions?

We went to the process as we kind of pushed these songs together, you know, we would get more excited about the songs and we’d try different things. We’d strip back in certain parts to make the song better. We definitely developed these songs a lot. hat’s why we, you know, chose a producer that we knew would help bring that extra element to that process.

As one of the dudes, that wrote the thing, you know, we’ve heard a couple of singles already. Now, what are you the most excited for the people to sink their fangs into, is there a particular moment, a particular beat or riff or lyric that you’re the most excited for the fans to ingest?

I guess personally there are a couple of favourite tracks of mine. But in general I guess, like I said, with songs and even the music and the lyrics, it is such a personal thing for us, ’cause it’s well, it’s the most real thing that we’ve done so far. So… I guess, what I’m really excited for is our fans to listen through that and, I guess, understand the messages through the different songs, and we hope they can connect with that, ’cause for us, it’s that personal.

So, when you guys released Shields and Crowns, the thing charted pretty well. I’d like to know if that messed with you guys in any way when you went into writing this one, knowing that there were so many more eyes kind of watching you and expecting things, did that at all play on your mind when you were writing this album or were you able to push that to the back?

Obviously, when we first started dropping some new tracks, we were interested to see what people’s reaction were. But, for us, I guess, even in the writing, it didn’t play too much part, ’cause for us, like I said, we went in just wanting to do something organic. That’s the point as well, I mean, we love our fans, but we didn’t write these for them, this is a personal thing for us, it’s something that we love doing and that was something that we really wanted to create and I guess, yeah, we don’t write music for other people. We write it because it’s what we love doing it and that’s such a personal thing to us, and if other people are enjoying it then, that’s awesome. I mean, at the end of the day, regardless of how this album does and I’m, you know… I firmly believe that it’s gonna be even better than anything we’ve done in the past, I think we needed to produce it.. We write it because it’s just, for us, what you’re creating is kind of like a piece of yourself and a part of yourself. At the end of the day, some people might like it, some people won’t. But it doesn’t really play too much into what we do as a band and how we write.

I think people respect and understand that. Because, you know, we love our fans, and especially in the lead up to this release, the responses we got with these few tracks have been so amazing and we are so grateful that people will get behind it. But, at the end of the day, if we have one person or a million people listening, we’d still be writing the same music. Like I said, none of that other stuff really plays into it. They are all great things and we’re certainly blown away by the support but, again, if there’s only one person listening, we’d still be writing the same track. It’s just who we are.

So normally you see bands when they’re announcing their albums they do a competition, you might win a t-shirt, you might win a record, or a download code of the album. You guys are going hard. You’ve got enough merch to clothe a family and also a goddamn guitar, which is huge. The overheads on that alone is just staggering. It must be pretty cool to be able to do this though, to be in a position where you can actually do these for your fans. Is it fun to get these competitions out?

With the whole competition it’s definitely such a big thing, but we wanted to make this something very worthwhile for the fans. We wanted to give our fans something to really rally behind and get excited about and go out and pick up the record and support us. I think that we’d be really excited just to help someone in their pursuit of music and their passion. If we can do that in any way whatsoever, it’s really paying into, I guess, part of why we do this. You know to express ourselves through art. But also to help connect with people and help push them towards pursuing their passions as well.

Blind Love is out now. You can stream the record through all the usual outlets. Read our review here!