HARD NOISE: WE CAME AS ROMANS // We Leave As Warriors

It takes a certain amount of mettle to survive the merciless lifestyle of being a touring band, let alone when fans start walking away.

When faced with such prospects, American metalcore giants We Came As Romans journalled, counselled and channelled their experiences into their incredible forthcoming LP Cold Like War. With a mammoth 12 months on the road ahead, we caught up with frontman David Stephens to talk about the stories that inspired the record, and when we might catch a glimpse of the sextet on our shores.

MORE: Listen to episode #31 of hard Noise featuring Cradle Of filth here.

HYSTERIA: You guys are on tour, are you in Fargo today? Did I get that right?

DAVID: Yeah man, Fargo. It’s actually warmer than normal for here but … I don’t know man, I definitely prefer summer.

All I can think about from Fargo is just the TV show. I just assume that you’re probably hanging with William H. Macy right now in a really nice snowy town.

I mean, yeah, it’s funny that the things that have put this city on the map are a creepy movie and creepy hotel, or TV show. It’s a cool little city. I had a really good lunch and some good coffee spots, good bars, so. I don’t think it’s as bad as everyone makes it out to be.

So Cold Like War, you guys are taking it straight to the people. How does it feel to finally be able to take it to the fans?

Oh it’s so relieving. I mean especially since we took a full year off touring just to focus on the record. Towards the end of the writing and recording process, we were all getting Cabin fever. We love touring, we love travelling, we love playing shows. Playing shows is my favourite thing about being in a band and it was hard to not do that for a year. But yeah, it’s good to be out and we’re definitely doing it big, it’s like I think 65 shows in 77 days.

There must have been a moment when you guys were listening back to this thing and kinda looked around at each other in the room and just thought “Okay, yeah, we’re an awesome band.”

Yeah, that did happen, but it was really, really late into the process. To be honest, the process started off like a bummer. A lot of us, we weren’t super thrilled on the way our last record came together. I’m proud of the learning experience that it was for us and the things that we learned while making it, but it just didn’t really come together the way we wanted it to and I think our fans kinda see that too. There are people that say it’s their favourite record we’ve ever done but, in our minds, we were kinda like “Alright, let’s do this a little better.” But we went into it kinda having an identity crisis, we didn’t know who we were any more, what our fans wanted…we went into it super unconfident [sic] and almost feeling trapped. We just didn’t really know what to do.

Our label is really cool and supported throughout it and our producers were as well, who worked on the record, and they were just like “Guys, be you. Write what you wanna write, what you feeling.” It was cool, we spent the first two or three weeks in the studio just reflecting and finding the starting point. Then once we started rolling, we were like “Okay, okay. We can do this, we can do this.” I think it was the last two weeks we were in the studio we all started getting really excited we were like “Guys, I think we really did it here.” It was a process, we literally used every second that we could, we kept extending our studio time later and later and later and longer. Eventually it came down to it, they were like “Guys, if you want to release it this fall you have to finish.” We literally went up to the very last day that was possible to get this record out on time. I’m glad we took our time with it.

A lot of the language around this album really does focus on the fact that this was a bit of a hard fought process for you guys. You said then you’re coming out of the process of your previous album you guys were a bit bummed and really wanted to kind of one-up what you’d already done. What was it like starting the project with that thought?

I would say it was a good thing, I’ve noticed that the times my band does bad … or like when the pressure’s on and our backs are against the wall, and that’s exactly the point we were at. We were all real about it, our label was honest with us and we were like “Guys, if we don’t deliver a killer record we’re done.” It was a really scary thing for us and there was a lot on the line because we’ve been doing this band for 10 years. It’s our livelihood. So it was scary, definitely. I think that kind of pressure and knowing that it’s do or die, I think it made us really buckle down and create something special.

Cold Like War was a massive low point for our band, we were in London and there was all this terrible stuff going on with Russia invading Ukraine and we were unsure if we should go to the country. It totally tore the band in half.
[DAVID]

It seems like you guys are talking about so much and trying to get a lot out with lyrical content. Especially Cold Like War, I mean that thing has fangs.

Every song on this record, it’s home for all of us. Like I said, in those first two to three weeks, basically Josh, Andy, and I just went and journaled for two or three weeks and just tried to think of traumatic, saddening, angering … really good, or really bad experiences that had happened to us in the last few years. We wrote about where we were, how it made us feel, what the weather was that day, tried to be as vivid as possible in writing these stories and we drew our lyrics from this journaling.

That song was a massive low point for our band, we were in London and there was all this terrible stuff going on with Russia invading Ukraine and we were unsure if we should go to the country. It totally tore the band in half. What made it worse is we made the wrong decision, we didn’t go. We should’ve gone. It was something that we felt the effects for months following. It’s something that it got to the point where it was off-limits to even talk about it or mention it because we would all start arguing about it and our business took a hit from it. We lost a lot of fans from not going. That’s kind of where the basis for that song started and just the idea that you make these massive mistakes sometimes and it’s about taking those mistakes and trying to make yourself better from them instead of beating yourself up over them.

Fast forward to the end of this process, what’s the vibe like now with the band?

We’re all in probably some of the best spirits we’ve been in for a long time. I can confidently say it just feels good being back on the road, being together. We’re all great friends so it’s cool to be back out in an environment that we belong in; touring, playing these shows, playing these new songs. What’s even more of a morale booster is seeing that this music has already been received so well. We dropped those singles pretty recently, people are already singing them and screaming them, they know the words, and it’s crazy. It’s just totally caught on really well. We’ve also never dropped singles that are giving the reactions that these three singles have gotten. It’s seriously like 95% positive feedback, so everyone’s feeling really stoked, so this is definitely a high point for our band.

So, when do you think you guys will be in town to perform the album for us?

Man, I know 2018 is gonna be a super busy year for us cause we already got talent buyers in Europe that are requesting us to go over there and I know Australia is one of our best markets. But we have to come back through America and Canada on a few headlines. So I know 2018 is gonna be just crazy, and Australia is, without a doubt, one of our favourite places to tour because the whole tour just feels like a vacation. It’s just a beautiful place and there’s so many cool beaches, and the people are really nice. It’s funny cause there’s not many people that’d be willing to jump on a 20 hour flight, but it’s amazing when you get there because you just … you just forget about the flight, it’s so much fun and everything is awesome there so the fact that it’s like 16 hours or 20 hours, or whatever is, it’s like “Ah, whatever, it’s worth it.”

Cold Like War drops 20th October via SharpTone Records