the weight of silence hysteria
Apr
23
11.04am

THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE // Giving The People What They Want


With a new album set for release and a new line-up, we caught up with The Weight Of Silence’s vocalist Jacob Pederson to discuss trap, a Philippines tour and Seth Rogen films.

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Let’s talk about the new single Ain’t Loyal, was there any particular reason this was chosen as the first single to be released off the album?

Yeah absolutely we felt like Ain’t Loyal was the banger of the album; its quick, fast, and it’s got everything the album has. It’s got a bit of rap, got a bit of screaming, got heavy breakdowns, and shit … it is really just the album. We feel like Ain’t Loyal is the stand out track when it comes to showing people what we’re going to bring them.

On the track Green Is the New Black there’s a drum machine middle eight and trap beats which points to more hip-hop inspired material, is that going to be more present on the album?

We are actually going to have a lot of that. A lot of the songs have interludes were trap is the dominant instrumentation and I do a lot of freestyle rapping. We’re even going to have a trap track on the album just by itself, so heaps more of that.

And how did that new sound come about?

When I first met Benny–The Weight of Silence guitarist–he was more into Metallica and Mötley Crüe style bands and I was definitely jamming to the new style stuff, I was getting into Kanye West and hip hop and shit like that when I met him. I introduced it to Benny and Benny loved it straight away. So, from the moment me and Benny met each other I was introducing him to hip hop and when we were writing our music that’s what we were listening to. So, as we were writing this album we were mostly listening to hip hop and I’ve been showing Benny the artists I listen to in the rap world and he’s been picking it up as we’ve been putting it–the music–down.

So that was definitely inspired by the new line up?

Yeah absolutely. I feel like we’re more influenced by rap music than we are by metal music.

We wanted to give the people what they want, we don’t want to beat around the bush, we are trying different stuff, but we are making sure it’s what the people want to hear.
[ Jacob Pederson ]

How was the recording process different to something like Streetwalker?

Well Streetwalker, the actual song, that was originally from the album that The Weight of Silence dropped before I was in the band and then they gave me the song, I loved the song I thought it was cool but I didn’t like where the vocalist was going so I scrapped the vocals and I created my own lyrics, my own melody and my own vibe over that song. So, when it came to that song we didn’t write that as band and I put my vocals on top of that song.

So, the new albums a lot more collaborative?

Yeah, all the new stuff we’ve written together.

What’s the title for the new album because I’ve read its Give the People What They Want?

Yeah that’s the title Give the People What They Want it’s the name of the first track on the album as well.

Where did the name come from?

The name actually came from the movie The Interview with Seth Rogan and James Franco. It was just an inside joke between me and Benny for a long time now. We’ve watched that movie many, many times together and that was the perfect line. We remembered that line and that what we wanted the album to stand for. We wanted to give the people what they want, we don’t want to beat around the bush, we are trying different stuff, but we are making sure it’s what the people want to hear.

You’ve announced a tour of the Philippines in May, how did that come about?

We actually got offered by a friend from Sydney whose been to the Philippines before … he hit us up with the offer and we were stoked about it straight away. We actually haven’t played a show in about a year so when we heard about the Philippines tour, we took that straight away. We’re going to make it the first time we’ve played in over a year and that’s going to be when we start playing live from there on. This’ll be the first time we play the new stuff live.

Will we be seeing any Australian tour dates announced soon?

Yeah absolutely, it’ll be the first thing we do when we get back. We’re probably going to announce an Australian tour but we haven’t started booking it yet, but we have been looking at locations where we can play.

Download/Stream The Weight of Silence’s Ain’t Loyal single here.





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