A WORLD IN COLOUR // Born Out Of Destruction

It can be disheartening, looking at the state of our world a year on from the devastating Black Summer. Despite our nation being torn apart by bushfires, our government’s response to climate change has remained as inept as ever, leaving many of us to wonder what our future will even look like.

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As frustrating as all this is, music has remained our saving grace through it all. And it’s proven itself to be a powerful tool, capable of inciting genuine change. This is exactly how we felt about Descent, the latest tune from A World in Colour.

Following its release, we caught up with frontman Ryan Wiseman and guitarist Connor Mair to dig into how it all came together.

Hysteria: What inspired Descent?

Ryan: Connor wrote the lyrics for this one, so I’ll leave it to him (both laugh).

Connor: We started writing Descent during the peak bushfire season. That was my first experience being that close to everything and actually knowing a lot of people who were really impacted by it. I was hearing stories left, right and centre about friends who owned farms who were absolutely surrounded by smoke and fire. We’d even see it come over the mountains. Canberra was pretty scary. Firefighters would knock on your door, saying you might have to leave your house.

So that sat with me for a good while when I was getting into writing this song. I thought about how we got into this state, and how this was an avoidable thing that the government did nothing about. And then, there was the anger that came out of it and that sadness that nothing was done, but it should have been. That’s reflected in the lyrics and the overall angrier tone of the song too.

Give us a view inside the recording studio.

Ryan: We managed to get a studio that was pretty close to home, which was pretty cool. We did like a day and a half of tracking drums, so Cam (Cameron Brooks, drums) was pretty busy for most of that.

Connor: Yeah, we pretty much booked the studio for him.

Ryan: Yeah. We tracked guitars and did vocals last. I’ve never done any recording like that before, so it was a brand new experience for me, which was super cool. It was great, and Guyy Lillyeman at Amberly Studios, who helped us with the recording, was unreal. He helped guide us through different things that we wouldn’t have thought about.

I thought about how we got into this state, and how this was an avoidable thing that the government did nothing about. And then, there was the anger that came out of it and that sadness that nothing was done, but it should have been.
[ Connor Mair ]

We’d love to dig into that last point a little bit more.

Connor: A lot of it was adding certain melodies and harmonies in. And he helped us with vocal rearranging and different vocal patterns too – particularly with screams and everything. I suppose being so close to the song, you kind of get used to certain ways that it is, and it’s hard to step away from it and see that there’s a different way that might be better. Guyy was really good at pulling ideas out and pitching them to us in a way that we actually liked. It was good to get that outside visual to ensure we were getting the best out of our time in the studio. We had a bit of extra time, so we thought to try a few different things, and if they stuck, we went with them.

We think that makes total sense. Music, writing, whatever it is, sometimes you have to step away from it and just get someone else on board.

Connor: Yeah, definitely. I think that’s probably one of the hardest things I’ve learnt with writing music. I think around the start, everyone thinks they write absolute gold, and then you listen to it like a month later, and you just wonder what the hell you were thinking.

How’d you find creating the Descent music video?

Ryan: It was a lot of fun. We had Crow River Visuals, Indey (Salvestro, bass) from Windwaker and Jackson (Bentley, vocals) from Rumours. They came down from Melbourne, I think, and helped us film a video in Canberra. It was pretty cool of them to trekk all that way and help us out. And they did an unreal job, made all of us look way cooler than we ever have (all laugh). They were great to work with, It was just a lot of fun, and we’re very thankful for them.

What’s next?

Connor: We were talking about this last night. We’re aiming to get back into the studio, hopefully around January. We’ve got a couple of tracks that we want to lay down, and our future plans will be based more on how we feel about those at the time. So there’s definitely some stuff in the works. I don’t want to get into too much because it’s still a little half baked, but we’ve definitely got a few tracks that we’re really keen to lay down and get out there.

Awesome. Before we let you head off, was there anything that you wanted to add?

Ryan: Big props go out to Lance Prenc, who did all the mixing and mastering. He took our music to a whole new level. We really couldn’t fathom it until we got it back from him, and we could hardly believe it was the same song. It’s good to get something back from a pro like him; it just absolutely knocks your socks off.