WATCHTOWERS // Ask Why We ‘Hurt The Ones We Love’

Sydney melodic hardcore band Watchtower ask why we Hurt The Ones We Love on their new EP. The question is one worth pondering. But what about when we hurt?

What muddies the waters further is their latest video (see below). Titled after the EP, it’s a punch to the guts as well; featuring some visceral performances from the players and band itself. Hardcore has its share of Deez Nuts type party animals and angst-ridden Amity Afflictions, sure. When the tunes are the wind beneath outstretched, painful wings, it takes on a whole new dimension. In a masculine-dominated artform, vulnerability takes last place to everything else, if it’s given a look in at all. We all hurt; men, women, black, white, Christian, atheist – all of us. Confronting it on stage takes it to a whole other place. Frontman Jarrod tells us all about it, in real terms.

The EP really hits you. Tell us a little bit about that.

Jarrod: We started writing it predominately over a year ago. Some of the tracks were a little bit older. We just kind of reworked them. So, initially we were gonna go into the studio about this time last year, if not a bit earlier. It just wasn’t … nothing panned out the way it was supposed to, and so it kind of just kept getting pushed back. We hit a point, ’cause I was living away, I was living in the country last year, so I wasn’t seeing the boys. I wasn’t involved in anything. Just was getting really over being in the band. Just lost the spark to be in the band, was really over everything, and then, just through luck, I had the opportunity to go to America, and sing for Vices on their American tour, that kind of reignited the flame for wanting to be in a band.

Then, when I got home, I went in Sydney and I found out my best mate died when I was on the plane home. Then, a week later after his funeral my long-term girlfriend broke up with me.

God damn.

So, my life just kind of like slipped on its head. So then having that spark, and then having just all this shit pile on top of me at the time, it just unleashed something within me that just started writing and writing. It was at the point where I had to stop writing, because I had so much material that I just needed to get it on to track. Predominantly the EP just became a cathartic release from my breakup. You know which is like … I always try, and make music as honest and as real as possible. So, like I said when we tried write the EP last year I just didn’t feel like was my best work. So then, after through all those experiences I just kind of found a new darker place to go to and write about. So, that’s where that all came from.

The video must be cut from that same cloth; it’s a real visceral track with visuals to match.

When it got to the video, we were tossing around ideas for different tracks about what to do for the first single. And then, we somehow came up with the concept to be the title track, which is like the poppiest one on the EP. Because, we had never even considered that as the first single. Then we were like, “Hey, we’ve got a deadline now. This is the song we want to do.” So, we just got on the train one day and just came up with the concept of that video and another one that we were looking to do straight away. So, I pitched it to the boys and they were all sold on it. Then, we were like “Fuck, we need to find an actor.” I was just like “Aw man, I don’t know anyone. Hang on. I work with an actor.” So then, we got my mate Eddy to play the lead role. He listened to the track once and he just like, felt all this emotion come over and he just like killed it. We went from being really uncertain about this one track to being just so in love with it that we just had to keep pushing this idea.

When I’m pouring my heart out there, crying in takes on the EP… we just left those track in there because it captured the mood, and then when people are like, “Man, I love what you’ve done.”
[JARROD]

That’s a heart-wrenching story. With this EP, because it’s so intense, do you want people to react in a certain way?

I never tried to write with intent of hoping people will relate to it or to gauge something off it. Because as long as I have been doing music and for the boys, this goes for Lochlan [guitars] and Matt [drummer] as well. We just want that release, and it’s very fortunate that the style of music we’re playing, like melodic hardcore spoken-word, is very emotive. And so it’s like, some people who are into that music scene, and they can relate or they can feel the emotion just through hearing it, that’s more than enough recognition for anything. People are like, “Hey I loved it, I really like something in the way you spoke or you sung.” My job’s already done because I’ve already got that out there and if people are enjoying it, then that’s a bonus because then I’m like, “Oh we did something right, we wanna keep doing this.”

Interesting you say that they’re enjoying it, it’s like you’ve gone through all this sort of misery and heartbreak and people are enjoying it. It’s a bit of a confusing feeling I suppose?

Throughout our lives we go through so much. It’s a rollercoaster, and when I’m pouring my heart out there, crying in takes on the EP… we just left those track in there because it captured the mood, and then when people are like, “Man, I love what you’ve done.” Well, I haven’t done anything I just voiced how I was feeling, and that’s something that I struggle to do normally in life, I never really open up to anything, so I kinda just leave it to the music. It’s not a definite reflection of who you are, it’s just more reflective of that time period, and so it’s like people can take it for what it is because I guess when you’re being so exposed and honest, no one can really doubt you.

I fucking put everything into this, so if people appreciate it or respect it, then it’s like, that’s a nice thing. It’s also really hard though when people turn around and they’re like, “I’ve been through the same thing.” Or “I can really relate to some of your lyrics.” It’s like “Ah man, I feel sorry that you are experiencing that because I never want anyone to feel that way because I wake up feeling that way every single day.” It’s horrible and when you learn that people are in the same boat as you, it’s hard, but then it also kind of brings about awareness that people around us are struggling.

Do you hope that maybe as a flow-on effect because you are opening up and being very vulnerable on this EP, that other guys, especially men, will talk to each other about these sort of heavy issues?

That exactly right. In this day and age, there’s such a prevalence for people looking out for their friends and with suicide awareness and mental health days and all those sorts of campaigns, it’s like, that’s great and there is this awareness now because we come from such a culture where men just bottle everything up and don’t talk about things. I never would intend for this EP to be a catalyst for people to start opening up, but in the same token, even if it brings something forward to someone where they can be like, “Ah actually I can talk to someone.” Whether it’s a friend or they go and see a medical professional or even if they just drop me a line, if that has helped one person get though a dark period in their life, then I guess that is a great thing that it can spark a change of someone’s life for the positive and not as in, they’re inspired, but they feel like maybe that wall that they’ve been behind has broken just a little bit.

I guess if these people can take away through our music or through other music that people are releasing, that they can speak to someone, then I’m definitely all for that and hope to encourage it.

The EP is out now, what’s your plans for touring and what’s your plans for the next six to 12 months?

We’re still a very young band, and we’d only just put out a couple of singles, so we were like, now this EPs out there, we definitely need to bite the bullet and start playing more shows. When we recorded it earlier this year, we were very fortunate that we just had show offers coming without any music to support us, so now the EP is out, we definitely need to start getting out there a bit more. Definitely on the cards for new material, hopefully soon, and just hitting the ground running with shows after these next couple we have coming up.

You also covered Post Malone earlier this year—what brought that on?

It was really funny, when I was touring America last year, I’d heard so much about Post Malone and I’d never heard his album, and I heard back then that one of his latest singles at the time, this was about a year ago. I’d heard Rockstar, and I was like, “Oh this is a pretty cool song.” And so one of the vocalists in one of the other bands, I was in a band with him and we just spent all day in Daytona in Florida just skating. We had a two hour drive to Orlando to play a show, and I was like, “Hey man, we should chuck on some Post Malone, I’d be really up for listening to that.” He was like, “Ah okay, I don’t know if that’s your sort of thing.” I was like, “No no, chuck it on, I’m up for it.”

So, we’re listening to it and just chatting away, I’m like, “Yeah, it’s actually like really good.” And then, I got home and I moved back to Sydney from Wagga Wagga. And, I was like driving with all my shit in the back, it’s more like a four and a half hour drive, it probably took a bit longer. It was like I was uprooting my life and everything was a bit raw and emotional at that time. I was like, “I actually really like that Post Malone album, I’m gonna chuck it on.”I just kept listening to it. Then I said to myself, “this song would be so good if a band covered it and made it a melodic hardcore song.” And then I was just like, “Hey, I’m in a melodic hardcore band.”

So, I pitched it to the boys, and I was like, “Hey I know we’re working on an EP, but what do you guys think about something else? How about we do a cover?” They were like, “I don’t know if we should do a cover.” I went, “Hear me out.” I explained the instrumentation and how I wanted the song to go, and the other three boys at the time were just like, yeah so psyched for it. It just flowed so naturally that we ended up .. we were in the studio and we were like, “Hey we kind of talked about this, lets just fucking do it.” It was really lucky thing that we had that up our sleeves, kinda released that and then make it a bit easier for ourselves in terms of how long the EP was gonna take to come out!

Why Do We Hurt The Ones We Love, featuring performances from Chris Vernon (Belle Haven) and Alex Reade (Drown This City), is out now.