Written By Wolves: Finding Your Lighthouse
After New Zealand-based cinematic rock band WRITTEN BY WOLVES released Secrets, an elaborate debut concept album based around all the things we don’t feel like we can talk about, they knew its continuation had to be more positive. Thus, The Lighthouse was born, an exploration of whatever home is to you, and how to bring yourself back to that place after a dark time. Vocalist and songwriter Mikey Murphy inherently tends to write more optimistically, at least he does these days, so while it wasn’t a conscious choice from the beginning that The Lighthouse would always be more hopeful, it was certainly reflective of his current mental state.
Understandably though, with some of the dark themes of the album, he hasn’t always been this way, and he explains the journey it took to be able to become so publicly vulnerable and see things with a more positive outlook. “For a long time, I was somewhat old school in the way that I wasn’t very good at opening up about my feelings. I’m from New Zealand, everything’s rugby, beers and pies, we’ve never been overly good in talking about our feelings, especially males. But song writing has always been my sort of therapy, and I have to start practising that.”
Almost a month after the album release, Mikey has now had the chance to see all reactions, from both his fans and everybody else, and both at shows and online. While the response has been overwhelmingly positive, Mikey explains how he is always hesitant to look too much into what people have say about his music, particularly online, as, like many other people, it’s the negative comments that he can never help but to harp on the most. Luckily though, and possibly surprisingly for Mikey, The Lighthouse seems to have connected with a huge amount of people on an incredibly deep level.
He says, “it’s a pretty intense album with the story that it tells and the messages that we’re trying to get across, and I think seeing the way that people connect with that and manage to bring those stories into their own life is mind blowing.” Although The Lighthouse is a concept album, it is simultaneously deeply personal for Mikey, and there was definitely a high risk that came with releasing it, but his aim was always to uplift people with his message, as well as use song writing as a tool to help his own mental health. “It’s terrifying, because you’re bearing a bit of your soul every time you release something, and you’re putting it out into the world for public scrutiny. I went in with the idea of trying to not read as much, but I can’t help it, and I also think it’s important that I do read these stories that people are sharing with me, and I love hearing how what we’re doing is making a difference for people.”
For a lot of bands, the concept of a second album can be really daunting, they want to experiment and create something groundbreaking, but not alienate any of the fans they gained from the first album. For WRITTEN BY WOLVES, they saw this as a challenge. “That’s always been a bit of an ethos for the band, and that’s the beauty of the style that we do and the songs we write, there’s no real boundaries. This album was really about trying to take ourselves to places that we haven’t gone before.”
One of the ways they really pushed themselves was by trying different styles and blending genres, and that resulted in a very pop-punk heavy album with hip hop and metal aspects. Mikey explains how he grew up on different pop-punk bands, so that will always be built into the fabric of what they do, but that he was listening to MAC MILLER, and was really inspired by that. “We’ll look to push further into the heavy side, and then we go write some soppy ballad. Country’s massive at the moment. Maybe we just write a country album next.” You definitely get the impression that they are brimming with ideas, and Mikey jokes that he might move away from the emotional lyrics and write an album full of party songs. This album in particular though was all about the band trying new things, and Mikey explains, “Misery was the second track we wrote, and we had the choir thing in the front, which funnily enough was just my wife and my mom. My mom turned 60 a few years ago, and we went away on holiday and I took her skydiving, and then I was like now you’re gonna come record on a metal song.”
While the writing The Lighthouse was therapeutic for Mikey, and really helped him process particular events in his life, it’s clear in the weeks after the release that it has done something similar for so many people listening, which is all the band really hoped for. “The album itself tells this message of hope, and the concept is about finding what is it that takes you home. The album is about being within those dark places and going to a place that makes you safe and comfortable.” Where they have definitely connected with people in the past, the vulnerability of their latest release makes this possible on a whole new level, which WRITTEN BY WOLVES are extremely grateful for. “I read these things all the time, and I try to remember what’s it’s doing for people. We’ve had that for ourselves for the last two years, so to now see it in the world is pretty special. I’ve always tried to bring through a message of hope.”
The Lighthouse is out now via self-release.
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