Skarlett Riot: Feeling Victorious!

SKARLETT RIOT have been together for over ten years now, with two albums and a number of EPs under their belt and a plethora of experiences writing, recording, and performing across the UK and Europe. Despite the world having to pause throughout the whole of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, the group have spared no time on making their next full release, inspired by vocalist Skarlett Clearwater’s darkest period. Before Invicta‘s release on May 7th, we spoke with Skarlett, discussing the album’s creation, band influences, and dream tours – SKARLETT RIOT supporting BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE soon, perhaps?

“We would love to go on a few support runs and it’d be great to go out with say, IN THIS MOMENT or BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE!” Skarlett gushes. “We would love to go back to Europe again and do another bus share. We did that in 2018 and we absolutely loved seeing all those places and venues. So we’d love to do another one of those kind of runs, a nice big long three or four week run, and just lose ourselves in the venues and with everybody. It would just be great to get back again in the UK as well obviously because as soon as we release the album, we’d like to maybe book a few headline dates in the UK.”

Coming together in 2010, SKARLETT RIOT started in Scunthorpe and was set out to make their own music inspired by bands like ASKING ALEXANDRIA and IN THIS MOMENT. “I absolutely love IN THIS MOMENT.” Skarlett explains. “I have done for many years and we watched them with HALESTORM and NEW YEAR’S DAY on that tour that they did together in Nottingham and IN THIS MOMENT were my favourite out of all three bands. I just thought they just put on such a show and Maria Brink’s screams really inspired me as well. I think she’s got such a good sound to her screams, which is what influenced me to actually start screaming myself on this album.”

“We’ve been working on it for about two years,” Skarlett continues when the topic of the upcoming album, Invicta, is brought into the discussion. “It was going to come out a little earlier. Obviously with everything that’s gone on, we’ve been pushing it back and pushing it back. We’ve been in a band together now about 10 years or so, and we built ourselves up from nothing. We’re just from a little small town and we’ve kind of pushed our way in to be heard and trying to make people listen to you when nobody knows your name. It’s the struggles that we faced as a band individually and together, going through the years, we’ve pushed our way through to get to where we are today, which is why we named it Invicta, which means unconquered and undefeated.”

“Lyrically, I hope people listen to the songs and feel empowered, feel strength, and just generally feel better about themselves, because that’s definitely the reason why I write my lyrics to help other people and hopefully make them feel a little bit more uplifted,” she continues on to discuss the lyrics of each song on the album. “I’m hoping, like I said earlier, that people get a sense of strength and empowerment, and I do write my lyrics to help other people! There’s been a lot of times where people have messaged me and said, ‘you know, I’ve been having a really bad day, I’ve been having a bad week, but then I put your songs on and it just made me feel generally better and like I could carry on’. Because they were so close to the edge and hearing that, it really gives me some warmth that my music is actually saving people’s lives and helping people through a hard time. I think because the lyrics are so raw, I wrote it through one of my hard times, I’m hoping it actually helps other people through theirs.”

So which one of the songs from INVICTA would Skarlett say is her favourite? “Definitely Black Cloud,” she answers. “I think that’s got a mainstream element to it because I like a bit of pop and rock myself as well as metal, you know, something catchy. I think it’s got that but it’s got the heavier elements with the screams behind it, so it combines everything I love into one song. I usually go off what I enjoy to play live, but we’ve not been able to actually get out and play any new stuff live yet.”

Will fans be able to hear the new songs live soon then? Skarlett answers by saying that, until further notice, the UK fans will be the first to hear, whilst Europe will have to wait a little longer. “At the moment, we’re pencilling things in and deciding where to put things. I mean we did want to go out into Europe this year at the end of the year but I don’t think it’s going to happen unfortunately with the way things are. I would say the UK this year, fingers crossed, and then looking into early next year, hopefully heading out into Europe again, that’s the aim. We have nothing like 100% in stone at the moment but we are starting to put a few plans in place and look into the future now we have a few scheduled ideas of where things are landing.”

Invicta is out now via Despotz Records. 

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