As December Falls: Happiness In Your Headphones
We live in a world where happiness feels like a commodity. A feeling to be bought and sold, handed down and swapped. Social media sucks on our souls like a vampire does blood. Growing up doesn’t mean the grass is always greener. Global pandemics pop up to play havoc with our heads. It’s all a bit of a mess, isn’t it? For Nottingham’s resident pop-punkers AS DECEMBER FALLS, they’ve dedicated themselves to dusting off the darkness and revelling in the rose-tinted sides of life. In a year where restrictions continue to keep us holed up at home, it’s a bold move to name your difficult second album Happier, yet the independent quartet have never done anything by halves.
“We are in that emo scene kid industry where sometimes it’s popular to not be okay and I’m not saying it’s not okay to not be okay, but it is good to feel happier, and to be happy,” states vocalist Bethany Hunter, who’s smile shines like an optimistic spotlight throughout our Zoom call. It’s been a difficult year digging in deep to make their difficult second album a reality, and yet for them, everything’s coming up trumps. Despite the pandemic putting their post-release plans on hold, they’ve found adapting to the new normal easy. The struggles of the last year put into perspective our global need to be happier.
“I’m not saying you need to be happier, I’m just saying we should all want to be happier. We have to realise that during the pandemic, everyone’s made so many different life choices,” explains Bethany, who’s passion for promoting a sunshine state of mind fuels her every word. “I’ve got happier, and I’ve made life changes, just like my partner’s made life changes. I think everyone needs to think about what they actually want, even if it’s just for a little bit of happiness, like even if it’s something as small as doing yoga, and just having 10 minutes a day doing something as small as just stretching, like all the little perks add up and it all helps you become happier.”
So much has changed for the band since they released their self-titled debut in 2019. They’ve built up a bigger fan base, begun selling out shows months in advance, and have made massive strides in their personal and professional lives. The biggest change, however, has been their mindsets. “I was in a different phase of my life on our first album, like I was younger and I was singing about having no money and going to bars and having fun and the time of my life and then I got older and I was like ‘Oh, I’m an adult and actually, this kind of sucks’,” she laughs, before sucking it up to expand. “So this album definitely has that vibe around it about I’m older, and this is what we’re going through now. But I think it works, because our fans who have grown up with us, they’re also going ‘oh, yeah, I’m exactly where you’re at at your point in your life’.”
Of course, opening up on an album going out to the world wasn’t the easiest thing to do for Bethany. Not least of all because it meant opening up to her AS DECEMBER FALLS bandmates Ande Hunter, Lukas James and Timmy Francis first. “I’m not the most emotionally outward person, I would say I’m quite closed off. Like, I’ve always been one of them to just bottle it up until the last second. They’ve never seen this side of me, so like I remember when we were going through the songs, one of our band members was like, ‘so what is this one about? It sounds really sad’ and I was like, it is really sad.”
If she learnt anything throughout the pandemic, Bethany discovered that through adversity comes strength. Soon came solace in the power of the platform her band have built, in the fact that her own experiences could help someone locked away listening in their bedroom. “If anything, me being vulnerable and putting myself out there kind of feels like people are actually going to accept that I am a real human, that I do get upset, and I do get angry. Like I Don’t Feel Like Feeling Great, that’s me basically saying, it’s okay to not feel happy, like not everyone is happy 100% of the time, so I’m very happy to put myself out there like that because at some point it is going to help someone else.”
Helping others on Happier isn’t strictly for personal struggles either. It’s safe to say that pop-punk is pushing forward a new wave of diversity, featuring POC, queer, and female-fronted acts. Using the platform they continue to build, AS DECEMBER FALLS are making music for female empowerment, joining a musical movement that truly matters. Tears takes soft synths and jangly guitar riffs and throws them up into the air with an emphatic chorus for everyone to chant along to. More importantly, it’s about trusting yourself to overcome your internal struggles, to stop lying in bed crying and turn the page. Ultimately, it’s a tale of empowerment for all the females listening. However, it wasn’t planned, it was simply a product of emotions taking over.
“To be honest, I don’t think I ever really know what my songs are going to be about, and then I’ll come up with something like a verse or a chorus and I’ll go ‘right, okay, this is what I’ve written’ and I believe I’ve written this because I feel this way about this subject. So, I will continue the rest of the song with that theme in mind. With Tears, I had the first verse written and I was like ‘you know what, I know exactly where this is heading’ and I was like ‘its empowerment, that’s what I want this to be about’. I want to absolutely let people know that I’m completely 100% proud to be female, especially being a female in the rock industry, like it’s awesome, It’s fucking cool.”
Alongside calls for empowerment in a male-dominated industry, Bethany and her bandmates are all about making a name for themselves. As a fully independent band, they’ve put their fate firmly in their own hands. With lofty heights set in their long-term vision, they’ve surrounded themselves with the cream of the crop to keep growing their platform.
One such person is super producer John Mitchell, who’s produced albums for British big-timers ARCHITECTS, ENTER SHIKARI, and YOU ME AT SIX. Stepping into the studio with someone as prolific as John is a serious statement of intent for the Nottingham-based quartet, and it’s one that didn’t come without its challenges, as well as its benefits. It was an experience that took them far out of the comfort zone they created on their debut.
“I’m not gonna lie, it was quite daunting. The first time I walked into that room, I had no idea what to expect because before that, we’d only worked with Arthur Walwyn, and he’s kind of more of a pal. It was basically like walking into my friend’s house and being like, okay, we’re gonna record this in your garage whereas walking into working with John Mitchell, I was like, ‘YOU ME AT SIX have been here, ARCHITECTS have been here.’ But he was just so down to earth, and lovely and helpful.”
Recording an album during a pandemic, where the band were on and off furlough, and in and out of the studio at different times, wasn’t easy. That’s when they realised they’d put their record in safe hands though, as John used his magic touch to pull them through, as Bethany explains, “he made it happen, like no matter what we needed. He was like ‘if you guys need to do this, we can do that, if you guys want to try this out, we will try it no matter what’.”
It’s an experience that ultimately led to the band embracing their old-school pop-punk roots rather than hopping on the bandwagon and surrendering to a synth-heavy sound. John helped the band solidify their status as a rock band, rather than a pop band, and why that distinction matters to them.
“We are very adamant that we are a real rock band, like when you come and see us on tour, we are playing our guitars, and we are singing to you. When we’re live, we’re a rock band, that’s what we’re here for. We don’t want to ever put down our guitars and say ‘that’s it, we’re just gonna be a pop band now’ because my vocals are quite poppy as it is. So we’re like, no, we’re sticking with our metal kid drums and our fucking heavy bass riffs, we want that backing us.”
Unlike a lot of bands who get lost in major labels making decisions for them for a quick buck, AS DECEMBER FALLS are in a position to be the band they want to be without compromise. Of course, creative freedom comes at a great cost, one that saw the band head to the bank to take out a loan to simply get Happier out of their heads and into our headphones. “When we booked into the studio, we had not paid for anything. We had not sorted anything out, and we were all like ‘how are we going to do this when we can’t even get credit cards for bad credit?’ and so that’s when we actually decided to get a bank loan out for this album. And we did it that way, because we had no idea. We were just like, ‘we don’t have this money in our back pocket, and wee have no idea how this is gonna work’.”
To make matters worse, a plague took place and imprisoned the world, putting their plans on hold. Fortunately, for AS DECEMBER FALLS, they found their fanbase were right there to help them carry what felt like the weight of the world.
“Luckily, our fans are absolutely great, like every single item of merch we have bought out is sold out nearly instantly. It’s so amazing to see, and we have that fan base who will continue to support us no matter we put out. As soon as like COVID-19 hit, we were like we’re gonna lose all of the money from our tours, and we’re gonna have to send everyone back their ticket money, and we were like, please bear with us because we’re going to rebook it and if you can’t make it obviously, of course we will give everything back, but luckily, we had next to no one email us or message ever. So it was just awesome for us to have that show of support behind us.”
No matter what the world throws at them, AS DECEMBER FALLS will forever fight to make the world a better, happier place. Global pandemics and mountains of debt are nothing when they’ve got fans like theirs to keep fuelling the fire.
Happier is out now via self-release.
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