As It Is: The Band Who Went To Hell And Back
AS IT IS are a constantly evolving band. Their first two albums, 2015’s Never Happy, Ever After and 2017’s Okay, were happy-go-lucky pop-punk songs, discussing relationships and heartbreak. The band themselves looked like your average pop-punk group; young men with extreme emo fringes, converse shoes and preppy clothes. All that changed with 2018’s The Great Depression. The preppy clothes were replaced with black and red suits. The emo fringes were tamed and grown to shoulder length hair that was dyed black.
Surprisingly, music changed alongside the clothes. There were gentler songs, like The Hurt, The Hope. On the other end of the chart, there were songs like The Reaper, a harsh post-hardcore track featuring UNDEROATH‘s Aaron Gillespie. This album marked a distinct departure from their original sound for the heavier side of things.
Frontman Patty Walters explains it best. “AS IT IS used to sound like sad lyrics over happy music, which it still is. It’s just that sometimes we now write sad songs over sad music. My lyricism especially is going to be raw and vulnerable. But we learnt that so long as it’s got my vocals on top of it, it’s going to sound like AS IT IS, no matter how we musically sound.”
Unfortunately, the change in sound was not the only shake-up for AS IT IS. Longtime guitarist Ben Langford-Biss left in 2019 after a farewell tour. Then the coronavirus pandemic came crashing in. It ripped all our lives apart in an instance. Tours were cancelled, flights were stopped and we were all told to stay indoors. The world stood to a standstill. For AS IT IS, there would be more loss, as drummer Patrick Foley left the band in late 2020 to be a firefighter. The band became a trio, with Walters being joined by guitarist Ronnie Ish and bassist Alistair Testo.
As a result of this shake up, the band dived into the creation of their fourth album. This album is a cumulation of all the previous albums. There are songs that wouldn’t sound out of place on Never Happy, Ever After, Okay and The Great Depression. Welcome to I Went To Hell And Back.
“We were beginning to realise the album we were making and the story we were hoping to tell,” Walters explains. However, the album title is only half of a lyric. Walters smiles and says, “that’s really exciting for everyone to hear the full context of the lyric. That going back is crucial, as it means you have survived the turbulence, which is one word I’d use to describe the past four years.”
The first single they released was IDGAF (short for I Don’t Give a Fuck). “It ended up being the first single from the record, and the first music video and single as a trio. It was written in late 2019, so it was before Ben‘s finale tour. We were acutely aware we were loosing a member of the band. A certain amount of that emotion was present in the writing process. It’s funny how it was written with five members still in the band. It was an easy choice for the first single, as in October 2019, we wrote at least ten songs over two weeks with songwriters and producers around LA,” Walters explains.
“[IDGAF] was a real anomaly. It was a song we just couldn’t forget. We realised these lyrics are pissed off. This record lyrically is a voice I have never expressed. There is no beauty in any of the sadness of the record; it is apocalyptic.”
The change in sound and members never stopped AS IT IS have appreciating their fans. Amongst the sadness of the album, there is hope. I Miss 2003 is an up-beat pop-punk song dedicated to the bands of yesteryears. Walters adds, “one of my favourite responses to see about the song was the comments. There were so many people saying ‘I was born in 2003’ or ‘I was born after 2003, and the song still means so much to me.’ The mission statement of that song was to shine a spotlight on the bands we love.”
As a result of that mission statement, the band launched an online scavenger hunt. The fans had to guess the references to the different bands in the song. It was a fun way of keeping the fans connected to the band they love, even during a turbulent time. Regrettably, turbulence never truly went away. This is seen on the heavy hardcore-esque of I’m Sick and Tired, and I Want To See God. The former is a stand-out on the album. Explaining the meaning behind the song, Walters says, “it was a result of just that ongoing uncertainty of the pandemic and the future of the band.” He goes on to say how the desperation and uncertainty is so real, you feel like you are the punching bag of the universe. “All we had were songs to express those feelings.”
Despite this album not being a ‘concept album’, there is a message behind it, according to AS IT IS used to sound like sad lyrics over happy music, he says, “there’s a snapshot into not just coping through a pandemic, but grief and loss, and the hopelessness of it all. It was my therapeutic outlet. I Went To Hell And Back is that story. I look forward to everyone hearing it as a whole.”
Those feelings of grief and loss can unfortunately be felt by many of us. The newspapers reporting that a new variant of coronavirus is steadily declining. However, there is the ever presence of fear that it will all be taken away again in the blink of an eye. Thankfully, there is always solace in the music, and AS IT IS have arrived just in time.
I Went To Hell And Back is out now via Fearless Records.
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