HELD.: A Side Effect Of Emptiness

“For me, a catalyst of really feeling that this was something I wanted to heavily pursue was that I was working this terrible fucking job” confesses post-hardcore luminary Douglas Robinson on the formation of his new band HELD.. Driven as much by his bandmate in THE SLEEPING, Sal Mignano, to relight their creative touchpaper, Robinson’s mum played a pivotal role in setting the trio, completed by COHEED & CAMBRIA drummer Josh Eppard, on fire. 

 “I was just miserable there, and I started mentally crumbling. I had this talk with my mum, and my mum was like, ‘fuck everything, go make this record’. So I started writing and we started putting pieces of ideas together and I started realising ‘okay, this is something that we need to make really special.”

Miserable jobs and creative side hustles aside, HELD.’s debut album Grey is the culmination of half a decade of toil and trouble. False starts, faltering lineups, and the fine matter of THE SLEEPING reuniting since Mignano and Robinson first started planning the project in 2021 didn’t help matters. Saying that, much like if Tim Roth had played Professor Snape over Alan Rickman in the Harry Potter films, had their first-choice guitarist, THE FALL OF TROY’s Thomas Erak’s involvement not fallen through, their potent blend of 90’s alt-metal and 00’s post-hardcore just wouldn’t hit right. 

Pulling the musical tapestry of Grey together is a safety pin HELD. call fresh start fever. Falling in love with playing guitar is just one side effect of the excitement the trio felt. Rediscovering their childish naivety, and painting on a blank canvas, lent them a playfulness and excitement they hadn’t felt with their other bands for a while. Ultimately, it birthed their endgame.

“Everything we do needs to be the best thing we’ve ever done, it needs to outdo itself every time. I kept telling myself this is my time, this is our time, and this has to be one of the best things I’ve ever done, and that really sparked something in me,” enthuses Robinson, who could sell water to a fish when describing his band’s mission. “I want this to be the biggest thing it can be. Not for fame, not for any bullshit like that, I just want it to be a record that changes people’s lives.”

Changing lives is the lynchpin that locks Grey’s sonics in place with its lyrical themes, which traverse the rocky mountain cliffs of self-doubt, isolation, and identity in modern life. Like Good Health by PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES has done for Robinson – “where I am musically in my life, it’s just a record that makes me feel good and reminds me why I love music” – the frontman hopes listeners find company in his feelings.

“All I wanted to do was make the best thing I’ve ever made and get out what I needed to get out of myself, because as cliche as it sounds, music for me is quintessential therapy, you know. I realise it more now from this record how much I need music to let me express myself in a way that I can’t do in the world,” Robinson reflects, so self-assured by the catharsis creating Grey has given him.

“A lot of the lyrical themes is me just trying to survive. It’s pushing through survival, but not knowing if you can. Like it’s difficult, life is difficult, and I never want to sound woe is me, but I am writing it for myself because I need to.”

Named by Eppard, Grey is for Robinson the only title appropriate for the album. “There are days I don’t know what to do with myself. Everything is blurred in the middle for a lot of us right, which is why the album’s called Grey,” he says, “[It’s about] trying to exist. It’s really as simple as that, even though it’s beyond simple. It’s living in a world that’s not fucking easy. There’s vibrant days, and there’s very grim days, and a lot of the time I’m in the middle trying to figure out where to go.”

In that liminal space Robinson excavates his lyrics from, you’ll find a recurring theme of space rolling throughout Grey’s galaxy. Despite being desperate to steer away from being conceptual, “I was nervous to go super hard into that stuff, because I never want it to feel like a one dimensional thing,” Robinson finds the great unknown a deeply comforting world to inhabit.

“The meaningful thing about space for me is it’s so empty, but it’s also so vast and dense. It’s a perfect way to describe, writing the way I write, how I feel. Sometimes my heart is so full and sometimes it’s fucking bleak and desolate, and my mind is the same way. It’s always filled, but sometimes it’s filled with emptiness and sadness, sometimes there’s nothing in there to give to anyone and I wanted to make that as visceral as I can, but not dive too into it to where you think it’s a space record.”

Whilst there’s no new music in the works just yet, with phase two of the band all about growing its profile, Robinson has designed lofty ambitions for HELD.’s future. Much like his influences TOOL and AT THE DRIVE-IN were to nu-metal in the late 90s/early 00s. “We’re not trying to emulate those bands, but that is sonically where I feel we are, and a lot of bands really aren’t doing that.” He wants HELD. to be the alternative option to the new wave of rock music.

“I’ve always wanted to be a part of something that’s pioneering something. I’m not saying we reinvented the wheel by any means, but I do think in an important time where rock is coming back, with the 90s revival stuff, I would like to think this record has a possibility of opening the doors to this different approach to rock music.”

Standing against the grain and being recognised for it is for Robinson what HELD. exists to do, and that’s one powerful mission statement to get behind. “We write music because it’s who we are, and our individuality shines through our instruments. If it creates something different, I want people to notice that.”

GREY is out now via MNRK Heavy. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS130 here.

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