Like Moths To Flames: The Year of the Moth

LIKE MOTHS TO FLAMES have still continued on to do the best they can do, despite the insane situation that 2020 has brought onto many people. Although the initial plan for the Year Of The Moth in 2020 has mostly been put on hold, their upcoming fifth album, No Eternity In Gold, is still planned to come out October 30th. Surrounded by an impressive collection of Funko Pop figures, especially from Rick & Morty, vocalist Chris Roetter sat down with Distorted Sound to discuss the new album, their sound and style, and storming the gates of Disney World in 2021 – they can’t take all of us!

“Anybody who’s familiar with the band on the internet we’ve been like no stranger to saying that we think [No Eternity In Gold] is the best record that the band has provided to date,” Chris starts. “While we say that a lot to just hype people up, I think we do firmly believe that I think after, like 10 years of us doing music, I think it’s the best representation of what we have to provide. I say provide because I guess I feel like that, you know, it’s our duty to provide good content that’s wholesome and that people can latch on to that feels authentic and genuine.”

As the band have spent now 10 years performing and recording music, a lot has changed for them and their albums. “We’ve gone through a revolving door of members when it comes to people who actually orchestrate the music behind the scenes, a lot of those members were like the pivotal part and how the band operated,” Chris continues to explain. “So it wasn’t until recently, more specifically this record where we’d gone in with an abundance of content. So there were actually things to choose from. It was a huge change to go in with music we went in with over 30 songs and just dissected everything from there.”

“I think a lot of what we did in the past was us kind of just trying to do what we were expected to do instead of what we wanted to do,” he adds. “We’ve been a band for a long time so for us, it’s just about like maintaining like positivity amongst the group and the mindset of thinking that we can succeed in in midst of hundreds of other bands going for the same end goal. I don’t really know where the next few years will be from like a touring standpoint, or even just like a live music standpoint, but you know I think all in all, just like we’re just kind of embracing the advancements of streaming, new technologies that make it so you can be in front of people without really being in front of people. For me, it’s important for us to still be a band in a couple of years.”

Whilst the live music space is currently in limbo due to unfortunate circumstances, it’s good to remember back to the positive times. For Chris, it was their gig at House of Blues in Orlando, Florida whilst on tour with WAGE WAR. “We’re dirty dudes, you know, we still tour in a van we don’t do the bus thing, so like getting to tour in these like immaculate venues that are just like beautiful and they’re designed to be, you know, for pop artists and it’s like a shell shock to go play places like that. I don’t know if that’s a testament to all the bands on the tour being great and there’s really good energy right place, right time.” At the suggestion to gather fans to storm the gates of Disney World in 2021, Chris responded with “I like it, I’ve been cooped up too long I’m ready to storm anywhere at this point!”

So, how would you describe LIKE MOTHS TO FLAMES’ sound and style? Chris himself describes the band as metalcore, going on to say, “we’ve been no stranger to like doing the same style of record time after time. For us I think we were really trying to just like hone in on like a darker side of. I guess more like the eerie side of like the metalcore side of things, but for us, we’ve just kind of fallen in where people classify us and then like I said, that just is like general metalcore. So we’re fine with that. We’re never really big on trying to reinvent the wheel, as far as how music is perceived. We just want to be perceived as a band that does what we do very well.”

As the world hopes for a return to normality in the new year, it’s understandable to be concerned about what’s in store for the future. For Chris and LIKE MOTHS TO FLAMES, the hope for live music to return is alive in all of them. “I think as entertainment consumers we’ve just gotten so critical of the art that we’re consuming instead of actually understanding that is art and sometimes it just it is what it is you got to take it for what it is.” he adds, “I hope that next year is more grounded for a lot of the bands and I hope that people can start consuming entertainment for what it is, not be so mean to the artists that are trying to put out this stuff and they know that goes from music to art to interviews to YouTube to all of that. This whole year’s been on like, fast forward so you know you get to that point and then I feel like 2021 is going to be right there and then we’re going to have to like start acting on a lot of the things we want. I hope that our industry can see some sort of like normalcy when it comes to like people taking the reins back being able to dictate what happens in their lives.”

No Eternity In Gold is out now via UNFD.

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