Siamese: Rising To The Challenge

SIAMESE have quickly rose to prominence in their short tenure due to their infectious energy and penchant for writing anthemic choruses. 2019’s Super Human received rave reviews and burst the door wide open for a new flock of listeners to join their already considerable fanbase. Hot off the press, the hugely anticipated follow-up Home looks poised to take advantage of this building momentum and springboard them further into the spotlight. An album which may also take a lot of people by surprise.

“We have spent quite a lot of time trying to develop a new sound, to make it more dynamic. I think we went a lot harder this time round,” admits guitarist Andreas Krüger. “The sound has gone heavier but we still have the big pop choruses. We just wanted to bring some new elements into the music.”

“We went through a period of the pandemic just generally growing as people,” adds frontman Mirza Radonjica. “This definitely had an effect on me and how we wanted to approach a lot of things. Normally me and Andreas are busy doing a lot of different stuff together but this time we kind of just worked on our own and we wrote like 104 songs between us. It’s been like nothing else we’ve ever done before. We felt like a lot of the material we wrote would’ve suited the last couple of albums but the songs we selected were the best fit for what we wanted to achieve and the sound we wanted to nail down. We initially just planned to release a string of singles but everyone was saying that they needed a new album so we thought at that point we had to refocus our strategy as there was obviously a demand for it. The pandemic has really sucked but it actually allowed us to really focus on writing a whole album. We did plan to release the album a little earlier but due to the sheer demand for vinyl with ADELE releasing her new album it pushed back production for a few months!”

The first single and title track Home saw the band take an exciting new direction, injecting some additional intensity into their already potent arsenal. A decision which really allowed them to reap the benefits of choosing it to be their first impression of things to come. “When it came out we noticed a lot of different people reacting and it seems like that song really got people interested,” discusses Mirza. “It’s helped us with booking agents, Steph our publicist came on board and it’s been a very exciting time for the band. We mentioned early that we wrote 104 sketches or whatever and Home was number 20 and that was when it hit us that it was the sound we were going for. I feel like a lot of bands get more mellow as they progress but we’ve got heavier. I’m not going to see we are planning to abandon clean singing but I feel like it can get even crazier from here.”

SIAMESE decided to release a good chunk of the album as singles to keep the momentum going and help build the anticipation for the overall release. A choice which they discovered to have mixed results. “Releasing the songs as singles was a good way of gauging the response of our listeners and to see what they thought of the new direction too. You spend so much time and energy on those songs and it was amazing to see them all getting so much love and attention,” explains Mirza. “We’re still a building band and we find people are still getting on board with each release and we’re happy with the approach we have taken. I did however, have a bit of a situation with the video for Sloboda. It goes to show that if you open yourself up in this way and tell a story about your personal life that someone can interpret it completely differently. In the video I made a movement with my hand and a few people compared it to a fascist Serbian gesture and there was no way that was my intention. I was just caught up in the vibe of the song and that whole situation was a bit of a shock to me.”

Andreas and Mirza are masters of their craft, the former being a hugely respected songwriter/producer for many a pop star and the latter having his own music label, Prime Collective which has been responsible for assisting the progression of some of the most exciting bands in the world of modern metal. A partnership which is a match made in heaven.

“I have a Masters in management and creative business so I’m very educated,” states Mirza. “I started working with a label and I hated it so I started my own thing whilst doing my music, actually what happened was that it took off quicker than my music! A lot of the responsibilities like going to festivals, travelling, meeting people and networking have been really difficult over the last few years but on the other hand it’s given me a lot more time to focus on being in rehearsal spaces and working with other artists. Myself and Andreas bounce ideas off each other and I’ve stolen so many ideas off him to use in other sessions with artists. It’s both a friendship and kind of like one brain!

“You develop a lot of tools throughout the song writing process and SIAMESE has definitely been like a playground for me as a producer,” explains Andreas. “I can do a lot of things which there is no room for in film scores or pop music. Mirza and I have written music together for years so we have a certain way of writing and that was actually one of the challenges on this album.”

Home is out now via Long Branch Records.

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