Will Haven: Band Of Brothers

Jeff Irwin and Grady Avenell go way back. Friends since fifth grade, the duo formed WILL HAVEN with a couple of others in 1995, and barring a couple of little gaps here and there they’ve been driving forward ever since. Other members have come and gone over the years, but in 2023 the band find themselves in a healthy place with bassist Adrien Conteras and drummer Mitch Wheeler having been involved for a decade and two decades respectively, and even newer recruit Sean Bivins having been a friend of theirs for over 20 years. As we catch up with the founding duo ahead of the release of their aptly-titled seven full-length VII, it is abundantly clear that these tightly knit relationships are key to the Sacramento noise metallers’ remarkable longevity.

“We’ll always do it because we’re all best friends,” smiles Irwin. “The guys in the band are my brothers and they’ve been my brothers forever, and we just want to play music. We had some left in us and we wanted to make another record, because [VII’s 2018 predecessor] Muerte was actually received really well and we toured a lot. We were having a good time, and I think after that Muerte cycle had ended we were like ‘we’re still having fun with this, let’s make another record.’ As long as we’re having fun and there’s fans that still appreciate the band and still look for music from us and we’re in a good spot then we’ll always do it.”

That could be a fair while yet then, because as long as the band keep making records like VII, fans will definitely keep coming back for more. True to form, the album sees the band pushing their sound to new extremes, particularly as perhaps their most atmospheric record to date, while still delivering in spades on their trademark sense of groove and apocalyptic weight. “​​I’m in a metal band because I want to move people,” explains Irwin. “To me heavy music is the most emotional music there is, especially when you see it live, so for me I want to have a wall of sound just hit people and destroy them. When I see a mass of people moving in our set I’m like, ‘yes, that’s exactly what I was hoping for when I wrote this song…’”

Of course, go to any WILL HAVEN show and you’ll realise no-one moves more than their inimitable frontman. Avenell laughs that he burned almost 500 calories in a 30-minute set when the band played Download last year, no doubt while still absolutely nailing his inimitable tortured vocals. “It takes a lot out of me,” he admits. “When WILL HAVEN started out we played with bands that were nothing like us; they would just stand there and stare at us, so I kind of got into the mindset of wanting to make music that makes me want to move and that just slaps people in the face and then once we got kind of a following and saw the crowd getting into it and moving with us it just made it much better.”

Avenell’s words are also a reminder of the fact that WILL HAVEN have only ever gone their own way; they’ve toured with some absolutely massive bands – SLIPKNOT, SOULFLY, DEFTONES and many others – and been lumped in everywhere from NEUROSIS to nu-metal, but there really is no-one quite like them. Admittedly sometimes that’s prevented them from becoming as well-known as they really should be, and yet it is their insistence on only ever being themselves that makes them so special to those in the know. “I wouldn’t change anything,” offers Avenell on the band’s journey. “It was definitely a learning curve and choices we made weren’t always the greatest for a band to be successful, but I think humbly we’ve kept to our roots and stuck with how we feel about writing music and how we want to go out and play music so it’s been a great career.”

“For me it’s very important that WILL HAVEN is its own thing,” adds Irwin. “Since day one we’ve been that way; when we wrote El Diablo we were touring with bands like SNAPCASE and EARTH CRISIS and then we put out El Diablo which is completely different from what those bands were doing. We’ve always wanted to do our own thing and make our own mark in this game and I think we have. And we’re still evolving, we’re not done yet.”

It’s clear then that we won’t be going through the rigmarole that has surrounded some of WILL HAVEN’s previous records where there have been questions over whether they would be finally calling it a day. Obviously, these guys are in it for the long haul, and they have every reason to be optimistic about whatever’s next. “I really would like [VII] to take WILL HAVEN not so much to the next level, but just to another step above where we can reach more people and do more with our band,” concludes Avenell. “Ultimately I would like to reach new people and turn some new heads onto WILL HAVEN.”

“We can hold our own,” agrees Irwin. “We’ve got the music, we’ve got the live show, we’ve got everything, so we just wanna grow this band and reach new people because I think the music is great and there is no reason it shouldn’t be out there.”

VII is out now via Minus Head Records.

Like WILL HAVEN on Facebook.