Backstage At Download Pilot With While She Sleeps
Aaran McKenzie on their mainstage slot, engaging with fans, and curating set lists...
It’s been just over a week since *Download’s Pilot festival *took place, and we’re still basking in the heady afterglow. Taking Donnington Park’s main stage by storm amongst a mammoth line-up, metal-core five-piece *While She Sleeps *definitely ranked among the highlights.
Having dropped their fifth studio album ‘Sleeps Society’ this April, *Download Pilot *saw the group return to the stage for the first time in over a year. Released via their independent label Sleeps Brothers, the new album sees While She Sleeps edge towards their darker side as it welcomes heavier vocals from frontman Laurence Taylor, cryptic music videos, and unforgettable hooks.
Album standout ‘Nervous’ features vocals from Biffy Clyro’s Simon Alexander, a collaboration that opens new ground for the Sheffield band. Embarking on an ascending journey with this new offering, here’s what bass player Aaran McKenzie had to say before their set…
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*How are you finding being back at Download this weekend?*
It’s been amazing, the nerves haven’t hit me just yet, just because we’ve got to do interviews like this, and I’ve been trying to take in the atmosphere. It’s nice to be able to watch some bands before we have to think about performing our own show, I got here and watched Bleed From Within straight away – it was so fucking cool to watch a band on stage again. More so than anything, watching people have a good time to those bands, you can really see that a lot of people needed this.
*Has the year away from gigging been a weird shift? It’s a huge deal to be on such an incredible line-up and to be playing amongst a crowd of 10,000 people, which understandably isn’t your biggest crowd but not bad post Covid-apocalypse…*
Yeah, it’s an honour to be here and to be a part of such an important time stamp in history and to be so high up on the bill is amazing. I know it’s a small capacity but to be held at such a high regard is insane, we’re really looking forward to getting on stage. I am wondering if all the songs we’ve been practising for the last month, we’re just going to stick.
*When was the last gig you played?*
Well, I’m actually wearing the top of the last tour that we did. We actually had to fly home after Salt Lake City, we only had four shows left, but we still had to cut it short on March 11th. We were playing shows right up until the point where you couldn’t. But for a lot of bands like Neck Deep, they were on a bit of a tour break before that, so it’s been two years since they last played a show. We played shows right up to the point we couldn’t because we were coming to the end of the cycle of ‘So What,’ but it feels good to be back.
*How does it feel to be back amongst other musicians, and fans? I imagine you’re probably feeling quite a lot of things all at once!*
I have a bit of a whirlwind of emotions, a lot of it is being caught up in the moment, but I know I have a job to do. It’s been amazing seeing some familiar faces though and being able to get caught up in conversations. I’m in the zone and I’m really focused, id have my guitar on now if I could! I might even be a bit over prepared; it’s like going back to school after having six weeks off, that’s what this feels like. Our guitarist Matt has incense sticks, we never used to do that! We’re doing things we never used to do but being over-prepared is better than being under prepared.
*Do you feel like you’ve had to make big changes in order to adapt to how music was consumed throughout lockdown?*
Yes and no, we didn’t do live-streams, but when we released our campaign for our new album it was all tied into our Patreon called Sleep Society. That’s the way we stayed relevant throughout last year, and how we survived! Creating this community with our fans has helped, we had this in the pipeline for quite a while now, we were going to do it regardless of the pandemic. But I think doing it at a time like last year was quite prevalent and it was really important to pass the message across.
Last year would’ve sent a lot of bands down and I think that speaks a lot for the current system we’re in as a society in general but also the music industry. It does well for people who are super famous and can take a lot of time off because they’re rich as fuck, but for bands like us, who’re working on a little bit of an out-dated system, I think we’ve reached a new age and we need to adapt to how those things operate.
So that’s what we did, it was one of the best things we ever did and it kept our band alive last year! We’ve also really created a future with our fans, since the start of this band we couldn’t have done it without them, we’ve created this hub and we couldn’t be closer together - it’s great.
*What are you expecting from today’s performance?*
I think it’s going to be really special, we love doing this, we do it because we love playing shows, it’s our outlet that gives us mental clarity. The fact that this is the first time we’ve done this in over a year is so special to us.
*How did you prep for the show?*
We’d been practising for a month, we have our own HQ where we go to record, hangout, and come up with ideas. When we’re not on tour that’s where we go 9-5 every day.
*I noticed you brought to the table fans organising your setlist on your Twitter account - did you take on their suggestions In attempt to curate a cracking list?*
We definitely took note of those! I think five albums in it gets harder and harder to create your setlist, you don’t know if people want you to play your older songs or not.
Every time we have a new release, we always like to put a lot of new songs on the setlist, and it’s always massively well received! We always try to experiment with each new album, but we try not to neglect our core foundation at the same time!
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Words: *Laviea Thomas*
