Interview: Dan Searle from Architects
A driving force behind Architects’ beats and creative vision, powerhouse drummer Dan Searle has a chat with us about their new album, ahead of their upcoming tour of Australia:
The new album was released in October last year. What was the inspiration behind it?
Musically and stylistically, we were springboarded off the success of ‘For Those that wish to Exist’ and felt like we wanted to dive into, well, whatever we wanted to! We were in a creative flow during that time because of the pandemic and touring restrictions. These last two albums are kind of a duo, to be honest. To me, ‘The Classic Symptoms of Broken Spirit’ is a bit harsher, jagged and less emotional compared to ‘For Those that wish to Exist’, it was created in a more playful and freedom-filled mood, a reaction to making a series of heavy and emotionally charged albums, in the past. We wanted to have some fun and not be so preoccupied with death and grief.
Making this album was a chance for us to work on something lighter, and it was definitely a healthy change for me personally. And I’m just going to be totally honest, part of what makes Architects, Architects to a lot of people, is that there is this emotional weight to the band and that there is this melancholy and there is this bleakness at times. And I think that that feeling speaks to people, it resonates with people and that they recognize that feeling as an aspect of their experience as a human being.
Your sound has evolved quite a bit over the years, and you’re getting a tonne of airplay on Triple J in Australia. You’re kind of opening yourselves up to a whole new fanbase, people who may not have listened to you in previous albums. How does that make you feel?
I’ll say that for me, it was when we were wrapping up ‘For Those That Wish To Exist’ We made the conscious decision to take off the shackles. We oriented ourselves creatively towards what felt good to us, rather than what we thought would be good for others. Starting a band and writing music that feels good to you is great, especially when it also resonates with your audience. But as you grow and change, so does your taste in music and what resonates with you as an artist – changes. You have new fans that who arrive at several albums and they can’t wait for the next one. But the artist has changed. And so now they are looking for a different feeling in that creative process. After ‘Holy Hell’ I had a strong feeling that it was time to do something different. ‘Holy Hell’ was already going to be different, but we held back on some musical decisions because we were worried about alienating people after Tom’s passing. We took a moment to make safer decisions, but once we got through it, we felt it was time to believe in ourselves and true to our instincts, rather than let our worries cloud our judgement. And to me, I can’t believe that we got away with it!
And I’ve said this a few times before, but there’s a song on FTTWTE, called ‘Meteor’, which – I can only say this, cause it’s a song that I wrote. It is just an arena rock song. I mean it is like unashamedly arena rock <laugh>, which is not a cool genre. We had all the demos and we had 22 songs and we decided we were going to record 15. And Meteor got one vote not to be on the album from me, and I wrote the song! I said, “we cannot put this on our album. We can’t go from Holy Hell to this… We will be crucified!” And I remember we released Animals First and the first wave of comments I said to my wife, “we’re done. We fucked it.” Then Black Lungs was at the next single and that went over a little bit better. Anyway, we got to Meteor being released and I just was like, “I’m not going on the internet. I’m taking a week off! I cannot look at the response for this song. Cause we about to drop an atomic bomb on our career” Then we had this moment playing it to 7,000 people and the whole room just jumping up and down and singing. It’s one of the few songs that we have in our set where it’s like it, do you know what?! There’s like this vulnerability to the arena-rock thing, because it’s intrinsically corny at times, and with Meteor, I’d definitely towed that line.. But when everyone in a room is just agreed, “no, we’re having this, this is a vibe” and everyone is enjoying it. It was just a profound moment. And as they say in 2023, “we’re here for it!”
For me that’s that kind of experience just reminds me that it’s like, it’s not about what bands or artists create isn’t about what it is, it’s about how it makes people feel.
I wanted to touch on the Abbey Road sessions and having an orchestra by your side.
So, we had done one live stream at the Royal Albert Hall and we felt like, oh we should try and think of something else to do like this. To be honest, Amazon sorted the composer and rough score for that first version of ‘Animal’. We just walked in, sat down, played the song three times and left. And then they cut it and it was amazing and everyone loved it.
But whilst we were there, we realised we should do this with a bigger orchestra in the bigger room in Studio One. Doing it ourselves for so much work, having to thoroughly rehearse and learn every single song of one album is new and you’ve never performed any of the songs live. So you don’t have that road test on all the songs. The nerves of sitting down and performing on camera with a professional orchestra’s time which meant money, we knew we had to just get it done then and there, in one afternoon! The pressure of that, it was like mega. It felt like it was as much work making this live session, as it was making the album! But stoked with how it turned out!
I wanted to touch base on Jeb Hardwick who I know from Brighton, and who’s worked on most of your latest videos. So I spoke with him just before and one of the things he brought up was that ‘Black Lungs’ video – was a pretty tough shoot and it kind of pushed you guys. I was hoping you could chat about that a little bit?
Ahh Jeb, he’s like the sixth member to the band! But, it has made us shoot only want to shoot comfortable videos since!! Cause it was the middle of winter freeeezing cold on location with no rooms with any heating! I didn’t do anything all day, and we shot at about 7:00pm as it was going dark and Jeb was firing this fluff stuff in the air that looked like fallout/ash, and it was just like in my lungs, my nose… and I’m just in a T-shirt, shivering, freezing cold. It was a rough shoot! But Jeb’s been one of the biggest assets to the band! And it’s funny because I met him at a house party in Brighton. I’m 35 now. I was probably 16, so about 19 years ago. And we just by some chance got bonding over music, and years and years later he posted a reel of some work, so we just hit him up and took a chance on him and he did ‘Gone With the Wind,’ and from there we were just like, right, this guy knows his shit. There’s nothing better for a creative control freak like me, than knowing the people you work with creatively, just knowing that they’re going to do a brilliant job and you don’t have to micromanage them and you just let them do their thing.
Finally, have you got a favourite release from another band from 2022? Just something you can pull out something on Spotify that you may have listened to or a band you want to hype up?
Last year my most listened to album was Harry’s House by a guy called, Harry Styles. This British guy from Birmingham.
Haha! Fucking sick. Well, we’ll see you soon in Australia soon!
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LIVE NATION, UNIFY & TRIPLE J PRESENTS – ARCHITECTS AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2023
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS COUNTERPARTS AND THORNHILL
Friday Feb 17 – AEC Theatre, Adelaide
Saturday Feb 18 – Festival Hall, Melbourne
Sunday Feb 19 – Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
Wednesday Feb 22 – Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane
Tickets on sale now. Livenation.com.au.
Interview by Adam Davis-Powell.
