amity_affliction_2013

“My near-death experience kicked me up the ass”—the Amity Affliction’s Joel Birch on their new album

Australia’s the Amity Affliction recently headed into the studio to track their fourth currently untitled full-length. Focusing on getting better at what they do rather than reinventing themselves has served the band well so far, though this does not mean their steady rise has been an easy one. The personal problems of vocalist Joel Birch have threatened to derail the band on several occasions, and though he is enthusiastic when AP caught up with him, it’s clear his demons have once again played into the creative process.

What stage are you at with the new record right now?
We’re getting close to finished. The guys are just quad tracking guitars which is something new for us, and it will make for a really nice, thick wall of sound, and there are three songs that need vocals. It’s been a little different in that we staggered the recording this time. Instead of just doing drums, bass, guitars and then vocals we have been getting them down throughout the entire process.

Has that made for a better recording experience?
For me, definitely. The last two records we did in America, and though I was there the whole time with the guys, it got boring sitting around while guitars and everything were tracked, so I’d just be hanging out in the area we were staying. This time, we’re recording at our guitarist Troy [Brady]’s studio, Evergreen, which is really close to where I live on Australia’s Sunshine Coast. Everyone’s been involved the whole way through, which is something that our producer Will Putney [Winds Of Plague, Upon A Burning Body] really emphasized. We discuss everything—the guitars, vocal melodies and even the lyrics, which is the first time I’ve opened myself up to being told a line’s not strong enough. I’ve rewritten it right there with everyone around, and we don’t settle until we’re all happy with it.

A lot of bands prefer to get away from home when they record, so there are fewer distractions around—presumably this isn’t the case for you?
Being at home has been incredible, man. I’ve got two kids and my dog and my partner, who I’ve been best friends with since we were 13, and it’s very cool being able to come home and go to bed with her at night. We tour a lot, and being in the States for six weeks to make a record is a long time to be away from home, so it’s really nice to have this really relaxed recording environment. There’s far less tension because of that.

This is the first record you’ve made with guitarist Dan Brown. Has he been actively involved in the writing?
Yeah, he’s been sitting down with Ahren [Stringer, vocals/bass] and an acoustic guitar and they’ve been coming out with much better harmonies than we’ve ever had before. There are no real changes going on, though. Some bands can reinvent themselves over and over, like Bring Me The Horizon, who are killing it and going from strength to strength. That makes sense for them, but we’re not that band. We’ll always play the same music, we just keep polishing and refining, and hopefully getting better and better at it.

Lyrically speaking, Chasing Ghosts was your most positive record. Is this building upon that?
I have got some songs that are like that. I’ve also got songs I’ve written about the sometimes overwhelming burden of being the guy who opened up to kids, because now it’s almost opened a dialogue between myself and the fans. I do appreciate that, but every now and then it becomes quite the weight to bear. I’ve written about that, and hopefully it doesn’t offend them, because that’s not what I intended. I also had a very close call with dying during the U.S. Warped Tour, which has obviously given me a lot of content for songs. We downplayed it while we were there, but it was a lot more serious than we let on. It was years and years of heavy drinking and prescription drug abuse catching up with me. You name it, I put it in, and it all kind of came to a head.

When we talked before Chasing Ghosts came out, you were in a much more positive mindset. Did you lose that somewhere along the way?
I had a massive panic attack at the end of recording Chasing Ghosts. I was with Ahren and we were in a shopping center somewhere in Orlando, which was packed, and I don’t deal well with crowds, which is ironic, I know. [Laughs.] I had a massive meltdown, and instead of taking the time to address it I just pushed it under the rug, and handling things that way started becoming far more frequent. When we go on tour I usually drink quite a lot, and alcohol doesn’t help anxiety or depression at all, and it was like I was sinking my own ship for the better part of 12 months.

Was it a cumulative effect or did you just go way too hard one day?
Well, Defeater are my favorite band on Earth, and they joined Warped around that time. We were hanging out with them so I was super-excited, and I was drinking beer and then whiskey, snorted a little coke, and I kinda forgot to drink any water that day. I woke up the next morning, and I was drenched in sweat, and I couldn’t stop vomiting. I had three bags of saline put into me, and I was still spewing. In the midst of that I had five or six panic attacks, had a seizure and stopped breathing and went blue and my heart stopped. I’d say it was a culmination of everything, but the night before it happened it definitely went further. But, the near-death [experience] kicked me up the ass. It made me realize what I’ve got at home, what I’ve got with the band. I hate using the word “fans,” because I feel like it distances us from them, which is wrong, but I do feel like we have great fans, and we’ve built quite amazing lives through music. I felt like I was pissing all that up against the wall and saying, “Fuck you everyone,” instead of having a good hard look at the way I was living.

And presumably you’re in a much better headspace now?
Yeah, I haven’t been drunk since it happened, and like I said recording has been a great and really positive experience. In fact, everything with this record has actually been going smoothly, which is uncanny! I feel like the studio needs to burst into flames or something, because it’s all been too easy! [Laughs.] ALT