Employed To Serve vocalist Justine Jones takes us through Eternal Forward Motion one song at a time...
Woking metallic hardcore wrecking crew Employed To Serve have just unleashed their third full-length album, Eternal Forward Motion. The 5K-rated stunner is the follow-up to (Kerrang!'s 2017 album of the year) The Warmth Of A Dying Sun, and is a battlecry against the pains of modern life – from social media to mental health.
Here, vocalist Justin Jones talks us through the stories and inspirations behind each track.
“It’s about the idea that time constantly moves forward, but seeing that as a positive thing. No matter what situation you’re in right now, there’s always a forward movement and things will always pass. We wanted to start the album as we meant to go on, and this is a very defining track on the record. It’s a pretty anthemic start as well – we wanted people to get on board from the very beginning.”
“Beneath It All is about people not being adult enough to talk about their problems, and instead of actually saying they have a problem with someone or a situation, they talk behind their back or poison the situation around them. It’s about people refusing to sort out the cause of the problem and just moaning to everyone around them about it instead.”
“There are times in life when you can lose all willpower – you feel stressed and you’re not able to sleep and things like that. It’s also about that idea that as you get older you feel like you’re in danger of being left behind. Sometimes bands can get given an unfair expiry date, but you can last a lot longer than a few albums – look at Converge, for example.”
“It’s about the façade of social media and how people only show you 10 per cent of their lives, and it’s usually the positive side, whereas underneath they’re struggling. And instead of sorting out problems, they’re internalising everything and generally becoming miserable, but everyone’s ignoring the fact that that’s the case. There’s a strong anti-suicide message with the video as well. I think in British culture everyone’s very polite and goes, ‘I’m great, thanks,’ rather than burdening others with their worries. That’s unhealthy.”
“This is an instrumental. It was going to be a song but it sounded too similar to something else, so we scrapped it and took the instrumental bit we really liked and made it into an interlude. But the original lyrics were about looking at yourself in the mirror and not recognising who you see. As you get older, that happens more often, but it’s about embracing your flaws and loving yourself regardless.”
“You know those people who don’t care what you have to say and are just waiting for their turn to speak? That’s what this is about. We call them ‘punishers’ – people who are just stealing your time, cornering you in a venue or an office, and just spewing their crap at you all day. They talk with an air of authority, but actually, nobody really knows what they’re doing in life.”
“It’s about the idea of being so self-absorbed that you’re actually neglecting other people who need your help more than you might think. You can get so wrapped up in your own thoughts and things that you miss warning signs from people you love, and you start isolating yourself and not really being there when you should. It’s about that lightbulb moment when you realise that you should have been giving something your full attention.”
“It deals with those times when your bad moods don’t shift, and it becomes the new normality. You know when you have flu and you can’t remember how it feels to be well again? It’s like that, a constant feeling of having a cloud over your head. When I don’t look after myself and don’t get enough sleep and eat crap, it’s very easy to slip into that kind of very negative mindset.”
“Once again, this goes back to social media and seeing a curated snapshot of someone’s life and assuming it’s better than yours. And that can tie in to people like Chester Bennington, who seem to have everything, but really they’re struggling.”
“It’s basically saying that you’re not owed anything in life, you have to earn everything. I think some people think that if they go to uni and get a degree they’ll automatically get a 50-grand-a-year job, but they don’t realise the work doesn’t stop there. You have to keep bettering yourself. It’s the same with anything: if you want a great relationship, you have to work on it.”
“It’s about finding beauty in things that make you miserable. It was written when we had that very long winter two years ago. The nights were just so long, and I tend to feel really low when it’s dark all the time like that. It was like Scandinavia. It’s about that, but also about realising how amazing everything looks in the snow and how beautiful it can be. And whatever situation that is, you realise there are good parts to everything, and you can learn from everything that happens to you.”
Employed To Serve's new album Eternal Forward Motion is out now on Spinefarm Records.
