In the studio with Stand Atlantic: “This time, we ripped the Band-Aid off!”

WAS HERE is almost, uh, here. Waaaaay ahead of its release, though, we joined Stand Atlantic in the studio to find out how they were getting on with album number four, and why it’s arguably their most confident and out-there record yet.

“It is definitely the most diverse and bold in terms of the directions we’ve taken. In the past, we would take these bold steps into other genres but then we’d get scared and dial it back to what people are used to hearing from us. But this time, I think we really leaned into what the song wanted to be. Obviously, we always [make it sound like] ourselves in some way – that’s just naturally what happens – but this time, we ripped the Band-Aid off, and we were like, ‘No, this song is industrial and we’re gonna keep it this way.’”

“I’m at the point where I’m like, ‘Fuck the system.’ The past few years I’ve really gone through a lot personally, and this album has helped me deal with that. I had definitely numbed myself for a long time. This was me coming to terms with that, but I’m also so sick of people not taking accountability for their shit. I’m just trying to be a good person and do the right thing, and it really pisses me off when other people don’t do the same.”

“17 is a song I don’t think people will be expecting from us. That’s a very, very personal song about something I never thought I would ever write about. I actually didn’t want it to be on the album, but everyone told me that it needed to go on there. I didn’t want it on the album because I didn’t want to talk about it. Some of the subjects that we’ve touched on making this record, I think, are very exposing and scary and vulnerable as hell. I feel naked!”

“We knew that we would love to have features, but we definitely did not want to settle for any features just for the sake of having them on the track. We’re friends with PVRIS, the song [GIRL$] was perfect, and we just really, really wanted them on the track. And then Bruses, obviously, came alongside with that, as well. Polaris are also on the album – we’ve been friends with them for a long time, and so that happened organically. And we’ve been big fans of Sueco for a while, too. Somehow the stars aligned for us, and I couldn’t be more stoked and grateful that these talented people have given up their time to be on a song of ours.”

“Having more time – crazy thought – gives you more ideas. [Every so often] we were like, ‘We’ve got some free time, let’s go somewhere, let’s do a bunch of writing.’ I think it worked in our favour, because then we could look back on the songs we’d written a year ago and be like, ‘Alright, how do we update this and make it better?’ We’d written all these other songs now and we’d even grown as songwriters since then.”

Stand Atlantic’s album WAS HERE is released on August 30. The band tour the UK from September 13. This article originally appeared in the summer print issue of the magazine.

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