Welcome to In Conversation, a special interview column on the site where we sit down with artists and dive deep into everything music. This week, Harry sat down with Bryant Best of Saviour to discuss the band’s upcoming album and the Australian music scene at large. Saviour‘s new album, Shine & Fade, is due for release on Friday, October 22nd, and you can find pre-orders here.
Harry: How have you found it since you moved to Melbourne?
Bryant: Yeah man, it’s been… obviously the first couple years were real hard with the COVID thing and I sort of moved over here with not many people around me, so that was pretty tough. But pretty awesome since the turn of the new year where everything’s opened up. It’s been fun.
Harry: Was that motivated by opportunities surround the music industry or for personal reasons?
Bryant: Yeah, Perth’s a real slow old city and it kinda of felt like… I’ve sort of been wanting to do this for a few years. It kind of feels like everyone grows up too quick over there. I wanted to be around the gigs and you know, the pubs and the footie and all that sort of jazz, so that’s what I’m doing now after a couple years at least.
Harry: I’ve seen you say that there’s a ton of great bands from Perth who don’t get the same opportunities as those on the East Coast. Would you mind throwing out some names of your favourites/underrated ones?
Bryant: Obviously Make Them Suffer, us. Make Them Suffer are on a level of their own, and we sort of get around the trap a bit, but there’s sort of that next brink of bands that probably just don’t get the opportunity of breaking out of Perth, kind of like 生 Conform 死. They’re a bit of the Nu-Metal sort of vibe. Daybreak, which are a bit heavier. They go for that heavy beatdown sort of sections. Shangrila, who are doing… they used to be a hardcore band but have gone real rocky, but absolutely nailing it as well. Vacant Home, if you’ve heard of them. Melodic Hardcore. There’s a couple others that are doing pretty well. I’m about to go watch some Perth guys, Sedative, that are playing a beatdown sort of vibe. They’re some old friends, and it’s good to see them getting over East. I’m a big fan of Indigo Blaze. They’re like a heavy Beastie Boys sort of vibe and they’re killing it over there. There’s quite a few going around, and there’s been a lot over who time who have probably called it quits who wanted to come over and never got the opportunity. It’s sad to see them of fizzle out in Perth.
Harry: It does happen too often, yeah. I want to say congratulations on the new album. I know you’ve been sitting on it a while. How are you feeling about it all now it’s almost out there?
Bryant: Yeah, we’ve been sitting on it a year or so, so it’s kind of actually surreal that it’s coming out in a couple days. For us it was a bit of… It almost felt like we had to do something. We realised an album [A Lunar Rose] just before COVID and didn’t have anything else to do except get back into writing. I think it’s a real big step up. I’m pretty stoked on how big of a step up it is, considering we did it so close to the last record. Everyone’s hands are on deck this time and we sort of got it done, had a bit of a vision of what we were going for. I even think what we’re going to do afterwards is probably going to be shaped by what we did on this album. We found some new sounds that we haven’t really done before in this new stuff that we really liked and, you know, that I’m hoping people enjoy.
Harry: Absolutely. I saw that you said you initially didn’t want “Tidal Wave” on the album and it’s now your favourite. What were your reservations about it, and what changed your mind?
Bryant: Hmm, I don’t know. It was one of the early ones we wrote for the album. Probably I just didn’t appreciate what it was. I thought it was just a bit of a filler track to be honest. It might just have been one of those things where it came to life once it went through the studio. But yeah, I wasn’t really sold on the sound we were going for there, but in the end I’m thinking that might be the sort of sound that shapes the future of Saviour.
Harry: I mean, yeah, it’s one of the more progressive ones. Do you foresee yourself leaning into that technical angle more in future?
Bryant: Yeah! Our newest addition to guitar, Curtis [Tunks], he’s a real technical geek at heart, so he’s probably looking to sort of go more that way anyway, and I’m happy for him to sort of go for that direction. He’s making it sound real groovy, not just technical.
Harry: Another addition to the album was the introduction of Chris [Pearce]’s cleans. Was that an ahead of time ‘Chris should sing on this next record’ or did it come about organically during the creative process?
Bryant: We were flirting with the idea of him singing on the last record, actually. Chris has been fronting bands for a lot of years, and has his own acoustic stuff that absolutely slays. He’s a real big talent, so getting him on this album was a no-brainer. If anything it was… we were almost a bit late to the party with this. He probably should’ve been on some earlier stuff, really.
Harry: It definitely adds an extra contrasting element to it. Is there any set system for writing the clean and unclean vocals. Does one usually come first, or does it differ based on song?
Bryant: I think with the two vocalists now, I kind of make way for the choruses. It was a bit more intertwined beforehand but with those two as good as they are, and both able to harmonize with each other and whatnot, they’re making choruses sound real cool. It just depends on how the song journey goes, whether they’re injected into other parts. We kind of want to keep being a heavy band, even though we do have a lot of those clean elements. It’s definitely a real big balance for us trying to figure out where all that fits, but I think we did it pretty well on this one.
Harry: For sure. I did want one outright heavy track, which “Wishing Well” was teasing, but we didn’t quite get that. Hopefully on the next one. It does wrap the album up beautifully. How did you decide on the singles? It’s quite unusual to release both the longest song on the record and the most technical ahead of time.
Bryant: Those two songs were actually written with video clips in mind, so those ones followed a journey which suited video clips. Straight off the bat, those ones made sense to do those narrative videos for. We ended up doing a video clip for “Reshape Me” and “Modern Curse” as well, but those ones were sort of just pick one out of the hat. I’m a little bummed we didn’t do one for “Wishing Well”, actually. That one was probably one of my couple favourite tracks off the album and was a bit stiffed not to get a video itself.
Harry: The emotions are super palpable in your songs, so I get that. How cathartic is writing music for you?
Bryant: I definitely spent a lot of time on the lyricism of this one. Lockdown didn’t really do much for us besides get us in front of computers and notepads trying to figure out what it’s all about, so I had a lot of time to think through every line of what we put out on this one. I’m not too sure what it all means and what it’s all about but it definitely means something.
Harry: Definitely resonates, even if there’s no one set meaning to it. If you scroll down the comments of your social media posts, everyone’s always saying how much they cried at the song, etcetera. That must be quite rewarding. You’ve been a band for a decade now, so what, if anything, would you tell yourself when you were starting out?
Bryant: Probably just how slow the process is, hey. As quick as you want to do stuff, everything moves quickly so slowly. We thought we were going to get this album out a year ago and all of a sudden… we were almost ready for it a year ago but slowly moved forward. You’ve almost got to double the time you think it’s going to take to do things because that’s just how it ends up being in this music game.
Harry: That’s understandable. Have you already started looking forward to the next album?
Bryant: Yeah, we’re starting to put out some stuff and just figure out what the change-up is going to be. That’s the big turning point we need to hit at the moment. We don’t really want two albums to sound exactly the same as each other, as much as we want them to all be in the same ballpark. Yeah, we’ve definitely started doing that over the last few months, and probably once this album’s out and off the chest, we’ll dive a bit deeper into that.
Harry: Nice one, I look forward to it. What would you say is your proudest musical achievement as a band? Is it this record or do you have something else in mind?
Bryant: I think so. It’s pretty easy being in this band; everyone’s sort of my best mate in this band. A lot of us were really good mates before this band even happened, so just being able to do the damn thing with good mates and create some good things is a big highlight for us. Just hoping to make some more memories. I think we’ve been a bit starved of touring opportunities. Even before COVID, I feel like everything wasn’t really going our way, but it feels like we have the wind at our back at the moment and probably got a big year or two ahead.
Harry: That’s great to hear. After Let Me Leave, you guys left UNFD and released A Lunar Rose independently, yet signed to Greyscale Records for the new album. What was the thinking behind those decisions?
Bryant: The UNFD breakup was a little odd. I don’t want to dive too far into it but that one was… we were a bit sceptical of labels after that. A Lunar Rose did a lot for us even though it was pushed out a terrible time, but it sort of helped us fund everything we’re doing at the moment and coming under Greyscale wasn’t too hard. We’ve known those guys for quite a long time. They’re building and they’re people we trust, so jumping on board with them wasn’t too hard of a decision for us, as much as in the back of our mind we were definitely sceptical of the idea previously.
Harry: You threw out a number of Perth bands earlier. Were there any other artists that you would say were key influences on this album? Any that maybe people wouldn’t expect?
Bryant: Man, it would be tough to name them all. Probably over the last few years I’ve been listening to more music than I ever have. There’s been such good modern-day music, as well as diving back into some classics and why I love the stuff that I got into. Just diving back into that Nu Metal stuff. Even new age artists like Currents, Counterparts, Invent Animate, these sort of bands, as well as just the cool Australian scene over here. It’s probably something that sharpens you, having such great music around you. I think my most-listened-to album for the past twelve months has been from a band called Mirrors over here in Melbourne. There’s so many of those phenomenal artists on the underground in here in Australia.
Harry: What is the best show you’ve ever been to?
Bryant: As a punter, or as someone on stage?
Harry: Either or. Both maybe!
Bryant: Bit of both, hmmm. I don’t know, man. Weirdly, Saviour broke up a few years back, and probably the best show we played was the departing show. That was a real big one, and it’s probably what kept me itching to come back into the fold after a couple years, one hundred percent. The best as a punter would probably be Bloc Party. I watched Bloc Party over in Perth, and they blew me away. I’m a big fan of them. They’re actually releasing an album on the same day that we are, this Friday.
Harry: Big day for you.
Bryant: Yeah, that’s it. More excited about their album than I am for ours.
Harry: Do you ever listen to your own music outside of making it?
Bryant: Sometimes when I haven’t listened to it for ages. I dived into our first album a bunch of months back, hadn’t listened to that in a few years, and that hit differently. But a majority of when I’m listening to it is to practice along with it or try and remember lyrics and get my head around it. I like to think that one day when I’m old, on the rocking chair, I’ll be able to look back on it with some fresh ears and really enjoy it.
Harry: I was just going to quickly ask what album coming out is your most anticipated for the year, but is that Bloc Party?
Bryant: Potentially, yeah. So far! I’m not too sure what is on the release radar at the moment but, man, I’m looking forward to Void of Vision’s release this Friday as well. I’ve loved the last few singles they’ve put out. They’ve really come into their own, that band, so mad excited to give that a spin.
Many thanks to Bryant Best for sitting down for a chat with us, and make sure to check out our full review of Shine & Fade! For all things Saviour and the Australian core scene, keep it locked on Boolin Tunes.