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, Max and Joe spoke with Harvey Freeman of Graphic Nature to discuss their new record, A Mind Waiting To Die, their upcoming tour and Fightstar.
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Max: A Mind Waiting To Die is finally out, how does that feel?
Harvey: Really relieving? It was meant to be released in September,it’s been a few more months to wait, but it’s paid off. It’s fucking sold out as well, which I thought was stupid.
Max: That means people give a shit though. It helps that the vinyl looks really sick as well, I feel like that was a big drawing point. Is there any reason you thought it wasn’t going to sell out?
Harvey: I’m very much in the mindset of just never expecting anything because then you’ll never be disappointed. Whenever we talk, for instance, when we played The Black Heart, our manager was like, ‘Yeah, it’s like five tickets from selling out.‘ And I was like, ‘Okay, well, we’ll see how it is‘. It’s unlikely because those 100 people might not even turn up. There might not be anyone there. I always expect there to be three people. So if there’s way more, then it’s a good surprise. I’ll take anyone who wants to come. I’d rather prepare myself for the worst and just have a good time playing to five people than cry about playing to only a hundred people.
Max: What’s the reaction been like to the album from what you’ve heard?
Harvey: It’s been good, pretty much steady eights across the board, which I’m happy about. I had a good chat with my manager at work, not the band manager, and he said that’s probably the best score you could get for your first record. If you get 10s on your first record, then how are you going to top a 10 for your second one? And most of the time, you put out something like The Here and Now and then everyone’s going to shit on it, and then you have to do another album. I’m happy with it, that’s what I mean. I didn’t hate The Here and Now, but I remember the reaction being fucking outrageous. Like, ‘This isn’t Architects. What the fuck?’.
Max: Are there any specific tracks from the record that seem to stand out to you for reactions from people?
Harvey: “Sour“, that’s my least favourite song. I felt like I could have put something before I started shouting in the song. It’s a self-critical thing, I could have added more, maybe I recorded it on a day where I wasn’t feeling great in general, so I just wasn’t very connected to it. I love the end of it, the end of it’s fucking stupid.
We had “Sour” for ages, but I’ve completely disconnected from it because I really like “Into the Dark” and “Bad Blood“, but they’re not fan favourites. I think the artwork for “Into the Dark” looks pretty good, but “Bad Blood” hasn’t resonated with a lot of people, even though I really like it.
Max: Are there any deep cuts on the record you’re looking forward to playing live?
Harvey: For the setlist we have for the tour, I think we’ve only really played “Bad Blood“, “Into the Dark“, and “White Noise” off of A Mind Waiting To Die. It’s gonna be the first time playing “Killing Floor” for us, and we’re adding “Sour” and “Sleepless” into the set for this run. And then I think for Download, we’ll probably change it up and add just all ragers and maybe “Twisted Fear” depending on how the tour’s done and just see what we can make for that.
Max: I was going to say, in terms of “Killing Floor” and its success compared to the other singles, did you expect that to happen or is it just random?
Harvey: Honestly, I didn’t know what was going to happen because I didn’t even like “Killing Floor” that much until this record. I was so adamant about being like, “Dude, I don’t know if this whole didgeridoo-type sample thing is going to work. Like, what the fuck? I don’t know how it’s going to go down.” We put it out and it just went mad, I think it’s because it has the same name as the video game. It’s hit over 100k on Spotify now, which is pretty big. “White Noise” isn’t far off, and “In the Dark” too. The stuff we’re pushing for this is doing pretty great numbers-wise, which obviously isn’t everything, but it must still be like, ‘Oh, sick. This at least is resonating with people‘.
Max: You’ve got your headliner tour coming up, there’s a few big cities skipped though, such as Birmingham?
Harvey: We’re not doing Birmingham, I don’t know why, I’m putting it down to the fact that there were no venues available. We always play it every tour that we do, whether it’s a good show or not.
Max: Do you have any plans beyond that to do some headliner shows or supporting slots?
Harvey: Obviously, we want to do support slots, but nothing has come about yet. We’ve had chats about doing a headline show in London or something where we play A Mind Waiting to Die front to back with some EP shit. Ideally, I’d like to do it at a venue that isn’t The Black Heart, but I don’t feel like we’re big enough to then sell Underworld. We could do Camden Assembly, but it’s all fancy now because it used to be cool and not so fancy.
Max: Is there any connection between the EP and the album? Like thematically, or how you wrote it, or anything like that?
Harvey: Thematically, yes, it’s always going to be about mental health, so that resonates throughout each EP and album or whatever we intend to do in the future. I’m pretty sure we wrote New Skin and the album around the same time. New Skin was meant to be the taster and A Mind Waiting Waiting To Die, was meant to be the full release.
Max: That was always the plan?
Harvey: We were going to do two releases in one year and just have the EP at the start and then the album at the bottom. We had to push it back purely because Slipknot was releasing a record in September. I didn’t see that that would affect us. We definitely wanted to put vinyl out on the release day too., and it shows because it worked.
Max: It did work, I think it was a good idea because it also got you more time to roll singles out and promote the record more and get it more into the cultural consciousness.
Harvey: I would have liked to have put one less single out. I was never on board with putting any more songs out after ”Killing Floor”, but it was basically like we should do it just to see how things go. And the label was very much on board with trying new shit and just trying to see if things work.
We had about a week to do the video for “Headstone”. It was about six hours throughout the day. I just would have liked to have been maybe four singles or three singles but because we’ve done the double single at the start, we then kind of shoot ourselves in the foot by releasing another song that is at the end of like an eight-minute video. You know, people don’t really want to watch an eight-minute video from a band that they don’t even know unless you’re a fan of the band.
Max: What’s next for Graphic Nature in terms of new material? Do you think that’s something that’s even on your mind right now, or is it like, ‘in a year’s time, I’ll think about it’?”
Harvey: Pete and I spoke about it today and I misread what he said, I was like, ‘Dude, we don’t have to worry about writing yet or whatever.’ And he was like, ‘I wasn’t even thinking about that.’ I guess we can have a bit of time off until we start writing again but he’s one of those people that can’t sit still, so if he’s got an idea, he’ll write it down. We’ve got, like, almost half a song or a full guitar song for an idea. That’s as far as we’ve gone so far. It wouldn’t surprise me if we start writing in the next couple of months. Who knows?
Max: If it happens, it happens?
Harvey: Yeah, we don’t plan it. We just wait until we get enough songs that we like, there are tonnes of Graphic Nature songs that have never seen the light of day just because we didn’t like them enough to put them out on a record. To be honest, man, when Architects went through that phase of releasing an album a year, I don’t know if that’ll be us. But going by the way Pete writes, there could be another one recorded next year, for all we know.
Max: If you have the momentum to do it, just do it. There is no time like the present currently in music.
Harvey: I think the good thing is that when you’re a band of our size, no one’s really expecting that of you. They’re not expecting you to be like, ‘Alright, cool. Now you’ve got to work on album two‘. So we can take as much time as we want, obviously not like five years and then come back to the scene and be like, ‘Hey, guys, remember us?‘ I would say maybe 2025. There’ll be a release, but I can’t tell the future.
Max: What are the main influences for A Mind Waiting To Die?
Harvey: Obviously, one of the main influences for myself and, I think, for the rest of the boys, is the 90s nu-metal scene. So we take a lot of influence from bands like Slipknot and Korn from their earlier records. We also take inspiration from Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, and anything like that, especially vocally from bands like El Nino and POD. Anyone from that kind of era fascinates me. But I also draw influence from movie soundtracks and video game soundtracks – anything that can create a kind of atmosphere that you can listen to and get goosebumps from.
Max: Yeah, that’s if you’re in the right mindset for it.
Harvey: That’s the kind of thing that I listen to. For instance, when we wrote the album, we listened a lot to this guy who did the soundtrack for one of those David Firth videos. I can’t remember his name for the life of me, but he released an album in 2017 with really eerie, creepy music. Listening to that just put me in the right mindset that I needed to be in.
I enjoy being able to listen to something and get a sense of what the person is going through or what scene is being set by the music. I can’t speak for the rest of the boys, but I know Pete is very much into drum and bass and garage, you can hear those influences on this record. Matt is very much into nu-metal and loves drill music. Jack listens to everything except rap and country, but he probably does listen to a bit of country. Charlie likes a lot of synth-wave, which is interesting because I don’t know how it has influenced his bass playing.
Max: Do you ever see yourself doing clean vocals?
Harvey: Nah, I don’t think it would suit us. If we had a song that would benefit from clean vocals, then absolutely. I’m all for it. We almost got to that point with “Downpour,” where Sam had me singing the chorus. I listened back and thought, “This just isn’t us.” Sam said, “Fair enough. We’ll try something else.” We ended up doing three or four layers of vocals with screaming, talking, and whispering.
Max: It’s all about texturing, right?
Harvey: Yeah, it’s just about adding different elements to the song but I’m scared of singing. I don’t know if it’s needed for us, except for maybe one song, the one we get Charlie Simpson to eventually feature on.
Max: Yes, absolutely. And while you’re at it, convince him to put out a new Fightstar album. The last one was too good for them to stop.
Harvey: The thing is, I watched an interview with them, and they said they were going to release the album and play a few small shows to get the feeling back. Then they were going to go back to doing their own stuff. I was like, ““God”, “Animal “,”Dive“, and “Titan” on that record are so good“, but they played only five shows and called it a day.
Max: It’s a shame they missed an opportunity. I understand that Busted and Charlie’s solo stuff are huge, but that project was so cool. That last record is something special.
Harvey: I’ve wanted Charlie Simpson on a record for so long but now he’s been on that Masked Singer TV show, and if I ever email him and ask him to be on my band’s track, he will probably charge 10 grand or more.
Graphic Nature‘s brand new album A Mind Waiting To Die is out now via Rude Records, and you can find orders for the record here.