Mason Hill: The Story Behind Against The Wall | Louder
Video Exclusive: The Scottish hot-tips reveal the rocky road to Against The Wall – and the rewards of making music their way
Transcript
00:00I mean, do you think rock and roll can still surprise people?
00:17Do you think it's still got juice left in the tank?
00:20Rock and roll will always be there.
00:22It's like it's always sort of been the villain, but everyone wants the villain.
00:26It's like Batman, you know, he's in the shadows, but everyone wants him to be there.
00:30It's like the hero of music rock, almost.
00:38Yeah, it's the underdog, isn't it?
00:40It's always, it's just waiting in the wings for the next big artist.
00:44Rock ain't dead.
00:45Rock's got some fighting to do.
00:57What did you want this album to be?
00:59Did you have a vision of how you wanted it to turn out?
01:03We didn't want it just to be the straight rock, rock, rock, rock, rock.
01:06You know, we just wanted to try and add different things to the songs.
01:09At the start, we overcame a lot.
01:11And this album sort of like is an impression of what our life has been like
01:16over the last sort of five years.
01:18So there's been bad times, but there's been really good times.
01:21And the message of like being against the wall, but breaking free from that wall
01:25and, you know, being who you think that you're meant to be.
01:29That came about quite naturally.
01:39Another song that has been really standing out for people is DNA.
01:43I mean, what's that one written about?
01:45The music that James and the band had provided was so intensely addicting
01:50that I had to sort of kind of try and find this metaphor for it.
01:53And what I came to was DNA.
01:55And that was in my core.
01:58And it's in the core of this album.
02:00It's in the core of everything that we do.
02:02We're addicted to this.
02:03We, I don't know if we can do much else.
02:06So we got to do this.
02:07And it's just an overall kind of this is what we love.
02:11This is it. Please join us.
02:26Who would you say are the kind of cornerstones of your sound?
02:30Who are the guys who you're really channeling?
02:32The core people that usually is who we grew up with, you know,
02:35like Alter Bridge, Shinedown, Blackstone Cherry,
02:39like Slipknot, Stone Sour.
02:41To a degree, we wear our influences on our sleeve, you know.
02:45For me, rhythmically, when I'm trying to bring something in,
02:48I'm coming from different angles as well.
02:50I used to listen to a lot of hip hop and sort of funk music.
02:54So, yeah, there's so many different things coming in,
02:56but at its core, it's modern melodic rock, you know.
03:00We don't particularly want to just, you know, copy it.
03:03And almost like we've stolen someone's homework kind of thing,
03:07you know, we want to make sure that we're just,
03:09it's just seen as an influence.
03:21We have some catching up to do.
03:22So our plan is to get three years of touring in one year, basically.
03:26And we're going to try and hit the roads,
03:29try and get as many kind of missed opportunities as we can.
03:33You know, the world has to pause right now to keep as many people safe.
03:37But the moment the government and everyone lets us go,
03:40we're going to do what the Beatles done back in the day.
03:43They just played like 200 shows a year.
03:47It's going to make up for lost time, get out there, have some fun,
03:51because it's been a tough time on everyone,
03:54including ourselves, including all of the watchers.
03:56And we just want to give some joy.
03:58We have joy to give. We just want to give it.