On November 05, 2025, everything changed for I Promised The World.
Alongside the announcement that they had signed to Rise Records, they also shared their new track ‘Bliss in 7 Languages’, a pummelling, passionate piece of throwback emo-metalcore majesty. Little did they know that they were tapping into a sound and a sentiment that many had been searching for in modern music. It’s also best watched in 240p quality, for the full effect.
For a band still so early in their journey, formed in 2020 as an emotive reaction to familial grief and then only releasing their first recorded material in 2023, to make such a substantial dent in several different scenes is nothing short of incredible.
And with their self-titled EP, they have demonstrated how much further they want to go. It is a prime example of what it means to wear your influences with pride but also let your own soul shine through in just as vivid colours. Nostalgic yet fiercely fresh, beautifully constructed yet sensationally brash, emotionally dense yet crushingly direct. It is the sort of release that goes on to define an era, a collection of songs that turn out to be the trigger for a whole new wave of inspiration. For a band so young to be at the centre of that, and to be doing so with such composure and confidence, is very much the cherry on top.
To find out more about the route that has led them here and how it feels to be at the centre of so much attention, Rock Sound sat down with vocalist Hunter Wilson and guitarist Caleb Molina in the middle of their first headline tour.
Rock Sound: How has it felt for you watching everything unfold around you these last few months?
Hunter: It’s been very surreal. When we first started as a band, I felt like the most we could do was reach 30k monthly listeners and play 50-cap rooms in super big cities. Not really do too much, you know? I feel like our sound initially allowed for that excuse, if you want to put it that way. But I’m very grateful to have seen that there are people who can resonate so well with our lyrics. This is a release for all the bullshit we feel, and it means so much that people give a shit about it. That means we can do it even more.
RS: When you think back to the very beginning of the band, or even before that, when you were all falling in love with bands, what was it about this particular style of heavy music that resonated with you that you know this is what you wanted to be defined by?
Hunter: I think that part of it is the fact that, even within it, there is still an eclectic blend of music being brought in from everybody. We like the hardcore bands that deal out heavy shit and mosh calls and make you want to fuck somebody up, but equally, I’ve got shit I’m sad about, which I wanted to get across. I know for Caleb and me, we grew up on stuff that sounded like that. Saosin, where we got our name from, are a good example of that. For me, it was my older sisters; for him, it was his uncle. All of the pop-punk and metalcore bands they showed us. Sleeping With Sirens, who we now share a label with and that feels really surreal and cool, is another example.
Then, where we get a lot more of our metal influences is from our guitarist, Mason [Nowlin], who grew up on more traditional bands. A lot of southern metal, which you can hear in his playing. He soundchecks with Lamb Of God a lot of the time. For our drummer [Mason Zschau], he’s much more of a jazz drummer, in a way. He was in jazz band growing up, but he is also really into American Football. He takes his instrument very seriously, and you can tell how much he cares about how he plays and how everything sounds altogether.
Everything that we do feels very intentional because of that.
RS: It’s a case of paying tribute to those who have made you who you are, while still making it all your own. It’s about scratching the itch but also making sure that it feels like nobody else is doing what you’re doing.
Hunter: I’ve never really thought of it from that perspective, of nobody else doing what we are doing. Being everything has come from, “This band has a part like this, and I want a part like this because it’s very cool’.
Caleb: I don’t think I realised how different the stuff we were making was until recently, really. I can’t pinpoint a moment, but it’s just been through new friends we have made, the interactions we’ve had talking about music. The Rosasharin kids that we have been touring with told me about how hearing our songs had such an effect on them, and it really opened my eyes. The thing about this band is that it just became everything I liked about music. From the classic emo stuff to the heaviness, it just happened.
RS: This is also a band born in a place where emotion is so necessary to express. But when it comes to coping with grief, it takes a lot to talk about what you are going through, let alone write music about it.
Hunter: For me, as it has gone, it gives me a sense of gratitude to see other people inspired to do the same thing and share things in the same way. Within the band, when it came to our first project, it was just me and Caleb writing. This release has been much more of a group writing process. It gives me a sense of admiration to see how it has affected my friends, what they are capable of doing, how they are choosing to express it, and how differently.
I’m also very grateful that we can inspire other people to speak about it so candidly. A big part of the reason that we became a band was that I didn’t know of another way to put what I was feeling into a song. We were 17 and 18 at the time of first writing songs, and I didn’t just want to go and talk to somebody about it. I was getting stoned a lot and just sitting in my bedroom alone, so putting those things in a song felt like the best thing to do. Then, if somebody did want to listen to it, then they could, aside from the fact that I might have been saying something.
RS: To do it at such a young age as well, it’s something that you don’t expect to ever have to express, but once you have done it, you can’t believe what you’re capable of. And now, being in a position where you aren’t just in your bedroom but actually out on the road, seeing what it means to people, it makes pushing that bit harder all the more worth it.
Hunter: It’s a responsibility that you’re not expecting, though. Because I would never, in a million years, would I have ever thought that somebody would say to us, ‘Your music got us through hard times’. That’s crazy to me that anybody would actually listen to it in that way. We’re starting to get a lot more of those comments, and a lot more people are coming up to us to tell us, too. But we are very grateful for it. I would never have thought that the music we could make as a band would affect such a group of people, or even help them through those hard times.
RS: What was it like to realise just how many eyes were suddenly on you following the signing to Rise Records and the release of ‘Bliss In 7 Languages’? It’s a song which very much stretched outside of whatever remit you were expecting, but what was it like to see it happening in real time?
Caleb: I don’t think we anticipated it to be that crazy. Even when we were filming the music video, we knew that it was fun and it felt cool, but we didn’t think it would get anywhere near as many views as it did. I thought it would peak at maybe five or ten thousand. Then, at the end of the first day, it was hitting 80-100k views. Now it is somewhere around 200k views. Even having people coming up to us and saying, ‘Every time I open Instagram, it’s you guys’. It’s just funny to me. I knew there was a demand for the music we were making, but I didn’t realise it was that high.
Hunter: Yeah, I thought it was a lot more niche.
Caleb: I also thought that the older crowd wouldn’t care too much either. Just saying, “Oh, I lived through this, so why would I fuck with this’. But I guess we just played all the right cards, and everything within that has worked out.
RS: So, what is most exciting to you about the next 12 months from here on out? What are you hoping that 2026 might be now, after being able to kick it off in a way you didn’t imagine?
Caleb: To me, it’s all about recording our next album. That’s the thing I’m looking forward to the most. I’m just excited to get back in the studio. We recorded these songs back in April last year, and when you listen to your own songs too much, you do start to get tired of them pretty easily. It’s been quite a long time. I just wanted to get back in there and make something that’s even better. That’s the fun thing about making this music. I feel like every time we try to do something different with each release, go in a different direction. So I’m excited to get the chance to do something that we haven’t done before.
RS: And what is the biggest lesson the journey up until now has taught you that you know is going to play a part in everything that you do from now on?
Caleb: I think it’s just not rushing things.
Hunter: Yeah, making the writing process a lot more thoughtful.
Caleb: Being more prepared when we get to the studio is a big one. We had most of these songs ready when we got there, but ‘Emerald Waltz’ we wrote in the studio as we were going. A lot of stuff we figured out as we were going. Before, we would practice the songs live and film them on our phone, or even just voice memo them. That would be our demo. But for what we are doing next, we are actually tracking it out. We’re going to do all of the drum parts and all of the guitars for every song, and that’s something new. Being able to go in with an actual outline of what we want this to be.
