Patience is a virtue, and it pays off in abundance when you learn that.
For I See Stars, it’s been a decade of chipping away to reach the place they are right now. Though it hasn’t been easy – chronic illness, global pandemic, shifting targets and everything in between – but in continuing to do what they do best, they have come out the other side with some of their finest work.
That’s found on ‘The Wheel’, a densely-layered, beautifully stark, thoroughly modern take on post-hardcore experimentation. As rich as it is raw, daring as it is dark, it’s the sort of body of work that’s worth the wait, and an absolute perfect jumping-off point for the band being right back up to speed.
To find out more about how we made it here, Rock Sound caught up with vocalist Devin Oliver and keyboardist/programmer Andrew Oliver.
Rock Sound: How are you feeling to finally be at this point, a moment that at the back of your minds you thought you might never truly reach?
Andrew: It’s a really wide range of emotions that we’re feeling because of all the time and all the effort. We’re a recording band. We love the studio, and each of us is always producing and creating music. This project has been hanging on the edge for a long time, though, and when it’s been this long, you can fluctuate between doing it and feeling, ‘Will we ever finish this?’ Like, is it a forever project? However, reaching the finish line has been utterly surreal. Now it belongs to the people. Anybody who cares about it, that’s who owns it now.
Devin: It has been a journey, and it’s almost hard to put into words all of what we have been through. When [2016 album] ‘Treehouse’ came out, I was 24, and I’m 33 now. The amount of gravity that this record holds in terms of knowledge of years of our lives fully surpasses any other record that we have made. It lives in its own world in that way, and the closest things to it is probably our first record ‘3D’. We never intended for it to take as long as it did. We went through a lot of things that created obstacles and opportunities, but we never left the studio. It’s been a never-ending quest, and it felt like our secret for so long. We’ve been swimming in the discovery and rediscovery of these songs, and it just feels like it’s for the world to appreciate now.
RS: When so much life has been lived, you start to wonder just how much of it you want to then put into your art. It’s less about being brave and more about being comfortable with everyone knowing everything you have gone through, which defines I See Stars at the same time. What was that process like?
Devin: You do forget that people are going to hear what you’re working on every time. That is scary, but it is part of the reason that you’re making it. We’ve been through so much, though. Personally, I dealt with a harsh, chronic neurological disorder that put me in the hospital, which I talk about a lot on the record. It was a significant factor in what derailed our band, to some extent. It was called intracranial hypertension, which is when you have fluid buildup in your brain. I was in and out of the hospital for nearly two years. It gave me the worst headache you can ever imagine having, and I had it all day, every day. I’m such a positive person, and I really feel like I have a lot of will to live, but I didn’t at this time; I felt like I was being beaten down to the ground. I remember being on the Dance Gavin Dance tour, where I would perform, get off stage, go to my bunk, and that was it. There were plenty of nights when I tried to force myself to go out and live a normal life, but it was really hard. I have never been humbled by my body and by life in such a way. I couldn’t help but talk about it on this record. There’s a song called ‘Lost It’ where I talk about how close to crazy I was getting, and another called ‘Float’ which makes me cry every time I listen to it because I feel so close to the experience. I cry every time I listen to the album because it takes me back to those moments, even if they were six or seven years ago at this point. It does already feel nostalgic because of that. However, the hard moments are what we learn to appreciate because something beautiful can come out of them, whether it’s a song or just a deeper appreciation. I feel that the situation changed me, and I have become a different person as a result.
Andrew: I feel like chronic pain is one of those things where you don’t appreciate not having it when you can. You have a toothache, and you don’t appreciate the time when you didn’t have that toothache. From my perspective, it felt like I was watching my brother descend into a really dark period of his life. It felt like, because he was going through this pain, it was so easy as a result to feel like life was over. And it went on for so long that the friends he had around him thought that, for a second, they weren’t going to get their friend back in the way he once was. We felt that my brother would be dealing with this for a lifetime. We were living together at the time, and it was a real revolving nightmare. When he emerged from it, it felt like a total reset on his life. And what’s beautiful about this record is that it encapsulates the full experience of this time period we all went through. Being a band that grew up on the road, ‘3D’ was a record that came out so naturally, like it was bleeding out on the page. Something about this long bout of time to sink our teeth into, it felt like we were bleeding on the page in the same way. It felt deeper, like ripping a page out of your diary.
RS: When you’re going through so much, when you take that step back into the album, you are always going to push and play around more. Because the reality is that you don’t know if it’s going to be the last time, in all honesty. When you’ve seen what oblivion looks like, you grab hold of life differently. And the freedom that comes with that sort of mindset is something else entirely, but also means that you are going to take as much time as it needs.
Devin: Part of being an artist, as long as we have, you can revisit records and think about how you would have done things in different ways. I believe that there is a difference between being an artist and being crazy. You have to figure out where the middle ground lies. However, to be an artist, you also have to be a little bit crazy. The line in the sand is hard to find sometimes. But with this record, there is nothing I would change about it, and that means that the time spent on it has been appropriate. Some bands want to release albums and songs as frequently as possible, and I appreciate the goal behind that. It’s hard to hold on to music, and there’s a lot of pain in hanging on. But I do think that with the way our band operates, it’s so important that the music is exactly how we want it to be. ‘Anomaly’ was done a long time ago, which is why it came out a long time ago, because nobody had a second thought about whether it was finished or not. Some songs work with and some where they don’t. We always put the art first; it is always the top priority for us. That may cut our legs off sometimes, but we are still able to do something that makes us proud.
Andrew: Uncertainty is a common theme, though. We experienced one of the biggest worldwide pandemics in our lifetime. We experienced all of this personal stuff. We experienced the world descending into full-blown chaos. It’s not just the uncertainty about our legacy and leaving the mark we hope to leave. It’s about wondering if I would ever get to dance with my friends again. It’s about whether we would ever play a show again. There’s something about that feeling that as soon as those things are possible again. And it’s not like the world wasn’t coming to an end anymore, because the struggles do continue. However, it still creates a sense of urgency in everything I do. I love life, music, and my band, and there’s a tragic feeling that there’s so much we still want to do, but everything is so unpredictable. But a big theme within ‘The Wheel’ is the fact that there is nothing that can stop the world from turning. We all play a part in being a cog within that. It’s beautiful and tragic whenever I think about it. But there is also a playful edge to it that we used whilst making the record. We were spinning this online wheel to help us decide which song we would work on. It was entirely up to chance, which meant we never had to overthink. It turned out to be an ideology for us within the creative sphere.
RS: It almost becomes more real. When you have something there that holds you to account, it’s hard to escape from it. Within the unpredictability of everything, this is something you actually have control of.
Devin: All of it was in pursuit of keeping the studio fun, too. When you’re working on a record, there are always going to be other people who are more passionate about different songs than you. But they all have to have a chance. It was a great way to go through the process because it meant that songs I didn’t believe in, or Andrew didn’t believe in, came up, and then you start breaking new ground on it. Like, thank God the wheel landed on this track today. It served as a reminder to me that every song deserves a chance. No one knows which song will be the one that connects the most. There’s no formula or big red button. The reality is that it must come from a special place, and the art of making music originates from somewhere higher and more transcendent. To trust the people you work with, even if you don’t see an idea the same way others do, and to see it through is crucial.
RS: Having people who believe in you is also vital, and Palaye Royale has been that for you throughout this process. What does it mean to have Remington, Sebastian and Emerson batting for you in the way that they do?
Devin: It’s the oldest saying in the book; you see the same people on the way up as you do on the way down. Palaye, and Bad Omens too, are those sorts of bands for us. We brought Palaye out on their very first tour and became really close with them. We have a lot of things in common. They are brothers, and this is very much a family affair. We bonded over that. And the Bad Omens guys, we have known them for a long time at this point, and our first tour back was with them. We try and be kind to everyone, and, as artists, understand just how difficult this is. We have always believed in making it less complicated for other artists. In some areas of this business, it can feel more like high school. However, we feel really lucky that we have bands who, when they saw that we had come back, were instantly reaching out to us. I’m sure every rock band and their brother wanted that Bad Omens tour, so it felt like an honour as well as a testament to being kind. The same with Palaye taking us to Europe, and they played Wembley on that run. What a crazy thing for us. Respect comes back around.
RS: It’s a reminder of how important it is to keep on going. It would have been easy just to let this go and let it fade away as a great memory when things were looking tough, but in persevering, you have come out the other side so much stronger.
Andrew: Nobody is going to tell you not to fade away, either. A lot of my favourite bands did. Growing up in the rock music scene, one of the most painful parts of it was the lack of community. The lack of culture. The lack of lineage. In Detroit, music scenes like techno and house collect and validate each other. There was something about this scene that felt so dog-eat-dog. It was nice to be able to come back and experience acts of community and respect for lineage. We were just a bunch of kids who were tinkering around with toys and bringing it to post-hardcore, and then innovated it a bit. Some people are aware of this and respect it. Sometimes we feel like we were ahead of our time, and now we feel like we may have arrived right on time. This is our moment to take this thing that we did a lot of pioneering with and now be able to take some of our flowers. It’s a beautiful feeling to be able to cross the finish line on this ten-year project and have a community ready to welcome it. It makes it more exciting to continue pushing from here.
‘The Wheel’ is out now via Sumerian Records.
