1. What inspired the album title? Is it a concept album?
Laurence/Vocals: It’s both a concept album, and an album about the struggle to find a place in society, and more personal things like love, loss, and addiction.
The album title comes from the song Fetish For The Finite. “Like militia of the lost, we war.” It kind of works on two levels, if you’re looking at the story, it’s about five men who have little left in life, (who’re wanted for crimes they either haven’t committed or were forced into), trying to make a change in a world that seems bereft of empathy. A world where the ideas of love and creativity are shunned, even laughed at; in this place – Grandomina – it is addiction and lust that reigns. Naturally in a city such as this, these five men are lost, almost ghosts in the sprawling smut stained metropolis. They are lost hearts if you will. For them the only course of action is to fight back, become defenders of all things real and human and take the fight to those rulers seeking to quash the aspirations of their people. These five young men and those that follow them become the Militia of the Lost or, Fearless Vampire Killers.
Concept aside, we’re still really talking about the same things, in this modern society where so many of us have everything; games consoles, prescription drugs that help us get up to go to school, mobile phones and social networks to make us a million new friends we’ve never met; why do we still feel lost? Why do we wake up some days and wish we hadn’t woken at all? We get to school in the morning and our teacher points at a computer screen and makes us key in sums and fractions we’ll never have to use. We turn up for work and watch the clock mark the minutes as the office drone lolls us into a grey and dreamlike state. Doctors give us these little yellow pills to stop us asking them what’s wrong and after all this, we’re told that everything’s fine, that we’re just growing up, or that we’re just having a blip, or that if we go and buy a sports car we’ll feel much better.
Inspiration and creativity, that’s what makes life magical, and sometimes disappearing into a world of your own creation is the closest thing we have to reality left. Militia Of The Lost is about overcoming your failings, finding your courage and saying no, I’m not a number, I’m free and can prove it.
2. Where are you in the recording process of the new album?
Drew/Bass: We've actually finished recording the album now - it was all actually done very quickly at the end of last year. Probably about a month or two beforehand we said "y'know what, it's probably about time we did an album, right?" and then we had a solid month just bashing out these 12 songs, then it was mixed and then bobs your uncle, it was ready. It was all a bit of a whirlwind really! We've just got a lot of other stuff to sort out (namely music videos, artwork etc.) hence the long wait.
3. Who is producing the album? How has the producer aided the recording process?
Drew/Bass: we recorded 'Militia of the Lost' at Outhouse Studios in Reading with John Mitchell, Ben Humphreys and James Billinge. It was really great to be able to go back there and record a full album - as previously we'd just had our second EP mixed there - because those guys know their shit! Outhouse's whole recording philosophy and work ethic really suited our own natural style of working. They just know how to get the best takes out of people and still keep it real - that was the most important thing, we didn't want to sound like auto-tuned robots from the 64th and a half dimension... but we didn't want to sound rubbish either! They also really helped us hone the songs, some songs that we'd been playing for a couple of years, and when something wasn't working they'd throw in an idea and it would suddenly click into place and would be very supportive if any of us had some off the cuff ideas that we wanted to try. It was a super experience and by the far the best we’ve ever sounded so we were absolutely chuffed.
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Drew/Bass: Outhouse studios, as I mentioned just before - jumped the gun on that one a bit!
5. Do you plan to self-release the album or have you gotten signed with a label?
Laurence/Vocals: It’s kind of half and half. Because we got life crippling loans to finance the album, we’ve done this distribution deal with a company called PIAS where we get to release it on our own label GOREMOUNT. Then PIAS pays for the costs to make the CDS and put them into shops like HMV and suchlike. We’re really happy with the whole situation as it means we still own everything and then only take a cut from what they make. It means we might one day be able to live off the loans!
6. How would you describe the overall sound of the new album?
Laurence/Vocals: It’s hard to describe an overall sound, because every song is intentionally different. We didn’t want people to listen to this album and be like; “this is great, oh this songs similar but it’s still good,” and then, “ok change something!” So many bands seem content with writing one good song and then repeating it over and over with slightly different chord patterns. We don’t want to do that! It’s boring, and we’re ready to get stern words from reviews about attempting to fit in too many genres, because to be honest, that’s what we do. It’s not metalcore, hardcore or crunkcore, we’re musiccore, so yeah.
7. How does it compare to your previous releases?
Laurence/Vocals: It’s a lot more aggressive but also more melodic. It’s kind of like a rock musical without all those bits where they’re trying to fit way too many words in over a pretty dull melody. People have said in the past that our E.Ps made them feel as if they were on a journey. We really wanted to expand on that, so we begin the album with this thrashy punk song about fear of death and we end it with a sadistic love song.
It’s also been recorded more professionally, even down to simple time issues. Before we’d sing a part, and kier and I would get like, 4, 5 times to sing it before timescales meant we had to get on with it. This time we had time to make sure everything was in tune! I actually can’t believe how happy I am with the record, I’ve never been completely happy with anything we’ve done before. I see Militia of the Lost as like the front cover of a much, much bigger book, it gives a taste of what’s to come.
8. Did the band have any definitive goals they were shooting for before the recording process began for this album?
Drew/Bass: We didn't want to pull any punches with this record, on our EPs we'd been constrained by limited time/money/knowledge of what the heck we were doing, so we never felt we achieved what we wanted to, plus we were still trying to find out who we were as a band - if I listen back to anything on our first EP (except for Palace in Flames) I barely recognize it as us! Musically, we definitely wanted to make sure that everything that made us stick out was present and correct, refined and turned up to 11! I love that the album goes from a ludicrous Nightmare-Before-Christmas-meets-Every-Time-I-Die distortogasm (Necromania) to a stripped back, Elton John-esque ballad (Mascara Tears) - that shouldn't make sense at all but it does, at least to us anyway! It really feels like a journey, like all the songs belong together, and that was something that was very important. With the concept, the music, the artwork and lyrics we wanted it to feel like an ALBUM not just a collection of random tunes slung together because those are the kind of records that always excited us most.
9. Are you using any new instrumentation you've never used in the recording process before?
Drew/Bass: Not really, we've never had a song that's piano led with no guitars or drums so that was something new for us, so was very scary and exciting to put together. But we've had keyboards, weird percussions and a whole heap of stuff on previous recordings - if anything this album is more stripped back! We wanted the album to capture what the band is really like, just five dudes trying to play some songs as loud as possible with as much distortion as possible! The key was to take everything we had and hone that, not just throw a load of studio trickery into the mix (and believe me it was tempting, I'm a particular sucker for all that jazz!) and still make it sound MASSIVE. I think the vocal harmonies were key, it's something that's always been a part of our music, something we absolutely love, and we wanted that to really shine through in a way it hasn't done before.
10. When did you start writing for this album? How was the song writing process different/similar to previous Fearless Vampire Killers records?
Laurence: It’s weird because there’s a massive gap between some of the songs, for instance the penultimate song on the album was written back 2008, where as the song after it was only finished in the studio, though it had been floating around in various forms for about five years. I guess we never set out to write for an album, it’s a much more organic process. I hate the idea of setting aside two months and saying we’ll write then. To me that seems fake. I guess we’re lucky because we have a band of songwriters and Drew and I (who wrote the song skeletons on this record) always have about four songs floating around in our head at any given time. The writing process was the same as it always was (drew or I writes a song on the piano – sometimes the guitar – and then the band turns it into a rock song) UNTIL the last song we finished, which is actually in the middle of the album. I was sitting there with this song, I loved it, but I was like, how interesting will this be if I get Drew to write another chorus – have like a song with two different choruses {one at the start one in the middle} and then try and cram it into 2 minutes. It’s actually the only song we’ve never played live, but for the next album we’re going to write most of the songs that way.
11. Can you talk about "Necromania" and "Bow Ties On Dead Guys" why did you want to go with releasing these two out of all of the others?
Drew/Bass: One reason is that they both feel at the same time familiar and alien, with regards to whatever perception people may have of us as a band. For anyone who just sees a bunch woosbag posers in makeup, Necromania's a balls to the wall rock and rollercoaster that doesn't quit (well, only briefly); and Bow Ties And Dead Guys, at its core, is a really simple pop song but at the same time it's all over the place, one it's kind of camp and poppy then it's pseudo-rapping! They're both a bit barmy essentially, and so are we - what better way to introduce ourselves to people?
12. When can we expect the new album to be released?
Drew/Bass: The album will be released on May 7th, and the single release for Bow Ties on Dead Guys is March 26th.
13. Will you be touring this album? Is there a chance you will be doing a short tour before the album is released?
Drew/Bass: We're playing as much as we can at the moment, whilst simultaneously trying to cram in video editing, album artwork designing, song writing and anything else we can get our busy mitts on at the moment. But yes we're looking to spread our wings and tour ASAP, essentially we just want to be on the road playing shows and meeting new people 24/7 - that's our top priority!
14. Tell me about the music video for the song "Bow Ties On Dead Guys" what is the concept behind it how does it differ from your previous videos?
Laurence/Vocals: It’s actually quite similar to our previous video for Fetish for the Finite, just much bigger. It’s essentially the sequel to Fetish, but we thought some of the themes needed to be made the most out of. The whole scope of it is doubled. There’re double the extras, double the locations – though due to the smallest budget known to man we still had to film it all in the same amount of time, which was 12 hours.
The concept is that the Fearless Vampire Killers have been captured and forced to play to the evil cardinal who rules Grandomina after King Hux has been murdered. It’s about them breaking out and kicking some Heartatak butt. Obviously, we just didn’t have the experience to pull off a realistic battle scene so we decided to do a dance like fight with flags. It’s a visual representation of what the song is actually about, which is breaking free of the puppeteers that try to control your life and burning them to death. In fact the whole album kind of makes us look like pyromaniacs…
15. Anything else you want to plug?
KIER(vocals): YEAH! Hold onto your goggles because I’m taking our big red van and driving there Bastards to a town near you! Make this thing real ya'll!
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