Source: Promo Image
It must feel great to be Real Friends right now. The Illinois quintet have just recently released their highly anticipated sophomore album The Home Inside My Head, which fares pretty well, might we add. The band were recently over in the UK for an intimate one-off show in Kingston before their stint at this year’s Slam Dunk Festival. We caught up with vocalist Dan Lambton to talk about all things The Home Inside My Head; including his experience writing lyrics for the record, co-writing with Mike Green, the correlation of theme and artwork, and more. Find out all you need to know about the new album below.
MOSH: First of all, congratulations on the release of your record. So you played like a listening party back home a few days back. How was that?
DL: It was good, it was cool. It was something, I think, nice and different for us to do because we had it at a bowling alley that we played a lot of shows at while we were coming up and before we started touring. We’re good friends with the owner and the people who run it. Yeah we just had a bunch of beer and pizza and bowling and just got to hang out and have people come and listen to the album.
MOSH: Today, are you going to be playing a lot of stuff off the new record?
DL: More like three or four in the mix, just because it just came out. We want to let it sink in a little bit and then we come back in December, we’ll probably be playing a lot more from the record.
MOSH: So for this record you got the chance to write as well. How was that experience for you? Because before you were always just singing Kyle’s lyrics and this time it’s got your perspective on it was it as well.
DL: It was awesome to be able do that because I had little bits and pieces here and there in the past. It was great because we were kind of on the same wavelength with a lot of subject matters. I feel like it didn’t really make sense until now for me to be able to contribute in that capacity. You know, because I wasn’t necessarily confident in my abilities and I think after being around it long enough, I was able to kind of grasp it and pick up on it.
It was good because it makes the record more personal for me since I was able to contribute it. Because with Kyle, he’ll still filter everything through me and I know everything he’s writing and he knows everything I’m writing. This time, we would do two songs my lyrics, two songs his; switch on and off. I wouldn’t send lyrics to him or filter it through, I just put it to the music. Then if we were going to work on melodies together then he would have the lyrics and everything in front of him but they all kind of trusted me to do it. Everything, all of the lyrics, he read them as I was putting them to the songs.
MOSH: You guys also co-wrote with Mike Green on a few songs, right?
DL: Yeah, we did, it was awesome. It was ‘Colder Quicker’, we did ‘Mess’ with him and the second track ‘Empty Picture Frames’. So we did three songs with Mike. Fearless had brought up the idea to us like “If you want to do this, we can set it up. We just thought we would bring it up in case you want to try anything different with the album.” There was never anything forced and I feel like when people think about co-writing with somebody, I feel like an impression that comes to mind is you’re giving up control of the music – someone else is writing music for you. I mean, with us that wasn’t the case at all. It was just five or six of us in the room together just getting all the songs and all the music done. You know, we didn’t we didn’t do anything differently than when we write the music ourselves. All our methods were the same.
MOSH: So it was just like having that outside perspective.
DL: Yeah, it was so nice to have a second opinion. Mike and I were going back and forth a lot with a lot of melodies and he’d come up with like the first part of the melody and then I would complete it, add to it change it to how I want it and vice versa. It’s awesome to be able to have an outside opinion and same with having Steve Evetts produce the rest of the album because we did the 11 or 12 songs with him. We were writing with Mike and then Steve was tweaking and adjusting and letting us know what he thinks could improve the songs and he wanted to bring out the best possible version of Real Friends to make the best possible album we can make at this point in time. So it was just a good experience for us to have.
MOSH: Looking at the lyrics on this new record, it feels a lot more mature. In the past there were lots about the relationship stuff, and this time it’s more about growing up. Would you say you’re in a different place in comparison to the last album?
DL: Yeah, I would say so. I think that it’s good for us to move past kind of like the relationship subject matter just because there’s more to life than that. It’s just a healthy progressive growth and a lot of like the subject matter with the album is more so about that. Like the idea of what we thought we are going to become when we were younger and did we live up to that? About all those hopes, and what we wanted to do.
The idea that not everything is going to pan out the way that you want to, whether you’re in the spot you want to be or not. The thought of your expectations versus what is actually happening in reality. Just kind of being able to take all of the obstacles and all the shit you have to deal with to get to where you are. Then to have that help you appreciate everything that helped you get where you are. You can’t really appreciate all the good things that you’ve been able to work for without having things get in the way and having negative things in your life. It kind of helps tip the scale – how can you appreciate something, how can something be good and positive if you haven’t experienced the bad?
MOSH: Sonically you guys are usually classified as a pop-punk, but with this record I wouldn’t necessarily label you as that anymore. Would you say your influences have changed as well? Do you even still listen to pop-punk personally?
DL: I don’t really, no. I definitely think we took a lot more influences because all five of us listen to like such a broad spectrum music so I think to not take advantage of that would be stupid. You know, just because I think if the style of music that you write is the same thing as like the only thing like you listen to, then there’s no room for you to be able to just create something new, exciting and different; because then it’s just all the same stuff being regurgitated into your music. So yeah, it’s great to be able to take outside influences from like heavier bands – we all love Every Time I Die, for instance. Kyle loves American Football, I’m a big City & Colour fan, Dave and Eric are into a lot of heavier bands like Stick To Your Guns.
MOSH: Speaking of that, you once did a tour with Senses Fail didn’t you? The line-up for that tour seemed very different but that must have been really interesting.
DL: You don’t want to just tour with the same bands either because you’re only exposed to the same people as well. I just think it’s shame for us to not take the opportunity if we could.
MOSH: I’ve also noticed the artwork for this album is very present in the videos you’ve released so far. What would you say is the overall theme/ what do you want people to take away from the record?
DL: My interpretation of the art of the album is like, with the empty picture frames, for instance on the cover of the album; having a home is a place where it’s special – that’s somewhere where you don’t have to worry about anything else on the outside. It’s your place to rest, to be with family, loved ones and to have all sorts of special events, birthdays, milestones in your life, celebrating graduations, weddings and you know, you build a life there.
Then having the empty picture frames is kind of an absence of any sort of negativity or positivity. It’s each kind of this idea that sometimes we all get stuck in our head too much and and we can’t think of anything other than being just stuck in this one place that you know nothing’s getting better but nothing’s getting worse. Just the idea that it can go either way, because when you have something good happen in your life, like you’re hanging out with a bunch of friends, take a picture together and get a printed, put in the picture frame to remember this moment. It’s just kind of the lack there of and opening up those possibilities of what will happen and what has happened.
MOSH: One song that stuck out to me was ‘Eastwick’, which I think you wrote as well. In comparison to the rest of the album it’s a lot slower and despite it being so simple it’s very powerful. Is it intimidating writing songs like these where you know your lyrics take centre stage as there’s nothing distracting happening around it?
DL: I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s intimidating, it’s just a nice change of pace. It’s nice to be able to have fast, energetic songs; full band songs with all this energy and then be able to just have something stripped down and to be able to have a different layer of intimacy that I feel like isn’t necessarily there on ‘Mokena’. Not that there’s anything wrong with that song, because that’s just more of a full band song, and then the verses have just the guitar and vocals going. Something I did want to do with this album was to kind of extend how I use my voice. I just wanted to be able to use everything at my disposal, you know, to be able to complement the songs more when they needed, like the softer vocals like in ‘Eastwick’ or when you need to be able have the vocals a little harsher, louder, higher and so on. I think that ‘Eastwick’, out of the slower, softer songs that we have it’s probably the most personal, intimate and heartbreaking song out of all the songs that we have.
MOSH: Touring wise, you guys have a lot in store for this year. You’re doing Warped all summer and then you’re coming back here. What are you most looking forward to?
DL: I am really looking forward to Warped Tour, and the only thing I’m not looking forward to about our tour here with Knuckle Puck and With Confidence is the weather. It’s in December. I am not stoked for that. It is going to be brutal.
MOSH: With a tour like Warped, where it’s all summer long and then you get back home, is it kind of weird not having anything to do everyday, not waking up in a different place?
DL: I think we’ve gotten used to it now with the on and off cycle that we have with touring where we don’t really feel weird to be home after moving around so much. It’s actually kind of nice to have that permanence. Because waking up in a different city every day, you feel like nothing is there for you. You feel like you can’t put your roots down, you can’t settle. There’s just something missing and you can’t fully relax and let go. Everything’s just moving around you, it’s constantly go, go, go, go, go. Whereas when we’re at home it’s just, you don’t have to worry about the constant waiting, the constant going everywhere. You just sit there, chill. So it’s nice to have that change of pace.
