Shattered Skies have just released debut album The World We Know which blew away everyone here at HTF. We got a chance to throw some questions at guitar and keyboardist Ian Rockett to find out the inner working of the band before they go out and destroy the tech-metal world.
HTF:First off ‘The World We Used To Know’ is just amazing. A lot of bands release album after album and don’t hit anything close to this and on a debut! Did you have a firm plan in your head of what you wanted to achieve sound wise on this record?
I: Thank you very much! The plan for The World We Used to Know was really to build on everything we’d introduced to the world on the Reanimation EP. We wanted to make the grooves even groovier, the epicness even more epic, the atmosphere even bigger, and the dynamics even wider. This record has some of the heaviest songs we’ve done and some of the lightest, it really branches out further than we’ve done before. We also wanted to make a relatively organic and warm, smooth sounding record too, with plenty of life and immediacy in it, not overly produced and edited, or compressed.
HTF:There is so much musicianship wise in this album. How do you guys approach the songwriting process? Is there one main songwriter or is it a group effort? Do you make a plan or just have huge groove jams and see what spills out?
I: I’m (Ian) the main songwriter, however the process is getting gradually more collaborative.
On Reanimation, I wrote pretty much everything expect for parts of 1 song. On this record Ross (drums) wrote significantly on 3 songs. On the new stuff we’re working on, he’s written entire songs and Jim (bass) is also starting to contribute great riffs and ideas so we are becoming more collaborative as we go. For this record, for the most part, it was just me writing at home, and bringing the songs up to Ross’ place to demo and flesh out and build on. We did tend to then jam out the songs in a live rehearsal setting to get a real feel for them, which we would then use that experience to go back to the recordings and keep building them and bringing them more to life. I think for the next record we want to jam even more and have an even more live energy to the whole thing.
HTF: I hate to use the term ‘techmetal’ as I feel you have more to your arsenal than fitting into that pigeonhole but coming from that techmetal scene you have a much more melodic sound, if I can be so bold, even poppy sound with vocal melodies. Was this a vision from the start. Who do you look to as peers?
I: Well Faith No More is arguably my all time favourite band, so you’re spot on with that one!
The vision has always been to marry melody with metal, beauty with brutality. Shattered Skies has always been about trying to create these giant, groovy, monstrous riffs and beats and melding them with epic chord progressions and catchy, hooky vocals, with a little bit of prog technicality sprinkled on top. We love, and have been influenced by, everything from Meshuggah and Slipknot, to Thrice and Karnivool, to The Eagles and Blink 182, so inevitably there are going to be a lot of different elements at play, we like to surprise people and do things our own way, no matter who we might piss off along the way.
HTF: When the band first came together, did you have a plan? Did you have a place where you wanted to be and was that where you are now?
I: I mean, all of us have always just wanted to be in a touring, recording band and doing that with our lives, so that has been and still is the plan. We’re still working on it, Shattered Skies continues to grow, we’re gaining more and more fans around the world, and we’re gaining touring experience, hopefully in a few years we’ll be able to dedicate the majority of our lives to it.
HTF:You are obviously a very ambition band musically but what are your plans for the year ahead. Tours? Festivals?
I:We’re about to tour the southern part of the UK, doing our first headline tour, probably looking do go up north and do another leg in the summer. Other than that, we have some tour offers in the works so we’ll see what happens. We’re also looking into our summer festival options, we want to do as many of those as possible.
HTF: ‘Prog’ is a word that comes up quite a bit when people describe your band. For some they see that word and run to the hills, thinking of bands like Jethro Tull and Marillion. We’d like you to shake that stigma and describe your sound to the HTF readers
I: People can think whatever they want of us. Some people think we’re another palm muting, openstring straddling ‘djent’ band even though that aspect of our sound is miniscule and mixed amongst god knows how many other elements, and other people think we’re Dream Theater worship prog, despite the fact our instrumental sections are mostly very concise and our songs average 45 minutes! The only way you’ll truly hear what Shattered Skies is, and how we are bringing our own flavour to the table is to listen to us. We might surprise you.
HTF: Music wise who are you listening to at the moment? I have a feeling you have diverse tastes when it comes to your listening material
I:Slipknot’s latest record is kicking my ass, I can’t get enough of it. Also loving Animals as Leaders‘ latest record too. As always I’m listening to a lot of Faith No More, System of a Down and Pantera, they pretty much never leave my regular listening habits. I’ve been enjoying Fair to Midland, He is Legend and letlive. a lot lately too!
HTF:Anything else you would like to say to the readers of HTF? The floor is yours…….
I: We hope you enjoy the album, and we’re hoping we’ll see a lot of you on the road in 2015, thanks a lot for reading!
