Part Oh Sleeper and part As I Lay Dying creates Wovenwar, a natural progression of music making for all involved. They describe the essence of the band as “Our choices define us. At heart, we choose between good and evil or right and wrong. It’s not predisposed, but rather something we learn through experience, life’s twists and turns, and the stops along the way. The very moniker WOVENWAR speaks to that truth.”
We had a chat with guitarist Phil Sgrosso. Find out what happened right here.
HTF: How did Wovenwar come about?
Phil: After everything fell apart with AILD, the 4 of us didn’t feel that we should just stop making music together. If anything, we felt this newfound excitement to push on and expand our sound and try new things we couldn’t have necessarily done before. We started writing and putting the pieces together for starting up a new band. Shortly after we were lucky to find Shane and complete the band.
HTF: Where did the name originate?
P: It’s sort of it’s own unique thing. If you ask any band, the process of picking a band name is the worst. So after the majority of lyrical content was written combined with what we the former members of AILD had gone through, the idea of Wovenwar began. We aren’t born with hatred, judgements, or prejudices. In life we are thrown into situations in which you have the right to choose between right and wrong.
HTF: We’ve been lucky enough to hear ‘All Rise’, ‘The Mason’ and this week’s ‘Profane’ how have the tracks been received?
P: The response and support has been pretty incredible so far. We just don’t know what to expect and we’ve been so anxious to get this band up and moving so it’s nice to see fans old and new getting onboard.
HTF: How did you go about writing the album, did you feel the need to distance yourself from As I Lay Dying or did Wovenwar form a natural creative process?
P: Yeah there was a conscious decision to not sound too much like our former selves. It was still very natural though because we’ve been capable of doing so much more outside of what we did in AILD but we were limited by that vocal style. Looking back, that all seems like we were taking baby steps towards finding a sound we are really motivated in doing now. It was getting to the point that writing songs for AILD wasn’t as exciting because we were limited by how much we could really expand outside that sound. I don’t feel like we ever compromised our music or passion but when you know you can broaden yourself musically but it’s like sorry you can’t do that because it doesn’t accommodate a screaming vocal style.
HTF: What influences did Shane bring to the writing process?
P: He brought in a new and positive energy. It just felt like we had a clean slate musically and also with how a band operates. He’s a very musical guy. He can shred the guitar, is a great singer, and knows song structure very well. It’s great to have a new addition that we all trust and respect with ideas and is always striving to make every song the best it can be.
HTF: The album is due for release early next month, what can we expect?
P: I think people can expect to see us around a lot. We’re hitting this album cycle pretty hard because we want to get things up and running at the same standard we had with AILD. It’s gonna take a lot of work but it’s sort of like,”what else are we gonna do?” We’re musicians and performers before anything else, we’ve been doing this since we were all teenagers so hopefully that experience shows even though we are technically a “new band”. Basically we’ll be touring our asses off.
HTF: After so long without playing shows are you looking forward to the upcoming European tour?
P: Absolutely. We’re all so anxious to play as much as possible. We’ve done about 15 club shows so far to shake off the cobwebs but there’s a different energy when you play festivals. We’re just hoping the crowd response goes over well and people dig the live show.
HTF: Oh Sleeper didn’t tour Europe very often, how does Shane feel about the tour alongside In Flames & While She Sleeps?
P: When we got word that In Flames wanted to take us out, we just all felt so grateful to have good friends that could be there to help get us back on our feet. The fact that Black Label Society wanted to take us out for our first tour was incredible. We’re just thankful and I think Shane is just really stoked to share these new experiences with us.
HTF: The tour is a lengthy one, how do you feel about touring after not playing shows for so long?
P: You just have to dive in head first with everything. We’re preparing ourselves as much as possible but ultimately, we’re pretty excited to get out there and share our new band with the world.
