Photo by Scott Kaufman
More than a decade into their tenure, Byron Bay’s own In Hearts Wake found themselves at starting anew despite being five albums into their celebrated career. After more than 12 years as part of the fabric of the band, bassist Kyle Erich was departing and the band built on the healthy camaraderie of shared vision and experience, would now press ahead as four rather than five.
While the significant change in personnel might have derailed other units, the major life moment served to galvanize In Hearts Wake. Electing to celebrate Erich’s time while turning the page to begin the next chapter, the band completed their sixth full length studio record and assembled a farewell tour that honored Erich’s time and contribution to IHW. Released last summer, Incarnation marked a pivotal instance for the band both with serious creative and personnel implications.
Though the album would serve to bookend an era for the band, it also ushered in the beginning the next with the remaining members asserting to both fans and themselves that the integrity and evolution of In Hearts Wake was not only in tact, but more resolute than ever. Understanding the gravity of whatever came next, the band issued an emphatic statement of resilience and artistry with Incarnation. Praised for it’s dynamic heft and its imaginative execution, the album serves as the spiritual successor to the band’s full length debut, Divination and framed a poignant full circle moment for the band - both in the thematic thread of the album and the finality in sharing it with the world.
Following a healthy stretch of successive touring in support of the album, along with the final run with Erich, In Hearts Wake has thrived in a year that was perceived by some to be make or break. Asserting that Aussie work ethic and proving to be one of the region’s most celebrated exports for good reason, the band has found a new stride - earning rightful adulation from fans both old and new.
Ahead of the band’s scheduled showing as the Aussie representation for this year’s Knottiest Australia takeover, vocalist Jake Taylor revisited the whirlwind that has been their most recent album cycle. The frontman spoke the importance of facing change head on and how Incarnation afforded that opportunity. The vocalist spoke about the adaptation of the band, their impassioned message of environmental urgency and how all of it conveys a deeply rooted appreciation for the place they proudly call home.
The band had a very pivotal 2024. You toured Australia for the last time with Kyle and released your sixth studio album. How much of an emotional rollercoaster was 2024?
TAYLOR - It’s an interesting one. While letting go of something, you are also putting out something new into the world. It’s like birth and death at the same time. It’s like this portal was happening and overlapping each other. And you don’t want to get hung up on the past, you want to just get on with it.
I think most bands just do one paragraph, ‘boom done, member has left’ but that was just not organic to who we are as a band and to honor Kyle and the journey he went through. It was bittersweet because we knew what we were moving on with and that gave us some reassurance that letting go wasn’t a bad thing for the band. In all, it was a bit scary setting it all up but once we had the record in the bag and Kyle’s farewell planned out, we were really confident that we could just enjoy the experience together.
Immediately following that September Australian tour, the band traveled to North America to support Miss May I. It sounds like you guys may have never really had the time to get to fully process the changes going on in the band.
TAYLOR - It’s exercising an old muscle. We’ve toured a dozen years as a band so it was just getting back to flexing those muscles again. Honestly, in this business, in this art form, the buzz or the feeling of the show, if its a great one, it probably hangs for a day or two days if I am being honest. That kind of experience, because it is such a big in the moment experience, you can’t remember it moment to moment. That feeling doesn’t fade away, it becomes part of you, but I don’t think you are running on that high anymore. You integrate It quite quickly. Or least I do.
When you have a bad show does that stick around a little longer?
TAYLOR - It sticks longer if it was the last one and you have many days off. You just can’t wait to get back to form and erase that feeling. That saying you are only as good as your last show, that is definitely a thing for us artists for sure. We know what we are capable of and what our personal best is but you can’t always control the environment of the event.
Not knowing how the new album would be received along with a new configuration of the band, was there any added anxiety going into a new touring cycle?
TAYLOR - No, there was no anxiety. What we did do that was quite wise of us. On that Australian tour with Kyle departing, we actually pieced into two sets. One set as a four piece and one set with Kyle as a five piece. So we already knew what it felt like to be there as four. We knew how the crowd was responding and what was working. So on the Miss May I tour, we knew how to play to our strengths as a four piece. We had Ryan from Miss May I come up and do a song with us. We took advantage of some collab moments to get to those songs across that needed to be sung.
Getting into the album… “Hollow Bone” is plainly an anthem and very much feels like a second wind for the band in a song. We do have to ask though, did the band really use actual bones for percussion on the track?
TAYLOR - Yeah, we did. About three years ago my family moved onto a a big space of land, something like 80 hectares, 166 acres. And just exploring that land, it; it’s forested and stuff, I found some old cattle bones from 50 years gone by back when cattle used to roam this hills. These bones, like a jaw bone and a hip bone, they were just quite unique and cool. So we thought what it would sound like to make a sample out of those being hit together. And that was right at a very pivotal time of Kyle departing the band and us figuring out what was the new step forward.
Given the message of environmental awareness and the effort it took to make your 2020 record a carbon neutral release, the real life story behind a song like “The Flood” seems to be a bit prophetic. What there a bit of an “I Told You So” moment that came with the song?
TAYLOR - We definitely felt like there was no ‘I told you so’ because it was already happening. There’s the science that we see on the internet. And then there’s the stuff when it’s actually knocking on the door. Then there’s the actual, ‘fuck, this is my house’.
(The band's mantra connected to the album Kaliyuga) 'Our House is on fire' was what really sparked the previous record, Kaliyuga because we had the bushfires which burnt the size of Belgium. Look, the LA fires are certainly catastrophic but in terms of the size of the fire that happened here, it was the size of Belium. Not to put it in comparison, it’s a different kind of a beast, however, that was our wake up and a time to be terrified. We had to realize that we weren’t just kids in this illusion anymore. It wasn’t a record about that, but more what are you going to do about it.
“Worldwide Suicide” was this kind of scary like, ‘we can’t be naive anymore’ feeling, mixed with the fury of inaction. “The Flood” was the flip side of that. I don’t want to say it was climate induced but at the end of the day, it was catastrophic and we haven’t had a flood like that in our lifetime or our parents lifetime or our parents parents lifetime. They call it a 500 year flood and who knows if there was anyone to record it 500 years ago so.
Let’s just say it was extreme and quite scary, really scary for everyone involved in the area. Rather than the ‘I told you so’ I think there is just a fury to the whole thing, not a celebration of it but more of a tale, an outpouring of it. There’s also, this other hand talking about how the people rose up rather than waiting on external forces to come in and do it for us. That was the real lesson, the real gift of “The Flood”. When push comes to shove it’s the people that stand up and help each other out.
That tragedy emphasized the humanity that came after.
TAYLOR - Exactly. And running into Winston (McCall of Parkway Drive) when we were helping out on those clean ups, that was just organic, ‘Hey, mate good to see you out here, blah, blah, blah.’ The tale end of that was making a song and who more perfect to ask to be a part of something than Winston who was there for it all.
You’ve shared how this album is intended to mirror divination. What is the nexus between the two albums? Was that correlation something you had always planned?
TAYLOR - It was something we always wanted to complete at some point. The tarot deck has 22 major arcana cards, very specific. There’s 22 there for a reason, it’s not 11 it’s 22 because it is a full circle, its the arch of the underworld. That how the major arcana work. The initial idea to base Divination on tarot cards were this stories that were related to specific cards. We didn’t leave out 11 purposely we just didn’t have enough for a 22 track album at the time.
But, there was like this, ‘what about these other cards’ and we kind of left the story untold. It was an idea and it wasn’t had to do this before we end our career or something but we knew it was there as a shadow in the background, an unfinished tale. And with Kyle departing and with us feeling like we were in our underworld, underbelly, it felt very important to come back, recognize our roots but also where we are 12 years later as a band.
The band is touring rural areas on the East Coast of Australia. That is an obvious emphasis for the band. What was the thinking in traveling to places off the beaten path?
TAYLOR - It has always been a huge part of our ethos. Generally, you go to the main places, then you travel broader and back to the main places again. I think we initially started that just as a way to tour Australia twice in a cycle without doubling down on the cities. We only have five, six cities you can tour. You know the country is as big as the United States.
However, it quickly became part of our identity, to go to these places, have the best swims, see the best sights and really feel what Australia felt like, like the actual brick and mortar rather than the shiny cities. That right there, in recognizing the people helps us to understand it more and these are the tours we enjoy the most as a band. We get the most time to sink into the flow of the tour, we have time to connect with the other bands and actually enjoy ourselves.
The places that were hit by most of these bushfires and most of these floods, they are the places that care the most when you turn up. They also understand what it is to work on their own land. That’s something beautiful.
You contrast a tour of rural Australia with a featured appearance at KNOTFEST AUSTRALIA.
TAYLOR - It’s the perfect way to bring things back to the city.
How do you feel being the Aussie representation for the festival?
TAYLOR - Well, we share it with Polaris. Look, it’s a place of comfort for us, Australia, at this point in our career. Plus, we’ll be playing to new fans because there will be people there to see these other bands that are just phenomenal at what they do. There’s still a sense of comfort in playing to, I don’t want to call it our home crowds, but yeah, we are confident in those areas. I want to deliver, in the best way we possibly can. It feels really good to be honest. There’s a freeness that comes with that.
Look, the Australia metal scene is a quite strong and perceived as a remarkable thing around the world when we talk to fans like, ‘what do you got in the water over there?’
Heavy music seems to be celebrated in Australia in a way that is unique. It doesn’t seem subversive, it seems championed.
TAYLOR - I think it’s celebrated as much as it is in America or throughout Europe to be honest. We don’t have festival season like Europe does. To me, Europe is the Valhalla of metal given the big festivals. America is very much catching onto that. Now there is a heavy music festival culture there. We don’t really have that.
What I think we do have is really hard working artists with a way that has been paved by Parkway Drive. Parkway showed Australia that you could be from the most isolated country in the world and get over there. Every band here has to work extra hard because we only have six cities. If you want to go overseas, you gotta save up big bucks because it’s super expensive and everyone wants it. The greater the need, the greater the result and there we band together. We help each other out. That’s just kind of how our culture works when we go to tour abroad. That’s what’s embedded in the culture of being in a band.
It reminds me of Texas. It reminds be of Florida. It reminds me of some parts of Germany where there’s this wildness and more of a carefree attitude in terms of people just like, not giving a fuck when they come to shows. And I think that goes a long way.
You can’t be passive if you are really pursuing heavy music in Australia.
TAYLOR - Grit might be the word I am looking.
Other than your own, which set you are most looking forward to at KNOTFEST AUSTRALIA?
TAYLOR - It’s gotta be Slipknot. It can’t NOT be Slipknot. We were lucky enough to tour with them in Australia - us, Lamb of God and Slipknot. We were so spoiled watching those artists every night. The stage production, the way they engage the crowd - without a doubt I am looking forward to seeing them again and reawakening that experience.
-----
Be sure to catch In Hearts Wake at KNOTFEST Australia in Melbourne February 28th, Brisbane March 2nd and Sydney March 8th.
Get tickets and information - HERE
