HEAVY HEROES: THE AMITY AFFLICTION

For two decades, The Amity Affliction has made music that’s helped people through their darkest moments. In their eighth album Not Without My Ghosts, the seminal metalcore outfit returned to their roots and wrote their heaviest record to date, paying tribute to mates they’ve lost along the way. In a conversation with The Note, singer/bassist Ahren Stringer opens up about building the LP, its special collaborations and falling back in love with the metal scene

Interview by Zara Richards // Photos by Tom Barnes

We’re stoked to see you’re doing a regional tour early in the new year, hitting up Pooraka in late January. Why was a regional tour something you wanted to focus on this time around?

We haven’t toured regional Australia since before COVID. It’s always been so good for us, and we enjoy getting back to the smaller venues sometimes. We’re also playing some places we haven’t played in nearly a decade, like Albury and Airlie Beach. Tickets are flying as well, so it’s nice to be welcomed back! 

You’ll be playing your eighth album, Not Without My Ghosts, on tour. The record grapples with themes like death and mortality – concepts you’ve said emerged from a dark time for the band. Tell us more about how the LP’s direction came to life.

Those are all Joel [Birch’s] lyrics, so I can’t go too deep, but the concepts are something we dealt with a lot during COVID, [as well as] losing close friends to suicide and sudden illness. These are things we have had in our lyrics throughout the life of the band, and I think [it’s] a big part of the reason people have connected with us. 

Not Without My Ghosts is perhaps your heaviest record to date. You’ve previously said the album is something The Amity Affliction would want to listen to. How did that impact the overall sound of the album?

We just started listening to heavy music again and rediscovered our love for it. It’s so much fun to play and we know that’s what the fans prefer! Well, it’s clear now that’s what they prefer. The reaction to the album has been great and the live crowds’ response to the new songs is as big as the old ones. 

But it was also the first full record we self-produced. We’ve been lucky enough to work with some awesome producers and we’ve taken lots of lessons from them. Dan [Brown, guitar] especially loves getting all nerdy about the recording stuff! We hired a cool house on the beach and a cool studio [and] smashed it out. It was so stress-free. 

There are several collaborations on Not Without My Ghosts – including one with the late rapper, Louie Knuxx. How did that posthumous collaboration come about? As a band, what do you enjoy most about sharing your creative process with another artist?

This is the first time in a long time we have done collabs. Andrew [Neufeld] from Comeback Kid is a legend of hardcore at this point. We’ve known him for ages, so it was just an honour he said yes! Landon [Tewers] from The Plot in You is a close friend of ours and extremely talented – we’ve wanted to work with him for ages. Phem was suggested to us by our manager, and she just has an awesome voice and vibe. Louie Knuxx/Todd was a really good friend of mine. When he passed and we wrote this song, we just knew [the collab] would work – it was a really nice thing we could do in his honour for his family. 

Throughout your discography, Amity touches on mental health. Why do you find it such an important subject to talk about?

This is something Joel has always done as his own outlet to deal with his own personal demons. It just so happened that we got popular and so many people connected with it. He’d be writing like this even if we weren’t a band, I think. We all have our demons in the band, and we know most others do as well. We are just lucky [that] people connect with us. It was never a discussion, really. It was just these are the lyrics that Joel writes – and they work! 

The Amity Affliction have been playing together for two decades now. You’d know the grind of the industry more than most – especially with eight albums under your belt. Tell us about the hustle the band went through in the early days when you were trying to make a mark in the scene.

In the early days, to be honest, we partied pretty hard and really enjoyed it. Far too much, in hindsight! But the Australian metal/hardcore scene was exploding at that stage. We are beyond stoked we somehow made it through and are still standing when so many others fell by the wayside. I think our core thing has been hard work and good songs. That’s all we’ve tried to do. But it has taken its toll on all of us in one way or another. We also signed some pretty bad deals at the beginning of the whole digital takeover of the recorded industry, and while they helped at the time, it’s taken us a long time to recover from that... From now on, it’s smarter not harder, I think. 

As you celebrate 20 years together, what has remained consistent about the inner workings of The Amity Affliction? And how do you hope to continue evolving as a band?

Hard question! We have always been a little backwards in coming forwards [and] we are trying to fix that! But we’ve always been on the same page about the music. That’s so important! 

The heavy scene is seeing a huge resurgence. Now that you’re a seminal band in the scene, what advice would you give younger artists? Is there anything you’d wish to impart to your younger self?

Focus on the songwriting and being consistent. You also need to take the opportunities when they come. Don’t be too cool for school – you never know when those opportunities will stop. Also, don’t sign shit record deals! 

See The Amity Affliction play at Bridgeway Live this January 27.