A Fresh Interview With My Latest Failure
The return of My latest Failure brings us a beautifully brutal alternative and thrashing punk sound but also with massive melodies and a vast sound that gives off 90's hardcore undertones and combines such a catchy and loose vocal approach along with screaming and crew vocoals that have you chanting along. All this in true My Latest Failure style.
"Bad Dreams" is an honest and straightforward track that takes these huge guitar parts and explores a grunge and punk mending of genres with that classic edginess andfists in the air attitude the entire time.
By the last chorus around you are jumping around the room, headbanging, and chanting along with the band and it feels great.
The louder the better with this one for sure.
This single really shows the band's strong songwriting and diversity in how they do their thing. They aren't one sided at all. They have some killer layers of songwriting and some feel bigger than others.
The cool thing is how they let out what's built up inside through the music. They portray the right levels of aggression, emoption, and heart and it all works in this alternative style.
This is no surprise to us as we've heard the last releases from the band and knew this would be good.
We really wanted to find out where this song came from and found out that this was an older song that was revisited which I found super interesting.
So we set out to have a talk with the band to see how it all came into play.
Here's what we found out.
TSWS: Okay guys, welcome back! Let's talk about "Bad Dreams", this track boasts that true punk rock and alt rock attitude and style. It also feels genuine to me. Where did this song actually come from?
It’s about reoccurring nightmare. Bad Dreams takes you into this nightmare where you are standing on the edge of a bridge contemplating life and not seeing any other way out. It’s not a nightmare where you’re being eaten by Zombies or something, there’s an element of realism to it and that’s why I called it Bad Dreams and not Nightmares.
When I wrote Bad Dreams I was inspired by the band Brand New and the early versions of Bad Dreams had that Punk Rock vibe to it but when we revisited the track I was heavy influenced by the Post-Hardcore music style. No band in particular, just felt the right direction to go with the track. We didn’t something similar when we recorded Arguments Are Contagious for the Pete Drake Project which worked out well so that definitely influenced me.
TSWS: So this track has a great production style to it as well. How do you record your stuff?
Bad Dreams had the same production as our Failures Vol:1 EP, it was a DIY recording. We recorded it with Ross from Sore Teeth in 2019 at the same time we recorded our singles Disappointment and Selfish. We recorded the drums in a rehearsal studio then the guitars and vocals at his house. We revisited the track in 2021 with Ross and layered additional guitars and vocals, again this was in a DIY setting.
TSWS: Is it true that this song was written for the band much earlier on and was recorded in 2019?
This right, Bad Dreams was the first song I wrote for My Latest Failure. The song itself was written in 2017 and we recorded in 2019 but felt at the time that it was missing something. I can’t release a song if I’m not happy with it. We revisited the track with Ross in the summer of 2021 and was very happy with the outcome. We were originally going to release Bad Dreams in January 2022 but there was a lot going on in our personal life’s so got pushed out to September.
TSWS: So what made you think about revisiting this song in the first place?
I felt it had really good elements in the original recording that I didn’t want to lose. I think I’m my mind it was always going to be revisited but I didn’t know if we would completely re-recorded Bad Dreams or just worked on. I just couldn’t leave it.
TSWS: This song feels like it holds personal value. Is this an important song to you?
Yes definitely. We write about our personal experiences, feelings and opinions so each song holds a personal connection and are important, especially Bad Dreams.
TSWS: Are you guys working on anything else right now?
I’ve written 4/5 songs for our next EP, vol:3 of course wink wink. We’ll be looking to work on them and get them to a stage where we are happy to nail recordings of them. We are also in talks with Essex finest We Punch Tiger about a split EP, which I think will be super fun and just playing more shows.
TSWS: Have you thought about doing a music video for this one?
Yes, I am very keen to but haven’t yet. Would love to do a proper music video, not just some clips of us live or a lyric video as we have done pervious. Unsure when this would happen, a combination of life and no money so if anyone out there fancies sorting us out with a video for Bad Dreams that would be wonderful.
TSWS: What's your favorite aspect of doing what you do?
Everything, love playing shows, love creating and recording music and love interacting with people who enjoy our music.
TSWS: Are you more comfortable performing live or in the studio?
Tough one, I’ld say more comfortable performing live. I just go up there, do my thing and love every second of it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a complete nervous wreck when I’m in the studio but when recording I unintentionally put pressure on myself because I want our songs to be the best versions of themselves. So yeh, performing live.