Imagine the feeling of a project you’ve poured your blood, sweat and tears into for years slowly begin to fall apart. You’ve pushed yourself to the limit and explored your most profound creativity. There’s no doubt that this level of self-sacrifice means that when an unravelling starts, it holds even more paralysing fear.
When Mallory Knox’s previous frontman Mikey Chapman announced he was leaving last year, for bassist and now-vocalist Sam Douglas, along with guitarists James Gillett and Joe Savins, and drummer Dave Rawling, the future seemed to collapse. But even before then it was tough times.
“It was important for us to know what the future might be,” Sam clarifies the last couple of years for the band. “We knew even if Mikey had stayed, we’d have been leaving Sony anyway, [who] we’d done our last two records with.”
Turning to their management to put the feelers out, it wasn’t soon before they were snapped up by A Wolf At Your Door to put out their self-titled fourth record, but with a home for their future endeavours sorted, it still didn’t fix that looming news. “We knew we still had a future, that was the main thing for us. Without that, I don’t know what the future of the band would’ve been.”
The journey leading to that moment was one that was tortuously drawn out, creating even more angst for Sam, along with the rest of Mallory Knox.
“I think, honestly mate, Mallory was a tough time for about twelve months even when Mikey was in the band so that just made it worse.” He pauses with a contemplative breath. “Mikey had been making those noises for a long time, and it all just kind of came into fruition when we were touring for ‘Wired’ in Europe with Simple Plan and Enter Shikari.
“It was two separate tours, and it was the weirdest thing; we’d spent so long wanting to play to crowds of two-thousand, three-thousand, in Europe and here we were doing it, and it all just felt so fucking pointless anyway because we knew he’d be leaving.”
Add on top of that a van crash the band had in 2017, leading to a somewhat understatement of “everyone [being] miserable. We were burned out” – Mallory Knox were due a respite. “I reckon we would’ve taken about six or nine months out anyway because it wasn’t that great in the band but with Mikey leaving it was even worse then because you didn’t know what the future would be,” he admits.
“It came down to the decisions of us as individuals if this was still for us. I know that the other three jumped at it straight away, but it did take me a couple more months to see if my heart was truly in it, so but that did come down to how difficult I’d found it being in the band at the time. It was a bit of a tricky one.”
The day the news of Mikey’s departure broke, Mallory Knox, as it remained, decided to release a new song, ‘Black Holes’. “We could’ve just given people the news that Mikey was leaving and not following it up with something, like let the news twirl and linger around but we wanted to try and get rid of that talking point as soon as we could by releasing new music,” Sam clarifies. “We always knew we were going to write a new record.”
Understandably, the initial reaction from many to the band’s vocalist leaving was one that assumed Mallory Knox were done – but the creative force hadn’t actually gone anywhere.
“The thing that gave us all the belief that we could still do it because creatively, I don’t think Mikey would mind me saying-” he pauses. “He was the odd one out. He probably contributed the least at times. Sometimes he would come up with something amazing, I’m not saying he didn’t, but you know at the end of the day, all he had was a microphone.
“We all have instruments and contribute that way, and songwriting has always been my thing – Mallory Knox has always been an idea that I’ve brought to the table; with every single song, it’s always been that way, so nothing changed. If anything it made me not overthink it as much because when I wrote a song, I would have Mikey in mind, and try and figure out how would I make it sound as good for him, how would it suit his voice.”
There’s undoubtedly an unchained element to self-titled. It’s raw; focusing on the “grittier, heavier side” of things, when before Malloy Knox were aimed toward a “scene-y” kind of sound, but it also feels murkier. Like there’s a catharsis coming out of Sam’s songwriting, something that needed to be said, and it’s certainly more prominent with each and every listen.
“I think that’s maybe what I did with our last record. I tried to force the issue a bit more, and tried to write that big hit that would take us to the next level or that song that I thought other Mallory fans would want to hear again. This time around, there was none of that, I just thought fuck that I’m going to write the record that suits me in this record right now at this moment in time, and what will be will be.”
Which is what self-titled has culminated in. It’s Mallory Knox entering a twilight zone that they never saw coming but have made the most of, and plan to keep on for as long as possible. The future can be unforgiving and filled with surprises – and not always positive. But it’s led to Sam being more focused, but ultimately a realist.
“When you say it’s out of our hands, it’s so true. This fucking industry is so out of our hands; it’s insane,” he says, getting audibly more animated. “The only thing that we’ve ever really been in control of is the creative side. We’ve been a band for ten years, and no one has a license to carry on doing it forever, and we very much know that from how the last few years of our band has been.”
“One minute you can be playing to four-thousand people, and that time next year your singer says he wants to leave, and nothing’s certain anymore. You have no control of the outcome at the end of the day is making the best record that you can, and the best record that is for you, and see what that does for you.”
Taken from the September issue of Upset. Mallory Knox’s self-titled album is out now.
