A CONVERSATION WITH... THE WORD ALIVE
We talk to Telle Smith of The Word Alive about their new album, what's wrong with the music industry and finding the perfect collaborations.
credit: wolfe eliot
“I think you can expect the unexpected,” said frontman Telle Smith talking about the band’s upcoming album. “I don't think that anyone fully knows, even from the singles released, what this album fully entails and what it is going to sound like,” he continued. No doubt this is going to be an interesting chapter in the bands story and there is an air of mystery surrounding the album.
“So, I'm really excited,” he smiled as if he knew a secret we didn’t. “I think people are gonna listen to it and if you listen to it from start to finish, I think you're gonna have to listen to it again.” The album, Hard Reset, is due out on 25th August and is much anticipated by fans who may not know exactly what to expect but as the title suggests we may be looking at quite a transformation, a hard reset.
“You know, we had a lineup change when the world shut down and it kind of shifted gears, shifted focus, and the vision,” he explained. “We were able to kind of hone in on, those of us who remain, what we really loved about the band, what we wanted to accomplish with this record, what we wanted to stay with this record.”
If the album title wasn’t enough to leave you wondering where the band are heading the first song is rather ominously named ‘The Word Alive is Dead’. “So obviously, you know, when you make a track one, The Word Alive is Dead, but you're putting out a new record it's an intentional statement of like, obviously, we're not, obviously,” said the frontman.
One thing we do know is that there are a series of collaborations on this record, including some from scene staples. “Craig with Escape the Fate is my oldest friend of all the featured vocalists,” he told us with pride as he talked about their collaboration. ”We have a lot of history between our bands and it's something we had talked about for probably about 10 years now and we finally made it happen. So we're both super excited about that.”
Not all of the collaborations hail from the States, a little closer to home for us here in the UK as The Word Alive chose to feature Normandie. Smith’s reasoning beyond the choice is straightforward. “I love Phillip's voice and I've loved everything that Normandie has done so far and I just felt like in the States in particular, not enough people knew or know who they are,” he said. “So I want people to hear this voice that I think is really incredible and really special.” As for what he thought of the finished product, his views on that are pretty straightforward too, “He killed it!”
When discussing the collaboration with Julian from Loveless it was clear that he had similar feelings towards this feature as that of the Normandie one. “We've been talking about it, almost like joking on the internet, the last couple of years about doing something together and when ‘Hate Me’ was getting really fleshed out and developed, it was just obvious that he would be the best vocal choice for that song,” he said.
The relationship between the band and Noah Sebastian of Bad Omens, Smith draws on their experiences together in the industry. “Noah and I have been friends for years he has recorded me for different guest vocals. We've done co-writes together,” he said, adding: “So we're not only friends but creatively I feel like we’re in tune with what each other do and like, and when he heard ‘One of us’, he was like, this is my vibe and he made it his own.”
The final collaboration is with Matt Good of ‘From First To Last’ one of Smith’s oldest friends in the industry and a huge part of The Word Alive, recording their albums ‘Dark Matter’ and ‘VIolent Noise’. It should also be noted that he recorded some of their stand-alone singles including one of their biggest songs. “So he's been so integral in The Word Alive's success. I love from first to last and I love Matt Good's voice,” he said. “So it just felt like a full circle moment too, to have him a part of the record actually.”
Choosing collaborations and features is not easy and Smith has been transparent about the reasons behind doing so. “At the end of the day, it's because I really respect and appreciate all of their vocal talent and I felt like it was a collaboration that The Word Alive fans would love, but hopefully also their fans as well,” the frontman explained. It’s true however that every now and then some collaborations do not come off.
One such collaboration that was talked about but did not come to fruition was one with Spencer Charnas from Ice Nine Kills. Smith explained what went wrong: “So we’d love to have him at some point, we talked about kind of doing a version of this one song and it didn't make it for this record. It felt like it might be forcing him maybe into a song, rather than how the others were like this song is meant for them, kind of thing.” Never fear though, there's still hope for collaboration in the future. “I'm sure at some point, Spencer and I will collaborate, I would love to,” Smith said.
“Years and years ago on Warped Tour, he helped fill in for me a group of singers did,” he told us. “I had to leave Warped Tour for a couple of days for a funeral in my family and I'll never forget Spencer, I think he was the first one who was like, I got you. Ever since then, I've wanted to have him a part of The Word Alive just as a partial thank you and an appreciation of his talent.” Relationships really are formed on tours like Warped Tour that carry bands through the industry and help them along their journeys.
The days of Warped Tour are long since behind us as a collective in this industry, whatever your role is. A lot has changed in the industry since then. Where there are also positives in the industry there’s often a downside too. Nobody is more acutely aware of this than the people whose lives are controlled by it, like those of the bands who create the main substance, the music. “I don't think establishments and groups of people should be able to own such a percentage of the profit of what a band makes, that the band could be struggling to survive and pay bills and eat,” he admits. “But then people who didn't create the songs are like flourishing.”
This is not a new concept and we’ve all heard the tales of bands and musicians that are left with nothing but the powers that be have made a healthy profit. Smith is hardly being radical in his views and it's not as if he wants the other cogs in the machine to come away with nothing, he said: “I think that the, the piece of the pie that goes to the artists is way too small and the piece of the pie that goes typically to managers to labels, to you know, all, all the pieces that help, of course, a band work, I feel like it could be redistributed a little bit so you shouldn't be struggling to live and then someone else is profiting off of you so much that they're living well.”
Being in the industry as long as Telle Smith has you’re sure to have received some bad advice over the years, in amongst the good. Especially when it comes to money. “The worst piece of advice was that you had to spend a lot of money to look big to become big. So, you know, like perception is everything and no it's not, that's not true,” he told us. “We spent a lot of money that we should not have early in our career that, could have been much better suited being saved.”
However, it is obvious that despite its pitfalls the industry is the place Smith wants to be. “For all of its faults, I think it's created a lot of freedom in my life, freedom of expression, you know, failing, trying again. It's helped me develop a lot of great relationships in my life that have really meant a lot to me,” he said. “And, I think it's kept me young, in a lot of ways like chasing your dream is not for the faint of heart, but I think it keeps you young at the same time.”
The love he has for music is as clear as the smile he has on his face when asked what he would do if he was not in The Word Alive. “I mean, I think I still would like to be working in music, whether it's, mentorship, management, working for a label. I love the creative process. I love working in the studios,” he said before pausing as if he just remembered. “Actually, right after this interview, I go and have a co-write for a really awesome band that's from Australia.”
“I would definitely still be in music,” he reassures us. “If I wasn't touring, I would really hyper-focus on helping artists, songwriting, top lining vocals and just trying to help bands maybe avoid some of the pitfalls of the industry.”