The band members are left to right: Bill Crook, Mike Stringer, andCourtney LaPlant.
Lindsey Byrnes is a person.
When it comes to launching a new band, the H1N1 has changed the music industry. For almost two years now, the album-tour cycle has not been able to reestablish itself, as shows and release schedules have been thrown off time and time again. There has been a new awakening in the rock industry in the case of the Canadian metal outfit Spiritbox. The debut record of Spiritbox, Eternal Blue, was the 13th best selling album of the year. For a metal band to chart this high with a debut is very rare in today's music climate. The band hadn't toured properly in anticipation of the release. There is more to Spiritbox than meets the eye, specifically in their marketing strategies and sonic appeal, which have helped to establish them as this year's most exciting new band.
Many bands in the heavy music community seem to have lost the art of creating a brand, and more importantly a demand for their brand. The world was shut down and concerts were an alien concept at the start of 2020 and that's when Spiritbox began to slowly trickle out singles. The band took to the internet by storm and have since raked in tens of millions of views on their videos. The music spoke for itself, but the visual and sonic package was one of the key elements in building this momentum.
The band has a sound that can speak to both heavy and popular music genres, and its founding members are married. It is a feat that few metal bands have been able to achieve at the beginning of their career. With over 120 million streams under their belt, the band will begin their next phase, full force touring, in 2022.
After speaking with both Mike andCourtney, the band has shared their thoughts on their road to success, and how they are preparing for another ambitious year in 2022.
It has been very strange. We entered the pandemic a completely different band and we are coming out on a different playing field. We went from opening shows that had 500 people in them for the first tour to now playing these festivals at pretty high up spots. It has been a crazy couple of years with everything happening, so I think it is a good way to describe it.
For me, my confidence is like a fake. It is like faking it to make it, I have to protect myself and have this confidence that I haven't established yet. Normally we would have had a normal trajectory had the world not been shut down, but I am trying to learn confidence as quickly as I can. The upside is that we are getting to play with some of the greatest bands of all time, the downside is that we are intimidated when we walk out there. We have the chance to study their process and see it first hand. It is intimidating but we are also learning from other people who are similar to us.
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You didn't get that normal trajectory with the typical album-tour cycle, which is very striking. You all focused on marketing your singles. The original plan for the band was either changed because of the Pandemic or was it just a single release.
We had a strategy with the singles collection, which was five songs, and it was the cause. The plan was to do a single music video a month, but it got dragged out because it was so difficult.
We are so stupid to think that we could have made our own music videos and paid for them, and then made one once a month.
It took about nine to ten months for the whole thing to get done, but we started writing Eternal Blue during that time. It took us about a year and a half to get it complete, and we didn't want to lose the enthusiasm we had as the Pandemic hit. The first single was called Holy Roller. It was a palate cleanser that we could put out with a visual to keep the name going. It was kind of at that time when the momentum started kicking in.
We put that out because we were angry. We were going to record Eternal Blue in April 2020, but we had to cancel it because we were on our first tour and it was canceled half way through. We recorded "Holy Roller" because we had played it on tour a couple times and it was fun, and we felt comfortable recording it remotely with our producer Dan Braunstein. It is easy to change things, but from my perspective it was simply a reaction to outside events.
We had to cancel recording the record about four or five times, so we put out "Holy Roller" in the summer of 2020 and all of us didn't get in a room until February 2021. We had to do it that way because of travel restrictions.
We didn't want to slow down, so "Holy Roller" was released in advance, so we could get away from it all. When you take away the ability to put a baby band on an opening spot, there is a real strategy that has to be done instead of just trying to make fans out of the headliners. The playing field leveled out once that was gone. We were able to use the fanbase that we had made over three and half years at that point, because all of the noise and smoke and mirror bands disappeared. When we knew we were going to release Holy Roller, everyone was like "what the fk is this?" In a weird way, we were used to being in this type of environment, because a lot of people were struggling to figure out what to do. They live on an island and don't have a lot of friends in bands.
I want to make a goal of never thinking about an album as a contractual obligation that I am simply fulfilling, and that is what an album is. That is why people put out ten songs because they are contractually obligated to do that so that they can get money from their label for it. I would prefer to keep things as they are, where we just let it go when we feel like it works for us, and then when there seems to be a demand for it. I like the way that other genres of music do it, and I feel like a lot of records are supply with no demand. It seems like the artist has more control over when and where they play their music than the other way around. We look to the other genres for that as well, but still appreciate how important an album is to the people that listen to our type of music. It is important for us to listen to metal bands.
There would be no one there if Eternal Blue came out with a single music video. It would be like throwing it down a hallway. They live and die by the single when they do the mixtape game. They will promote a single for six months. There are more ways to place that single than there is in metal, but I just looked at them as they have been doing it for a long time. We did the self-titled and singles collection because we wanted to package the songs into an album when we were done with five songs.
Why do you think the heavy music genre has stopped using the long term single release format and instead stuck with the very long term album releases?
It is hard to release singles and have all of your eggs in one basket. How do you decide when and where? A lot of artists in our genre are workhorses, they are just workhorses, they are not only creating new music but they are just workhorses, they are punishing tours. Where do you have time to shoot music videos? That is really difficult. The dynamic of our band has been taken away. We sat around and asked ourselves, "what cool thing can we create?" I think the demographic of the really popular stuff is a lot of older people with disposable incomes who like consuming one body of work that is hard-rock and metal, so I don't know why we haven't had the physical aspect. I don't know why, but I think it's just our demographic, they love that and they love supporting the artists. You can support an artist by buying their album and t-shirt.
It is a risk, and I feel like in metal it is a risk more than in hip-hop or pop, because artists will want to write a full concept record, or more in metal than in pop. It is risky because you could put out a single that no one will listen to and then you are like, I would have had a better chance if I put out 12 of these songs at the same time. It is just more eyes on you with the internet and the more visual content you put out, it is just more eyes on you. I don't know, I think metal is starting to wake up to that, but I think it's just a risk factor.
It started as a need. We didn't record an album because we couldn't afford it. We don't want to spend a thousand dollars on ten songs and have them sound terrible, we want it to be of quality. We can now afford to record a full body of work and have physical copies of it. For the last four years, we have been hyper focused on a small body of work and reacting to what we can do to the best of our ability. Sometimes Michael shoots a video on his phone and uses a version of Final Cut Pro that expires if he accidentally changes the date, because the trial is done. We recorded Eternal Blue in a kitchen with Dan, we were with an amazing producer and all of his awesome equipment, but you know you have to do what you have to do sometimes. It is easier for me to think of something as a collective of work because I think it is hard for a lot of artists to figure out what to put out. Each thing you put out feels like it defines you, and now you are who you are, until you put out another song. I think there is a way to do it.
The band members are left to right: Bill Crook, Mike Stringer, andCourtney LaPlant.
Shinn is a man.
You have taken significant risks with your singles and the results seem to have paid off. What was it like to see how well your debut did?
I thought someone was messing with us.
I thought that was going to be the case. I said this before, but I was so excited that we could get into the Top 100, that I was in complete disbelief when it landed. You forget the closing date when you work on something for a long time. You put it out and when it finally goes on the streaming service, you don't have to worry about it because it's out. It still doesn't feel real to me, even though the charts have come in and solidified that it did.
The band is young but not young. We are trying to be like an actual part of the music industry for the rest of our lives. It has been 14 years since we tried to do this, so it is one of the things that has never been important to us. It is crazy to be acknowledged in that way because we respect other artists. I always say, however briefly, the screenshot of your chart placement on that day lasts forever, so it's really motivating for our own selves, but I think we feel that way any time any heavy band breaks into that percentile. Even if it is a band that I don't like, it makes me so motivated because it helps all of us.
It has been fascinating to see the success you have had this year, and I am sure it has created a lot of pressure. How are you looking towards the future now that the year is over?
We have a lot to prove, and in my opinion it is looking like we are honing in on the live show at every chance we get. It is hard to go from not playing a show that big, to now doing a bunch in the span of a year, but we are ecstatic and appreciative of all the opportunities this year. Now that we have gone through all that, we will be honing in and making sure everything is perfect in 2022. We know that this moment could be taken away, and we have seen other bands get this type of opportunity.
It would be our job to take it away. It would be ours.
It is very important for us that when we play it is memorable and that people walk away satisfied. It is going to be a lot of touring and it is going to be writing on the side.
We don't want to stop writing, that's what we're doing right now We don't want to make the sophomore slump mistake because we have a brief moment of time. When a band is on a tour and they don't have anything left for writing, that's when something happens. When a record is due, they are like "well, let's write a record, I guess." We don't want to get caught up in those traps.
