26th October 2019

Exclusive Interview: Kial Churcher from MSRY talks new EP “Loss”!

The third EP from Oxford Hardcore Punks MSRY is going to appear on 8th November! Entitled “Loss” it features a pair of singles that are out now in “Guilt” and “Still Breaks My Heart” as the band continue to play as many shows as humanly possible. So we figured it was about time that we caught up with them having had the pleasure of their live set on the “Gnostic State” release tour in London where they shared the stage with Gassed Up, MTXS and Compounds…

Last summer’s sophomore EP “Safety First” is very politically and socially aware lyrically as well as having a great sense of fun to it. How does the new EP “Loss” measure up? It stacks up alongside it as a counterpoint of how we are personally. Where Safety First was political and socially aware ‘Loss’ feels like us showing our open wounds to people. It deals with not knowing who you are as a person, what life becomes after losing yourself and what you thought made you who you are.

Especially when it comes to me, this record has made me question a lot and not realise that the music that we were recording has corresponded alongside a lot of what’s happened to me in the last year, it’s a factor of did my life imitate the art, or has the art imitated my life.

Being massive Cancer Bats fans and having played “Hail Destroyer” live, getting Liam Cormier on board for “Still Breaks My Heart” must have been mind blowing? How did that come about? Any plans to record a studio take of the Cancer Bats cover? It was pretty huge for us, we got our favourite vocalist on a track – that’s gonna be huge for any band and we’re so happy the stars aligned to make things work out.

You know how they say that no matter what happens or how bad things go, that there’s always a silver lining? That’s exactly how this happened. We played a show in Brighton last year and we got to the last song and everything blew. The power went out on stage and left us with nothing, no backing tracks, no stage lighting and nothing much to do for 5 minutes.

Luckily enough they got on enough power so we could play one last song and we got told to play the Cancer Bats cover. Turns out the sound guy knew them and was one of their road crew when they come over for UK dates – a couple of emails back and forth later and we got Liam Cormier in the studio with us in Bicester while he was over catching up with friends.

As for us recording ‘Hail Destroyer’, we actually did! It’s out there you just gotta find it.

The addition of bass player Harvey Lake to the line-up has given you more freedom live with less use of the backing track. How’s it going with him and what was it like having an extra person in the camp for writing and recording the new material? He’s fantastic, a really nice guy and a great musician. He plays basically every instrument so it’s really good for us in a sense of writing music to be able to go back and forth with him over ideas.

Losing Amongst Thieves from the EP release tour must have been a challenge but getting a replacement in Tether must have been a sigh of relief! What are the chances of Justin Jackson or Rob Parnell joining you for “Still Breaks My Heart”? Which places are you looking forward to playing the most? Yeah there was a major feeling in us that the entire tour was going to fall through and we were going to release this thing without being able to tour off of it!

Tether are fantastic, they’re just such a nice group of guys and it’s going to be interesting heading out of the road with them. If they wanna do it then I’m always willing to give the microphone away to them or anyone that knows the words!

We’re looking forward to all of them, I know that’s such a catch-all stereotypical thing for a band to say but we just love being out on the road and meeting new people. Luton and London have always been good to us, so we’re Definitely looking forward to those dates – plus they’re near home so we might be able to take a shower and sleep somewhere that isn’t a floor.

How difficult was it to persuade The Bullingdon to allow you to use their venue for the shooting of the “Guilt” music video? We’ve all been in bands for a long time and played The Bullingdon numerous times. They were pretty chill with us using the venue in all honesty it was just a very long day for both parties involved but I think we got the most out of it regardless. They’re a bunch of cool guys and knew we’d make a racket but be respectful to the venue.