Exclusive Interview: Recall The Remains talk “Dead Dreams”, live shows and people they’d like to work with…

The beginning of the month of March is the start of season of spring, a time during which the days get longer, the nights get shorter and the new shoots of green life start surfacing in the plant kingdom. For most people that’s a good thing but not if you’re West Midlands Metalcore quintet Recall The Remains, as much like any self respecting Metal Heads, they only come out at night and they only wear black, so daylight burns their retinas. However, it was the time that they chose to unleash an EP in “Dead Dreams” which has been bubbling along in a Witches cauldron since the band formed in 2017 and having paid their dues with sets at  Mammothfest, Derby Alt Fest and HRH Metal Festival of late, it is very much the next step in their evolution…

You formed in 2017 and it’s taken four years to release your debut EP “Dead Dreams”. Do you feel like getting it out there is a weight off your collective minds? “Definitely, it’s been something that we have needed to do for so long. We were mainly waiting for the right collection of songs to tell a cohesive story within the EP and we feel that the 5 we chose to take to the studio really paints a picture of who we are.”

Having included 2018’s “First Inversion” and 2019’s “Deadlines”, the EP cuts adrift your debut single “The Will of Your God”. Why did you choose not to include it? “The Will of Your God was recorded all the way back in 2016 when our front man (Jacob) wasn’t a part of the band, so we felt that it wouldn’t be right to include it on the EP. Jacob joined in late 2017 just as we released The Will of Your God. Since this EP is about us evolving and adapting our sound/style we felt it didn’t fit the overall aesthetic of the EP. We still love the song dearly, but it represents the past Recall the Remains and we’re all about looking to the future.“

Did having the opportunity to play your material live before it was committed to tape give you more opportunity to see what worked and what didn’t from the ideas that you had? How different are the songs that landed up on the EP now to where they started out? “Yes! Trialing new material live is a great way to gauge what people will like and dislike. It helps us decide what tracks we are going to record next. We work with an incredible producer (Tom Gittins) and he is amazing when it comes to turning our “demos” into fully fleshed out tracks. He has been instrumental in some of the rewrites for the songs you hear on the EP”

There are no guests on any of the tracks on “Dead Dreams”, so if you could collaborate with anyone on a new track, who would you like to do so with and why? “The main reason for there being no guests on the EP is because Jacob and Jordan are very versatile vocalists and everything that the tracks have needed they’ve provided.  That being said of course it would be amazing to have some special guests Obvious ones being Corey Taylor, CJ from Thy Art is Murder, Tom Barber of Chelsea Grin. Phil from Whitechapel We’re mainly waiting to write that one perfect song that needs a guest vocal spot. When that happens we will definitely consider a guest vocalist”

You’ve shared stages with some of the Great and good of Metal including Bleed from Within, Decapitated and Rhapsody of Fire. If you could head out on a European tour trek as soon as the Global situation allows, who would you like to open for and why? Which cities or venues would you be excited to play? “We’d love to play with a band like Ice Nine Kills or Bleed From Within, or if we want to aim even higher British bands like Architects or Bury Tomorrow would also be amazing to tour with. There would be the music aspects like playing huge stages in different places (we’d love to play across Europe and in some big US cities) and showing ourselves off to new people, but also the behind-the-scenes stuff like how they set up their rigs, pre-show rituals etc would be fascinating to see.”

What does the future hold for Recall The Remains? “More music, more shows, more merch, more videos. We don’t want to stop creating. This is the strongest the band has ever been so we mainly just want to keep the train rolling. We’re heading into the studio in a couple of months where we shall be working on the follow-up to Dead Dreams.”