Exclusive Interview: InVisions talk “Deadlock”!

Three times a charm and the freshly released third album “Deadlock” from York’s InVisions is without doubt their finest hour. Building on the foundation of gold and bones that went before it, the new record was conceived and self recorded by the band in lockdown and mixed once again by producer Joe Graves (Asking Alexandria, Deaf Havana, Glamour Of The Kill). After reviewing the early contender for this year’s awards season, we had the pleasure of a conversation with vocalist Ben Ville, which went something like this…

How have you found the reaction to the trio of pre-release singles “Deadlock“, “D V P E” and “Annihilist“? Having heard the album prior to the release, with the exception of “Inertia” any of the cuts could have been chosen as singles because they’re all that good; so what made you choose those? With well over 1.6m Spotify Streams what made you decide not to include the 2020 single “Gold Blooded” on the new album? “We wanted to give the best impression of the album without giving too much away and we think these are the best tracks to portray the direction we are heading. The Annihilist chorus is just too catchy, so we had to share that as soon as possible! It was tough to choose those 3 songs though as we are extremely happy with every single song on the album. Like you said, any could’ve made the cut! Every year we like to release at-least something, so ‘Gold Blooded’ we believe was the perfect bridge from ‘Between You & Me’ to ‘Deadlock’

The vocals on “Deadlock” are incredible, with a real diversity to them, the kind of rap screams that Attila frontman Chris Fronzak is famed for appearing on “D V P E” is really something else. How cautious were you about using the clean vocals this time around? They’re much improved but have been used sparingly which works really well. “Thank you! I’m very aware that my cleans are my weakest style of vocal but also something I really try and push myself to excel in. I’m always keen to try different styles and I think ‘Deadlock’ is the direction which personally suits me best. I’m always going to push myself to improve, where I’m at now is probably the best I’ve sounded but I’m never settled, I always know I have plenty of room to improve and I will continue to do so! So, to answer your question, I’m always cautious. But you have to push yourself out your comfort zone to improve, so that’s exactly what I did”

Were you always going to go independent with “Deadlock” after your adventures with Stay Sick Recordings last time around or did you consider finding a label for the record? “We weren’t always going to go independent, but we were always ready to. We were having some discussions, but in the background, we were planning to self-release also. It’s not a bad thing, we are very happy with our plans and excited for what’s to come!”

As we mentioned in our review, the first time we saw you was on the after party stage at Tech-Fest in 2018; what are your memories of the night and how important have Festivals like Tech-Fest and Bloodstock been in building your reputation to this point? “I remember that show well! It was a super hot day and a great one at that, I’ve never been to Tech Fest before but I’d definitely go back. I was wondering what kind of reception we’d get playing that late, but it was amazing and tonnes of fun! Festivals play a huge part in any bands career, especially a band like us! They supply the opportunity to play to large crowds of people who probably haven’t heard of us before, so these shows really do help build a fan base”

You seem happy to be doing your own thing and headlining shows at the moment; what size of band would it take to have InVisions support them on a European or US tour at this point or is that something that is off the agenda three albums down? “Nothings ever off the agenda and if the opportunity is there, we’ll take it. Before this we weren’t really headlining too much so for us to just go out and headline some shows was something we had been planning to do for a while. We are ready for any European or US tour supports and certainly more than happy to do them regardless of our position on the bill. We thrive on playing shows and want to grab any opportunity to do so”

Aside from those two album release shows in Leeds and London in April, what’s next for InVisions? “We just want to tour, tour, tour and tour some more. We want to hit places we’ve never been, revisit places we’ve loved and just give ‘Deadlock’ the coverage we feel it deserves”

Catch InVisions live at the Deadlock release shows…

15th April – Leeds, Key Club

16th April – London, The Black Heart

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