31st August 2023

Exclusive Interview: Masquerader talk “Nothing Will Change”!

It’s been an open secret that we’ve been waiting for the debut EP from Masquerader for… longer than we can remember. Two years? Lets call it that. The trio have been regulars on the small venue circuit for longer than that, known for a furiously frenetic set and giving us their first single “Pressure” in November 2021. July 2023 brought to an end what seemed like eternity as “Nothing Will Change“. Depending on how you look at that it’s either a five cut EP or an eight track album, adorned by an unholy trinity of remixes to keep you as warm as setting fire to your sofa on a colder winters night. We spoke to the Industrial, Post-Hardcore, Math Rock and Alt. Hip-Hop upstarts about the record and the conversation went something like this…

How does it feel to finally have the EP “Nothing Will Change” released two years after the single “Pressure” first appeared? Is it a weight off the shoulders or are you already working on some more material? “Still quite surreal to see it out to be honest! It’s a huge pleasure to see the reaction after having people beg us for releases for so long and it’s a big relief because we’ve been writing new material but struggling with these tracks weighing on our minds, especially with all the mixing to think about. With the tracks out in the world now, we can get stuck into the new stuff”

How did the decision come about not to have a rhythm guitarist in the band and instead have the bass act in that role? “In our earliest days, we had a guitarist but he flaked out pretty quickly. By this point we were itching to get things written and play shows and didn’t want to sit on our hands until we could find a guitarist. “I.am.masquerader” emerged from some of our first jams together and honestly there’s little room for guitars in that one so that gave us a good template that it was possible. Originally we did toy with having Danny play rhythm guitar on a couple tracks but weighing him down with a guitar was a noticeable change in stage energy, like caging a tiger. The laptop was a natural next-step with Danny’s influences”

We’ve picked out some similarities between Fever 333, Prodigy and The Streets and your music but who would you say are your main influences? “Our main reference points are bands like Glassjaw, Deftones, Mclusky, Death Grips, Rolo Tomassi and Show Me The Body. One thing that surprises us is people hearing a dance influence in a similar way to acts like the Prodigy and Pitchshifter, or Enter Shikari, who take a lot from that realm of music. That’s not conscious at all on our parts!”

You’ve been playing these songs for at least a couple of years at this point, so how would you say they evolved from their original versions to the final incarnation committed to tape? The new version of “Pressure” is nearly a minute shorter, sounding more refined which works incredibly well. “Glad to hear the changes to Pressure work! For that one it was a mix of feedback from the recording session itself and from people’s reactions afterwards. With it being recorded it was a mainstay of our set for a long while and playing it live so often we became pretty aware of it dragging in parts. In general we’ve quite a habit of re-working songs, there’s a bit of a perfectionist streak so we put ideas through the ringer, rearranging structures and rewriting sections if they’re a bit dead – a lot gets thrown out. Danny’s near-constantly fiddling with the synths to tighten up that end. Looking back, we’re pretty glad we waited to record and put these tracks out – the old demo of “i.am.masquerader” is a huge drop back from the version on NOTHING WILL CHANGE”

Having been able to create something so varied and dynamic, do you feel like there are no borders or boundaries when it comes to your creativity within the group? Do you have a wildcard K-Pop single in you that everyone is going to go crazy for? “We don’t have the choreography for K-Pop! For the most part, a main goal and fulfilment from the band has been trying to challenge ourselves with our playing and writing so pushing our creativity is a pretty innate part of that now. Ironically it sets up a boundary at the other end, there’s plenty of riffs we throw aside for being a bit too generic and lacking that “weirdness” that we go for. Trying to find that balance between complexity and simplicity is a big consideration for us and it’s a hard line to walk. As far as genre goes, we find they mean less and less to people who just enjoy listening to music, for example the majority of people who listen to today’s heavier bands are also into today’s alternative pop and hip-hop (ourselves included), so it’s less about worrying what genres things are and more about if it delivers what we want it to.”

What’s next for Masquerader? “We have another EP all ready to come out later this year, looking to hit gigs pretty hard for the rest of the year and getting some new material ready to play live”