19th December 2023

Exclusive Interview: Arkan Sawyer talk “The White EP”!

The return of former Wrought vocalist J. Hurley with a new project in Arkan Sawyer 18 years after the fact caught our interest when his debut record “The White EP” dropped last month and not purely out nostalgia. The project finds him moving from Groove Metal into Stoner Doom Metal with Industrial and Nu-Metal vibes, experimenting with new vocal textures while leaning into synths and digital guitar tones as well as reworking tracks by Kendrick Lamar and Cracker so after a review, we caught up with the legend to discuss this brave new world…

After the success of “Hand Crafted Metal” and then the subsequent demise of your band Wrought, what made you decide to go back and do the music thing in 2022 and start a fresh project? “I’m a creative person to my core and it needs an outlet. I had produced a documentary about an abandoned theme park, started a YouTube channel about forgotten bands and while it was somewhat fulfilling, it wasn’t music. It seemed the more I wrote about people’s aspirations and tales of woe, the more I remembered I once had my own. I guess I didn’t my story to end like that.”

What made you go back to former Wrought guitarist Dan Robinson to act as an artistic producer on the record? What was it that he brought to the table in that capacity? “Dan and I had stayed in touch afterwards. We had recently restarted our Rage Against the Machine tribute and we were talking about writing a third Wrought record together. He is a busy guy in the film scene here and he came in later in the process; I already had (painfully) rough cuts of Low and Cast the Chains Away. I just didn’t trust my judgement and I needed an experienced ear to tell me what I needed to hear, be it positive or negative. It was also great to get the tracks outta my micro studio and into the Foundry’s monitors. You kinda of lose your touch, or ear I guess, after that long away. He really helped guide me to tighten the mix and dial things in more. And Someday is certainly a better song thanks to his input. I could see he wasn’t feeling the inflection in my vocals and he could’ve been more right. I re-tracked them with his suggestions in mind and it really created that intimate retelling of the tragedy. Dan has always been a great guardrail for me on projects and with his background in composition, his critique is invaluable. For a solo artist who is writing and recording in a vacuum, it is really a necessity.”

Aside from the style of the record (Stoner Doom Metal with Industrial and Nu-Metal vibes) what really stands out is how you made the two covers “Low” by Cracker and “Swimming Pools” by Kendrick Lamar sound very much in keeping with the three original cuts. What inspired you to choose those cuts to rework? What was the reaction from Dan Robinson when you said that you were going to take them on? “He heard them already in their early stages. The Cracker cover is what really got the ball rolling. I had been jamming it for a minute and thought ‘hey, let’s flush this out’. I really wanted to doing something different than what I had done in the past and Low really set the table moving forward. The Kendrick Lamar song just happened to be on the radio one day. Something about the low-end of that song and the vocal patterns pulled me in. It’s kind of misunderstood to be a party anthem and it begged to be a rock song.”

We always say that even in the digital age, the first bite is with the eye, so who was behind the artwork of “The White EP“? How did you go about choosing it and what do you feel it says about the project? “I’m guilty on that one. I love fucking with Photoshop and Premier. I had several different designs, some more busy than others, but I was terrified of giving the wrong impression. I hope it gives the listener a clean pallet and let the record speak for itself. Back in the days, early 2000’s ish, I would buy albums blind off covers alone, which in retrospect was a mixed bag. But some of my favourite records like Adrenaline from Deftones, Metallica’s Black album had a minimalist approach to their art. In the end, simplicity won the day.“

If we are made up of our genes and our influences, what is in your jeans and who would you consider your influences? How do they differ from the Wrought days? “Back in the Wrought days I didn’t listen to a lot of metal that was outside of our scene. We were really lucky to have bands like Deadbird and Vore in our midst. I guess I’ve been most inspired by bands like Sugartooth, Monster Magnet and Deftones. Those are bands that made me beg for a guitar when I was angst-filled teen back in the 90’s! But I feel my taste for bands like Nine Inch Nails, God Lives Underwater and Machine of Loving Grace are in there as well. I wanted to experiment with a slower sound. More recent bands like Northlane, Acid Mammoth and Om have certainly inspired me to push those boundaries.”

What’s next for Arkan Sawyer? “Back in the lab for more metal. The Ying to the Yang, is coming next year and several of those tracks are already in the scratch phase. The Black EP is going to be darker thematically and far less optimistic and no covers this time around. Honestly, the two EPs was as far as I had planned originally but if the white board on my wall is any indication, I’m far from done.”

“The White EP” by Arkan Sawyer was released on 24th November 2023