On their explosive first album, the Sydney party punkers muse on mortality and make it look GOOD.
Life and death: it’s a lot to cover, especially on a debut. But with melancholy, angst and screaming guitars, Sydney band Clay J Gladstone tackle it head on, giving us a 13-track offering meant to be listened to in its entirety.
Made with ARIA award-nominated producer Shane Edwards, the album was inspired by the band member’s personal experiences with death.
Clay J Gladstone – Is This How I Die?
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“After my father’s death when I was 19, I developed serious anxiety and panic attacks, which I later recognised as a response to my own extreme fear of death and the unknown,” explains vocalist Tim Wisbey.
“This album chronicles my process to accept and cope with my father’s passing, documenting emotions, situations and problematic thoughts I had throughout my 20s, moving from fear to acceptance.” To celebrate the album’s recent release, guitarist Matty takes us behind the scenes.
Is This How I Die?
My fave from the album, but of course I’d say that as the guitarist. Groovin riffs and shredding, just a hard-partying rock song that’s as fun to play as it is to mosh to. I initially wanted to call the album This Is How I Die?! And have this be called Is This How I Die? – Think Slayer’s Raining Blood VS Reign In Blood – but Tim and I could barely get it right between us so we had to simplify it for our wee brains.
Talk Of The Town
I love how much you can hear our influences all the way from The Used to Motley Crue in this one. I think we really put the party up front on this album, and just like reality, the comedown will hit hard later. Lyrically this one is a bit of a middle finger to the music industry and gatekeepers who think deals are the be-all and end-all of being a musician. Contracts don’t make the world go round – RIFFS DO.
Postmodern Teenage Angst
I found this chorus SO annoying at first – turned out it was an earworm drilling into my skull. The chorus is so simple we had crowds singing along before it was ever tracked. Thematically we’re talking about how the angst you feel as a teen doesn’t necessarily go away – it’s just your own damn problem now.
Death By Idle Hands
Who doesn’t wanna be in a band where you get to scream “DEATH DEATH DEATH” in people’s faces every night? I love how as the song progresses we become a little less delicate each time and eventually, everything turns to slippery chaos. Did I mention the “clap” break you hear is very literally our butts?
Fight Me
There are SO many people I want to point this song at, this one really resonated lyrically with Shane Edwards (Buddha) too in a way I wasn’t expecting. He really loved the idea of a song that’s about sticking up for the little guy and essentially calling out bullies to come eat with the big dogs if they wanna play. Be the change you wanna see in the world, bully the bullies.
Why Does Everybody Hate Me?
One of the funnier songs lyrically while still tackling the agony of accepting the problem is and always was yourself. The chorus on this one can be interpreted as sickly sweet at a surface level, and I really hope a few couples do take it the wrong way, but if you dig into the lyrics you’ll find a pretty gnarly underbelly.
In All Of My Disgrace
Just Tim, an acoustic and I believe the first version he recorded on his iPhone is what you hear on the album. Such a tearjerker that it’s actually kinda hard to listen to being his mate.
Three Cheers For Optimism
This song is not even close to what we initially brought to the studio, it almost didn’t make the cut, after a total overhaul this is a big fave in the band now and crowds seem to agree so far.
The brief we gave Sammy for the solo on this was ‘It should be putrid and sound like you’re falling down the stairs’ and he nailed it, really flexing Sam’s ability to think outside the box with his instrument. Both Cole (Wilkins – Bass) and I need O P T I M I S M spelt out huge on our set lists because we always spell it wrong live hahaha
Pessimist
This is one we’ve had in the arsenal for a very long time, internally it felt like a bit of an overworn shirt for us to be frank, but the amount of people we have singing this back to us already before we even tracked it was too hard to ignore. Shane (Edwards) really helped us take this in a bigger direction and I’m so happy we get to take this on tour with a new coat of paint on it.
For All Your Friends
I think you can really hear our more indie influences coupled with a contained rage in parts of this one. The overlapping vocals and the chorus lyrics of “the apple don’t fall far from the tree” really capture the feeling of wanting to scream in someone’s face but choosing to swallow the bitter pill when you know you’re right. From memory, this is pretty close to the original demo and one of the tracks that kinda just came to fruition.
Parasite
One of the first writing contributions from Sam on this one, really love the spite on this one and nice to get heavy again after a pretty gut-wrenching middle of the album. This one is a breakdown short of a metalcore song in my opinion.
We All Die Alone
Matt – Hang on, this only goes for a minute and a half? I’ve been singing WE ALL DIEEEEE ALONE for like hours now. This was originally much longer but as we started to feel parts were overstaying their welcome, we all concluded that the old mantra of ‘don’t bore us, get to the chorus’ applied here.
Something To Lose
We couldn’t be any further from where we started the album here, it almost feels like we tricked you into thinking we’re just a party band. Almost shoegaze in some parts, there’s a lot to offer for guitar pedal nerds. For a solid year plus this was the working title of the album and we were all very dead set on that, but as we progressed through songwriting, the energy of the album shifted and it just didn’t make sense to call it that anymore despite the title really encompassing what this album is all about lyrically – realizing you have something to lose and the fear of it all slipping away.
Keep up with Clay J Gladstone here.
This article was made in partnership with Bigmouth.
