Story and Interview by Lana Nimmons
From AprilsVandala Magazine 2014

This month I had the distinct pleasure to chat with the very talented vocalist Sam from the Architects. Bonding over our ridiculously early interview, and a serious lack of caffeine,  we chatted about their huge spring summer tour across Europe, their sixth album, Lost Forever//Lost Together, and how we are all in the same ship of life, and connected. Funny enough while discussing their recording of their new album at the legendary Fredrik’s studio in Sweden. And how a certain previous cover artist flooded their living space causing friendly rivalry. 

Your album just came out last week- how is 2014 looking for Architects so far? You guys seem to have quite the tour happening.

Sam: Looking pretty good right now, I don’t know if my girlfriend and our families are too stoked. But it’s looking pretty good, for us anyway.

How’s it been so far?

Sam: Pretty crazy actually, we’ve been having shows sold out, and the overall response of the record has been pretty crazy considering how long we’ve been around for. To have a full tour kicking off after our sixth record is pretty awesome.

This album you guys really took it to the next level, how do you think or do you think this album differs from your previous work?

Sam: I don’t know necessarily, cause we didn’t go around it any differently. I think, we as people were in a good spot when we were writing it, and partially just good timing. I kinda think we figured out what we’re all about as a band, and we kinda have grown up a little bit. Now we know the good bits from the sh*t bits {laughs}.

What is your writing process like as a band?

Sam: Pretty similar in its always been, Tom writes everything, and then he brings it to practice and we go from there. Then I demo vocals, it’s been the same for the last 10 years now.

The new album, ‘Lost Forever//Lost Together’, I am just interested to know about how the title came about and its meaning?

Sam: The lyrics and the messages in the record is all about how we’re all in this world together in time that could be quite scary. How you could become overwhelmed by fear, and how were surrounded by negative, and negative outcomes. The reality is, no matter what happens if the ship starts sinking we are all it together-so that’s the kind of vibe of it. It’s like no matter what happens, no matter how sh*t it is, no matter how much people try to distance themselves from the reality of what’s going on, when sh*t hits the fan we’re all going to be in it together. So that’s the meaning behind it.

What would you say are the running themes throughout this album?

Sam: There are a lot of themes throughout it, in general I think it’s a rather hopeful record. Whereas Daybreaker was a record bringing new information to light and talking about what’s going on, this one kind of has more of a hopeful outlook on it- a resolution of some sort.

Can you elaborate on that?

Sam: I think just in general be kind of write about things that are happening at the moment, like songs on the record about Harashima, some songs on the record about Bradley Manning, there are songs on the record about Sea Shepherd – In general things that are happening, and that actually matter right now; which can be discussed, and can be interesting to everyone. I think there so many times you can write a song about a girl and how you spit up or whatever. So I think it’s kind of a no brainer for us nowadays. We just read about interesting things that are going on in the world right now something that you can get a little bit more angry about.

The song C.A.N.C.E.R on the album is spelt out like an acronym, is it actually about cancer?

Sam: Yes it’s about cancer, Tom’s mom was diagnosed Last Summer. She got skin cancer, and yeah, Tom wrote a song about it. It was such a massive part of his life, and he thought she was going to die. He worked really hard on the song and it turned out really great. So this is one of the most important songs on the record for Tom.

READ REST OF  INTERVIEW (FREE) on page 28 of MARCH 2014 VANDALA MAGAZINE Below OR HERE if the image does not display