Page 26 - BiTS_02_FEBRUARY_2021

JH: It was absolutely incredible, yeah.

BiTS: Tell me something about what I think is a new album, "The Hammer Falls", is that right?

JH: Yes.

BiTS: And the new track from it 'World on Fire'.

JH: Yeah.

BiTS: When does the album come out?

JH: 'World on Fire' was recorded in Brazil. We
actually recorded that track right at the end of

the Brazil tour where we got offered two days
in this really great studio and I'd got a couple of
other songs I'd been working on and I said
maybe we should try and write something on
the tour and record it over here, which would
make it quite special. We did it all in two days.

We put the track together on the first day and
did all the recording on the second day and
yeah, that's the first single from the next album
and that came out a couple of months back.
We're in the midst of recording it right now
and I've got about seven tracks in, we've got

another two songs to go, plus 'World on Fire'
which is already recorded and I've always
wanted to record an album where there's a sort
of prog element to it that I've not really touched on before, but I've always had an interest in
complexity within song writing and most people who listen to our music would probably know that
a lot of the songs are quite radio-friendly. They're three or four minutes long, they've got big

choruses and that sort of thing, which I still wanted to retain, but with the new stuff I wanted to
explore the guitar more, so there's a lot more interesting guitar techniques. Lots more textures
with the guitar that I've perhaps used in the past when I've mainly been doing session stuff, but
never really done it on my own recordings. In a strange way lockdown last year was a really good
experience in terms of my creativity because I was forced to basically channel what energy I had
into song writing rather than relentless touring, so I do think that the songs that I've put together

have benefited from having a lot of spare time on my hands, whereas the previous records were
pretty much written on the road. I remember writing my single 'Justified' in a hotel room in Russia
when we were on tour. It was like 2 am and there's something about that. There's something really
cool about being on tour and writing whilst you're on the go but to have hours and hours to focus
on the tracks and really refine the lyrics, refine the choruses and the guitar parts, I think that's
been a really good experience for me.