Whatwas your Australian tour at the end of 2013 like?

Itwascool. The whole month of shows was basically a way for us to stay active in the down time period between us having finished the record and waiting for it to come out. We just thought we’d put together a little Aussie run; nothing too crazy, just a few intimate shows here and there to stay busy and get out there.Now we’re basically just holding out and waiting for the record release and getting ready to hit next gear hard.

What hasthe response to your newmaterial been like at your shows?

It’s been awesome. We’ve got some really good feedback from fans at the shows, online, on Twitter and Facebook. We’ve had a massive response from triple j as well, playing'To The Wolves'not only on Short Fast Loud- the kind of hardcore show- but also Home& Hosed and a couple of other shows during the day as well, which is really good. For a heavy band of our genre to be played on radio during the day is a pretty massive feat. Beyond stoked.

Itshowsthatmore people are embracingheavy music.

Yeah, in my opinion heavy music has been exploding over the last few years. With bands like us and Parkway Drive and Amity, who are selling out enormous venues these days and headlining big tours over international acts, it’s a real testament to the success of heavy music, especially here in Australia.

There’s beena lot of positive feedback about your new music onlinebut also some negative- how does that affect the way you put together an album? Do you payattention to all ofthat?

Honestly, we do pay quite close attention to everything. We read all the comments, or at least a couple of us from the band do. I mainly operate the band’s Facebook and Twitter, then I have my own social media pages, which get quite a lot of traffic as well, so I’m immersed in it every single day. I do read all the good comments and I do read all the bad comments. You try not to take too much notice of the negative comments because a lot of them are coming from people who just spout something off the top of their head without giving it too much thought. Or perhapsfrompeople who are a bit butthurt that we didn’t get one of the old singers back, or whatever reason. We find that with most of the negativity, there’s not too much thought put into it. It just gets spurted off. We’ve even had people come back to us and apologise after making a negative comment, because they were like, “Oh I’m really sorry man, I just had a long day and I was drunk last night, my ex-girlfriend was pissing me off and I took it out on you guys.” It’s like, that’s lame, but at least you’re acknowledging it. With the positive reaction, it does makes us feel great. It helps us gauge what the record’s going to be like. Since there’s been so many excited comments- especially for the trailers and the songs that we’ve put out- it really gets us geared up to release this record and hit the road hard.

Music for the Recently Deceasedis one of the best metalcore albums of the last decade. How do you feelBelovedmeasures up to that? Do you feel pressure to repeat the success of that record?

Yeah, I guess there is always that pressure there. We didn’t want to just put out a shitty record after six, seven years of not having done anything other than a couple of tours here and there. But at the same time we didn’t want to let the pressure get to us. I think the pressure has been positive. It has helped us shape the record into what it’s become. A lot of the feedback we’ve gotten from the full record so far- it’s only from a handful of people, like our record label and some press and some close friends- but they’ve all said basically the same thing, and that’s this record sounds like a Prom Queen record. It sounds like the natural progression of where we would’ve gone had we written it back in 2008, and it feels to them almost like no time has passed in between. That’s what we were going for, we wanted this new album to be identifiable with the band, and not have people go, “Well it’s seven years later and you’ve got two or three different members now and this is a totally different band.” We want them to hear that record and go, “Yep, it’s Prom Queen. They’re back. This sounds like them. This is gonna be awesome.” Thats the reaction we’re after.

How did your time in both Bleeding Through and Bring Me The Horizon affect the way the new Prom Queen songs were written?

Having said that we wanted the album to be recognisable as a Prom Queen album, that’s not to say that we just wanted to writeMusic For The Recently DeceasedVersion 2. We wanted it to be a natural progression and that definitely includes influences that I’ve taken on in the last five, six, seven years. That’s been due to me being a little olderand having been in other bands, coming across other types of music, coming across other styles and techniques of playing and recording - that definitely has been a big factor. When I joined Bring Me The Horizon, for the first time I wasn’t one of the key songwriters in the band and someone else had the reigns. That was a little weird for me but I learnt to work with those guys the way they were used to working and writing a record. I feel like everyone’s a little older and wiser, the other guys have gone off and done other bands as well, and gotten new influences. We’ve tried some things on this new record that we never thought to try before or just never had the budget for in the past. We actually have quite a lot of live strings- cello, viola, violin- on a lot of the songs. And they’re done in a tasteful manner; they only appear here and there and they really mesh in well with the vibe of the song. It’s not like we’ve gone, “Alright, here’s a heavy riff, let’s randomly chuck on a symphony over the top.” We have been exposed to different methods and we’ve incorporated a lot more keyboard and synths and over-effected guitars on this record, whereas before it was a bit more stripped back- fast, heavy guitars into breakdown, super heavy part and a guitar solo. This time around we’ve got loads of layers of vocals, layers of synths, layers of strings, a host of guitar effects pedals that we brought to the studio with us. When people hear this record they will know it’s a Prom Queen record but I hope they’ve also recognised that we have tried some new things. They will be able to get a vibe that some of us have been in other bands. Maybe some fans will hear a bit of Bring Me The Horizon in there, I’m not too sure. I just write what comes naturally to me, whether that’s affected by my other bands or just what I’m listening to at the minute, that’s up to other people to decide I guess.

Do you have a favourite track on the album?

It always varies. You have a favourite for a few weeks then you go off that one. And I’ve now heard the record for four or fivemonths whereas people won’t hear it forawhileyet. But I really like the first single, 'Thirty One& Sevens’. We shot the video for that in Melbourne and Geelong. It shows a bit more of the melodic side of the band. In my opinion it’s like our 'Say Goodbye’ of this new record, so I’m hoping that people take to that song really well. It’s got everything: it’s got heavy parts, it’s got melodic parts, it’s got fast parts, it’s got plenty of catchy, singing chorus. In my opinion it’s the embodiment of Prom Queen’s sound.

Do you feel this is the strongest I Killed The Prom Queen line-up to date?

Some of the changes were fairly recent, only in 2012. Unfortunately we did lose our original drummer JJ and our long-time bass player Sean, who’d been in the band since 2003, so we’ve only done a small handful of touring with our current line-up. But having said that, this line-up has been solidified since before we began to write the record. Every song you hear on this record, except for a few parts here and there, was written by myself; Kevin; Jamie, our latest vocalist; Ben, our new bass player; and Shane, our new drummer. So I think that testifies to the success of this line-up. Also, the fact that we’ve all been super close friends, even before Shane and Ben joined the band, and before Jamie joined the band. Those guys have all played in other bands that we’ve either toured with or looked up to in the past, so it’s not like we’ve had three ring-ins come from the middle of nowhere and it’s gonna be this big risk. We’re dealing with super close friendships, really close working relationships that already existed prior to them joining the band.

You’ve just been announcedas part ofthe Soundwave line-up. Are you looking forward to that?

Yeah, absolutely. I personally have toured Soundwave in both Bleeding Through and Bring Me The Horizon before, so I know what to expect. I know that it’s such a fun tour. It’s basically a giant party of 70 bands that have all known each other previously or are meeting each other for the first time. It’s just such a phenomenal festival. It’s crazy to me that Soundwave has almost overtaken the Big Day Out and some of the other big festivals and it’s purely a heavy music festival, which again, going back to talking about heavy music in Australia and its recent success, Soundwave’s just another testament to that. We are very stoked to be on it. And the fact thatBelovedcomes outa week prior, I couldn’t think of a better way for us to get out there and promote the album.