Exclusive: Every Time I Die Talk ‘Aggressive’ New Album

This month, Every Time I Die are getting ready to release their fifth album ‘Ex Lives’; a record laced with explosive aggression but harnessed with the skill the Buffalo band have for so long possessed.

“I think it came out naturally aggressive because I wasn’t really comfortable,” frontman and vocalist Keith Buckley reveals to DIY. “For the first time ever, I had to perform the vocals in front of everybody. It was very frightening. I was making mistakes in front of the guys for the first time and it got me a lot more self-conscious. I was a lot more nervous and I think that anxiety definitely comes across.”

The news of their album release came out of the blue for most of us. Having released their fourth effort ‘New Junk Aesthetic’ three years ago in 2009, the band went quiet until the announcement
of ‘Ex Lives’ arrived immediately after their headline slot on the Rock Sound Riot Tour at the end of last year. In fact, we’d barely had time to reminisce about memories of their UK visit before we realised we’d have new music in our ears.

“I kinda like going dark for a little bit and really focussing on writing, having some time off. Normally, the way we do it is to record in-between tours and then as soon as we’re done recording, we go back out on tour. Then when the record comes out, we’re on tour. It’s like working in tandem with the other stuff that we’re doing.” So did the break open up more doors for the band creatively? “It’s given us a lot of time to think about how we wanted to approach it. I definitely had more time to think.”

Continuing along the theme of discomfort, it seems ‘Ex Lives’ was a means Buckley could use to deal with something he jokingly calls his own “mid-life crisis”: “I had reached a point in my life where I was pretty disappointed in a lot of things that were going on. There were definitely a few new stages that I had undergone, going into writing the record. It’s a little angrier, and I was a little older. There were a few ‘What am I doing with my life?’ sort of moments.”

And obviously, being in a band can begin to take its toll, not to mention after being in the same one for well over a decade: “There’s always stuff to write about, but it’s not always interesting. It’s not necessarily creative writing: it’s the same experiences that I’ve been having on tour. I’m still in a band, so chances are I’m gonna run out of inspiration.”

“It’s funny because everyone’s always talking about going and getting out and changing their perspective on life. Well, what if all you do is have a change of perspective? What happens when you want that normality back? That’s definitely something that comes out in the record: where am I headed at thirty two years old?”

Every Time I Die’s new album ‘Ex Lives’ will be released on 6th March via Epitaph Records.