UK punk band High Visions have announced their upcoming sophomore EP, titled Passerby, which was released on August 17th.
The EP fuses influences from early 2000s pop punk and hardcore with elements of newer, emo-tinged pop punk for a mixed crowd of fans and musicians in the genre. Recorded at The Ranch in Southampton (Creeper, Boston Manor), the EP tackles themes of mental health, abuse, and self-improvement from a unique perspective.
Check out the new EP below!
We managed to catch up with guitarist/vocalist Louis Flynn, drummer Alex Fell and bassist Zyggy before the EP was released as they talked about Passerby and more!
So how pumped are you for the release of Passerby?
Louis: Extremely, we recorded these songs in March, so we have been sitting on them for a long time now; it’s gonna feel great to final have them all out.
Alex: Incredibly excited to get these songs out there for people to hear. I think this EP is well above anything else we’ve done before in terms of song writing, production, basically the whole package, and is a much better representation of us as a band than anything have released beforehand. I can’t wait for it to be available for everyone to listen to!
Zyggy: Soooo pumped. We’ve poured our hearts and souls into this EP, and we seriously can’t wait to get these songs out to the world.
Can you tell us something about the EP no one else knows?
Louis: The last track was written while we were already tracking drums. We hadn’t got lyrics or melody for it at all, so one night me and Zyggy sat down and finished that song, and tracked vocals the next day.
Alex: We recorded the drums on a Q Drum Co. kit, with all the shells made from copper, that they had down at The Ranch where we recorded. It’s actually an exact replica of the drumkit that Ilan Rubin played on the self-titled Paramore album, and they’re the hugest sounding things ever!
Zyggy: The cover art was designed by Alduane Mano, a Filipino graphic designer from Davao who’s done a lot of work for pop punk artists in the past. However — the way I discovered him was quite strange! I was visiting my family in Manila the month after we finished recording, and at the time I was looking through designers that I wanted to contact about deisgning the EP cover. The first thing that drew me to contact Mano was the fact that he was also Filipino and we were in the same timezone (GMT+7), so on a whim I dropped him a message — and it was the best thing I could have done, as he was an absolute joy to work with! His artwork is brilliant.
What’s your favourite track from the EP?
Louis: Mine is Shit Out Of Luck as it’s just a quick, aggressive, in your face song that’s quite unique to our scene, I think. It always gets me going when the main riff kicks in.
Alex: I love every track but for me ‘Duluth’ wins hands down! It’s a really fun energetic pop punk song with lots of cool time and feel changes, that you don’t see too much of in this genre! I was really happy with the parts we all wrote for it, and love the vocal interplay between Louis and Zyggy a lot in it, I think the melodies and hooks are catchy as fuck in this one! Yet the lyrics are pretty dark, about a serious issue we all feel really strongly about, but it’s disguised in this bouncy, catchy, summery sounding song, and I really love that juxtaposition.
Zyggy: That’s a really hard question to answer, to be honest. Every single one of these songs has their own story behind them, and I love each of them in their own way. However, personally— I’ll have to go with ‘Duluth’ as well. Though it’s definitely us at our most poppy and accessible from a musical standpoint, it’s one of those songs that really reflects some issues that are really close to our hearts, and I really hope with that song we’re able to contribute to the discussion of the issues the song presents. I’ve always been a fan of happy-sounding songs with dark lyrics — as I think all of us are — and I think that this song represents that side of us best.
How helpful was the Ranch in Southampton with this release?
Louis: It was incredible, I love it there, and the fact we could lodge there and just get up every morning and walk in the studio was incredible. It made for a very productive and enjoyable time.
Alex: Being able to go down The Ranch and record was the best thing we could have done as a band! We spent a week living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, waking up every morning and getting straight onto working on music, it was truly an amazing experience! The facilities and gear they have there are on another level, and Dom Wright who produced the EP is an awesome, talented, great to work with guy who immediately understood what we aiming for and captured it better than we could have imagined! I have nothing but great things to say about the place!
Zyggy: Dom was the loveliest guy we could ask for as a producer, and as Alex said, having that full week in The Ranch was the best thing for a band like us to do at the time. There’s something special about going to a farm that was pretty much the middle of nowhere for us; waking up early in the morning, having a cup of tea, wandering down to the studio and pouring our hearts out onto a record. Working with a producer who was just as passionate about our sound as were was also a huge plus. I remember the first day we tracked drums, Alex first just started playing one of his drum parts and Dom just looked at us with his jaw totally dropped open; that memory is definitely gonna stay with me!
If you could work with any band or artist on a new song, who would it be and why?
Louis: Oh, God. There’s about a million I can think of. I’m gonna go with Jason Butler (The fever, letlive). He has the energy and the passion I think would be perfect for an aggressive track. I can imagine just jamming with him he would push us to go harder and I bet we could get a killer track out of it.
Alex: I think it’d be great to work Matt Skiba on a track, he’s my favourite vocalist and lyricist and I’m a massive Alkaline Trio fan. I love the way they have this unique, dark, cynical take on pop punk, and I feel we’re gradually going down a darker path musically this new EP, which I think would be a great fit!
Zyggy: Ooooooooh. This is a tough one. Though there are so many bands that I’d love to collaborate with in the future, I feel like I’d want to go incredibly left-field in regards to genre if we were to bring someone else on board — someone who’d be able to bring something to our sound that we’d never have thought of before. I’d love to bring a guest vocalist into the mix for one of our songs; I’ve been listening to a lot of stuff like Rationale and Benjamin Clementine lately, and their voices are something so unique that it would be fun to experiment with!
Have you got any gigs lined up for the rest of the year?
Louis: We have one on September 5th in Leeds at the Lending Room, and we’re looking at playing venues up and down the country before Christmas. Nothing solid yet, but definitely watch this space.
Alex: We’re supporting our good friends in A Night In November on the 5th November at The Lending Room in Leeds, that shows gonna be an absolute banger! After that we’re gonna be touring, playing up and down the country in support of the new EP to as many people as possible! We can’t announce anything concrete yet, but keep paying attention cause we will be soon! And if the last tour we did is anything to go off, it’s gonna be a crazy fun time!
Zyggy: Our next show is on the 5th September at the Lending Room in Leeds, supporting our good pals in A Night in November! We toured with those guys in June, and they’re such a fun group of guys to hang around and they’ve been absolutely amazing to us. We’re also in the midst of organising a series of tours at the moment, with some dates that we’ll be announcing shortly; so keep updated with us on our social media pages for more information!
What do you get up to in your spare time when not working on music?
Louis: I work on my other band, Krooked Nation, and on my solo stuff haha. If no music at all, I enjoy Police Dash Cam TV shows and Hell’s Kitchen.
Alex: When not with High Visions I’m either working on my other band, Homesteads, who I’m currently on tour with at the minute, or working as a drum tutor back home! I don’t have much time off from working on music to be honest, but I love it that way! I’d go a bit crazy being stuck without a goal or something to work towards, where it feels like I’m moving forward, so having multiple creative outlets where I’m constantly doing something really helps keep me content! I love being busy!
Zyggy: Outside of High Visions, I always like to keep myself busy! Whilst the other two guys are in other bands outside of our style that tour regularly, my other musical outlet is as a neo-classical pianist and composer. I’ve worked as a freelance composer for films and TV shows since I graduated, and I’ve also released two solo albums in a minimalist style akin to composers such as Ludovico Einaudi and Yann Tiersen — i.e. a HUGE far cry from what I’ve been doing in High Visions! I really like the juxtaposition between these two projects, as they’re two totally different ways that I can look at music. When I’m not making music, I’m usually travelling. I’ve always felt a sense of wanderlust — I feel like I can never spend any time in one place for too long. My significant other lives in Germany at the moment, so I’ve always got an excuse to leave my hometown and explore the world, whether’s it’s through backpacking or touring with High Visions!
What was the first ever gig you went to?
Louis: Foo Fighters at Wembley Stadium – 2008, I think.
Alex: I’d been going to local gigs since being really young thanks to my family, but the first big gig I went to watch McFly when I was 10 years old. Yeah, I can’t really say that helped shape my musical direction too much. Then the first gig I went to once I was a bit more aware of what was going on was Bowling For Soup and Zebrahead at Sheffield’s O2 Academy when I was 14/15 I think. That was about as much fun as a first proper gig can get, it definitely had a big impact on me, and I’ve seen both bands multiple times since!
Zyggy: I have a distant uncle who fronts an old Canadian punk rock band from the ‘70s called The Authorities. The memories of this show are really hazy, but I remember my mum taking me to one of their shows in London when I was twelve. It was in some dingy basement, and the main things I remember are the incredible loudness that my preteen ears couldn’t handle and — probably — really pissing my uncle off as I asked if ‘he could cover a Green Day song’ for me. Probably the cardinal sin for a band of their calibre!