Hot on the tail of their appearance at Slam Dunk Festival 2019 over the bank holiday weekend, Florida’s WAGE WAR have announced their brand new studio album ‘Pressure’, set for release on August 30th through Fearless Records.
Pre-order ‘Pressure’ – HERE
‘Pressure’ is the bands third album, and the anticipated follow up to 2017’s Jeremy McKinnon
(A Day To Remember) produced ‘Deadweight’.
The band have also released a brand new single and video ‘Who I Am’, which follows up the 2019 released Low to give a strong indication as to the sound, style and variety on display with ‘Pressure’.
The band enlisted the talents of producer Drew Fulk (Motionless in White, Lil Peep, IDKHOW) and recorded in Los Angeles for the first time. The locale fostered a spirit of evolution. “We were all out of our comfort zone, which was really cool,” guitarist and vocalist Cody Quistad explains. “We couldn’t just go home after the day. We all lived in the same house. It was a great opportunity for us to reconnect. We’d go to shows together, come back, and write at 2am. Los Angeles is inspiring, because there’s a youthful drive and passion. Everyone is there to chase a dream. It gives you a mindset. You talk about going to L.A. to make a record when you’re 13. It was a bucket list thing for us.”
About the album, its poignant title, and the concept of pressure, the band states, “Anytime you go into make a record, there’s pressure. What you in that studio with those people affects the next however many years of your career and if you play your cards right, it can change your life. It really felt like a make or break situation. The ‘Pressure’ to make the perfect Wage War album, one that harvests what people have come to love about our band yet still grow and explore new territory and push ourselves harder than ever before.”
“However, that’s not the only pressure this album talks about. There are songs on the album that deal with mental health, and the pressure to act ‘ok’ even when things aren’t. There are songs on the album that speaking of not succumbing to pressure and being just another face in the crowd, but more so making a change in yourself and the world around you. Being in a band, making music, playing shows in one way or another all comes with a ‘Pressure’ and how you deal with it is what determines who you are. This record is our response.”
A bit about WAGE WAR – The band (Briton Bond [lead vocals], Cody Quistad [rhythm guitar, clean vocals], Seth Blake [lead guitar], Chris Gaylord [bass], and Stephen Kluesener [drums]) released their hugely received 2015 debut, Blueprints, which yielded multiple fan favourites with “Alive” cracking 12 million Spotify streams and “The River” exceeding 8 million to date. Then 2017’s Deadweight established the band as a global rising force. Totalling nearly 50 million cumulative streams in two years, the single “Stitch” racked up 14 million streams on Spotify as Deadweight received widespread praise from MetalInjection, New Noise, Metal Hammer, and Rock Sound who dubbed it, “a relentless, genre-evolving treat.” Meanwhile, they toured alongside everyone from I Prevail and Of Mice & Men to Parkway Drive and A Day To Remember, logging countless miles on the road.
The band have already announced a huge UK and EU tour for early 2020, with a full list of the dates below – on sale now from http://wagewarband.com
UK and EU WAGE WAR headline dates 20207 Jan – Bristol, The Fleece (UK)
8 Jan – Nottingham, Rescue Rooms (UK)
10Jan – Manchester, Rebellion (UK)
11 Jan – Dublin, Academy Green Room (IE)
12 Jan – Glasgow, G2 (UK)
13 Jan – Newcastle, Think Tank? (UK)
15 Jan – Leeds, The Key Club (UK)
16 Jan – Birmingham, O2 Institute 2 (UK)
17 Jan – London, O2 Academy Islington (UK)
18 Jan -Southampton, The Loft (UK)
20 Jan – Amsterdam, Melkweg OZ (NL)
21 Jan – Paris, Backstage by The Mill (FR)
23 Jan – Cologne, Gloria (DE)
24 Jan – Hamburg, Gruenspan (DE)
26 Jan – Munich ,Technikum (DE)
27 Jan – Frankfurt, Batschkapp (DE)
28 Jan – Antwerp, Trix (BE)
‘Pressure’ track listing:
1. Who I Am
2. Prison
3. Grave
4. Ghost
5. Me Against Myself
6. Hurt
7. Low
8. The Line
9. Fury
10. Forget My Name
11. Take The Fight
12. Will We Ever Learn