In Conversation With - Highly Suspect
Three-time Grammy-nominated Rock Band Highly Suspect are back with a new and ferocious album, MCID, an album challenging the notions of Classic Rock as it spans across Heavy Metal, Electro and Hip-Hop, and the personal narration of the struggles of frontman Johnny Stevens.
We talk to Matt Kofos (Guitar, Backing Vocals) about moving away from Rock, the vulnerability of music and how Highly Suspect has no plans to slow down.
How does it feel now that MCID is out in the world for fans to listen to?
It’s nuts. We’ve been working on it for so long and to finally get to the point where we are playing shows, even in Europe, is unreal.
As a collective of songs, this album spans across genres, which is something you’ve spoken as wanting to do as a band. How important is it that fans get on board with what you want to do creatively?
I think it’s really important that they embrace our new music. The crossing of genres is really important to our mental health as well. We’ve been in Rock forever. There’s so many bands playing Rock that are still so relevant, Rock’s not dead and we definitely had an impact on it at one point, but it’s refreshing to try new things, blend different styles together and not be bored with music.
As a band that is now releasing music that is completely unique to anything anyone else is doing, does it become hard to remember the beginnings as a band doing covers in dive bars?
That’s kind of what it feels like doing tonight. We definitely look back on those times because we had so much fun. When we’re playing big shows, we kind of forget that we have everything and then we play shows like tonight, where the stage is a little bit smaller and you feel grateful because you don’t have it as good as you had it perhaps the night before. We used to play to like three people, so anytime anyone wants to come and watch us I’m happy.
The album embraces a sense of vulnerability, through both the lyrics and the mix of genres. How do you begin to orchestrate a song like that in comparison to a typical Rock song?
You put feeling behind it. It’s about making it mean something, which is sometimes a hard thing to do when you are a writer. While I didn’t write the lyrics, I had to put emotion into the guitar parts. I don’t think we would ever put out something that we didn’t feel emotion towards. It has to have some emotion in there, otherwise you’re just a dummy onstage playing a song you don’t even care about. We would never do that. It’s definitely hard to play some songs live that are so personal. For Johnny, he won’t play a lot of songs live anymore because of the traumatic experiences that were involved in writing those songs.
There’s a number of features on the album, including one with Young Thug. How did that come about?
It was between Johnny and him. They had a meeting and he was perfect for the song. We don’t really plan the collaborations when writing, they kind of just happen. You envision a song and you wait to see how it unfolds and at the end of the song you sometimes think Conor Mason (Nothing but Thieves) would be good for this song, or Gojira, or whoever it is.
Arizona speaks so lyrically about heartbreak, something that has resonated with fans so well, why do you think this is?
It’s because everyone can relate to heartbreak. I think love and sadness are the most powerful feelings, but sadness is always so prominent. These themes relate to fans so well, especially when trying to relate to a younger audience. They are the people that are going through a lot.
Especially at the moment with the political climate in America, which is something you speak so openly about on the album. Is it ever a worry to put political messages out as musicians or do you think it’s important for musicians to speak out?
It’s important for you to always have your morals and stick by what you believe. We have a voice right now so we should use it. We’re a crazy band, a crazy bunch of people, there’s no way anyone’s going to shut us up. But it is sometimes scary to say what you believe is right.
What is next for you as a band?
We’re going to work on more music. We have other projects that we’re doing within the band and our goal is to just stay relevant. We just want to keep going. We took two years off between the last albums and we don’t want to do that again.
Feature by Emma Sherar