The beautiful darkness of Atreyu

Storied metalcore outfit Atreyu are heading down under for the first time since 2020, playing Amplifier Bar on Saturday, February 17. Since forming in 1998, the Californian act continue to discover new fans across the world with nine studio albums across 22 years, including their latest record The Beautiful Dark of Life, a conceptual piece that was released over the course of 2023 in the form of three EPs. TAYLOR BROADLEY spoke to bassist and vocalist Porter McKnight about the upcoming tour, new fans, lenses and more.

Are you guys looking forward to touring again? Like, does it still feel this exciting this many years into Atreyu?

It does, man! I’m shocked as well! No, it really does feel like we are at a point in our career where I think we enjoy it more now than we ever have, especially touring. Touring in Australia to us is like an actual vacation; the shows are always fantastic, our audience and our fans there are really wonderful and fun to be with and fun to hang out with, and the shows are always very enjoyable.

I mean, we get to enjoy your lovely weather, your lovely cuisine and all of your culture. There was a place we ate at in February 2020 in Perth, The Standard? Yeah, we ate there before our show, and we literally ordered everything on the menu; we just couldn’t decide.

That’s good to hear, man. Growing up around Soundwave and everything, you guys were kind of one of my first introductions to metalcore and heavier music in general. It’s good to have you back. How does it feel in 2024 that, with a new album and massive tour over the last year, you still get to be a new discovery or gateway band for people?

I feel like we are still reinventing ourselves, which keeps us relevant. I feel like our music now is better than it’s ever been, and we’re still finding people at these shows that are new and some that have never heard of anything before this album. It’s like, what the fuck?! Like, how cool is that?

In Copenhagen, these two girls in the front were literally like 16 years old, and we were just like, “What’re you doing here? Do your parents like us or-?” And they were like, “No, no, we heard Forevermore.” That girl was insane by the way she snuck in vodka in like a little plastic gun thing; she was offering it to us, and she called Brandon a pussy. We were like, “What is happening?” But yeah, you know, I still don’t feel like we’ve said everything that we have to say, and I don’t feel like we’ve achieved nearly all that we want to achieve. We’re still happy to be here, and we’re still stoked to be here.

You guys really do have a sense of connection with the crowd at your live shows. Your tracks are huge; they’re massive, but you still have this great connection and intimacy. How important do you find that is in playing a good gig?

I think that is the whole point for me, like it’s my personal goal. We want you to leave that show feeling like you made a fucking core memory. You experienced something, and you connected with us in ways that you might not get to always experience, and I think that is just truly the most important part of it.

I avidly try to make connections with as many people as I can during the show, and you know I’ll meet people beforehand and I’ll meet people after. I enjoy our fans, and I enjoy meeting humans. Y’know, I’m very introverted, so it’s sort of a weird double-edge sword for me, but I really enjoy it, and I appreciate anyone who, you know, reaches in their pocket and pays for a ticket and supports our band.

I just want to talk about the latest album a little bit. You’ve always felt like a really balanced band to me in terms of, you know, your riffs are punchy and hard, but your choruses are really big. They’re euphoric. They soar! When you’re writing and you’re in the studio, is there a conscious effort to get that balance, or does it just kind of come naturally at this point?

It definitely comes naturally. I mean, Brandon has—you know, everyone that’s ever worked with Brandon is just fucking pissed at him because he’s just so good. He doesn’t have to warm up. He will just be joke-yelling at someone for three seconds before he goes on stage, and then he’s just fine. He truly has one of the best voices I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with or hearing. He’s always one-upping himself, and we have like straight-up pop choruses sometimes; he’s singing like Beyoncé shit, but it’s still it’s still metal, you know.

The way we write songs is that we come in with an idea for the melody, the chorus, the lyrics, or the theme of the song. Sometimes it starts with a riff; we all bring different things to the table. Travis will write and record an entire song musically, and we’re just, “Oh shit, this is incredible,” but there might be no vocals. Dan brings some songs that’ll have a whole chorus and the whole first verse ready, and Brandon will bring in an acoustic part for that chorus, and then we all write around it. So we each kind of bring something to the table every day.

Your track, Insomnia, for example, really grabbed me in terms of how it builds tension and then releases it. Does it feel cathartic to play that kind of track live?

Yes, we haven’t played Insomnia yet, but I’m happy that you feel that way about it. The first song we released on this cycle is Drowning, and we did a tour with Bullet for My Valentine in Europe and the UK early last year, and we played that for the first time live there. And from the first moment, we were like, ‘woah’. In the bridge, people just started clapping and singing their own parts along with us, and now every time we play it, it just goes off.

Then we started playing a song called (I), and it was the same thing. They were singing that song louder than they would sing Becoming the Bull or Right Side of the Bed, and that’s my fucking dream. That’s my goal in this band, straight up: to never play the old songs again.

You know we’re not going to do that because we have respect for everyone that comes to our shows. We gotta play certain songs that we’ve just gotta play, but that would be my dream—if we were just so big that we just had to play new shit all the time.

How did you guys decide to release the album as EPs throughout the year, and did that affect the set list discussion? What do you include, and what do you exclude?

Well, it did affect the setlist because, as we trickled out the EPs during the first tour, the Hope of the Spark Tour played all four songs off that EP. Then, ironically, songs that we wrote and thought would be good live songs just didn’t land, and so we didn’t play those again. Then, by that time, another EP had come out, so we’re like, “OK, let’s not play these two; let’s play Drowning and Watch Me Burn.” So yeah, we are adding other stuff, and we will have stuff from every EP on this tour. It’s kind of just the ones that we enjoy playing the most live.

To the first half of the question, the reasoning behind the EPs is that music is different these days—the music business, the landscape, I should say. People are doom scrolling all the time, and they need constant content all the time. I mean, a lot of bands aren’t even releasing albums, like Falling in Reverse, for instance, or Bring Me The Horizon. They’re just kind of putting out singles so far, and you don’t even know if they’re attached to an album. I think Bring Me might be, but Falling In Reverse, I think, are just doing singles. And that’s working for them; that’s fucking awesome, but I don’t really want to go that route. I enjoy a body of work, and I enjoy an album, but I’m also old.

So understanding that we have a fan base that has partially been with us since the beginning, older fans like bodies of work too, but we also need to figure out a way to have more content. How do we do that? I think Dan or Brandon, one of them, was like, “Let’s do three EPs,” and I’m like, “OK, in my personal opinion, EPs are shit, but how do we do this so it scratches the itch of putting out content for a while and scratches the itch of a body of work, so why don’t we create a theme with this?”

And I kind of put it on my shoulders when we were writing these songs to, like, figure out what the theme would be, you know? And so I’m just, you know, one of those crazy guys in the room with the board with the red string to tie it all together, and then eventually we were writing the song The Beautiful Dark Life, and I was like, “Why don’t I look through the lyrics for ideas for this trinity? Maybe something will stand out,” and when I did, I saw “the hope of spark, the moment you find your flame, a torch in the dark,” and I was like, “Oh shit, like that’s this path!”

This path of self-discovery, of rediscovery of being a human being, and wondering if you’re good enough. You know, you’re looking for the hope of a spark, and you’re trying to figure out: Are you good enough to do this? The moment you find your flame, you’re starting to get it, but there’s still shit you’ve gotta work through.

The third EP was a torch in the dark, and you fucking got it; you’re the torchbearer, you’re figuring it out, and you’ve got your shining light now. So each EP has those three feelings and sentiments on it, and the body of work is The Beautiful Dark of Life, that journey where, as humans, we need to appreciate the dark, the shit moments, all the stuff that you go through. You need to have rainy days so you can appreciate the sunny ones. You need to have contrast for existence, and you get to choose the lens from which you view this existence.

Now that the whole body of work is out, are there any tracks you’re really excited to see how they land on this leg of the tour?

I’m intrigued; your crowds are different from ours, like each different country has its own unique feel, so I don’t think on this one we’re playing anything that we haven’t played already, but I am excited to see how, now that everything’s been out a little bit longer and everyone has the whole picture, seeing how it changes can actually be really cool.

What artists do you currently have on rotation? Were there any that influenced you in the studio over the last couple of years, even subconsciously?

Maybe subconsciously, but I wouldn’t say that I’m directly influenced and intentionally go, “Oh, I want to write a song like that.” In my personal experience, that’s not the way to do it. I am currently listening to Willie Carlisle, this bluegrass country artist that just put out an album called Critter Land, but he just creates these stories and just sounds so honest and genuine, and the lyrics are just out of their fucking mind and it’s just a fantastic album.

I grew up in the South, and I grew up in a BBQ restaurant that my dad ran, and I grew up around Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and the early Hank Williams stuff—early waves of country, and I love that style of country.

Besides that, more on the heavy side, Dead Poet’s Society released an album, and it’s fucking good. We saw them at the Rocklahoma Festival, and it was like, “Shit, you guys, you have something.” For some reason, I woke up multiple days in a row with this band called Gatsby’s American Dream in my head. They’re like a pop punkish, rock-era band from the 2000s into the early 2010s that were just fucking fantastic, so I highly suggest them; they’re a really, really good band. What about you, though?

I’m listening to Origami Angel at the moment; they’re sick, real pop-punky guys, and their guitar work is crazy.

That’s a cool as fuck name.

Yeah, their album, Gami Gang, is wicked. The new Neck Deep is really fun as well.

I’ll give them a shot. Appreciate it.

No worries! If it’s anyone’s first Atreyu show, what do you hope they take away from it? Going on stage, what’s the hope for the audience?

Show up with an open mind; show up ready to enjoy yourself. It’s a cyclical thing; we’re a mirror to y’all, and we’re going to give our all. But if we see everyone just standing there bored out of their minds, slumped down, we’re still gonna do our thing, but you’re not gonna get the best show possible. The more present you are, the more you’re having fun, the better the show is gonna be for all of us. So just show up with a smile on your face, and we’re going to have a lot of fun.

Atreyu play Amplifier Bar on Saturday, February 17, 2024. Tickets are on sale now from oztix.com.au