“We’re going to take up to a year to write it” – Ben Barlow.
It’s about that time, isn’t it? It’s coming up on two years since Neck Deep released ‘The Peace And The Panic’, and it’s no secret that they’re working on a follow-up album already.
Neck Deep frontman Ben Barlow caught up with Press by Bad Seed to reflect on the success of ‘The Peace And The Panic’, and what the future direction of Neck Deep will be.
“The record [‘The Peace And The Panic’] really took us to a new place and maybe proved a point to a few people that we could actually write a diverse record and weren’t just a one trick pony pop punk band,” he shared. “From here, I think we’ve set ourselves up to do whatever we what, or at least expand our horizons a bit. It could’ve been a risky record for us to make, but it actually turned out to be the record we needed to make. After a Europe and UK run in February, it’s pretty much fourth album time.”
Speaking on how the nexr album is shaping up, Ben shared “It’s fucking terrifying when you have nothing done for it and you don’t know how things are going to come out sounding. I’ve sat at home and I’ve written stuff but I rely on the other guys a lot to bring stuff forward and I just don’t know what everyone else is writing yet. We’re going to take our time with this record, essentially. We’re going to take up to a year to write it, if it happens sooner then cool, if it happens later then that’s fine too. We’re putting no pressure on ourselves with it.
He continued “Until you get into it and you start actually getting a sense of what the record is going to be, what it’s going to be about and how it’s going to sound, it’s fucking terrifying. I’m confident that we’ll expand in the right way. After thinking about it constantly, I think I’ve got a solid idea of where I want it to go and where I think we need to go with it. It’s a matter of actually putting that together but we’ve got plenty of time and we’re not stressing ourselves with it. We’ve definitely done that in the past, where we’ve written records under pressure. Whereas this time, we’re going to chill out and not put so much pressure on ourselves.”
And where are they recording the follow up to ‘The Peace And The Panic’? “Hopefully it might be the first record in a good while that we end up recording in the UK. Normally we end up getting shipped off to America but I think being in the UK will be cool. I think we’ve always been inspired by the places that we end up recording, so if we can record it at home, I think it’ll definitely add something to it. By being in the UK and closer to home, it’ll allow us some space and time.”
Neck Deep still have an upcoming appearance at Slam Dunk next month to knock over before they hit the studio though – Slam Dunk 2019 will take place on May 25 in Leeds and May 26 in Hatfield, with tickets available here.