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Interview with
JAKE TAYLOR
from
In Hearts Wake
discussing the
FULL TILT FESTIVAL
and other stuff

(3rd May 2021)

Interviewer – Brandon Valentine

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IN HEARTS WAKE // Photo – Daniel Anderson

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Live music is creeping back into our lives, like the relieving tendrils of sunlight after a very long and very dark night.

For communities around heavy music the lack of live music has left a hole in our collective hearts. So the announcement of FULL TILT festival was a glorious occasion, one that came with a line-up of Australia’s most beloved heavy artists (Northlane, In Hearts Wake, Hands Like House, Thy Art Is Murder, Frenzal Rhomb just to name a few).

To get some artistic perspective (and to get you all excited for the festival) I had a humble and inspiring conversation with Jake Taylor, from In Hearts Wake.

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Brandon Valentine: Hello there Jake and how are you finding yourself on this fine Tuesday morn after earth week?
Jake Taylor: Very good, very good. It’s very beautiful to play intimate shows to your fans and actually talk to them.
You can do that when it’s a 200 – 300 capacity room, really give people your time.
We just got to play the show and manage that energy, whilst hearing stories of how long it’s been since people had been to a show and how they were feeling.
There were a lot of smiles. It was really nice.

BV: For a band with such a broad sonic range as yours, what was the process of stripping down your music for an un-plugged show?
JT: Evan, the guitarist for In Heart’s Wake is one of the most talented people I know.
He’s really good at finding other instruments, other sounds and different time signatures. He really brings the song to life and then from there we want to make the set as diverse as possible.
So there will be a song with a ukulele and bongos, then the next song will be Latin with cabasa… just to mix it up.
And our other guitarist Ben, is really good at electronic stuff so he can bring in all types of sound, like in our track ‘INERTIA’ he totally reinvented it with the use of electronics.
We also have Rick, who is the cousin of Kyle (our bass player). Rick is really good at singing and between them the live harmonies are really nice.
There is also a huge element of comedy, because we are all quite dorky in our own habitat when we hang out so we wanted to bring that to the stage.
That’s how we brought these song to life on stage.

BV: I can also imagine having such a potent and important set of messages, as your art carries, it must have helped to add the levity in to that.
JT: Yeah , obviously it can all get very heavy as well so it’s important to strike a balance to inspire people, instead of just driving the point home.

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BV: Your recent album Kaliyuga has made me think a lot about 2020 and how, in its absence, we realised that the corner stone of heavy music is the sense of acceptance and community within. You must be very proud to be reconnecting with that through events like FULL TILT.
JT: Yeah I’m very proud to be part of the community. I feel there are so many different social facets to the community, whether it be mental health, abuse, body issues, feeling like an outcast at school or even being passionate about the environment. I find that so many social issues are poured into this scene and effect it in different ways. Especially in other parts of the world, places we have been fortunate enough to tour.
For us the environmental side of it is huge for us, but environmental and social issues are all connected.

BV: With that in mind, is there a particular set of lyrics you are looking forward to sharing with your audience, something to help them heal and look to the future with positivity?
JT: Positivity?

BV: Yeah, something you want to hear sung back at you by the audience.
JT: I knew what lyric it was going to be… until you said positivity.

BV: We can can go into the realm of negative hahaha I don’t mind.
JT: Well, it’s not a negative line. It’s more that the hope lies in asking a question. What are you willing to overcome if you would like to see a better future?
So the lyric that comes to mind is from the track 2033, the last track on KALIYUGA.
“So, what’s it going to be? 2033
Will we be concerned before we’re passed the point of no return?
We’re digging graves for the unborn
Begging on our knees biting the hand that feeds”
It’s asking are you going to sit back or are you going to rise up rise up.
And that is our call to arms.

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A typical In Hearts Wake pit // Photo – Dalton Collis

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BV: That’s brilliant and runs right into something I’m very curious about.
KALIYUGA is not just a title, but as you said a call to action.
Our House Is On Fire, so we better do something.
You took this to heart by carbon offsetting your album.
Do you have any plans to work these ideals into touring and shows?
JT: Totally, there are so many different realms that we are aiming to tackle but at the same time we are trying to be realistic. There is this brilliant woman we are working with in Byron who is a carbon consultant. So, sort of like a tax accountant she looks at the situation and helps people offset their carbon. We basically tally up all of our receipts and between her and I we are able to look at our output, that’s how we did it for the record.
As for touring, we are trying to see what emissions are there and where we can go from there.

BV: Kaliyuga had 3 wonderfully personal and meaningful guest vocalists. Is there any chance we could see a guest popping up on stage at full tilt?
JT: I’m going to have to ask myself that over the next week.
But, yes. I’d love to find some people to jump up on stage. Dylan from Gravemind got up and did Jamie Hails’ (Polaris) part in HELLBRINGER and nailed it. We are all ways about collaborating when we can and seeing what flavours people can bring… just like in rap and hip hop where you have such amazing collaborations. I’d love to see more of that in the metal world.

BV: Any chance of getting your step father, Randy Reinmann, on stage and doing IRON DICE?
JT: He was supposed to come to the Brisbane show and do it there, but his band also had a gig that night. I’ll see what I can do for Brisbane but it’s going to happen at one point and that’ll be a moment to remember.

BV: As a person who comes from a musical family myself I need to know. What was it like releasing music with your step father?
JT: We recorded it in my bedroom. The first time I had seen him play, his band MISSAPPEAL was playing with Henry Rollins. I remember being blown away and the energy of these characters was profound. It felt like really divine masculine energy in all its power, rather than it being negative and the crowds were just insane.
I really thought that this was something I’d love to do, so to come full circle and have Randy on a piece of music is really quiet special.
It feels really natural, something that people did back in the day. Sitting around a campfire and learning something to contribute to storytelling.

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BV: With international tours being such an alien concept (allowing us to have such amazing fests as Full Tilt) do you think this is going to be a pivotal time for Australian acts to band together and for audiences to really dig into their local artists? Laying the foundations for a new decade.
JT: Yeah. Yeah, you’re right, it’s going to create a lot of opportunity for more bands. Which is fantastic and it’s a testament to how strong the bands already are.
It also shows that it’s a primal need that no matter the band, people want to move it and shake it. There is something powerful about that.
Another powerful thing is that instead of getting X, Y or Z from overseas to headline a festival, the emissions around all of that will be 5x greater than any Australian acts.
So that is a silver lining in all of this.

BV: Interestingly, although you wrote it in 2019, the events of 2020 mirrored the name of your recent album, KALIYUGA, an era in Hindu mythology fraught with turmoil and strife.
Is there a riff or section of brutality that just makes you smile, thinking about the crowd cathartically cutting loose?
JT: Worldwide Suicide for sure. It scratches an itch.
We weren’t to know what would happen, it almost felt a bit insensitive to have gas masks in the photos. What was about fire is now kind of relatable to masks and covid, it is quite scary.
It was a very Worldwide Suicide kind of feeling when it came out the day we all went back into lockdown. There’s a scariness about that.
But that was a natural symptom, we were feeling what the world was feeling at the time.
And some people have been listening to the album and feeling that too… and yeah it’s ripe. It’s the right time to let that energy go and I hope that Worldwide Suicide is a safe space to release that.

BV: Brilliantly said.
Well, I’m going to let you get back to your slice of paradise and I’ll see you at FULL TILT.
JT: Sounds good, man.

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Follow IN HEARTS WAKE:
Website – Facebook – Instagram

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FULL TILT
FESTIVAL

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Image: Giulia McGauran

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SATURDAY 12 JUNE, 2021
BRISBANE, EATON’S HILL OUTDOORS – 18+

LINE-UP:
NORTHLANE | HANDS LIKE HOUSES | IN HEARTS WAKE | THY ART IS MURDER | LUCA BRASI
SLOWLY SLOWLY | MAKE THEM SUFFER | FRENZAL RHOMB | PRESS CLUB
ALPHA WOLF | THORNHILL | YOURS TRULY | THE BENNIES | RELIQA

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SATURDAY 3 JULY
MELBOURNE, COBURG VELODROME – SOLD OUT

LINE-UP:
NORTHLANE | HANDS LIKE HOUSES | IN HEARTS WAKE | FRENZAL RHOMB
THY ART IS MURDER | LUCA BRASI | SLOWLY SLOWLY | MAKE THEM SUFFER | PRESS CLUB
ALPHA WOLF | THORNHILL | YOURS TRULY | THE BENNIES | DROWN THIS CITY

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SATURDAY 17 JULY
ADELAIDE, ADELAIDE SHOWGROUND – 18+

LINE-UP:

NORTHLANE | HANDS LIKE HOUSES | IN HEARTS WAKE | FRENZAL RHOMB
THY ART IS MURDER | LUCA BRASI | SLOWLY SLOWLY | MAKE THEM SUFFER
….AND MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED

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SATURDAY 31 JULY
SYDNEY, BELLA VISTA FARM, BELLA VISTA – 18+

LINE-UP:

NORTHLANE | HANDS LIKE HOUSES | IN HEARTS WAKE | FRENZAL RHOMB
THY ART IS MURDER | LUCA BRASI | SLOWLY SLOWLY | MAKE THEM SUFFER | PRESS CLUB
ALPHA WOLF | THORNHILL | REDHOOK | THE BENNIES | CLOSURE

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HANDS LIKE HOUSES // Photo – Courtney Allen

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General Public Tickets On Sale:
NOW

Head to www.destroyalllines.com
for more information.

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Follow FULL TILT FESTIVAL

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AMNPLIFY – DB