Knocked Loose

If you're keeping up with the metalcore and hardcore lingo of recent times, then there's no doubt that you've have heard the name 'Knocked Loose' thrown around more than a couple dozen times. Right now, they are easily one of the most hyped bands in the 'scene', and with said hype comes fans, critics, and plenty of attention from the wider heavy music world. I caught up with Knocked Loose vocalist, Bryan Garris, recently to discuss their huge debut album, 'Laugh Tracks', his take on the band's sharp and ever-growing rise in popularity, as well as their accompaniment to the Stick To Your Guns tour on our shores this coming January.

Hey Bryan, Corey from Killyourstereo.com down in Australia, how are you?

Pretty good, pretty good. You?

Yeah great, where are you situated at this point in time?

I’m currently at home. I actually just woke up not that long ago, my sleeping schedule is all backwards right now.

I can definitely relate to that, is that a usual occurrence for you, or is it more so a case of not knowing what to do with yourself in between tours?

It’s actually a mixture of both, you know. This has been my first extensive period being home in quite some time, so I’ve definitely been pretty bored.

Knocked Loose definitely seem to be busy these days, how long have you been home for?

I wanna say about two weeks, and we have about two more weeks until we leave again. It hasn’t really been that long, but I’m just not used to being home, recently at least. I mean, since June we’ve consistently been out and if we haven’t been out on tour, I have had stuff to keep me busy. This is the first time that I haven’t really had anything to keep me busy so I've kinda just been chilling out and spending time with my family.

Yeah, that’s really interesting. Usually, you hear bands starting to get fidgety after at least a month or two break, so it’s cool to hear you’re keen to get back out there after such a short amount of time.

Yeah, we always try to keep busy, so I guess we’re all just used to it. Our guitar player, Isaac [Hale] is actually on tour now with a different band; just because he knew he had time off. He offered to fill in for a band that we’re friends with so like, he has no time in between tours.

Good on him! Which band is Isaac filling in for?

A band called Orthodox. They’re really good friends of ours. Their bass player, he actually plays in jazz bands and they’re fairly successful. They tour often so he was actually caught up with that, so Isaac offered to fill in for them.

Right on! Anyway, we’ll jump straight into it. Can you please give our readers a general summary of what Knocked Loose are about and what you guys represent, and also describe your debut full length 'Laugh Tracks'?

Sure, I’ll do my best!  We started in 2013. It was me, Isaac, and our bass player Kevin [Otten]. We had a different drummer at the time; we were only a four-piece. We didn’t start touring until late 2014 or early 2015, and once we started that we had some line-up changes as far as our drummer goes, we added another guitarist, Cole [Crutchfield], and got a new drummer who we call Pac-Sun, but his name is Kevin as well, and the line-up has been pretty consistent since then. We released 'Laugh Tracks' a couple of months ago on Pure Noise Records and it’s our first full-length album. It’s very much, in my opinion, a step in a new direction for the band. I saw in one review that somebody did about the album that “Knocked Loose aren’t doing anything that we’re not used to, they’re just doing it exceptionally heavier”. I kinda liked that approach to it, we're not trying to be like nothing else you’ve ever heard. We play music that we like, drawing influences from all different kinds of music. 'Laugh Tracks' was really an opportunity to experiment with our songwriting and try to make a consistent album that wasn’t just built around breakdowns because our EP and split EP were. We wanted to write actual songs so 'Laugh Tracks' I guess was our first stab at how well we go with actual songwriting and the reaction for it has been way better than any of us had expected. So, I think it’s gone pretty well.

[caption id="attachment_1088853" align="alignnone" width="700"] 'Laugh Tracks' is available now via Pure Noise Records.[/caption]

It sure has and that actually leads me into my next question. The amount of hype surrounding your band at the moment, especially considering your style, is huge. For a metalcore/hardcore/beatdown band (or however KL could be labelled) to be able to start touring the world from just one full-length is insane! What do you feel has contributed the most to your success? Do you feel like musically you just stand out more, with being heavier and better, as that review mentioned? Or is the ‘behind the scenes’ a heavy contributor?

Well, first of all, I appreciate what you say about us. I don’t want to say we do it better, though, I don’t want to be cocky or anything but yeah, I don’t know really, I don’t know what happened. I’m very grateful for it, though. Everyone is telling us that we’re working really hard and I would agree somewhat, as we’re doing everything that we can. When we first started we were doing a lot of DIY tours. We started throughout the Midwest and then branched out to the coasts. We didn’t really stop touring once we got started. Once we got the means of transportation we just stayed out on the road as much as possible and I think that really helped us gain a fanbase in that aspect. When we first started we’d accept tours with any band that made sense. We like all kinds of music. We like metalcore, we like hardcore. When it comes to what kind of band we are, we don’t really worry too much about what genre we’d be considered as. People ask me sometimes like “What would you consider your band?” and I just tell them to call us whatever they want. If someone starts calling us a hardcore band, that doesn’t mean our next record is going to be more of a hardcore record, it’s gonna be whatever we decide to write. We’re not too caught up in the genres so when we started touring we would tour with a hardcore band and then not even two weeks later we’d go out with a metalcore band and we’d play the same markets but to different kids. Then we’d go back out with a beatdown band and we’d take to the same markets, and see kids that were there for the hardcore or metalcore shows, so it got to the point where we just toured with friends. We toured with any band that was willing to tour with us and it wasn’t like these giant support tours, it was just us and some friends playing a string of shows. When we signed with Pure Noise, they started offering us support tours and this year we’ve done nothing but support bigger packages like Counterparts, Expire, Stick To Your Guns, The Acacia Strain, stuff like that and that’s helped tremendously because that’s obviously put us in front of a ton more people than we’re used to. I don’t really know how it reached as many people as it did, but I do know that we toured consistently to try to reach as many people as we could.

Yeah, it sure does. From the outside looking it, it just seems like you’ve worked hard, done all the right things and have the music to back that up, so I guess that’s just how it works.

We definitely try to make a strong impression with our live show. It’s something that we take very seriously. We’re always practicing when we’re at home, trying to make the best set as possible so that when people see us, even if they don’t like us, they’d still say “Damn, they went crazy live”. We try to be as energetic as possible.

[caption id="attachment_1088854" align="alignnone" width="760"] Knocked Loose just doing their thang/PC: EasterDaily[/caption]

That’s good to hear. I feel like these days, a lot of bands tend to focus less on the music and performance, in preference of image and social media presence instead, which is obviously detrimental to their live show. This is even more problematic when, at least from my perspective, heavy music was meant for the live setting.

Oh yes, absolutely, I agree!

So with that, your eagerly anticipated first trip to Australia is coming up. What can we expect from these shows?

First of all, I’m so excited to come to Australia. I never even thought that it’d be a possibility.  I'm completely blown away and I’m very, very excited. Second of all, we are going to, well, one thing I always say about our sets is that it’s 100% adrenaline from start to finish. So there will not be a single calm moment in our set, you can expect a lot of energy that’s very abrasive and we’re just gonna try our best to impress all the people that come out.

That’s what I like to hear! I feel as if Australians are notorious among US circles for really gravitating toward the more ‘mosh’ type bands, so I’m sure the reaction will be killer. Anyway, we’ll wrap it up there Bryan, good luck on the upcoming Euro tour, thank you for your time and I’ll catch you down here soon! P.S. bark bark! 

[Laughs] Thank you very much, Corey, see you soon!

'Laugh Tracks' is out now on Pure Noise Records, check out our review of it HERE. Also, make sure to peep K//L's upcoming Australian tour dates in support of Stick To Your Guns below and nab your tickets here and our chat with STYG here.