Interviews

Jeff Sahyoun - letlive. (audio interview)

Walladmin

Heavy Metal Wordsmith

May 16, 2016

7 min read

In a world inundated with bands and musicians who sometimes can only manage to whip up one decent album or song before they are easily long forgotten, it seems like new acts need to do big things to impress the masses and maintain a steady flow of decent music in a world where consumers want more, but aren't willing to hang around if it's not worth their time. One band who is not only doing big things but has already been compared to the likes of the great Rage Against The Machine and other political uprising bands such as Rise Against and Anti-Flag is LA's very own "soul punk/hardcore" act letlive. who have certainly begun to cement themselves in the scene as a band who is definitely going places.

Since their early beginnings back in 2002 they've been working on finding their place in the industry, whilst staying true to their own style of song-writing, which has been very in your face and a "no fucks given" mentality all while spreading their anti-political and government stance through their ever changing musical style. Its hard to categorize these boys as their style changes with each album, however it's their heavy rock and thought provoking lyrics which set them apart from the rest and place them in a class of their own, above the countless other acts who all started out around the same time.

As we've discovered most recently with Bring Me The Horizon, genre hopping can work in two different ways, one will have fans up in arms, crying that you've lost your roots and are too different to what you used to be like, whereas on the other card true fans will support your new direction and embrace the progression regardless. While the new letlive album If I'm The Devil... hasn't made the band sound too different to what we've heard from them in the past with 2010's Fake History and 2013's The Blackest Beautiful, it certainly makes you listen more clearly to the messages they're trying to get across. We had a chat with guitarist Jeff Sahyoun about the new direction and he explained:

"When we got in the studio we had no idea, there was no rules and if it felt good then we'd roll with it and if it didn't then we'd hit delete and start over. There's definitely not any rules or regulations to what we do and we're just who we are and we go at it".

"We're not expecting to release a gold record, we just put together a catalogue that we were excited about and we just want to share it with out friends, fans and the world".

And in true form to nailing the topic on the head, Jeff explained that even though not all people can and/or will appreciate all types of music, the one thing we share is similar thoughts about the topic of music it'self:

We don't expect everybody to love everything that we do, but I think the most beautiful thing about music is everyone has the opportunity to love their favourite band or song and if it's not us then that's great, but if they love something, we're happy in that sense because that's what we're all about".

Another thing they're all about is standing their ground on particular topics they believe need to be addressed (in the past they've written songs about the deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner at the hands of the Police Force) so right now with the current state of America looking to change dramatically at the hands of either Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton, Jeff was optimistic in sharing his thoughts (which he thinks is fucked up) but he also looked on the bright side at possibilities which could arise with the content on hand:

"I think the only positive in all of this, for me, is if Rage Against The Machine comes back and writes another record... I would quit music. That would be incredible".

The new letlive album is another incredible piece of work by the Los Angeles lads and if this is an indication of their musical progression, we'll definitely be seeing a lot more of them in future years and fans will be welcoming them in with open arms, especially when they make their way back to Australia, which is currently in the works. You can read our review of the new album right here, but get ready to hear it for yourself when it gets released on June 10th 2016 via Epitaph until then have a listen to Jeff Sahyoun chatting about it and more below.

Until next time, rock the fuck out

Browny (@brownypaul)

[audio src="https://wallofsoundau.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wall-of-sound-letlive-iv-bed.mp3"][/audio]