New Music

Tom Kiely - Patient Sixty-Seven 'Home Truths Unearthed With The Metalcore Upcomers From Perth'

Feb 10, 2020

4 min read

We've said this a few times but Perth is delivering stellar upcoming band after band and to be honest with you, with that amount of talent coming out of Australia's West Coast, the majority of us on the East side are starting to feel the FOMO coming on...

Metalcore trio Patient Sixty-Seven are the latest band to grasp our attention and we're getting all kinds of keen for them to drop their forthcoming Home Truths EP out on Valentines Day (that's Feb 14th dummy) and the collection of songs they've been working on should definitely raise a few eyebrows within the heavy music scene, especially since they teamed up with Sleeping with Sirens frontman Kellin Quinn for their latest single 'Where To From Here', so, we grabbed frontman Tom Kiely for a chat about the band, their forthcoming release and to find out a few home truths we might not have known about them... until now!

Hey Tom, congrats on the upcoming release and single 'Where To From Here', a key factor is that you got Kellin Fucking Quinn (Sleeping With Sirens) involved. How'd that come about?

Thank you! The timing of that worked out well. I sent through a song that we had released last year, think it was ‘What’s Left Of Us’. We just started talking about the band and where we were looking to take it. He liked the sound of our new material, and honestly was just super passionate about helping us as a younger band, giving the right advice and guidance.

What advice did he pass on that you wouldn't have known, had you not hit him up for help?

I just think in general getting insight from someone who has been doing it at the highest level for a long time, it was all valuable. Getting feedback on the writing process, things we were doing well or things we could work on. It’s a learning process for sure. Kellin showed us how important it was to stay passionate, keep working hard and getting the best out of ourselves, and we feel that translated in the music we were able to work on. He believed in us through the writing process, and it gave us the confidence to write the best songs we could.

Patient Sixty-Seven band

The single is great, combining cleans and screams with precision and djenty undertones throughout the track. Who would you say are your main inspirations in the metalcore game?

It’s a bit of everything. We sort of built a bit of a rhythm in the way we write music, with the last EP we were able to work on the vocal dynamic in particular - this time around we honed in a little more on making the songs stick structurally and have the chops to match instrumentally too. So it’s not so much about being inspired by a certain band or bands, but rather the sound as a whole we are working towards.

Rory (Guitars/Vocals) listens to a lot of band in the Erra, Architects, Fit For A King realm, where as I listen to a lot of bands like Hands Like Houses, Issues, Picturesque…it just allows us to I guess bring together a sound that takes a bit of everything from the music we all listen to.

Perth's heavy music scene is growing (and fast) with so many stellar bands from the west side popping up and killing it lately, what do you think is the main drive and motivation for bands over your side fo Australia to leave their mark on the scene?

For me personally the drive is internal more than anything else. Perth has a great scene, we’re loaded with talent, broader Australia is in that same conversation…most fans of heavy music can acknowledge how many wonderful bands are bringing it from here. I think our drive is just wanting to be the best band we can..and I can’t speak so much for other people but I just think there’s such a great community of people who love their music and that leads to the wealth of talent we have today.

Do you find it harder to gauge the attention of potential fans over the other side of the country or do Perth fans come out and support the local bands more so because you tend to get left off tours?

It is harder to gauge, for sure. We probably stopped worrying about trying to traditionally build ourselves as far as touring goes a little while ago. It’s just different over here, there’s probably more out of your control as touring is a harder task because of the proximity. There’s definitely a good level of support for local bands, and we’re always thankful for that. The cool thing is with the internet being so prominent, it allows us the opportunity to have people listen to our music wherever they might live - so we’ve sort of put a focus into that and using our location as motivation rather than a potential roadblock to make the best music we can.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l7jRTnIeMI&w=640&h=360]

And what's been the hardest thing about self-managing the band so far?

Balance. It’s hard sometimes, trying to make it all work between day-to-day life and getting a release ready. We knew if we were going to do this fully independent - we wanted to put the time into it to give it the love we hoped its deserved. But that comes with sacrifices for sure. And being it’s DIY - anyone in that spot will tell you how expensive it can be, so it’s just finding the best ways to manage that. It’s a challenge, it can be stressful, but I don’t take the grind for granted and I’m so happy as a band we have the chance to do what we love.

With so many metalcore bands coming up the ranks in Australia (and the world) what are you guys doing to make sure you stand out from the pack?

This is a great question. And you’re spot on, it’s a great position to be in because there’s definitely an audience who love the sort of music we play. I think we’ve shown that we are a band that wants to keep growing and getting better. We want to keep pushing ourselves, not limit ourselves too much. Hopefully people can see as well that we’re not afraid to mix it up - the new EP has probably both our heaviest and most melodic songs to date. We’ve done a few acoustic renditions and we have had so much fun recording covers too.

We try bring a few different things to the table, we’re all passionate about what we do and want people to see that in the music.

You're going to get noticed for this new Home Truths EP, especially for fans of melodic metalcore acts like Wage War, I Prevail, Sleeping with Sirens, Pierce the Veil. As a whole, what themes or stories were covered with its conception?

The songs and themes in the music are just centred around real situations. There’s not an overarching concept or end goal to be found - other than to just be as authentic as possible. I think our band has always been at our best when we stay honest with ourselves.

The title is taken from finding a way through hard situations, not being afraid to face what’s uncomfortable or difficult. Each song is its own story within that self-reflective state, and each song is different in what it’s trying to get across in the words and feel of the song itself.

Without getting too in depth, some of the themes include mental health, substance struggles, failing relationships, and family.

In terms of the lyrics - I tried to bring across what I was feeling in the moment of writing to the song, so that immediacy feels like it’s there - and sometimes that means pushing myself and being uncomfortable. I’ve said before that I wanted the lyrics to match the intensity and mood of the music. It doesn’t have to feel perfect, it just had to feel like it came from the heart - good or bad.

And once released on Feb 14th (Happy Valentines Day by the way) what's the plan for the band afterwards? (e.g. playing as many local shows as possible/heading to the East Coast etc)

Happy Valentines day! The plan is to keep busy, playing shows - we definitely want to visit new places in 2020. It’s a big goal of ours, so we’ll be working hard to try and make that happen. We do want to keep playing shows as much as we can, so no doubt that will be a big part of our year - hopefully this new release can bring some new opportunities as well. It’s all exciting, and we can’t wait to keep things moving.

March 7th you'll launch the EP at Lucy's Love Shack (RSVP Here), for those who haven't seen Patient Sixty-Seven yet, what will happen after we walk through those doors?

You’ll see a lot of energy, tons of movement, crowd involvement. Just giving 110% for every part of the show. It’ll be one of, if not our longest set to date, so it’s going to give us the chance to play more songs than normal, just being all in. We have a lot of fun on stage too, and we want that to translate to the people watching us having a good time with us! We’re so excited to play these new songs live. We’ve only played one of the songs on the EP live before, so a lot of it is going to feel new which is kind of fun.

[caption id="attachment_80573" align="aligncenter" width="519"] Patient-Sixty-Seven-09 Patient-Sixty-Seven. Photo by Emanuel Rudnicki[/caption]

In the spirit of your EP's title, I want you to tell us all a couple of home truths about each other (not written by yourself) so we can see what you're really like behind the scenes.

For sure…well off the top of my head, Declan is a paralegal haha. He’s pretty switched on with his legal background - we’re both government workers by day. And Rory..he actually filmed our music video with a broken toe. He powered on through though, probably made all of his singing look extra emotional. And as a band, when we’re not talking music we pretty much just joke around the whole time with inside jokes. And we eat out a lot, we scout new places around our city and try as many new restaurants as we can. That’s pretty tight too!

Anything else to add for your potential new fans/followers?

Just thank you. If you’re a new listener, thank you so much for giving us your time - we are always super appreciative of that, we hope you enjoy the new EP and hopefully we catch you at a show in the future!

Looking forward to it, thanks for your time Tom!

Interview by Browny @brownypaul

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Pre-Order the Home Truths EP right here

Patient Sixty-Seven - Home Truths EP