New Music

PREMIERE: Wildheart Are ‘Out For Blood’ with New Song from Forthcoming Debut LP Global Crisis

Oct 19, 2021

7 min read

Melodic hardcore band Wildheart are on the cusp of local, national and worldwide domination. The Brisbane lads are super stoked to be releasing their heavy hitting single ‘Out For Blood’ ahead of their debut album Global Crisis, coming out on Friday, 5th November.

The new track arrives on the back of the boys’ huge releases already for the album, namely, ‘Show Me What It's Like to Be Worthless’, ‘Rising Tide’, ‘Backburner’ and ‘False Hope Fake Happiness’. With the hype of Global Crisis rapidly building, the lead-up to their UNIFY appearance blowing their minds, plus a cannon of touring once Aussie states open, these boys are preparing their minds and bodies.

We jumped on the Zoom with Adam Finlay, Axel Best and Andrew Cooke to talk about ‘Out For Blood’, the new record, and whatever else we felt like, really. Some of it just included shared appreciation for their influences like For The Fallen Dreams and Alpha Wolf.

On the new song, guitarist Adam tells us it’s definitely one of his favourites and “probably one of the heaviest off the record.” You heard it first at ~~TMZ~~ Wall of Sound.

To elaborate on the bold statement, Axel on vocals says “We probably released our more melodic songs first, just to give a little taste of what we've done for this album, but we wanted to show that we've still got our heavy roots in there.” This is where For The Fallen Dreams came into the conversation. Adam reveals “It's a bit of an homage to some of the early hardcore albums that I got into like 10 years ago.” He revealed these exact same influences to our very own Ebony Story on the Educate Ebony podcast just a few weeks ago.

We side-tracked a little and reminisced about the For The Fallen Dreams all the way back in 2013. Andrew (bassist/vocalist) reckons It was “quite an amazing show at Rosie's, the show cost only five dollars.” That’s what hardcore is all about, right? Well it actually encompasses some of the band’s values that they’re consciously living and breathing on ‘Out For Blood’ - well, maybe not five dollar shows, but calling out capitalism and its ripple effect on society, particularly with what we’re seeing in how the world (and Australia) managed the COVID crisis.

Adam recalls him and Axel listening to a podcast featuring Stick to Your Guns and realities were kicking in as COVID was hitting. “It was the sort of situation where everything was going to be shut down, people would be out of work and, you know, everything.” The trio then nod in unison as Adam elaborates on how it actually was managed. “We've seen these already-ultra-wealthy-people get even more… ultra wealthy, while others are struggling to put food on the table.

The themes are as heavy lyrically as they are sonically, and particularly hit home hard as Adam continues. “A lot of businesses that didn't need JobKeeper got it, and a lot of businesses that did need it didn’t get it.” Axel agreed wholeheartedly and added “that’s basically it,” summing up the song as if those themes weren’t enough. “It's just showing the government for who they really are.”

Wildheart are right, that is basically it, and they're not ok about it. And they’re going to let you know about it.
As we discuss the world more broadly, it’s clear that the COVID-management was merely the tip of the iceberg, or even one anecdote of what we’ve been seeing for far too long.

Adam helps map the chronology of the songwriting a bit more to the political micro-period. “When we were writing lyrics, a lot of stuff was happening with the BLM movement in the States and obviously we saw similar kinds of conversations happening here.”

The hovering recollection was enough to get a flashback of the worldwide news coverage of protests. “I think we just kind of took that emotion that we were feeling about everything and kind of just tried to put it into writing.

“It's a pretty aggressive track. It needs some angry lyrics to go with it. Something that’s just trying to tap into that kind of general feeling of frustration or anger.”

Whilst Andrew observed his bandmate’s storytelling of the new single’s inception, he gets visibly excited for the new record. “Yeah, it’s really exciting,” he says in anticipation. The album has been a long-time in the making, and it even features tracks that were never really planned for it. He shares what it’s been like “approaching the album cycle,” and how weird it is in these tough times.

“There's all this work and all this stuff going on behind the scenes but with COVID it's been so different in terms of what to expect. ‘Rising Tide’ was the first single to come out and at the time we didn't know it was going on the album, but it just fits so well, thematically.”

With a shifting landscape on how music gets released, Wildheart were stoked to get to experience what it felt like to release an LP, despite the scene throwing out endless EPs and singles. Adam explains it like this - “We had the conversations surrounding how EPs are easier to produce because obviously you can get more out quicker, you can bump your numbers up and keep them more consistent, but I think for us it was just like, we wanted to do an LP because we haven't done one [together], and it felt more like a personal achievement.”

He admits that an LP was necessary in this case too. “We had a lot to say as well, I think it would have been a disservice to split these songs up, so we just said ‘fuck it who cares, let’s do what we want to do’. Hopefully people like it enough to listen to it.”

With the spiritual journey of an album cycle, comes the touring cycle with it… well normally, anyway. However, the Queenslanders are in a better position to do gigs than Melbourne and Sydney at the moment. “I think we're finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” Adam says. “We have some shows booked post-album launch that people will be able to come and check us out.”

The band teases there are several announcements incoming, so we’re looking forward to seeing how that all goes down.

Despite small club-shows and bars being what the band and their fans are craving, we needed to take a moment to grin together about the excitement of playing UNIFY Gathering 2022.

Andrew was working when he got the email to say they made the lineup, and he had to do a double-take. “I went back to reread it because I skimmed it when I checked it and I was like 'someone's pulling our leg.' I sent it back to the group and I was like ’oh my god’, this is legit.” The rest was history really.

Axel shared the shock with his bandmates and for a while couldn’t really believe it, but also couldn’t share it just yet. “The hardest thing was not being able to tell anyone, we had to keep it a secret for what felt like an eternity but it was probably only just two months or something,” he says laughing.

We then got stuck in a bit of a hang where we bonded over the different bands playing in Gippsland, and Adam broke us out of our trance. “Even regardless of the line-up. It's just such a hang. I’ve gone for the last two or three years and it's just a good time.”

Andrew didn’t want us to miss out on the action though. “Wall of Sound will be at Unify won’t you?” The band were just about ready to chuck us in the van, and give us Wildheart of Sound hoodies for the weekend. Real-talk, the band made it known how much they appreciated us supporting them, and that’s the kind of stuff that you don’t hear much, and helps you realise how big these guys are going to get with their persistent humility.

Check out Wildheart’s heavy-as-hell single ‘Out For Blood’ premiering below!

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Interview by Ricky Aarons (@rickysaul90)

With references to potentially triggering themes discussed on this record, we have included the following support notice: If you or someone you know is going through tough times, support is available at: Beyond Blue 1300 224 636, Lifeline 13 11 14, Kids Helpline 1800 551 800 and The Butterfly Foundation 1800 334 673, or in case of emergency call 000.

Pre-order Global Crisis here

Wildheart – Global Crisis tracklisting

1. Intro
2. The Lucky Country
3. Backburner
4. Heartbreaker
5. Know Justice
6. The Long Slow Whisper
7. Oblivion
8. No Peace
9. Rising Tide
10. Like A Dragon
11. Out For Blood
12. False Hope Fake Happiness
13. Show Me What It's Like To Be Worthless