Kynan Groundwater - Diamond Construct ‘We Want Our New Music To Be THE Song’

With stunning visuals, a striking sense of identity, and a self-made genre that knows no bounds, Diamond Construct have poured their souls into the release of their latest album, Angel Killer Zero. Marking the first new music since 2021, there has certainly been a lot of growth from the band, but more so, many lessons that have, in turn, constructed the album into the enigmatic entity it is today.

Set to release this week, we had the pleasure of chatting with Kynan Groundwater about the band’s shifting sound, the journey to Angel Killer Zero, and the essence of identity within the music scene and beyond.

All these singles leading up to Angel Killer Zero were the first sign of new music since ‘Hit It Back’. When you look at ‘Hit It Back’, it was arguably this really lovable tongue-in-cheek track, and it got a lot of attention for being something like that. Did its popularity, or even its connotations of being fun and a hit leave you with a lot of pressure to succeed or deliver upon your return?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, ‘Hit It’ was a wild time. It was almost like a whole era in itself. It was during obviously Covid, so we had to come up with some new music while the whole band couldn't be together. So it was just my brother and I, and we came up with the idea that we'd do the single together and just the music video with just us two in it, which meant it had to be almost like making fun of yourselves because it was only just the two of us. So it's funny how it got to where it is.

A lot of people got mad, but I like making people mad, and the rest of them loved it. I guess it created this massive thing for us where people either talk shit about us online or people were like, “This is my favourite song to see live”. More often than not, it's the latter.

Going into writing new music, we didn't really feel the pressure from that song in particular. We felt more pressure to succeed in what we did on DCX2 because that was the one that finally started to turn heads for us with ‘Psychosis’ and ‘Enigma’. They went so well for us and people started taking us seriously as a band. It was more so the pressure of that. But we just do what we do. We just write music and we just write music like what we want to hear, essentially.

Yeah, absolutely. You were talking about ‘Hit It Back’ being a very well-received live track. The only show I've nearly been knocked out in was during ‘Hit It Back’ at the Crowbar once. So I definitely understand that being the case for this song! Do you think having a prolific song like this, or having ‘your song’ now, change your live setting a little bit?

Yeah, we've started to play it second now in the set because we know it's the staple. So we give it to them early to start the crowd, which I feel like is a really cool vibe. The only negative thing that comes with the whole “It's your song now” type thing is, well, we don't want that to be our song. We want our new music to be the song. I feel like after the release of Angel Killer Zero, people will find their own song. That'll be interesting to see because there's a lot of tracks on it. I'm excited to see what goes well.

You had a lot of time to formulate Angel Killer Zero. What was something you changed drastically since stuff like your Self Titled or Event Horizon albums? What was the biggest change in making this album?

Yeah, I think the biggest change was finally staying true to ourselves. Self-titled, it feels like so long ago and even further with Event Horizon, and I'm surprised you know about that one! I feel like we were still very much in the local scene, so we were trying to write music to appeal to a wide audience and get noticed. And it did its job. We got signed to our first record label who we're still working with, obviously, in Greyscale and stuff. But I think with this one, the biggest thing that's changed is we honestly didn't care how it was going to be received, if at all, because like I said before, we went through the whole ‘Hit It Back’ thing. And if you can go through that, you can go through anything. So we just wrote music that we wanted to hear. And we added the electronics, we added heaps of rapping, clean singing, screams It's all there. It's all the stuff that we love!

I think even thematically, this album is very unique. It's channeling a lot of this '90s anime, Neon Genesis feel. For what reason is this so prevalent and how do you think it has shaped the album musically?

Yeah. So that's interesting. I guess with the whole anime aesthetic, it was not something consciously that we decided to do for the album. It just happened naturally as a progression once some of the demos were being worked on. I think we had a fair few of the demos written back then when we came up with the album title and the concept of the album art and some of the videos. We had ‘Neon’ written, we had ‘Hashira’, the opening track written, we had ‘Jynx’ written. I guess, I dream a lot, and I'm a really vivid dreamer. When I picture stuff in my dreams at night, I'll wake up and I'll often write them down in a journal and stuff. And more often than not in the time of when we were writing the demos, it was all about anime aesthetics and stuff. And I was watching a lot of Evangelion at the time, and Demon Slayer. So obviously it was going into my sleep. And it just so happened that it fit the vibe. And when I talked to the boys about it, it bounced back that they liked it and they wanted to roll with it. Our videographer loved the idea. So we just took it and ran, I guess!

That leads me to my next point! This album really hones in on these grimy yet vibrant visuals, especially everything you've linked up with Ten of Swords Media. Once you had that idea, were these music videos something you really focused on? And why did the selection of this consistent style or even just using Ten of Swords come about?

So we've worked with Colin from Ten of Swords ever since probably our second music video or something like that, he's done every single one since then. And he just gets me on a creative level. He understands some of my ramblings and mumblings about stuff. And he knows what the music is like. I mean, Diamond Construct, if you ask him, is his favorite band, and that's just the coolest thing to be able to work with someone like that. I feel like it was locked in early at a point in this writing process for Angel Killer Zero with the music videos. The grittiness and griminess was something that I wanted to push really hard because obviously that was kept really well with ‘Enigma’ and ‘Psychosis’. So I didn't want to lose that feeling. Whereas Colin would have liked to have taken it to maybe a cleaner level. We met in the middle and came up with something really cool. We still kept the cars, we kept a clean look, and the ridiculous outfits, but we added the darkness as well. And now we've come up with this random crossover of Need for Speed underground meets, I don't know, some random video game I'm playing or something. So it's cool.

I think it's really unique! I always love watching them. I think it obviously matches the music really well. And in your new projects, like you were saying, there's so much more electronic and sampling effort. Was this something that one of you had to learn how to do along the way and who was the game member to take it on?

So when we moved from Taree to the Gold Coast, that was a massive life change for us. But also, it was huge musically as well. We bought a lot of new packs. So… this is getting a bit technical. So packs are where you find your electronic snares and hi-hats and stuff like that. And we started to learn Serum. Braden was the first one to learn Serum, and he taught me how to use it. And that's a synth program. Once we got our skills up in the first year that we moved to the Gold Coast, it was really something that we focused on. We would just sometimes sit down and write up full electronic songs or rap songs late at night, just rap over them and stuff. And then when we realized we started to get good at that, we incorporated that a lot more since DCX2. Because remember on DCX2, we had Cal in the band who was our DJ, and he did most of the work on that, the electronic stuff. So, yeah, it was finding our feet in the first year or so of moving here that we decided that we were going to keep this as a long staying thing in the music. So it was a gradual experience.

Well, the progression is definitely showing! When you look at tracks like ‘Hell Inside You’, it requires a lot of confidence. You're doing something that's very quirky and different. And not a lot of people are doing it because it takes these different skills. Do you think it's left you open to more criticism or is it a vessel for people to applaud you for being really original?

Yeah, a little bit of both, actually. That's a really good point to raise. To your point about being open to more criticism, I mean, I welcome it. I really don't care if they hate the song or if they're like “These emo rap vocals are cringe, what do they think they're doing? Do they think they're some DJ at Coachella?” I see some of the comments and I just love laughing at it. I really don't care because I like that stuff. And if I was writing music for them, then they can pay me to do that.

But honestly, for our fans, they knew that this was coming. And I feel like most Diamond Construct fans you talk to, they are into similar stuff. They will be open to more genres and they'll be open to rap or they'll be open to some of the dubsteppy breakdowns and stuff. And that's who we want to write music for, for the fans of Diamond Construct. So it's opened the gateway to both. And I've always been about moving the needle, which either way is good. So you don't want to sit on the fence, you don't want to be in the middle. If someone hates the song, good. They have an opinion. If someone loves the song, great. You've just gained a fan. I'd rather them do that than sit on the fence and be like, this is a mediocre song that I won't add to any of my playlists.

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's good to always push the boundaries. I think that's what definitely keeps you entertaining and exciting. And on those lines, I think the tracks that we've heard so far, they're so dynamic and they're so layered. There’s something going on all the time, which I love. But when creating all these layers, does playing and translating it live ever weigh your choices? Like, “oh, I can't do this much because I can't translate it live”. Or is that a problem you worry about later and see what you can solve?

Yeah, definitely worry about it later. We're really bad at that; we just get in the studio and whatever's flowing is flowing. And we work it out when we do production days and stuff and get together. We work out what's going to be coming down, which lines, and going out to the front of house and all that stuff. So ideally, we've had a few DJs in the past to do a lot of the stuff themselves. And that's something that we definitely still want to explore. But right now we're just really happy with what we’re doing. The band is a four-piece and everything is still getting heard. And we're definitely… we're still playing those guitar parts, which is crazy hard. Like, Braden is insane at his instrument. So, yeah, we just worry about it later. I've got the easy job, so it doesn't bother me.

In terms of you guys formerly having a DJ, and the style you've taken, would you say one of your biggest influences is nu-metal? And if so, what bands?

Yeah, 100 %. So our favourite bands would be Korn, Slipknot, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park. Those nu-metal-era bands when they paved the way to blend the genres and they were the first ones to do it. I feel like that's what we want to do in a 2024 version of that. So it's fast-forwarding from 1994 to 2024. And we're just doing it with different genres now. I mean, they didn't have drum and bass back then. They didn't have rave or techno. They probably had the early days of techno. So we're just blending metalcore with, I guess, what's trending now in the electronics scene and mixing that together and seeing what works.

Absolutely! Well, there's always talk of the live stuff. And you've got the AM/PM shows coming up. As a band that hails from a pretty regional area, this AM/PM is hitting some far-out spots. Like I was saying before, you're hitting up Penrith, which isn't too far from me. Not a lot of people do that. Do you find it pretty important to acknowledge and visit these small places, considering where you started from?

Absolutely! Exactly! The biggest thing is playing in rural towns. I guess for me, obviously, doing the big support tours and playing massive venues is awesome and stuff like that. But it's always good to not blow your head up too big. And you can't forget about the people that are in these small towns wanting to see your band. I remember growing up in Taree, where there were only 20 - 25,000 people probably there now. And it sucks when bands wouldn't come to Newcastle, the closest city, or Port Macquarie, which was the closest big town. And I just think that fans are so appreciative when you hit spots like that and you've got a lifelong fan forever. You've got a chance to meet them and talk to them, and they probably don't get a lot of that. Hitting places like Canberra and stuff is never usually on the routing for a lot of bands. So I'm really excited to hit some of these places.

And I guess on that note of you coming from a regional area, Angel Killer Zero has seen you slip into your identity, whether it be aesthetically, wearing these really cool clothes or, visually, you're not afraid to branch out. Looking at where you were to where you are now, what has the journey been like to finally feel comfortable in your look and identity, both in and out of the scene? Because I know sometimes these places are not as accepting.

Yeah, no, that's a really good question. And I haven't actually given that much thought until you just brought that up, actually, because it's been a long process for us to find our characters in this band. In the early days, when we were playing local shows, if you didn't rock up in a barbecue-stained singlet, what are you doing? So people didn't really like other people being individuals. Coming from a small town, they want you to fit in with what they're doing in their small country closed-minded view. And we just never accepted that. We always wanted to be something bigger, greater or just different. So along the way, I think it was the self-titled days we delved into wearing a little bit more out there outfits. Bray started wearing the motocross gear and all that stuff. And when we did DCX2, we went even further. And now I feel like finally we found our individual characters and especially with our live performance. So I'm not like that in my normal life. I just stack shelves at Woolworths. And I'm just a normal person like anyone else. But on stage, I get to really go into my alter ego. And that's the most fun moment, just playing your character.

To close up, obviously, your live scene has propelled and you put together some really insane shows. I've been there when people have broken light fixtures at the Burdekin and whatnot. What do you think has been your craziest live moment today?

Craziest live moment. Oh, There's been so many, but it's probably one from the early days, honestly. We were playing this house show and someone went through a wall, a gyprock wall! On purpose! They were just in the pit and literally just started running and they didn't stop and they went through the wall. I was like, holy, that guy is jeed up!

Words by Georgia Haskins @ghaskins2002

Angel Killer Zero is out April 26th via Greyscale Records and Pale Chord

Pre-Order here.

Diamond Construct – Angel Killer Zero tracklisting:

1. Hashira
2. Jynx
3. Neon
4. Zodiac Memories
5. Faded
6. Switchblade OST
7. Delirium
8. Hell Inside You
9. I Don’t
10. Clickbait
11. You Want That Scene Shit