Sean Harmanis - Make Them Suffer 'This Feels Like a Greatest Hits or a Gateway Record'

Next in line for the throne of Australia's heavy music echelon is none other than Make Them Suffer. Having grown through an abundance of challenges, particularly during COVID times, the Perth-based act are in better form than ever before. With the release of their new self-titled album on the horizon (our review here), we sat down with frontman Sean Harmanis to talk about the release, the evolution of their sound over time, headlining festivals in China and more.

Watch the full interview here or continue reading.

Hey Sean, thanks for taking the time to chat. Where are you currently? Are you at home in Perth?

Yeah, that's right, I'm currently at home.

I ask because you're a bit of a hard man to keep tabs on. You guys just recently came back from performing in China of all places. You headlined a festival there. I mean, you're 34 now. Had you ever imagined that a midlife crisis could actually be that fun?

[laughs] Yeah, no, I guess not. I mean, my initial goal with Make Them Suffer was just to play at HQ, which was our local venue. All of a sudden it's just been this sort of long running joke that's been just going way too long and now we find ourselves playing a festival in China. It's fucking absolutely unreal. Can't believe it.

Did you find that the Chinese audience was receptive to your sound?

I think so. I spoke with a couple of promoters and a few of the locals there, and I think it's quite rare that Western bands will tour or make appearances in China. They don't get too many bands and obviously it's a massive country, so even if they did, it's very unlikely that the bands would be performing in the city you're from, or you'd have to make a trip for it. I don't know how thriving the heavy metal scene is in China. I got the impression it's a little smaller than other markets in the world, which they're obviously building over there and it seems like they're trying to get something going a bit more for more support heavy metal, which is awesome to see.

The positive side of the fact that it is a bit of a small community is that they were so receptive because they were just so happy to have us playing there. It's not like LA or New York City where it's like 'Oh, this is the fifth band we've seen this week' [and they're] kind of spoilt for choice and have high very expectations. So it was just fun and everyone was really, really into it and loved it.

It's been stated previously that during Covid times particularly, many bands out there faced challenges of their own and Make Them Suffer certainly wasn't immune from that. At one point the conversation around whether the group would actually survive that period was a very real conversation. Now you find yourself playing at massive festivals in China, Download [UK] and the big circuits around Europe. How has the collective growth moving on from that hardship shaped the latest era of Make Them Suffer?

Well, I think we've become a very sentimental band as a result of the hardships that we have been through and the history of the band and stuff. Even back in the day before we started touring, we were a local band for four years. It took us four years or more to get out of Perth, let alone Australia. The first time we got out of Australia was in 2013. We'd already been a band for five years since then. So yeah, it's been a long, arduous path with many obstacles in the way. It's because we have been going so long and because it has been such a slow and steady growth for us, we're very proud of where we are and how far we've come.

And proud of this new album, proud of everyone's efforts, both for the record and just for sticking it out and managing to squeeze this recording process in the middle of such a busy touring schedule as well. It's crazy.

This is Alex's first album with the band. She's been in the band for a couple of years now. On  How To Survive A Funeral, Booka [Nile] really capitalised on her talents as a vocalist, but then Alex has really pushed the envelope with what a secondary vocalist can do for Make Them Suffer. How do you find that Alex has found her feet within the last couple of years stepping into that massive role, going from the frontwoman of Drown This City, which was a great band, but not anywhere on the scale of what Make Them Suffer was, internationally and whatnot?

Well, Alex has approached this whole situation with such an open mind and a real desire to learn and grow, and she's been super receptive to any feedback or guidance we might give her. At the same time, she is an accomplished musician, so the first thought that I had upon hearing that Alex was going to be in the band was like, 'Oh boy, we get to do some cool back and forth with the screaming'. That has been one of the most exciting things for me and has rebirthed a lot of my passion for songwriting in the band in terms of keeping it interesting.

Being able to write some back-and-forth call-and-response screaming stuff between her and myself, so it's been super cool, and I think she joined the band knowing that she was going to some keyboards, knowing that she was going to be singing, but not necessarily expecting to be given the task of backing screaming vocals, but here we are. And I think for me personally, that's the most exciting thing from a creative standpoint of having Alex in the band.

She certainly offers a lot in terms of the dynamic in what I would call the locker room, the behind the scenes kind of thing. She definitely contributes a lot, and for those who follow her would know, she's a very motivated person. She's super into her health and fitness and all that sort of stuff, and that definitely rubs off on the rest of the band.

I think Alex is a large reason as to why the band is in such a healthy place mentally at the moment.

Yeah, and it's almost like a match made in heaven. Your vocals and her vocals just mesh so well together. It's such a cohesive combination.

Yeah, 100%. Thank you.

You're welcome. So looking back at the album, Make Them Suffer is a band that can not be pigeonholed to any kind of specific sound. From the early deathcore sounds of Neverbloom and Lord Of Woe to the modern metalcore sound that we hear today. What pushes you to be so creatively explorative when previous sounds have been so successful?

Well, I think there's always growth to be done as a band. I think, and I can't remember where I heard this quote, and I don't remember the exact quote, but [statistically], something like 80% of your fan base resets every five years. So it's a whole new listenership every five years. So music is a very fleeting thing for a lot of people. So countless people I know in Perth always say to me 'Oh, Make Them Suffer. Yeah, I used to go to your shows back in 2015 or whatever', and to me, that feels like yesterday as I've just been doing the same thing. But for them, that's like a lifetime ago. So it's kind of weird in that sense.

But I think the other aspect to it is just running out of juice and then going, alright, if we want to continue to evolve our sound and evolve the band creatively, we need to take things to a place where it's a little bit out of our comfort zone. So for Nick, that was experimenting with different tuning, and of course you can't just use the same guitar tone with the tuning. So with that comes a new tonality, and then that's just different riffs and picking styles... Obviously I'm not a guitarist, I'm not going to speak on his behalf, but certain things sound better in different sounds and tunings. So that opened up this whole world of this unexplored sound.

And then on top of that, [on] previous albums, a lot of the additional elements, the stuff that Alex would be playing on keyboards were traditionally a lot of classical instruments. So pianos, orchestration... and the issue with that is that you are confined to those sounds. And so once we started going, 'Oh, well, let's jump into the world of synthesisers', we've got synths that are purely percussive. It's just like a pulsing bit or other ones that are kind of breakbeaty. So texturally, there's a lot of different ways you can go about incorporating those synth elements. And so it was just exploring this whole new world of sound and tonality and how I guess our signatures as songwriters would then be applied to this new kind of backdrop of a soundscape.

When you're in the studio, do you weigh the risk of experimenting like that or do you just go with whatever feels right for you?

Well, I don't think we write, and I don't think it's correct to write with the intent being for the listenership, you know what I mean? If it sounds good to our ears naturally, then it's a natural product and one that we're obviously passionate about and that will be reflected in the music and people will pick up on that. I think that's the most important thing. So I suppose in terms of worrying if we're setting ourselves up for failure by trying different sounds and songwriting, we don't really consider that there's any way that it could be a failure if it sounds good to us at the end of the day, you know what I mean? So as long as we're happy with it, it doesn't really matter.

I think, and how I view it, a big, big kind of turning point for the band with the introduction of a lot of those synths, as well as with Alex stepping into the band was with 'Doomswitch'. It's been two years since that song was released. Without saying that it shouldn't be, why did you decide to put that song on the album as opposed to being a standalone single? Had the thought 'oh, we've rinsed this song enough, let's just give the other songs more of attention', or did you think it just felt right on the album?

Well, it's a very important song for us. I just think retrospectively, if you look at the band's career, that song resembles the Phoenix rising from the ashes, so to speak, for us. And so for that reason we have some additional emotional attachment that made us want to continue to push that song and have it archived in our discography and properly pressed.

Because that's been an issue with Make Them Suffer for a long time, a lot of our best songs are singles that sit between albums, like 'Ether' was never on Worlds Apart, for example. You know what I mean?

Yeah definitely. 'Hollowed Heart' would be a good example of this also.

Yeah and 'Hollowed Heart' as well. So we've learned from our mistakes and we've figured not to do that and to just put it on the album, but also our approach coming into this album was kind like (and I've said in a couple interviews), this feels like a greatest hits or a gateway record for a lot of people. If they wanted to get into Make Them Suffer, I would say this would be the album to do that. And it just makes sense to have, I think, one of our best songs on this gateway album, which is 'Doomswitch'.

You have experimented with your own clean vocals, just a touch on the new album, particularly on 'Venusian Blues'. Introducing your cleans on your side project Onslow, was that what gave you the confidence to incorporate that talent in Make Them Suffer?

I guess so. For me, Onslow was also an experiment in figuring out, can I sing? What sort of singing actually sounds good for me? And I think I have done some singing on previous records, but I think it was not delivered in a style that suits the timbre of my voice and also was not necessarily in a key that was comfortable for me.

Now I'm feeling a little bit more comfortable about what does sound good in my opinion for my voice and what feels comfortable to sing. [And] having the confidence to just go, 'Yeah, this is something that I'm comfortable with and a range and a tone that I think I'm comfortable with and sounds good and is a good expression of my personality as well'. It's like a representation of myself, that song, in a lot of ways. And the lyrics are quite personal to me in a sense.

I'll finish on this question, but I just wanted to touch quickly on the Bring Me The Horizon tour. Obviously, for any Australian artist out there, it's a massive honour to be able to support Bring Me The Horizon. Now that the dust has settled and you've had time to reflect on it, how do you feel coming out of that tour and what have you learned from touring with such an elite kind of band?

Well, I suppose one of the things we learned was to not ever let our successes get to our head, because the impression we got from Bring Me The Horizon and the way that they treated us, and how hospitable they were was very humbling to us in a way. We were just so blown away by how nice all the band members were, and all the crew just made us feel so comfortable on that tour. We always had an amazing green room, and catering was fantastic, and all the band members were super nice. We had chats with all of them, and they were supportive of us, and giving us shoutouts on stage and stuff was incredible. So I mean, I think that was a big takeaway, just stay humble, I guess. Because even Bring Me The Horizon, who are selling out Qudos Bank Arena, are just the nicest people ever.

And it was also just inspiring in a way to see a live show from a band that's been top of the... what's the word I'm looking for? Top of the top of the pyramid, I guess. Top of the chain within our scene for a number of years, like 10 plus years kind of thing, and just absolutely kill it every night with the level of production that they had. There was a lot to take away from their performance and their live show, both in terms of the individual member's performance, the way they carried themselves on stage, how they played, and then also just the level of production and everything that went into it.

Interview by Adam Rice

Make Them Suffer is out Friday, November 8th via Greyscale Records and Sharptone Records. Pre-order here