Keaton Goldwire & Brody Taylor Smith - Invent Animate 'Australian Antics and Ultimatums'

As Invent Animate dropped in to perform in support of Alpha Wolf on their fully sold-out Half Living Things Tour, we sat down with guitarist Keaton Goldwire and drummer Brody Taylor Smith to discuss their ongoing connection with Australian music, the direction that album number five may be heading in and to play a fun game of Invent or Animate...

Watch the madness unfold or read on below...

Thanks for taking the time to chat Keaton and Brodie. How are you guys doing?

Brodie: What's up? Good. How are you?

Yeah, I'm really good.

Keaton: Yeah, we're doing all right. We're pretty deep into tour, but out here in Australia, we're playing a pretty big show at The Forum in Melbourne tonight, so I'm pretty excited.

Ever since your latest album Heavener came out roughly 18 months ago, you guys have been on the road constantly. How are you navigating the demands of touring non-stop as you find yourself in Australia?

Keaton: I think right now, we're really in the thick of it. I would say that currently, I'm probably somewhat at my lowest, which isn't too bad. All things considered, we're pretty blessed to be out here. We're on our seventh week in this current run. We did a US tour with Northlane, and then flew straight out of here from LA. We didn't have any time to go home. So, yeah, it's been pretty heavy. We've done some of the longest tours we've done ever this year alone. We've played a show or been on tour every month this year, so we haven't had a single full month off of the road. But I would say, as much as I would love to complain about it, it's clearly a blessing that people want to see us, or want us to tour with them. So all things considered, it's not going too badly.

A lot of that time you spent on the road, you spent with a lot of Australian bands in the past few years alone. Like, you've toured like heaps with Polaris and Alpha Wolf. I saw you guys on your North American run last year with Void of Vision. You just wrapped up a tour with Northlane, Thornhill and Windwaker. All this has happened while being signed to Australian label UNFD. This is also your second time in Australia within two years. What is it about Australian music that is drawing you in so much?

Brodie: I don't think there's any specific reason, and I don't think it's anything to do with the bands being Australian, at least for us that is. I mean, maybe that's the reason why, so many bands are so good that come from this country - maybe it has something to do with being Australian. I feel like I realized it long before even joining Invent Animate, with the likes of Parkway Drive, Northlane, Thy Art Is Murder, I saw those bands blowing up, and then more and more kept coming. My first tour with Invent Animate was with Alpha Wolf and Thornhill. Then, like you said, the tour we just did with Northlane, we were the only band that wasn't Australian, and that was in the US. So, yeah, it's a weird thing. There's something in the water over here, I think just so many good bands coming out and so much good music.

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Are there any Australian bands you might have your eye on that you think maybe one day you'd love to tour with?

Keaton: Yeah, for me, we have toured with Polaris, but like a modern-day Polaris tour is a much different thing than it was before. They've gone through a transformation, they're a monster of a band now. But honestly, I feel like we've hit a lot of the bases. Northlane would have been my first pick, and we had already toured with them way back in the past.

That was with Ocean Grove as well, right? Another Australian band!

Keaton: Yes, that was with Ocean Grove. That's true! I don't know what it is. I think, rather than it being we are attracted to Australian bands. I think Australian bands are just doing so
well.

Well, we'd love to see more of you down here. At what point do you think us Aussies can claim Invent Animate as our own?

Keaton: Yeah, I think we fit into that mould for sure. I think two of our top five Spotify cities are Australian. So as far as streaming goes, Australians kind of take us for their own too.

On this tour with the Alpha Wolf, you guys have been playing six song sets. Earlier this year, I saw you guys in New York supporting Beartooth, and again, that was six songs. Previously to that, I saw you guys in Vancouver on your North American headliner, and you played an unbelievable set with songs that spanned different eras of Invent Animate's existence. Can the true essence of an Invent Animate set be whittled down into just six songs?

Keaton: I do think you can, or at least a more kind of condensed, modernized version. I think you could go back into the past and say, like, the essence of Invent Animate includes this or that, but I think what everyone knows, and loves is the new record and some of the deluxe songs as well. I think you can really package that in and kind of capture it. If we had it our way, we would definitely like dig pretty deep and do like a nice, 12 song set or something, but we also have plans to do cool stuff, maybe in the future for something like that as
well.

I feel like metalcore is going through shift, with bands like Invent Animate, Silent Planet, Currents, Northlane, etc. being at the forefront of what the sound of challenging what metalcore can be and should be. Being at the forefront of that movement, does that have an effect on how you approach recording album number five, as you slowly begin to transition out of the Heavener era?

Brodie: It's definitely something we think about. You know, it's really easy to compare yourself to other bands, especially bands as similar as, Silent Planet, Northlane or Currents that all kind of like toe the line of more progressive stuff, but is still metalcore and modern metalcore. So it's a hard thing, like you want to, you know, stick to what you're used to, and what you love and also what people expect from you. We don't want to suddenly 180 and do something different, but at the same time, we're like, okay, how do we stand out? How do we do something different and not repeat ourselves?

which is something you guys do so perfectly. Looking at your most recent single releases, you dropped 'Heavener', which was kind of soft, and everyone was kind of like, oh, this band's going soft. Now. What's going on? And, then you dropped 'Sleepless Deathbed', and everyone's like, Oh, this is heavy, Invent back all of a sudden. Are you doing that intentionally to keep people on their toes, or are you just kind of naturally creative and experimental?

Brodie: When we decided to put Heavener out as the first single of the definitive songs, it was definitely a conversation within the band, and not everybody instantly agreed on it because it was such a different song. In my opinion, that song to me feels like a big statement, and it doesn't feel like a huge departure, as far as going soft, because it's still very technical. I feel like it's still satisfying and exciting for musicians out there. Then doing 'Sleepless Deathbed' as the next single, we definitely felt as though if anyone didn't enjoy 'Heavener', then hopefully they'll like this one. That's definitely a much more straight ahead, heavy song. So yeah, it's something we're definitely aware of. At the end of the day though, I think, whatever song that has us the most excited is probably going to be the one that we choose to put out.

Have you guys already started planning out what direction LP five is going to take in that regards?

Keaton: Kind of. We've taken time and sat down and wrote, and there's a couple of ideas that have popped out, that are pretty cool. I think at this point, as a whole, we are writing songs that we like, and however that turns out, it will turn out. I think there will probably be more extreme soft and more extreme heavy. There will be more extremes of both, and probably what you're used to hearing as well. I think we've just got so many influences, and when it comes to writing, for me, it's like almost directly related to what I'm listening to at the time. So, if that happens to be like something very, very soft or chill or ambient or whatever, it'll definitely be reflected in the record.

Are you planning on sticking to the three-to-four-year album cycle, or is it just kind of seeing where the road leads without any time constraints?

Keaton: I don't like to worry too much about timeline. Just because if I start putting something together, and I don't like this that much, I don't want to try to force it out, but I would like to move faster. I'm at the point where I'm basically begging for a new Loathe record. Nobody wants to be waiting that long.

Brodie: There's definitely a goal to have it out at a certain time, but at the end of the day, it's just about whenever it's as good as we want it to be and ready to come out, and who knows how long that'll take. 

Has the conversation around whether Landon Tewers will be involved in that creation process occurred?

Keaton: Yeah, I think Marcus just loves, at the very least, being at a computer and a mic with Landon. He loves to track and record with Landon, and with that comes a lot of very, very good ideas. So, I think naturally we will be reaching back out to London.

Keaton, from what I'm aware, you're a bit of a coffee snob.

Keaton: Yeah! It's kind of bled over into him [Brodie] as well.

Are there any coffee spots that you have stopped in at while on tour that has really stood out for you? Somewhere that if anyone goes to that part of the world, they'd just have to go to that particular store to get themselves a coffee?

Keaton: Earlier today we went to Path in North Melbourne. Path is like, very incredible, top five for sure. In Houston, we've got Simply Coffee and Blend. In Philadelphia Thank You, Thank You stands out.

Brodie: We were talking about it today, just because being at path was such a good experience, it was literally some of the best coffee I've had. It's funny, because we might get some heat for this, but a year ago, when we toured Australia, we had really high expectations for coffee, and I don't think we lucked out that time, but I also think that our coffee palates were a little bit too snobbish. At the time we were specifically into this certain type of iced coffee. I won't go too deep into it, but any place that didn't do that, we were like, What the fuck? But it's been a year, and we were both a bit newer to coffee, He [Keaton] especially has gotten very deep into it. And so, yeah, I don't know, today we got some extremely good coffee. New York, there's a place called Suited that's great. La Cabra is great. And, yeah, he said Stereoscope, which is in LA day glow. Day glow, I think has three locations across the states.

With the coffee being so good here, it seems as if there's a good excuse to come back. Is there a possibility of Australians experiencing an Invent Animate hat-trick with three tours in three years by having you guys come back in 2025?

Keaton: It could happen.

Brodie: We've talked a lot about plans for the next thing, whether that's supporting another band or doing something else, but time will tell. The last time we were here was perfect, and so far, this sold-out tour with Alpha Wolf is great, so couldn't ask for anything more.

All of our fingers and toes are crossed! To end up our chat, I've put together a little bit of a little Would You Rather questionnaire. So, would you rather have invented breakdowns or have animated your favourite Disney character?

Keaton: Funnily enough, we're both Disney Kids, so that's a little bit harder than it should be. But I think if we invented breakdowns, it'd be historic and metalcore would belong to us (chuckles).

Brodie: I think, considering our professions, it would be very lucrative to have done that, but also in the grand scheme of things, you know, having or animated a Disney character that would also be very lucrative. And maybe, who knows, I'd be in a completely different place in life because of that. I don't know. It's hard to say.

would you rather invent a new instrument that's revolutionary to the metalcore genre, or have a crowd perform a wall of death, but it's in real time anime animation?

Keaton: I think, I think I would prefer to have the instrument, for me, like an integral new instrument. Because in my head, it's like, that's just like a new piece of gear I can just, like, default to, or, you know, kind of create a vibe for. I'm always looking through, like, synth libraries and stuff like that, just like digging endlessly.

Well, the keytar is making a big name for itself in metalcore at the moment, which nobody predicted. You could quite possibly invent the new keytar.

Keaton: Yeah, exactly.

Brodie: I agree, I'd choose to invent an instrument.

Would you rather invent a device that enhances the experiences for the content goers watching you perform or animate a music video for your band that is such incredible quality that it rivals the quality of Pixar and Dreamworks?

Keaton: I'm actually picking the music video in this one. The reason being is I feel like I'm kind of over music videos unless it's like, so fucking sick. There's a lot of music videos out there, and I always think, do people even watch them anymore?

Do you have a favourite music video?

Keaton: I do. The 'Somebody That I Used to Know' music video is, like, so cool and simple and effective.

That's Gotye, another Australian artist!

Keaton: Yeah, but he kind of fell off after that song.

Oh, totally, who knows what he's doing now?!

Keaton: There's a couple of other ideas I take inspiration from, but I'm just a bit of a music video hater because I feel like there's so much more to offer. It's just out of reach for bands like us. We don't have million-dollar Drake videos as an option. So, yeah. If we had the most fucking sick animated video ever, I would be extremely pleased.

Brodie: That's a hard one, because I feel like us specifically, are always standing out front when our front of house guy, Wickham, is doing a virtual sound check, and we're listening to how it sounds in the room, and we're always think 'what can we do to make this sound better?' I almost feel like inventing something to make our live sound and the whole production on stage visually, making that as good as it can possibly be is what I feel I would choose. In saying that, I also agree with what Keaton's saying about music videos. You have to do a music video if you do a single, and as a result, so much of them are bland. So whatever we can do to make that better as well is worth it. But I think inventing a device to make the concert experience as good as possible is probably what I would pick.

Would you rather invent a career-defining riff that makes the entire band shit themselves when played or animate a short film based on your most colossal mistake while performing on stage?

Keaton: So we have to shit ourselves if we play it. Is that a figure of speech or literal?

Literal

Brodie: Well, we can make that funny.

Keaton: I think the shitting yourself thing would just be so annoying, like we would clearly want to play it if it's career-defining and people were like, holy shit I want to see that, But we would have to announce, if we play this, we're all going to shit. So, I think there would be too much risk involved.

So you'd play it safe?

Keaton: Yeah, I would have to play it safe and pick the animation of the biggest mistake we've ever made, but that, to be fair, I'm pretty sure that's already on video on YouTube. I won't throw us under the bus.

But people can find it if they look for it?

Keaton: Yeah, if you hear it, you'll know that something has really gone wrong.

Brodie: I'm of the same opinion. I think we could animate a pretty funny video, and it wouldn't even be that big a deal. Or maybe we could find a way to get past the shitting yourself thing, by wearing diapers on stage. And you know, we'd be so used to it that we'd be ready for it every time. Maybe the riff would be so good that, we'd be in such a good position financially, we'd have such a big crew that we'd all shit ourselves, and then someone would come out, and we'd change really quick, and it'd be great.

Keaton: Or the device that you create somehow solves the shItting problem.

Brodie: Oh yeah, maybe this connects to the previous question, and the device that makes the concert experience better somehow eliminates the shItting issue as well.

Two birds, one stone!

All: (laughs)

Interview by Adam Rice

Invent Animate wrap up their SOLD OUT Alpha Wolf support in Brisbane